3rd January #2
“As for you,” Wendell said, turning to gaze at his sister thoughtfully.
He wore black riding boots and gloves, and had exchanged his horrible grumbling cloak for a non-sentient one of darkest green, a match for the silvered leaves the servants had woven into his hair that morning, which sat so naturally amongst the golden waves that they might have sprouted from his scalp.
He needed no crown to signify his title—even the trees and grasses seemed to bend towards him—and I could see that even his sister sensed it, which perhaps accounted for the ferocity of the glare she levelled at him.
“The kindness of your queen has granted you a respite from the dungeons,” Wendell told her. “You are being given an opportunity to regret your loyalty to our mother. Thus, good behaviour on your part is not an expectation, but a requirement.”
“Blah, blah, blah” was the child’s reply. “You’re as boring as one of them now. Like a mortal pretending to be Folk. Why don’t you just go back to their world, brother?”
Wendell’s eyes narrowed. “You, on the other hand, have only grown more like the old queen. Or, rather, a poor copy—plenty of spite and jealousy, but lacking her imagination.”
The girl’s face went white. “The true queen will have you quartered and hung from the battlements, along with those stupid mortals you care so much for.”
“Your opinion of mortals is so low,” Wendell said. “Yet one of them was your mother’s undoing. How does it feel to be proven a fool?”
“My mother is not dead,” she spat, and for a moment I thought she was going to lunge at him. “She cares too much about the realm to—to—”
“To die?” Wendell gave a quiet laugh. “If only there were protection in that! Alas. Our father cared a great deal for the realm, too. But then, you were too young—I doubt you remember him much. Well, let us go and see what our mother’s malice has wrought upon her beloved realm, and then we shall see if there is anything in you but her worst qualities. ”
He turned his back on her. She seemed to be struggling to come up with a retort, and instead stuck her tongue out at him. I could see, though, that she was holding back tears.
“Was that necessary?” I muttered as he came over to me.
He sighed, looking vexed. “Children are so tedious!”
It seemed to me that Deilah was uniquely adept at eroding his good humour, but I did not point this out. “Wendell, if we meet your stepmother—”
“You shall not have to deal with her again, Em—leave her to me.” He examined my face. “What is it?”
I shook my head. I had read through several dozen Irish folktales the previous evening, comparing and contrasting; I did not care for the pattern that I saw emerging here, that was as much as I knew.
“Nothing,” I said, trying to quell the foreboding. “Only I wish your stepmother was already dead.”
“It would be tidier,” he agreed. “But she is far too complicated a person to make things easy for anyone, even on her deathbed.”
All the guards were saddled and ready, and so Wendell helped me onto Red Wind. Then he mounted his horse, and we were off.
—
At first we followed a broad path, wide enough for two mounts to walk abreast, but as we drew farther from the castle the path narrowed, and we travelled single file.
Red Wind was so wide that the boughs brushed against her sides, until Wendell flicked his hand and added another foot or two to the path.
I did not much care for my drayfox. I did not say so to Wendell, but I began to think I would have preferred one of the faerie horses after all.
Red Wind did not bump or jostle me, as a horse would, and therein lay the problem: her gait was too smooth.
I felt as if I were being carried upon a well-tempered cloud, albeit one prone to sudden, violent sneezes and wet snorts.
I found myself noticing familiar plants and features as we travelled through the woods.
Some brownies, for instance, had stone dwellings built into the earth—closer to cellars than houses, to my eye—roofed in densely interwoven fern fronds.
Doubtless others dwelt in the canopy, for when I looked up, I saw the telltale silver gleam of impossibly narrow bridges connecting the trees like spiderthread.
But as we moved away from the castle, I saw less of this glittering architecture, and more of the humble, cellarlike variety.
I also noted that I was growing increasingly adept at spotting moss-brownies, as I had begun to call them in my head, for the mossy caps they wore.
These small, black-eyed creatures, whose bodies were often covered in moss as well, could be seen peeking at us from behind branches, or sometimes in plain view upon a green stone or bough, where they were surprisingly difficult to detect.
I realized, to my amazement, that I was beginning to grow comfortable here. In the Silva Lupi! Farris would never approve.
I could not fully appreciate any of this, however; I was too anxious about what we would find in the forest. And so I availed myself of the opportunity provided by Red Wind’s uncanny lope to work on my book.
I had not been scribbling in my notebook for five minutes before Lord Taran advanced his mount to ride alongside me, the path expanding to accommodate him.
“What on earth are you writing?”
“A book,” I replied shortly.
“A book!” he cried. “With a kingdom to rule, and a vengeful rival on the loose, our queen is occupying herself with trivial matters of scholarship?”
“Yes,” I said, and pointedly made another note.
He smiled and drew his horse closer to me, affecting polite interest. “What is the book about?”
“The politics of faerie courts,” I said, wishing very much that he would leave me alone with my trivial scholarship.
He wrinkled his nose.
“I apologize if it is beneath the interest of an ancient faerie lord,” I said.
Unfortunately, I seemed to have amused him again, and instead of going away, he said, “But what is the point of it all?”
I gave him a blank look, pretending I did not comprehend.
Really I just didn’t want to be drawn into an epistemological debate with him—or a debate of any sort, really.
I suppose it was unscholarly of me; I should have leapt at an opportunity to interview such an exemplar of the courtly fae.
But the man had tried to kill Wendell, much as the two seemed to have forgotten about it.
“Your profession,” he clarified. “And Niamh’s. The projects you two are always scribbling away at.”
“Perhaps you should ask Niamh. She might enjoy the conversation.”
“Oh dear,” he said. “We have gotten off on the wrong foot, haven’t we?”
“I can’t imagine why.” I sighed and tucked the pen into my notebook. “The point of my scholarship is to understand the Folk. To the extent that we mortals can.”
“It has never struck you as a futile endeavour?”
“No more than any other branch of science.” I gestured at the sky.
“What can mortals learn of the stars, given that we cannot walk among them? Yet we try.” I opened my notebook again.
“Others have argued that it is the endeavour itself that is the point of scholarship. I am not so certain of that, for I can never stop yearning for new discoveries. Even the smallest are as precious jewels to me.”
I could not be certain he understood me. After a moment, he said, “Why must mortals always be solving mysteries? What is the point of life if everything is pinned and labelled in some display case? You scholars should aim to discover more mysteries, not untangle them.”
“How sibylline,” I said. “That is ever so helpful, thank you.”
He gave a delighted laugh, and then, to my immense relief, he rode on ahead, leaving me alone in the sanctuary of my research.
It should have been a lengthy journey. Instead, we reached our destination before a single hour had elapsed.
“This should not be,” Lord Taran said, frowning as he leapt from his horse. “The corrupted grove should be fifty miles from the southern lakeshore—we have come ten, if that.”
“A new outbreak?” suggested Lord Taran’s scout, a severe man with two crossed swords upon his back and a scar that divided his face from temple to chin.
“I don’t see anything,” I said. The countryside was mixed woodland and moor, somewhat more open than the lands Wendell and I had passed through on our way to the castle.
Rain so fine it was almost mist drifted through the trees like crowds of ghosts.
I saw nothing but green flora, and heard only birdsong and the occasional snort from my mount.
Something was off—though I could not pinpoint what it was.
“What a stink!” Snowbell said from my shoulder. He pinched his nose and added in a nasal voice, “I will not go near that .”
“Near what?” I said, frustrated by my limited mortal senses. Snowbell made no reply, simply hopped to the ground and slunk into a foxhole.
Wendell slid gracefully from his horse and strode ahead. He pushed aside the bough of an attentive oak, which blinked furiously and glared at him, and disappeared through the trees.
“Yes, go marching into danger alone,” Lord Taran muttered. “Like father, like son.” He dismounted, motioning to Razkarden and two of the guards, and together they followed Wendell.
Lord Wherry remained sat on his drayfox, looking anxious.
He seemed to be in his fifties; the Folk can appear any age they choose, and some prefer to look wise.
Naturally, his lined face was still beautiful, his greying brown hair thick and long enough to wear in a plait.
It was difficult to imagine him killing anyone, for there was a boyishness about his large eyes and round face that belied his apparent age, but in the opposite direction than was usual for most Folk.
I dismounted to a chorus of disgusting snorts from Red Wind. I paused beside Deilah, who had been surrounded by the remaining guards. “Would you like to come with me?”