Ill Met by Moonlight (12 page)

She started to pull back, then surrendered to his embracing arms, his searching hands.

The rustling he’d been hearing and tracking resolved into steps. Human steps. Or at least elven, since no human, ever, stepped that lightly. The sound came through the forest, toward them. Still pressed close to Ariel, still feeling her warmth and movement through the fabric of her dress and his doublet Quicksilver listened to the steps, giving close mind to their cadence.

Had they been the heavy, uncouth steps of mortals, he would have continued his amusement. Chances were that cutpurses or drunks making their way through the forest in the evening light wouldn’t be able to see the elven realm. And even had they been Sunday children, able to see elves, they would never have been able to touch them, lest Ariel and Quicksilver willed it so. They could have done no more than—at most—spread tales of wild spirits mating in the forest glens.

But the steps, as they approached, confirmed the light springiness of elvenkind. In fact, if Quicksilver didn’t have supernatural senses, he would never have heard them. He pulled his mouth away from Ariel’s, and took a finger to his lips, commanding silence, while he tracked the sound of the steps through the forest.

Three, no four elves, walking in near silence. Would these be Sylvanus’s guards? Had word of Ariel’s dream and Quicksilver’s response to it spread already? His arm around Ariel’s waist, Quicksilver pulled her behind a thick bush, and willed her garments to be as dark as his. Pulling off his doublet, he threw it over both their fair heads. He willed his thoughts to whispers, and veiled Ariel’s.

The steps approached, treading the path where, moments before, Quicksilver and Ariel had kissed.

So, it was true. Sylvanus had guessed, or spied, or somehow learned of Quicksilver’s intentions, and now Quicksilver himself would be cast away from the hill, with no power, to become prey to unnamed creatures who hunted his kind. He would be sent throughout the world—neither mortal nor elf—an elf without power, a creature of little more than wisps and wishes, and those very wisps wishing themselves away to nothing, day by day as they dwindled. Quicksilver would become, what? Perhaps prey for legendary creatures, like the Hunter, creatures so old that their origin had been lost in the minds of both elves and humans. Himself, Quicksilver had always suspected the Hunter of being a god of his own kind, and possessing only the kind of reality that elves gave him, by their worship and belief. But the oldest legends spoke of his feeding on elves, of his hunting them as his quarry.

The steps came closer. Ariel squirmed and breathed deeply, as though she might say something. Quicksilver shook his head No and, once more, put his hand over her lips.

The steps halted, just on the other side of the bush, behind which Quicksilver hid.

“Here we should be safe to talk,” a voice said. Pyrite’s voice. “Well enough away from the court and that foolish nursemaid.”

The foolish nursemaid? Could this be the same Pyrite who had heaped compliments on the woman’s common looks? Did Pyrite then, have plans of his own? What plans?

“You said Lord Sylvanus had a task for us,” another voice prompted, a voice kept too low for Quicksilver to identify.

A task? Quicksilver’s heart beat fast. A task? Had Sylvanus, then, decided to dispose of Quicksilver, the heir to the throne? Elves could be killed by other elves, if enough power were brought about, and Sylvanus had enough power.

But would Pyrite lend himself to this? Pyrite who’d just professed his friendship for Quicksilver?

So, it would be thus, Quicksilver thought. Not even exile, but death. Death and nothingness beyond. To sleep. Perchance to dream. Quicksilver almost longed for it. But in that sleep beyond the grave, what dreams might come? His hand clenched the ornamental dagger at his side, and he waited and listened. If he listened to his would-be assassins, chances were he could deter them and forestall the evil hour yet. His other hand he held tightly over Ariel’s mouth, feeling her lips pressed against the palm, her regular breath over it.

“A task indeed, an easy one, that will win us the gratitude of our king.” Pyrite’s voice resounded with easy self-satisfaction, with the enthusiasm of a man who sees recognition and riches within reach of his outstretched hand, his for the plucking. “That man who has wed the nursemaid, that butcher’s apprentice, or farmer, or whatever he is, stands in the way of our king’s ardor. But for him, the fair one would have our king. As it is, though, she sees herself bound by the vows taken before her god. Were her husband out of the way and she a widow, she wouldn’t long resist the blandishments of her better.”

“Who is he, then, this mortal?” the whispering one asked. “And how can we ambush him?”

“Our king has gotten from the woman that her husband’s name is William Shakespeare. He is young yet, and dark-haired, and twice daily he must walk from Stratford to Wincot and cross the forest, to fulfill his lowly calling, whatever that is. According to our king’s spies, even now he’ll be walking back. It should be easy to ambush him by the great oak, at the turning to Stratford. There we shall kill him. The mortals will never guess. They will take it as a murder committed by bandits, a killing for his purse. And the woman, Nan, will be free to make free with our sovereign.”

Quicksilver’s heart beat at his throat, his hand clamped tightly, tightly, on Ariel’s mouth.

So, it wasn’t his life his brother sought, but his brother’s plan could, nonetheless, spell the death of Quicksilver’s plot. He thought of young Will, foolish and trusting, and comely and sweet. Quicksilver must stop this assassination.

However, if he stopped Sylvanus’s plan, wouldn’t Sylvanus find out? And what punishment might he not mete out to the young brother who stopped him attaining his heart’s desire? A brother that, already, found no favor in Sylvanus’s heart?

Quicksilver took deep breaths and thought, and thought, while the conspirators spoke near him, and Ariel stood beside him, still, still except for her breath that tickled the back of his hand, and her lips pressed, warm and soft, against his palm.

He would have to kill all four of the conspirators. All of them. But Pyrite was Ariel’s brother and his own oldest friend, not to mention a duke of the Realm, a favorite of Sylvanus, through the King well connected in the hill power, and strong enough to oppose his elven power to Quicksilver’s own. The other ones, from their deferential tones to Pyrite, their softly whispered comments, though still elves, and therefore still Lords of the Hill, would be pages, lowly knaves, second sons and bastard ones, and their ilk. Quicksilver doubted too that any of them stood as high in Sylvanus’s favor as Pyrite. Them, Quicksilver could dispatch quickly.

The thought of killing his own kind made his blood rankle. The thought of killing Pyrite made him tremble. To kill his own friend would make him a fiend, like monsters in human stories.

But for the villain, Sylvanus, to die, those who guarded him and followed his orders must be defeated.

Yet, perhaps there was hope. Pyrite must believe Quicksilver. Together they had played at fair Titania’s feet, together hunted the green forest. And Pyrite had professed his affection for Quicksilver just this morning. Perhaps Pyrite would agree to lie about the results of his ambush. Perhaps he would agree to lie for Quicksilver.

Oh, Pyrite wanted to advance in the kingdom, but surely, once Quicksilver acquainted him with Sylvanus’s treachery, he would see that his best advantage lay by Quicksilver’s side.

Quicksilver swallowed. One way or another he must stop them, he must stop Pyrite. It must be done. And weren’t they, anyway, contemplating murder themselves? Oh, surely murder of a mortal was not nearly as bad as killing elvenkind, as mortals died quickly and their lives were worth little more than the lives of fireflies in a summer night. But killing them remained murder, the extinguishing of a thinking mind. To do it, as Sylvanus would, to gratify gross lust and base emotion, must be a crime.

The boy had been warm and alive, and real in Quicksilver’s arms. And they would kill him, to clear the path of Sylvanus’s lust. Sylvanus must die, as must his servants. Without Will, Quicksilver could not even dream of killing Sylvanus.

Quicksilver heard the conspirators retreat, their steps distancing themselves, light and almost inaudible on the forest floor.

That young man they were so intent on killing was as alive as they were, for the brief while his life lasted. Quicksilver remembered his solid form that he’d clasped in his arms, remembered Will’s voice replying to him, the youth’s confusion at the interference of the fairy world in his life.

He remembered Will’s lips, his mouth that tasted of wine and life, his arms that had embraced Quicksilver’s body with so much eager intent, such powerful urgency.

The conspirators were gone; Quicksilver was alone with Lady Ariel.

Her mouth freed, she said, “Milord, it was my brother, who. . .I didn’t tell him of your brother’s deed. I couldn’t, since Pyrite is his closest liegeman, but . . .”

“Your brother is safe, milady,” Quicksilver said. “Your brother is safe. I’d never give him away. I’ll try to speak to him and dissuade him from his fatal purpose, but no more. I prize your brother above mortals.” He smiled, a facile smile that made his facial muscles smart. He must get her mind from this, he must make her forget what she’d heard. Ariel had been orphaned as a baby, and Pyrite, ten years older, was all the family she had.

Pyrite must be spared, for fair Ariel’s sake.

Quicksilver must distract her and quickly and then he must hasten to the great oak in the forest. He marveled at how careless his voice sounded as he said, “There was something we were pursuing, what was it? Oh, yes.” Voraciously, he lowered his mouth to Ariel’s, while his hands worked, unnoticed, at her bodice.

Her eyes on his were hungry, helpless, all thought vanished from them. She didn’t attempt to ask any more questions. Her mouth sought his with blind eagerness. Never had a traveler in the heat of the sun longed for water as much as she did for his good turn.

And as he laid her down on the forest floor, Ariel might have forgotten Will, but Quicksilver did not.

Scene 6

A tavern such as frequented by working-class men. By the blazing fireplace three bawds sit, scantily attired, though their clothing has seen better days. Three long tables, with benches of the same length take up all of the smoky space. At the tables sits a motley of men, most in russet suits of ill cut, covered in obvious mending. On the walls there’s a suspicion of frescoes covered beneath years of grime and grease. A fat woman moves amid the tables, refilling the thick white clay cups the drinkers hold.

“T
hat’s my Marian, Marian Hacket, she is. Thighs like butter and breasts like cream, could envelope a man till kingdom come.” The man sitting next to Will on the tavern’s long bench reached a hand for the arm of the alewife, and held onto it while he spoke in the high, querulous voice of one who’s had far too much to drink. “Here, Marian,” he went on. “Tell my friend Will that all will be well. His wife left the poor lad, you see. He has nothing to go home to.”

The smell of sour sweat from the man, and the cleaner sweat of the alewife mingled with the sweet scent of fine ale as the woman poured a good head of golden brew into Will’s white ceramic cup, and then into that of the man next to him.

“Not
left
,” Will said, surprised at saying it, surprised at hearing his own voice rise high and as whining as that of the old drunkard’s next to him. “Not left, she didn’t. They took her by force, they did, with their fine manners and their velvet suits. And she danced . . . she danced with him nightlong.” His words shocked him as if a stranger had pronounced them. What fool was he to go telling all to a stranger at a poor alehouse in Wincot? Foolish Will, foolish, so foolish that within six months of marriage, he had lost wife and daughter and all. He felt a desperate sadness, a terrible pity for poor, overworked Will Shakespeare, who had nothing but an empty house to go home to. He felt sorry for the foolish lad as though he were someone quite different from himself.

“Pssssshhhhhh!” the man next to him said. “It’s getting so a poor workman can’t even keep his wife no more. If it’s not one thing it’s another, and now gentlemen in velvet and all. Would you credit it? I tell you, friend Will, there are stranger things under the sun than any philosophy professor could dream up. Stranger. Just the other day, crossing Arden Forest, I saw a troop of the little people, roaming across, dressed all in green. Would you credit it?”

Will wanted very much to credit it, but his tongue had become like thick cork and he held about as much control over it as though it
were
cork.

“I know, friend, you think me crazy, but I’m not crazy. Not I, Christopher Sly, by birth a peddler, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bearherd, and now by present profession a tinker. Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. And Christopher Sly tells you the world has gone mad and nothing has been right no more. Why, these last ten years or more, someone has put a blight on all the colors, so they all run together, and my meat has lost its taste.”