The Accidental Highwayman (34 page)

[   
“I Looked Up, and There He Was”
   ]

Birds must grow accustomed to it; I didn't have time. I'd never been up so high without something firm underfoot, and my head spun with the void all around. At a certain height, higher than the tallest building I had ever looked out from, or the tallest hill I'd ever ascended, the distance from the ground ceased to be frightening, for it no longer looked as though we were getting higher in the air; rather, it looked as though the world were getting smaller, and if I should wish to step off Midnight's back, my boot could flatten an entire village.

We flew at terrific speed, the wind beating our faces. Midnight clearly enjoyed it as much as possible, while I clung to his mane and tried not to fall off. Horses run so fast because their souls were born to fly, I think. The landscape beneath us slipped past with such swiftness that we covered the distance from the Tyburn Tree to Hampton Court Palace—a span of more than three leagues, about ten miles—in as little time as it takes to spend a farthing in a sweetshop.

There were the royal gardens, spread below us like an intricate Persian carpet, and there the roofs of lead and clay, bristling with twisted brick chimney pipes. I saw a stream of elegantly dressed people entering the palace. They resembled small, gaudy dolls from above, their toy carriages circling the drive. Then Midnight bore me among the rooftops and we were searching for a place to set down.

 

Chapter 34

THE ROYAL WEDDING

T
HE WEDDING
was intended to be, as I was later to discover, a small affair, attended by only the few personages required to make the event legally binding. Apparently the alliance was a state secret. The nuptials would be followed directly by a great costumed ball—guests to which I had seen in the forecourt—which would allow the Faerie emissaries to mingle at court without detection. There was some other pretext for the ball, Midsummer Night's Eve or the like.

Midnight had landed us upon the roof of Hampton Court—or, to be precise about it, upon one of the many roofs. Never in my life had I seen such a vast construction, all to one purpose. But the great horse seemed to know what he was about, for he pawed the red clay tiles and ducked his head, as if to say, “Straight below.”

I had less than a minute and a half to reach my destination, at best. So I did not question his wisdom, but flung myself over the nearest parapet and dropped to a balcony on the floor below. I entered by way of an unlocked window; there was no need to worry about intruders up here, after all.

Captain Sterne's sword in hand, I raced down a scuffed brown hallway in what must have been the servants' quarters beneath the roof, with apartments on each side for threescore people; before me was a stone stair spiraling through the floor. I leapt down it three steps at a time.

Everything I did there was at absolutely full tilt, never walking a step that could be run, and I spared not a moment for thought nor caution. Was I not already dead? Did not my throat still chafe from the embrace of the noose? Should any creature stand between me and Morgana in her peril, it would be to their peril. I hoped.

At the bottom of the stair, to my immeasurable relief, was the Haunted Gallery. It didn't appear haunted at that time, but rather, crowded with wigged and powdered servants in livery, King's Guards, and men-in-waiting. Nearly everyone carried swords at their belts, not to mention pikes and lances. I was at last inspired to adopt a little caution, and ducked out of sight. I bound the highwayman's mask about my eyes. Perhaps they would mistake me for a costumed party guest, should I be discovered. It might also hide the terror on my face.

Captain Sterne's sword seemed familiar to me as I renewed my grip upon it. Then I recognized the weapon—'twas the very sword I had lost in my struggle with Mr. Scratch and Mr. Bufo! My master's own weapon. This gave me courage, for some nonsensical reason. Upon the blade, in freshly engraved floral script, was this message:
Captured from the Highwayman Whistling Jacques,
and the date of my apprehension, several weeks after I lost it. What I was most pleased to see was the golden hilt.

All of this happened in a twinkling—I had the damp mud from the mill yard yet on my boots, and between parting from Magda and the moment I hefted the sword in my fist, no more than three minutes had elapsed. If the royal wedding was taking place in the room around which the guards were gathered, I had all of two minutes to enact some plan of rescue, assuming the Chaplain of the Household spoke slowly.

The trouble was—and I find in life this is often the situation—I couldn't think of what to do. Between me and Morgana were three dozen armed men, besides whomever she was with inside that room, some of whom would surely be magical persons, and possibly goblings.

I must think of something!
was all my mind could invent. A case-clock against the wall ridiculed me with its incessant ticking. Nearly another minute had passed.

A mad fugue of anxiety quite overtook me. It was time to act, and if I died, Morgana would surely know I tried my best, and perchance suspect what was in my heart, and forgive me for my incompetence and brusqueness where she was concerned.

I charged.

The effect must have been rather less impressive to the crowd of men at the door than it was to me. I shouted for all I was worth as I came around the corner, but my voice hadn't much volume since the hanging. And my muddy boots slipped terribly on the highly polished floor. Still, I gamely attacked, sword raised high. All eyes were upon me, and I think the only question hanging in the air was who should kill me.

This surprise mixed with indifference got me as far as the nearest footman, who drew his sword. I swung at him for form's sake, being useless at offensive fighting. He parried and sprang after me, and so my defensive training came into use. Then there were a dozen of them coming at me, all with swords, and a good deal of shouting, and I knocked over a suit of armor while escaping the many points flashing my way. Had there not been so many of them pressing the attack, I'd have been cut to laces in the first dozen seconds of the pursuit; as it was, they kept foiling one another's thrusts.

At the height of the fracas there was a tremendous
boom,
and the doors of the wedding-chamber burst open. A blast of green flame gusted out, like a diabolical bedsheet flapping in a high wind. A silver-gilt chair tumbled into the mass of guards, the tapestries blew off the walls, chandeliers fell and burst into sparkling fragments upon the floor, and every window in the gallery shattered at the same moment. Not a man was left on his feet.

A roiling pall of smoke issued through the broken doorway, flickering with green witchfire. The outline of a figure appeared within. For an instant I feared the One-Eyed Duchess had found some means to come to finish me off. But then Morgana emerged from the reek, her eyes flashing emerald as she surveyed the scene before her. In her white and silver gown, with flowers in her hair, she looked a paragon of beauty—but the bared teeth and blazing eyes gave her the aspect of a pagan queen, such as Boadicea, who led the ancient Britons against Rome.

“Morgana,” I croaked, trying to extricate myself from a tapestry. My mask had turned around backwards and I could only see out the bottom.

“I'm getting better at magic,” she said, and ran to my side while the guards all around us were still trying to get to their knees.

“Morgana,” I said again, for there was nothing else in my head but her.

“Dear Kit,” said she. “Are you badly hurt?”

“No. Are you married?”

“No.”

“Good. There's something I'd like to tell you.”

She looked about us; the guards were finding their swords. “Now?”

“Perhaps it can wait a minute or two,” I conceded. Just then a new voice intruded into the scene.

“Grandpapa, are you injured?” I heard a fellow say, and a moment later, Georges II and soon-to-be III, king and prince, respectively, emerged from the wedding chamber, coughing and waving the smoke away. The old English king was unmistakable, the subject of innumerable portraits, and his pop-eyed grandson could scarcely be anyone else.

“Neffer better,” King George said with his thick German accent, and irritably slapped the wig off his grandson's head.

Just then, the most extraordinary figure in this tale appeared out of the smoke from the wedding chamber, parting the two Georges. He was as tall as my knee, as wide as my waist, and wore a wig of curls nearly twice his height, piled up in the fashion of the previous century—except his was on fire. There were silver hoops in his earlobes, which hung nearly to his waist, and he wore a tiny cavalier's uniform with silver breast- and backplate. A human-size sword dragged along behind him. His wizened face bore the exaggerated features of the feyín, but enlarged.

It was the Faerie King Elgeron.

“The poor child has got wedding nerves, that's all,” he said. “Pray let us continue.”

“
Nerffs?
” cried George II. “
Mein Gott,
sir, your daughter's a hellcat. Young George here couldn't handle her. We vill have to come up mit some less dangerous liaison.” The senior George shot most unkind looks at his goggling grandson.

Elgeron tried wheedling next. “Daughter, come back here this moment and kiss your groom and all is forgiven.”

Morgana had been at my side the while, clenching her fists and trembling with fury. The white streak in her hair had come loose of its pins, and hung in her eyes. We were properly surrounded by swordsmen again. Now she faced the brace of Georges.

“My father hath made a bargain with the Duchess of the Red Seas to bring me here. What was his price? Your kingdom laid to waste? Your navy sunk to the bottom that she might pillage the world? What else hath he to offer, that she could not as easily take?”

“Her soul, thou wretched child,” Elgeron said. “Only her soul!”

This set Morgana back a bit, I think. I imagined the Faerie King must have it in a jar somewhere, or wrapped in paper and string—however one stores disembodied souls.

“I shall count to three,” said Elgeron.

But Morgana wasn't having any of it. “Count the number of the stars. I shall never return, father. I denounce you.”

“Wait a minute,” said the tiny king, noticing me for the first time. “Who is that cretin with the mask?”

“A better man than you.”

With eyes of fire to match his daughter's, Elgeron looked first at Morgana, and then at me, and cried, “Then by the Splinter of Time, I curse you both!”

There was a flash of light as he waved his hands, and the wall behind us burst apart. Morgana had raised her own defense, and the invisible shield diverted the impact around us, as a stone in the stream diverts the water.

The guards and attendants had been closing in, but this display of magic sent them to the floor again—or to the ceiling, in the case of those nearest us.

“This way,” said I, and Morgana took my hand and we ran through the wreckage and up the stairs I'd taken down before.

Another blast of energy from King Elgeron shivered the stone steps behind us, nearly knocking off my boot-heels.

“Seize them,” I heard the Faerie King bellow, and then there were footfalls on the half-ruined stairs at our backs. We raced up the spiral steps, and then down the servants' hall, which was filled with smoke and frightened servants. They screamed as we made our way to the far end. I chanced to look over my shoulder and saw the guards emerging into the hall, probably as eager to get away from the wee raging king downstairs as they were to come after us.

Moments later, we were upon the balcony from which I had entered, and I whistled fairly enough on the first try. Midnight soared around the parapets, swept his bright black wings out wide, and alighted beside us. I put Morgana between his wings; with my hands still about her slim waist, she bent down and turned my face up to hers.

“I would kiss you if I could,” said she, and I sprang onto Midnight's back as the first of our pursuers made the balcony. We flew into the air and were a thousand yards above the palace before I had even settled in my seat.

I would kiss you if I could.
Why couldn't she?

It was the best news I'd ever had in my life—except for that.

 

Chapter 35

MIDNIGHT'S FLIGHT

O
UR ESCAPE
was not assured. As we streaked through the sky, Midnight pumping his wings, a teeming green cloud whirled up at us. It was pixies. I wrapped my black coat around the princess to shield her from them. The pixies couldn't fly at a fraction of Midnight's speed, but bedeviled our way, firing arrows. Midnight ascended to a terrific height, even above the overcast, and we soon left them behind, the little creatures piping insults as we rose beyond their reach. The air was cold and thin.