The Accidental Highwayman
Page 10
It was my intention that we should part as soon as it was practical—and hers, as well. Having learned that Ireland was a free Faerie state, my plan to emigrate to France, not Ireland, was cemented in place. (I didn’t know then that France had six such free states within its borders, but that’s another story.) My own flight must wait. Knowing the risk the princess faced, and having seen how quickly she got into trouble, it was unthinkable that I should leave her side before she was delivered into friendly hands. It was simply good manners.
We had gone but a few miles when Willum returned, accompanied by a third feyín, who would not show herself to me. Her name was Violets, and she spoke only once or twice in my presence, always from a place of concealment. She was determined not to break the Eldritch Law any more than she must. Gruntle addressed her as “cousin,” so these creatures had families much like our own.
First Willum spake to the princess in some other language, presumably the Faerie speech, with much pointing this way and that. Presumably he was telling her what he’d learned of her pursuers, and where we would meet with allies, and so on. She listened closely and interjected questions at certain points, also in the strange tongue. Then it was my turn.
“Captain Sterne, what wants to stretch your neck, has gone haring off eastward,” Willum reported to me. “My mates are following him, and they’ll dash off a bee if anything changes. Apparently the captain thinks you’re so cunning you’d double back and return to your original route, knowing he’d follow thee to the west because he thinks you’d go east, and therefore west, but east, and so forth. North and south didn’t come up. Which goes to show you’re more cunning than he because you’re not actually cunning at all. Which is clever.”
I took him at his word. Then he, Gruntle, and Violets flew off ahead to scout the road for dangers. For a while we rode in peace.
“How does that cloak of yours work?” I asked the princess, after a long silence.
At first she didn’t respond to my question. “I wonder—” said I.
“Forgive me,” she replied. “Thou didst not use the correct form of address, so I did not realize to whom thou spoke.”
“My apologies,” I said. “But I can’t very well call you HRH Morgana, Princess of Faerie, can I? Somewhat gives the disguise away.”
“Call me Morgana, for the nonce.”
“And you may call me Kit.”
“It’s all very new to me,” she said, sounding regretful. “I scarcely know my own privilege. I’ve never had to do anything for myself. Even magic. Unlike my feyín companions, I must use enchanted objects to achieve my caprizels—that’s our word for magical effects.”
“So the cloak is a bit of portable magic, then.”
“It’s called a jaguundi. I was given it for serpicore hunting many years ago. As you must know, the serpicore is slow to fix upon a target for its venom, so merely changing your appearance is enough to baffle it.”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
“And now my cloak provest useful for disguises in the First Realm. But the best disguise for me will be a change of habits. Prithee tell me when I betray my upbringing. I shall not take offense.”
“Very kind of you,” said I, and offered an immediate suggestion. “Here’s one for starters: you might try speaking in a less … archaic manner. I mean no criticism, naturally. But it does stand out. ‘Thee’ and ‘thou’ went out with King James.”
“Shouldst discourse in common speech?” said she, amazed.
“It does have the virtue of being more common.”
“Thus shall it be.”
This brief conversation left me feeling light-headed. At first I thought it was the effect of hunger; I’d eaten little enough the past couple of days and was altogether gutfoundered. But instead, I began to realize Morgana was exerting some sort of charm upon me, as I had suspected. I found her every word delightful and interesting, her every gesture graceful, from the inquiring tilt of her head to the feather-light tread of her foot. I resolved to resist this effect. It must be, I reasoned, like the warming influence of a hearth that lulls the drowsy person to doze, soon to tumble into the embers of the fire. Morgana’s company was warming, but I must not be lulled to sleep.
The journey to the Irish Sea would take weeks on foot and horseback. We were headed roughly northward. For some miles our way was uneventful; it seemed that the ruffian had not reported directly back to Morgana’s father, or if he had, the pursuit had not yet caught us up. Presumably Captain Sterne continued on his way to the east.
Once, when I chanced to look at butterflies flitting above a cottage garden, I thought I saw Violets in the foliage for a moment, dressed like the other wee people, with the addition of a flower on her head—but it was impossible to be sure.
The weather was changing, for there were blue-gray clouds on the horizon and mare’s tails above, which warned we could be in for a soaking before long—by then, I hoped, Morgana would be with the sympathizers to her cause, and I’d be on my roundabout way to Dover.
“I’m going to ask you another question, if I may,” said I, after we had gone another mile or two in silence.
“Pray do,” Morgana said.
“Willum keeps mentioning bees. It’s my impression you use them to send messages.”
“That’s right. I don’t know why you manlings don’t do it.”
“Do you tie a small message to its leg, or do you write directly upon the bee?”
Morgana laughed at this. In fact she laughed until bright tears ran down her face and we had to dismount from the saddle lest she fall from the horse.
Willum and Gruntle returned, alerted by some mysterious instinct, and demanded to know what was the matter.
“You’ve made her cry, you bounder!” Willum shouted, and pointed at my feet. A moment later I was covered in stinging ants.
“I’m laughing,” Morgana said, and laughed all the harder because I was leaping up and down, shrieking and beating at my legs.
Willum called the insects off; they flowed back to the ground and returned to their ant business as if nothing had happened. “My apologies,” said Willum.
“You might learn to control your temper,” I suggested, deeply embarrassed by the spectacle I had made. “Is anyone hungry?” I added, because Gruntle was walking around in the middle of the road, eating the ant casualties.
* * *
I took us down a couple of obscure lanes and found another road to throw off any persons, natural or supernatural, who might be tracking us. We sat to lunch outside a tavern by a river, in a place concealed among lavender bushes. We could not eat within the public house; in most respectable establishments, Gypsies were not permitted to enter. I first suggested Morgana change her appearance to something else, but she insisted she would stay a Gypsy for the duration of the journey, regardless of what people thought.
Willum delighted in the meal—game pie, cheese, and biscuits—of which he ate an extraordinary amount despite his size; Gruntle wasn’t having any of “that fancy foreign muck” and contented himself with wood lice from beneath the log on which we sat. Violets did not show herself. Gruntle claimed she was eating something she brought with her.
Across the river, storm clouds were piling high, but it was sunny on our side. A couple of fishermen walked past, and the feyín vanished, as was their habit. Morgana said this was called “doing a ruckins,” and couldn’t explain how it was accomplished. It was a sort of instinct, like blinking of the eyes. Upon his reappearance, Willum said the age at which feyín infants* learned the trick was a nightmare, because they would sometimes disappear for weeks on end.
Morgana’s feet required tending before we resumed our journey; I would have bound her blisters with a bit of cloth, but Gruntle had some sort of healing comprimaunt that solved the problem. This magic was performed with hand gestures. While her shoes were off, I saw that Morgana’s toes were not entirely human in configuration—as with the feyín’s feet, her first toe started much farther do
wn the foot than her other toes, almost like a thumb. This sort of thing was what made her so fascinating—in the greatest of beauties there is always a touch of the uncanny.
Not being required, I strolled a little distance away and took the opportunity to examine my master’s map. There upon the route was the frog, which could stand for my encounter with the bull’s pond, or collectively for all the plunges I’d taken that day. In the latter case, the frog represented me. The next illustration showed a flower with an arrow through it, and the one after that a horse with a spear through it. I rather hoped this last wasn’t meant to indicate Midnight. I’m not much for riddles.
I was studying these scribbles by the riverbank when I felt a sting upon my neck. With an oath I rubbed the injured spot, thinking a bee had sent me a message in the traditional manner. Instead I discovered a tiny arrow, the size of a tooth-pick, had sunk itself into my skin.
“What the deuce—” I exclaimed, examining the object. Then a horn sounded.
“Pixies!” cried Violets, and I saw her leap out of the lavender bushes from the place in which she’d been concealed, not far from where I stood. “This way,” she called to me, and flew straight for the place Morgana and the others were. Ere she reached them, she fell to the ground, half a dozen of the same arrows bristling from her back. There was a small pop, and Violets disappeared in a puff of dust. Where she had lain, there fluttered three gray moths, which flitted away as if they’d always been moths, and nothing more. Master Rattle had sketched a flower transfixed by an arrow upon the map. If only I had guessed it was a violet!
I crashed through the shrubbery and found the rest of my party on their feet, looking about in alarm. Moments later, a hail of arrows came from the foliage about us. They pricked me like needles. Willum dived behind me, but Gruntle ran to shield the princess. Morgana swept her fist through the air, and the missiles were diverted around us, as if striking an invisible dome of glass.
“I didn’t know I could do that,” she cried, and sprinted for Midnight. I ran after her, Willum and Gruntle flying beside me. A moment later I’d thrown Morgana onto the saddle, and a swarm of feyín even smaller than Willum and Gruntle came buzzing out of the grass, firing their arrows from quivers slung between their wings. I didn’t see them very clearly, for I was climbing into the stirrups myself, but they looked naked, with green skins, and they had the wings of birds, not insects.
“Get into the saddlebag!” I cried to Willum and Gruntle, but then I saw Gruntle fall. He was wounded, an arrow having torn through one of his wings. He tried to fly, but cried out and fell to the ground again. I sprang out of the saddle, beyond the range of Morgana’s protective spell, and immediately felt the bite of a score of the tiny missiles. My mind began to whirl. This must have been the fate of the bandits who waylaid Morgana’s coach: a cloud of maddening arrows. But I scooped up the wounded feyín, tossed him into the saddlebag after Willum, and we were riding away within moments, pursued by the swarm.
Chapter 15
THE BRIDGE
IF YOU have never ridden a great horse, you cannot know what speed feels like. Should men ever learn to fly like the feyín or harness steam-piston engines to a carriage, perhaps then there will be some way to run faster than Midnight. But on that day, there was no swifter creature in the world.
I dashed the arrows from my skin as we went. Morgana, seated sidesaddle in front of me, weighed little more than a child, and I was not a large man, so the horse was scarcely burdened as he fled down lanes and across fields of whispering corn. The sheer strength of him drew tears of exhilaration from my eyes as we soared across the bosom of England. Even the supremely self-possessed Morgana loosed a cry of delight as the mighty horse ran.
We hadn’t had time to discuss a plan, but there was little need of one. Ahead of us was the River T_______. The water was too deep and wide to ford, but there was a broad stone bridge that Morgana could manage, although she would be deprived of her strength while upon it. I could not imagine being unable to cross a body of flowing water—these creatures had such powers, and yet such weaknesses!
But if my companions would find the water an obstacle, our pursuers would have less luck—they didn’t have a human guide to get them across.
[ The Bridge Over the River T—— ]
The river was in sight—the bridge in sight—and Morgana realized where I was taking her. “I cannot cross! It’s too wide!” She struggled as if to leap clear of the horse, and I threw my arm about her.
“You’re as human as I, or nearly so,” I replied. “Draw courage from your mother’s blood.”
The abutment of the bridge was directly before us. There were shrubs around the end of the structure. To my inexpressible horror, a dozen goblings sprang out of them, their stumplike legs churning up the road. Their pikes formed an impenetrable gate as they lined up against us, and I could not help but recall the fateful drawing on the map—a horse pierced through and through!
“All is lost!” Willum cried. But seeing the silvery metal spears arrayed in our path, an inspiration came to me. With scarcely a rod* between us, I plunged my hand into my pocket and dredged up a great fistful of my master’s gold sovereigns.
Midnight’s nose was almost among the lances and the map within a handsbreadth of coming true when I flung the coins full in the gobling’s faces. I might as well have thrown vitriol at them. The creatures screamed and dived out of our path; where the gold smote them, it burst apart, and each fragment burned into their flesh, wreathing them in noxious smoke. One of the goblings tumbled down the bank and into the water with a shriek I will not forget as long as I live.
We were through the scrimmage. On we rode across the span. An unfortunate traveler with his nose in a book had to throw himself out of the way, and I think a fisherman was propelled off the sidewall and into the river. Morgana swooned in my arms—the power of the water was too much for her. At the far end of the bridge was a checkpoint manned by two redcoat soldiers who were too distant to have seen the goblings for what they were, but not too far to hear the commotion. They stood at port arms to stop us. There was a tollbooth there, so I guessed they were not a part of Captain Sterne’s detachment, but ordinary soldiers. It would not go well if they stopped us in any case, so I kept Midnight at a full run and cried, “Her father is after me! If you see an angry Gypsy, don’t spare the ball and powder!”
So saying, I flung another handful of gold at the soldiers, with the opposite result: They sprang not away from the coins, but toward them, laughing at my desperate plight as they filled their pockets.
“Take that!” I cried, and meant it. They troubled us not at all as we sped past.
We had safely crossed the bridge despite enemies on both ends, and it had only cost me the annual salary of a chaplain, about thirty guineas.
We tore down the road. Midnight was nearly blown. Horses will run until they die, if they have to, so the rider must not drive them beyond endurance. I slowed him as soon as it seemed we were not pursued across the water. It began to rain.
A very sick-looking Willum, suffering from the influence of the river, crawled out of the saddlebag and made his way forward. There he performed a comprimaunt that somewhat revived Morgana. The cool rain upon her face also helped.
“We lost Gruntle on the far side of the river,” he said. “Poor chap panicked when he saw the water coming and jumped out of the saddlebag. I’ll never forgive myself for not stopping him.”
“I’ll go back for him straight away,” said I.
“He’s probably dead,” said Willum, and a pale, dreary light gleamed from his breeches. “Lot of goblings just then.”
“Those moths,” said I, my thoughts on the slain Violets. “Is that what you become when you die?”
“They’re called brails,” said Willum. “Without the magic in us, we’re just moths. Violets was a great soul; she became three brails when she went. Gruntle must be an entire choir of them.”
He was choked with emotion.
Morgana hung her head. “My father proposeth to make such foul business a permanent occupation for the entire kingdom of Faerie. I feared this alliance with the human king for my own happiness, but now I have seen one of my father’s own subjects—my people—die before my very eyes,” she said, her voice almost as small as Willum’s. “Had I confronted him when first he made his plans, had I refused on the spot, this might not have happened—”
“It wouldn’t have worked, would it?” I said. “Your father doesn’t listen to you, I suspect.”
“He is the King,” said she, straightening up proudly, and I saw again that regal flash of defiance in her eye: “Our ancient blood holds more wisdom than mere words.” Then the severe look was gone and she shook her head. “I am sorry to speak thus to thee. I’ve got mingled in my veins the summer heat of manlings and the winter’s blood of the Danann Trolkvinde Arian. They take turns making a fool of me.”
She fell silent again, and wept into her hands. It wasn’t her fault she was a princess, and as far as I was concerned, she was on the right side of this business. From what I had seen, Faerie magic was exceedingly powerful. Combine that with mankind’s imperial ambitions and it seemed to me there would never again be peace in any corner of the world. Take one of our warships and teach it to fly: Could not such a vessel rule the land, sea, and sky? Equip its cannon with deadly comprimaunts of fire: Could not such weapons topple the mightiest fortification? Now put a man such as Captain Sterne in command of them, and watch the countryside turn to ash. The very idea chilled my marrows.
There was no sign of our pursuers, so I dismounted and led the panting horse. Willum stayed behind to wait near the bridge, in faint hope that Gruntle might yet make his way across the water.