Charles Bewitched (7 page)

“You’re his
what
?”
Persy stared at him from one of the window seats in her room overlooking the
fountains in a courtyard, just down the hall from his.

Charles winced at her
outraged tone and looked down at his new clothes, a green tabard over brown
tunic and leggings. He’d thought they made him look interestingly like someone
from one of Sir Walter Scott’s medieval novels…but judging by his sister’s
expression, they just made him look silly. Persy was lucky—at least she looked
good in these flow-y things.

“His page,” he mumbled. “It
was the only thing I could think of at the time.”

Margaret had brought him
there, but he’d been driven back by the gaggle of fairy women seated around
Persy’s luxurious sitting room, chattering like a flock of agitated sparrows as
they sewed and embroidered a new wardrobe for Persy. He couldn’t face their
scrutiny or their giggles, so Margaret had gone ahead and distracted them with
a nicely-staged temper tantrum over some supposed defect in one of Persy’s new
dresses, and driven them off. He’d slipped into the room in their wake, and
been most gratified by Persy’s shriek of surprise—imagine, Persy shrieking!—and
her launching herself at him, hugging him till he’d protested. But when he’d
calmed her down enough to explain that Lochinvar was not with him and that he
wasn’t here to take her directly home—at least not
yet
—her joy had
evaporated.

She slumped back into the
window seat and shook her head, staring morosely out the glassless window—no
glass was needed here in this land of eternal June. “I appreciate your trying
to rescue me, Charles, but…but now you’re stuck here too, aren’t you?”

“No, not at all,” he replied
with more confidence than he felt. After all, the fairy lord hadn’t actually
said
so.

But Persy wasn’t listening.
“And how could you agree to work for him? Do you know what he’s
done
to
me? I’m bound here. Bound to
him
. I have been ever since my wedding
day.” A tear slipped down her cheek, and Charles guessed from her reddened eyes
that she’d been crying a lot since she arrived here.

“And now we’re going to
figure out a way to get you out of here,” Charles said fiercely. Seeing his
powerful elder sister in such despair was unnerving.

“Charles, you don’t seem to
understand. I—I can feel the magic he’s used to bind us. I’ve been examining it
almost since the moment I woke up here after he took me from the woods. It’s
old magic—very old fairy magic. Breaking it would be like trying to break a
mountain—you just can’t.” She swallowed. “Only death can break the bond between
us.”

“Oh.” It was a ridiculously
inadequate response to such a statement, but he couldn’t think of anything else
to say. Then he brightened. “Then we could destroy him. That would release
you.”

Persy gave a mirthless
chuckle. “What a splendid idea. Would you like to try it?”

Charles remembered the armed
folk standing guard around this great house, and remembered too his new
master’s slender but powerful build and the magic he’d already seen he was
capable of. “Er, well, maybe not. But there has to be something we can do to
get you out of here.”

“Charles.” Persy held her
hand out to him. He came closer and took it, and saw another tear follow the
first one, and then another. “There isn’t. It’s all I’ve thought about, when I
have time to think.”

“Look here, I’m not going to
give up—and you can’t either. We’ll think of something, but you have to try.
Don’t let him win. Keep fighting.”

She regarded him sadly. “But
he already has won. He won before we even knew there was a fight.”

“No,” Charles said fiercely
and a little desperately. She
couldn’t
just let the fairy lord win so
easily. “I’m not accepting that, and neither can you. What would Lochinvar say?
He’s not giving up.”

Persy quickly looked away,
and he saw her swallow convulsively once or twice. “Does…does he know where I
am?” she asked in a low voice.

“Well, we didn’t know for
sure, but we suspected—or at least, Lorrie did. She knows a lot about
fairies—she said she’d read lots about them. I’m sure that she and Lochinvar
are thinking about what can be done.” If only there were some way for him to get
word to them about all this.

“I wish I’d known that
before…no, it wouldn’t have done any good, because I didn’t know what was
happening. It was like living in a bad dream—he kept calling me, and I had to
follow the call….” She shuddered, then lifted her head and looked at him.
“Promise me you’ll leave when you get the chance. You have to let them know
what happened to me. And as glad as I am to see you, I don’t want you to be
stuck here too. It’s—it’s not a fit place for human beings.”

A commotion of feminine
voices outside the door made them both look up. Persy sighed. “I think my
ladies are back. You’d better go. I don’t see why anyone would mind me talking
alone to my little brother, but…” she shrugged and shook her head.

“I don’t know if I can get
through that lot. They’re as noisy as a parcel of geese with the gut-ache, but
it sounds like they’re all on your threshold.” Charles eyed the windows. “I’ll
see if I can climb down from here. Maybe there’s a vine I can climb down.”

“You and vines have a
history of disagreeing with each other. Use a hovering spell.” Persy rose and
threw her arms around his neck again. “I’m glad you came, but I meant it. I
want you gone as soon as possible.”

“Don’t give up,” he replied,
ignoring her behest, and climbed onto the window-seat. “I’ll try to come back
soon so we can talk alone again.” The door had started to open, so he swung his
legs out the window, took a breath, and started to float down toward the
courtyard.

Ha, he’d been right. Ivy, or
something like it, did cover the side of the palace here, but it was more fun
to use a controlled hover to get down. He’d probably never have magical
abilities as good as Persy’s, but at least he could do this—hey!

Something had grabbed his
arm.

He twisted around in mid-air
just in time to see tendrils of the ivy shooting out from the wall and grasping
at him, twining itself around his limbs and pulling him in like a fish on a
line. He struggled in its hold, but whenever he managed to snap one slender
vine, another had already taken its place.

“Help!” he shouted up
towards Persy’s window. But the chatter of her gaggle of ladies drowned out his
calls. And now another vine was snaking its way around his neck, pulling him
hard against the building. As soon as he touched the mass of stems and leaves
on the wall, he felt sharps jabs on any exposed skin…the beastly thing was
biting
him!

“Persy!” he shouted again,
desperately now. But no head appeared in the window, and the vine around his
neck was tightening—

“Enough!” an imperious voice
called, and all at once the homicidal vines released him, recoiling like
springs. Charles gasped and started to fall, but felt a spell catch him and
ease him the fifteen or so feet to the ground. He sat there in a huddle for a
moment, trying to catch his breath, then looked up. The fairy lord stood over
him with arms crossed over his chest, watching him.

“I told you that my lands
could be perilous,” he said, not unkindly.

Charles scrambled to his
feet and hoped the fairy lord would attribute his red face to his recent
exertions. “I know you did, but I wasn’t expecting to be attacked by a plant!”

The fairy lord smiled.
“True. I forget that the plants in your world are much more sedentary. But it’s
a very effective guard from intruders, I have found.” He reached out and
stroked a vine. The entire mass of ivy rippled and shivered, as if it enjoyed
his touch.

“Did seeing you cheer your
sister?” he added.

Charles dusted himself off
“Sort of,” he said. “But not much.”

He sighed and shook his
head. “I had hoped your coming here would help reconcile her to her new home.”
He fell silent, studying Charles meditatively, then asked. “Tell me, little
wizard—what can I do to make Persephone happy with us? I am very busy tying up
the loose ends of our recent wars, and cannot take the time to
woo
her
like some lovesick stripling.” He pronounced the word as if it were in a
foreign—and barbaric—tongue.

Charles blinked. By Jupiter,
was the fairy lord asking
him
for advice? “Um…nothing, I’m afraid, sir.
She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be home with her husband.”

The fairy lord looked
faintly annoyed. “She has no husband, if you recall. I took care of that.”

“Well, she thinks she does.
And she loves him. She’s not going to stop loving him just because she’s here.”
He took a deep breath. “Is this what you want, sir? A wife who’ll never be
happy with you? Because that’s what you’ll get, if you force Persy to be your—”

“Enough.”

The word was spoken quietly,
but it struck Charles like a slap across the face. He fell silent and stared up
at the fairy lord, whose brows had drawn down in a frown.

“She will be my wife, and
that is that. I will not hear any more such speeches from you, my page.” There
was a subtle emphasis on the last two words that made Charles redden again as
he remembered what he was now supposed to be.

“Yes, my lord,” he said.

For the next few days
Charles kept his head down, trying to absorb all he could about the fairy world
and not draw attention to himself. It wasn’t easy, as everyone wanted to see
their lord’s new human servant. He saw Persy, who looked miserable, several
times, but was unable to do more than give her quick, encouraging smiles and
nods. Most of his time was taken up by the fairy lord; while his duties weren’t
onerous, he needed to be paying attention at all times while he was “on duty,”
to serve refreshments or fetch things or answer his master’s questions about
life in the human world. The fairy lord had no other pages or indeed many other
servants, apart from his soldiers standing guard around the palace. This at
first puzzled Charles, until he realized that the fairy lord truly never slept,
and so had all the time he needed to manage the affairs of his lands.

“He wasn’t joking that he
never rests,” he said to Margaret on the third day—at least, he thought it
might be the third day, though it was hard to judge without the sun to give him
cues. “How do you get away without sleeping?”

“I don’t know. We just do. Well,
I need it a bit more because I’m part human, but usually for us sleep is a—a
pastime, you’d call it. Something we do for fun. He doesn’t have time for fun,
though maybe he will once he and your sister are married,” Margaret said, but
didn’t look convinced.

Charles bit back the
response that always flew to his tongue—that Persy already had a
husband—because it did no good. He’d begun to feel a grudging respect for the
fairy lord, and might indeed have come to like him if he hadn’t kidnapped his
sister. But having him for a brother-in-law was out of the question; he liked Lochinvar
in that role just fine, thank you.

Margaret picked up his hand
and fitted hers against it, comparing the length of their fingers. She had
adopted him as her pet, it seemed, and was always near him whenever he wasn’t
actively serving the fairy lord. She was fond of asking him questions and
holding his hands or playing about with his hair, which was sometimes
disconcerting though he found he didn’t at all mind it. In fact, it was rather
plea—

“Yours are so much bigger
than mine, aren’t they?” she said, examining their joined hands, then added,
almost absent-mindedly, “My mother would like you to visit her.”

Charles had nearly forgotten
about her mysterious mother in the midst of everything else he’d been doing.
“Would she? That’s splendid—I’d like to talk to her too. When can we go?”

When
turned out to be not till several hours later, after
a long time spent sharpening the fairy lord’s pens and blotting his letters dry
as he worked at his desk. Spending so much time gazing at the strange, spiky,
and incomprehensible fairy script made Charles dizzy. His senses hadn’t seemed
to be working quite right since he’d come here: sight and hearing and touch and
smell all seemed to be overlapping in odd ways, and his perception of distance
and even balance were off. Margaret had told him it was because his world and
the fairy lands were made of different materials, which sounded as plausible as
anything might.

“I think it is time we visit
your world,” the fairy lord said to him as he finished the last letter. “You
are not yet acclimated to this land, I see. We shall have a dance later. That
will help both you and my Persephone feel better.”

Did he miss nothing? “Thank
you,” was all Charles replied, because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to
conceal his glee. He’d been wondering how he would be able to sneak back to
report to Lochinvar and Lorrie, and now he wouldn’t have to. Maybe he’d be able
to run to Galiswood and talk to them, at least to assure them that Persy was
here and see if they’d thought of a rescue plan yet.

“Another short while, and
you will be over your weakness,” the fairy lord continued, examining him
critically. “Your sister, too, grows more used to her new home. We shall be able
to hold our marriage ceremony sooner than I expected. I knew I had chosen my
wife wisely. She will bear me strong children.” He gave a satisfied nod.

Charles’s glee faded. “When
will the ceremony be?”

“Oh, soon,” he replied
carelessly. “I have summoned my vassals and allies—that is what all these
missives were about.” He gestured to the stack of letters that Charles was folding
and sealing with blobs of silver wax. “There is a full moon coming in your
world. Perhaps we shall have the ceremony then, so that I may show off my fine
dancing place. Yes—we shall dance, and your sister can say farewell to your
world just before she becomes lady of mine.” He smiled and flicked Charles
gently on the cheek, then left.

Charles would dearly have
liked to dash the letters to the floor, but didn’t. How soon was “soon” in this
land of no time? And just when would the moon be full back at home? If the
fairy lord was just sending out invitations, that must surely mean there was
some
time to figure out how to get Persy out of here…but how long?

Margaret’s mother had an
entire wing of the fairy lord’s palace for herself and Margaret. Not too odd,
Charles supposed, as she’d been the previous lord’s wife...but it felt
separate, somehow, as if she wanted to live apart from her adopted people. It
included a courtyard which had been cultivated to resemble, as well as it could
in this strange twilit land, an English garden. Charles refrained from bending
to sniff any of the flowers lest they snap at his nose—his experience with the
ivy outside Persy’s window was still fresh in his mind.

Margaret’s mother today wore
no veil. Her hair was as fair as Margaret’s, and it was clear which of her
parents the daughter must resemble. Just like Margaret, something about her
features seemed familiar, though he was dashed if he could figure out why. She
had the same dimple in her chin, but her smile was tinged with an almost
unbearable sadness.

They sat on cushioned chairs
in a pool of torchlight after strolling around the garden. Margaret served them
small silver goblets of one of the elusively herbal fairy wines.

“So, Master Leland,”
Margaret’s mother said, looking at him over her goblet. “Is Eton truly so bad that
you preferred to come here and leave your home and family behind?”

“Er…” Charles glanced at
Margaret. All during the time he’d been helping the fairy lord with his
correspondence, he’d been debating what to say to Margaret’s mother—a fellow
human who’d also been abducted by fairies. If anyone here would be inclined to
help him, it would be her.

But did he dare ask her in
the presence of her half-fairy daughter? What if Margaret saw it as a betrayal and
stopped being his friend...was he ready to risk that? He glanced at her as he
spoke. “No, not really. I’m here because I’m trying to bring my sister back
home.”

Margaret gasped. “Charles!
But you said you wanted…oh, how could you? And you’re my brother’s servant
now—you can’t do this to him!”

He swallowed. “I know. I
wish I hadn’t had to do it, but it was the only thing I could think of. I know
he’s your brother, but Persy’s my sister. How can I turn my back on her?”

Her lips trembled. “But I…I
thought you liked it here. I thought you…liked
me
.”

Charles saw her mother’s
eyebrows rise. But he couldn’t pay attention to her when Margaret looked as
piteous as a kitten that had been flung into a snowdrift. “I do like you, and
being here. But—” He leaned forward and looked at her. “You told me that you
wouldn’t allow anyone to choose your husband for you. Isn’t that what’s
happened to my sister?”

Margaret’s woeful expression
changed into a thoughtful one. “Oh. I hadn’t quite thought of it that way.”

“She already has a husband
she loves, and was stolen from. Don’t you think she should go be able to go
back to him?”

“But what about
you
—”

“Persephone is married?”
Margaret’s mother interrupted.

Charles turned to her. “Yes,
ma’am, she’s married—well, she thought she was married to our neighbor
Lochinvar Seton, the son of the Earl of Northgalis. Did you know them, too…er—”
He fell silent, for she had suddenly turned white. Her goblet rang as it fell
from her fingers and hit the paving stones of the courtyard. Charles stood up
uncertainly and took a step toward her.

“Mother!” Margaret jumped
out of her chair too and knelt beside her, taking her hand. “What is it? Are
you ill?”

“Lochinvar, married,” she
whispered. “He’s a grown man now…I keep forgetting…” She shook her head, then
looked up at him with a strange expression. “And Frederick—the earl—is he….”

Charles glanced at Margaret,
but she looked as mystified as he felt. “He’s quite well, ma’am, though
heart-sick over Persy—he dotes on her. His wife died years ago—did you know
that?”

“And did he—did he
re-marry?” She was gripping Margaret’s hand so tightly that she whimpered in
protest.

“No, ma’am, he didn’t.”
Charles thought for a moment. “My mother said once that he told her that he was
trained to only one tandem and couldn’t drive hitched to any other, when she
tried to get him to visit London for the Season…I say!” He groped vainly for
his handkerchief before remembering that he had no longer had pockets.

Fortunately, Margaret was
better prepared. “What is it, mother? What makes you cry so?” she murmured,
trying to reach her mother’s face with one of the linen napkins. It was several
minutes before the older woman collected herself, but when she had, Charles was
astonished to see that she was smiling. She saw his expression and actually
laughed through her tears.

“My dear boy, you’ve no idea
what a gift you’ve given me. I’ve spent so many years trying not to think of
them, pretending they were dead…just as they think I am.” She looked at him
steadily, and it was as if the pieces of a puzzle came together in his mind
with a loud
click
.

“You’re…you’re Lady
Northgalis?” he said, his voice breaking into a squeak on the name. Good
lord—Lady Northgalis, alive! What would Lochinvar say if he knew? Or poor old
Lord Northgalis? “But you’re dead!”

She shook her head, her face
clouding. “No, not dead. I was taken just like your sister, except they left a
changeling in my place to wither and die. It was because I…I have certain—”

“Oh, I know,” Charles
interrupted. “It’s all right—Lochinvar told us you were—
are
—a witch. So
that’s why you were taken? Persy is too, of course. It’s a family thing.”

Lady Northgalis sighed. “The
poor child.” She held out her hand. He pulled his chair closer to hers and took
it, and she grasped it tightly. “Please, Charles…tell me about them. It has
been over twenty years—Lochinvar was just a small boy….” Her eyes were
pleading.

So Charles spoke, haltingly
at first, answering her questions—what kind of man had her son grown to be? Had
Lochinvar turned out as tall as she guessed he would? Had he gone to
university? How was Lord Northgalis’s health—did he take care of himself? Had
the house changed very much? When had Lochinvar and Persy married?

At length, Margaret could no
longer contain herself. “You mean I have
another
brother?” she demanded,
sounding somewhere between interested and exasperated. “And they both want to
marry your sister?”

“Well, something like that,”
Charles said. He looked at Lady Northgalis. “Who was Margaret, anyway?”

“What do you mean?
I’m
Margaret!”

Lady Northgalis smiled. “You
are a very perceptive young man, Charles Leland. It was Frederick’s—Lord
Northgalis’s—mother’s name. It was my small act of rebellion, if you will—a
very small one was all I was capable of.”

Charles nodded, suddenly
feeling hopeful. “Are you capable of a larger one now?” he asked.

Her smile faded. “I…I wish I
were. But there is nothing I can do to help your sister. My stepson has truly
entrapped her—I have made inquiries into the nature of the magic he used, and
there is no breaking it. But you…” She caught and held his eyes. “You can
escape here…and when you do, I want you to take Margaret with you.”

Next to him, he heard
Margaret draw in her breath sharply. “Why?” he asked.

“Because I don’t want her to
end up like your sister—like me—taken in marriage by someone not of her
choosing. That was what her father intended for her—to be a pawn in his endless
maneuverings with other fairy realms—and while her brother has been too busy
with other affairs, it won’t be long until he remembers what use she could be
to him. Take her back to our world—bring her to your mother. I know Parthenope
will take care of her.”

Charles hesitated. “I have
to try to get Persy home, ma’am. But…but if you’ll promise to help me, then
I’ll promise I’ll take Margaret with me if I can get back home.”

“Oh!”

Before Charles could do more
than look up, Margaret had leapt up from her mother’s side and thrown herself
into his lap, hugging him fiercely. “You’d bring me with you back to your
world?” she asked breathlessly. “So that I can see an ocean, and what winter
is, and squirrels?”