Ill Met by Moonlight (31 page)

“If you hold her fast,” Quicksilver rasped. “But it must be done tomorrow night. For tomorrow night, lest you rescue her, she’ll marry the elven king.”

“Marry?” A chain, much like the dreaded iron chain, seemed to drop on Will’s heart, causing it to writhe and twist in agony. “My Nan, marry another? But she married me and she . . .”

Quicksilver shook his head. “Glamoury. By the—Damn it, Will, you should know it.”

Will knew it, of course. Hadn’t he, himself, danced a jig to the elf’s tune? So Nan was like that, also—beguiled, driven, by some strange creature, into realms the human mind couldn’t dream.

She’d been offered a throne and a king’s hand. Should Will even try to recover her? Should Will interrupt her bliss, disturb her pampered state? Would she, who must now have silks and gold and fancy jewels—he remembered her dancing amid the courtiers in the translucent palace—would she wish to return to this poor kitchen, the daily round of back-breaking work, the humble love of her humble husband?

Will looked at Quicksilver and shook his head.

The elves were beautiful, but all deceit. He couldn’t let Nan be lost in this land of illusion. Didn’t some of the legends say that the palaces that appeared so grand were, in reality, dank caves and poor huts, and that all of the elves’ gold and silver added to no more than a handful of slimy leaves, picked, rotting and festering, from the forest floor?

“Will. . .” The creature’s voice had gone weaker, weaker than the wind mourning outside, weaker than the softest of whispers. So weak, in fact, that Will wasn’t sure it had spoken. “Will, please let me go. Remove this cursed iron that sucks my life and power and strength from me. If you do not, I shall vanish and become a dark creature of the night, of the sort that drowns little children and smothers maidens who forget their prayers.”

The voice still sounded gallant, and still had the ironic, humorous tones of Quicksilver’s speech. In such a tone, he’d told Will that John Shakespeare owed no man anything. And yet, and yet, Will guessed beyond the words a truth he’d never heard from this source. And the voice whispered upon the kind of ears the human body doesn’t have. Mystical ears that understand the speech of angels. The lips that seemingly pronounced those words didn’t move.

Quicksilver had laid his head back down, and closed his eyes, and his face reverted to its marble-statue dignity, its distant deathlike coldness.

“If you do not release me,” the whisper-sigh went on. “If you do not release me for the memory of our love, then release me out of self-interest. Only take these chains from me and I shall be to you a good slave, a faithful bonded servant. I’ll carry the wood for the goodwife and supervise the little ones at their play, and never, never cross you in anything. In anything, Will. You have my word, as an elf under the awful curse and burn of this cold iron. Only let me breathe without this chain.”

The thought of the dark lady—or for that matter, the fair youth—as his bonded slave, made Will’s blood tremble and his heart fibrillate. The temptation to accept such bondage glimmered before Will’s eyes like fairy gold. Who, in Stratford could boast such a grand equipage? A prince from under the hill, bound and harnessed by Will, little Will Shakespeare, the grammar school graduate, the petty-schoolmaster of Wincot.

At the idea of it, Will’s mouth watered like a miser’s at the sight of a mountain of gold.

And yet, he knew better, had learned better. For trying to prove himself a man, Will had already caused Pyrite’s death, and Nan’s kidnapping, and Joan’s exposure to unsavory kingdoms, and the wrack and ruin of all Will held dear.

And this creature—Quicksilver, or Silver, it mattered not which—this creature of air and fire and eternity, could it be bound, would it accept as its lot the bondage to Will’s meager household? And if it would, how would slavery lame and twist its magical beauty?

No, no. Better let it go and see it no more. Even in its aspect as Quicksilver its glamoury shone too strong and Will found himself admiring Quicksilver’s straight nose and stern chin, and he feared for his reason and for impulses and instincts that had never, in truth, given him a doubt before.

“Will?”

Will sprang forward, awakened by this word that was almost no word at all. Was it imagination or did the body of the fair youth flicker and go transparent, within the confines of the chains, like the body of the elf in the forest, before his death?

Will found himself tearing his knuckles and hurting himself in his haste as he lifted Quicksilver’s uncomfortably hefty bulk, and untangled the iron chain from the wealth of fabric, the mess of skirts, and untangled and untangled, throwing the free end away from Quicksilver, so it would not touch him, and no more leach his magic.

The chain now felt warm to the touch, like metal that has lain too long before the fire.

The last link of chain came away from Quicksilver, and Will cast it violently from him, to land in a pile on the floor beyond the table.

Quicksilver lay cold and unmoving, a faint bluish tint marking the advancing flag of death upon his cheek.

“Milord?” Will asked. Had it been too late, then? Had Quicksilver died already? Was he dead of Will’s slow mind, of Will’s clumsy fingers? Dead?

Gently, Will laid his hand on the elf’s face and, unthinkingly traced Quicksilver’s perfect jaw line. “Milord, I do not want you for a slave. You owe me nothing. To keep you for a slave would be as wrong as to enslave the stag that romps through the forest and force him to pull a cart beside a mule. To enslave you would be to cut the wings of the falcon and confine him to a tiny cage, that the doves might mock him.

“Only wake, milord, and you are free, the forest yours to roam, the Air Kingdom and province of your kind open to you. Go, milord. Go.” Will found his voice clogged with tears and tears in his eyes. Did he love this creature, still? Did he love him, even in his male aspect? Was it glamoury that made Will’s heart tender, like a freshly skinned knee, at the sight of Lord Quicksilver, like this, poor and powerless and near dead?

Quicksilver’s eyelids moved. His blond eyelashes fluttered against his cheek, then lifted, canopying his green eyes, and he looked at Will, uncomprehending, as if the mortal spoke a long-lost language.

Will removed the hand that had rested on Quicksilver’s face, and, carefully, too carefully, stood up, stepped back.

Quicksilver sat up slowly, looking about, bewildered. Then he looked at Will, and drew his eyebrows up in puzzled wonder.

For a breath, Will feared that Quicksilver had forgotten who Will was or what Quicksilver was, or what he might be doing here, in this mortal abode. Will feared that he had accepted Quicksilver’s bondage by freeing him and now both would be chained to such roles, master and slave forever.

“You do not want me for a slave?” Quicksilver asked. His mouth opened a little, at the wonder of it. “You could have power over a prince of the Air Kingdoms and you turn it away?” With obvious, aching slowness, Quicksilver leaned on the bench by the table, near which he’d fallen, and brought himself up slowly, until he sat on the bench, an incongruous figure of a fine gentleman, in a lady’s court dress.

“You are too fine for my commanding,” Will said. “Yours is the nature that will go on living centuries after I’m in the tomb and shut in the darkness of forgetting. No one will remember my name on Earth and yet, you will still live and still look as spry and strong as you do now, and possessed of all your faculties and . . . and your fatal charm.”

A little color crept into Quicksilver’s cheeks, and a spark returned to his eyes, making him look alive again. His faintly colored lips lifted in a smile. “Ah, Will, I owe you more . . .” Quicksilver looked down at himself and saw the tattered dress, and frowned at it as if not believing he’d allowed himself to go around thus attired. “I owe you more than you’ll ever owe me. Mortal though you are, you have given me the gift that my kind dreams about and speaks of as men speak of the fantastical treasures of Croesus.” Still looking at the dress, Quicksilver made an intent expression, and the dress flickered and palpitated, and changed, and, in the next moment, Quicksilver was attired in gentleman’s clothing.

Only this time it wasn’t the dark velvet he had so long worn, but a glistening confection of gold and pearls that flickered in splendor and dazzled in shining glory.

Will stared, uncomprehending. Last night, the lady had worn tatters, and this night when Quicksilver had changed, his clothes had remained the same female clothes the lady had worn. And yet now he had changed his clothes with a look.

“It’s the power you’ve given me, Will.” Quicksilver smiled at the youth, an indulgent smile. “You see, most elves draw power from the hill, and a little of the power of the hill is attached to each of us at birth. This power, this strength, is no more than the captured fires of creation, that shine through us still. Without the hill, our power does not replenish itself from that primeval force, and eventually dies. But there is other power that can be got, most of it dark. Any strong emotion produces power and harnesses a little of creation’s fire. And any strong emotion can feed an elf. But most of us live our entire lives on the surface of emotions. We feel desire but not love, joy but not abiding happiness. Even the love we feel for other elves is a light thing, a bauble, requiring no overwhelming trust, demanding that we withstand no hardship, forcing us to know no pain. Most elves find it easier to feed on emotions of humankind, particularly the strong and raw power of human ire and fear and suffering. Thus do you hear of demons who hunt dark lanes and forgotten forests. But there is another power.” Quicksilver stood up, all in one fluid motion, his ease of movement regained. “There is another power that comes from emotion, if an elf manages to attain a higher emotion, most of all, love for a human, that most unequal of passions, that most trying of affections.

“If a human loves us . . . if a human loves us, he can give us wings. And thus you hear of all the fairy princesses awakened with a kiss.”

Will opened his mouth to protest that he didn’t know that he loved Quicksilver. Oh, he found the lord as unbearably beautiful as the lady, but from that to love was a long step, and Will didn’t think he loved anyone but his Nan.

Quicksilver closed the space between them with three easy steps and rested his cold finger on Will’s lips, commanding silence.

“Hush, hush. I know well you don’t love me. That’s not what I mean. We are, Will, cold creatures, with neither joy nor great capacity to love among ourselves, much less beneath ourselves or beyond ourselves.” He smiled, and his eyes shone with merriment. “And yet, in rare instances we can be made to love, truly love, even a human, and if we are . . . if we are . . . Then we capture the fire of creation in our own heart. With the hill or alone, Will, I shall never want for power, and that’s the gift you gave me, Will, for I love you well.”

Will opened his mouth again to protest that such love was too much for him, as overwhelming and embarrassing as unrequited hate.

But Quicksilver shook his head. “Promise me you’ll go to the rushy glen by the river. It’s a good five hundred steps, straight toward the river from the oak where Pyrite ambushed you. There you shall see—blessed that you were born on a Sunday—you shall see all the fine ladies and gentlemen of Fairyland, assembling for a grand ball. While you’re yet unobserved, mark what your Nan is wearing, for Sylvanus, the king of elves, my treasonous brother, will try to confuse you and change the aspect of everyone’s faces. But it is unlikely he’ll have that much power at his command as to change apparel. And when they start dancing, you seize your Nan and hold on tight to her, no matter what seems to happen. They can do no more than spell you with illusions. If you hold on to Nan, she will remain with you and still be yours when the dance is ended. Do you understand, Will?”

A fine glove of silvery fabric now covered the hand that Quicksilver laid on Will’s shoulder, while he looked to Will for assent.

“I understand,” Will managed, overwhelmed by all the strange events that his eyes had witnessed, events that his mortal eyes denied and his mortal reason protested against. “And Susannah?”

“Susannah will be given to you with her mother. She was only taken with her mother, and is not a changeling of her own nature.”

“And you? Will you be there?”

Quicksilver looked surprised, then laughed. “I might be, Will. I might well be.”

Before Will could anticipate it, or forestall it, the elf lord bent and touched his lips to Will’s, in a brief, velvety touch, and then he was gone.

The door never opened and Quicksilver didn’t step toward it. He simply vanished.

For a moment Will wondered if he had died, like the elf in the forest, but he heard Quicksilver’s laughing voice in his mind, answering,
No, Will. But I now have enough power to move as I should, on fire’s own wings, and not as your kind moves, on painful feet. Goodbye, Will. Goodbye. Remember me.

Of a sudden, Will was alone in his mundane kitchen, with nothing to show for his adventure but a rusty pile of iron chain in one corner.

The cat jumped down from the keeping cupboard to the table, and bumped Will’s arm with its head, as if to ask if he intended to fetch its mistress.

“Of course,” Will said. And yet he wondered about the tests and trials he would have to endure to get his Nan back. And would Nan want to come, now that she’d been offered the kingdom of Fairyland?

Scene 19