The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Four (48 page)

"'This,' said Titania, and she leaned forward and kissed me."

In a vague, faraway manner, Darlington realized that his eyes had become a child's eyes, stretched so wide that they almost hurt. He did his best to recover himself by saying, "Of course you showed some proper sense, for once, I trust, and abandoned Father, Son, and Holy Spirit on the spot?"

Elias Patterson did not laugh. He said, "On the contrary, my belief was strengthened by that kiss, for I well understood it to be a temptation set in my path to test me. So I straightened my back and put my hands behind it—for all that my mind was spinning in my skull, and my eyes could not focus on anything but Titania's eyes—and I spoke out as forcefully as I might, saying, 'I belong to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Your wiles have no power over me. Dissolve your enchantments, turn toward righteousness, and release me.'

"'But there are no charms chaining you here,' Titania answered me, and her speaking voice fondled my heart as her hands had done my skin. 'I would be shamed to hold a man so, lord or slave, mortal or faery. Rise and walk away then, if you will; indeed I'll send folk of mine to guide you home.' But she smiled, saying this . . . she smiled, Mr. Darlington, and suddenly . . . suddenly I was no reverend at all, nor ever had been, and all I could do was to stand very still where I was. Titania said, 'Or kiss me, for it's one or the other, my beautiful mortal. Choose.'"

"And you chose," Darlington said, surprisingly gently. "As I'd have done in a moment. Indeed, we're a bit alike, after all, as you say."

"And I chose," Elias Patterson said, and no more.

After a time Darlington asked, "You'd never been with a woman, of course? Meaning no offense."

"No, never with a woman. Nor with a man, either—nor was I ever drawn to boys, as happens. By nature I am a shy man, Mr. Darlington, shy even in my dreams and wishes. Imagine me now, if you will, lost in the wild miracle of the Queen of Faery in my arms, unable to take in the words she was saying and singing and sighing to me—let alone the things she was
doing
 . . . "

"Please," Darlington said. "A rough outlaw I may be, but I'm still a little young for such details. How long did it go on, your—what's the word when it's with a queen?—your
liaison
?"

Elias Patterson said, "Time is a different thing in Faery, as you may have heard—sometimes longer than here, sometimes shorter. It rather depends."

"Depends on
what
?" When Elias Patterson did not reply immediately, Darlington said, "I have been hunted all this day, and it's entirely likely that I may be taken tomorrow and hanged in a month; in any case, we will certainly never see each other after this night. Depends on bloody
what
?"

Elias Patterson's white hair showed up his blush more noticeably. "When I was—ah—with her, Titania, in her bower, time simply ceased to exist in any way at all. I never knew how long we were together, or how often we . . . or what we . . . or when we slept, when we woke . . . . It was all one thing, one thing, do you understand me?"

"No," Darlington said. "No, and I don't think I want to. Did you never get out of that . . . bower of hers?"

He snickered at Elias Patterson's reply. "Those first days—or weeks, or months, whatever they were—we went nowhere else." But he bit his lips sourly when he was diffidently informed that in a little while Elias Patterson found himself grown strong enough—"grown
youthful
enough, perhaps; I had never been young before, you see"—to match the Queen's hunger, and even skilled enough to satisfy it in a few ways that rounded her twilight eyes. "So when she did bring me indoors at last, it was rather to show me off to Faery, not so much the other way around. They are more like us than we might imagine, those folk. In some ways."

To keep his mind off the day to come, Darlington asked, "And what's it like, then, that
indoors
Under the Hill?"

Elias Patterson was not looking at him, but plainly far beyond the flames. "All things, all at once—rather like Titania herself, if you will. In Faery space is just as deceptive as time. For instance, there always seems to be as much forest as any hunter could desire, and those who dwell in Faery love the chase just as we do. Only their beasts of venery are a bit other than those we pursue: they'll be after the manticore for its claws and teeth, as we take wolf and bear; they'll shoot down griffins to make knives from their sharp-edged feathers; and there's a great serpent-thing that the hunter has to strangle, because no blade, no point will even scratch that hide. And the hunts themselves can last a month or a year, for they've got all the time in the world. Remember,
Tír na nÓg
means
The Land of Youth
."

After a considering moment, he added, "They won't take the fox or the unicorn, by the way—those two are sacred in Faery. I never knew why, but I was always glad of it. They can come and go as they desire between the worlds, though foxes clearly do it more often."

"You really were there," Darlington said softly. "By God, old man, you really walked in those woods, didn't you?" This time, it was his eyes holding Elias Patterson's eyes across the fire. "Bloody hell. You danced in the halls of Faery."

"They're full of light," Elias Patterson whispered, "bursting with it,
humming
with it. It's alive, that light. It moves as it pleases, stroking the faces of dancers and musicians, cooks and servants alike, just as Titania caressed me." Darlington could barely hear him. He said, "When you stay long enough in that light, you can feel yourself turning into it, becoming something neither faery nor mortal—nothing but the light. That's the only way those folk ever die, did you know? Dancing too long in the light. Titania told me that. She said sometimes they did it a-purpose."

The clearing sky had let the half-moon come out, and Darlington hunched down against its brightness. He said, "And the gold? The faery gold your church lot were always after?"

Elias Patterson raised his eyebrows. "My, I expected
that
question well before now. Well, yes, I saw a great deal of gold everywhere—there's another thing the faery folk love as much as we do. But they had too much of it to treat it as money, do you see; everybody had enough that more or less of it made no difference. I never worked out whether they had any actual notion of currency, but sometimes I thought it might be poetry." He smiled fondly at the night. "Say a poem to any one of Titania's people, and he'd be in your debt; the richest folk were those who knew the most poems by heart. Especially good long ones, the kind that can run on for an hour, more. They really like
long
poems."

"None of my sort in Faery, then. Pity." Darlington hesitated, and then asked, oddly but genuinely shy himself, "What about their music? You'd not think so, but my family had a music master come to the house for little Roger. I was to be a fiddler in some grand gentleman's private orchestra—that was the proudest career they could imagine for me, poor souls. Alas, all their hopes were dashed when I discovered how easy it was to pick the music master's pocket. I blame them—and him—for my becoming what I am. Tell me about the music you heard Under the Hill, good Reverend."

He halted abruptly when Elias Patterson turned away, too late to hide the tears glittering in the firelight. Darlington waited, but on this subject there was plainly no answer to be had from the man. "Never mind the music, then. Tell me what sort of table they set in Faery."

"There was always food and wine," Elias Patterson said, when he could, "as there was always music. And whether or not I even recognized the dish, or the taste and fume of the drink, I learned to savor it and swallow it, and ask no questions. I remember one wine—they keep it for certain special occasions—that never tastes the same from glass to glass in the course of the feast.
He
makes that one himself. Titania told me so."

"He?" Darlington blinked in puzzlement.

"Oberon. Her husband." Elias Patterson's voice was completely without expression. "King of Faery since ever there's
been
Faery, just as she's been Queen. I went a long while without meeting him, or even catching a glimpse of him, for they spent far more time apart than they did together. They were forever fighting over this or that, like children—what one had, the other wanted, exactly like children. I was just as content to see no more of King Oberon than the shadow in Titania's eyes that always told me when she'd been with him. I became quite good at reading her whims and moods, as we all must learn to read our mates if we mean to keep them. Perhaps that was because she had a heart, as I've said, like a mortal woman. I don't think I could have fathomed any other woman of Faery in the same way."

"I've never
fathomed
a woman in my life," Darlington said shortly. "I never understood my mother and sisters, if you want to know—let alone the silly sluts who run after highwaymen." He stood up, moving to the edge of the firelight, as though he were about to relieve himself again. The night remained as deeply silent as he could have wished, but a lifetime of flight had long since turned even silence chancy. Turning again, and looking down at Elias Patterson, he said, "And I have my doubts that you ever rightly knew the heart of the Queen of Faery. Meaning no disrespect."

"None at all," Elias Patterson assured him. "King Oberon certainly would have agreed with you." The fire flinched from a sudden cold breeze, and the reverend drew his cloak closer around his shoulders. He said, "Once I'd been introduced to company, as you might say, I saw something more of Oberon. Rarely alone, though, for his attendants were always on hand: musicians first of all, and then dancers, jugglers, faery clowns even, and others so strange that it made my eyes hurt to look at them for long, as though important bits of them were hidden around some other corner and my eyes were trying to find the way there, and could not. On such occasion we met face-on—often during a dance, with Titania on my arm, and Oberon hand in hand with his latest elven beauty . . . why then, it squeezed my earthly heart to see how those two regarded one another, as though no one else existed, for good or ill. Minister no longer, to look at them was to understand where hell and heaven truly dwell, and harps and fire everlasting have no part in it."

"Aye, I'll drink to that one," Darlington swore. "There was this one bloody woman in Sussex—haven't seen her for years, and damned well don't want to, but when I think of her . . . aye, it squeezes. It does that. I
know
it was her turned me in for the reward money that time! How can you still wake up sad about someone who does that to you?"

Elias Patterson seemed not to have heard him. "It's a puzzling business, but while the lady Titania was, and surely remains, the most beautiful woman who ever walked this world or any other, I could have named you a dozen of my own parishioners handsomer than King Oberon. His cheekbones were too high and too prominent; his eyes too sharply angled, too wolfishly green; and his nose, chin and ears altogether too pointed for anything like beauty as we see it. Yet when Oberon looked at you, you felt naked as a white bone in the rain; and when he spoke, the voice of the Lord Himself would not have distracted you from his words. I was quite relieved that he spoke to me no more than necessary.

"But it happened one glorious Faery morning," Elias Patterson said, "while Titania yet drowsed in her bower, that Oberon came alone to me and drew me away with a single look to walk with him along the bank of that twittering little stream that I had heard on first waking with my head in Titania's lap. We said nothing to one another for a time, and then Oberon addressed me so: 'Do you imagine that my wife loves you?'

"'I would not presume,' I answered him, and that was true. But the shameless pride of having loved the Queen of Faery to sleep was on me, and for the life of me I could not keep from adding, 'But I do know that I make her happy.'"

"Aye, the Sussex woman always said that. No man but me had ever made her really happy, that's exactly what she said. Lying, conniving trull."

Elias Patterson said, "The contempt in Oberon's green eyes should have withered me where I stood, but I was younger then, and I could still hear Titania whispering her desire against my skin. Oberon said, 'You make her happy. And have you any notion of how many mortal men have made her happy? Of how many there will be after you?'

"'Jealous yourself,' I answered him—good God, how dared I speak so to such a king?—'you'll not make me as bitter and spiteful as you are. I know well enough that my time in Faery is limited to seven years. All the old tales and ballads tell me that much, and I would howl at your gates for more, for a lifetime, if I thought it would do me any good. But my religion and my raising have both taught me the virtue of settling for less—less than my dreams, less than my visions—so that I will do when the time comes, and count myself the most fortunate of men, however empty the rest of my life may be. Can you understand that, Lord of Faery?'

"I like to think now that Oberon looked at me with a trifle less scorn after I spoke those words, but perhaps not. It was long ago. At all events, he replied most evenly, saying, 'It was I who laid a
geas
upon her, untold thousands of your years past, enjoining that she might take all the human lovers she chose—she had a fascination with your kind even then—but that none of her alliances might endure longer than seven years. For then she grieves each time, most movingly, and I comfort her, as I—
I—
know better how to do than any strutting, crowing mortal, and we are happy together for a while.' And after a moment, he added, more softly, 'Sometimes quite a long while.'"

Darlington put another log carefully on the fire. He said, "I should never have stopped here. Now I'm too warm to abandon your hearth, Elias Patterson, and if the High Sheriff himself pops up right now, he's going to have to wait until I learn how the tale turns out. He couldn't have done better if he'd actually hired you to waylay me." He spat into the flame, smiled at the resulting hiss, and said, "Go on, then. What did you say back to His Majesty?"