Текст книги "Hell and Earth"

Act V, scene xii

Came he right now to sing a raven’s note,

Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers,

And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,

By crying comfort from a hollow breast,

Can chase away the first‑conceived sound?

–William Shakespeare, King Henry VI Part II,Act III, scene ii

Ben and Tom were shuffled back to Tom’s study – over predictable protests, for which Will felt a great deal of sympathy. But he would not permit them to stay in Faerie without the assurances that he held, when any amount of time might pass them by in the mortal realm.

Once they had parted company and Murchaud had brought Will through to the Mebd’s palace, Will slumped to the floor of Murchaud’s night‑shadowed chamber and buried his face in his hands while the Prince went about, lighting candles that failed to lift the gloom. Murchaud unlaced his outer sleeves and drew them off. He tossed them carelessly across the foot of the bed and began unbuttoning his doublet with fingers he stopped to massage now and again, as if they ached. Will watched in fascination a Prince–still moving like an old man–playing his own body servant. “Your Highness, are you well?”

“Iron‑sick,” he said, in a tone that brooked no more questioning. “London is full of the stuff.”

Will nodded. “What do we now?”

The Prince shrugged on a woolen jerkin in deep blue, with golden knotwork. He leaned back against the wall. “We beg my mother for help.”

The white tree on the bluff over the ocean was hung with icicles like curtains of glass, creaking faintly in the wind. Morgan’s cottage, once they passed through the icy, snowless beech wood, was white as bone and black as aged oak among the weathered stems of the garden. The gnarled canes of ancient roses twisted about the crimson door, woven tight as the withy hurdles the farmers of Will’s youth used to keep sheep properly divided in the pastures.

Despite the biting cold, the door stood open and a big, shaggy copper‑colored dog lay across the threshold, the crochet‑hooked tip of his tail flipping deliberately. He rose as Will and Murchaud approached and ambled into the cottage, turning once to glance over his shoulder and prick alert, shaggy ears covered in the same luxurious coat that swayed about him when he moved. A moment later, Morgan stood framed in the doorway, the dog leaning his cheek against her hip and watching with gaze bright through a fall of hair. She shaded her eyes with her hand against the wintry sunlight and called out. “I was not expecting thee this morning, O son. And in such company.”

“We have a bit of problem, Mother,” Murchaud interrupted. “Master Shakespeare has witnessed Sir Christopher taken captive by the Prometheans. We must find him – ”

“ – quickly, if he is to live. Thou didst try with seeking‑motes? And consult the Darkling Glass?”

Murchaud pursed his lips at her, one eyebrow rising. Will made himself meet Morgan’s eyes past the Prince’s shoulder. “Thank you your tisanes and tinctures, madam, “he said. “They have made a difference.”

She met the gaze for a moment, then snorted and dropped a restraining hand to the dog’s neck. “Come in. Come in.”

Will followed Murchaud through the doorway and was most thoroughly inspected by a canine nose along the way. Inside the cottage it was warm as summer, despite the open door –another touch of Morgan’s homely magic – and sweet‑smelling cakes were baking on the hearthstone, their crusts just golden‑brown on the side closest the coals.

Morgan crouched to turn them, moving quickly to keep her fingers from scorching, and stayed crouched by the fire long enough to fill a kettle and hang it on the kettle‑arm. She stood and turned around. The dog observed her from his post by the door, whining a little.

Murchaud rattled down three mugs and set them out on a bench while Morgan measured herbs into them. “Scrying by water, do you think? Or by the cards?”

‘If the Glass won’t show it, water won’t,” Morgan answered, measuring herbs into the mugs. “And the cards are not suited for questions with – definite –answers. So I fear we will have to find someone to ask.”

“Ask?” Will said. The trickle of steam from the kettle’s spout became a jet that stood out eighteen inches. He moved forward, taking a square of toweling from a wall peg to shield his hand, and poured for all three of them, ignoring the twinge from his bruises.

“Aye,” she said, as Will hung the kettle up again. She stirred honey into each mug, and handed him one. He cupped his aching hands around the warmth and cradled it to his chest.

“Whom do we ask, my Queen?”

She smiled at Will over the rim of her mug, flecks of mint dappling her upper lip. “The things that listen in the crevices and quiet places, of course. And the things that listen to the things that listen there.”

Morgan led them speedily over frost‑rimed beech leaves, to the edge of a talking brook that trickled between glassy walls of ice. She turned at the frozen bank and followed it upstream; Murchaud steadied Will as they scrambled in her wake. Despite his worry, Will straightened his spine and breathed the cold scent of crunching leaves, drank deep the welcome air of Faerie and felt its strength fill him up.

They came up to a little plank bridge with darkness beneath. The icy brook chattered louder there, echoing from the underside of the arch. Ridiculous in the season, but Will could have sworn he heard a frog chirp. Morgan stopped short where the slick silver boles of the beech trees still broke the line of sight into slices. “Go on ahead, sweet William,” she said, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder.

“There’s something across the bridge?”

“Perhaps,” she answered. “But thy business is with the one who lives under it.”

With one doubtful glance at Morgan, and ignoring the low, uncertain noise that issued from Murchaud’s throat, Will shuffled down the bank. The slope was rocky and slick with frost. He clung to flexing twigs and underbrush to steady his uncertain descent, his bruised hip aching when he slipped.

And faintly, over the singing of the brook, he heard other singing: “For thy delight each May‑morning, hurm, If these delights thy mind may move, harm …”

“Come live with me and be my love,” Will finished, under his breath. Strange he–it?–should be dinging that.“Hello, the bridge!” he called, feeling silly. Icy silt crunched under his boots.

“Hurm, harm,” a slow voice answered. Something shifted in the dark archway. It might have been mottled a greeny‑brown like weedy water, shining with healthy, slick highlights in the reflected light. “Master Poet,” it said, in reedy tones of slow delight, “have you also come to offer me a poem for passage?”

“No,” Will said. A bridge‑troll. What else could it have been?“What would you take in trade for the answer to a question?”

“Ask me the question and I will tell you the price.”

“Tell me the price and I will tell you if I wish the question answered,” Will said, having some little idea of how such bargains worked.

“Hurm,” the troll said. “Very well. ‘Twill serve, ‘twill serve. Quest your question, then.”

Will drew a breath. “Where is Sir Christofer Marley, that I may find and rescue him?”

“Ah. Harm. No charge for that one, Master Poet. No charge. For knolls troll what trolls know, and I know I cannot answer it: there is no person by that name.”

Will let his head fall back upon his shoulders. “Too late,” he said. “Kit’s dead.”

The troll coughed, and Will got a glimpse of long fingers as it demurely covered its gaping, froggy mouth. “Perhaps a different way of phrasing the question, hurm?”

Will blinked. Never ask me,Kit had said, and now Will thought he understood. “Where is – ” my lover?But that was a question “with too many answers to serve Will’s purpose, to his sudden chagrin. “Where is the poet whose song you were just now singing, Master Troll?”

The troll chuckled, seeming pleased at his care, and trailed long fingers crooked as alder in the water. “And on to the matter of payment, froggily froggily. Would give me a song?”

“Any song I have,” Will said without hesitation.

“A bauble?”

“Nothing could be as precious to me as Kit’s life, Master Troll.” Will thought of Hell, and a quiet garden, and tried not to let the troll see the cold sweat that dewed his forehead. An animal was picking its way cautiously through the brush not too far away. Leaves crackled while Will waited.

“Hurm, harm.” The troll lifted a crooked finger and pointed. Give me the ring in your ear.

Automatically, Will reached up and let his fingers brush the warm, weighty gold. “It’s magic,” he said, though he was already fumbling with the clasp.

“Trolls know what trolls know.”

“It lets me stay in Faerie without being trapped here.”

“Then you’d better hurry home, hurm.”

Farther upstream, beyond the bridge, a stag crashed out or the underbrush and paused at the top of the bank. It gave Will a wild look, then bounded through the stream.

“Stag,” the troll said, following his gaze. “Good eating. The earring, harm?”

Will tossed it gently, underhand. The troll picked it out of the air like a flycatcher after gnats and popped it into his mouth. He belched a moment later –a toadlike, bubbling sound–and croaked: “Look down wells and look in the dark wet places. Look in forgetful places, and for forgotten things. Ask those that know the secrets whispered under earth and between stones.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all I know,” the troll said. “Don’t drink the water, mortal man. Go home now.”

Will refused Morgan’s tisane, over her smile, when they had returned to her cottage. She said nothing about the troll’s pronouncement, but Murchaud grumbled. “He told us nothing but riddles.” He rubbed his hands as if they still ached.

Will shook his head. “Nay. He told us everything he needed to. Ask those that know the secrets– ” He stood. “He’s a Faerie. Do youexpect him to play straightforward?”

Murchaud looked up. “Where are you going now?” Will smiled. “To strike a bargain with a snake.”