Shrieking wasn't unheard of from their particular suite, although it usually came in a more masculine register. Nor was the throwing of furniture. Those swear words were new, usually when the shrieking happened the person in question had descended past the levels of fury where verbal expression was possible.

Finally she had exhausted her anger, though it left even her son cowering a bit in the corner. He'd never seen her like this before, not in his memory at least.

Catriona closed her eyes, took a deep breath. That had been unwise, someone might have heard that and known it for what it was, and if that someone was the same person who had spirited the boy out of her rooms then they would know it had worked, and she had no evidence of their presence. She didn't need to go advertising to the rest of the world that she had been bested. In anything. Another deep breath, and she pulled the scraps of her dignity back around her.

“We need to find the boy.” As though that weren't obvious, but it gave her a place to start. The evenness of her voice brought her son out from the corner where he'd been cowering. “Start with anyone who knew which particular suite was ours, who we have entertained, and who they know.”

Eamon nodded, visibly trying to keep up with her. She would never feel safe with him out in court on his own among the nobles, he had no ability to play politics, he would be a weapon for anyone who could pull him one way or another.

“We'll look into it tonight. Ask around among your friends, but be discreet. I'll look to my own connections, those I'm most familiar with and see who...” The rest of those thoughts continued on inside her own head as she turned to her room and began to get ready for morning court.

Morning court meant lighter colors, but she could still choose the cut of her gown for more of an evening look. Tousled hair implying that she had had someone entertaining her the night before, or giving the impression of it. A gown that left her shoulders and arms bare, as suited a morning court, but with the sweeping skirt of evening, and a transparent wrap over that with the ruffles over her shoulder. No one would notice that the wrap had once been an overskirt. Lack of readily available new cloth had forced some changes on the fashions of the court.

Everything in shades of white or gray, touches of silver, very few insignia. Declaring allegiance to no one, not even the history of her own house. And thus, available for sale for anyone who wanted to purchase her with information, or at least, so the impression would run.

With luck, it would impress them so much they would let something slip in the hopes of teasing something out of her. And if nothing else the change from her usual softer and more unobtrusive palette would cause enough of a stir that they would wonder what she was up to. Perhaps it would provoke a response from the person who had stolen her child away.

Outside her room, Eamon paced and tossed things around in his own bedroom. “Mother, perhaps we should ask the servant...?”

“The servant is gone too,” she snapped at him from down the hall. “Or I would.” Not that she expected that to make much of a difference, brownies were notable for having businesslike minds and little imagination, let alone the sort of attention to detail required for the pursuit she intended on launching. “And the servant wouldn't have seen anything of importance in any case. Now get dressed, we have...”

A knock at the door. They had a visitor before morning court, something that never happened, not without a dire emergency provoking it. Catriona took a moment to compose her features into an icy mask more suited to a Sidhe Lady and stepped forward to answer the door with that tiny surge of bitter resentment that she was answering doors for herself now. But she didn't trust her son to it, not with all this.

And yet it was still no one of importance. A King's messenger. “The King calls you early to court,” he said, not raising his face from the obsequious bow.

“Calls me.” That could be ominous or it could be a good sign, she wasn't sure. The King rarely called nobles personally to court, although it happened more often lately as the tiny feuds became larger in their more closed-in state. To settle some score or another, or to oversee a conflict or pass a judgment.

Could it be the true parentage of the boy had come to light and now the mother or father challenged her for custody? Or was this someone else with no more claim than she had, or an unrelated matter? If anything could be unrelated to the boy at this stage.

“Well, speak up, is there any more to the message?”

“No, my lady.” Another bow, and the human servant retreated, leaving her to fume and contemplate the irrationality and uselessness of sending humans to do fae servant's work.

Eamon stared at him over her shoulder, too. Useless boy. “Well, get moving! Make yourself presentable, you heard the messenger. We've been summoned early to court.”

All of court was there to see this, and she had her doubts as to whether this would work anyway. Even the Lord was there, and she didn't like that. She had begged the King to leave him out of it, to send him off to his estates or at least to wait until he went back there of his own accord, not that he would while she was still out. But the King wouldn't have any of it. This, he said, had gone on long enough.

The boy, as it turned out, was not his. Nor was he a human with some special talents, he was a Puca child, and from another court. More than that, the King wouldn't say. But that in itself was enough to give her something to go on, a way to treat the boy. She understood the Puca better than most Sidhe, she had watched them often enough, and by now she thought she could separate the innate tendencies from the learned habits. Perhaps. She did wish she knew what had happened in his old court. Most likely they had been razed to make way for the start of some mortal city. But if the King knew of any rumors or proof of a destroyed court, he wasn't telling her.

She leaned against a pillar and pressed the boy to her side, behind the King and his guards, his retinue. Her Lord skulked in another corner, and everyone either faced the entrance or did their best not to show any interest in who might come in next. He'd waited, of course, to send the messenger to retrieve Catriona until it was too late for her to escape notice.

Wily bastard. Far more so than most of the rest of them gave him credit for; he didn't move against them because he didn't care to stir them up so much or make them so desperate. This was both to consolidate his power and his position by intimidating them into backing off and to root out an instability in his court.

Lady Catriona entered before she could turn over any more motivations and consequences. She stalked in like a queen, clearly intending to make an impression that was somewhat diminished when everyone stared at her as though she was the one in disgrace.

“Your Majesty requested my presence?” she asked, making a curtsy that just touched on the minimal deference, keeping her chin raised as much as she could manage without it being outright insubordination.

The King made no comment on her short question or the set of her body. “A challenge has been issued,” he said. Commented, really, his tone was as mild as if he were commenting on the weather or the crop report from the fields. “From the House of the Four Winds to the House of Talon and Pyre.”

“A challenge?” she stared. “The House of...”

If that wasn't a cue she hadn't spent the last several decades learning what one was. “My House.” She stepped forward, hands clasped behind her back, skirt split for riding and pinned up along either side to allow for freedom of movement.

Even Lord Fergus looked startled at that, startled and furious. She hadn't told him, but then again if she had told him he would have talked her out of it, and she didn't want him to do that. She meant to assert herself and her conversations with the boy had given her a new perspective on what he had done to her. Putting herself in the boy's place. It wasn't a full perspective, but she had never before considered what it had meant, how Fergus raised her. Away from court and yet in their own simulated court, away from people and desires of her own, given nothing but what she took from others' lives. Well, she was done with that. It was time to make her own life, now, her and the boy.

The King himself had suggested the house title, when she came to him with her plans and her plea for independence and the fosterage of the boy. He'd said that the House had fallen out in the last several centuries, with no living members. She'd accepted it with all the possibilities that the image of the four winds conjured up. Apparently it made more of an impact than she'd expected.

“Your House?” You have a House? Was the clear subtext to that statement. Catriona laughed at her, which would have made more of a difference if she hadn't spent the last fortnight or so in the lady's house under her very nose. Now she clearly went unrecognized, out of her brownie clothes and her brownie hair. “And what does the House of the Four Winds assert as the cause for this challenge?”

“Why, the abduction of the boy,” the King smiled, with an ever-glistening row of sharp teeth. “And the plan therein to defraud the court into believing that he was your child, and you his mother. The murder of the rightful parents...”

That had not been in the arrangement, and she kept her neck stiff and straight so as not to betray her surprise by posture or action.

“... of the poor boy, and though he may not be old enough to take position on that at the moment, I am assured that his proxy lies with the lady of his House.”

“His House.” Not even laughing at that, but certainly questioning it. Silence all around the court gave her no allies or welcome in her derision. “You can't possibly mean that this young woman and this boy constitute...”

“I oversaw the fostering myself. Yes, she has formally adopted him into her house and declared for her own, they have the lands to the north and east of here where the boy comes from, she will have the custody of his estates till he is grown enough to make a decision on the matter.”

Assuming the woods where she had found him constituted his estates. And assuming that he had control over them. The King's speech assumed a great deal, and lied outright about at least one thing. Her gaze flicked over to her Lord, who also knew better, but he revealed nothing. Whatever his anger at her, she realized, he wasn't about to reveal the fact that the Sidhe tradition against open lies and deceit, the degradation of one's sworn word had fallen so far as to allow the King to lie to the whole court without consequence.

And that, too, was on her shoulders, she thought.

“And how do you propose to settle this challenge?” Lady Catriona asked, sensing her allies drifting away, what few of them she had left. “By Champion? A woman and a boy against my son?”

“Just the woman, I think,” the King nodded, and she took her cue to step forward again and move the panel of her skirt back to reveal the sword at her hip. “She is adequately prepared to meet your son in a trial by combat, and I assume you would choose your son to Champion for you. Unless there is another here who would take up against her?”

Not only was there no one, several of the nobles outright left, disdaining to stay and see the result. Eamon stared at her with open hostility, fingers clenching and dancing on the hilt of his own sword.

“So be it.”

The King himself drew the circle, which did at least have the effect of sending several other nobles scurrying in the most dignified manner they could muster for other parts of the manor. The circle seared itself to the floor, and she felt the prickle on her skin as it settled. The palm of her hand stuck with sweat to the hilt of her sword, which felt heavy on her arm. She had trained for this, Lord had trained her in swordplay himself. But that didn't mean she had the kind of viciousness or experience needed to fight Eamon. She had heard his reputation and, more immediately, she had seen his temper in action.

All of which was now focused on her. He didn't give her but a moment to catch her breath before he launched himself at her.

Not quite out of temper enough to unleash blows on her until he was exhausted, either. He gave out nine or ten good hits in the direction of her chest and belly, finishing in one overhand blow as hard as he could make it. The shock of it sent her arm tingling and numb for a moment, but she blocked them all.

That seemed to confuse him. After a breath he took a step back, and she took a step back too, letting her sword hang low in a guarded position and rolling her shoulders a little.

“Stop playing with the stupid girl and...”

She didn't catch the rest of it, but it was the first thing anyone had said and she did hear the murmur of displeasure that followed. Didn't dare look around to see what other reception there might be. Catriona must be infuriated if she were giving orders to her son that blatantly, with that little regard for custom or her position, which was rapidly losing ground.

A House that came up out of nowhere was always something to be treated with caution, in case they had solidified their position behind closed doors, in case they had some unseen advantage. Catriona was beyond caution. Her son as well. She wondered if perhaps she couldn't use Eamon's temper against him after all, even if he was twice as strong as her and more used to violence.

“Go on, then, Eamon,” she sneered. “Stop playing with the stupid girl. Who's dancing circles around you like a midsummer bonfire.” Dancing was the right word for it, she spun and ducked and blocked the few blows of his that came close, but by the time he lunged for her she was already in motion. “Oh, too slow. So sad.”

And then she pressed her lips together and didn't say anything for several minutes, sidestepping as much as she could rather than take the hits to her sword and up her arms. He should have chosen an axe for his weapon, the way he favored hacking at her overhand. Not a maneuver she would have chosen for a longsword.

Then again, he wasn't handling his weapon like a longsword, was he. Rather, he treated it like a great big stick that happened to have a point at one end. She wondered, then, if Catriona had let him out of her clutches to have anything in the realm of weapons training at all. Or would that be something that might get him hurt, either at someone else's hands or his own? If she had learned anything living for a fortnight with them it was that Catriona was viciously protective of her boy, to the point where he did nothing without her say-so.

“Why don't you have your mother come out here and fight for you?” she called over to him, lunging in before he could react and delivering one or two sharp strikes herself, then dancing sideways rather than back. “She'd do a better job. You've never been taught to hold a sword in your life, have you?”

“I know how to hold a sword,” he snapped, lunging.

She laughed, skipping out of his reach. Twirling and stepping around him and twisting her sword as she blocked to draw the edge along his arm. “You hold it like a stick you can poke a person with. You swing it like you were chopping wood. You don't know the first thing about swordplay...”

Too close. Too much, and too soon. Too much time taunting him with his failings and not enough time paying attention to herself, she caught the edge of his blade on her shoulder and though the armor she'd borrowed caught most of it the sharp steel still bit into her shoulder, to say nothing of the impact knocking something loose.

She blocked his next strike but came up against the edge of the circle, her heel burning as she scooted back against the barrier. Eamon smirked, waggling his sword at her in admonishment.

“What was that you were saying about not knowing…”

No, she didn't know swordplay as well as she would have liked, she didn't know the spirit of violence. Not from experience. But she knew when he was paying attention to her, and when he wasn't, and she knew when to take advantage of a lapse in concentration. She knew that very well.

He'd cornered her to gloat, leaning over her and forgetting for a moment about the sword in his hand. That they were fighting a duel. She hunched her back, switched her sword hands to favor her injured shoulder, bowed her head which sacrificed line of sight but gave her just enough time and momentum from her legs, coiled and tucked like a rabbit's. One lunge, up and thrusting her sword high and at a narrow angle.

Somehow, she managed to get it through the base of his throat. Not his chest, which she had guessed herself more sure of hitting. Whatever murmur was outside the circle, whisperings of the court, maybe nothing more than the blood rushing in her ears, it stopped in that moment. She felt something hot and sticky flow down her hand, realized after a moment that it was bile and blood. His body was a weight on her arm, she dropped it, kicked him awkwardly off her sword. She would not drop her sword.

It took three more minutes for the circle to dissipate. Her sword dripped in the meantime, and she didn't rise to her feet. Outside of the noise in her own head she heard Catriona scream once, and then a rushing of feet and limbs and some curses and a sizzle against her sword arm; evidently not all of them were completely drained of ready power. The King's guards dragged the woman away, shrieking. She heard, dimly, from across the circle. “I trust that concludes the matter to all parties' satisfaction?” in the King's sardonic tone and looked up to see him standing there, one eyebrow raised, one hand clenched on the boy's shoulder.

There didn't really need to be a threat, but she made one anyway, pointing the tip of her sword at the King's feet and gesturing with her other (free and injured) arm for the boy to come to her. He released him, and the boy came running, despite the mess at her feet.

“Would anyone else care to issue challenge for this boy or my Household rights?”

No one said a word.