Any Man So Daring

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  Thirst and hunger warred within him. It was all he could to walk on.

  Suddenly, as though out of nowhere, he heard voices again, as he’d heard them before, in the night.

  He slowed his step and, stowing the stick beneath his shirt where it beat and pulled like a living creature, he walked cautiously amid the trees, over tree roots, keeping himself hidden.

  Ahead, in a clearing, men were talking — or perhaps not men, but those creatures that Will had met before, for these had the same accent, the same haughty tones, the same foreign intonation.

  Cautious, Will stepped forward.

  The dappled horse-body and the black one sat by a fire upon which a hunk of still-bleeding meat roasted.

  Whence that meat?

  Will felt uneasy over Caliban, Miranda’s troll, the one Miranda had said narrowly escaped being eaten.

  But then he spied the monster sitting by the spit, turning it, while the meat roasted. Behind Caliban--

  Hola. What was here?

  A bundle lay on the ground behind Caliban, and for a moment it looked to Will like a bundle of green cloth — a large blanket or a roll of baize.

  Then he saw the moonlight-bright hair and, looking harder, spied Quicksilver’s pale, severely beautiful face beneath the hair.

  Was Quicksilver alive? Was he dead?

  Forgetting himself, Will stepped farther forward till only a few branches, a few sparse leaves stood between him and the centaurs. Such was his anxiety over the king of fairyland that Will’s breath came short and shallow.

  Many years ago, Will himself had unjustly imprisoned Quicksilver. He’d wrapped him in iron, almost killing him.

  Quicksilver had looked like that then — drained and pale, his moss-green eyes dull, his lips bled of color.

  The then-prince of fairyland had forgiven Will for imprisoning him, for almost killing him. He’d taken no revenge. He’d forgotten all.

  Will thought suddenly, startled by the thought as though it were an alien intrusion into his mind, that Quicksilver had as much reason to resent him as he had to resent Quicksilver.

  Had Will not, once upon a time, ambushed Quicksilver and wrapped him in cold iron, almost killing him?

  Hadn’t Will’s father, while Will was still a youth, beguiled by Sylvanus's evil schemes, helped murder Quicksilver’s own parents?

  Hadn’t Will, in London, spurned Quicksilver so that the hill and London, aye, and the world entire, had almost been lost to the dark Sylvanus?

  And yet, did Quicksilver complain of mortals? Did he fear the mortal world and refuse to face it? Did he tell Will to go elsewhere, to apply for help from some other supernatural being? Did he tell Will to go beguile another elf with his facile mortal lies, his mortal problems?

  No. No. Quicksilver’s devotion was still such that when Will’s son was kidnapped, he followed without thinking.

  Will was here because Hamnet was his son.

  But why was Quicksilver here, if not to rescue Hamnet and spare Will the grief of losing a son?

  And yet — without this being Quicksilver’s strife -- how Quicksilver suffered for it, captive, on the ground, wrapped in something. Iron? He looked tired, almost dead.

  He could be in his hill, with his retainers, but for Will’s sake he was here, in the dangers of the crux, captured by centaurs, brought low by his enemies.

  It was only by staring intently that Will could discern the minute rise and fall of Quicksilver’s chest.

  A great relief flooded Will at seeing that movement.

  Alive. Oh. Quicksilver was still alive. But for how long?

  Slowly, slowly, trying not to snap a twig beneath unwary feet, trying not to set his foot wrong, Will walked around the clearing.

  The centaurs talked, and Will listened with half a mind, noting only that they talked as people do who do not know they’re watched.

  “So, we’ll see him tonight?” the brown one said.

  “Tonight as it ever was, if he manages to give the shrew the slip.”

  “Is the meat not done yet, worthless creature?” the brown one said, and aimed a kick at Caliban.

  Caliban stepped out of the way in time and turned the spit faster.

  “And tomorrow will be the end of that haughty creature,” the black one said. “That tyrant king for whom so many have been killed.”

  Will crept forward silently, holding onto the trunks of trees to avoid accidental falls that would lead to noise.

  He had no very clear idea what to do.

  Reach Quicksilver and free him, of course, from the net or the iron, or whatever it was that held him captive.

  But how to do it and in what way, he couldn’t imagine, as he didn’t know the true nature of what constrained Quicksilver.

  Whatever it was must dampen Quicksilver’s magic, for Will had seen, on the beach, that Quicksilver’s magic was more than a match for everyone else’s here.

  The journey was weary, and every time one of the centaurs moved, Will was afraid he’d somehow see Will through the foliage around.

  Will could use magic to free Quicksilver.

  That thought was also alien and made Will stop. Magic!

  It was true. He could use magic. He’d proven his gift in rescuing Miranda.

  But if he used magic, then he would be, as Quicksilver had said it, neither elf nor human. A human who could do magic, unleashed upon the unmagical world. A mage who’d scare his neighbors. Perhaps scare them enough that they would kill him.

  Even if magic weren’t evil in itself, what business had Will with magic? What would he do with it? He’d never been taught to use it, nor did he wish to learn, and if he performed magic, would he not make mistakes, and cause himself to suffer?

  Or bring death on himself and his family?

  Once, Will had imagined imprisoning Quicksilver in the mortal world and seen how awful a situation that would be.

  Now, Will pictured himself in the mortal world as a magic user.

  Marlowe would have liked that and the secret power that came with it. But Will was ever saner than Marlowe and perhaps, for all of Marlowe’s flaunted cynicism, it was Will who trusted less in the goodness mankind.

  He knew that his being special or having a special power would only bring him the envy and resentment of his neighbors.

  Besides, Will didn’t trust himself at all.

  Yet if Will had a power no one else did, how long till Will felt that he must abuse it, and impinge on others with his force that they couldn’t counteract?

  How long until whole mortals, men and women like him, hated him and killed him?

  No. No. He’d stay without magic. No matter what it took.

  He crept around the clearing, staying within the covering of the trees.

  Near Quicksilver, he stopped.

  Quicksilver’s chest still only moved the slightest bit, like a man in a sleep so deep that he might never wake up.

  He was pale and cold, cold and pale.

  Will crept up on him, keeping close to the ground.

  The brown centaur and the black one had their backs turned, and only Caliban stared at him, his face betraying nothing, as trolls’ faces ever did.

  “Quicksilver,” Will whispered.

  Quicksilver’s gaze turned to Will, and then stared, frantically, over Will’s shoulder.

  “Look out,” Quicksilver rasped.

  Will turned his head.

  He’d forgotten about the dappled centaur, or assumed he was out somewhere, hunting or answering a call of nature.

  But there the centaur stood, hand raised and a thick branch grasped in it.

  Will tried to run out of the way, but the centaur’s other hand grabbed him.

  And then the branch descended upon Will’s skull.

  A moment of pain, and then there was darkness.

  Scene Thirty Four

  Miranda and Proteus, stopping in a clearing, while the night of the crux swirls above in streaks of black and dark, dark blue. Around them, the
forest rustles. It sounds as if the shadows, lengthening beneath every bush, were animated with purposes of their own. The night smells of frost and fear.

  “Let us rest here, and proceed apace,” Proteus said. “And here shall I conjure food to assuage your hunger, water to quench your thirst.”

  Miranda nodded. She’d talked but little the whole day. She felt that Proteus was not being truthful with her, and she shied from talk in which he might tell her untruths.

  As of yet, she could not decide whether Proteus lied to deceive her or lied because he had deceived himself.

  The world outside fairytales and legends was more complex than she’d ever dreamed.

  Now she watched as, standing in the middle of the clearing, he made arcane gestures and strange passes and called to him the food from the elves’ tables in Avalon.

  He’d told her that elves sometimes did this, and stole the food from the tables of humans, leaving only shadows and illusions in its place, things that could not feed the mortals, nor fulfill their physical needs.

  Yet the illusion remained and humans didn’t know themselves duped.

  Looking at Proteus doing the summoning, Miranda wondered if she, also, had been taken in by a shadow and an illusion.

  Was fair Proteus that which she’d imagined, the creature with whom she’d believed she’d spend her whole life?

  Or had he lied to her?

  Proteus, mid-summoning, looked at her and smiled, a gentle, kind smile.

  Oh, unworthy thoughts. Oh, cursed doubts.

  Miranda smiled back. He loved her. How could she doubt it? He had told her he loved her. And look, the fond looks he bestowed on her. Unworthy Miranda doubting Proteus.

  Yet a man may smile and smile and be a villain.

  Proteus brought forth flat cakes, cooked in the kitchen of the hill, and warm, savory roasted meat, and ale in a foaming pitcher.

  Miranda ate the cakes but only tasted the meat.

  It seemed to her that if it were Proteus who had tried to lay the sleep-spell on her the night before, then he might try something different today.

  In fact, whoever her enemy was, he might try something else today. The spell to make her sleep having been detected and failed, whoever had cast it might now set a sleeping potion on the ale or meat and make Miranda sleep thus -- in a way her magic training could not detect.

  And while she slept, what would happen?

  Had she slept last night, Caliban would have been eaten. Had the mortal slept, she would have been — she shrank from thinking on it. Up in her mind came an image of herself, surrounded by the wild centaurs.

  “Give me of your ale,” she told Proteus. He had conjured thick ceramic mugs and poured ale for each of them in separate mugs.

  He looked at her, gently puzzled, and creased his eyebrows in wonder over his dark eyes. “You have your own, love,” he said and, gently, touched the side of her mug with his finger.

  “I want yours,” Miranda said, seeking to put into her voice just the right caprice, the right careless command to sound like a spoiled girl playing with her lover. She smiled on him, what she hoped was her most radiant smile. “For all that your lips touch is sacred to me, fair Proteus.”

  He wrinkled his brow. He looked puzzled. He smiled and sighed at once, as though accepting the inevitable. “Far be it from me,” he said, "to disobey my lady’s command.”

  He offered her his mug. He took her own.

  Taking it to his lips and tasting it, he made a face, then looked at the mug and chuckled. “How came this blade of grass onto my mug?” He poured the ale out, gave himself a new portion from the pitcher.

  Miranda sipped her ale.

  There were leaves and moss aplenty here, but no grass in sight. How not to suspect ill, when so many reasons for suspicion were at hand? How not to fear? How not to plot and plan?

  She slaked her thirst on that one mug of ale. When Proteus poured her a second, she noted how his hand lingered over the mug, and how it seemed that some dust fell from his sleeve onto the drink.

  She pretended to drink it, but when he turned she poured it into the ground, behind her.

  Then she faked sleepiness, and she covered her mouth with her hand while she yawned. “Oh,” she said. “What is it with me all of a sudden, that my eyes close and my head droops.”

  If she were wrong, she would be doing Proteus an injustice. But what would Proteus know of it, if she were wrong? How would it affect Proteus if her suspicions of him were unfounded?

  He would know she looked sleepy, and then nothing more. He wouldn’t know of the night she’d spent, vigilant, upon the hard ground, spying on him.

  And their life and their love would go on unaffected. Their joys would erase her shaky suspicions. Thirty years from now, she might tell him and then would they laugh on it, together, in their palace.

  But first she must be sure, and to be sure she must stay awake.

  “I am so sleepy, my Lord, that I can scant see your beloved face, and my eyelids, weighted like two stones, pull me down to the bottom of the lake of sleep.”

  Proteus smiled again, his smile perhaps just a little too satisfied. Satisfied at her calling him her lord? Or did he have darker reasons for satisfaction?

  “Let yourself sink into sleep, then, Miranda, and upon this clearing, let us call the day farewell. Tomorrow is the last day we may spend in the crux without forever becoming a part of it. Let us, tomorrow, finish our journey to the castle and free the small, innocent prisoner. Then we shall return to the hill and make terms with your uncle who might be, truly, more sinned against than a sinner.”

  Scene Thirty Five

  Miranda and Proteus lying on the leaf-cushioned ground. From afar they look indistinguishable — two people-shaped mounds, each coiled upon itself. But then one of them moves and rises. It is Proteus. The other one — Miranda — coils tighter upon herself. There’s vigilance in the tilt of her head but not so much that it would be noticed by someone who doesn’t know her to be awake.

  Miranda heard Proteus get up, and, without changing her position, half-opened her eyes, spying through her golden lashes as Proteus stood up.

  He looked handsome still, even in the dark, even in the dread light of her suspicions. His slim body glided with graceful secretiveness. His hair sparkled in the scant light. And the smile that half-twisted his lips made them look riper and more appetizing.

  How could she not love him, when she saw him thus and how, seeing him thus, not love him so wholly?

  Yet he was up, while she — as he thought -- lay sleeping.

  Why was he up? Suspicion, wakening, stood beside love and held it in check. Silently, he brushed leaves from his suit and headed towards the fringe of trees, as though following a prearranged path.

  Oh, traitor. How could he? How could he have deceived her so? With what grace had he been blessed, and all to throw it away on such dishonorable dealings.

  She bit her lip. Yet she judged too fast. Had she not, just the night before, set a sleep-spell on Proteus and, with it, made sure Proteus could not follow her when she got up?

  And yet, she loved him well and she was true to him.

  Perhaps he, also, suspected a great, unnamed enemy. Perhaps he now proposed to find that enemy and keep them both safe. Perhaps for that reason he’d tried to make sure that Miranda was asleep, that she might not interfere or risk herself.

  And perhaps Miranda was wrong to suspect him.

  In the dark of night, in the solitude of her suspicious heart, Miranda felt so remorseful for suspecting Proteus that she almost stood up and fell on her knees before him, almost begged him for forgiveness and explained that she too had suspicions and asked if, perhaps, together they could find their mutual enemy.

  Could it be her father?

  But— her birth father, or her true one? On this thought, her heart clenched as though it had transformed into a block of the purest ice, from which cold flowed out to freeze her limbs.

  Could it be her
true father, the Hunter, who thus plotted against her? How could she bear it if it were?

  But how could she bear it if it were Proteus?

  Which would she rather suspect: Proteus or the Hunter?

  Oh, cursed choice, and she could not choose, but in the indecision of her fears she would suspect both and believe neither guilty. She lay awake as Proteus tiptoed into the forest.

  Then, heartsick and hating herself, she stood and followed her love into the dense growth, looking to find what he went to do.

  She saw him advance into the trees, and she saw, in the distance, a lantern carried erratically, like the beacon of a drunken firefly.

  The centaurs! That must be whom Proteus had gone to seek out. Proteus would discover them now and know for sure their treachery, their horrible treachery.

  She was sure that was what he meant to do tonight — avenge the insult they’d offered Miranda.

  Her heart beating so hard that she fancied Proteus would hear it and turn around to look at her, she followed him with cautious feet, careful not to step on the brittle twig or the rustling leaf.

  There.

  The centaurs were within her view — surely also within Proteus's view — and his stride acquired a greater confidence. He would now lay waste their treasons and their dark plans. He would avenge his lady’s honor. Watch how he tilted his head up in angered pride. Watch how he lengthened his stride. Watch how confidently he called forth, “Hola!”

  She almost called to him. Almost. Almost offered to fight by his side.

  But in the glimmering beacon of the lantern, she saw in the clearing not only the three centaurs but someone else whose presence so surprised her, she all but lost her power of speech.

  For amid the centaurs, Caliban sat. A sullen and bedraggled Caliban, to be sure — a Caliban hunched upon the ground in the pose he assumed when he’d been denied some treat that he craved.

  But it was Caliban nonetheless, and how could Caliban thus consort with his mortal enemies?

  With those who, but yesterday, had sought to eat him?