Midnight Never Come

by Marie Brennan

  Like the roots of the alder tree in London, the thorny branches rustled and moved, forming a braided archway starred with yellow blossoms. Inside the archway were steps, leading down through the earth, their wood worn smooth by countless passing feet. Charmed lights cast a warm glow over the interior. Lune began her descent, and the rosebush closed behind her.

  The announcement of her name did not open the bush; it only told the inhabitants someone had come. But visitors were rarely kept waiting, outside or in. By the time Lune reached the bottom of the steps, someone was there.

  “Welcome to the Angel, my lady,” Gertrude Goodemeade said, a sunny smile on her round-cheeked face as she bobbed a curtsy. “ ’Tis always a pleasure to see you here. Come in, please, please!”

  No doubt the Goodemeade sisters gave the same friendly greeting to anyone who crossed their threshold — just as, no doubt, more courtiers came here than would admit it — and yet Lune did not doubt the words were sincere. It was in the sisters’ nature. They came from the North originally — brownies were Border hobs, and Gertrude’s voice retained traces of the accent — but they had served the Angel Inn since its construction, and supposedly another inn before that, and on back past what anyone could remember. Many hobs were insular folk, attached to a particular mortal family and unconcerned with anyone else, but these two understood giving hospitality to strangers.

  The edges of the tension that had frozen Lune’s back for days melted away in the warmth of the brownies’ comfortable home.

  Lune suffered Gertrude to lead her into the cozy little chamber and settle her onto a padded bench at one of the small tables. “We haven’t seen you here in some time,” Gertrude said. She was already bustling about, embroidered skirts swishing with her quick movements, fetching Lune a cup of mead without asking. It was, of course, exactly what Lune craved at that moment. The talents of brownies were homely things, but appreciated all the same.

  One brownie, at any rate. Lune opened her mouth to ask where Gertrude’s sister was, then paused at sounds on the staircase. A moment later her question was answered, for Rosamund entered, wearing a russet dress that was the twin of Gertrude’s save for the embroidery on its apron — roses instead of daisies — just as her cheerful face mirrored that of her sister.

  Behind her came others who were less cheerful. Lune recognized the haggard male hob immediately; the others were less familiar, having mostly pressed their faces into the floor of the Onyx Hall when she last saw them.

  Gertrude made a sympathetic sound and hurried forward. For a short time the room seemed overfull, wall-to-wall with hobs and pucks and a slender, mournful-faced river nymph Lune had missed among them the first time. But no brownie would suffer there to be confusion or standing guests for long; soon enough a few of the strangers were ensconced at the tables with bread fresh out of the oven and sharp, crumbly cheese, while the more tired among them were bundled off through another door and put to bed.

  Lune wrapped her fingers around her mead and felt uncomfortable. She had dismissed her illusion of mortality — she would have felt odd maintaining it inside, as if she had kept a traveling cloak on — but the bite of human bread she had eaten still made her proof against church bells, iron horseshoes, and other anti-faerie charms. How the refugees had gotten to the Angel from the Onyx Hall, she did not know, but she doubted it had been so easy. Rosamund must have been present at court, though. Lune chided herself for not studying the crowd more closely.

  Gertrude had not forgotten her. Moments later, the smell of roasted coney filled the room, and Lune was served along with the others. The food was simple, prosaic, and good; one could easily imagine mortals eating the same thing, and it made the elaborate banquets of the court seem fussy and excessive.

  Perhaps, Lune thought, this is why I come here. For perspective.

  Would it be so bad, to leave the court? To find a simpler life, somewhere outside of London?

  It would be easier, certainly. In the countryside, there was less need to protect oneself against mortal tricks. Peasant folk saw fae from time to time, and told stories of their encounters with black dogs or goblins, but no one made trouble of it. Or rarely, at least. They generally only tried to lay creatures who made too much a nuisance of themselves. And out there, one was well away from the intrigues of the Onyx Court.

  Next to Lune on the bench, a tuft-headed sprite began to sniffle into his bread.

  Wherever these rural fae had come from, it was not far enough to save them from Invidiana.

  No, she could not leave London. To be subject to the tides of the court, but unable to affect them . . .

  There was another choice, of course. Across the boundary of twilight, down the pleasant paths that led neither to Heaven nor Hell, and into the deeper reaches of Faerie, where Invidiana’s authority and influence did not reach. But few mortals ever wandered so far, and for all the dangers they posed to fae, Lune would not leave them behind. Mortals were endlessly fascinating, with their brief, bright lives, and all the passion that fueled them.

  Rosamund began to shepherd the others off, murmuring about baths and nice soft beds. Gertrude came by as the sprite vacated Lune’s bench. “Now then, my lady — forgive me for that. Poor things, they were starved to the bone. Was it just a bite to eat you were looking for, and a breath of good country air?”

  Her apple-cheeked face radiated such friendly helpfulness that Lune shook her head before she could stop herself. On the instant, Gertrude’s cheerful demeanor transformed to concern. “Oh, dearie. Tell us about it.”

  Lune had not meant to share the story, but perhaps it was appropriate; she could hardly ask for aid without explaining at least some of why she needed it, and the Goodemeades were generally ignorant of politics. They might be the nearest fae who had not already heard.

  “I am disgraced at court,” she admitted.

  She tried to speak as if it were of small moment. Indeed, sometimes it was; if everyone who angered Invidiana suffered Cadogant’s fate, there would soon be no court left. But she stood upon the edge of a knife, and that was never a comfortable place to be.

  Gertrude made a sympathetic face. “Queen’s taken a set against you, has she?”

  “With cause,” Lune said. “You listen to the talk in the mortal inn, do you not?”

  The brownie dimpled innocently. “From time to time.”

  “Then you know they fear invasion by Spain, and that a great Armada was only recently defeated.”

  “Oh, we heard! Great battles at sea, or some such.”

  Lune nodded, looking down at the remnants of her coney. “Great battles. But before them and after, great storms as well. Storms for which we paid too high a price.” She had confessed the details only to Invidiana, and would not repeat them; that would only deepen the Queen’s wrath. But she could tell Gertrude the shape of it. “I was Invidiana’s ambassador to the folk of the sea, and did not bargain well enough. She is displeased with the concession I promised.”

  “Oh dear.” Gertrude paused to assimilate this. “What was so dreadful, then? I cannot imagine she wants us to be invaded; surely it was worth the price.”

  Lune pushed her trencher away, painting a smile over her ever-present knot of worry. “Come, you do not want to talk of such things. This is a haven away from court and its nets — and long may it remain so.”

  “True enough,” the brownie said complacently, patting her apron with plump but work-worn fingers. “Well, all’s well that ends well; we don’t have any nasty Spanish soldiers trampling through the Angel, and I’m sure you’ll find your way back into her Majesty’s good graces soon enough. You have a talent for such things, my lady.”

  The words returned Lune to her original purpose. “I hesitate to ask you this,” she admitted, looking at the doorway through which the last of the refugees had vanished. “You have so many to take care of now — at least until they can be settled elsewhere. And I wonder Rosamund could even bring them here safely.”

  Her relu
ctance had exactly the desired effect. “Oh, is that all?” Gertrude exclaimed dismissively, springing to her feet. The next Lune knew, the brownie was pressing an entire heel of bread into her hands. It was not much different from what the Goodemeades had served, but any fae could tell one from the other at a touch. Mortality had a distinctive weight.

  Looking down at the bread, Lune felt obscurely guilty. The maidservants of the Angel put out bread and milk faithfully; everyone knew that. And Invidiana taxed the Goodemeades accordingly, just as she taxed many country fae. Many more rural humans than city folk put out food for the fae, yet it was in the city that they needed it most. The Onyx Hall shut out the sounds of the bells and other such threats, but to venture into the streets unfed was an assurance of trouble.

  She needed this. But so did the Goodemeades, with their guests to take care of.

  “Go on, take it,” Gertrude said in a soft voice, folding her hands around the bread. “I’m sure you’ll find a good use for it.”

  Lune put her guilt aside. “Thank you. I will not forget your generosity.”

  Memory: May–August 1588

  I n villages and towns all along the coast of England, piles of wood awaited the torch, and men awaited the first sight of the doom that was coming to devour them.

  In the crowded harbor of Lisbon, the ships of the Grande y Felicícisma Armada awaited the order that would send them forth, for God and King Philip, to bring down the heretic queen.

  In the waters that separated them, storms brewed, sending rain and heavy winds to lash the lands on both sides of the English Channel.

  The Armada was a greater thing in story than it was in reality. The five hundred mighty ships that would bear an unstoppable army to England’s shores, their holds crammed with implements of torture and thousands of Catholic wet nurses for the English babies who would be orphaned by the wholesale slaughter of their parents, were in truth a hundred and thirty ships of varying degrees of seaworthiness, crewed by the dregs of Lisbon, some of whom had never been to sea before, and commanded by a landsman given his posting only a few months gone. Disease and the depredations of the English scourge Sir Francis Drake had taken their toll on God’s weapon against the heretics.

  But the worst was yet to come.

  In this, the quietest month of the year, when all the experienced seamen had assured the Duke of Medina-Sidonia that the waters would be calm and the winds fair for England, the storms did not subside; instead, they grew in strength. Gales drove the ships back when they tried to progress, and scattered the weaker, less seaworthy vessels. Fat-bottomed merchantmen, Mediterranean galleys unsuited to the blasts of the open sea, lumbering supply ships that slowed the pace of the entire fleet: the Great and Most Fortunate Armada was a sorry sight indeed.

  Delays had slain what remained of May; June rotted away in the harbor of La Coruña, while sailors sickened and starved, their victuals fouled by the green wood of the barrels they were kept in. The commanders of the fleet found new terms by which to damn Drake, who had burned the seasoned barrel-staves the previous year.

  In July they sailed again, obedient to God’s mission.

  Red crosses waved on white flags. The banner of Medina-Sidonia’s ship carried the Virgin and a crucified Christ, and the motto Exsurge, Domine, et judica causam tuam! Monks prayed daily, and even sailors were forbidden to take the Lord’s name in vain.

  Yet none of it availed.

  Beacon fires flared along the coast of England: the Spanish had been sighted. The wind favored the English, and so did the guns; the trim English ships refused boarding engagements, dancing around their ungainly enemy, battering away with their longer guns while staying out of Spanish range. Like dogs tearing at a chained bear, they harried the Spanish up the coast to Scotland, while the storms kept up their merciless assault.

  Storms, always storms, every step of the way.

  Storms struck them in the Orkneys, and again off the Irish coast, as the Armada fought to crawl home. From Lisbon into the Channel, around all the islands of England, Scotland, and Ireland — everywhere the fleet went, the wrath of sky and sea pursued.

  Sick unto death with scurvy and typhus, maddened by starvation and thirst, the sailors screamed of faces in the water, voices in the sky. God was on their side, but the sea was not. Ever fickle, she had turned an implacable face to them, and all the prayers of the monks could not win her goodwill.

  For a deal had been struck, in underwater palaces spoken of only in sailors’ drunken tales. The sea answered to powers other than man’s, and those powers — ever callous to human suffering — had been persuaded to act in favor of the English cause, against their usual disinterested neutrality.

  So it was that the skies raged on command and alien figures slipped through the water, dancing effortlessly around the foundering vessels, luring men overboard and dragging them under, discarding many to wash up, bloated and rotting, on the Irish shore, but keeping a few for future amusement. It was difficult to say who had the more unfortunate fate: those who died, or those who lived.

  In Spain, bells rang out in premature celebration, while his most Catholic Majesty awaited news of his most holy mission.

  In England, the heretic queen rallied her people, while reports trickled in from Drake and the Lord Admiral, speaking of English heroism.

  In the turbulent waters of the Atlantic, the remnants of the Armada, half their number lost, captured, or sunk, limped homeward, and took with them the hopes of a Spanish conquest of England.

  THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: September 18, 1588

  The mortal guise fell away from Lune like a discarded cloak the moment the alder tree grew shut around her, and she concealed the bread within the deep folds of her skirts. Those who wished to, would find out soon enough that she had it, and where she had obtained it, but she would hide it as best she could. Plenty of lesser courtiers would come begging for a crumb if they knew.

  Some of them might smell it on her; certain fae had a nose for mortality. Lune hurried through the Onyx Hall to her chambers, and tucked the heel of bread into her coffer as the door closed behind her.

  With it safely stowed, she rested her hands upon the inlaid surface of the table, tracing with one fingertip the outline of its design. A mortal man knelt at the foot of a tower; the artisan had chosen to show only the base of the structure, leaving to the imagination which faerie lady had caught his heart, and whether she returned his love.

  It happened, sometimes. Not everyone played with mortals as toys. Some, like hobs, served them faithfully. Others gave inspiration to poets and musicians. A few loved them, with the deathless passion of a faerie heart, all the stronger for being given so rarely.

  But mortals were not Lune’s concern, except insofar as they might provide her with a route to Invidiana’s favor.

  She lowered herself onto the embroidered cushion of a stool. With deliberate, thoughtful motions, Lune began to remove the jeweled pins from her hair, and laid each one on the table to represent her thoughts.

  The first she laid down glimmered with fragments of starlight, pushing the boundaries of what she, as a courtier in disgrace, might be permitted to adorn herself with. A gift, Lune thought. A rare faerie treasure, or a mortal pet, or information. Something Invidiana would value. It was the commonest path to favor, not just for fae but for humans as well. The difficulty was, with so many gifts being showered at the Queen’s feet, few stood out enough to attract her attention.

  A second pin. The knob at the end of this one held the indigo gems known as the sea’s heart. Lune’s fingers clenched around it; she had dressed for court in a rush, and had not attended to which pins she chose. Had Vidar seen it? She prayed not. Bad enough to have lost the Queen’s goodwill by that disastrous bargain with the folk of the sea; worse yet to wear in her hair their gift to the ambassador of the Onyx Court.

  Dame Halgresta certainly had not seen it; of that, Lune could be sure, because she was not bleeding, or dead.

  She set it down on th
e table, forcing her thoughts back to their task. If not a gift, then what? A removal of an obstacle, perhaps. The downfall of an enemy. But who? The ambassador from the Courts of the North had quit the Onyx Hall in rage after the execution of the mortal Queen of Scots, accusing Invidiana of having engineered her death. There were enemies aplenty in that coalition of Seely and Unseely monarchs, the courts of Thistle and Heather and Gorse. To move against them, however, Lune would have to go there herself: a tedious journey, with no assets or allies waiting for her at the end.

  As for other enemies, she was not fool enough to think she could take action against the Wild Hunt and live.

  Lune sighed and pulled a third pin from her hair.

  Silver locks spilled free as she did so, sending the remaining pins to the floor. Lune left them where they fell, fingering the snowflake finial of the one in her hand. Give the Queen something she wanted, or remove something that stood between her and what she wanted. What else was there?

  Amusement. The Queen was a cold woman, heartless and cruel, but she could be entertained. Her favorite jests were those that accomplished some other goal at the same time. Even without that, though, to amuse the Queen . . .

  It was a slim enough thread, but the last thing she could grasp for.

  Lune held the snowflake pin, pressing her lips together in frustration. The outlines of her options were simple enough; the difficulty lay in moving from concept to action. Everything she thought of was weak, too weak to do her much good, and she was not positioned to do more. The trap of courtly life: those in favor were the best positioned to gain favor, while those who fell out of it were often caught in a spiral of worsening luck.

  She would not accept it. Running her thumb over the sharp, polished points of the snowflake, Lune disciplined her mind. How could she better her position in the Onyx Court?

  “Find Francis Merriman.”

  Lune was on her feet in an instant, the snowflake pin reversed and formed into a slender dagger in her hand. Her private chambers were charmed against intruders, a basic precaution in the Onyx Hall, and no one would break those protections unless they had come to do her harm.