by Jane Yolen
“Doesn’t even know to bow to his betters,” said Thridi.
“Forgets to eat.”
“Like to starve if we don’t look after him.”
“Dense as stone.”
“Slow as snails.”
“Dull as dust.”
“Dim-witted, you could say,” Dagmarra added.
Aspen felt they had made their point three or four metaphors earlier, but he wasn’t going to complain. Instead he straightened up but no longer preened like a prince. Rather, he looked down at his lute and started tuning it again, this time softly, all the while managing to keep a watch on things out of the corner of his right eye.
Dagmarra grinned gap-toothed up at the captain and stroked her beard.
The officer finally looked away and nodded to the other officer, a lieutenant by his stripes. The lieutenant was a much younger elf wearing a better cut of uniform. His hair had a green stripe on either side, marking him as a recruit and lower class at that, though to have become an officer meant he had done the crown some other service.
Possibly spying, Aspen thought. Possibly a member of the Assassins’ Guild. Even the Seelie Court had such a thing, or so his tutor Jaunty had taught him. The difference between the Unseelie assassins and the Seelie were the ways in which they killed. Aspen thought briefly of the two who had been ready to finish him off in the Unseelie dungeon, the ones he evaded more by accident than design. He shook his head. This Seelie lieutenant looks nothing like them. They had been coarse boggarts after all, not elves.
The lieutenant pulled a scroll from his saddlebag and handed it to the captain, looking at once both eager to do the captain’s bidding and annoyed.
“Well,” the captain said, glancing down at the scroll before continuing in stentorian tones. “I am searching for Prince Ailenbran Astaeri and a companion. They are wanted by the King’s Justice, and all in the realm must assist in their discoverance.”
Aspen waited for the dwarfs to name him and braced himself to run, forgetting for a moment his plan to retain his dignity.
But Annar just cocked his head to one side and said, “We’ve seen nah soul who gave us that name.”
The captain nodded. “He has most likely taken an alias.”
“Ah,” Annar said, nodding back as if in appreciation of the captain’s wisdom.
“What alias is he using then?” Thridi asked. He wasn’t nodding.
“We do not know,” the captain said.
“Then why tell us his name?” Annar stopped nodding and scratched his chin beneath his long beard.
“When it could be any?” Thridi added.
“Might as well ask for Robert the Woodcutter.”
“Or James of the Loch.”
“Or Pitter Pat Pettenby the Poor Peddler of Pottery.”
“Or perhaps ask for our sister, Dagmarra here.”
The captain stared at Dagmarra and especially at her beard. His pale skin turned even paler.
“Best not,” Annar said.
“Doubt ye could handle her,” Thridi concluded.
“Well . . . I . . .” the captain stammered, which made the lieutenant hide a smile behind his hand. The captain’s horse stomped the ground as if echoing its rider’s discomfort.
Aspen kept on tuning, even though the notes were not getting any better.
“Perhaps you could tell us what this offender looks like?” Annar suggested.
“Give us the lay of the land, so to speak,” Thridi said.
“If the land were his face,” Annar said by way of explanation.
“And your kind words the map,” concluded Thridi.
“Well,” the captain said, glancing between the dwarf brothers momentarily before giving his head a quick shake and looking down at the scroll. “Golden hair,” he read. “And a bit short for a royal.” He looked up from the scroll and pointed at Aspen.
Shocked, Aspen accidentally tweaked the lute’s second string hard. The noise was that of a cracked bell crossed with a bowstring snapping, and the dwarfs and the officers all cringed.
When the last sound of the twanged string faded, the captain said, “From the description here, he bears a fair resemblance to your minstrel there. What is his name?”
“Karl,” Aspen said at the same time that Dagmarra said, “Popinjay.”
“Karl Popinjay,” Annar said smoothly.
“A more than fair resemblance,” the captain said, then sighed. “But without the loutish cast to the features or the dim look in the eyes.” He leaned forward and patted his horse on the neck. “I imagine being a prince, he would be unable to hide his royal bearing.”
The dwarfs nodded in agreement as Aspen thought, Loutish cast? Dim look in my eyes?
“You have not seen him, then?” the captain asked.
“No princes,” Annar said.
“Nor companions,” Thridi said.
The lieutenant and his horse moved closer to the captain, and the lieutenant whispered in the captain’s ear. The captain nodded carefully, then said loudly, “Call the dismount!”
The lieutenant whistled back to the troops, who immediately dismounted in unison, the sound of two dozen boots hitting the ground at once like a kettle drum in the morning air.
Then the captain dismounted smoothly and silently and handed his reins to Annar, who was suddenly by his side. “We have not yet broken our fast this morning, dwarf. Have your Popinjay warble for us whilst we eat.”
“Of course!” Annar said enthusiastically. He turned to Aspen. “Karl? Are you in tune?”
Aspen tried to remain calm, but his thoughts were racing. What can I do? I can play, but cannot sing. The officer’s horse likely has a better voice than me! And if I cannot sing, will I be unmasked as a minstrel? And if I am not a minstrel, will they see that maybe my features aren’t so loutish, my eyes not so dim, my bearing a mite more princely than peasantly?
“Karl?” Thridi said.
“Popinjay?” Annar said.
“My . . . um . . .” Aspen stuttered. “My singer . . .”
“Is Maggie Light,” Dagmarra said. “I’ll go fetch her. Perhaps an instrumental till she arrives?”
Aspen looked at Dagmarra gratefully. At that moment no princess so fair could have looked more beautiful to him than the gap-toothed, bearded dwarf female who had been ready to pound him into the ground just a few moments earlier.
Thank you, he mouthed at her, wondering who Maggie Light was, hoping it would not be Snail in disguise. Then he turned back to the soldiers, who were digging in their packs for waybread and water. And, after sliding the second string back into key, he launched into the old Seelie air called “The Loves of Leannan Sidhe,” pleased that he was only slightly out of tune and hoping no one else would notice.
SNAIL PEEPS
Snail was about to introduce herself when there was a sharp whistle that seemed to pierce the room. In the next room the bird started to squawk, “Pay the troll, pay the troll!” and the rug thing with the teeth bounded, or rather slid, into the room. Both the professor and Maggie Light startled like hares, their heads turned simultaneously not to the bird or the incoming floor creature, but toward the bookcase door. It was as if they were both hearing something else, something that Snail couldn’t hear.
“What?” Snail asked.
Turning to glance at her, the professor scowled, then turned again to the bookcase door.
This time Snail heard what they heard: the thump of booted feet hitting the ground in unison. It was loud and imposing and unmistakable: soldiers dismounting.
She knew such a sound, often hearing it when the Unseelie soldiers had done their morning maneuvers beyond the castle walls—the multiple boots striking the ground at the same time, accompanied by the drum cadencing the count for the men.
This time there was no drum, no drummer, but this so
und was terrible and upsetting because Aspen was outside. Outside with a company of soldiers. That did not bode well. He is incapable of pretending, she thought. The soldiers are sure to figure out he’s a prince the minute he opens his mouth. Or straightens his shoulders. Or gives one of them a withering toff look. She knew in fact that he was nobly stupid enough to turn himself in to save her.
“Sir!” she said to the professor, ready to confess all if he would just use his magic to save Aspen. “Sir, please . . .”
Hisssst! Maggie Light had one beautiful finger pressed firmly against her beautiful lips and was making a sound like a serpent.
In that instant, as if by magic, Snail was silenced. She opened her mouth to beg again and nothing came out.
Meanwhile the professor was again doing something odd. He’d turned and pressed his face against the wall, which had a painted surface of red and gold flowers. His shoulder was right next to the bookcase. And there he stood for a long moment. When at last he turned and looked back, he said to Maggie Light, “The performance of your life, girl. You’re performing for a life. You were made for this. Make it work. Now!”
She nodded and went out the door she’d first come in.
“As for you, young woman,” Professor Odds said to Snail, his silver eyes boring into hers, “stay safe in here. If you must know what’s unfolding, the wall will tell you.” Then he went around the bookcase, to the door space, and the bookcase closed behind him.
Odder and odder, Snail thought, though oddest of all, she didn’t disobey him. Instead, trusting the professor, trusting his magic, she went at once to the wall.
Standing where he’d stood, Snail pressed close to the wall.
“All right, wall,” she whispered, feeling foolish, “unfold.” She leaned forward until her nose touched it, and suddenly the center of one of the red painted flowers resolved into a peephole.
A peephole!
That was a bit disappointing as it wasn’t magic at all. But nevertheless, she looked through and realized she could see soldiers standing by their horses, a captain and his lieutenant conferring, the three dwarfs, and best of all, Prince Aspen—so far unharmed—playing the lute. Badly, she supposed. She realized rather late that she couldn’t hear the lute, or anything else for that matter.
As the dumb show unfolded, Snail watched as Professor Odds came out to greet the soldiers, arms wide, like a small ringmaster of a tiny traveling circus.
The men all turned to him, the lieutenant looking a bit amused and a lot suspicious; the captain, his face souring, obviously annoyed. The three dwarfs she couldn’t read because their backs were turned to her, though they seemed to be fiddling with their ears. But at least they stood at attention, more so than the soldiers. She was pleased about that. She’d bet those three dwarfs against that ragtag soldiery any day.
And Aspen? He kept doggedly playing his tune, whatever it was.
Snail sighed. The professor had said the wall would tell her. And so it had, in a limited way. But she wanted to know more, not just sit hidden in the cart, only guessing at what was being said. She’d just about decided she had to go outside, when—suddenly—everything changed.
Maggie Light’s voice came soaring over the landscape, and oddly enough, Snail could hear it even through the walls of the cart, though the walls had probably strained out most of its power. Maggie Light was singing the words to an old tune, one Snail could sort of remember and almost name.
The gate between the trees is open.
The way will be quite steep.
Stones as hard as hearts the markers.
Do not weep, child, do not weep.
Her voice was as clear as glass, as sharp as a knife, as comforting as a lullaby. The soldiers seemed stunned, mouths open. The captain had begun to drool. The lieutenant tried to struggle a bit against the magic; got one finger up to his ear, before he, too, went slack-jawed.
Without going under, you can’t get through.
You are the path that has been made.
Leaves can tremble without falling,
Shadows cast can still give shade.
Aspen’s fingers had fallen from the strings. He, too, was charmed, mazed.
Only the dwarfs and the professor seemed untouched by the song. And Snail, somehow secure inside the cart, was untouched as well, the walls having kept her safe from the spell.
One foot, then, and now the next one,
Forward, downward, going deep.
Turn over stones, remark the Under.
Do not weep, child, do not weep.
The professor walked over to the lieutenant and then the captain, whispering in their ears. Then he came back to Aspen and put a hand on his shoulder, spun him around, caught the lute when it started to drop from the prince’s flaccid fingers. Then he walked Aspen, all unresisting, up the stairs and into the cart.
Maggie Light’s song stopped.
The dwarfs took out whatever had been stuffed into their ears.
The captain and lieutenant looked around as if wondering what they were doing there. Then they signaled to the soldiers to remount, got back on their horses themselves, and rode off.
As a show, Snail thought, it had everything—good characters, tense action, and a happy ending.
But as real life—well, she thought, it’s very odd indeed.
ASPEN AWAKENS
She was beautiful. A silver goddess with a voice of gold. She didn’t ask what tune Aspen was playing, and he’d never before heard the lyrics she sang. Had not even known the song had lyrics. But somehow they fit. No, they more than fit. They meshed. They melded. They grew into something greater than a song. Something that enraptured and captured and . . .
“Put me to sleep?” Aspen came to himself with a start. It must have all been a dream. He lay on a large, soft bed, richly surrounded by silken pillows of gold and silver.
I don’t remember any goddess! he thought desperately, sitting up. I don’t remember this bed. This place. How long have I been dreaming?
Then he realized that he must be inside the players’ wagon, the very place he had been trying to get to when everything had fallen apart.
The wagon! The soldiers!
That’s when he had an additional thought: How far have we traveled?
He looked for a window to check the rate of their speed and saw a large one, which was very strange to him because castle windows are always mere arrow slits, built that way in case of an assault. This window overlooked a field of stunning flowers, and even stranger, they were not moving.
I don’t remember fields of flowers, he thought, still drowsy. And then he had a further thought: The wagon must be as becalmed as a sailing ship on a breezeless ocean.
He had never sailed on the ocean, though he had a vague memory of watching from a cliff-top far north of Astaeri Palace as a two-masted boat with an oddly round body headed for the northern islands. It was winter and his tiny hand clasped in his mother’s firm grip was the only part of him that felt warm and protected from the cold, whipping wind.
His only other ocean memory was from a song. He began to sing it to himself, trying to recall where he’d heard it.
The water is wide, my dear,
The water is deep.
The strand is long, my dear,
But love will keep . . .
When he had first heard the song, he must have already lived a year in the Unseelie Court, still mourning the loss of his own family. A minstrel had performed for King Obs, a minstrel who had a strange wandering eye. The Border Lords had thrown bones at him and called him misfigured, but Aspen had thought the song pretty and sad at the same time, though he had only understood a small part of it. He felt terrible for the minstrel, who was clearly as out of place at the Unseelie Court as Aspen was. Jaunty had had to explain to him that the song was about the ocean and that a strand was a fancy
Unseelie word for a beach.
Suddenly, he realized that there really was no breeze outside. It took him a minute more to realize that the flowers were part of a painting, a clever trompe l’oeil that depicted a window looking out onto a pasture full of blooming poppies.
Someone nearby cleared his throat.
Aspen turned his head. The three dwarfs stood by the far wall across from the flower painting, their beards almost hiding the concern in their faces. Plumping a pillow behind him was the stunning woman from his dream, who leaned closer as if to examine him. His heart stuttered in his chest and he looked away. Inside, he was repeating over and over, She is real! She is real!
There was a grey-eyed manservant hulking in the shadows behind her, probably a clerk by his manner and dress.
Finally, nearest to the bed and looking down at him, her mismatched eyes sparkling with anger or amusement or relief—maybe all three at once—was Snail.
“Hello,” he said, shooting her a weak smile. She nodded and he tried to guess whether they were in trouble.
Are we captured? Are we among friends? What happened outside? He did not know which question to ask first, and anyway he certainly did not want to appear panicked in front of the beautiful singer, so instead he tried to sound nonchalant, casual, smooth. “I played a song.”
More slow than smooth, Your Serenity, he thought. Are you trying to live up to the dwarfs’ description of you? That much he remembered! Dull as dust and dense as stone?
But Snail’s face broke into a pleasant grin and she answered him as if he had dispensed the deepest of wisdoms. “Yes, Karl. You did.”
For a moment he could not remember who Karl was, but when he recalled that was his minstrel name, he smiled back.
“And the song was beautiful,” added the stunning woman. “It felt right for me to fit the words to your tune.”
Her words? My tune? That was when Aspen fully realized that the dream was not a dream but something that had really happened. Unless, of course, I am still asleep and dreaming.
Surreptitiously, he pinched his left pointer finger. It hurt. So—he was awake!