A Strange and Ancient Name

by Josepha Sherman

  “All . . . well . . .” the prince floundered, “you married him.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know how things stand in Faerie, but women in my land don’t have much say in the matter. A noblewoman must be wed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s no other choice!” Matilde erupted. “She’s not allowed to own property, so His Gracious Majesty off in Paris has decreed. She isn’t trained to—to run a farm or a business like her commonborn sisters. It’s wed, or enter a nunnery.”

  “And you didn’t want that,” Hauberin said, feeling his way through unknown territory. Matilde eyed him uneasily.

  “You . . . wouldn’t know about such things as nunneries, would you? They’re walled retreats, behind which holy woman live and pray, shut away from the distractions of the world.”

  Alliar made a tiny sound of distress. “A prison.”

  “No. Not for those with a true calling. But I . . . oh, dear lord, I—I think I would have smothered behind those walls.”

  “Ae, yes,” the being murmured in sympathy. “So you wed to escape confinement.”

  “I . . . wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but . . . yes. My parents warned me that not many men would want a . . . willful . . . wife, one who wantonly spoke her own mind. Particularly one with ‘unlucky’ hair.” She gave a red braid a sharp tug. “Of course they were right. But my lord husband made a most gracious offer for me. And he’s been good to me. Oh, come,” she added desperately, “you’re both staring at me as though I’ve been speaking a foreign tongue!”

  “In Faerie,” Hauberin murmured, “we wed for love.”

  That earned him an astonished stare. “What, even you, a prince?”

  “Even me. My people can’t lie, remember? And a forced marriage would certainly be a lie.”

  “But you can’t dare wait till you fall in love! I mean, if your people follow any laws of succession—”

  “I must produce an heir? Well yes, everyone would be much happier if said heir came from a wife; it’s . . . tidier.” Hauberin hesitated, trying to avoid shocking her human sensibilities. “But the first child I sire, in wedlock or without, becomes my legal heir.”

  “But . . .”

  “We are not a fertile race. We can’t afford to worry about that ridiculous ‘legitimate’ or ‘illegitimate’.” He shook his head, bemused, “I never realized how large the gap is between our two peoples’ ways. No wonder my mother—Ah, enough of this. Let’s eat the ailaitha berries before they spoil.” When he saw Matilde hesitate, Hauberin added wryly, “I assure you, no matter what the stories say, tasting Faerie food won’t enslave you.”

  “Oh, I didn’t think it would,” she lied boldly, and bit into a berry, hastily leaning forward to keep the spurt of juice from her clothes. “Mm, sweet!”

  “And nourishing,” Hauberin added. “They should keep us healthy till we get out of Nulle Part. Which hopefully won’t take too long.”

  “Amen.”

  They were silent for a time, munching. Suddenly Matilde gave a brittle little laugh.

  “Lady?”

  “Here my husband is forever worrying about my honor. If he could see me now, alone with two strange men . . .”

  “?” Alliar asked silently.

  “Gendered games,” Hauberin explained, and saw comprehension dawn.

  “ ‘Strange,’ indeed,” the being murmured. “No danger from me, lady, believe me. Even if I . . . could desire, I . . . ah, couldn’t.”

  Matilde’s eyes were suddenly fully of pity. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . . Was it a . . . war wound, my lord?”

  Hauberin nearly choked. “She means to the male anatomy, Li.”

  “Oh. Oh! No!” the being cried aloud. “What I meant was, I literally can’t—I don’t have—Oh, Winds! What I am isn’t a man, but a wind spirit. Yes, I know this disguise is convincing, but—Here. Look.”

  Alliar smoothly slid into one of the being’s more usual forms: lithe and sleekly golden of skin and mane, face and body fiercely planed, lovely and sexless as stone. Matilde drew in her breath in astonishment, and Alliar asked uneasily, “Am I so frightening?”

  “So beautiful. I’ve . . . seen your likeness on church walls, my lord. You lack only the wings to be an angel.”

  As Hauberin explained the concept in a flash of thought, the beings eyes widened in embarrassment. “Oh, hardly that! But thank you, my lady.”

  Alliar and Matilde smiled shyly, lost for an instant in their own world. To his amazement, Hauberin felt a sharp twinge of jealousy. Of Alliar? Oh, how utterly ridiculous! But the prince heard himself saying, a touch too sharply, “I think you’ve been asked to accept too many wonders this day, lady. You must be weary.”

  Matilde, still staring at Alliar, started to protest, only to hastily stifle a yawn. Hauberin laughed shortly. “You see? Your body is living by mortal time, which must be somewhere in the small hours of the night. I wish I could conjure an angelic blanket for you”—he shot a wry glance at Alliar—“but I’m not an angel, either. Let’s try to get some sleep, regardless.”

  ###

  The night was very dark; this little pocket of Nowhere lacked stars. Matilde, deep in exhausted slumber, was curled up against the chill like a child, red hair a tangled mass, face looking very young, very innocent. Hauberin sat starkly awake, not daring to gaze her way, staring moodily into the fire. All at once aware of eyes upon him, the prince glanced up to see Alliar, quiet as a golden statue, watching him.

  “What?” Hauberin asked shortly.

  “She’s human.”

  “I know that.”

  “Only human.” Alliar’s eyes were glowing orbs in the darkness. “You already carry human blood enough in your veins. You dare not mate with a human woman, and risk creating a magickless heir.”

  Hauberin stirred impatiently. “What would you know about such things?”

  “Oh, please. Maybe I can’t really understand flesh-and-blood mating games, but I can still recognize them. I’ve seen you play them with women before this.”

  “I wasn’t playing any mating games. And stay out of my affairs.”

  “I can’t. Not if I’m truly your friend. Hauberin, you cannot let it happen.”

  “Dammit, I know! Nothing happened. Nothing’s going to happen. Now, leave me alone!”

  Feeling Alliar’s insulted anger like a door slamming shut against his mind, the prince stared into the fire with renewed intensity. Powers, the sooner he found the way out of this ridiculous Nulle Part . . .

  Oh, idiot! He wasn’t likely to get a better chance to try than right now, with the fire to serve as focus. Staring into it, not attempting to see pictures in the flickering flames, Hauberin instead let them soothe him, half-hypnotize his conscious self . . . Whispering calming Words, relaxing his mind still further, the prince let his inner self roam free, hunting . . . hunting . . .

  Yes. The sprite hadn’t tricked him. All at once he felt the arcane paths tangling through Nulle Part like so many silvery threads, each leading to a different possibility, a Realm, a place, a time—or, unpredictably, to the emptiness beyond time and space. He shuddered away from that terrible nothingness, hunting anew . . .

  There. He could see it as a pattern in his mind, the one path they needed, that twisting puzzle of a psychic ribbon: the one path that would take them safely back to the stone circle in the human Realm. He knew it, he felt it, and sent his senses soaring along the path to memorize its every devious turn. It was no easy thing; the path seemed to squirm under his touch like a living thing consciously trying to escape, but Hauberin dared not let go or he might never find it again. Straining, he sent his mind twisting with it, following its every move, struggling with it till every convolution was set into his memory—ah, Powers be praised, he was done. Hauberin slid back into himself and, before he could move or even think, into exhausted sleep as well.

  XVII

  THE TANGLED WAY

  Matilde woke slowly, in stages,
first aware that her bed seemed unusually hard and lumpy, then realizing it wasn’t a bed at all, then blinking in confusion, unable to think why she had been sleeping on bare ground, in her clothes, with only her riding cloak for blanket. The world about her was dim with twilight—

  But that couldn’t be! She couldn’t have slept the night and day around, could she?

  No. Of course not. This wasn’t the mortal world, but Nulle Part, Nowhere.

  Matilde sat up carefully, stiff muscles complaining, and brushed wild hair back from her face, wishing irrelevantly (amid all the alien surroundings) for a comb, then froze, looking across the embers of the dying fire to where the . . . being that called himself—itself?—Alliar watched her.

  Itself. A spirit, she thought, a wind spirit, and then, wildly, How can a spirit be in physical form?

  She didn’t quite have the nerve to ask.

  A small, prim voice within her was scolding faintly that no, she shouldn’t merely be nervous, she should surely be terrified. Surrounded by strangeness, by heathen creatures, she should be lost in prayer, begging Heaven to protect her soul.

  And yet, for all that a priest would thunder at her that this place was un-Godly, that she was un-Godly, Matilde knew she wasn’t afraid. She hadn’t truly been afraid since that first alarming moment of arrival. After all, she thought with a flash of dark humor, the creatures of Nulle Part only wanted to eat her, not condemn her or burn her at the stake—

  But she wasn’t going to start babbling to herself like this. Matilde began to greet Alliar politely, but was hastily waved to silence. The being pointed, and she looked down to find Hauberin still curled in sleep, sleek black hair fallen forward to half-hide his face.

  A pang almost of pain shot through her at the sight of the sharp, proud features now relaxed and defenseless. He had seemed so human back in her husband’s castle, dazzling them all with clever words and charming manners so they’d never really had a chance to study him at rest. Now there could be no mistaking the alien cast of his face: ever so slightly too high of cheekbone, too narrow of chin and pointed of ear for true humanity. And yet, she thought, he didn’t look overly exotic; at the moment, even with those elegant ears, he seemed more like any weary, travel-stained young man than a Faerie prince.

  And here I always thought a Faerie prince would be all tall and fair and golden-haired!

  But his black hair was beautiful, smooth and straight as a fall of water, so dark it had gleamed blue-purple in the sunlight. It must be silk-soft to the touch. Hardly aware of what she was doing, Matilde reached out a gentle hand to brush the wild strands back from his face, only to freeze at Alliar’s steady gaze. The golden face was expressionless, and yet she felt such a weight of quiet disapproval that she drew back.

  “I wasn’t going to hurt him,” she mouthed indignantly.

  But a moan from Hauberin caught her attention. Ah, poor man, his dreams seemed to have turned dark, because he was fighting them, murmuring broken phrases in what surely must be his native tongue, struggling to escape. Matilde was just about to wake him when he woke himself, starting up with a wild cry, face to face with her, dark eyes blazing into her own, wild and blank with terror. Helpless, Matilde stammered for words of comfort, but sanity returned with a rush to those slanted eyes, and the prince sat back with a weary sigh, head in hands.

  Matilde hadn’t seen or heard the being move, but Alliar was there at her side, so suddenly she started.

  “The dream?” the being asked softly, and Hauberin nodded, adding with weary humor, “I think I’m growing used to it; I wasn’t much further down the corridor. And at least this time I got some sleep.”

  Matilde looked from one to the other in open confusion. “A recurring dream?” she asked hesitantly. “A . . . prophetic one?”

  Hauberin rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Powers, I hope not. Ah, it’s too complicated to explain. Let’s just say my cousin cursed me with what I thought was his dying breath, and leave it at that.”

  “The cousin who’s . . . wearing . . . Rogier’s body.”

  “Yes.” The prince got to his feet, stretching, managing somehow, Matilde thought enviously, to look elegant despite rumpled tunic and dirt-stained cloak. Feeling suddenly hopelessly grubby, she tried to do something with her impossible hair, rebraiding it hastily into two tight plaits, muttering over the tangles, very much aware of Hauberin’s glance on her. Last night . . . No. She wouldn’t think of that; she was a married woman, and human, while he—no, again. That moment of—of whatever had almost happened between them was gone as though it had never been, and Matilde wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved.

  But Hauberin was grinning. “Ah, I do remember!” he said with such evident relief that both Matilde and Alliar stared at him in bewilderment. He laughed. “No, I haven’t lost my mind. Last night I used the fire to find the way out of Nowhere for us, and it’s still set in my memory. Come, let’s take care of . . . ah . . . necessaries, and be on our way.”

  Did she really want to go back . . . ? Back to hiding and pretending . . . ?

  Oh, nonsense. Her husband was back there, and her good, safe, mortal life. She certainly didn’t want to stay in this gloomy twilight Nowhere forever!

  A flicker of motion caught her eye. Matilde glanced at Alliar in time to see the being shimmer and change back into man-shape. Alliar shrugged. “It makes a better defensive form, don’t you think?”

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” Matilde burst out before she could guard her tongue. “Changing shape like that, isn’t it . . . uncomfortable?”

  Alliar chuckled, but Matilde surprised something unthinkably old and sad in the golden eyes. For a moment she saw the endless sweep of sky reflected there, the endless sweep of freedom . . . Freedom lost. Dizzy, she staggered, and the moment was past. “You understand,” the being murmured. “Why should one shape be more difficult than another, when all are forced?”

  Bewildered, Matilde stammered over a deluge of questions, but Alliar only smiled and held up a hand. “I don’t want to be trapped in Nulle Part any more than you do. Let’s follow Hauberin, shall we?”

  ###

  Faerie prince and wind spirit moved as smoothly through the tangled underbrush as fish through water. Panting, stumbling over roots, snagging clothes and skin on thorns, Matilde struggled after them, fighting back oaths she’d never realized she knew. The path (nothing as clear as a physical one) might be leading them back to the human world, but it was a Godforsakenly difficult one to follow.

  Be thankful for small mercies, she told herself. At least the weather remained clear and warm, and nothing was actively menacing them; even whatever birds might be in the forest were keeping still, unnerved by human or Faerie strangers.

  Hauberin stopped short for perhaps the hundredth time, evidently questing for whatever psychic ribbon they were following. Matilde, head down, crashed right into his back, and recoiled with an embarrassed mutter of apology. Eyes opaque and alien enough to make her shiver, focused on something beyond the physical, he never noticed, only started forward again. With a great sigh, she followed.

  What an unpredictable thing this forest was, now a dense tangle of underbrush, now an open progression of trees orderly enough to be part of some noble’s park.

  It was in the midst of such an orderly stretch that Matilde gave up. “You may be of Faerie, my lords—Your Grace—

  Jarred back to the real world, the prince stared at her as though seeing her for the first time. (And what a sight I must be, she thought, red-faced and sweaty as a farmer.) He blinked.

  “Hauberin,” he said belatedly. “Forget the formal titles. We’re hardly in a proper court now.”

  She dipped her head to him. “Hauberin, then. You may be of Faerie, but remember I’m only human. I . . . must rest.”

  “Ae, of course.” The olive-dark skin flushed slightly. “Forgive us.”

  She sank gladly to a rock, content for a time just to steady her breathing, then glanced about at the twilig
ht-dim light that was beginning to wear on her nerves. Was this Nowhere always so gloomy? A flash of memory made her quote, “ ‘A land that seemed always afternoon . . . and add, “The stories say Faerie has no sun, either. Is your own land like this?”

  Hauberin had perched on the opposite side of the rock. He shook his head. “Nothing even half so dreary. It’s true we have nothing like your mortal sun. But our very air is alive with light during the day, so beautiful. And at night—oh, at night a thousand, thousand stars light the sky—they blaze with color, red and blue and green, not like your simple Earthly stars—and the moonlight spilling down is pure, unstained silver.”

  Such longing ached in his voice that Matilde turned with a faint, sympathetic smile, thinking that Faerie or human, homesickness was the same. “That morning on the castle wall,” she murmured, “when I said you looked like a man seeing his first sunrise . . . It really was your first, wasn’t it?”

  He smiled in return. “It was. And oh, what a splendid sight . . .”

  But he was looking full at her as he said that, and his eyes were dark as night . . . a warm, wonderful night . . .

  A cough from Alliar jarred them both back to reality. Hauberin snapped something short and sharp to the being who, not at all discomforted by the princely rebuke, raised a shoulder in the slightest of shrugs, as though to say, someone has to be sensible. Matilde bit back a little laugh, seeing the easy warmth behind the sharpness, reminded of the comfortable, friendly joshing she’d seen between some of her husband’s men-at-arms, astonishing herself by the envy she felt.

  “You are friends, aren’t you?” she asked unnecessarily.

  Hauberin raised a wry eyebrow, eyes alight with humor. “Would I suffer such insolence from anyone else?”

  But something he had mentioned earlier was nagging at her memory. Carefully Matilde began, “Would you . . . be offended if I asked you a question?”