All Night Awake

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  She looked at the image in the water and felt heartsick. Fool she was, she had believed in him.

  Opening her hand, she let the drop roll out of it, roll onto the floor.

  Shaking, she stood up, she said, “You will forgive me. I do not feel well. I will....” Her voice failed.

  “Milady is ill,” Malachite said, hurrying forth. “Milady is ill. Give her space.”

  But she stood and shook her head and said, against the pressure in her heart. “Not ill, not ill. Only I must.... Deliberate.” She rose from her throne, and fought free of Malachite’s hands. “No, leave me be. I’ll be well enough.”

  She almost ran out of the throne room, ignoring the bobbing waves of courtiers who ran out of her way and bowed and curtsied in her wake.

  Her feet picking up speed, her eyes filling with tears, she ran down a long, echoing hallway, ignoring the disturbed flights of servant fairies, and the courtiers who cleared her way just in time. She thought she heard running steps behind her, but she didn’t turn back to see who it was. She didn’t care.

  She ran all the way to her room, threw herself at the oaken door, opening it with the impact of her weight, and rushing into her own room, surprised her maids, Pease Blossom and Cobweb.

  Pease Blossom, holding one of Ariel’s silken dresses, half-turned, looking shocked. “Milady.”

  “Out,” Ariel said. “Out.” Her voice came out raspy. She leaned against the wall taking deep breaths. “Out, both of you, please.”

  “Milady,” Cobweb said, and bobbed a curtsey, but hazarded, “Is aught wrong?”

  Yes, it was all wrong. Ariel was acting like Quicksilver upon one of his flights of fancy, when he interrupted councils and ordered servants about to suit his caprice.

  And Quicksilver was wrong also. She’d thought that Quicksilver, weak as he was, was hers. She’d just realized that such possession, such dream of possession had been just that. A dream, and vain like all dreaming.

  But Ariel could not say that, dared not say that, so she shook her head and said, “My head aches, what a head have I.” And, putting a hand to her forehead in languid gesture, she leaned further against the wall and implored, “Please, fair maids, if you love me go, and leave me to rest in peace a while.

  The maids retreated, walking backwards, bobbing courtesy, and left Ariel alone, in the splendors of her solitary room.

  The door opened. “Milady, I must apologize. I did not know what he meant to do. Had I known what he knew, what....”

  She opened her eyes, to see Malachite standing by the door.

  “Oh, cease,” she said. “Cease. I care not who knew. Now everyone knows.” She felt tears falling, scalding hot, down her cheeks. Everyone, the whole court knew of her vow with Quicksilver, a vow considered lunacy by all the old elves. And now, now they all knew that she alone kept that vow.

  “Milady,” Malachite advanced, and held both of her hands, and knelt in front of her. “Milady, I would not hurt you for the world. My lord is what he is. He is inconstant, but I have worshiped you only, with a constant.... loyalty from the time we were children. Milady, I beg you to believe I wouldn’t hurt you. I’ve often and often kept what I knew to myself, to save you pain.”

  Through her tears, Ariel saw Malachite’s face intent and eager turned up to her, his eyes burning with a fanaticism humans reserved for their religion. What he knew? What had he known? So this wasn’t the first time that Quicksilver....?

  She shook her head. “I believe you didn’t mean to give me pain, kind Malachite. Now, go, please go and leave me with my grief yet a while. Presently, when I have nursed my grief well, mayhap it will, like a well-fed baby, go to sleep.”

  He rose from his knees, he took her hand. Bowing deeply over it, he touched warm lips to the back of her hand. He left.

  Alone in the room, Ariel wanted to cry. But her tears had, unaccountably, dried. Like fields under the merciless sun, her eyes had no water in them. Water might have brought life, and without water all was dead: her emotions, her fears, Ariel herself.

  This grief she felt, this sense of loss at no longer possessing -- maybe never having possessed -- Quicksilver’s affection loomed too large to be squeezed into mere salt water wrung from the eyes.

  Through grief her thoughts marched, asking questions, like a clear-eyed general upon a conquered city.

  Who had thought to get that image? And how so quick? For Quicksilver had left only the night before, and Ariel thought what she’d seen must have happened tonight, maybe minutes ago.

  No servant faerie was strong enough to fly into London and take those images there, and no elf could have traveled there so quickly.

  Indeed, the presence of the big city made it necessary that travel there be made on foot, or horse, or even enchanted flying horse conjured out of any stick or twig -- which was probably what Quicksilver himself had used. And no elf could have traveled there that quickly.

  Unless one would have followed Quicksilver. No. That was no sense at all. Quicksilver would have felt his being followed.

  No. Something else was here, something, which gave rise to all of Ariel’s fears. There was something wrong. The drop of water.... It went beyond what it showed her. The drop of water itself was wrong.

  There had been magic used there, she was sure, to capture the image at a distance.

  But how could that be? No one but Quicksilver had enough power, in this hill, to do something like that. And how could such spying be done upon the king of faerieland, to the being that held all of his subject’s power -- their very souls -- in his grasp, and him not feel it?

  Her head hurt, truly. The false headache she had claimed pounded upon her, in reality, like a booming thunder that obscured her thoughts.

  She wished she could go out to the terrace and take the air. But it was the night of mortals, daytime in faerieland, and the terrace would be crowded with promenading courtiers discussing the newest piece of gossip.

  And then there would be Hylas. And, Ariel suspected, Malachite waited outside her door, wishing only to pounce upon her, to press upon her all his unwanted affection, all of his overwhelming loyalty.

  Ariel found herself staring at the broad window of her bedroom, a fine sheet of magically created glass, enclosed within a wooden frame that unlatched to allow one to get fresh air. Or to walk out.

  She remembered when Will’s wife, Nan, had been prisoner in faerieland, she’d tried to escape that way.

  That was nonsense, of course, at least for a captive mortal, for the woods upon which the window looked were the woods of faerieland. And mortals could not step between the worlds at will, but only at specified points and even then only with an elf’s consent.

  But Ariel could avail herself of the window, and take a walk outside, amid the woods.

  She opened the window and vaulted over the frame.

  Woods in faerieland looked tidier -- were tidier -- than woods in the mortal world. Here, no creature ran, unheeded, through the undergrowth, no bird dropped feathers upon the ground. The ground was a soft, spongy grassland, and the trees grew straight and unhampered to the very blue sky.

  Ariel took deep breaths of the air scented with flowering plants and green grass.

  Yes, she felt better already. She’d needed this: a little time to recover from her shock and find her feet.

  “It will be no time at all,” a voice said.

  Ariel jumped. She thought the voice addressed her, but, looking around, she saw that she remained alone in these woods. And the voice went on, conversationally, “No time, at all, dear Hylas, till you see me crowned sovereign of faerieland.”

  Now Ariel’s eyes widened, because she recognized the voice as Malachite’s.

  She looked with renewed frenzy at the windows of the palace. One was open. Quicksilver’s room.

  From it, Hylas’ voice came, grave and impertinent, tainted with a horse-like snorting. “If this were in Centauria, we’d have killed him. Made short work of him. Creature like that, with
no strength to defend himself.”

  “Ah, dear Hylas, you do not understand,” Malachite said.

  “Oh, I understand plain enough,” Hylas said. “The weak have no right to live.”

  Malachite laughed. “Centaurs have it easy,” he said.

  Ariel took a deep breath. Her head was reeling again. If they should look out and see her....

  She crept close to the wall of the palace and, knitting herself with it, crept nearer the window.

  If they looked out they wouldn’t see her, then. It would take suspicion and looking just this way to find her. She damped her aura of power, she made herself as inconspicuous as she might, as she crept to the window.

  She wanted to hear more. And she wanted to see. Because, despite her ears, she did not believe Malachite could be saying these things. Was he, perhaps, playing a game to entrap the centaur?

  “Centaurs can kill their kings if they wish,” Malachite said. “But our kings are different. Elven kings have in them all their subjects’ power, and we cannot draw power but from them. It’s hard enough, Hylas, just to have treasonous thoughts without Quicksilver finding me out.”

  Hylas snorted and stamped his hooves. “You seem to manage.”

  Ariel had reached the point where she could look into Quicksilver’s room, and see the two of them -- Hylas standing by the canopied bed and Malachite beside the gilded armor.

  She saw Malachite narrow his eyes, she heard him say, “I’ve hated Quicksilver all my life. Always. Ever since I became conscious of what they’d done to me, of how they’d taken me from my mother and father, and brought me here, to faerieland, to be this creature’s servant.” He pronounced the last word like a crack of the whip.

  Ariel shook. That voice. The hatred in it. It was no game.

  “If you’d not been taken by elves, you’d probably be dead,” Hylas said.

  Malachite exhaled, heavily, and pushed his lips together. “Well, then, I’d be dead in my own time, my own place, and not be a servant, not be looked down upon by creatures who have no right to think themselves better than I.” He stood in front of Quicksilver’s portrait. “It’s always 'Malachite, my other coat,' 'Malachite, my pearl-embroidered shirt,' 'Malachite, my cloak.' And him, not even a proper elf, not even a proper man.” Malachite grinned and in that grin looked more carnivorous, more ferocious than the centaur. “But now he’s done it. Now he’s torn it. Now he’s thrown himself into my power.

  “She’s never loved him, not half, though she thinks she does. He distresses her, he vexes her. Now, he’s gone to disport himself -- or rather Silver -- upon London. It won’t take much till I woo her away from the delusion of being in love with him. And once I have her, I’ll have access to him. He gives her full reach to all the power of the hill. With me to guide her, she can take it, and she can cut him off. And then we can kill him.”

  Hylas looked at Malachite, with a broad smile, but his eyes were anxious. “And then you’ll give Centauria to the centaurs?”

  Malachite glanced at Hylas and nodded. “Of course,” he said. He turned to the mirror. “When I’m king, I shall get rid of all this foppery. I’ll have armor and swords only, in my room.”

  “Should we be meeting here at all?” Hylas asked, stomping his front hoof nervously.

  Malachite laughed. “And why not? In Quicksilver’s absence, only I come into this room. What think you? That his betrayed queen will come here to pine her loss?” He laughed.

  Outside, trembling, Ariel felt tears prickle at her eyes.

  She had to get away. She had to find someone she could trust.

  Her head was such a whirlwind of confusion, that she knew not truth from lies, anymore.

  She loved Quicksilver, or did she not? And Malachite was loyal, was he not? This had to be a game that he was playing upon the centaur.

  But Ariel had heard the hatred in Malachite’s voice.

  Shaking, she closed her eyes. Malachite would only have other changelings in his service. Only changelings in his confidence.

  Did he indeed resent the kidnapping that had given him near immortality?

  Oh, Ariel must get away from here. She must have true counsel, somewhere. Someone had to take pity on her.

  Had her husband betrayed her? Or was he, himself betrayed? Or was she the one who was a toy of fortune?

  Why did she yield to that suggestion whose horrid image did unfix her hair and make her seated heart knock at her ribs, against the use of nature?

  Present fears were less than horrible imaginings: her thought that there was a plot in faerieland was yet but fantastical.

  Shook so her confidence as queen that function was smothered in surmise, and nothing was but what was not?

  Scene Seventeen

  The inside of the tavern. It is a large room, whitewashed, filled with long, rough wooden tables, and long, rough wooden benches beside them. Tables and benches, and the none-too-fresh rushes on the floor, are stained with wine and greasy spots of food and candle drops. Amid the rushes, too, peek the white ends of bones of meat consumed there, where the bones have been carelessly disposed of upon the rushes. Closer inspection would show vermin crawling amid all this, their black, many-legged bodies fat and busy. But none would look at this, save the one or two drunkards who have fallen, face down on the floor, unable to go further. Candles burn in metal holders on the walls, and a fire roars in the large fireplace. There are few drinkers, and those poorly attired. A few dispirited, tired-looking bawds circulate, showing their withered dugs, trying to interest those few patrons. In an ill-lit corner, a few men play the dice.

  At the door to the tavern, Will had tried to back out, but Kit had pulled him and cajoled him along, and told him that since they were here, anyway, they might as well have a drink together, to seal over Kit’s lamentable mistake.

  Unwillingly, Will had let Kit drag him to a table at the back, away from the other drinkers.

  The wench who knew Kit well enough, since he normally took his food at this tavern, living right next door to it, hastened to them, and filled their mugs with good ale.

  She knew Kit for a heavy drinker and a good tipper who yet kept his hands to himself, and this, Kit thought, had much to do with her promptitude in attending to them.

  “We could get something to eat,” Kit said. “I would pay. Some mutton, or quail, perhaps.” He hadn’t eaten since midday and felt lightheaded. Even the smell of old mutton grease in the air made Kit salivate. But Will shook his head, and Kit didn’t wish to press his point, nor did he want to eat while Will watched.

  He wanted to ask Will, just ask, plain out, if Will had met the elves before and what Will knew of the affairs of faerieland.

  But he dared not.

  There was, of course, the possibility that Will’s hospitality to the elf was a chance thing, that Silver had used the human as her puppet, mesmerizing him into helping her, without Will’s knowing what he was doing or having any recollection of it.

  Was it so?

  Kit wanted to believe it was so. He'd believed Will when he’d said he loved only his Nan. There had been truth in his voice, truth in his words.

  Kit wanted to believe him.

  He looked at Will, as Will lifted his mug to his lips and drank. Such a tidy provincial burgher. No good as a poet, of course, and all lacking in the fire that would make him a dramatist. But not a bad sort.

  How could such an uncomplicated creature ever have come by faerieland enchantment, faerieland love, faerieland deception?

  He found Will’s gaze trained on him, and thought how like a falcon Will’s eyes were. A falcon intent upon the kill.

  Of a sudden, he felt quite uncomfortable, as though those golden eyes could scry into Kit’s very soul.

  “How now?” Will asked. “How now? What woe is here?” He looked sympathetic, worried. “Will you tell me, master Marlowe, why you thought me guilty of trespass against you? Surely a reasonable man would not seek my life thus without reason.”

  Marlowe loo
ked up. Reasonable? “And why think you that I’d be reasonable?” He asked and felt a chuckle scrape up his throat that felt raw from crying. “Ask the length and breadth of London, from the secretary Sir Cecil, to the privy chamber, to those arms of it that run the night and ensnare the guilty.” He grinned into the discomfiting green eyes, hoping, hoping that Will didn’t notice the sweat upon Kit’s forehead, the tremor in his hand that raised the mug. He felt like one who had been bereaved, with a secret mourning that no one could share. “Aye, the guilty and the innocent too -- and you might find yourself very lonely in your opinion of my reasonableness, good Tremblestick.” Did Will know of Kit’s bereavement? Was Will’s heart, likewise, dangling from the same high, unattainable point? Why, that would make them almost brothers.

  Yet, Kit looked at those clear eyes with their straightforward glance and could not credit deception from this quarter. He sighed and shrugged. “My attacking you was but one of my mistakes. Of my own muddled head, I thought you’d done me injury. Of my own muddled head and my confused brain, on insufficient grounds and thoughts built thereon.” He frowned. He wanted to know, he needed to know. “Be kind with me, Will, if you would tell me -- ” He opened his mouth to speak, but found his tongue stopped. What if Will said that yes, he knew Silver? What if Will said that Silver had come to London to enjoy Will’s favors in his little, low-rent room?

  Silence lengthened.

  Will looked as if he weighed something in his mind, then shrugged in his turn. As the wench came around to refill their mugs, Will said, “I meant to thank you, Marlowe. Before our...misunderstanding.”

  Kit raised his brows. Will meant to thank Kit, did he? Oh, he hoped, he very much hoped Will wouldn’t say that he meant to thank Kit for the loan of Silver, for Kit would lose what temperance he’d acquired, and go for Will again, be it with bare hands and in front of witnesses.

  “I meant to thank you for your advice,” Will said. He smiled, though his smile looked somewhat like a grimace with bared teeth. Yet, the intention to smile remained, like a shadow behind the real expression. “On how to entice a young nobleman to extend his patronage.”