"Your country is a black spot on the map," Maitiu told him. "If all Aquitaine needed to wipe it out was my left ball, I'd cut it off. My son's done nothing to your King. He's a feckin' child, do you understand? He's put up with years of what they did to him."

Erich's cold stare did not falter, only grew even more icy if it were possible. He took the offense not with good humor but with a calm hatred growing inside of him.

"What exactly did -they- do to -him-, then?"

"Murdered his mother. Stole him away from where he belonged. Strapped him with cold iron. Kept him like a dog, named him for a dog. Convinced him that he was this . . . thing, that there was something wrong with him for no other reason than havin' feckin' red hair and bein' Tuatha with all the power that comes with it." Maitiu stared the man down. "Keep askin' me these things. You're pissin' me off at you all over again."

Erich just shook his head, slowly.

"I did none of those things. I was barely out of my cradle when your son was stolen from you," He said firmly, with no sympathy but no delight in the knowledge either. "And living with my mother and family far from the castle. The people of Eurastad do not owe you your son; they never took him."

He took a few more steps; felt he was perhaps safe enough.

"I appreciate not being murdered for my crimes against you," Erich said, with the slightest twitch of a smile.

"And you still need to be burned off the skin of the world like a tick," Maitiu replied. He saw the man move, but did not back up; he kept a careful eye on his hands.

"Your race is an abomination, a open, infected wound on the world," Erich countered, the hostility gone from his voice.

He paused one moment longer, decided the faery was not going to try and stop him, and backed slowly away, until he felt safe.

At which point he turned and ran like hell.