Charles Bewitched (8 page)

“Squirrels?”

She nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes! I saw one once on a dancing night, but it ran away before I could get a
good look at it. I’d dearly love to see a squirrel again. It looked...fluffy.”
She sat with her hands on his shoulders, gazing entreatingly at him. “You’ll
show me one? Promise?”

Charles was caught somewhere
between embarrassment, laughter, and something else that he wasn’t sure he
could identify, but it was making his heart beat more quickly and his arms move
of their own accord to encircle Margaret, to make sure she didn’t fall off or
something, of course.

“I promise I’ll show you a
whole treeful of squirrels,” he said. His voice was doing something funny in
his throat. He glanced at Lady Northgalis, and saw that she was smiling at
them.

With Margaret’s help,
Charles managed another semi-private visit to Persy a day or so later;
semi-private because he’d more or less stopped being a seven-day’s wonder at
the fairy lord’s court and could come to see Persy without her ladies wanting
to cluster around him, stroking his face and touching his hair.

Though she said she was
happy to see him, there was a listlessness about Persy—a hopelessness—that
worried him. It lifted temporarily when he told her about his interview with
Lady Northgalis; for a little while, she became her old happy, animated self,
distracted by the thought of Lochinvar’s mother being alive and well, and
planned to see her at the earliest opportunity. But after her initial
excitement subsided, she sank into gloom once more.

“Poor Lochinvar. He’s lost
both his mother and his wife,” she said, tears starting to her eyes.

“Not yet, he hasn’t,”
Charles said stoutly. “Guess what, Perse? The fairy lord promised me another
dancing night in the woods at home—he said you and I both need a few hours
there to reset our equilibrium or something.”

“I’d almost rather not go.”

“But I
need
you to
go.” It was hard to keep the impatience out of his voice. “You can keep him
distracted while I try to get over to Galiswood and see if Lochinvar and Lorrie
have come up with a plan, and tell them what I’ve learned.”

Persy sighed. “Yes, I
suppose so.” She looked up at him. “You like it here, don’t you? You like
them
.”

“Stop it, you goose.”
Charles poked her in the arm. “You’re letting your imagination run away with
you.”

She smiled at him wanly and
let him change the subject…but later on, he could not get her accusation out of
his head. Very well, so maybe he was finding the fairy lands
somewhat…interesting. The fairy lord was telling him a great deal about the
fairy clans and world, and had directed Margaret to teach him the fairy tongue
and writing system. She’d chosen to teach him by making him go for daily
rambles in the countryside with her, often bringing a picnic with her, so that
they would spend what felt like hours in the soft dusky light by brooks in which
swam glowing minnows, gold and red and green, or under trees that would correct
his pronunciation as Margaret taught him words and phrases. Margaret would
laugh and make fun of his questions about the fairy lands, then in her turn
make solemnly ridiculous pronouncements about the human world till they were
both weak with laughter. How could he not be interested in this place?
Honestly, it wasn’t like he wasn’t trying to get Persy out or anything like
that.

He was still justifying himself
in his mind when they accompanied the fairy lord down the hillside to the door
that led to the barrow on the hill near Galiswood. Persy, head held high and
fingers barely touching his, walked at the fairy lord’s side. Behind them
carrying her shawl of spider silk strung with crystal drops, Charles watched
her with trepidation and hoped she’d remember her promise and keep him occupied
so that he could slip away. Not far away, Margaret, who tonight wore a dress
made of thousands of small white flowers, walked with Lady Northgalis; she too
had promised to conceal his absence, but didn’t look very happy about it.

As it turned out, rather
than slipping away to Galiswood, Charles scarcely had to leave the clearing. As
he and Margaret made their way with careful nonchalance toward the edge of the
trees, a whispered “Mister Charles!” brought them up short.

“Stay here,” Charles
muttered to Margaret, then sidled behind her and into the trees, where a
grinning Nando crouched next to a thicket.

“You came back,” he said to
the boy, feeling almost ridiculously pleased. So he hadn’t run away!

“I hide here every night,
waiting to see if you come,” Nando said. “That’s what the big lord and the
little lord—um, Lord Northgalis and Lord Seton—thought I should do. I watch for
you at night, and I sleep in the day.” His grin widened. “And I eat a lot when
I’m not watching or sleeping.”

“I can see that.” The boy’s
painfully thin frame had filled out a little, and the wary, hunted look in his
dark eyes had faded. Mrs. Harris in the kitchen must be in her glory with a
hungry boy to fatten up...except that must mean— “I say—how long has it been
since the night I went with the fairies, anyway?”

Nando frowned, and Charles
saw his fingers moving as if counting. “Ten and two nights,” he finally said.
“Eeee, they’ll be glad to see you come back! Let’s go, before the
biti foki
find us.”

“No.” Charles put a
restraining hand on his arm. “I can’t. I’m working for the fairy lord as a way
to stay among them and figure out a way to get Persy away from them. They
haven’t come up with any ideas at home, have they?” he asked hopefully.

Nando shook his head.
“Another two nights and I think that Lord Northgalis was going to dig that up.”
He jerked his chin toward the barrow.

“Well, tell them that won’t
do any good. They won’t find a way into the fairy lands that way.” Charles
thought for a minute. “All right, Nando, listen carefully. Tell them that my
sister is well—they’re treating her like she’s queen here—but that the fairy
lord is going to marry her as soon as his guests have arrived to witness it.
Lochinvar and Lorrie have to come up with a plan soon. I’m racking my brains,
but it’s uphill work and they keep me busy—”

“Charles?” said a plaintive
voice, and Margaret was there, picking her way through the undergrowth. “You’re
taking a long time—oh.” She looked at Nando with interest. “Are you another
boy?”

“Yes he is, and he’s just
leaving.” Charles took her arm and began to steer her back out of the woods.
For some reason he didn’t want Nando talking to her—or
about
her to everyone
when he got back to Galiswood.

“I come back tomorrow, but
how can I be getting word to you if there’s any news?” Nando called after them.

“I—I’ll try to come back, or
something. Go, quick, and tell them what I told you,” Charles said over his
shoulder.

“I could come back for you
and see if he has news,” Margaret said, when they were back in the clearing.

Charles stopped. “Could you?
Really?”

“Well, of course. Why
couldn’t I?”

“Er…” Charles looked at her
doubtfully. Could she be trusted to help him, when it came right down to it?
Would she be willing to cross her very powerful brother, of whom she seemed to
be at least somewhat fond and definitely in awe? “Maybe I should have said,
would
you?”

She had stopped too; now she
raised herself on her toes and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “I would—for you.”

And for the rest of the
evening, Charles was sure he’d be able to get Persy home. In fact, he felt
capable of
anything.

Unfortunately, that feeling
of invincibility waned in the next hours and days as no plan to rescue Persy
occurred to him. Nor had one occurred to Lochinvar and Lorrie; Margaret slipped
out as she’d said she would, even telling her brother that she’d left her shawl
in the clearing and getting his permission to pass back through the guarded door.
Although it was daylight when she arrived, meaning Nando wasn’t there, there
was an envelope pinned to the tree next to which he had crouched when they last
saw him.

There was no chance for
Charles to read it right away; the first of the wedding guests had arrived, and
he was busy attending the fairy lord as he welcomed them. He’d had to serve at
the welcoming meal that had been laid for them, then hung about in Persy’s
rooms, willing encouragement to her when the group of newcomers were brought to
be presented to her. Though they were almost exaggeratedly polite to
her—Charles got the feeling that they were somehow beholden to the fairy lord
and didn’t dare do anything even remotely disrespectful—they still gawked at
her like she was an exhibit in a menagerie. Only hours later (it seemed) was he
allowed to return to his room to get some sleep, which was a good thing: he’d
been close to exploding, wanting to read the note carefully tucked into his
tunic but of course not risking it in front of the fairy lord.

The note was from Lochinvar.
It expressed the general relief at Galiswood that he was alive and well and
free to move about, and assured him that they were doing all they could to
think of a way to extricate Persy. Lorrie had even gone down to London to
consult with her parents and pore through the books on fairy lore in their
bookshop. It ended with Lochinvar sending his love to Persy, in handwriting
that bespoke his frustration and longing almost more eloquently than his words.

Charles let the note drop
and slumped back against the pillows on his bed, staring morosely at nothing.
So they were no closer than he was to finding help for Persy, and wedding
guests were already arriving. How much longer before they’d all arrived, and it
was time for the ceremony binding Persy to the fairy lord for always? There
would be no returning to Galiswood and Lochinvar then—not for Persy, and not
for him. After all, how could he just abandon her here?

His abstracted gaze fell on
the stool under the window that held his still-folded coat and vest and
trousers. It didn’t look like he’d be needing them anymore, did it? Except that
Margaret was always asking him to wear them for her. She probably liked them
because they made him look more human—and he was her exotic pet human, wasn’t
he? What would happen when she grew bored with him? Or when she was married off
to some other fairy princeling as part of her brother’s machinations and left
him all alone?

Sitting on top of the pile
of clothes was his summer reading book from Eton. Ha. Just a couple of weeks
ago, the most horrible thing he had to face was reading a lot of dry history
over his holiday. Funny how things could change in such a short time.

He got off the bed and
picked up the book.
History and Policy of the Norman and Angevin Kings
…it
looked almost pleasant and cozy, now, like a book of bedtime stories. In fact,
that was exactly what it had become for him: a reminder that the human world
still existed somewhere, a world where history tutors and Lord Chesterfield, Galiswood
and Mage’s Tutterow, his mother and father and sister Pen and the new niece he’d
never see all went on living their lives under the summer sun.

He opened the book to the
place where he’d left off reading last, and dove back into his own world. After
several pages his eyes had begun to droop, but they flew open once more when he
came to a certain passage:

“Despite his frequent travel across the length and
breadth of England to put down rebellions and incursions from Scotland, Wales
and Northumbria, William of Normandy’s success in consolidating his hold on his
new island possession by treaty and gift as well as by the sword was
noteworthy. According to one source,
The
Chronicle of St. Aelfled of Bermondsey
, his confidence in his ability to
make a year-long visit to Normandy in 1074, leaving England in the hands of his
most trusted supporters, was probably made possible by the treaty he negotiated
and signed, after three years of often bloody battle, with the fairy folk of
Wessex, whose lord swore him fealty. Though this tale must be taken with all
due scepticism, it is yet indicative of William’s ability in the—”

Charles blinked, and read
the passage again more slowly. He sat up and stared out his window for several
moments, his mind working furiously, and then he clapped the book shut and went
to look for pen and paper and Margaret. Maybe, just maybe, he’d found a way to
get Persy home.

“Was he there?” Charles
demanded.

But Margaret was too busy
checking him over. “It didn’t hurt you, did it? Did they get it off you quickly
enough?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Was he
there
?”

When Charles had found
Margaret and told her his plan, she’d been dubious but agreed to smuggle a
letter out to leave for Nando or, if possible, to give it to him in person. He
had no idea if Lochinvar would be able to do as he’d asked, but he
had
to try.

The problem had been getting
the letter out. Margaret couldn’t claim another shawl left in the dancing
clearing; they’d have to find a way to sneak her past the door guards. The way
that Charles had found was for him to stumble toward the guards with strands of
carnivorous ivy, plucked from the nearby woods where it grew as happily as it
did below Persy’s window, wrapped around his neck; hopefully they would come to
the aid of their lord’s feckless human page, and Margaret could slip through
the door and back again while they did.

Astonishingly, it
worked—almost too well. Charles found a tree on which the ivy grew and let it
twine itself around his neck and wrists, and then couldn’t break away from its
evil grasp. His shrieks for help were much more authentic than he’d planned,
but they did the job: both of the door guards came running to hack at the ivy
and pull him away from the tree. But his cries also nearly brought Margaret
running, too—Charles saw her emerge from her hiding place and start toward him
as well before she paused, watched until the guards had reached him, and turned
toward the door.

Charles managed drag out
sputtering and coughing and moaning at the sight of the bites on his wrists
left by the ivy’s tiny mouths until he saw Margaret hurrying away from the
door, her mission evidently completed. Only then did he let one of the guards
help him back to the house while the other returned to his duties. Margaret
took charge of him there, pretending to scold him for not paying attention to
his surroundings as he’d been warned until they reached his room. Then she set
about fussing over him instead of telling him whether or not she’d been able to
give the letter to Nando. Girls. He would never understand them.

“Please, tell me before I
explode—was Nando there?”

“No. It was daytime again,
and it was raining, which was rather horrid.” Margaret wrinkled her nose as she
inspected his neck. “Why do you let it do that?

“We don’t have much choice
in the matter. What did you do with the letter?”

“I left it where I’d found
his, of course. Don’t wiggle—I want to see this better.”

“You’re tickling me!”

But she wouldn’t relent, and
made him come down to her mother’s rooms so she could smear his wounds—they
were
starting to smart and itch—with some sort of greenish paste that made them feel
better immediately. He wished it had the same effect on his mind. Hopefully the
letter for Lochinvar outlining his plan to rescue Persy wouldn’t (a) become so
waterlogged by rain as to be illegible; (b) be found by someone other than
Nando, and used to make candle-lighters; (c) be shredded by hedgehogs for
nesting material; or (d) some other equally destructive fate which hadn’t yet
occurred to him but would over the next several days of waiting and worrying
and hoping.

He found a quiet moment to
show Persy the letter from Lochinvar, hoping it would make her feel better. For
a moment, it seemed to; she snatched the letter from him and read it eagerly,
then ran her finger over the signature as if she could touch its owner…and then
looked away, her mouth trembling.

Charles took her hand and
patted it. “Don’t worry, Persy. I have a plan, and Lochinvar’s working on it.
We’ll have you home before you know it.”

She tried to smile and
mostly succeeded. “Thank you, Charles. I—whatever happens, thank you. I know
you’ve tried, even if—”

“No
ifs
,” he broke
in. “We’re going home, you and I. You’ll see.”

Maintaining such confidence
when he was alone was far more difficult. It was almost torture, waiting to see
if his plan would work without being able to actually carry any of it out
himself. And to make matters worse, preparations for the wedding were picking
up pace. More guests continued to arrive, which meant he must be on hand to
play the role of the fairy lord’s loyal page at welcoming feasts and audiences,
depending on the newcomers’ rank. Sometimes he would find the fairy lord’s eyes
on him, watching him with an unreadable expression in their cold gray depths,
and he would shiver inwardly, wondering if he knew or suspected that a plan was
afoot to deprive him of his bride. Surely Margaret hadn’t told him about that
letter…had she?

She too seemed on edge,
following him around even more closely than she usually did, as if she didn’t
want to let him out of her sight. Was it because she’d been ordered to watch
him, or was it something else?

It was almost a relief,
then, when the all the guests had arrived and all the preparations completed:
from Persy’s dress, green silk with resplendent silver embroidery, to the
wedding feast of strange delicacies, to the decorations in the great hall,
jarringly adorned with both flowery garlands and the ragged, blood-stained
battle standards taken by the fairy lord in the recent wars.

Also arrived was the dancing
night the fairy lord had decided would take place before the ceremony, to enjoy
the full July moon. Charles felt almost light-headed with nerves: this was it.
If Lochinvar had been able to carry out his plan, it would happen tonight. Now
all he had to do was keep himself from being sick or passing out at the fairy
lord’s feet from sheer anxiety. He had decided not to tell Persy any details of
her planned rescue; Charles wasn’t sure she could endure the tension…or the possible
disappointment. She was looking almost frighteningly white and thin in her
glorious gown; Margaret said that of late she ate barely enough to keep a
flitwing alive, whatever a flitwing was.

The line of dancers that
followed the fairy lord through the door to the dancing hill was a long one:
not only most of his own household had come tonight, but close to two hundred
guests as well. The more important of them joined the fairy lord and Persy on
green-cushioned chairs and stools at the foot of the barrow, while the others
wandered about exclaiming at the beauty of the clearing. The full moon rising
above the trees poured glittering light into it so that it looked like a bowl
of quicksilver. Torchlight punctuated the darkness at the edge of the trees, which
was both a blessing and a curse: it helped conceal anyone who might approach
the clearing, but made it impossible for him to keep watch for anyone who might
come...oh God, please let them come—

“Let’s dance,” Margaret
said, tugging at his hand. Tonight she was—oddly—dressed all in black, in some
strange kind of fabric that looked as if it had been woven from shadows. Her
pale face and silver-gilt hair were nearly swallowed up by all that darkness.

“I can’t. Not now.” Dancing
would have been a relief—the nervous energy within him was fast approaching the
boiling point—but he had to be ready in case something happened.

“But you
have
to!”

“Why?”

“Because…because it might be
the last time I can ever dance with you,” she replied, almost whispering.

Oh. Charles looked at
her—really
looked
—and saw that she was almost as tightly wound as he
was. He’d told her about his plan to free Persy back when he’d asked her to
sneak out the letter to Lochinvar, but hadn’t thought about how it would affect
her.

He’d promised Lady
Northgalis that he would take Margaret with him if he left the fairy lands, but
that had been before. If his plan worked, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep
that promise…and it looked as if Margaret had come to the same conclusion. He’d
been so preoccupied with rescuing Persy that he hadn’t understood that it might
mean never seeing Margaret again.

Without another word, he let
her draw him toward the line of dancers. Margaret had at times been baffling,
funny, clever, mysterious, and—well, a darling…and sometimes, all of those
things at once. He’d never known anyone could be that way. Would he ever meet
anyone who was, among the chattering hordes of girls in London’s polite
society?

“Margaret,” he began,
clasping her hands more tightly as the dance drew them together. “I—”

She shook her head, and he
saw that her eyes were brimming with tears. “No. Don’t say anything.”

Charles swallowed hard and
made himself concentrate on the dance, because there was nothing else he could
do. He—and Persy and Margaret and everyone else in the Fairy Lands and at
Galiswood—were paused at a crossroad, waiting for events to send them down one
path or another. Only time would tell which path that would be. In the
meanwhile, he would hold Margaret’s hands and do his best to memorize her face,
just in case.

He was so intent on this
task that it wasn’t until the music stopped and the dancers around them
abruptly ceased their measured steps and fell into confused knots that he
looked up...and saw that Nando had walked into the middle of the crowded
clearing. His back was straight and his head high; he met Charles’s eye and
nodded slightly, but did not pause to speak to him. Instead, he maintained his
measured tread until he came to within hailing distance of the fairy lord and his
guests by the barrow.

“Come on,” Charles muttered
to Margaret, and pulled her with him till they too were close to the barrow,
but off to one side, near to Lady Northgalis. They were just in time to hear
Nando speak.

“Hail, Lord of the
Biti
Foki
,” he said in a loud, clear voice. Charles noticed that he no longer
wore his hand-me-downs, but was dressed in a handsome new coat and trousers
with a red ribbon sash across his chest, like a diplomatic emissary...and his
hopes soared. “I am here to bear you greetings and bring you a message.”

The fairy lord, who had been
talking to one of his more important guests, glanced up. A look of mingled
annoyance and amusement flitted across his face; amusement won when his eyes
fell on Nando.

“Ah, a little Romany has
wandered into my dance,” he said lightly. “Greetings to you,
chava
.
Whose messenger are you, and whose greeting do you bear? Do you come to wish me
merry on my
abiav
?” He pulled Persy, whose hand he held clasped in his,
against his side.

Nando paused and drew himself
up in a beautifully practiced gesture. Someone had been rehearsing with him in
front of the mirror, Charles suspected. “I bear the greetings of your overlord,
lord.”

The fairy lord’s brow
creased. “My overlord?”

“Oh, yes, sir…or should I
say, your overlady?” He turned to face the edge of the clearing from where he
had come and made a low bow.

At first, Charles couldn’t
see anything; the dancing fairies were drawing to the sides of the clearing,
blocking his view. Then he heard Persy cry out, even above the murmurs of the
guests. He fought his way to the edge of the crowd, followed closely by
Margaret…and felt a huge burst of joy. His plan was working!

There, leaning on
Lochinvar’s arm and with Lorrie Allardyce in close attendance, was Her Majesty
the Queen, walking through the clearing as if it were her garden at Windsor.

She was perhaps slightly
plumper than she’d been when Charles had first met her five years ago, but she
had married since then and was already the mother of two children. She wore a white
lace dress adorned with several impressive-looking, jeweled orders and a
gorgeous diamond tiara on her smooth brown hair that flashed reflected fire
from the torches flaring around them. Her posture was even more dignified than
he remembered; it matched her solemn expression as she came to a halt before
the fairy lord and inclined her head regally to him.

“Lochinvar!” Persy lunged
toward him, all the longing of the last weeks plain on her face, but the fairy
lord’s grip on her arm was unbreakable. She stumbled and fell back against him.
Lochinvar looked thunderous but he maintained his silence, his eyes locked on
her.

“Be still,” the fairy lord
said to Persy, holding her tightly against him, then turned to the queen. “I do
not have a human overlord—or even an overlady. May I ask why you have come to
my clearing and interrupted my dance?”

“Oh, but you do.” The queen’s
voice was as lovely and silvery as ever. “Your ancestor swore fealty to mine,
the first King William, nearly eight hundred years ago after he was defeated in
battle by the King’s men. All the fairy folk of Wessex are my vassals, and I am
their liege lady. Miss Allardyce?”

Lorrie stepped forward, and
Charles saw her unwrap a bundle of gold cloth to reveal several large scrolls
of yellowed parchment. She unrolled one and stepped forward, holding it up for
the fairy lord’s inspection. Charles could not see much of it beyond a flash of
color from the illuminated heading and the various seals hanging from it by
tattered ribbons. The fairy lord stared at it, and a furrow deepened between
his brows as his eyes traveled down its length. Finally he looked up.