A Midsummer Tempest Page 6

  Titania’s hands fluttered white. “Enough!” she begged. “The cruel dawn comes on apace, when we’ll be powerless and thou pursued. Make haste!”

  Oberon nodded; the plumes swayed and shimmered on his crown. “Indeed. But first I’d best explain to thee, Prince Rupert, why we lend our aid in this thy mortal quarrel. It is ours. We elves are spirits of the living world, the haunters of its virgin loneliness, the guardians, helpers, healers of all things in nature, whence we draw our nourishment.”

  “You’re sometimes tricksy, sometimes terrible,” the man said.

  “Why, so are earth and sea and sky and fire. Were there no wolves and foxes in the woods, the deer and conies soon would gnaw them bare.” Oberon paused before adding bleakly: “Unless man use his poisons, guns, and snares. That can bring order of a graveyard sort, until unpastured rankness chokes and burns. Best he show reverence for Mother Earth. The Old Ways help to keep him true in it, wherefore they win the blessing of the elves.”

  “As long as this leads not to heathendom—”

  “It need not. We’ve seen peoples and their faiths past counting come and come and go and go. From reindeer hunters in an age of stone to warriors in brazen chariots, we were familiars of the seed of Adam. When iron came, it was more difficult, for that’s a greedy fang against the wilds, and bears a cold and sullen force within which sears our kind if we do merely touch. But after restless years came balancing. The yeomen wanted luck upon their fields, and love and sons and grandsons in their homes, and warding off of demon, ghost, or witch—and in exchange for this gave us our due.”

  Titania observed softly: “If fewer forests, we know richer fields; and in a maiden’s love or baby’s laugh, the wonder wells as from a secret spring.”

  “The Christian faith, whatever else it changed, made small discord within that harmony,” Oberon went on. “As long as no one worshipped us as gods—a star-cold honor we have never sought—the priests did not deny our right to be, and let the people dwell at peace with us and with the land. Meanwhile, their bells rang sweet.”

  “They did but change the names—” Puck muttered, “the names—the names.”

  Both Rupert and Oberon frowned at him, and the king continued hastily: “When Henry Eighth cast off the rule of Rome, to us ’twas naught but mortal politics. The Church of England did not persecute us, nor care to end the Old Ways in the folk. But then—”

  “The Puritans arose,” said Rupert, for Oberon faltered at the uttering.

  “They did.” The king lifted a fist. No matter his height and handsomeness, it looked strangely frail, almost translucent to moonbeams and encroaching shadows. “That wintry creed where only hell knows warmth; where rites which interceded once for man with Mystery, and comforted, are quelled; where he is set against the living world, for he is now forbidden to revere it in custom, feast, or staying of his hand; where open merriment’s condemned as vice and harmless foolery as foolishness; where love of man and woman is obscene—there’s Faerie’s and Old England’s foe and woe!”

  Jennifer gulped, clenched fists, stiffened herself, and piped timidly, “Oh, nay, sir, that’s not altogether true—” None seemed to hear her. Rupert stood stone-massive and moveless; Oberon and Titania kept their eldritch eyes on him; the elven lights danced blue, gold, purple, green, ruby, giving glimpses of tiny frightened faces.

  Will Fairweather squeezed her elbow. Puck sidled to the fringe of the glade and around it, until he hunkered near her feet.

  Meanwhile Rupert said, to those twain who were like swirls and currents in the moonlight that poured around him: “Your Majesties are not of human blood. What have theologies to do with you?”

  Oberon drew his cloak tight, as if a wind had arisen—in the white wet stillness of the night—from which its gauze could shield. He spoke nearly too low to be heard: “A creed which bears no love for Mother Earth, but rather sees her as an enemy which it is righteous to make booty of, to rape, to wound, to gouge, to gut, to flay, then bury under pavement, slag, and trash, and call machines to howl around the grave … that creed will bring that doom.”

  His head drooped. “But long ere then, with wonder, woods, and waters, we’ll be dead. Already soot and iron shrink our range. When every churchly minister abhors us and hunts us out … no longer are we strong. We cannot stand before anathemas. First England, then the world—”

  Elven swift, his resolve returned. He straightened and declared aloud: “The Royal cause defends the Old Ways, knowing it or not. Whatever be the faults—the arrogance of King and bishops, squalid greeds of nobles, lump-stodginess of yeomanry and burghers, and gross or petty tyrannies these breed—still, such are found in every human clime; and you’d at least preserve what keeps your kind from turning to a pox upon the globe, and would not scour the Faerie realm from off it.”

  He raised an arm. “My spells, my wands, my secret silent wells descry for me a faint ambiguous hope, though not its form, borne by the three of you. Therefore we aided thine escape, Prince Rupert. Now we would give some further help and counsel, if thou’lt accept it. Then we’ve shot our bolt, and can but wait to see where it may strike.”

  Though hardly moving, the man seemed to crouch. “By the eternal,” he whispered, “it shakes the teeth and bones when such a gauntlet’s cast before the feet. Yet Arthur took it. Dare I be afraid?”

  “I am, I am,” Jennifer almost wept. “What dream has fallen on me? O Mother, come and help me to awaken!”

  Will laid an arm around her shoulders. “Thou’st tumbled into eeriness, poor lass,” he murmured hoarsely; “but one grows used to anything erelong.”

  “Why must they be this oratorical,” grumbled Puck, “and how, when chins are dragging on the ground? Be done, be off; and if the Roundhead shaves so ye can’t beard him, give his nose a tweak. Howe’er,” he added after a moment, “be sure to wear that gauntlet, Rupert, for ’tis a sharp and thrusting nose indeed.” He cocked his head to look at Jennifer. “I feel an inkling thou wilt also ride on this adventure.” He delivered a gunshot slap to her bottom. “Well, thou’rt nicely cushioned!”

  She jumped, gasped, and smacked his face in return. He leered. Indignation burning out terror, she stared back toward Rupert. The prince had not noticed the byplay. Standing as if at attention, he said, “Within the bounds of faith and morals, sir—and common sense—I’ll fare by your advice.”

  A smile drifted across Oberon’s lips. “No doubt we need a careful qualifier,” he said; then, grave again: “I fear I can but send thee on a search, and where and what to seek know only darkly. Thy King, thy cause, thyself cannot prevail unless the Earth herself may fight for thee. So spake the prophesying spells I cast. But how shall Earth, mere soil and rock and water, mere air and life, resist an iron Death?

  “There once were words and tokens full of might. It may be these can raise their elements in threatened children of old Mother Earth. But the North’s great magicians long are dust, and naught remains save feeble country witches and such poor powers as we keep in Faerie.” Oberon shook his head, a slow back-and-forth weaving. “And yet,” he breathed, “what oracles that I could seek gave half-heard whisperings about an isle far to the south, in realms I do not ken—for they lie west of Greece where once we dwelt—an isle where was a mighty mortal wizard not many years agone—”

  “High Prospero?” barked Rupert.

  “Then thou hast read the chronicle thyself.” Oberon trembled, like moonglow on a lake when the breeze passes over. “I think ’twas he. I could not learn for sure. Nor could my spells and sendings search it out. Belike he left the place invisible, that none might find and use his tools for ill, without foreseeing good would someday need them. Its friendly sprite knows nothing of our woe. If thou couldst fetch those things—”

  “Where you have failed,” Rupert asked, “how shall unmagic I discover them?”

  Queen Titania flowed forward. Rupert dropped to one knee. “I bow to beauty,” he exclaimed.

  She smiled and touche
d his head. “Nay, to weakness, Prince,” she answered softly. “Thou must have read how I was made a fool.” Casting a mischievous glance at Oberon: “Though if, instead of Bottom, it’d been thee—” (Puck snickered.) She gestured the man to rise. Quickly as had the king, she grew solemn.

  “Ye mortals do have powers, do know things, which are for aye denied the Faerie race,” she said. “Among them is the strength of mortal love.” Wistfulness tinged her speech: “Mine ageless, flighty kind knows love … of sorts … but simply pleasantly, like songs or sweets. True human love is not a comedy; time makes it tragic. In those heights and deeps rise dawns and storms beyond our understanding, the awe and the abidingness of death.”

  She raised her hands. Abruptly in the fingers of each was a ring. One was larger than its mate, but otherwise they were alike: circlets of silver in the form of an asp which bit its own tail, its head the bezel crowned by a many-faceted jewel.

  “These rings which I uphold before thy gaze were forged in Egypt centuries away, by the last sorcerer of that old land, to aid a lordly pair who were in love. So long as each stayed true to plighted troth, the glowing of the stones would guide them on tow’rd where the means of fortune for them lay: the closer aim, the brighter was the light.” Titania sighed. “He proved too weak, too politic for it. The flames went out for both, who failed and died.

  “By twists and turns, the treasure came to us, who lack that strength and purity of love which kindles it.” Like a stooping hawk: “But thou art mortal, Prince! With this for compass, thou canst seek the isle, and on the way know where is help or refuge. Thy right hand wilt thou need for reins and sword. Wear this upon the left.”

  Jennifer clutched her breast. Rupert was as shaken. He took a backward step and stammered, “I have no one—”

  She leaned near. Her hair floated cloud-wan, bearing odors of thyme and roses. “Not Mary Villiers?” she whispered.

  He made as if to fend her off. “She was never mine.”

  Jennifer broke from her companions, sped through the dew-bright grass. “Leave off thy gramaries on him, thou witch!” she yelled.

  Titania smiled as she withdrew to Oberon’s side. “Here’s one to make exchange of vows with thee,” she said.

  Rupert caught the maiden’s wrist. “Be calm, they mean us well,” he began. She halted, but faced the queen and challenged:

  “What dost thou mean?”

  “Thou heardst us speak, my child,” Titania responded gently. “Take each a ring and give it to the other, pledging faith, that he may have a torch to show his way, and thou thyself what safety thine bestows.”

  Jennifer stood awhile, staring first at her, then at Rupert, there in whiteness and shadow. The moon was lowering and a thin cold ripple went through the air. At last the girl said, “I cannot give him what he owns already.”

  Beneath the oak, Puck remarked to Will, “If he’ll not take the maiden’s ring she proffers, he is a fool, unless his softness lies elsewhere than in the brain.”

  “A liavely wench,” the man agreed. “How spendthrift be’t, to risk thic slender waist.”

  Rupert looked long at Jennifer in his turn before he joined his clasp to hers and said, as carefully as if his tone might shatter something of crystal: “My dear, I am not worthy of thy troth. And ’tis a pledge unsanctioned by the law or holy Church—”

  Her words stumbled. “It only is forever.”

  “I know not, nor dost thou. Let me remind that thou and I are worlds and wars apart. Nor do I like this pagan ceremony.”

  “But … thou’lt go through with it … to get the help?”

  He nodded. “I am a soldier; and it is my way to charge ahead into the teeth of chance. If thou wilt stand me true till I return, or till I fall, I’ll do the same for thee. Then afterward, if such be fate, we’ll talk.”

  She told him through tears, “I’ll live in hope of what thou then may’st say.”

  “Kneel, children, here before the sacred stone,” Oberon commanded. They did, hand in hand. As he stepped in front of them, his elves made a whirlpool of dim fire above his crown. He laid palms upon their heads. “By oak and ash and springtime-whitened thorn, through ages gone and ages to be born, by earth below, by air arising higher, by ringing waters, and by living fire, by life and death, I charge that ye say true if ye do now give faith for faith.”

  They answered together, like speakers in sleep: “We do.”

  Titania came to her lord. “Place each a ring upon the other’s hand,” she told them (they obeyed), “and may the sign of binding prove a band that joins the youth to maiden, man to wife, and lights the way upon your search through life.”

  Oberon and Titania together: “Farewell! And if the roads ye find be rough, keep love alive, and so have luck enough.”

  They and their followers were gone. Darkness overwhelmed the glade.

  “Where art thou, darling?” Jennifer cried. “Suddenly I’m blind!”

  “The moon has slipped below the treetops, dear,” he answered. “Bide unafraid till thou canst see by stars.”

  Puck nudged Will Fairweather. “I likewise have to hurry on my way,” he said. “Methinks this night has not yet done with pranks.”

  “We too must travel off, tha prince an’ me,” the man replied. “When once his landlord finds ’a’s left tha inn without a stop for payin’ o’ tha scoare, we’d better have zome distance in between.” His voice was troubled. “I caered not for his magickin’ myzelf. Her heart war in it, but not whoally his. Half done, it could recoil if ’a ben’t caereful. … An’ we doan’t even know which way to head!”

  “To west, I’d say, where ye can find a ship.” Puck advised. After a pause: “And, h’m, to speak of inns and such—My friend, if sorely pressed for shelter, think of this. There is a tavern known as the old Phoenix, which none may see nor enter who’re not touched by magic in some way. If flits about, but maybe ye can use his ring to find it, or even draw a door toward yourselves. … I must be off. My master calls. Away!” He was gone.

  Eyes grown used to the lessened light, Will made out Rupert and Jennifer at the rock.

  “I hate to send thee back, alone and weary.” The pain was real in the prince’s voice.

  “But we can do naught else,” she said. “I will abide, and pray for thee and love thee always, Rupert.”

  They kissed. She felt her way off into the forest murk. Awhile he stared after her, until he shook himself and spoke flatly: “Well, camarado, let’s prepare to sail, while tide is ebb and wind not yet a gale.”

  viii

  THE SCULLERY OF THE MANOR.

  IT was unadorned red brick, floor sloping to a gutter which drained into the moat. Above an open hearth with a flue reached a swivel-mounted hook for the great kettle wherein water was heated. Firewood lay stacked beside. Nearby stood a raised counter and sink. Elsewhere buckets, tubs, tools, utensils crowded shelves or hung on walls. The gleam of copper, the deep tints of crockery made this the cheeriest room in the house.

  Late at night it had grown cold, though. Sir Malachi Shelgrave’s breath puffed white. The clatter of his shoe-soles stopped when he did, but got answered by the creak of the door to outside. Shadows swung monstrous as he raised his lantern.

  Jennifer came through. Seeing him, she caught one tattered breath and swayed backward.

  “Hold, slut!” he belled. “Stand where thou art or be run down.”

  She could not completely obey. She crumpled. Legs sprawled across the floor showed slim through rents in a stained and dripping skirt. Stiff-elbowed on hands, head fallen between hunched shoulders, locks tumbled around cheeks, she let dry sobs quake through her.

  Shelgrave loomed above. “I see why God kept me awake this night,” he said deep in his throat, “that from my towertop I might espy thee come slinking o’er the bridge tow’rd this back entrance thou must have left unlatched—how many hours?” Violently: “Speak, harlot!”

  Still she fought for strength and air. He set lantern on counter. Stoo
ping through the glooms, he seized a fistful of hair and yanked her head back upward. His other palm cracked her cheeks, right, left, right, left. Her neck rocked beneath the blows.

  “What foul swineherd hast thou sought,” he panted, “to wallow with him in what mucky sty? Ungrateful Jezebel, thou’lt get no peace till I have squeezed the pus of truth from thee.”

  “I did no wrong,” she got out, gasp by gasp through the punishment. “I … swear to God—”

  He released her and straightened, spraddle-legged, knuckles on hips. The tall hat cast a mask across his face, through which glistened eyeballs. “What, then?”

  “I too tossed sleepless,” coughed from her, “thought a walk might help … unthinking wandered far, and … lost my way—”

  “A maid alone, out after dark? Go to!”

  She lifted her arms. “I pray thee, uncle, by the bonds between us—”

  Light flashed off the third finger of her left hand. Shelgrave pounced on that wrist. He gripped it abundantly hard to draw a wail of pain. For a minute he stared, before he snatched it off. She nursed the hurt against her mouth. The finger was red where he had skinned it in his haste. Her eyes upon him were those of a trapped doe.

  “Who gave thee this?” he whispered at last. Over and over he turned it. The stone sparkled like any costly gem. A yell: “I’ll have no further lies!”

  She huddled mute. He raised a foot as if to stamp her teeth. She braced herself against the wall, arms and knees drawn up for shield, and waited.

  He lowered the foot. “A royal thing,” he mumbled. “Is’t from the Prince of Lies—?” Shock made him lurch. “The prince. Prince Rupert—” He whirled and roared: “Nafferton, awake! What butler art thou, snoring in thy bed while hell walks loose? Ho, Nafferton, to me!” Echoes flew hollow around. Faintly came the barking of the aroused watchdogs.

  Nightshirted, his butler fumbled from unlit corridor and kitchen into the scullery. “Go to the guards outside Prince Rupert’s room,” Shelgrave ordered. “Find out if he is there. Be quick, thou whelp!”