Ill Met by Moonlight (10 page)

Then she undressed, and went to her bath, thinking she might as well bathe.

Stepping into the perfumed water, she looked at Ariel, who watched her, intent and puzzled.

This elf girl was so unguarded as to tell Nan that she was unhappy with her own situation.

Nan lowered herself into the warm, soothing bath.

Was it King Sylvanus’s dark handsomeness that made Ariel’s heart sad and caused her eyes to sink within those bruised rings? Was it his misguided passion for Nan that made Ariel sigh? Or was there someone else, something else, that held the fairy maiden in thrall?

No matter. Nan would find out, and she would use the knowledge to escape this miserable, shadowy existence and return to her Will. Her quiet, young Will with his diffident ways; his vile, tentative poems, full of puns and little else; his slavish, yet real devotion. Her Will, who’d never try to restrain her, not even from walking alone the paths of Arden Forest.

She reached for a soft cloth to wash herself. Elven wiles, magical though they might be, were no match for Nan, the shrew of Shottery. “Ariel, come and sit beside me,” Nan said, gesturing to the chair beside the bath. “And tell me all about the people in this court, for I know nothing.”

Scene 5

Quicksilver’s apartment in the fairy palace—a spacious room with marble floors and intricate tapestries hanging on the walls. The tapestries show war and banquets, and nude nymphs dancing in green glades. On one wall, by the broad, gilded bed, hangs a portrait of Quicksilver himself, so painted, with such magic, that by walking a few steps this way and that the look of the portrait changes and displays Quicksilver now as a fair youth, now as a dark lady. The rest of the room has refined and masculine appointments: a broad, red-upholstered armchair with a few dozen fat books beside it; a collection of swords lining the lower part of the eastern wall; a suit of armor in the southwest corner. Quicksilver stands in front of a full-length mirror while an elven servant helps him with his doublet.

“N
o, the other one.” Quicksilver shrugged out of the black velvet doublet he wore, and into another one, obediently proffered by his silent dark-haired servant, Malachite.

The prince had just come back from hunting with the king’s company the whole day, and his pain, his humiliation, burned in him like live coals. His brother hadn’t so much as addressed Quicksilver all day and Quicksilver knew not whether to congratulate himself on not having to make small talk with the traitor, or burn at being thus slighted. The king had killed three stags, and Quicksilver none, and Quicksilver had walked away from the festivities and come to his room to bathe and dress for this night’s work. Fine work, indeed, it would be.

Shrugging into the new doublet, Quicksilver admired himself in the mirror. Black velvet, like his breeches, like the attire he invariably wore when he was in his male aspect, this doublet fit him well, molding the width of his shoulders, outlining his narrow waist.

He adjusted the large diamond brooch at his throat. A prince, he thought he looked, a wronged prince, the color of his attire the external expression of his inner tumult.

Yet, how should a prince look who knows his brother has murdered their parents and now sits, remorseless, on his stolen throne? How should such a prince look? Quicksilver’s eyes went, unmeant, to the armor in the corner, his war attire bestowed upon him by his mother but never yet worn.

Someone knocked at the door, and Quicksilver nodded toward it, indicating that Malachite should open it. The valet obeyed, understanding the unspoken order with the habit of many years standing. A changeling, long ago kidnapped by the elves for their own, he’d been brought up in Quicksilver’s service.

The golden oak door opened noiselessly without hinges by a device known of the fairy race, and displayed the broad hall outside and Lord Pyrite’s golden splendor. He wore a suit as red as a harlot’s lips, and his blond hair was caught up in a towering pinnacle of golden feathers and fur. “Good eve, Quicksilver, good eve,” Pyrite said as he strode past Malachite, ignoring the servant. His face was wreathed all in smiles for his good friend Quicksilver, and his reflected image, in the mirror, made a shocking contrast to his friend’s somber appearance.

“Good for those who think it good,” Quicksilver answered, turning around to face Pyrite. He wondered what this visit was about. Though Pyrite had once been a regular visitor to Quicksilver’s apartments, his companion in childish play, later in weapons-training and more mature reflection, he hadn’t visited Quicksilver in—oh—these many months. Not since Quicksilver’s complaints and laments about being passed over for succession had driven Pyrite away, maddened and exasperated.

“Leave off, man,” Pyrite said, and smiled to soften the words. The golden feathers in his hair bobbed up and down as he tilted his head to gaze up at Quicksilver. “Leave off,” he repeated. “Do you know what a fool you make of yourself, going around dressed all in funereal attire, and mourning as though your parents had died five minutes, not five years, ago?” He fingered the velvet of Quicksilver’s sleeve with open disdain and much too much familiarity, but grinned ingratiatingly, like the impish child he’d once been. “Come, smile at me, be my friend again. I have missed you, Quicksilver. I miss your wit and your sparkling company. You were ever the steadying force to my mad gamboling, the anchor to my tilting ship. You always analyzed everyone’s words and presented their actions to me for consideration. I have not your sharp wit that sees into the hearts of men. Without you, I bob and sway in every current. Be my friend, I beg. Be yourself again.”

Quicksilver made no answer, only raised his eyebrows in questing doubt.

Pyrite hesitated. The appearance of joy slipped a little, like a mask ill fitted to the wearer’s brow. Then it returned, with renewed vigor, as though Pyrite had decided to fasten it on anew. Yet Pyrite’s voice held a hint of embarrassment as he said, “Look, Ariel tells me that you suspected her of having told your brother of your . . .” He cast a sidelong glance at Malachite.

Quicksilver wondered at that glance, since Malachite, given to Quicksilver by Titania when he was little more than a babe, had shown himself unswervingly loyal to Quicksilver alone. And perhaps, Quicksilver thought, that was what Pyrite feared.

“Ariel thinks,” Pyrite resumed, looking at Quicksilver again, his smile more forceful than ever, “that you believe she betrayed you to your brother. And I thought not, you could not believe so. But . . .” He sighed. “Perhaps you suspect me?” He raised his fair brows in golden arches of doubt. The faint pinkish color on his cheek betrayed his true discomfiture. “You wouldn’t suspect me of that, would you, Quicksilver?”

Quicksilver sighed. No. He hadn’t suspected Pyrite of that. But now he knew not what to suspect.

Pyrite’s eyes rounded. “Come, Quicksilver, come. You know I approved of your going and seeking your fortune, nay, your good rest in Tyr-Nan-Og.” Pyrite smiled at the prince, displaying neatly set teeth, a little large for one of his race. “Truth, I told you so. You knew it well, were told it often in true plain words by thy true-telling friend. Can’t you see it, Quicksilver?” He grabbed his friend’s arm, and squeezed it and looked anxiously into Quicksilver’s eyes. “Come, you and I were friends always, from our cradle. We were almost brothers. Think you I’d betray you?”

And Quicksilver saw everything, suddenly, with clear, unblushing certainty and wondered why he’d not seen it before. Pyrite truly would not have betrayed him. It wasn’t only that Pyrite wanted Quicksilver away so that the prince’s beauty didn’t impinge on Pyrite’s lesser splendor, but also because Quicksilver’s mourning grieved Pyrite and worried his friend. That Pyrite worried about Quicksilver was a shaming thought and a comforting one, both. The prince shook his head. “No. No. I never thought it. Or if I did it was a nightmare, and it is forgotten.” And quickly, to hide his shamefully high emotion, he added, “Yet, you serve the usurper who has taken the throne from me.”

Pyrite looked incredulous. He let go of Quicksilver’s arm and cackled. “That again? And whom should I serve? I am a Duke of the Air Kingdoms and as such, I owe allegiance to the sovereign of our realm, which Sylvanus is. So long as Sylvanus is the king and your constant friend, and my true sovereign, whom must I obey? Nay, let me obey him and love you.” He smiled at Quicksilver again. “And let me see you out of these funeral rags. You were the mirror of fashion in which we all saw ourselves and knew our hearts humbled.” He looked away. “My sister says you avoid her.” He cast a quick, searching look at the prince and looked away again. “In truth, I think she may be a little importune. But she means well. And you loved her well, once.”

Quicksilver sighed and forced a pale smile onto his face. “I am changed,” he said. “So changed, sometimes I know me not.”

Pyrite’s smile wavered. “Well . . . and well . . . and perhaps you will return yet to your true self. If you’d gone to Tyr-Nan-Og . . . And well . . . That may come yet, or your brother might yet grant you a marriage closer to home, where your friends can have the pleasure of your company.” He patted the prince’s arm. “But meanwhile, doubt me not. Doubt me not, nor my friendship for you.” He stared at Quicksilver, his enamel-blue eyes intent and honest.

Quicksilver nodded, feeling tears flow into his eyes, despite himself. When he’d been Titania’s pampered brat, he’d needed no offers of friendship and service, and after Titania’s death, he’d got none. The duke’s words, ringing true, echoed within Quicksilver’s loneliness like a bell tolling over a vast countryside emptied by the plague. He’d never known how much he missed Pyrite’s friendship or true kindness until now. On impulse, he offered both hands to Pyrite, who took them in his own. “I have something to do,” Quicksilver said. “A duty which I must discharge and which I can’t explain. But when it’s over, I’ll have need of loyal friends, and I’ll count you among them.” He patted Pyrite’s shoulder.

Pyrite nodded. He too looked moved. He pulled away from Quicksilver, turned on his heel and left the room rapidly, as though afraid of displaying more emotion than he wished to betray.

Malachite closed the door and Quicksilver turned back toward the mirror. He stared at his own reflection blurred by the tears in his eyes. Strange how comfort came when least expected and how even Pyrite’s facile cheer could touch him.

Had he been that friendless, then? That lost?

But Quicksilver knew the answer to that. The pain within him, his feelings of injustice at being passed over, had caused him to lash out without meaning, and sting with words his closest friends, his most certain allies. Sometimes he wondered if even Malachite was fully faithful or if Quicksilver’s unpredictable temper had turned his bonded servant from him.

Malachite had stepped behind him and with practiced touch collected Quicksilver’s hair in his hand, pulling it into a crystal clasp.

There was another knock at the oak door and Quicksilver, with raised eyebrows, signaled Malachite to open it.

This time the yawning oak door displayed the wan loveliness of Lady Ariel, Duchess of the Air Kingdoms.

Quicksilver turned from the lady’s reflection in the mirror, to the real thing, standing at the door, clad in a pale dress, perfect and cold within the intricately worked lace that might well have been a shroud.

She looked past his manservant and fixed her gaze on Quicksilver. Her bloodless lips opened. “Milord.” She shaped the word as though it hurt her.

He bowed. Ariel here? Ariel coming to knock at the door to his apartments? What was she playing at? Never before had she shown such daring, nor such determination. Was this Pyrite’s doing?

“I would speak with you,” she said. Color came and went on her cheeks, like the waxing and waning of the moon, now bright-colored, now white and blank.

He waved an impatient hand. “Then speak.”

She gave a fearful glance toward his valet, then shook her head.

“Malachite, you may go. You are dismissed,” Quicksilver said.

But before the servant could bow his dark head and turn to go, Ariel stopped him. “No. I do not wish to speak here. Not . . . not here. Would you come with me, milord, for a walk in the forest . . . in the forest outside?”

“Outside” meant the world of men, and Quicksilver weighed the matter carefully. What did Ariel have to tell him that couldn’t be said in the palace? And did she know that, were it the most innocent of love declarations and her whole intent to avoid the wagging tongues of courtiers, yet they would be suspected of treason and not left alone for long after this?

He pressed his lips tight, bringing the weight of his displeasure on her. “Milady, you cannot mean you have such a secret that it can’t be freely spoken here, in the palace, within hearing of all well-meaning subjects of my good brother.” Let her hear that and take heed. If Malachite had been driven to discontent by Quicksilver’s temper, then this chit of a girl could condemn herself, and Quicksilver with her, by her incautious words.

But she only shook her head again, and a smile came and went on her lips that only served to make them look yet more colorless and sickly. “It is not treason I intend, milord, unless it were treason to myself and that modesty a maid ought to keep.”