Guardian of the Green Hill

by Laura L. Sullivan

  “Then the girl child came,” Gwidion spat. “That urchin stood on the hill and told the world she would be the next Guardian. My grandfather strode up the hill, slapped her, and told her not to be such a disrespectful chit and go back to her governess. He was told he’d inherit nothing more than an annuity that would keep him from absolute poverty. All the lands, the money, and the amazing adventure and power that go hand in hand with the fairies would go to his sister, Agnes.”

  “My mother,” Phyllida whispered weakly, and Gwidion cuffed her into silence.

  “He was betrayed by his own family! He turned to the fairies, went under the Green Hill, and received his first taste of the dark ways, from the Host.”

  Heedless of the knife, Phyllida burst in again. “He was my mother’s test. She should have left him there! She went after him, right into the hands of the Black Prince. Llewellwn emerged, Agnes was trapped under the Green Hill, and her mother was killed getting her back. It was all his fault!”

  “That minx banished my grandfather, and all the villagers stood behind her, curse them. He was driven from his own home, his own birthright. All he had was his father’s brownie. He never saw his home again. My home.

  “But he planned his revenge,” Gwidion said with the suppressed rage of three generations. “Though he never lived to carry it out. He went to the land between the rivers, and there met with a mystic who taught him to control the minds of men. He had my father, Llyr, by a dancing girl, and took him farther east to the high plateaus. Before he died, he told my father of his birthright, making him swear to return one day and take back what was his. And my father told me.”

  He bent close to Phyllida’s face. “I would have done this the easy way. I have no taste for blood.” He laughed at the lie as he pricked her skin and Phyllida whimpered. Lysander, in his sickbed, moaned and fluttered his eyes. “But someone thwarted me, and if I catch him, I’ll peel the skin from his body. If I had finished my portrait of you, you would have agreed to anything, humbly and gladly. You would have offered me that girl’s head on a pike if I’d asked for it. You are old and feeble—you long to turn the reins over to someone else. To me! Not that weakling of a girl. Make me the Guardian, and you will see how real power can be used. Give me control of the fairies, and no one on earth will naysay me ever again!”

  Was he mad? Meg wondered. Well, yes, he was that. But more important at the moment, he seemed to have no real grasp what the fairies were like—or what it meant to be their Guardian. He thought he could dominate the fairies? Meg knew that to be Guardian was to be one of the most powerless people on earth, someone whose own wishes never came first, who was always struggling to stay one step ahead of events that were beyond her control. And this idiot wanted that?

  But she could see that in the right hands (or more accurately, the wrong hands), the Guardianship could bring sinister rewards. If Gwidion became Guardian and allied himself with the Host, all that malice could flood the country, unchecked. And those other horrors she’d seen in the pool of possibilities—if Gwidion triumphed, would those things come about?

  * * *

  All this time, Finn had not been idle. First he ran to save his own hide (always his top priority), then he looked for help. Bran was his first choice, but though he shook him and slapped his face smartly, Bran only mumbled as he slowly emerged from his drugged stupor. All the same, Finn told his catatonic body what was happening before he went in search of other assistance.

  He ran into Rowan just outside the front door. Rowan, dressed in hunting pinks, was dismounting from a fine bay gelding. “Here, take him,” he said, tossing Finn the reins. “The local lads and I flushed a fox, a hefty dog-fox, but of course it’s too early. Still, the puppies had a fine time wallowing in the scent. What are you going on about?” he asked at last, realizing Finn had been trying to tell him something urgent. “Gwidion stirring things up? That man’s more trouble than he’s worth. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

  “You don’t understand! He’s crazy. He has a knife, and Phyllida, and they’re all up there.… We need the police!”

  But if Rowan heard, he did not understand. He was still under Gwidion’s spell, convinced he was the next lord of the manor, and acted accordingly.

  Finn raced back to the house to look for servants, a telegraph, semaphores, any means of summoning help. He ran smack into a slovenly brown little man in rags.

  “Damme, sir!” the brownie said. “If I’da had toes you’da trod upon ’em.”

  “Whoever you are, I need help. There’s trouble upstairs in Phyllida’s bedroom. There’s a man with a knife, and a goat, and—” But the brownie was already gone. Finn scoured the servants’ quarters, and when he found no one, at last decided he’d have to do something himself. He took an antique sword from one of the decorative suits of armor scattered around the house and headed back upstairs.

  * * *

  The important thing was to get that blade away from Phyllida’s throat. Meg reasoned the easiest way to do that was get it pointing at herself. “You don’t understand how it works, do you?” Meg asked softly. “There’s no point in threatening Phyllida. She can’t give you what you want.”

  “What are you talking about, girl?”

  “You want the Green Hill. You want the fairies. She can’t give you that. She already gave it to me.”

  “That’s not true!” Gwidion looked nervous. “You told me so yourself, under my spell, and the hag confirmed it under torture. You aren’t declared the heir. Only the current Guardian can do that, and she hasn’t declared anyone yet.”

  Rowan walked in, cool and calm. “What’s all this? I’m afraid…” He was about to tell Gwidion his services would no longer be required, but he was ignored.

  Gwidion went on. “All she has to do is say it, say the words, and this will all be mine! The land, the title, the money, and most important, the fairies. She has withstood a great deal of pain this day, but once I go to work on you, girl, she’ll cave quick enough. A few strokes of my knife and—”

  A boy stood in his face, chest to chest, man to man, and slapped him with his open hand. “The Rookery, yours? How dare you, peasant! Remove yourself at once.” Gwidion backhanded him with the butt of his Persian dagger, and Rowan crumpled in a heap. Silly rushed to him wailing, but Meg only used the distraction to edge closer to the door.

  “Stupid boy! Another of my pawns, not so useful as I’d hoped. Now, where were we? Ah, yes, persuasion.” He started toward Meg with the knife raised.

  “You’re wrong!” she cried. “I am her heir, the next Guardian, rightly declared. Phyllida can’t undo that. There’s only one way you can get what you want. Stop me from going to the Green Hill right now. Once I stand on the hill at dawn and accept my place, no one can take it from me, not even you with all your threats.” She put a hand on the doorknob. “It’s me you have to stop. Me you have to kill … if you can.”

  Gwidion lunged for Meg with a strangled roar. Then the lion couchant became the lion rampant—Lysander, nearly dead, half paralyzed by stroke and so weak he was barely conscious, threw himself at Gwidion. There was a flash of metal, a strange thud, a groan, and Lysander slipped on his own blood and fell to the floor. Still he tried to rise and held on to Gwidion’s leg when the man went again for Meg.

  Gwidion shook off the weak grip in annoyance. “Pazhan, kill him!” he ordered. The goat just looked at him. Gwidion punched him in the muzzle. “Do as I say, slave!” Pazhan lowered his great curving horns and charged.

  Meg knew Lysander had done this so she would have a chance at escape, but she couldn’t move. The goat capered backward on his pointed little feet, his horns dark with blood, and awaited further orders.

  “The banshee! The banshee!” Phyllida moaned.

  Meg stood paralyzed, staring at Lysander. Dead, he’s dead. He died protecting me. It’s my fault. Everything’s my fault. In her mind, his body joined the dead mermaids in the surf, the little hairy creature hit with a stone, the c
entaurs with primitive weapons facing guns … all the images she had seen in the pool of possibilities.

  Nothing else will be my fault, she decided. At the last second, she finally found the will for flight and ran out the door. Chase me, she begged silently. Leave Phyllida and the others alone and come after me. She didn’t know if what she had said was true, if all she had to do was declare her acceptance on the hill at dawn. The important thing was that Gwidion believe it and come after her.

  He was faster than she thought, and her head went back with a jerk as he grabbed her by her long, mahogany hair and pulled her off her feet. She saw the knife above her and closed her eyes.

  “Fiddle with my family, will ye!” came a furious voice, and Gwidion was thrown off her. She was straddled by squared-off feet. “Go, lassie, and do what ye have to do. I’ll see to the Lady.” The brownie raised his fists like a bare-knuckle boxer.

  “Pazhan, I don’t have time for this. Take care of this pest, then kill the others—except for Phyllida, I may need her yet—and help me catch the girl.”

  Gwidion ran after Meg, just a few steps behind her, and the goat lowered his horns to the brownie.

  “’Tis you!” the brownie said. “Ye always were a foul piece, goat, even in Bel Thomas’s day. Get yer stinkin’ bulk awa’ and trouble us nae more.” Goat and brownie closed together in a tangle of horns and fists bellowing and slamming from side to side against the walls as they fought. They bounced down the hall, one writhing, pummeling ball of fury, and tumbled down the narrow back stairs.

  Meg came at a dead run to the broad, curving main stairs and skidded on a Turkish carpet. That moment was all Gwidion needed to gain on her. She tried to get up, but the carpet bunched under her feet and she only slid on her back.

  “So much for you!” he said, and again the knife rose above her.

  Finn, with wild bravery, closed his eyes and charged with his sword swinging. Alas, he had no practical experience in swords; he only hit Gwidion across the shins, and unfortunately the sword was only a cheap decorative replica, so it snapped in two without doing much more than bruising Gwidion.

  He slashed and cursed at Finn, who through no skill of his own, dodged the blow by fainting. Gwidion growled, torn between his two foes, and to Meg’s relief, finally started back after her.

  Meg raced out the front door, leaped the hedgerow and ha-ha like a horse in a steeplechase, and lit out for the woods with Gwidion, limping slightly from his bruised shins, hounding her.

  In the Rookery, the brownie and Pazhan bellowed and walloped each other and finally tumbled down the stairs to the first-floor hall. The goat skittered on the marble and backed to the door.

  “My orders were to deal with the pest, that being you,” the goat said, rather more invigorated than put out by his battle. “Since I find myself unable to deal with said pest, I can’t proceed to the rest of his orders—to kill the others. I therefore take my leave of you.” He bent one leg and stuck the other forward in a sort of bow. “Mind the Lady,” he told the brownie. “He may return, if your girl isn’t as swift as she seems.” He backed out of the door and was gone, following his master.

  “I nivver liked that one,” the brownie said, dusting himself off, “but ’taint his fault he’s bound to a lousy master. It may be he don’t care for it much himself.”

  Finn, now conscious but really wishing he weren’t, came down the stairs. “What do we do?”

  “I’ve done all I mean to do. The butter shan’t churn itself.” And the brownie disappeared.

  With a heavy heart, Finn crept back to Phyllida’s room … where he was promptly knocked down by a very groggy and unsteady Bran.

  “Whu … oh, it’s you. Sorry, boy. Up with you!” He took Finn by the forearm and hauled him up, then sat down heavily himself.

  Finn tried his question on Bran. “What do we do?”

  “I stay here and guard my daughter,” he said, “and help her mourn my son-in-law.”

  “Shouldn’t we go after them? Can’t we help Meg?”

  “I may have the strength to guard a doorway, but I’ll be no good running through the woods. Meg’s on her own. She’s a smart girl, and favored by the fairies. She’ll make it to the hill.”

  “And then what? She won’t be able to stop him just because she’s officially Phyllida’s heir.”

  “Then she’ll make her way back here. She knows the woods, she knows the fairies. He doesn’t. The fairies are on her side, as much as they’re on anyone’s side.”

  Finn couldn’t believe that no one was going to help Meg. Silly was beside herself, crying over Lysander’s body more loudly than the strangely calm Phyllida, while the doctor tried ineffectually to revive him. Dickie was no use, of course. Much as he hated to, Finn turned to Rowan.

  “What do we do?”

  “Well, first we call in the carpenter to check the supports, then the walls must be patched and repapered. And the funeral arrangements. The whole town must be invited, and—”

  Finn did what he had always wanted to—he hit Rowan (not too hard) in the jaw. “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like some stupid lord when Lysander has been murdered and your own sister is about to be murdered too! You’re acting like you’re—”

  Under a spell. Of course. He pulled the roll of sketches from under his shirt and found the one depicting Rowan. “There. Take that!” he said, and tore it to bits, breaking the spell.

  Rowan looked like he was in physical pain. As the shreds of paper floated to the floor, he leaned forward, clutching himself as if he had a bellyache and moaning. He fell to his knees and pounded the floor.

  Finn grabbed him by the shoulders. “Snap out of it! We have to help her. What can we do?”

  But Rowan didn’t know. He was disoriented and thoroughly demoralized, and some small part of him, a part that existed before the spell, perhaps, was still trying to calculate costs and timetables of repairs and funeral arrangements. He shook his head and turned away, back to the pitiful carnage in the room.

  Finn paced angrily up and down the hall. He was on his own, and he had no idea what to do. What good am I? he thought. She’s out there all alone with a lunatic and a goat after her, and I’m just scratching my head. Except she wasn’t alone. The woods were full of fairies, and as Bran said, they had to be on her side. But did they know to help her? Did they know what had happened in the Rookery?

  There was one thing he could do, though it nauseated him to even think about it, and he didn’t know if it would help. He went to his room and groped under his mattress until he found a small glass jar. He held it tightly in his hand, almost as if he wished it would shatter and be useless. Then he walked to the oval mirror over his dresser and peered at his face. He thought it was a handsome face, even with the eyepatch. The pain of his half blinding was still fresh, and though the injury was mostly healed, his eye, or the place it had been, still ached at times, as if the absent eye were straining to see.

  “Good-bye,” he said to his reflection, and went downstairs to the part of the garden nearest the woods.

  He took one last look around, at the vibrancy of the sky, bright blue to the east, clouds tinged with rose where the sun settled in the west. The foxgloves depended pinkly from their stalks, petal tongues sticking out at him from gaping petal mouths. He’d never thought much about pink before, dismissing it as a girl’s color. Now that he might never see it again, he clutched it to him like a precious thing. Then he looked to the dark woods. Somewhere out there, the girl who had been a friend to him was in terrible danger. With a sigh, he unscrewed the lid and scooped out a dab of the seeing ointment Dickie had made for him when he was illicitly spying on the fairies. He’d stuck it away as a keepsake with no intent to use it—having lost one eye to the fairies’ wrath, why would he risk the other? Now he resigned himself to the fact that he would be completely blinded for his crimes. His hand shook, but not enough to keep him from dabbing the ointment in his left eye.

  He knew there were fairi
es everywhere in the region. When he’d used the ointment before, he had only to stroll in the woods to find all sorts of fairies going about their daily business, secure in the knowledge that they were invisible. He had to get their attention, and he could only do that if he could see them.

  At first his eye blurred, and for a sickening instant, he was sure the ointment was cursed and he’d lose his sight immediately without even being able to do something for Meg. Then his vision cleared and he saw the world as it always was … except that where there’d been an inconspicuous dun-colored moth, he now saw a diminutive fairy painstakingly gathering buckets of pollen. She had a paintbrush and dabbed some of the flowers with the pollen she’d collected. (And you probably thought bugs took care of pollination.)

  “Hey, you!” he said, squatting down to get to her level. She ignored him.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you.” He gave her a very gentle jab with his finger, though he miscalculated and sent her tumbling toes over wings into the mulch.

  “You can see me?” the tiny fairy squeaked, fluttering herself upright on dusty brown wings.

  “Yes … no, don’t go!” For the pixie had tried to flit away into the foxgloves. Finn caught her in his cupped hands and felt her batting her wings inside, a ticklish sensation, and then one not so pleasant when she bit him on the palm. “Don’t do that. I’m not going to hurt you. I need your help.” He opened his hands a bit for a peek, and she tried to squeeze through. “Can’t you change into something a little bigger? I don’t want to hurt you.” She wanted to hurt him, though, and bit him again, this time holding on.

  “I’m going to let you go, I promise,” he said, wincing and focusing all his concentration on not squishing his hands shut. “Just listen to me first. Meg Morgan, the girl who’s going to be the next Guardian, is in danger. There’s a man chasing her with a knife, and a goat, and I think they want to kill her. The man wants to be Guardian instead of her. You have to help her.” He considered the wee fairy’s size. “Or you have to find someone to help her.” He thought for a moment. That nasty little boy who put his right eye out—Meg had told him Gul Ghillie was really a prince or something. Surely he could help Meg. “You have to find Gul Ghillie, or whatever he calls himself today. Or Fenoderee. Someone who can help Meg. Please.” He opened his cupped hands, and she flitted just out of his reach, thumbed her tiny retroussé nose at him, and fled into the woods.