Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)

13th January

We convened before sunrise in the sprawling banquet hall. Niamh had suggested we meet here, where the court could see us. I had not fully understood what this meant, for I had imagined, given both the importance of my research and the likelihood that the queen’s spies still haunted the castle, that our discussion would take place in private, with only those we trusted in attendance. But, in addition to being open to the sky, the hall had many glassless windows so long and tall one could simply step through them from the gardens beyond, which meant we had an audience of innumerable eavesdroppers, courtly and common alike. Most did not even bother to conceal what they were doing; I saw several boyish-looking courtly fae setting up a table for playing cards just outside the closest window, and another brownie selling nuts from a basket on his head wandered along the wall (only the basket and two long-fingered grey hands were visible). A troupe of ghoulish-looking bogles dressed in rags perched upon the roofless walls, gawping down at us with their hollow eyes, occasionally catching hold of insects and tossing them into their cookpots. Nobody seemed to think any part of this strange; as far as I could tell, this was simply how court business was conducted in Where the Trees Have Eyes.

I was dressed once again in my queenly attire, much as I missed the simple shifts and cardigan I had worn at Trinity. The cardigan in particular, shapeless and scholarly as it was, had large pockets at the front that could hold my notebook and an array of pencils. Today’s gown—black again, with intricate silver lace across the bodice in the shape of flowering vines, which extended up my neck—had pockets, but I did not wish to use them. They seemed to be under a similar enchantment to the cloak I had obtained from the Hidden Ones; whenever I put my hand inside, I found some new trinket, or sometimes a piece of fruit or handful of sugared nuts. I worried that if I stored my notebook there it would vanish—or, almost as bad: become sticky.

Callum Thomas was present, as was Lord Taran, who leaned his head on his hand, looking bored, his dark eyes gazing absently up towards the sky. Niamh Proudfit sat across from them at the oak table, tapping at her typewriter and occasionally muttering inquiries and instructions to her personal attendant, a merry-faced spriggan. [*1] In addition to these was Wendell’s half-sister, whom he kept ordering away, after which the girl would simply sneak in through a window and crouch somewhere out of sight, until he eventually gave up and ignored her. There were also two members of the Council—which had dwindled in numbers due to many councillors having fled the castle in terror of the queen’s curse. One was a poet, and solely referred to as such, an elderly mortal man who spent much of his time dozing off, which was no great loss, for when he did speak it was a largely incoherent jumble of metaphor that gave the impression of consequence. I assumed this to be the result of too much time spent in Faerie, yet his speeches often had an air of affectation. The second was—unfortunately—the Lady in the Crimson Cloak. I preferred not to look at her, and she seemed to feel the same where I was concerned, though I suspect our reasons differed somewhat.

Wendell was pale. His hand was bandaged, for he had driven the queen’s curse back from the castle with his own blood. The corruption still lurked within the royal forest, but we were not at present in danger of being devoured by it. His fury had faded, but he was in a state of constant agitation, pacing back and forth and regularly going up to one of the windows to stare out into the forest. I found it very distracting and wished he would sit down.

“Now,” Niamh said, “give us the tale again.”

I had already told them the story of King Macan’s bees, but I respected her wish to be thorough. I repeated the tale, with which I am now so familiar that I could likely recite it backwards. I had to raise my voice a little, for the usual background rustle of the forest was even louder that morning, though it was not windy. I assumed the trees were as agitated as ourselves.

“It’s good,” Niamh said with a nod. “The story has many echoes of our present troubles—the usurper, the vengeful monarch, the curse. There is even a treacherous mortal queen.” She smiled in my direction. “I don’t know why we couldn’t make use of it. So, you propose—what? That we question the servants?”

I nodded. “In the story, the new king has no need to search for the old one, because Macan the First’s hideaway is known, or partly known, by those servants who were closest to him. So it is likely that there are three servants among the castle staff who each know a different clue that will lead us to the queen.”

“The queen holds each card—the deck is mist, and the jesters dance with royalty,” the poet declared, which was to be his sole contribution; thereafter he dozed off again. How he had attained a position on our Council was beyond me, until I remembered that Wendell had merely rounded up a handful of mortals at random, under the misguided assumption that this would please me.

“Let us interrogate the servants immediately,” said the Lady in the Crimson Cloak in her imperious manner. “With threats, if necessary.” She motioned to an attendant standing by the wall, and the faerie darted away, followed by three others, all looking wide-eyed with fear; the lady’s gesture had been vague.

“No, wait—” I said, but the attendants were already gone. I quelled a sigh. Nothing in this court, it seemed, could be accomplished without some amount of chaos.

“We should start with Queen Ar—the old queen’s ladies-in-waiting,” I said. “In the story, the first clue came from a servant who ran the king’s baths.”

“Most of them have fled,” Wendell said from his position by a window. He wandered back to the table and began to pace behind my chair, driving me to distraction.

“Or they’ve been killed,” Lord Taran said. “Oops.”

“We will look for any that remain,” Niamh said, motioning to the spriggan at her side. The little creature grinned wider—she was always grinning, which I found off-putting, but I did not doubt Niamh had reason to trust her—and hurried off.

“Has anything else of note occurred during my absence?” I enquired. “I would particularly appreciate good news, if there’s any to be had.”

“The realm may be slowly disintegrating,” Lord Taran said, “but the invaders have left. My scouts have informed me they have fled back to Where the Ravens Hide. Apparently they do not wish to be cursed along with the rest of us.”

“Thank you,” I snapped. “You consider that good news, do you?”

He gave me an amused look. “Not particularly.”

Callum murmured something to him, and Taran rolled his eyes, slouching in his chair with his hands folded, and went back to examining the walls. Wendell, meanwhile, was still pacing energetically. I was perhaps thirty seconds away from strangling him. Fortunately, an idea occurred, and I pretended to forget about Wendell’s coffee cup as I rearranged my notebook on the table. My elbow struck it, and the cup overturned. As I’d hoped, Wendell stopped pacing, seizing one of the napkins and applying it to the spill.

“Forgive me,” Callum said, “but I feel as if I’ve fallen a few bars behind. I understand that stories are an important part of Faerie, but—”

“Not a part,” Niamh said, pausing at her typing. “They are the very foundations of this world, and all the others. As such, they may be used as compasses. Guiding stars. Choose whatever analogy you like.”

“Yes,” Callum said after a little pause. As if seeking reassurance, he glanced at Lord Taran, who gave him a smile that I had never seen from him before, in that it was entirely devoid of malice. “I suppose what I am wondering is,” Callum continued, “why this story? Are there not others that may be useful to us?”

I bristled instinctively, as I would at a conference when an audience member questions my methods. Part of it was that I had worried over the same question myself; after all, I had spent only a few days at Trinity. Had I truly exhausted all the possibilities? “Other stories may exist,” I said, “but I assure you, ‘King Macan’s Bees’ is the likeliest candidate I could unearth.”

Wendell was still preoccupied with removing the coffee stain from the table, rubbing at a crack in the wood with a napkin and some of the lavender water from the finger bowls. “It is the right story,” he said, and though he did not elaborate, there was something in his voice that swept away my lingering doubts.

“Yes,” Taran said, running his thumb over the back of Callum’s hand. “Don’t worry about that part, my love. The real concern is whether we can locate my sister before her curse devours the castle, along with everything else. Our new queen may have discovered this answer too late.”

“Your confidence is much appreciated,” I said tightly. “But you need not be so grim about our prospects.”

“I am not,” Lord Taran said. “Should this poison continue to spread, I shall be taking Callum and fleeing to another realm, even if it be Where the Ravens Hide. I am more powerful than any of their nobility. They will be unable to do anything about it.”

I did not bother mentioning that most in Wendell’s realm could not do the same; apart from a few wanderers, Folk do not flit from realm to realm in the manner Lord Taran was proposing.

But Callum sighed, and somehow, that slight sound transformed Taran’s expression. He gave Callum a look that was half affection and half exasperation, and added, “But, naturally, I will do whatever it takes to stop my sister. She deserves a lingering death, as do those who have helped her, which I would be happy to administer. I guessed she would throw a tantrum once she lost her grip on the throne, but I did not anticipate her destroying her own kingdom in pursuit of vengeance. Truly, I have never known her to be so uncouth.”

Niamh made some reply to this, but I could not make out all the words, for the rustling of the leaves had grown so loud as to drown out most sounds—it was almost a roar. “Good Lord!” she yelled. “What has possessed the forest? Are we under fresh attack?”

“It’s the attentive oaks,” Lord Taran said. For some reason, he was looking at Wendell, so the rest of us did, too.

He glanced up—he had finished cleaning up the coffee spill and was now scrubbing obsessively at the inlaid carvings on the lip of the table. I would not have been surprised if he soon wore holes in the wood. I put my hand on his arm.

“What? Oh, yes.” His face went abruptly blank, as if he had stepped out from behind it and gone—elsewhere. This gave me the same dreadfully unsettled feeling as when he used trees as doorways. “The oaks,” he said. “They know.”

“Know what?” I didn’t much like the idea of those things knowing anything.

“That I’m—they can sense—” He ran a hand over his face, and then he closed his eyes. “If I can calm myself, I think they will stop.”

He kept his eyes closed for a moment while we stared at him like jittery attendees at a seance. Gradually, the rustle of the oaks lessened, and then, finally, the noise sank to little more than a whisper.

Wendell opened his eyes. “My apologies,” he said, then poured himself a fresh cup of coffee as if nothing had happened.

We continued to stare at him. Even Lord Taran looked a touch unnerved, though he paired it with a smirk. “That’s a sinister trick, Your Highness,” he said. “Not since your great-grandmother’s day have I seen a monarch rile the oaks with a thought. I am not overfond of those trees.”

“Thank God,” I muttered. “I thought I was the only one.”

“Oh, no!” Lord Taran made a face. “You have not experienced all their delights until you have ventured out for a walk on a crisp autumn morning, and come home to find one of their leaves in your hair.”

Niamh’s attendant returned and muttered something in her ear. Niamh nodded.

“We have located one of the old queen’s personal servants,” she said. “This one did not draw her baths, like Macan’s, but she helped make her breakfast every day.”

I was already standing. “She has information about the queen’s refuge?”

“She did not say this,” Niamh said. “But as soon as she heard we were questioning the servants, she fled.”

“That’s an encouraging sign,” I said.

“You go,” Lord Taran said, knitting his fingers together and stretching his arms. “Thank you, but my talents are wasted interrogating servants. Let me know when the bloodshed starts.”

—

The faerie had not gone far. It seemed she had triedto flee into the woods, but the guardians had got wind of her importance, and chased her into a tree.

We stood below the tree—an alder, thankfully—as the faerie shivered above us, alternately muttering to herself and wringing her hands. She was perched on one of the higher branches, and could easily have been dragged out by one of the guardians, but I did not wish to take this step unless necessary. She was only a little larger than Poe, and though her appearance did not match his in any other respect, I felt an instinctive desire to avoid harming her. She was clad in a tea-coloured dress and white apron, and on her head was an enormous buttercup worn like a kerchief, two of the petals pinned together beneath her hair. Her face was very red, very shiny, and very plump. She looked, I thought, a little like a lost doll, though not one mortal children would enjoy playing with; her eyes were the usual all black, and she appeared to be a type of faun, with large and intimidatingly sharp black horns that curved backwards out of her head, and legs that ended in hairy hooves.

“A butter faerie,” Niamh said. “The queen had several in her service—this one, I am told, had the queen’s particular affections due to the quality of her product.”

“Fascinating,” I said, wishing I had time to make a sketch. My encyclopaedia’s entry on butter faeries had been sorely lacking in detail. “I have never encountered one before.”

“They’re quite rare,” Niamh said. “A good thing, I’ve always thought. They are peevish, half-mad little things, particularly if you remove them from their creameries.”

“I did not know they were found in Ireland,” I said. “Most of the tales of butter faeries are from Somerset, are they not?”

“Ah!” Niamh said, her face alight with scholarly enthusiasm. “Indeed they are. But once upon a time, as you know, Where the Trees Have Eyes had several doors leading to British faerie realms. One of these, I’m told, led to a pretty corner of Somerset. I theorize that the creatures used to go to and fro before the door collapsed, trapping several of them in this realm.”

“Somerset,” I repeated. The word tugged at me like a half-forgotten memory, a sense of some missed connection. But what did Somerset have to do with any of this? I did not have time to puzzle it out.

The creature continued to mutter and wring her hands above us. I could not make out what she was saying, apart from the odd my lady and the milk, the latter of which she repeated over and over. How on earth were we to get her down? I cannot climb trees—not that the skill set hasn’t come in handy for some dryadologists, but I simply haven’t the dexterity.

Razkarden, who had been circling overhead, alighted on a nearby branch and fixed his ancient gaze upon me. I had the distinct impression he was waiting for orders, which Ipretended not to notice. A crowd of miscellaneous Folkhad followed us from the banquet hall, accumulating more Folk as they went, and stood watching us from the edge of the clearing—some even spreading blankets over the grass to lounge upon, as if we were putting on a play. I could not help thinking again that this was a very silly way to conduct vital court business, the outcome of which could either preserve or destroy an entire world, but as before, no one else seemed to think much of it. At least nobody was selling nuts this time.

Wendell had been standing a little back from myself and Niamh, conversing with the Lady in the Crimson Cloak, Callum, and a small group of servants. Now he came forward.

“They think they’ve found another servant,” he told us. “Apparently my stepmother’s favourite hairdresser is still alive. That has a nice symmetry with Macan, does it not? Perhaps he also found dead bees in the queen’s hair.”

“Yes,” I said. “Only I do not know how we will convince this one to cooperate. Can we lure her to us somehow?”

Wendell looked up at the tree, and his face darkened. He spoke but one word—“Down”—and suddenly the little faerie was clambering towards us, muttering even more feverishly. Well, so much for my concerns. She was moving so quickly that she fell part of the way and landed on the forest floor in a heap, where she remained, crouched like a wounded bird, panting and muttering. I now heard several Your Highness es and please s mixed in with the babble.

“Where is she?” Wendell said. His voice was calm, but he suddenly looked so cold and remote that even I found him unnerving. The faerie’s muttering grew higher in pitch, almost a whine.

“That won’t do,” I said. “She is absolutely terrified of you.”

“Naturally,” said the Lady in the Crimson Cloak. She came forward, and the world seemed to redden, the forest shadows spreading like pools of blood. “If she will not speak, we will dash her head against a stone and see if the truth spills out.”

“Stop that,” I snapped. “Whatever you are doing. You are only making things worse.”

Wendell lifted a hand, and the Lady fell back. “Very well, Em,” he said. “What would you have us do?”

“Take her home, of course,” I said.

—

The little faerie’s “home” was located deep beneath the castle. I had not known there was much belowground, apart from the dungeons Wendell had spoken of, but in fact there was a warren of common fae workshops and hovels, some of which seemed connected to the castle, such as the room full of spindles where three brownies laboured, repairing tapestries and rugs, others which seemed to be inhabited by Folk who had simply decided to dwell there, at the very heart of the realm. Did proximity to the monarch give them access to magics they would lack otherwise? Yet another question to add to the pile.

At first we descended into the earth via a stone staircase, but gradually the stairs became rougher until we were clambering down the sloping and uneven floor of a vast cavern, the dimensions of which I could not make out due to the darkness. Wendell summoned several lights that bobbed above us, which helped, for the lantern posts scattered here and there were few in number. Many doors had been carved into the cavern walls at various heights, accessed via rough-hewn stairs or silver bridges, and the air was haunted with innumerable voices, clanks and thumps, harp song, and echoes. The air was damp, and in the distance I heard the whoosh of some subterranean river. I thought of the queen’s curse descending on this teeming little city, a jewel box of scientific curiosities, and experienced a moment of dizziness.

The servant leading our procession found another stair, this one narrower than the last, and we ascended a series of hills and bulges in the wall until we came to something that was almost a hallway, but clearly natural, with a great stalagmite jutting out of it, at the end of which was a door. The butter faerie bowed low in Wendell’s direction and hurried through the door, moving with the graceful, gliding trot all fauns seem to possess. We followed.

The faerie’s creamery was not too deep, happily, or at least it did not feel so; a chimneylike skylight cut into the stone roof admitted the warm gold-green light of the forest. Given the faerie’s size, the workspace was expansive—even Wendell, the tallest among us, did not need to duck—with a hard-packed earthen floor and an array of shelves, some of which held blocks of butter wrapped in paper and twine. In the middle of the workshop was the butter churn, beside which was a tin bucket of milk with condensation forming on the side—which I think is what the faerie had been worrying about, for she immediately rushed over to it and carried it into her cellar. The air was cool, on the edge of cold, and the smell of the place made my mouth water. Not only of butter, but thyme and lavender, strawberries and honey, which the faerie used to flavour some of the blocks. Those on the nearest shelf had leaves tucked beneath the twine—basil, I think.

“What do you see?” Niamh asked eagerly.

I attempted to describe it as best I could, conscious that this was the sort of discovery that would make a dryadologist’s career, even if they were to accomplish nothing else. I felt another wave of dizziness.

“Now what?” Callum said. Wendell was tapping the toe of his pointed boot against the floor.

“Give her a moment to settle in,” I said. “She’s had a fright. She probably thought you were going to torture her. Is that not what your father would have done, Wendell?”

Now that the milk was returned to its proper place, the little faerie seemed much calmer. She went over to a cupboard with a lock upon it, fishing about in her pockets until she located a key. From within she drew out another block of butter wrapped in cloth, which looked to me like all the others on the shelves, only the faerie handled it as tenderly as if it were her child. She went to Wendell and held it out, bowing deeply.

Wendell’s mood had shifted, as it was wont to do, or perhaps he had taken my admonishment to heart. He knelt before the faerie and said in a light voice, “Thank you, little one, but I will not deprive you of your prize handiwork. I need only one thing, which you know. You need not fear the wrath of the old queen, for I shall protect you. Will you help me?”

It was an image that made me wish for my notebook and sketching pencils. Wendell wore only a few silvered leaves in his golden hair, his tunic was cut simply and his cloak was an ordinary aristocratic-looking thing—not the one with the beast living in it—yet any who beheld him would have known him as a monarch of Faerie. It had been happening gradually after he returned to his realm, and now that we had been apart a few days, I could see it clearly: not only was he more at ease in himself, to an extent that was not remotely human, but there was a sense that everything around him, the air included, seemed to bend in his direction. I suppose that, if Barrister is correct, [*2] it had something to do with Wendell no longer being entirely Wendell —or not only Wendell—but the source of every enchantment that held his realm together. And there he was, kneeling before a trembling, dirt-stained faerie barely as tall as my knee, who was clutching a block of butter.

The faerie seemed to feel some of this as well, for her entire attitude towards Wendell changed. Her red face became even redder, and she bowed many times, looking suddenly more eager than afraid. She put away her butter first, then rummaged about on one of her overcrowded shelves, shoving aside several glass jars of honeycomb. Shyly, she moved back towards Wendell, head lowered, and placed a small tin in his hand. She muttered something in a rapid patter of Faie and Irish.

He stood and handed the tin to me. Nervously, I lifted the lid, and found within a handful of empty snail shells about the length of my thumb. They were highly distinct, leaf-green with pointed domes that made them look almost aquatic. Each whorl included a stripe of pure silver.

“She says they were my stepmother’s favourite,” Wendell said. “She would deliver them to the little one to be cooked in butter.”

I nodded slowly. “Have you seen this species before?”

“As a child, yes. They have long been considered a delicacy by the nobility, and for this reason they have gone extinct—or so I thought. They are cousins of the snails we have around here, in the forest, and can be just as vengeful, in their way.”

I shuddered. “Where are they found?”

“They are island-dwellers exclusively. The little one knows not how my stepmother came by them.”

“Islands,” I repeated. A little shiver went down my back, as if a ghost stood just behind me. “But there are no islands nearby.”

Wendell shook his head slightly. “My realm extends to the edge of the land and the shallows of the sea. There we have a scatter of many islands—hundreds of them, if one counts the shoals and rocks. The trouble is, I know little of the coast, other than that it stretches for miles.”

Wendell went back to speak to the butter faerie, and Niamh pulled me aside.

“There is one thing in all this that concerns me,” she said in a low voice.

I knew what she was about to say, but affected not to. “Yes?”

“King Macan’s successor,” she said. “The new king, the one who defeats the curse upon his kingdom and marries the mortal woman. He dies in the end.”

“Yes,” I said. “But there is no reason to suppose every detail will be repeated in our situation—for it is not so, is it? The curses are different; the setting. Besides, I discovered an iteration of the tale in which Macan the Second lives. There is no consistency on that point.”

Niamh worried her lip. “ One iteration?”

My composure cracked a little further. Niamh seemed to sense this from my silence and put a hand on my arm.

“We will not let her take him down with her,” she said. “We will just—keep an eye out for bees, hm?”

Skip Notes

*1 A broad category of brownie that goes by various names in different cultures, always described as hunchbacked and grandmotherly in appearance. Faeries of this type are so unnervingly cheerful they are used to frighten children into good behaviour in some parts of Eastern Europe (“Go to bed, or I’ll send you to grandmother iele to mind,” is the refrain in the well-known Romanian tale “The Youngest Brother’s Folly”). Spriggans often serve the courtly fae as personal attendants or bodyguards.

*2 Letitia Barrister’s article “The Lost Kings of Sardinia,” published in the European Journal of Dryadology (1895), argues that the collapse of the Faerie realm located in one of Sardinia’s mountain ranges resulted from the death of its monarch, who had no heir. While several of the nobility attempted to claim the throne, they were, for reasons unknown, unsuccessful, and the realm slowly disintegrated. Perhaps this is why so many Sardinian tales depict the courtly fae as dangerous vagabonds more likely to steal the preserves in your cellar in the night than carry you off into Faerie.