by J. R. Rain
“I remain amazed.”
“You travel with a Fee,” she said. “Have you no idea of her nature?”
“Oh, yes! But it’s a platonic association.”
“No sex?”
“None. Remember, I’m innocent. A virgin youth. But she could change that instantly if she chose.”
“You may be more valuable to her innocent, as today showed. Do you love her?”
“No. I love a village maid I know. From afar. But I’m sure Faux could change that, too, if she wanted to. But I think she prefers to have me as an emotionally independent companion. I respect that.”
“So do I. You’re a nice boy.”
“Thanks,” he said dryly.
“I didn’t mean to be unkind. I meant nice in the way those press-gangsters were nasty. The kind of man a woman could respect and love.”
“Oh? Even you?”
She blushed. She was sitting ahead of him, facing forward, but her neck gave it away. “I shouldn’t have said that. But it’s true. I wish I were pretty enough to hold your attention.”
A slow revelation was forging through his mind. A girl did not always need to be pretty to be worthwhile. Trudy was good, and he could surely be happy with her, were he not blinded by Amelie’s distant beauty. “I—wish I had more time to get to know you better,” he said.
“You don’t. That ship won’t wait for you. You have far better things to do than dally with the likes of me.”
“I’m supposed to be learning things I can tell as stories when I return home. Maybe I’ll have one about you.”
She stiffened, alarmed. “Please don’t! I’m so dull you’d quickly put your audience to sleep. Tell them instead about the lovely White Ladies.”
“Them too. But that skry you did on that body wasn’t dull.”
Trudy looked at the sky. “Oops, we’re late. We shouldn’t have paused so long with the dead man.”
Was she changing the subject? “I didn’t think of our schedule at the time,” he said. “I’m clumsy that way.”
“It’s a nice clumsiness. You took time to decently bury that man. But that expended our limited time. Look, Floyd—I know a shortcut that can get us there in time regardless. But you may not want to take it.”
“Why not?”
“It goes right through a field of magic passion flowers.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?”
“We would have to walk through it acting passionate. Like a committed couple. Kissing and such. The flowers aren’t telepathic; they don’t know what’s in our minds. They judge by appearances. So if we appear loving, they’ll let us through.”
“And if we don’t? If we try to forge grimly through?”
“They are like the White Ladies, deadly when annoyed. Passion can be negative as well as positive. They would sting us to death. That’s why few folk other than lovers take that particular path.” She took a breath. “Can you handle it?”
Could he be affectionate with a girl, any girl? Why not? “I can handle it if you can.”
“I can handle it. I already like you.” She paused, then quickly amended herself. “I know you must go on your way to Xanadu, and all, and probably will not be back. I would never want to interfere with your life, even if I could. So I can handle that aspect too. I’m a realist, as I have to be. But for a few minutes, in the field, it may seem otherwise.” Her blush returned. “As if I actually had a boyfriend.”
And of course she didn’t. Because she was plain. Floyd felt burgeoning anger at all boys, including himself.
“You are angry,” she said. “I feel your body stiffening.” For his arms touched her on either side as he operated the reins, for all that Old Blackie hardly needed the guidance. “I’m sorry. I tend to talk too much. I apologize.”
“No, you’re fine. I’m angry at myself. For being a lout.”
“You’re not a lout! You’re a traveler.”
As if the two could not coincide. Best not to argue the case. “We’d better get on the path to the passion flower field.”
“We’re on it. The horse accepted my guidance, the pressure of my legs, once you agreed.” She looked up. “And here it is.”
Ahead of them a field of purple flowers opened up. They grew on vines and were quite pretty. The path led through the center.
Floyd dismounted, then helped Trudy down. Now he was conscious of her body; she did have woman features under her maid’s outfit. He wondered what the pressure of her legs would feel like when they weren’t guiding a horse. He was also conscious of the pleasant fragrance of the flowers. It made him want to romance someone.
“Too bad Old Blackie doesn’t have a mare to flirt with,” Trudy said. Then, peering across the field, she looked surprised. “Or does he? There’s a wild filly.”
Indeed, across the field was a fetching young female horse. “Could be a spook,” Floyd said warily. People weren’t the only ones who could be treacherously tempted.
She laughed. “Spooks need company too. Old Blackie will know.”
Floyd petted the horse’s neck. “Go flirt with the filly, Blackie. But meet us at the far side.”
Blackie twitched an ear affirmatively and set out across the field. The mare bounded forward to meet him, her tail flying high. They met in the center and nuzzled each other.
“Our turn,” Trudy said. “Brace yourself.” She took his arm.
Maybe it was the ambiance of the passion flowers. Floyd turned into her, put his arms about her body, and kissed her. She met him eagerly. With his eyes closed, she felt like, well, the way he imagined Amelie to be. Her lips, and even her body. How much difference was there, really, in girls, when touch was the operative factor?
Then they broke, mutually embarrassed. “Uh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Something came over me.”
“And me,” she said breathlessly. “Come on, we can’t dawdle long.” She gripped his hand and led him into the field.
Floyd didn’t try to count the times they kissed while crossing. That was just as well, because he suspected the kisses were countless. He was sorely tempted to get down on the ground with her and do more, and suspected she would cooperate. But he did retain some personal control, and confined himself to kissing and maybe a little guilty feeling when his hands strayed low on her backside.
Then they were across, and Old Blackie was waiting for them, the spooked mare was gone. Had she been properly bred? It was possible.
They mounted and resumed their trek. Neither spoke; what could they say? But Floyd knew that if he ever came this way again, and Trudy was there with him, they’d revel in complete passion and not regret it. So she was plain; who cared? There was more to a girl than appearance.
Even the horse seemed invigorated, stepping right along. That filly must have made him feel young again.
Floyd realized that he had learned a lesson. He was infatuated with distant Amelie because she was pretty, but he hardly knew her. In just a few hours he had come to know plain Trudy, and she was surely as good a girl. It had been fun with her among the magic passion flowers. Why should his eye be on the distant beauty while he missed the ordinary nearby one who might actually be just as good for him? Just as his eye was now on far Xanadu, when the local scene might be just as good. Such as the White Ladies. He needed to gain perspective. “Life is a Journey,” he murmured.
“Life is a Process,” Trudy answered, startling him. She had thoughts too?
“Life is complicated,” he agreed ruefully.
They soon came to the outskirts of the town. There was the harbor, and the ship moored at the wharf. It was a large galley, with sails and oars. Floyd shuddered to think how close he had come to being hijacked to man one of those oars. It was much better to be a paying passenger. The sailors were raising her mainsail; she was ready to sail.
Floyd looked around. “I’m supposed to meet Faux here. Where is she?”
“She is here,” the girl before him said, subtly changing.
Oh, no! “Faux! It was you
all along!”
“Be at ease,” she said. “There really is a Trudy, employed as described. I merely emulated her for convenience, so I could reach the ship without that bad elf recognizing me.”
Of course. She had used him as part of her cover. He should have expected no less. “You had me fooled.” He had even been talking about her, and her power over him. Had she arranged to have them traverse the passion flower field? Surely so. His ignorant kisses must have amused her.
“You are taking strides toward manhood, but there remains a way to go,” she said, not denying it. “Now the Dowager Queen must take over. We shall dismount.”
Floyd did so, and then she let him help her down, as Trudy had. But now she was a regal older woman with a dark crown on her head.
He thought of something. “If you left while I was, um, entertaining the White Ladies, how could you also be Trudy?”
“I sent a phantasm, like a will-o-the-wisp in my image, to furtively flee the glade,” she explained. “Ravager spied it, of course, and pursued it, but it remained ever just beyond his grasp. By the time he realized that it was a decoy, we were here. It will take him just long enough to get here for us to safely board the ship.”
“I’m glad you made it,” he said. “Though I suppose we didn’t have to catch this particular ship.”
“Oh, but we did, dear boy,” she said in her auntly manner. “Ravager has hounded me for decades, and I need to escape him entirely. Elves can’t touch open water, unless they’re of a water variety, or have very special magic, so he will be unable to reach me once I’m on the ship and the ship is at sea. This is the right ship, as it sails for the Orient. He’ll never find me there, even if he takes another ship.”
“Elves can’t cross the sea? I didn’t know that.”
She patted his cheek. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than your philosophy dreams of. That’s a quote from—”
“I get it,” he agreed quickly.
They approached the ship, whose name he now read on her prow: MNEMOSYNE. He had no idea what it meant, if anything other than some girl’s name.
“Mnemosyne is the Goddess of Memory, mother of the Muses,” Faux explained, answering his thought. “I knew her well, in days of yore, but we have fallen out of touch in recent centuries.”
Oh.
They marched up to the entry gangway, leading the horse. The officer there looked as if he were about to protest, but the queen preempted any likely response of his with her haughty announcement: “Dowager Queen Faux of Lyonnesse, with her wastrel Nephew Floyd and a Royal Equine, on the way to Xanadu. Here is our payment for first-class passage.” She thrust forward a small bag.
The man took the bag, opened it, and peered inside. Heavy coins clinked. His pupils widened appreciatively. “Very good, ma’am.”
They crossed the gangway—woman, youth, and horse—and were soon settled in the ship’s best cabin and stall. The ship cast off, and the chained oarsmen set to with an (ill) will, buttressing the slack sails.
They were on their way. Floyd looked out the porthole, and saw a raging elf hovering by the shore. “Elves can’t fly over open water either,” Faux explained smugly. “It depletes our special powers.”
Just so.
Chapter 6: Writer
Floyd was exhausted.
This had been, he was certain, the strangest day he had ever had, and it was only day two of his Journey. At this rate, he was going to have many lifetimes of tales, certainly more than he could ever relay to his village. Why, how was he going to remember them all?
“Keep a journal,” said Faux, who had returned to her natural fey appearance, which was just as well. Floyd wasn’t sure what he thought about Amelie; after all, he was fairly certain he just might have fallen in love with the servant girl, Trudy.
“A what?” he asked, distracted.
“A journal is a written record of one’s life,” she said patiently. They were in a cramped room just above the ship’s hold. Occasionally, Floyd could hear the scuttle of rats coming up through the floorboards. From the sound of it, the rats had taken over the bottom of the ship. He felt sorry for Old Blackie down there, who was surely doing his part in stamping the life out of the rodents. Faux went on: “The more interesting the life, the more interesting the journal.”
“Very well,” he said. “But what is this ‘written’ that you speak of?” He stretched out along a fold-up plank, held in place by thick iron hinges. Never before had he seen what Faux had called a wall bed. Floyd used his rolled-up overcoat for a pillow, and crossed his feet at his ankles. With the rocking of the ship, Floyd couldn’t have been more comfortable. Which made him feel a little guilty about Old Blackie alone in that dark hold, with all the rats, among other critters, no doubt.
Floyd felt her eyes upon him. Once again, she was floating in the air above him, legs crossed. She was still clothed, which was just as well. He was exhausted, and he’d had enough excitement to last, well, many days. Maybe even weeks.
“You do not know how to write, let alone read,” she said, dropping down a little and hovering just above his chest.
Although one of his arms was presently under his head, Floyd managed to shrug. “Almost no one in my village knows how to write or read, but what does this have to do with ‘written’?” he asked.
“Written is the past participle of write.”
Floyd nearly fell asleep right then and there. It took a super-human effort to keep his eyes open. He yawned and said, “Write, I know. Written, not so much. ‘Past particles’ sounds like gibberish.”
“Participles—never mind. Would you like to learn how to read and write, Floyd?”
“I thought only friars knew how to read and write,” he said.
“Only in small villages like yours, Floyd. In bigger cities, writers are very popular.”
“Why?”
“Because they create stories that take readers away.”
“Away from what?”
“Their mundane lives.”
“They write about their own Journey?”
Faux giggled. “You really haven’t gotten out much?”
“Beyond my village? Almost never. Once my pa and I went to the next village over, but it was a day’s ride and I didn’t care for it very much at all. I preferred to stay at home and daydream.”
“Floyd, most villages do not send off their youth on such frivolous and dangerous adventures. In fact, yours might be the only one.”
“But then how do writing men get their stories if not from their own Journeys?”
“Writing men or women are called writers, Floyd. And many travel the world on their own—or with traders or explorers. Some join armies and fight in distant lands. Many more write about their own life experiences. And still some create stories straight from their own heads.”
“Seems safer to just make them up.”
“I would hazard to guess that most writers use a little of everything: travels and experience and loads of imagination.”
“Imagine—what?”
“Making up stories.”
Floyd nodded at that. He was good with making up stories, which was one reason why he never felt the need to go find his own stories. Why risk one’s life when one could just make them up?
“And you have read these written stories?” he asked Faux.
“They are called books, and I have. As many as I can get my hands on.”
“But why? Are they so pleasurable?”
“Some very much so! But I read to fill up my time.”
“But why?”
“I am a sleepless immortal, Floyd. I have a lot of time to fill up.”
“Is that one reason why you accepted this mission? To fill up some of your time?”
“You are smarter than you look, Floyd.”
Floyd wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, and so he decided to let it go. Instead, he considered her words. After all, had he not, just the day before, settled on the idea of holing himsel
f up in some mountain cave and creating his own stories? He had, and he thought it would have been easy to do. Perhaps if he knew how to read and write he could become a professional storyteller.
“And there are those who make a living with words?”
“Indeed. And some are very famous. In fact, one of them is on this very ship.”
“A writing man—I mean—a writer is on the ship? I would like to meet him!”
“And perhaps I can arrange it. I see this has struck your fancy.”
“Boy, has it. Writing seems much more fun than tilling fields or harvesting crops or feeding pigs or collecting eggs or...”
Chapter 7: Swift
“His name is Jonathan Swift,” said Faux the next morning.
They were in the ship’s galley with the other paying passengers. Faux had once again summoned her haughty queen guise, and Floyd had awoken dressed in clean garments befitting a queen’s nephew. Prior to breaking their fast, Faux had spent some time with Floyd, teaching him the alphabet and a few common words. They used a writing slate or “blackboard,” as Faux called it, which hovered magically in the air before him. He also used chalk sticks, which formed stark white lines on the flat stone. Seeing the words he spoke take shape before him was one of his greatest thrills ever. Faux, he saw, seemed pleased.
The man sitting alone in the galley was reading a book. Floyd had seen only one book in all his life, and that had been the Bible from which Friar Anton read from each Sunday. His Bible was as big as a brick and was bound with wood and copper clasps, and was easily one of the oldest things in the village.
This book, by comparison, was half the size and featured no wooden covers or straps, and barely looked a day over ten years old. Floyd was dubious.
“Books come in all shapes and sizes, village boy,” said Faux next to him, whispering in his ear. Her hot breath on his skin was a vivid reminder of the frolicking the two had done just the day before. Not for the first time, Floyd had nearly requested for Trudy to materialize again, and for them to return to the fun and games. But he resisted. After all, it wasn’t Trudy that he had been kissing. It had been Faux. It was all a bit much for his confused brain.