Queen Mab (5 page)

She walked through her palace, her feet echoing upon the marble, and out into the garden where she and the moon often talked. 

"Bring me my chariot!" she cried, and once more the dream-servants silently brought her that which she called for.  There were no lusty shouts of joy as she took off into the night sky as there once were.  Only the silence, which left her alone with her thoughts and new schemes. 

Who to be her champion, she wondered.  What thread to pull to cause the entire House of Montague to fall and the House of Capulet to rise in glory? 

She settled upon the wall of Prince Escales's palace, the windows bright with torches and fire.  Carriages pulled up before the front doors and elegant lords and ladies exited, their ribboned feet light upon the marble stairs.  The palace was almost as lovely as her own.  Almost.

With a wave of her rosewood wand, the cloud of smoke wrapped around her and Mab grew in size until she was the same as the humans milling about.  She looked upon the crowds, judging them as she went.  So strange to see them with their eyes open, with the movement of life showing their true character.  This one too cruel. This one too kind.  This one unattached and of no import.

And then the Montague's whelping, that dog of a son, Romeo, passed by, his hair shining like the sun of high day.  The anger rose as fierce and as mighty as if his great-grandfather's betrayal was only yesterday.  She reminded herself to still the raging storm.  Cool patience would teach her how best to pierce his heart.  He would soon be done.

She followed him into the prince's hall, keeping her distance but never letting him out of her sight.  He paused as he was announced at the top of the ballroom's grand staircase, preening like a cock beneath the gaze of the gentry.  Queen Mab slipped quietly by and into the sea of silk and damask.  As Romeo paused, so she paused, too.  She took a goblet from a passing servant and raised it to the strangers beside her.

"To what shall we toast?"

"To the return of the prince's kinsman!" said one.

"And to the return of beauty to this court!" said another, sweeping a bow to the lady beside him. 

Mab forced a tight smile.  There was a day when any man would have prostrated himself upon the floor when he looked upon Queen Mab.  She wondered if perhaps her mask caused this one's senses to stray.

There was a great clanging of glasses and the entire company ceased its idle chatter to look up at Prince Escales, who stood at the head of his staircase with a man at his side. 

"We welcome to Verona our kinsman, Mercutio, son to the cousin we hold most dear.  Warrior and soldier, he returns to us after defending our interests upon the field of battle.  I ask your hand in making him feel the warmth and comfort of our friendship."  Prince Escales held up his wine. 

"Mercutio," Mab murmured, tasting his name upon her tongue.  A strange figure, thought Mab, as she watched this young hero stand comfortably before the throngs of fellows.  He had such grace and beauty.  His olive skin and dark, loosely curling hair spoke of his southern ties, yet as the company parted, there Mercutio was calling out to the fair-haired Romeo.  Mercutio seemed a man able to walk between the worlds of politics, seemed a friend to any who took his hand.  He carried himself with the casual assurance of one with nothing to prove, and in doing so, was the most powerful man in the room.  Here was the strength she sought.  It was him.  Mercutio.  She rolled his name on her lips once more. 

Mercutio stepped forward and clasped Romeo to his bosom.  "My friend of old, too long have I been parted from your company.  Together we shall see the sites of your town and set our sights on the fairest visions Verona has to offer."

"Your spirit seems light, good Mercutio."

"Seeming seems to tell a tale much different than I hold within," he replied.  "I have seen the horrors of war and have found living much more to my liking.  So close to the brink of death, watching brothers and friends succumb to its embrace, I find myself no longer wishing to nibble at the scraps Fate drops from her table.  No.  I shall take my place at her side and gorge myself upon the sweetest meats she feeds me, sucking the juices from her fingers and rejoicing that someday, my belly might finally be full.  This living is too short and each day a loss.  It is too easy to slip into darkness, to surrender to the call of sleep.  But this I know, the nightmares that wait do not disappear with the closing of my eyes.  I must chase them away.  And so I shall!  I shall live! And living means loving, and to loving, I seek out you, Romeo, to show me the beds where I might find my comfort and the arms that will welcome me in."

Mab stepped away from these men as they plotted their conquests and she began to think.  If he sought safety in a lady's arms, perhaps hers could be the safest home he ever longed for.  She could keep him as her companion after the game was won, a thanks for his servitude.  She regarded him.  Such a passing could be a pleasure.  She would begin with dreams, she thought.  She would visit him in the night and see what his heart held dear. Then, as passions grew, she would appear before him in corporeal form, inviting him to her palace.  Once there, she would ensnare him, keeping him glamoured until the appointed hour and moment of death had slid into time like so many hopes and passing fancies.  He would be hers.

"Pardon," said a voice.  It had a gentle carelessness to it, a rasp from too many hours joyfully awake.  She turned, and there stood Mercutio.

Close, his eyes were green as a stormy sea, yet they smiled at her, looking upon her mask delighted and even more cheered by what might lie beneath.  "Fair lady, you seem familiar to me.  Have we been acquainted before?"

"Nay," she replied, a hunter captured in her own net.  "I have not had that honor."

"Then let us become acquainted now.  I am quite without a partner and you would be doing me a great kindness, a charity really, if you would join me in this dance."

Romeo behind him recoiled, as if he thought Mercutio had picked the foulest woman in the room.  Mab stiffened, the knife of this boy's cruelty nicking her pride, the uncensored truth of youthful honesty cutting deep.

But Mercutio held out his hand and gave her a wink.

She placed her hand upon his and let him lead her to their place in the pattern amongst the other couples.  She knew from his touch he did not see that which his friend held true.  It should not have mattered, but she felt a strange softening in her chest, a warmth in her fingertips.  It had been many years since someone willingly gave her a gift of small and gentle kindness.

"We are lucky to have revelers here at our gathering," he said as the fife and drum began to play.  "And luckier still to have a woman such as thee."

"And how would you know?  You have not seen me uncovered.  I might be a monster or a witch," she replied.

He laughed.  "I have always believed that the monsters in a room such as this tend to wear the sorts of masks a person cannot see."

He intrigued her, Mab thought, this lord and soldier of the world.  They parted as they exchanged partners, forming circles on a spoke, and then back again.

"You are light of foot, my lord," complimented Queen Mab.

"And you carry yourself as royalty... you still have not given me your name."

"Names hold power," she replied.

"Then give me a taste of power to hold over you."

"It is a secret, dear sir, and the better for you to taste anon."

"Withholding a morsel from the lips of starving man?  It is cruel that you whet my appetite thusly," he said as they spun palm to palm.

"Nay, gentle sir, the pangs of hunger make the taste sweeter and sharpens the flavor as it spreads across the tongue."

They ended the dance face to face, close enough that she felt his breath on her lips.  "If the tongue of your taste tastes half as much as the tongue of your wit, you will keep a man groaning from the rich banquet of your cunning."  His eyes sparkled like her stars before he broke the spell and escorted her off the floor.  He bowed.  "I hope I shall see you again this evening and perhaps join hands again in another dance?"

"If nothing more, I shall see you in your dreams," she replied.

"Ah!  Such promises!  You make me long to leave this frivolous pageantry and find myself abed." He smiled before stepping away to bring Romeo to his side.  "Romeo, come!  Let me introduce you to the fair Rosaline!"

Mab watched as the two men wandered away to a blushing maiden, a wisp of humanity, a frail child who seemed as if she might break when the imperfect world stumbled and tripped away from what she believed its intended path.  She listened while Romeo took Rosaline's hand and kissed it tenderly, as if such lips could win a heart with their attention.  "Gentle Mercutio, keep you this woman for yourself?  Or can you spare her for a turn upon the floor?"

Mercutio laughed and clapped him upon the shoulder, "Go to!  Dance!  Be light of foot and fly!"

The beauty was at once upon Romeo's arm, her airy laughter imperceptible above the sound of the swelling strings.

But this time, Mab did not follow her chosen enemy's son.  Instead she watched Mercutio.  With all eyes upon the dancers, his smile faded to sadness, and he himself into the shadows.  He walked out onto the balcony, cup of drink in hand.  He stared at the stars and she knew at once that look -—the lonely mask of one apart from all his brethren in the room.  There was something about the darkness in his eyes that reminded her of the face she saw in the mirror.

Mab faded away, needing to allow the ice to harden her heart once more.  Mercutio may have set in the thaw with his touch, but she could not allow him to melt it completely.

T
he party done and the revelers gone, Mab flew outside the home of the Montagues.  She looked at the windows as their soft lamps winked out one by one. 

She thought of Mercutio.

Could she so use him to ensure that some morning the light from these lamps would not return? 

True, there was none better suited for this task.  And yet... and yet... there was something... some strange sense of wonder which made her wonder if her champion was truly he.  He had looked upon her unflinching.  It was a reaction she had not seen in over a century.  She had not known how much she had missed that gentle leaning in of another soul.  What eyes did he see gazing back at him through her mask?  Did she wish to strike at such kindness with cruel correction?  To take such a rare soul and twist him into a mere tool for her ends?  To show him that behind her mask was nothing more than the spiteful malice of her heart? 

Strangely, she wanted him to know that she was more.

She did not allow herself the luxury of further reflection.  The moon hung swollen in the sky and in but a few hours the sun would rise to take its place.  The window to this house of Montague was open, the crack all she needed to climb inside. 

She drew her coach to Romeo's bed and settled her unseen steeds upon his linen cover.  There he slept, his tumble of curls upon his pillow and his sweet breath causing his chest to rise and fall.  She alit from her carriage and stepped close to his brow.  Which dreams to birth, she thought. Which pictures to fill this pretty head?  Something sugary as candy, to paint the next day so warm and safe that she might catch him unaware?  Or perhaps something dark to set his feet upon another path which he might otherwise shy away from.  She smiled.  Such havoc she could raise upon him, perhaps visions of maidens that would plague him for days, keeping his heart from whispering its gentle cautions.

“What would you wish to dream, my young man?” she asked.

His lips whispered a word.  “Rosaline...” they seemed to say.

“Rosaline,” she replied. 

Romeo was no one extraordinary, just a lad like all the other boys in Verona, chasing skirts and fighting battles.  If it was a Rosaline, if it was some girl by any other name... well, such dealings were never of any matter.  This first move in the game was so easy, perhaps she would not even have need to consider Mercutio.

She turned back to Romeo.  "Very well, boy, you shall have your Rosaline...”

He smiled.

“...but she shall not have you.”

Mab climbed aboard her hazelnut shell and she flew off towards the window.  Off to find this fair Rosaline and to fill her head with visions of quiet prayer and chaste ambitions, to encourage her to spur all things from a young lover such as Romeo.

Dreams were such fickle things.  And the ambitions of the day made way for the ambitions planted at night.

Queen Mab would make sure of it.

T
he final light in the prince's palace now went out, and Mab flew to where Mercutio's silhouette last fell.  His window was open to the night air, as if he seemed to welcome anything the darkness might bring.

She landed her chariot upon his sill.  She stepped into the room, returning to human size before her foot struck his bedroom floor.  She waved her rosewood wand and at once the room was bathed in golden light. 

He slept in a canopy of heavy red damask, but the curtains were pulled back to allow in the summer breeze.  Though asleep, Mercutio's pulse beat as if he was being pursued, his body thrashed as if fighting some foe.  His face was a book of stories much more complicated than even she could tell.  She blew him a kiss which settled upon his heart and slowed its terrified beating.  She knew it warmed his marrow and spread through his veins like the purring of a cat.  She watched as his face relaxed and ceased its screwing, as he fell into gentle slumber and almost seemed to smile. 

His lids opened slightly and his vision landed upon her.

She stiffened, her heart in her throat.  When man or child looked upon her, half awake and half in sleep, they soon began to cry, to scream, to call for someone to banish a monster which had settled in their room.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She reminded herself that man was so feebleminded, so easy to sway.  "One who cares to give you the world," she replied.  He could be hers before the night was done.  "What do you wish to dream of?" she asked.  "Power?  Love?  Happiness?  Say the words and I shall chase the dark away."