She wondered how old she was. If the painted lips she studied had ever known the kiss of a man.
“Lunette?” She looked to her left, upon that strange face that was barely even distracted from the task at hand. “When am I to be wed?”
“On the morrow,” Lunette reached in and took Meredith’s hand inside her own. She gave the fingers a squeeze and tilted her head in curious compassion. “Why you’re trembling like a little flower. There’s no need for you to be nervous, dear lady. What more could a pretty young princess such as yourself want, but to be a queen?”
She hadn’t even noticed she was shaking and in the wake of Lunette’s compliment Meredith’s half smile was meaningless against the throng of attendants.
There was something very strange and wrong about all of it, but not even Lunette seemed to notice that Meredith’s painfully confused expression seemed to be screaming out: there is much to be discontent about when you have no idea who you are or where you’ve come from!
“There you go,” Lunette stepped back and looked Meredith over with a proud, yet crooked grin. “It is no small wonder he has chosen you as his bride. You are beyond lovely, and his highness will be the envy of the kingdom with you seated beside him on the throne.”
A warm rush of blood flushed Meredith’s cheeks and she looked away, toward the hoary flow of light streaming in through the western windows.
She paid no attention to the finishing touches they fussed over, and before she knew it she was being directed down a long, winding course of stairs. Beyond the dark, stained-glass windows they passed, she could see the refracted light of the setting sun, burned gold and red as blood as it streamed through that colored glass.
In the back of her mind, part of her screamed, "Make a break for it," the moment she saw the door she’d come through, but when the staircase ended, she was in a different part of the castle, warmed and generously lit by a row of sconces on each side of the hall.
A closed door loomed at the end of the hallway like a terrible shadow, but just underneath the crack in the door she could see light and the flickering of bodily movement on the other side.
“This is as far as I go, lady.” Lunette braced her arm and pushed her forward a little.
Meredith looked back at her in longing. Though she wasn’t sure why, she felt comfortable with the strange being that brought her in from the harsh outdoors and made her feel human again.
There was only the slightest throbbing reminder of her headache as she took several tentative steps toward the door. She paused to look back at Lunette who waved her forward.
Knowing she would never be able to go back now, Meredith approached the heavy doors and opened them into the ballroom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Waiting on the other side of the door was a lively and colorful hall, music-filled and packed with a throng of even more strangely decorated and bizarre creatures than the ones that had attended to her needs upstairs.
All of them were gaily dressed for the event, and as Meredith looked horrified around the room at the twisted manner of faces that looked back at her, she vaguely remembered that Lunette had said it would be a masquerade and that quickly explained the bizarre stream of faces flitting about the ballroom.
She started to back out of the hall, realizing that she had no mask herself, but the doors closed her inside and she had no choice but to enter the room. It hummed with so much conversation and laughter that Meredith wondered if she hadn’t gone mad, and these were the voices in her own head chattering endlessly and laughing, so much laughing.
“Our lady of honor has arrived,” she heard a male voice call out, and several necks craned while their strange, masked faces turned her way.
The pounding sensation in her heart froze her in her tracks, but as all eyes scanned her with curiosity, she realized the only way to escape their prying stares would be to disappear into the crowd.
She tried to smile as she began to press her way through the bodies, but imagined that each time she made eye contact with someone the look she truly wore was far from pleasant.
“Relax.” She commanded under her breath. “Perhaps a bit of nourishment will help you remember why you’re here.”
And talking to herself aloud wasn’t a sign that she’d gone mad…
Pursing her lips tightly together, several of the guests greeted her as she passed by table after table, and it was impossible not to make eye contact as she drifted through the closely pressed bodies on the ballroom floor. Black and yellow orbs peered out at her from behind masks and hands reached up to stifle giggles and hide whispers of gossip and curiosity. Securely hidden behind their masks, they possessed an air of secrecy, and her own inability to hide her face made her feel naked and exposed.
Meredith scanned the room, which was decorated beautifully with strands of shining glass orbs wrapped in twines of lavender and yellow flowers, and she couldn't tell if the orbs actually shone with light of their own, or they simply reflected the glow of the fireplaces that warmed the room.
A second set of double doors loomed at the far end of the room, placed just before another set of double doors, there was one table more elegantly ornamented than the rest with two high-backed, empty chairs. Seated on each side of those empty chairs there was seated one attendant each.
Once more Meredith searched the room for some sign of the shadow-king she’d seen lurking at the top of the stairwell when she’d arrived. Perhaps one look into his eyes would remind her why she was here, and though she did not allow the prospect to excite her, there was a moment that the fairytale illusion of it all lifted her up onto an imaginary pedestal and allowed her to glide effortlessly through the crowded room toward that table.
She was the guest of honor, was to be queen of all the bodies dancing through that room.
Surely, that was something to feel at least a little giddy about.
“Lady.”
The two attendants rose and came toward her, one arriving on each side of her and holding out a hand. Both were very obviously male, and disguised by nothing more than simple, silver plated oval masks, but underneath their skin and faces seemed strange and peculiar, much like the ladies who had waited on her upstairs with Lunette.
“His majesty begs forgiveness, for he will not arrive until long after the feast has ended and the entertainment has begun.”
“Oh.” She looked between them like a startled doe at the end of a hunter's spear.
“He’s been detained,” the other explained before she even had the chance to inquire.
She swallowed slowly and nodded, “I see.”
“The king assigned my brother Flick and me to accommodate his lady’s every need in his absence,” the second attendant explained.
“And who are you?” Her curiosity drew her mouth into a bemused grin as the brothers each lowered an arm behind her and began to lead her toward the table they’d come from.
“Frick Drindle, at your service, my lady.” He bowed toward her with an exaggerated flair. “Won’t you dine with us?”
“I suppose I could,” she conceded gently.
"Come this way then, lady."
“When can we expect the king arrive?”
“Oh, it won’t be long at all,” Flick answered. “He was most aggrieved not to be able to meet with you here himself.”
“As am I to not have been met by him,” she admitted.
Frick stopped to pull out her chair while Flick helped her into her seat, and the two of them pushed her toward the table together. The brothers were seated, one on each side of her, and together they began to fill her plate with a strange assortment of delicious smelling foods. The aromas wafted up to meet her, urging her stomach toward hunger.
“I suspect you’re famished after so long and rigorous a journey,” Frick, or was it Flick, said. It was impossible to tell them apart, but she supposed it didn’t matter.
There was a brief flicker of a moment when a strange, but familiar voice called from the b
ack of her mind…something about refusing food from the faerie world, and she regarded the layout before her. Who did that distant voice belong to?
“Not so famished as you might expect,” she explained, holding a tentative hand out to the plate.
“Oh, but you must eat,” Flick insisted, or perhaps it was really Frick after all. She really couldn’t tell the difference between the two of them at all, and the commotion of the room wasn’t making it any easier for her to focus.
“The cook will take great insult if the guest of honor does not have a taste of nearly every dish that he prepared in her honor.”
Meredith grimaced and swallowed nervously, the strange dishes not unappealing, but the nervousness inside her stomach making the very thought of food turn her nauseous.
“I suppose a small taste couldn’t hurt,” she said, reaching for her utensils and searching the colorful array of dishes they had loaded onto her plate. She spooned a bite of bread pudding into her mouth, reveling in the sweet, yet spicy conflict of flavor. She flaked off a piece of savory fish with her fork, and lifted it to breathe in the heady scent before testing a bite on the tip of her tongue.
Frick and Flick leaned in on both sides of her anticipating her delight with eager, watchful eyes.
Flick, or maybe it was Frick, poured her a goblet of wine and held it forward for her to take. Meredith accepted the goblet, and gulped down a heavy drink, dribbling a splash of the purple liquid down her chin. She laughed self-consciously and wiped the wine from her chin before it could drip onto her gown, but neither Flick, nor Frick seemed to notice her disgrace.
It immediately began to warm her from the inside out, awakening a giddy, familiar feeling inside her that came with a whole host of expectations, but what those expectations were, she couldn’t even begin to understand.
The twins, Flick and Frick, kept her busy between them while the court feasted in joyous revelry.
It was both a comfort and a fright to be at the head of so many people, but midway through the dinner the eyes stopped turning toward her expectantly, and Meredith felt herself grow easy in her seat.
Frick and Flick entertained her with riddles and the occasional tidbit of courtly gossip, pointing out to her the Lord Wartemous, who had lately been cuckolded by his Lady Wrenfrood and her baseborn lover, a servant of the castle who was so low there was no need to even name him. Then there was Dame Barbose who had been widowed thrice and was under silent suspicion of the entire court, who believed she had a fondness and flair for poison when she didn’t get her way.
It seemed strange to her the appropriateness of the courtly setting among so savage a group of creatures. Surely not a one of them was human, even under their hideous masks, she thought, but if they weren’t human, what else would they be?
A momentary flash of memory moved through her. Hideous yellow eyes, clawing green hands, but the memory and the fear it stoked inside her was easily washed away by another swallow of wine when Flick filled her cup again and pushed it toward her lips.
The flickers of worry she felt grew fewer and further between with each swallow of wine, but from time to time she found her scattered, lazy mind drifting toward the prospect of her supposed betrothed. Why hadn't he met her himself? Would he even come at all, or would she be led to her wedding without having even glimpsed the man she was meant to marry? What if he was as hideous as the creatures surrounding her? What if he was cruel?
Lunette said he would certainly charm her, but Meredith couldn't imagine herself so easily charmed by a twisted mask of a face that barely resembled humanity at all.
A puppet show began beside the head table, and Meredith was easily roped into the silly, yet tawdry plot between a bulbous nosed puppet called Lord Pillbrick and a saucy chambermaid with vacant black eyes and bouncing brown braids. She found herself giggling behind her wine goblet at the suggestive nature of the plot, and was even further delighted when the puppet play ended and the court jester took center stage.
It distracted her from her worries for the moment, and she became so wrapped up in the humor and entertainment, she did not notice Frick and Flick's silent departure, or that the king had slid into place beside her.
It wasn’t until she leaned back in her chair laughing and ready to share her knowledge of the punch line with Frick (or was it Flick?) that she started at the unfamiliar presence there beside her.
Before she could find the words to speak, the golden-masked figure leaned close and breathed his smooth yet subtly familiar voice against her ear. “It brings me great joy to find you delighted and so entertained here in my court.”
Meredith shrank to the left and away from the strange, lithe figure that had snuck in unnoticed beside her, although she was complete intrigued by the very notion of him there.
Imperially garbed in the most splendid shade of plum, he was lean, she noted, and very tall. His long legs stretched casually beneath the table and he leaned back in the chair to relax.
He was breathtaking to behold, his black hair falling in long wisps around the golden mask that framed his face. The mask he wore was polished perfectly so that each time she looked at his face she could see her own reflection gazing back at her in distorted fashion. The luscious curve of his pink mouth shown just below the sharp point of the mask’s nose, but other than his lips, the only true part of his face she could see where the two eyes staring out at her from behind the mask, blue as the coldest winter was one, and the other milk white the lid surrounding puckered by a scar. While the scar should have been hideous, it was intriguing and so was he.
"I know those eyes,” she realized thoughtfully.
The king’s mouth stretched into a slow grin. “And these eyes know you, perhaps even more intimately than you could ever dream, for I have watched after you ever long.”
The thought of him and his vague familiarity acted as both comfort and conflict in her heart.
How is it she recalled the memory of him, but it came with no implications or certainties. Then before she was able to stop herself from blurting out her own greatest weakness, Meredith said, “Perhaps you’ll think me crazy then, as I marvel the memory and know in my heart that we have met before.”
"Indeed, we have. Do you not remember me?" Kothar's grin was smug.
"I seem to have suffered some malady to the head, and have since forgotten all my past save for my own name.
"You don't say?" He shrank back in perfect horror, lowering the handle of his golden mask so as to reveal a perfectly piteous expression to her. “No memory at all?" He shook his head and turned his attention toward the jester juggling balls in the center of the room. "Is there anything at all I can do for you?"
Uncertain how to answer, Meredith shook her head, “I know not what to ask for at the moment, Sire, but believe me when I tell you I take great comfort in the familiarity of your gaze. I will gladly take up your offer once I’ve been made comfortable here.”
“Ah, the comfort of a husband for his bride-to-be is as it should be,” he nodded and reached out to take her hand inside his own.
“My vague recollection of you only seems to reaffirm the path I was on when I came to my senses.”
“I spoke briefly with your escort,” he told her. “It seems even he has suffered some memory loss in regards to your journey.”
“Is he still here then? My escort?”
“I believe he is,” Kothar nodded, his fingertip tapping the side of his chin as he thought. “Unless he’s run off, but last I knew he was resting in the servant’s quarters and trying to reclaim his own memories.”
“The poor creature,” she lamented, remembering how cruelly she had treated him on the last leg of their journey. “I was very harsh with him.”
“Fret not,” Kothar shook his head. “It is a servant’s place to suffer his master’s improprieties.”
Still feeling guilty, she looked away then and shrugged. “I suppose so.”
*****
Gorigast stood on the banks of the
Nether Lake, the silver moonlight flickering from behind the clouds long enough to reflect off the water, dimming its inner starlight. He'd walked for miles along the shore searching for something, anything, but there was no sign of the Hunter.
He turned back around and was crawling toward the castle with a heavy, defeated heart. His feet dragged through the sand, leaving a ragged line behind him as he trudged. Head down, he didn't see the bits of wreckage that washed up on the shore while he'd been walking in the opposite direction until he tripped over a shattered plank of wood and skidded face first into the sand.
It figured to be just his luck, he thought, pushing himself up and slapping his hand in anger against the firm surface of the earth beneath him His eyes scanned the wreckage littered all around him. A glint of metal caught in a flash of moonlight, and he scrambled forward on hands and knees to retrieve the sack that held the shining treasure.
He recognized the sack right away. His lady queen carried on her journey through the Wald, and though it felt nearly empty—the contents having most likely spilled into the lake as their raft was tossed about by furious wave after wave—the shiny thing inside had sunk into the bottom of the sack when he picked it up. He opened it up to look inside.
Whatever it was shone dull flashes of gold and silver against the dark interior of the sack, and Gorigast reached a careful hand inside to retrieve it. He brought forth a beautiful mask unlike any he had ever seen, though he could tell from its design it was older than even he was. It pulsed with an ancient magic that warmed his fingers, spread into his wrists and up his arms, into his chest as though reaching for his heart.
It belonged to the lady. He wasn't sure how he knew, but with equal certainty he also knew he must get it back to her, and quickly.
He hesitated returning it into the dripping satchel because holding it in his hands made him feel warm and alive, but then he called to mind the kindness in her eyes. She had trusted him from the very moment they met, and with a twinge of guilt, Gorigast dropped the mask back into the sack.
The Goblin Market (Into the Green) Page 24
