Mr Drake and My Lady Silver

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘Good morning!’ Ilsevel called, elated. ‘Madam, may I request your aid?’

  The trow stopped the moment Ilsevel’s ringing voice broke the stillness of the leaden morning. She looked long at Ilsevel, confusion and wariness evident in her rigid posture and wide eyes. ‘Who are you?’ she said at length in a dry, scratchy voice.

  ‘My name is— is Ilsevel,’ she replied, settling once again for some semblance of an alias. She longed to announce herself under her own, true names once again, for it had been so long — so long! But caution won, and Ilsevel submitted to concealment. She began again. ‘I am lost in these parts, and it is quite cold, and I wish you will tell me which way I must go to get out of this wood?’

  The trow looked about, and a faint smile — almost a smirk — touched her lips. ‘Going in circles, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘Why, perhaps I have been, at that.’ Ilsevel looked around, uncertain. Truth be told, she had no means of telling whether she had passed these particular trees before. They were oaks, and ancient, and covered in snow; what more was there to consider?

  ‘It is the way of this wood,’ said the trow. ‘It don’t give up its tricks easy.’

  ‘I only want to go somewhere warm,’ pleaded Ilsevel. ‘The wood may keep its tricks, and welcome.’

  The trow woman was carrying something, Ilsevel now saw: a bundle lay in her arms, but it was wrapped in wool of the same colour as her cloak, and had not been apparent before. ‘Carry this for me,’ she said, holding out the bundle to Ilsevel, ‘and you may come along with me.’

  Ilsevel took it gladly, and instantly discovered it to be a child, for a dark, wizened little face peeped out at her from within the woollen folds. The creature was tiny, and weighed barely anything. ‘Your child?’ she hazarded.

  ‘My Lallet,’ said the trow, which Ilsevel took for confirmation. ‘And you may call me Peech.’

  ‘I thank you for your help, Peech,’ said Ilsevel, and curtsied; not the way she had seen the women of England manage it, a mere graceless bob, and a dip of the bonnet. No, to Peech she made a reverence worthy of the court at Mirramay, for she felt rather as though the little trow woman might have saved her life. How much longer could she have lasted, alone in the snow, and going forever in circles?

  Peech seemed tickled, and rewarded Ilsevel with a wry grin. ‘Aye, well,’ she said, and bustled off. Ilsevel hastened to follow.

  They had not gone far before the woods came to an end. Ilsevel watched Peech closely, hoping to detect the trick or pattern that permitted the trow to find her way where Ilsevel could not. But she saw nothing out of the common way. Peech merely hurried on, moving at a fair clip, and within minutes the craggy oaks were behind them and they were passing instead through a snowy expanse of little hillocks. Trow knowes, Ilsevel realised, for Peech marched a winding path past several and then came to a stop at one particular one, a modest little hill liberally blanketed in snow, and with a neat round door set into the front. She took hold of a heavy brass door-knocker that hung upon it and clattered it wildly about, yelling, ‘Peech and Lallet, and guest!’

  The door was hastily flung open, and a second trow appeared there, a wizened, elderly fellow with wisps of white hair sparsely scattered across his scalp. His grass-coloured waistcoat was too big for him, and so were his apple-green shoes. ‘Guest?’ he said.

  Peech pointed a long, sharp finger at Ilsevel. ‘Lady there!’ she announced. ‘Fine lady, I make no doubt.’

  ‘Cold lady, too,’ suggested Ilsevel hopefully, and was duly ushered inside. She suffered a moment’s doubt upon approaching the door, that it should prove too small for her to fit. But as she drew near, it wriggled and coughed and surged suddenly to twice its former size, becoming more than capacious enough to suit her.

  ‘Why, thank you!’ said Ilsevel, and trailed her fingers across it as she passed, by way of gratitude.

  The door shivered, and hurled itself shut again.

  The knowe consisted of one wide, round room, with a low ceiling which proved not quite so accommodating as the door. Ilsevel could stand upright, but barely. On one side of the dwelling there were trow-sized beds, and a cradle for Lallet. On the other was a fireplace, flanked by a pair of soft but threadbare arm chairs. A fire was roaring in the hearth, and Ilsevel drifted insensibly towards it, wondering if it would be rude to remove her shoes. Ordinarily she would not hesitate, but you never knew with fae folk; some were funny like that.

  ‘Get them wet things off you,’ said Peech, and Ilsevel was happy to obey. Her skirts had survived mostly unwetted, thanks to her enchantments, but her stockings and shoes were all wet through, and these she stripped off with a grateful sigh. Peech bustled about, taking them from her and hanging them before the blaze. ‘Now then, what’s it to be?’ she said. ‘Roast pigeon I’ve got, or there’s a pie if you prefer, with vegetables in it. And a junket of cream for afters.’

  Ilsevel, who was very hungry, said: ‘A little of everything, if I may.’

  ‘Cold winds make for empty stomachs,’ remarked the elderly trow wisely.

  ‘That they do,’ murmured Ilsevel.

  There did not appear to be anywhere to cook anything in the house, which puzzled Ilsevel at first. But Peech went to a stout, if unlovely, chest of gnarled wood that stood behind one of the beds, and rapped sharply upon the lid — thrice. ‘Pie!’ she barked. ‘Pigeon! And junket.’

  Then she opened the lid, and out came all three. These she set before Ilsevel, who accepted them with gratitude — and eyed the chest with considerable interest.

  Peech repeated this process, and delivered another set of comestibles to the elderly trow. ‘Eat up, Pops!’ she said, and Pops patted her head peaceably by way of reply.

  She supplied herself next, and finished with: ‘And sweet milk for Lallet,’ which promptly appeared. That was that. The chest quietly locked itself and sat inert, looking by no means like the sort of powerful enchantment that had no business occupying so humble an abode.

  For a little while, Ilsevel had no attention for anything but her food, and the pitcher of warm cider which Peech soon afterwards gave her (not from the chest, this time). But once she had somewhat satisfied her hunger, she had leisure to look about her, and take more careful note of Peech in particular. The trow had thrown off her enshrouding cloak, and for the first time Ilsevel noticed what she wore beneath: a neat, green-embroidered dress of thick cotton, with a shabby cream-coloured shawl tucked into the neck. The style was familiar to Ilsevel: wide skirts, long sleeves and a flat front, with buttons all in a row from neck to waist, and a deal of fabric behind. Only now did it strike her that she had seen no one wearing such garments since she had shaken off the transforming curse, and regained her human shape. Fashions had moved on, both in England and in Aylfenhame.

  She must be very hard up, Ilsevel thought, if she is still wearing such outdated clothes. Her father, too, for Pops’s long, embroidered waistcoat, knee-breeches and thigh-length coat were of an era to match his daughter’s. The enchanted chest seemed even more incongruous in light of such conclusions as this, and Ilsevel began to feel that she was got into a very strange place indeed.

  ‘The question may seem peculiar,’ Ilsevel began, when a pause in Peech’s almost ceaseless patter of conversation with her father permitted, ‘But where is this place? Where is it I have come to?’

  Peech gave her a measured look. ‘How came you here, if you don’t know where it is?’

  ‘I was… brought, somehow,’ said Ilsevel. ‘By someone, I must suppose, but as to who it was or how it came about, I do not know.’

  Pops had settled into one of the deep arm chairs and lit a pipe. This one did not produce smoke, to Ilsevel’s interest: instead it emitted streams of tiny, fiery bubbles. They took a long time to dissipate, and soon the air over the fireplace was filled with drifting clouds of them. Ilsevel was fascinated to discover that they gave off a pleasant warmth of their own. Pops sat with the pipe’s stem fixed most of the time in his mouth, bu
t at length he took it out and said: ‘Happens here and there, you know.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Peech. ‘T’ain’t the first time as we’ve had unexpected guests, though it has been a while. Last newcomer was nigh on ten year ago, now.’

  Ilsevel blinked at that. ‘You’ve had no new people here for a decade? Are you so isolated?’

  Peech grinned. ‘Aye, since my Gran’s day at least. They call it Winter’s Hollow, now. Always the snow, and there’s no way in or out.’

  Ilsevel knew not which of these dismaying and curious facts to respond to first. No way out? How was she ever to get home? She swallowed the mild panic she felt at that unwelcome piece of news, and focused her mind instead on the rest. ‘Winter’s Hollow,’ she said, in a measured enough tone. ‘Are there others, then, like it?’

  ‘I heard tell as there’s a Summer Hollow, someplace else,’ offered Peech, rocking a drowsing Lallet in her arms. ‘Cannot say as where, though.’

  ‘There’s all four,’ said Pops. ‘Spring and Autumn. Not as I’ve ever been to ‘em.’

  Intriguing, for Ilsevel had never heard of such places. It would take vast, powerful magics to hold even one such spot in a permanent state of winter, or summer, or spring, and there were four? Who had contrived such a thing, and why? And how was it that Ilsevel, knowledgeable as she was, and formerly resident at the very heart of the court of Aylfenhame, had never heard of it? The implication was that these Hollows were either of such great age that they had passed out of general knowledge; or alternatively, that they had been deliberately hidden from Mirramay because they were in no way sanctioned by authority.

  Which was becoming a regular theme, of late.

  ‘How is it that you are able to survive here?’ she said aloud. ‘If it is always winter, you must not be able to grow any food, and if you cannot get it from outside, then where?’

  ‘The chests,’ said Peech, and jerked her head in the direction of the one which had so obligingly furnished them with dinner. ‘They gives out all the food we could need, and other things. Clothing and shoes. Curatives, and the like.’

  Ilsevel regarded the chest again. ‘Hm,’ she said, somewhat nonplussed. ‘Has your family always lived here?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Pops. ‘Since my Gran’s day at least.’

  ‘Are there many families here?’

  ‘Four-and-thirty,’ said Peech promptly. ‘Five-and-thirty soon enough, for Gladling’s to wed with Tom Blossom’s boy.’

  That made for a larger community than Ilsevel had imagined, though still but a village. ‘What do you all do?’ she asked, her puzzlement growing. If they could not leave, could not grow food and had no need, in fact, to provide for themselves, what was their purpose? Why did they stay?

  ‘Oh!’ said Peech. ‘Well, there is lots we’ve to do, to keep the chests dealing out. Me and Pops, we goes out collecting mushrooms in the woods — the same as you was lost in, lady. There is a type as thrives in the snow, though they can be hard to spot. Dizzy and Dapper, they’s Vintners, they make ice wine. Messle, she gets silk from the snow spiders and spins yarn from it, and Melkin, that’s her husband, he makes shawls and the like wi’ the yarn.’ Peech bustled around the house as she spoke, tidying and cleaning this or that, Lallet now returned to her cradle. Her patter ran on. ‘There’s Nax, he makes them pipes like the one Pap’s so fond of. And Gloswise, she’s a bit of an oddity. Her chest spits out all kinds of flowers, the kinds that don’t bloom in winter. She winterfies ‘em all, and puts them back in.’

  Ilsevel’s mind had begun to drift, lulled by the flow of Peech’s chatter, but at that she sat up. ‘Flowers?’ she said. ‘Like roses, for example? What do you mean by “winterfies”?’

  ‘Aye, I saw a rose at her’s once,’ said Peech, flicking a duster over a windowsill. ‘I don’t know how she does it, but she makes ‘em all frosted-like. Some kind of magic, she once told me, though I don’t know as whether the magic’s hers, rightly speaking, or something to do wi’ the Hollow. Mebbe some of both.’

  Several realisations came to Ilsevel all at once. Winterfied roses! Here was where Wodebean had got the one he’d dropped at the Stairs. Was he the mind behind this place — and the other Hollows? Was it he who kept them here, working away to create the magical goods and materials he later sold in Aylfenhame, and for nothing but food and outdated clothing in return? She would not put it past him. What a fine arrangement he had made for himself! She would make a point of disrupting it for him.

  And as for her sister… those glamoured flowers she had made now appeared to Ilsevel in rather a different light. Had she merely been trying to get Wodebean’s attention, or had she been indicating to him that she knew all about his Season’s Hollows? Had they been more along the lines of a veiled threat?

  And what did she intend to do, if she got hold of him? For though she loved Tyllanthine, Ilsevel knew full well that her sister’s idea of appropriate behaviour did not always coincide with her own. Would she seek to rectify all that was wrong with Wodebean’s little scheme, or would she prefer to join it? Either way, it was so like her to say nothing to Ilsevel about it!

  But if Ilsevel was right, who had contrived that Ilsevel herself should be delivered here? It had happened when she was in Tyllanthine’s own house, or directly outside of it. Her heart broke at the idea that her own sister might so betray her as to trap her in eternal winter, and she hastily shoved the thought far away from her.

  Composure, she reminded herself. A member of the royal house of Mirramay does not lose her self-possession, no matter what the conditions.

  She took a deep, slow breath, and made a resolution: she would find a way out of Winter’s Hollow. That must be her first priority. Then would come the matter of Wodebean, once again, and that of Tyllanthine also.

  ‘Peech,’ she said. ‘Pops. It is not the first time you have received a new resident unexpectedly, you said. It happened ten years ago?’

  ‘About that,’ agreed Peech. ‘Eleven year, perhaps.’

  ‘Is that person still here?’

  Peech grinned. ‘Was Gloswise, and right enough she’s still here.’

  Ilsevel began to get a sense of terrible inevitability. There were too many coincidences occurring for there to be much real chance involved. ‘If it is not too much trouble,’ she said, ‘May I ask that you take me to see her?’

  Chapter Ten

  Phineas had always found Cathedral Close an unsettling place to linger in during the night. Not that he was afraid, exactly, for there was nothing to fear. But there was a heavy stillness to the air, a blanketing silence, that could not but unnerve; and the great, looming shapes of the cathedral itself could do little to reassure. Tonight, a break in the clouds allowed a little moonlight through, and that soft light etched the vast bulk of the stone towers in deep shadow against the sky.

  At least the sun would soon emerge, and dispel the unsettling effects.

  Balligumph was serenely oblivious to atmosphere, and ambled along towards the cathedral’s west front with sublime unconcern, whistling a faint ditty as he walked. He stopped before the huge entrance doors, shut and probably barricaded at this hour, and lifted his great betusked head. ‘Hey!’ he called softly. ‘Tibs!’

  Silence.

  The troll whistled again, more loudly this time, and Phineas could only suppose that the tune was of some relevance. ‘Tibs!’ he called again.

  Nothing happened — but then Phineas’s sharp eyes detected a stirring among the shadows some way above the door, as though something very dark moved there. A dusty voice spoke. ‘Mister Tibs.’

  Balligumph chuckled. ‘Still jealous o’ yer dignity, old friend? Very well. Mister Tibs it shall be, fer there’s no doubt ye deserve the honour. Will ye come down?’

  A shadow peeled itself away from the great, dark mass of the building, and fell headlong to the ground. ‘Mister Balligumph,’ it said, picking itself up. ‘What an unexpected pleasure.’

  ‘It has been a long time,’ Balligumph agre
ed.

  The creaky-voiced shadow proved to be a man rather shorter than Phineas, very dark of complexion, with a wizened face and a contorted posture. His hair and eyes were dark, too, and though his clothes were not actually black, the deep blue of his waistcoat and the dark purple of his breeches did nothing to lessen the general effect. He wore no hat and no coat, and no shoes either, and seemed superbly unaffected by the pervasive cold. He made Balligumph a stately bow, which seemed to Phineas in some indefinable way old-fashioned, and then those black eyes fixed upon Phineas himself.

  ‘My new friend, from t’ bakery,’ said Balligumph. ‘Mr. Drake.’

  The title rung false to Phineas’s ears, for only his father was ever called “Mr. Drake.” He made no objection, however, for it seemed to be a custom between the two, and instead offered Mr. Tibs a bow. ‘A pleasure, sir,’ he said, some part of his mind marvelling that he could meet such a being without much alarm or surprise. Truly, he was growing used to the sudden incursion of Aylfenhame into his world. ‘You must be the cathedral Grim?’

  Mr. Tibs returned the bow, though without the reverence he had shown to Balligumph. ‘That I am,’ he said drily, and looked to the troll. ‘Odd companions you keep nowadays, old friend.’

  ‘He’s a fine fellow,’ said Balligumph comfortably. ‘I’ve taken a liking to him.’

  Tibs grunted. ‘You did not disturb me only to introduce the baker’s boy. What brings the two of you here?’

  ‘Seen him afore, have ye?’ said Balligumph.

  ‘Passing this way and that with his boxes of good-smelling things. Of course I have.’

  Phineas blinked. This person had been sitting up there on the walls, night after night, watching Phineas as he went about his morning deliveries? He did not seem as though he meant any harm, and he had certainly never offered Phineas any. But still, the notion of being so closely observed by an unknown being could not but be a trifle disturbing.