All Night Awake (8 page)

Along its dark waters, barges slid.

On the nearest barge, upon a chair like a throne, a creature sat, who, as the barge neared, Will discerned to be the golden majesty of the Queen of England: Elizabeth, just over sixty years old and still ruling the country with unfaltering hand.

From this far away, she looked young and majestic, easily as young as twenty years ago, when Will had seen her in Coventry, where she’d come for a pageant put on by the Duke of Leicester.

Will frowned at the barge and at the Queen, and at the gentlemen in attendance to them, all of them unaware of, uncaring about the starving English subjects, threatened by the plague.

How much of this majesty was true? It was said that the Queen wore makeup thick with lead, hard with egg white, glazed with the perfumes and lacquers of Araby.

The Queen and London were one, the Queen and London alike. This glistening London to which Will had come in search of fame and fortune had proved itself a pit full of villains, into which Will’s energy and fortune vanished.

London was naught, Will thought, like the Queen might be naught beneath her grand clothes, her makeup.

A plague-eaten naught where he would die alone.

Will’s dream had died. He’d never be a poet.

That had been a dream. A dream and nothing more.

Scene 6

The fairy palace, rising amid the trees of the Forest of Arden. Queen Ariel, in her room, sits at her vanity, before her silver brushes, her unguent bottles, attended by her maids, who comb her hair and lay out her nightclothes.

S
itting in front of her crystal mirror, Ariel, Queen of Fairyland, King Quicksilver’s wife, found herself more restless and more fearful than ever before.

So many times she’d sat at this table, late at night. So many times had her maids, Peaseblossom and Cobweb and Cowslip, tended to her needs. And how often had Quicksilver, himself, been standing behind her, watching her nightly preparations with a smile.

But this night Quicksilver wasn’t there. This night, Quicksilver had left, to face some threat, some evil on the boundary of elven Avalon—a threat that bid to be more monstrous than anything Fairyland had ever faced. And Ariel must wait here, in the false safety of the palace.

Oh, she knew she had upset Quicksilver with her offer of help. But why could her lord not understand that Ariel would rather be there, beside him or instead of him, facing whatever danger threatened to swallow the land, than here, in the palace, slowly driven mad by waiting anguish.

Oh, the traditional lot of females, human and elf alike, was much crueler than that of males. Females must wait and seem to smile while out on the field of battle their loves might be breathing their last.

Ariel could not endure it. With a gesture—raised hands, exasperated expression—she bid Peaseblossom stop running the soft brush down Ariel’s pale blond hair. “Stop, Peaseblossom. Stop. I cannot endure touch. Only tell me if there’s word . . . any word of my lord?”

Peaseblossom shook her head. She was one of Ariel’s prettiest maids and today looked tired and out of humor. But she’d looked thus before the boundary breech had been announced. What hailed was the absence of her human lover, a Stratford weaver named Nick Bottom, who’d gone to London on guild business.

Ariel wondered if the silly thing even knew that the whole hill was threatened and that Ariel’s lord and king might be dead at this moment.

And yet, he couldn’t be dead, could he, truly?

For Ariel, besides being queen, was the seeress and prophet of Fairyland, her powers acquired through having been born at summer solstice, the blessed night for her kind.

If Quicksilver were dead, surely she would have felt it.

And yet she couldn’t be sure of it, and yet she sighed, and yet she frowned at her maids and wondered what could be delaying her lord and why her lord tarried so.

A knock sounded upon the door, a sharp knock, almost martial.

Quicksilver.

“Peaseblossom,” Ariel said, gesturing toward the door.

But the door, opening, revealed no more than the long face, the dark hair of Malachite, his features pinched into worry such as Ariel had never seen.

Ariel rose hastily, breathlessly, her heart at her mouth, her fear in her face, not knowing what she feared until she should hear it, refusing to fear that her lord was dead, for fear the confirmation of it should slay her.

Would she not know Quicksilver was dead? Would she not? Was she not queen and the seer of Fairyland, and were their hearts not united?

“Milord Malachite,” she said, hurrying toward him in a flying flurry of her nightgown’s lace. “Milord Malachite? What of my lord and husband that you come here, thus, without him?”

Malachite, pale of cheek, wide of eye, showing fear on his face and smelling of smoke and death, shook his head.

“Milord—” Malachite shook his head and looked at his feet. “Milord bid me to tell you guard his kingdom and look after his subjects as he would himself, and in all obey his will, as though were you him, milady.”

Oh, was Quicksilver dead? Why else would Quicksilver bid her to watch over his subjects as though she were himself?

Hand to her chest, as if seeking to still her heart from beating through the slight ribs and the skin that covered them, Ariel gasped. “What happened to my lord? Oh, tell me and be done with it. Is he then dead?”

Malachite shook his head. “No, milady. No.” His denial had no joy. “The breach of the wards was an illusion, an effect of . . .” He visibly hesitated. “Of an ancient curse. That is all solved.” His eyes, dark with worry and small with sadness, would not meet her gaze. “Only . . . only . . . only some urgent business calls my lord to London and he might be some days upon returning. He begged me to tell you from him that you should watch for his return and meanwhile guard his kingdom with your heart and govern it with your own solid mind.”

Ariel breathed fast as she stood staring at Malachite, torn between relief and doubt. She could not believe the breach had been of so little account, after such an alarm. And why would Quicksilver so hasten to London? What had he to do in London?

What could be the truth? Was Malachite lying to hide Quicksilver’s death?

No, that could not be. Quicksilver could not be dead, or else would Ariel have felt it. As King of Fairyland, Quicksilver held in his own the power and the souls of all his subjects.

Quicksilver’s death would have thrown all that power and might on Ariel, the Queen of Fairyland, and she would have felt it, felt it through and through, the loss of her lord, as strongly as the loss of her own life.

No, Quicksilver wasn’t dead. But then Malachite must speak truthfully and Quicksilver must have gone to London. Why to London? Why would the King of Fairyland go to that land of dirt and iron and massed humanity?

She wished Malachite would give her an explanation of this sudden departure.

The cold upon her chest, the horror trembling through her limbs, all of it bespoke what she feared, perhaps more than death.

Her attempt at protecting Quicksilver had offended him. It had been too much. Humiliated, fearing that she loved him not enough, Quicksilver had returned to a former love—that human whom the Lady Silver had loved so dearly, that William Shakespeare, who had taken himself to London six months ago.

Ariel had loved Quicksilver ever since she could remember, since they’d been toddlers together in the vast palace hall.

For Ariel, Quicksilver’s love was more important than life, or hill, or indeed the whole world entire and filled with all wonder. For without his love, neither life nor hill nor world could exist for Ariel.

Was his love for her threatened? Had he left for London just because he resented her offering to help with defending the boundaries?

Was his love for her so frail? A firefly in a summer evening, the inconsequential dust of Fairyland?

Ariel shook her head. She felt tears heavy beneath her eyelids, like threatening grey clouds hanging over a fair day. “Thank you, Malachite. No. I need no more. Thou hast comforted me marvelous much.”

She returned to her vanity and to her mirror, and contemplated her features in the mirror. An unexceptional face, oval and pale.

Did her lord still love her? Would he ever come back?

And if not, what would become of the hill without him?

What of poor Ariel, without his love?

She’d be a shadow, no more. A captive spirit doing his bidding and devoid of all self-worth.

Scene 7

A narrow street on the outskirts of London. It is obviously a not-too-prosperous but respectable-enough area, the lowest floor of each of the five-floor houses a modest shop. Hatters and glovers, printers and bakers. By a dark brown building, with a ramshackle outside staircase that climbs, crookedly, to a door on the fifth floor, a dark-haired lady in silk appears, as if birthed out of the air itself. No one else is on the street, save for Will, who approaches the woman cautiously.

T
he Lady Silver stood at the foot of Will’s stairs.

Will’s heart raced. His breath caught. Was this an illusion spun off from hunger?

Or was the elf lady truly here, so far from her green glades?

The dark, silken hair of Lady Silver fell, unfettered, down to her waist, over a white silk dress that Will knew could scarcely be lighter or silkier than the skin it hid. Will felt dizzy.

Suddenly, he was once more nineteen, and tramping unawares the paths of Arden Woods only, to be seduced by the Lady Silver in all her splendor.

Silver’s tiny waist emphasized her abundant womanly charms that overspilled from her tight white bodice. Will felt as though he were falling, headfirst, into a dream of love.

He smiled. He hurried toward Silver.

She smiled at him, her dark red lips promising velvet touch and the sweetness of newly pressed wine.

In Will’s mind, Nan’s face rose in remembrance.

Nan, Will’s wife, was not as beautiful as Lady Silver. Mortal and ill used by fate—hard worn by life and children and husband—Nan had aged in the last ten years, as Silver hadn’t.

Nan’s hands felt calloused and rough compared to the Lady Silver’s soft, smooth silk skin.

Yet, when night came, and when old age robbed food of its flavor and the sky of color, Will knew it was Nan he wanted by his side. And if he died before that, it would be only because of Nan that he regretted it.

He hesitated. His steps slowed.

This fine lady was no more than a passing fancy, a diversion. A fleeting pleasure, fleetingly enjoyed and ever afterward bitterly regretted. Like fairy gold, the love of elven kind turned to dust and nothing all too quickly.

Such momentary joy bred months of pain. This hot desire converted to cold disdain.

The last time the lady had seduced him and made him break his vow to Nan, Will had promised it would not happen again.

He would not break this second vow, not while starving and with death so near.

Oh, he could ask the elf for money or food, but what would that Fairyland aid not oblige him to do in return?

Making his face hard, he stopped and spoke from steps away. “What do you want?”

Silver laughed. Her musical laugh, sweet and soft, rose over the shabby neighborhood, like wine-filled cups tinkling in a golden afternoon pouring mirth over a perfect assembly. “Will, Will,” she said. “Is that the way you greet an old friend?”

Her laughter moved Will. Again, in his mind there rose a younger man he’d been, full of hopes and dreams never yet tried and with a good opinion of himself never yet tested and therefore never proven futile.

But the older Will, this Will who had lost his hopes of being a poet and eaten his fill of failure and frustration, shook his head. “We are not friends,” he said.

Silver looked confused, lonely, like a child who enters a familiar home and finds it changed and a friendly door barred to her access. She blinked. “Not friends?” Her large, silver eyes glimmered with the moisture of tears. “How can you say that, Will? We are friends, aye, if we are nothing else.”

She walked toward him, and he stepped back. She arched her eyebrows in sharp surprise, and advanced still, holding on to his arm, her hand hot and firm even through the bulk of his doublet and shirt. “Oh, come, Will, be not that way. I must talk to you, must have your help. I came to London sensing your sweet soul, and on your sweet soul did I home as a bee onto freshly distilled honey.”