Chapter Ten #5
‘Trying to atone for the ills you’ve done to the Kinnish, are you?
Have at it! I’ll show your sweetheart to his room, but I’ll make up no bed on the floor.
Know you well enough, I do,’ Breesha spat.
She clasped Aubrey’s shoulder, but her hands were so large that her thick fingers spilled onto his slender arm like spider legs.
‘Thank you, Mrs Skelly,’ Aubrey murmured.
‘Dermot’s found himself a real beauty. If only you were a girl.
Well, never you mind, I don’t think he’s suited to raising bairns.
Why, I’ll tell you…’ Breesha started, holding the door for Aubrey and following him inside.
Dermot’s cheeks burnt with the prospect of every horror of his adolescence being relayed but, if he wanted to keep company with old Aleyn, he had no choice.
‘What do you mean, what other presence?’ Dermot demanded as soon as they’d left. The walls were thin but he could not abide speaking in the cold.
‘Let me sit down, lad,’ Aleyn said, shuddering as he edged onto one of their stools, as battered and decrepit as he. ‘I’m not the man you remember. I’ve not been up the mountain in years, in fact, so afeared of my condition. Old age, that is, which comes to us all. Well, most of us, Dermot.’
At the sly insinuation, Dermot took a seat opposite Aleyn. ‘Tell me what you mean,’ he said. It was a demand, not a request, as evidenced by the heating of his blood. His soul was so fraught that he might’ve forced Aleyn were he not heeded.
‘There is an unnaturalness about you or, should I say, a naturalness. It is this land, and all that I have studied and seen over the years, converging into one. There is a string at your back, as if you are not entirely yourself. And I know only one creature that might cause such a thing, or have any reason to do so.’ Aleyn paused, chest quivering as his breath shuddered. ‘You have met one of the fair folk.’
Dermot lurched back, checking his mother had not just come into the room.
‘I see I’ve struck true,’ Aleyn said. ‘And how did it happen, what did this young man ask of you?’
Teetering back into his seat, Dermot seethed. Of course Aleyn knew his tormentor was not a woman. ‘I was out one night and he came to me. He asked, that is, his request… but he spoke very well.’
Aleyn observed him kindly despite the revulsion that played on his lip. ‘I see. You have nothing to fear here. Go on, tell me, what did he ask?
Even as schoolmasters did all they could to destroy the intangible joy that was childhood, Aleyn had been protector over their innocence. He stood apart in Dermot’s mind for that reason. ‘He asked me to poison the Stanleys, so I did.’
‘But they all live!’ Aleyn cried. ‘I can see you did not have the strength to refuse. Why are they still about then, giving us so much trouble?’
‘I… that is…’ Dermot stuttered, eyes flitting about to make sure Breesha did not intrude. He sat with his head hung back, staring at the wall, realising that he would never again see a portrait of a dead Stanley man looming over him.
They considered one another in silence until Breesha came out, peered at them, and finally left for her room.
‘They are mysterious, tempestuous creatures. Might I have a description of this young man?’ Aleyn said.
‘Young, blond, pale and waifish,’ Dermot said haltingly. His stomach twisted as he confessed.
Aleyn said nothing before he finally tutted. ‘One such as he... if you speak true, if I am not a foolish, doddering old man, then we have cause for concern. I cannot think of any faerie who delights in more than idleness and trickery excepting one or two.’
‘His name is Maldred,’ Dermot said.
Spluttering, Aleyn said, ‘He told you his name?’
‘Yes,’ Dermot said, thinking nothing of it. ‘I remember, just as he was leaving that first day after we… well.’
‘Then you have more power than you know. Yes, Maldred, and he has cause,’ Aleyn said.
‘Cause?’ Dermot echoed, perturbed. ‘He sent an old woman and a boy to their graves. And I fear my mother will never forgive me for it, though she knows none of this!’
‘Silence, lad!’ Aleyn said. ‘Do you know nothing of our history? My stories fallen on deaf ears, I suspect. And that goes for many other children as well. Tell me, how can we persevere as a people when our own folk forget the tales as they cavort with mainlanders? We need none of that here, boy, especially not those black-haired ghouls you call Stanley. You’d find yourself more at home with your own. ’
‘Maldred, who burns his own people with those same foreign hands?’ Dermot spat, grasping the edge of the table and hauling himself up.
‘They were always a bad family, but at least they were sane. Now they burn our folk, as you say, in the town square. Did you know one of the witchfinders intends to conduct some sort of experiment on the bodies? And the other is a fanatic. If you know some way to stop this madness, if any of your own tales be true, then speak now. Else they’ll come for you next.
’ This, though said amidst a tantrum, was not untrue.
He suspected Robert intended to purge the village, and the easiest target would, of course, be a man versed in their ancient history.
Aleyn pointed a bony finger at him. ‘You think yourself wise! What do you know of our troubles? Lord Stanley had been trying to pass a motion to deprive us of our ancient dwellings long before your seduction! And what man reserves the right to own a home he himself does not live in? And, worse still, they have forbade us from using the communal fields where we plant our crop, saying we are instead to pay them for its use! It’s a shame they didn’t choke on that poison. ’
Thinking of the lordling waiting in his bedroom, Dermot said, ‘Maldred is a demon, whatever you think, and if you’ve any fondness for this village, you’ll tell me what you know.’
‘Demon! Don’t use that talk with me, boy.
You’ve been around foreigners for too long.
There’s no such creature. The gods know the only evil is man, they need no excuse for our foulness.
’ Aleyn sat back, watching him. ‘I shall give you what I have. A weapon I was entrusted with in my younger days when I rushed about and learnt the stories I tell, lived them. Though I suspect it won’t be enough for your purpose, and I would not put it to the task without her consent. ’
‘Her?’ Dermot said, astounded. He recalled little of Aleyn’s tales, owing to the misery inflicted by his peers. That a weapon should be placed in his hands was incredible; long had he been told such an instrument was beyond him.
‘Yes, she who resides north of here. The keeper of this isle, Queen Fand. I would not let you undertake such a task without her explicit consent. She is a woman of remarkable bearing, perhaps best compared to the queen who fought when the mainland was invaded. A true pagan ruler. You must tell her all and spare nothing, no matter how inconsequential,’ Aleyn said.
They sat like two men ensnared in a mist that bade no one enter.
‘I know nothing of this so-called queen,’ Dermot said, going to Aleyn’s side so the man wouldn’t strain himself. ‘Is she one of you? A wise woman, a soothsayer?’
‘No!’ Aleyn cried. ‘She is our queen, the lady entrusted with this isle, and more importantly, queen of all faeries who dwell here. Everything she says must be heeded. She is to be treated with the greatest respect. She will tell you what must be done with Maldred and, if she sees fit, will advise you on the wisest course. The dagger is to protect you on the way, in case you encounter any spirit sent by Maldred, for he too is prince of his own realm.’
He had lain with this prince and rutted him with all the force of a soldier during a siege, doing what such men did with spoils of war. A faint and bloody recollection that made him shudder.
‘You must go now. Begone from this village, we have no need for you. You can only sort this matter out through Queen Fand. I will have no more to do with it,’ Aleyn said, shuddering as he stood.
‘I will not go now,’ Dermot protested. ‘Aubrey needs rest, so do I. We will go tomorrow. And it will be to stop Maldred before he hurts my mother, nothing more.’ Fae, mischievous and seductive as they were, were nothing more than the incubi spoken of in foreign tales.
He had no desire to witness this woman, queen though she may style herself.
If Maldred was a prince, he may find the queen altogether worse than he.
The idea of them having lived alongside humankind for so long gave him cause to wonder if they were the cause of society’s ills.
‘Traded one tempter for another, have you?’ Aleyn grasped the handle, heaving the door open with great force, and stepped into the storm without flinching. He flung the door closed with equal resolve.
Dermot stood, walking to where Aubrey lay prone on his bed. He got down instead on the hard wood of the floorboards.