“Um…thank you.” No one had ever said anything like that to him before. It gave him a rather funny feeling. “You—I’m sure you smell good too.”
“Do I?” To his confusion, she pulled him out of the dance and drew close to him—sort of nestled, almost—so that his face was pressed against the side of her head. “There. How do I smell?”
Oh lord. Having a beautiful fairy girl asking him to smell her was not how he’d planned on looking for Persy. But it wasn’t all that bad, having her so close—in fact, it was quite nice. He moved his face a little so as not to snuffle in her ear, which he was sure she wouldn’t like, and breathed her in. “Like…like moonlight…and fresh-cut hay…and pearls,” he heard himself say, and nearly fell over in surprise. What had he just said to this girl?
“Oh!” she said, drawing back and smiling up at him. She had a soft dimple in her chin, he noticed. “That’s lovely. I didn’t know human senses could be that discerning.”
He wasn’t sure that his were…and what did pearls smell like, anyway? It was what had come into his mind as he moved his face against her soft hair…and dash it all, he needed to stop this and start thinking about looking for Persy.
“So…um…you said your mother is human.” He wondered fleetingly whom she might have been. Someone from nearby? But he’d never heard stories of anyone disappearing from this area.
“Yes! Could you tell?” She looked up at him from under her lashes.
“Well…you’re less…less…um….” How could he diplomatically point out that she didn’t have hooves or horns or the skin of a lizard? “Less…ah, ethereal.” There. That sounded like a good word. “More…real.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes,” he said firmly, and meant it. “So…do humans come here often and…and stay?”
“No, not often. It’s hard to find good ones, but when we do, we’re very happy. Adding some human blood to our lines is good for us.”
“Like manuring the fields,” Charles couldn’t help murmuring.
She smiled as if pleased with his cleverness. “Exactly! Which is why it’s important to find the right kind. In fact, that’s why we’re dancing tonight—to celebrate that my brother has taken a bride.”
Cold excitement gripped him. “Really? A human one?”
“Yes—isn’t it nice? He was too busy to take her when he first found her—the wights had been giving us some trouble—but now he has. It was more than time for him to marry. I shall enjoy having a niece or nephew…at least, I suppose I shall.” Her mouth drew down in a small frown. “Maybe he’ll stopping treating me as the baby of the family, then.”
Ha. It wasn’t just humans who had that problem, it seemed. “I had to put up with that, too.”
“Oh. So you know.” She tucked her hand confidingly into his arm and propelled them into a stroll. “Do you have a perfect elder brother who is insufferably right all the time?”
“No, I have elder sisters. They did seem awfully bossy at times when I was younger. But they don’t do it to me anymore, because they’re busy with their own lives.” And maybe, just maybe, they had been right to be bossy with him. Once or twice.
“Oh.” That seemed to cheer her. “So now that he has his bride, then he’ll leave off being…bossy? I do like that word!—to me. Until it’s time to find me a husband…and I shan’t let him be bossy over that.” The feathers in her coronet danced as she gave her head a little toss. “The problem is that he truly is terribly wise and strong and all that. He slew dozens of wights all by himself and destroyed their nest so that I doubt they’ll be troubling us for a long, long time. And he was so clever about getting his wife—see, there they are. I hope I shall like her once she settles down. It would be dreadful if she were stupid and lumpish.”
They had moved around the edge of the clearing and approached the group he’d been straining to see, seated under the torches. Now he could see that one member of the group, dressed in a flowing gown of green like a figure in a medieval tapestry, wasn’t so much sitting as reclining in her chair…he gave a little gasp as he saw that it was indeed Persy.
Seated close to her was another figure, a tall, dark-haired man with a narrow, handsome face who leaned close to her, whispering occasionally in her ear and stroking her hand, which lay inert in his.
It was the man he’d seen in the churchyard all those years ago at Persy’s wedding—the “beggar” who had made her late.
“No,” he barely whispered. Perse looked as though she were in some sort of strange trance—not completely limp, but not fully awake, either. Her eyes were shut, and she was almost as pale as the folk gathered around her—a group of pretty young woman ranged to either side, like ladies in waiting, and at least a dozen tall, serious-looking men with bows slung behind their broad shoulders and swords belted at their hips. And one other figure—a woman, it looked like, veiled and sitting slightly apart from the others.
“‘No,’ what?” inquired his companion, who evidently had sharp hearing.
“She can’t marry your brother.” He was suddenly angry—as angry as he’d ever been. How dare these creatures step in and steal his sister, as if she were a bauble they’d taken a fancy to?
“Why not?”
He took a deep breath. “Because she’s already married!”
She frowned. “Why do you say she’s already married? Do you know her?”
Charles stopped. They were in front of Persy and the seated fairy folk. He lifted his chin and said, loudly, “Yes, I know her…and I know you, too, sir.” He glared at the man at Persy’s side who glanced up inquiringly, his mouth curved in a half-smile.
“Who is this, Margaret?” he asked. His voice was low and musical.
Margaret? Charles glanced down at the girl on his arm. A fairy named Margaret?
“I don’t know. He was watching us dance, and I liked him, so I asked him to come out and dance with me. He seemed nice.” She glanced doubtfully up at him, as if she might have been mistaken. Charles felt a pang and wished he could reassure her that really, he was very nice, but now was not an opportune time.
“My name is Charles Leland,” he said instead, and hoped it came out as boldly and bravely as he’d intended. Thankfully, his voice chose not to break and squeak just then, as it often did when he least wanted it to.
“You give your name freely,” the fairy said, still with that curious half-smile on his lips.
Charles made himself meet and hold the fairy’s gaze. “Yes, and I’ll give myself another—brother to this woman you hold here.”
He nodded slowly, and if anything, looked more amused. “Yes, I thought you might be. Welcome to my court.”
“Your…court?”
“Part of it, anyway. Not all of my court care to come through the door and join us here.” He looked at Charles consideringly. “I wonder why you’re here, little wizard?”
Next to him, Margaret drew in her breath. “You didn’t tell me you were a wizard!” she said.
“It, er, never came up in our conversation,” Charles said. “You were busy telling me about your broth—”
“Oh, never mind!” she said, cutting him off hurriedly.
The fairy lord—for he indeed must be one, if he had a court—raised an eyebrow at her, but continued to address Charles. “Did you think to take your sister back from me? That won’t be possible. You should have guessed I made very certain that I bound her to me thoroughly. She has been mine for the last five years; it is only now that it was convenient and safe for me to bring her home.” He lifted Persy’s unresisting hand and kissed it.
“What have you done to her? Why won’t she wake up?” Charles demanded. Seeing him treat Persy this way made him even angrier.
He shrugged. “Just a simple enchantment, to calm her while we tarry here. It isn’t wise to keep humans in the fairy lands for long, at least at first, until they’re used to it—your systems take some time to adjust to our world. I did not wish her to be distressed while she was here
, so she is as you see her. She will grow used to her new home soon, though. Her being a witch will help.”
Charles eyed the bow-and-sword-bearing fairies standing behind Persy and her captor. They eyed him back. Those swords of theirs looked unpleasantly sharp-edged, and they looked entirely capable of wielding them with ease. There would be no snatching Persy and fleeing after all—not with them around. It was time to try to talk their way out of this. Talking was what he was best at, after all, or at least that was what Pen had always said.
“What makes you so sure she’s yours? How did you ‘bind’ her, as you say?” he asked.
“You are a thorough little wizard, aren’t you?” The fairy lord smiled again. Charles was starting to find that smile infuriating. “I simply made it so that your marriage ceremony would not take. I prepared the place where your sister would tread on her way to the wedding with the human lordling; I put down a layer of earth from the fairy lands, so that she would tread my land and no one else’s. And before she went into the place to be wedded, I covered her with a veil of more soil and other material from my realm, to make a wall shutting her out from your world and into mine. And finally, I kissed her and told her that she would be mine, and she did not deny me. It was quite clear that it worked, for did she not sneeze when the priest tried to bind her to her human lover?”
Charles wished he could say no—but those eyes on him wouldn’t let him. “What if she did?”
“She was repudiating his magic. Because mine had already marked her.” The fairy lord leaned back in his chair. “And now what, Charles Leland? If you wish, you may go back to your home now and tell your family that Persephone is mine. Once we are bound, I will make her a good husband, you may promise them. She will be honored as lady of my lands—”
“Wait a minute.” It was frightfully impolite to interrupt, but Charles didn’t care. “What do you mean, ‘once you are bound’? I thought you said Persy was already yours.”
“She is. We are…I believe you would call it ‘betrothed’. We shall actually be wed in a few weeks, when she has grown used to the fairy lands well enough to stay there for good. It will also give my people time to prepare the celebration. I promised Margaret a fine party.” He nodded to her affably.
Charles pretended to stare down at his feet as if cast into dejection, but it was to hide the sudden wild hope that has sprung up inside him. They weren’t actually married yet…which meant there was still a chance that he could rescue Persy. Except….he took a deep breath, and looked up at the fairy lord again. “Do I have to go back, then?” he asked.
“Hmm? What is that?” The fairy lord had turned to Persy again as if their conversation had already ended, but he glanced back at Charles.
“Do I have to go back? Why can’t I stay here?”
“Oh!” Margaret breathed, next to him.
The fairy lord looked at him curiously. “Why do you wish to do that?”
Charles scuffled his toes in the grass and tried to look embarrassed. “It’s…it’s school, sir. They make me study idiotic things like history all the time, and I hate it. See the sort of nonsense they make me read?” He patted his pocket and produced History and Policy of the Norman and Angevin Kings, holding it between two fingers like a rotting cabbage leaf. “And when my parents see what my last term’s marks were…well, I don’t want to be there. I’d rather stay with Persy. She can continue to teach me magic, which is what I really want to study. If she can get used to the fairy lands, I can too. And I…I….” Inspiration struck him. “I could work for you I could be your page. It’s all the rage for kings and queen in my world to have foreign pages to attend them.” Or at least it had been, a century or two ago, but the fairy lord likely wouldn’t know that. “Wouldn’t a human in your court be plenty foreign?”
The fairy lord glanced over at the veiled woman sitting to the side. She hadn’t spoken, but from the angle at which she sat seemed to be paying close attention to the conversation.
“Not all that foreign,” he said. “But it might reconcile your sister more easily to her new life. Very well, little wizard, you may stay, at least for as long as I find you useful. You will find your new position no sinecure. I shall expect you to attend me whenever I wish you to.”
“Yes, sir.” Charles dropped his eyes modestly as he bowed, to hide the triumph that must surely show in them. Once they let Persy wake up, he’d be able to talk to her and they could figure something out together. Good old Perse could always figure things out.
“You may sit there and watch,” the fairy lord said, gesturing vaguely to a place at his feet and already turning back to Persy. “Pay attention. You’ll have to learn our ways if you’re going to be useful.”
“I’ll teach him, brother,” Margaret said, taking his arm again.
“Hmm.” The fairy lord glanced at her, and a small frown rippled across his face and was gone. He turned to Persy again and smiled into her pale, sleeping face.
Charles sat down where the fairy lord had indicated and pretended to watch the dancing. But mostly he was watching the spot where he had been hiding, across the clearing. Was Nando still there, watching him back? He reached up and pretended to adjust his collar as he nodded, trying to signal that all was well.
But no face appeared above the undergrowth, nodding in understanding. The undergrowth itself stayed still, not revealing by the flutter of the smallest leaf that a boy still crouched there, watching him. Charles swallowed back his disappointment. Nando had probably fled as soon as Margaret had given him her hand. Had he gone back to Galiswood to report? Or had he made his way back to the road, to find his kumpania and shake the dust of these fairy-haunted woods from his new hand-me-down boots?
Charles squared his shoulders. It looked as if he were on his own. He and Persy…against a fairy lord of extraordinary cunning and his very charming younger sister.
Chapter Six
When the moon had begun to slip below the trees, the fairy lord rose from his chair by Persy and lifted one hand. Instantly the torches somehow extinguished themselves, the musicians stopped playing and put away their instruments, and the dancers ceased their frolics and begun to walk sedately toward him. Charles climbed warily to his feet and watched them approach but they ignored him, only pausing to bow respectfully to the fairy lord as they passed through the tall, dark doorway in the side of the barrow.
Charles wanted to rub his eyes in astonishment, but managed not to: where had that door come from? It hadn’t been there a minute ago—
“He opened it, of course,” Margaret said, as if he’d spoken the question aloud. Charles started; he’d nearly forgotten she was there. “That’s one of his powers as our liege lord—to be able to open doors.”
After almost everyone had passed through the door, the fairy lord himself bent to lift Persy in his arms. He looked at Charles and Margaret, lifted an eyebrow, and went through the doorway.
“What’s he going to do with her?” Charles asked in alarm.
“Why, bring her back to her room and let her ladies put her to bed. She’ll wake in a while.”
“Will she remember anything?”
“No, how could she? She’s been asleep,” Margaret said, surprised. “But my brother went into her dreams to be with her so that she wasn’t lonely while the rest of us rejoiced. Didn’t you see him talking to her?”
Charles wondered if Persy might not have preferred to be alone; it seemed rather presumptuous to invade someone’s dreams without their permission. But Margaret was tugging his sleeve.
“Come on—it’s time to go,” she said, and taking his hand, led him through the dark doorway. To his surprise, they were suddenly standing in a broad, twilit field, tilting gently downward toward what he thought might be a lake—at least, there was a darker expanse there that might have been water. The air was soft, warmer than the night they’d left behind.
“How’d he do that?” he asked Margaret.
“Do you think he’d tell his little sister?” s
he replied.
Hmm. Probably not. He turned at Margaret’s urging and found himself walking uphill, away from the door, which stood like a dark rectangle opening into nowhere in the middle of the field, and uphill toward a great, sprawling house, two or three stories tall, gleaming softly in the violet dusk. He looked up at the sky above it and was astonished to see…nothing. No stars or moon glittered and gleamed in the sky of the fairy lands, and for the first time, Charles felt a little afraid. Eton had always seemed so far from home, but it was no distance at all compared to this.
“Is it nighttime here too? When will the sun come up?” he asked Margaret.
She snorted. “What sun? That is part of your world, not ours. Why do you think we come to your world for our dances? We enjoy your sun and moon and stars. They’re so different.”
“Margaret,” a woman’s voice called from behind them.
It was low and very quiet, but Margaret stopped and turned toward it at once. “Yes, mother, I’m here,” she said.
Charles turned too. It was the veiled woman who had sat slightly apart from the others at the dance. She stopped before them, and he looked at her with interest. So this was Margaret’s mother—her human mother? “Ma’am,” he said, making a polite bow.
“Your name is Charles Leland,” she said. The veil she still wore concealed her features, but he could feel her examining him closely.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And my lord’s new bride is your sister Persephone.”
Not if he had anything to say about it, but it wouldn’t do to say that out loud. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh,” she said, and it sounded almost like a sorrowful sigh. “I didn’t know it was she whom he…I haven’t seen her since she was just a very little girl—she and her twin sister. You must have been born after I….” She sighed again, but a slight smile had crept into her voice. “You have a look of your father, but I suspect you’re very much your mother’s son. You have Parthenope’s forthrightness.”
Charles Bewitched (Leland Sisters) Page 5
