Chasing the Bard

by Philippa Ballantine

  “But she’s not dead,” Moira reached out for his hand, keeping her mare next to his without any effort.

  “But you did not see...”

  “She is not dead,” Moira repeated. “The Mother cried only for Brigit, not Sive.”

  As always she rescued him, throwing him a slender lifeline.

  “I know.” His heart lightened, but only a little. He looked to his right at the youthful Fey that rode around them, noticing their unlined faces and bright eyes, but also their flimsy silks and empty scabbards. His mother had at least kept her honour guard and their sharp blades about her. Their broad-shouldered and fiery-hoofed battle mounts roamed the endless hills of the Fey, and where they were now was anyone’s guess. He’d wanted the Court to be a place of mirth and happiness after her austere rule, but in the light of recent events Auberon considered that he might have gone too far. What good were palfreys and laughter against Mordant?

  “It’s not too late,” Moira’s leg brushed against his, willing her strength to the King. “We can still do something.”

  Mother of All, he wanted to believe her, but most of all he wanted his armoured and passionate aunt, mother, and sister to be there. He had never fought, never struggled against anything in his life. The horrible thought that he was more like his reprobate cousin Puck crept up on him.

  Well, that simply wouldn't do. As the King of the Fey rode back to Court, he summoned a bright silver light to illuminate them so that his people would have hope again. He would have to find a way to deal with Mordant and bring Sive back home.

  * * *

  She hadn’t kissed him. Even as Puck fell back through the void of the Between, he couldn’t help but be a little put out. How many other life threatening situations could there be, and she hadn’t even bothered to kiss him goodbye.

  Foolish boy, Brigit’s voice cracked in his head. Your cousin is not for you.

  “Well now you tell me,” Puck grumbled, and looked with some concern at the heaving silver void which was the Between.

  Your fated one will come in her own allotted time, and her own form. It hasn't yet been decided if she will even be.

  His aunt remained as cryptic in death as she had been in life. “Less talking about unborn soul mates, and more help please,” Puck pleaded as his body tumbled further into the mists of time. “You forget, I have never walked the deep Between.”

  Brigit took control of his body, spreading his fingers, and using his Art in new ways within him. He dared not think about how she had done all that. But it worked; Puck had found stability in the chaos.

  My own fault, Brigit said wistfully. I should have shown you and Sive the paths before this.

  “Yes, well, that might have helped,” Puck smoothed back his ruffled silver hair. “But a bit late now.”

  Is it?

  His aunt’s spirit was silent a second, and he had the disturbing sensation she was deciding something. Having an uninvited guest in his head was not as fun as it might seem.

  “You realize, Brigit, if I’d known Last Breath meant hauling you around, I might have reconsidered.”

  I’m as surprised as you are, boy. Last Breath carries the transfer of memory and wisdom, not spirit. Perhaps it’s because I am one of the First Born, or perhaps you are weak.

  “More likely it’s because you’re a meddling old woman,” Puck hissed to himself.

  I can hear you, Brigit reminded him. So try to keep a civil tongue in your head!

  Puck sighed; this was not going to make being the Trickster any easier. “Well since you’re here, I suppose you couldn’t help me out of the Between?” She had to be useful for something.

  Brigit looked through his eyes; a very unnerving feeling it was too. Sive was in a hurry; it may take me some time to work out where we are, and how to get back.

  That was not what Puck wanted to hear. Will and Sive needed all the help they could get. “Well hurry up, old woman, this isn’t a walk in the woods, you know.”

  Almost on cue, a howl tore through the Between mists, and it sounded close, and even more uncomfortably familiar. He thought back to the snarls and strength of the boogarts in the wood, and the banging trapdoor in Mordant’s Hall.

  I hope you bought a weapon with you, Boy, Brigit chuckled. This could get ugly.

  “Easy for you to be cheerful,” Puck snapped. “You’re dead already.”

  Don’t get churlish now, lad, get moving!

  The surrounding mists darkened, and the howls grew louder.

  And even though Puck had seldom obeyed his aunt while she was alive, he decided this would be a very different occasion. “Just get me out of this old woman, or we’ll both be out of a body.”

  9

  The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love.

  The little girl raised her chubby leg high, but still stumbled over the cart track. She had hands and feet covered in dirt, and though the mud was sucking at her legs, nothing could dissuade her from her goal—the market.

  She wobbled, coming close to falling, but then mustering infant strength, she ran on. The light rain had misted her dark curls, but the chill in the air had no effect. Having slipped the chains of her mother’s attention, she was intent on getting as much as possible from the moment.

  Stratford’s main street was full of raucous laughter and the complaints of sheep. It was market day, and the powerful scents of dung and sweaty bodies assailed her young senses. Bickering, jovial people packed the street which aided her escape.

  Ahead, a roan-coloured sheepdog was harassing his charges down towards the market. The little girl stopped, her dark eyes at once locking on the canine shape, and then lighting with intrigue. Her hands came up, already clenching with the prospect of getting in amongst sensitive dog hair, and her legs regained their strength. The beast backed away and snarled, used to sheep and sheep alone, but this young one knew little of fear and the possibility of hurt.

  At the point where canine and child would have discovered what the others’ intentions were, long pale arms grasped the girl, lifting her clear of the street. The dog cast a frightened look at the newcomer and darted away.

  The little girl threw back her head, ready to wail at being stymied, but the fast strong hands tossed her into the air, and a giggle sprung up instead. She was a big girl and rarely cast about so easily anymore. Delighted, she looked down at the lady.

  Sive knew the child saw right through the glamour; there was no hiding from those piercing Shakespeare eyes. Other mortals saw a tired looking, middle-aged woman, whose only remarkable features were intense violet eyes. This little one saw with her father’s sight, but unhindered by anger.

  Sive shivered; it had been a terrible mistake she’d made with William, and though this little one was a shining example of her failure, she could find no dislike of the child in her. Susanna smiled, her fingers clenching on the plain cotton dress that Sive had to wear these days.

  “Goodwife Hardy,” Anne’s voice reached Sive ahead of her stumbling form. Seldom was Will’s wife seen without their children. Apart from Susanna, there were twins as well. Sive knew their names were Hamnet and Judith after Will’s friends the Sadlers.

  She should have had more satisfaction from seeing Anne. The whole of Stratford knew of their troubled marriage. It had been a swift event, followed on the heels by the appearance of their first daughter. It was rumoured to be a love match, but Sive knew in her heart it was Will’s way of securing himself from her. Whatever the reasons, it was no longer a happy union, and Sive had heard that Will had taken to longer and longer periods wandering Arden wood. She couldn’t tell if he wrote poetry anymore.

  Anne was smiling at her, seeing nothing but the wretched looking goodwife Hardy. It was a thin glamour, and one Sive had taken up just months before Will’s marriage. Mistress Hardy's quiet ways, and excellent brewing skills were well known, but then being married to the owner of the Three Crowns she had to possess all those.

  The look of pity on Anne’s f
ace was very hard for Sive to stomach, even as the accompanying thoughts reached her. Even hiding behind the glamour, she still found it impossible to like Anne. Not for anything that she was—Will’s wife was as mundane and dependable as any woman produced in this age—but because of what she had. This particular woman possessed all she had once desired even if it had taken years for Sive to realize that.

  “You should take better care of your charges, Mistress Shakespeare,” she snapped coldly, plumping the child into Anne’s arms, and turning swiftly away, “Next time you may not be so lucky.” With a snort of derision, she picked her bundle of kindling up from where it had dropped on the street, and hurried away.

  Stomping back to the inn, ignoring the trail of thanks that Will’s wife was burbling, The clutch of loss in Sive’s heart was sudden and painful. Perhaps she shouldn’t have lingered in Stratford, perhaps it would have been easier to find another town to hide from Mordant’s wrath, but some small, stubborn part of her determined to stay put. Even though every little sight of Will and his new family was a sharp edged javelin through her, she still couldn’t bring herself to leave.

  Already she’d had been too long from the Fey. It could not be long until what Art Sive kept hidden would weaken, and then not very long after that, it would fade completely. Then truly, she would be doomed.

  Sive’s face flickered between two expressions she had previously only seen on others, concern and fear.

  Henry was arguing with the cooper as she stalked towards the Three Crowns. As usual the innkeeper was dithering over the price of barrels, and as usual he had become a target of amusement from the citizens. It seldom did any good, but for him it was a necessary ritual. Whatever the reasoning, Sive didn’t want to get drawn into it.

  “Jane,” she paused with a sigh just short of the door, but turned at Henry’s almost whine, “The peddler came with some velvets for you.”

  His middle-aged eyes saw only one of his own kind—one who had suffered in life, and so he did not ask much. In recognition of it, Sive let the glamour give him after dusk sweet passions, even as she slept in the kitchen. His Jane was but an illusion, and yet she made him happy. Sive, tucked away in a chair by her hearth by night, told herself he was merely a necessity—a cover amongst strangers. Mortal he might be, but at least he had happiness.

  Hitching her bundle of sticks up beneath one arm, Sive sighed. “Thank you Henry, I am sorry to miss him, but I best get dinner on.” He nodded and smiled, already turning to the familiar patter of the argument.

  So she was free to enter her mortal domain, the back rooms of the Three Crowns. While glamour filled them with the sounds and smells of a well-run kitchen, Sive was in fact able to do other things, none of which involved cooking.

  Since Mordant would be searching, she had to avoid using her powers—in fact they were confined to the necessities of the glamour of goodwife Hardy, but today something had changed. After bumping into the ignorant Anne, Sive had decided enough was enough; today she would attempt a Seeing, as her aunt had taught her.

  She assembled the willow and ash branches gathered by hand from Arden in the hearth and reflected how Brigit would have appreciated the irony.

  Sive missed her aunt’s sharp tongue, and her comforting, though often thorny, presence. Mordant had made an error of judgment; by killing Brigit the Blessed, and banishing Sive to slow torture in the mortal realm, he had given her nothing to lose.

  Being in the human’s world might have done nothing to improve Sive’s temper, but it had impressed on her many things. A better understanding of Will’s world helped her understand why he had reacted how he had. Humans cherished what power they had over their lives; they had so little that they clung the small amount did have. When she had shown herself, he was betrayed and threatened. Yet in those moments before Will’s rejection, he was drawn unconsciously to what she offered. After all the same blood flowed in his own veins.

  “What a fool I was,” Sive hissed to herself as she built the fire. Mordant’s attack had shocked her; bewildered by his power, and the death of Brigit, she’d reacted in a familiar way. She still didn’t know if she should be afraid or jubilant that Will had challenged her.

  It mattered little now—she had lost him. The trivial base concerns of everyday life had mired him down, and he might never reach his flowering or his true self. Those roles as a father, husband and son were a stone around his neck.

  Sive was in despair at how to win him back to her side. Though she had managed to find a way to be near, she had been unable to see him. His Bardic eyes would pierce her disguise as an arrow through muslin, and some part of her knew that neither of them was ready for that meeting yet. The little hurt part of her, which she barely acknowledged, needed to know that he would not reject her again.

  The Seeing was necessary, hopefully showing what was going on in the Fey, and what Mordant was up to, or perhaps what had happened to Puck. Her heart grew cold at the idea she might have lost another of her kin. However Seeing was the most fickle of Arts, and the very one she had rejected learning when she had the chance.

  Sive lit the bundle of twigs and concentrated, but her power was ethereal, hard to hold, angry perhaps at not being used for so many years. It would diminish in time, and long after Mordant’s plans had come to pass, she would be a shell of a Fey—only slightly more than human.

  Uttering a sharp annoyed oath, she turned her Art to her bidding, it was like reining in a nervous horse; concentrating it on the spiralling smoke, demanding answers.

  It was worse than Sive had feared. Reawakening of Art brought the heady scent of the Fey realm to her, a seductive reminder of all that lay so very close. The scent of jasmine filled her head and tempted with memory. The parting from Macha was the hardest, and now she could almost hear the raven’s caw, feel the touch in her thoughts. All Sive needed to do was order the veil parted, and she could return there. She could command it done, and her chilling life in the mortal realm would be but a bad dream. It could not hurt just to try—to take one breath from there? But then the memory of Mordant’s plans for her intruded on that fantasy.

  A single tear slipped down Sive’s cheek, as she pulled free of the temptation. This separation from home had made her less and loosed the bonds she had over her own thoughts. Until she had defeated her husband, the Fey was closed to her.

  Mordant had left nothing to chance; by weaving a spell into the fabric of the veil between realms, he would know if Sive attempted to go home. Even if she survived the battle that would follow, she couldn’t be sure of avoiding the sexual glamour laid on her previously. And the knowledge that he had much worse planned for her now made even the hot-headed Fey give pause.

  “No,” Sive murmured under her breath, narrowed her eyes, and concentrated on the smoke. “No,” she repeated, “Show me the Fey. Show me home.”

  The smoke bucked and twisted like a wild thing, reluctant to surrender its secrets, but Sive persisted. Her Art pierced it through, searching for what its mistress needed—a shred of hope.

  The mist resolved into shapes and visions that flashed lightning—quick across Sive’s eyes, like she was racing past them. Brigit had practiced this form of Art for long years, honed her skills to sift through the grains of fate. Sive could not hope to match such skill, and the smoke and distance were eating into her, luring her deeper, tantalizing her with more knowledge, should she step into its grasp. Sive could not afford the price demanded for that.

  Grasping what meaning she could from the smoke, Sive doused the fire. Even such a small display of Art might alert Mordant. Seating herself at the kitchen table, she carved a slab of dark meslin bread, and chewing on it replayed in her head what she had been able to steal from the mists of time.

  Through the blowing winds of Between, people laughed and danced, spinning and slowly turning to bone. The lonely cry of an orphaned child echoed down from a great distance, piercing her through with unexplained longing. The smell of rot and decay, combined with the er
otic thrill of warm skin under her fingertips. A dark bronze coin with odd writing burned into it, spun end over end, and the eerie sound it made scoured her brain.

  Sive knew they were more than simple facts, and in that lay the trick of Seeing. Her aunt had been practiced at winnowing out the meaning behind such things, but she was no more. It certainly was an odd mixture of signs, spelling both hope and despair. That which thrilled might also be the signal of doom. And yet the visions had tempted her, sweet fruit of hope hanging out of reach.

  The gritty taste of the bread reminded Sive suddenly that this was the humans’ realm, not Fey. Stripped of her power she had to follow their rules and play their games. It was frustrating beyond words.

  Something was happening in the Fey, of that there was no doubt. But what could it be?

  A hundred possibilities crowded her head. Mordant had free rein in the Fey, and with Brigit dead, Puck lost, and she fled, there was only Auberon to stand in her husband’s way. Brother and sister had never been close, but now as she folded her hands, and the chill in the room seeped into her bones, she wished him the Mother’s strength. Auberon was all that the Fey had now, and should he falter so would all hope.

  * * *

  “They’re here, Will!” Anne’s voice shattered the hopeful silence. His customer, a stiff-necked gentleman who obviously had little patience as it was, responded with an accusatory look—blaming him for the shrieks of delight. Will caught an even sharper look from father, tucking away new gloves in a drawer. Every customer counts, would be the admonishment later.

  Even though he was slaving away, working as an usher at the school, his family still expected him to help out in the shop. It didn’t matter that he was a grown man with three children of his own—John Shakespeare still ruled the house in Henley Street. Anne would complain to Will in their tiny room at night, and his father would lambaste him in the shop during the day.