by Ken Altabef
This drove the fool into a frenzy. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Meadowlark had had enough. “Oh, shut it!” He snapped the little faery’s neck.
Aldebaran gazed down at the tiny corpse. “That was the Queen’s favorite little fool.” He looked at Meadowlark as if he had suddenly become not even valuable enough for killing. “You’ll answer to Dresdemona for that.”
Bingo! thought Meadowlark. Now we’re getting somewhere. At least I won’t die at the hands of this cretin without even seeing her. This whole ordeal may be worth it after all. “Sounds good to me.”
Aldebaran shook his head, a mocking smile on his lips. “Don’t be so eager. She has ways of killing people…”
Meadowlark patted the big faery’s muscular bicep. “Lead on, Macduff.”
Aldebaran picked up the little corpse of Onionglass by the ankles as if it was a dead rabbit.
Meadowlark stood and brushed the dust from his clothes. In anticipation of meeting the Dark Queen he had worn his finest—a red velvet hunting jacket with frilly cuffs, loose-fit leggings of black silk and knee-high calfskin boots. His long black hair fell in chaotic curls to his shoulders.
Aldebaran led the way along a dark, earthy tunnel. There was hardly any light. Even with Meadowlark’s faery sight everything appeared in monotonous shades of black and purple. The tunnel opened up into a subterranean street cobbled with dark slabs of slate and shale. Along the avenue slender shoots grew up between the stones—blackberry bushes with spiky leaves. Midnight mushrooms, bloated crimson and purple-black. Stunted blackthorn trees, choked by thick, snaking vines sprouting rows of bluebells. But these were sickly versions fed by faery magic, growing here in the dark, and the flowers jangled mournfully as the faeries passed. The bluebell is the deadman’s bell, Meadowlark remembered. He seemed to hear Onionglass’ voice in his head as the bells tinkled, “Bluebell! Death knell! The ring of the bluebell is your death knell.”
That’s funny, thought Meadowlark, coming from a corpse.
Sinister black dogs peered at them from between the houses. No hunt today, puppies. No hunt today. Several faeries came out of their homes and milled about, weighing the new arrival with their eyes. Meadowlark felt the surge of extreme emotions and madness that permeated this place, very much like the sense of dread back at Black Annis’ tree-sit. Regret and dark despair just hanging in the air, like pictures hung in frames on the walls. But it hadn’t been put there purposely; it seemed like an offshoot, a side effect of life in this dread place. Maybe a side effect of the Dark Queen herself.
Sinister strains of music reached his ears. Someone was slowly scratching away at a fiddle, sounding like a funeral dirge just above their heads, a siren luring him closer. They passed into the base of a tall cylindrical tower carved into the granite cavern.
“Hurry it up,” grumbled Aldebaran as they mounted several flights of smooth stone steps. Meadowlark hopped like a frog. “Hopping to it, my friend. Hopping to it.”
They came to the source of the eerie music, a small circular amphitheater whose ribbed walls amplified the fiddle playing with weird unnatural echoes. A huge white gemstone hung at the ceiling, lending a shimmering blue-gray light to the whole chamber. A half dozen naked faeries danced in an orderly row before the Queen. Their grim dance was bereft of any joy whatever, the movements forced and regimented. So different, Meadowlark thought. So different from the free-flowing dances of the Summer Court faeries which were a celebration of life and freedom, performed out in the open, with tender caresses and even sensual kisses as part of the form. But this was a tortured dance, nothing more than a symbol of the domination of the Dark Queen’s will. The faeries danced on a carpet of broken glass with bloody feet. This may take some getting used to.
His first sight of the Dark Queen took his breath away. She sat in the center of a raised platform on a chair woven of thorny blackbriar branchlets. Dresdemona was absolutely magnificent! An elegant silver crown pushed her long, flowing hair back from her face. The crown stretched upward like a hundred slender fingers clawing up toward the ceiling. She held her long, pointed chin high, her copper-toned lips stretched back in a sneer of sublime imperiousness. She wore a black corset that tightly cupped her round, high breasts and a shimmering silver girdle that rode the sharp hipbones below her narrow waist. Her legs were long and bare, their muscular thews crossed just below her hips, her hands were cocked on those hips, the hips cocked jauntily at an entrancing angle. This was a quintessentially powerful woman, full of attitude and simmering with sexuality.
It was hard to reconcile this magnificent vision with the tales of her past history. As Meadowlark understood it, Dresdemona had come to the Winter Court as a young faery girl, an outcast from some other group, nothing more than a frail waif begging for succor among strangers. But in those days the Winter Court had been living aboveground as free-loving and free-wheeling as all the rest. How had they come to this? How had she come to this? Or perhaps the appropriate question—how had she driven all the rest of them to this? He would have given much to learn that tale.
Before the Queen stood a middle-aged man playing the fiddle. He was human, not fae. The man wore the ragged work-clothes of a rustic farmer. He stroked the bow long and slow, creating the dirge-like song that so entranced the dancers.
But Dresdemona was not satisfied. She sauntered down from the platform. As she drew near, the fiddler increased the pace of his song, tapping his foot heavily against the flagstones. She hovered beside him, close but not touching, examining him minutely as if he were some type of bizarre specimen. For his part, he dare not look up from his fiddle. The dancers weaved around them, heaving their arms lifelessly about.
Dresdemona raised one finger, elegant and slender, tipped with a long, copper-colored fingernail. She reached forward to stroke the fiddler’s cheek, ever so gently, with the nail tip.
The man played faster and faster, his foot stomping the ground with such force that one of his weather-beaten shoes split apart. The increased pace did nothing to liven up the tune’s heartbreakingly sad melody, but the fiddler played faster and faster, until the dancers could no longer keep up and staggered away, leaving a bloody trail along the ground. The man’s face contorted his the frenzied fiddling continued, faster and faster, his fingers bleeding. Dresdemona laughed as she returned to her seat on the blackbriar bower.
The man played on, faster and faster, now missing some of the notes so that the song lost its coherence, giving the impression his mind had lost all reason. Meadowlark had no doubt he was being driven insane. His body jerked this way and that like a rag doll, the music ever faster and more disorganized. The man began to age appreciably, his face growing pale and his hair turning white.
Dresdemona crossed one leg over the other and Meadowlark’s heart skipped a beat. He shuddered to think of all the terrible things he would do for her touch, even the merest flicker of her tongue. It might not be so bad to die at her whim.
A string snapped, and then another. Heedless, the fiddler continued until he must burst, and eventually the bow flew from his hand, and he screamed the song’s horrible, deadly melody and fell to his knees. Still he would not stop. Screaming the notes faster and faster as he writhed upon the ground. At this Dresdemona laughed and Aldebaran snickered. Eventually the man screamed his last and collapsed onto the floor, stone cold dead. He looked as if he was a hundred years old.
The Dark Queen signaled her retinue and they dragged his body away.
Meadowlark had stopped to stare, but Aldebaran jabbed him in the ribs and he stepped forward.
Dresdemona noticed their approach and addressed Aldebaran. “What have you got there, my lovely scourge?”
“A spy,” said Aldebaran, “from the Barrow Downes.”
“A convert!” said Meadowlark.
“A new fool perhaps! He killed your old one.” Aldebaran held up the little corpse.
“Which one?”
“Onionglass.”
“A morsel for t
he dogs. See to it.”
Meadowlark winced. So much for being her favorite.
The Queen raised one of her slender arms and indicated he should draw closer. He happily complied. He was mesmerized by her arm, her hand, her fingers. So elegant yet so powerful. They defined power. He would do whatever she asked. Just like the fiddler, he was willing to immolate himself for a touch. It was a thrilling feeling.
“I know you,” she said, setting Meadowlark’s heart afire. “Sprite-in-the-barb, isn’t it?”
He offered a little bow. “At your service.”
“You offered challenge to… what’s-her-name? That ghastly wraith that runs the place. Moonspittle.”
Close enough, thought Meadowlark. “I did.”
He found it interesting that Dresdemona had already heard the news of his dissent. She had spies in the Summer Court! Who was the spy? Why wasn’t he the spy? Never matter. This was his chance. He must seize it.
“I could stand it no longer, your grace. They disgust me. The whole lot of them. Content to cower underground. Now they go begging to the King for favors. The English King! I see no point to it, when we have our own, deadly beautiful, Queen.”
“So you come to me, a traitor, a spy, a lickspittle…”
“A supplicant! Not unlike yourself, many years ago—”
Dresdemona flicked her wrist and Meadowlark felt an invisible slap across his cheek that nearly knocked him off his feet. Apparently she did not like to be reminded of her humble beginnings. He wondered what might have happened if she had actually deigned to touch him.
“What I have been in the past is no concern of yours, little traitor. I bow to no one. No king, no mortal man. What were we, all of us, in ages past? We owned the woods and the meadows and the moon, not some British fool.”
“My sentiments, exactly.”
“Sentiments mean very little to me. It is your intentions I must discover. I could read them from your entrails, but there would be nothing left but blood.”
“Read the blood on my hands then.” He held them out. “Griffin Grayson’s blood.”
“You were one of the seven?”
“I led them. The whole thing was my idea. I organized his murder.”
She tried to gauge if he was telling the truth. Was he? He’d been there for sure but who had led that merry little murder band? He didn’t really remember. But it might just as well have been him.
“That old hag,” she said, “Moon Dancer—she forbid that murder.”
“Who cares what she thought? I didn’t. And I don’t! Someone must lead us again to the future, a glorious new future that is once again like the past.”
She glanced at Aldebaran. “You were wrong. This one’s no fool.”
The dark faery glared at Meadowlark but had nothing to say. The smoldering eyes of hell, Meadowlark thought. He’s pretending, too. He isn’t a faery. What is he?
“The past is future,” said the Queen. “We were here before the Britons came, before the age of iron and false religion and the rise of these inferior beings who rule with firearms and ships rather than truth. Why do we fear them? Why settle for a little fealty, when we can have it all? Let us reclaim it!”
Dresdemona leaned forward, smiling to reveal triangular teeth two rows deep, like those of a shark. “You betrayed Moonspittle and she let you live. I won’t make that same mistake.”
“No mistake. I assure you I’m much more useful alive than dead.”
“Prove your worth!”
“What would you have me?”
The Dark Queen licked her lips thoughtfully. Meadowlark melted.
“I want you to give someone a kiss.”
Meadowlark nodded eagerly. “I can do that.”
Aldebaran asked, “Do we trust this weasel?”
Dresdemona clicked he tongue. “Tsk. He’s perfect. If he gets caught, it’s the Summer Court will take the blame.
Chapter 21
October 24, 1760
Marylebone Pleasure Gardens, London
On Friday, Eric arrived at the park thirty minutes early. He needn’t have bothered. The appointed hour came and went with neither the King nor William Cavendish putting in an appearance.
The Marylebone Pleasure Gardens, or ‘Marrowbone’ as Cavendish had been heard to say, extended from the rear of the Rose of Normandy Tavern to nearly halfway through the seedy gaming-house district of Smithfield. Although set squarely in a neighborhood where street crime and muggings were commonplace, the walled garden was considered by moist Londoners as a safe and sociable space. Upper class visitors employed armed escorts for travel to and from the enclosure, then enjoyed a leisurely afternoon stroll in the shade of the sprawling plane trees and mighty oaks.
Eric felt neither social nor at leisure. He’d paced the park’s thoroughfares until his feet were sore. Now it was getting dark. Had Nora gotten the timing wrong? He wouldn’t blame her for getting confused, facing down such a dangerous scoundrel as Cavendish. It was a good thing Threadneedle hadn’t apprised him of the plan ahead of time or Eric would never have allowed such a thing.
At dusk, the fashionable supper crowd departed the park and more common foot-traffic took their place. Everyday Londoners filed into the Pleasure Garden straight from work. The beautiful, unobstructed views of Hampstead and Highgate offered a welcome respite from the filth and noise of their daily lives that lay just outside the walls in Smithfield.
A complicated maze of hedgerows and Oriental screens partitioned the southwest corner of the park into a series of secluded areas perfect for personal meetings or an illicit rendez vous. Eric strolled casually along, keeping an eye out for the King, as he weaved between the various groups of people frequenting the park in twilight. Musicians played in twos or threes, begging coins from passersby. Amateur orators ringed the fountain, reading the great poets aloud. Pretty girls walked briskly along, deployed from local merchants to peddle fruit and herbs from baskets balanced atop their heads. A swarthy, black-bearded man in Indian fakir garb exhibited a giant sea tortoise on a sparkling leash.
Just shortly before sunset, Eric spotted King George making his way along the elegant swathes of greenery in the southwest corner. The King traveled alone. He required no retinue within the walled garden, as all swords and pistols were checked at the gate to maintain order. He was dressed very simply in a waistcoat and breeches of a snuff-colored cloth, muddy stockings of a similar color and a shabby gray greatcoat as protection against the cutting October wind.
Though his distinctive limp might easily have given him away, no one recognized their monarch, in his short gray wig and common clothes, as he walked swiftly to his appointed meeting place. Eric had been skeptical himself, when Threadneedle had first informed him of the King’s indiscretions.
“The King goes, every Friday, to buy a ticket in the street lottery,” Threadneedle had explained.
Eric had not believed it. “He goes—personally—to buy a ticket?”
Threadneedle laughed. “He could send someone to do it for him of course, but I suppose it wouldn’t be much of a thrill that way, would it?”
“I hardly see the thrill at all. That lottery is illegal. He couldn’t possibly collect, even if he did win.”
“So? It’s not like he needs the money. But the excitement of winning…or the possibility of winning… that’s the appeal. It always is.”
“It just seems odd to me, that’s all.”
“Believe me, it’s not any more strange than half the things that go on in Kensington Palace.”
“The palace? How would you know?”
Threadneedle’s face grew longer—literally. His brow wrinkled, his hair grayed and thinned, his earlobes drooped, and his teeth yellowed considerably. “Meet Jacob Schroeder, groom of the King’s bedchamber, every other weekend.”
Eric chuckled. “You never cease to amaze. I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking how many different identities you maintain around this town?”
“You can ask, but
I’ll never tell.” The faery resumed his guise as Richard Templeton. “To the point at hand, I’m certain we can use the King’s penchant for the lottery to our advantage. The problem is, the King has too many secret exits from the palace. He goes out every Friday but I never see how he goes. It would be a simple thing to follow him otherwise. So I went at the problem from the other end. There are only a few lottery-sellers in London with stature enough to deal directly with the King. I think William Cavendish may be the one. If I can ascertain where he meets his upscale clients, we’ll have found ourselves an opportunity.”
And with Nora’s help, Threadneedle had proceeded to do just that. Now King George had come to Marylebone to feed his compulsion. He passed only a few feet ahead of Eric, on his way to his illicit Friday meeting. Of course, if the King was here, that meant Cavendish could not be far.
Right on time, a terrific commotion broke out a little way down the hedgerow.
Threadneedle had likewise been awaiting the king’s arrival. The faery spy had stationed himself not far from where Eric waited, disguised as a Spitalfields factory worker. He had in fact spotted King George several minutes ago, but the King was not of principal concern to him. He was on the lookout for William Cavendish.
The rogue wasn’t difficult to identify. Cavendish made no pretenses at down-playing his appearance. He was dressed in all his usual hucksterish glory, complete with a ruffled greatcoat and a wide feathered hat, and trailing King George by about twenty paces.
Threadneedle sprang into action, altering his illusion on the instant. The unobtrusive factory worker disappeared into the crowd. An eerie green mist seethed from beneath the privet hedges on either side, curling to cut directly across Cavendish’s path. A high-pitched, almost maniacal laugh filled the air and the Green Man stepped out of the mist.
“Time for a reckoning, Cavendish,” he said in the cool, lethal voice of London’s most famous crusader. He slid a fine dueling sabre from its scabbard, drawing it slowly along so that the blade screeched menacingly against the scabbard’s steel throat.