Except the Queen

by Jane Yolen

  Sparrow needed no more prompting but slid off the stool and pushed her way through the crowd of angry college students gathering at the bar behind her. She heard the threatening shouts and turned once to look.

  Despite the warnings from the bartender, Hawk continued to hold the boy’s bent-back wrist captive, sneering as he writhed in pain. Someone grabbed a book and smashed it across the back of Hawk’s head. Hawk relinquished his hold on the boy’s wrist but as he lurched forward, he drove his knee into the beefy face under him. Blood gushed on the boy’s startled face, his mouth agape with missing teeth.

  An angry chorus of shouts rose from around Hawk.

  Sparrow tore out of the bar, and began sprinting down the street. Fear pumped through her veins, burning away the last of her drunken haze.

  “Stupid girl, stupid girl,” she huffed in time to her pounding footsteps.

  Ducking beneath the trees, trying to hug the shadows, too afraid to turn around again, too afraid that she would see Hawk loping after her, she kept running. She knew it wouldn’t take long for him to extricate himself from the bar. A thrust of a dagger under an arm or the inside of a thigh, and they would all be slipping in blood. All except Hawk.

  She swerved quickly off of the sidewalk and staggered into the park, hoping to lose him in its sheltering darkness. Throwing herself onto the grass, she crawled beneath a tall shrub, chest heaving, bits of dirt and decayed leaves speckling her damp lips. She reached into her purse, hand fumbling for the little silver dove. When she found it, she closed her fingers around its smooth body. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

  For long minutes she lay hidden beneath the leaves, listening to the ragged sound of her own breathing. Then everything grew quiet as her breathing slowed, deepened. Now all she heard were the comforting night sounds of small creatures scratching in the dirt, or nesting in the secret shelter of the branches.

  Still she waited, unmoving until long after the faint silver of moonlight descended behind the trees. Obviously, Hawk hadn’t followed her; or at least, he hadn’t found her. She was too good at merging into nothingness.

  Finally, as the first stretch of pearly daylight inched above the horizon, Sparrow crept out from beneath the shrubs. Dusting off the dirt and twigs that clung to her clothes, and with a silent curse, she reached up under her T-shirt and unhooked the clasp of her bra. Sliding her arms briefly out of the sleeves, she removed it and stashed it beneath the shrub.

  “Never again,” she said. She’d been stupid and rash, not once but twice in the last few days. The first time she’d nearly drowned in humiliation while the second had threatened her life and injured an innocent boy. “No more,” Sparrow said. She’d go back to the garden and rip the heart out of the fucking arum.

  * * *

  BABA YAGA’S HOUSE, DESPITE ITS usual gloom, was now a welcoming sight. Sparrow bounded up the porch steps two at a time, glancing quickly over her shoulder before she entered the house. The street was empty, the gray smudge of early morning light throwing the tops of the trees in sharp relief.

  Satisfied she’d not been followed, Sparrow went in and closed the door firmly behind her.

  She didn’t see the gleam of neon green eyes peering at her from the tall stand of yews across the street, or the tall figure emerging from the shelter of the trees. Even if she had seen, she might not have known enough to be afraid.

  59

  Hawk’s Discovery

  I stand hidden by trees across the street, waiting for the light from a window to betray her room. How could I have not seen what she was before? Were her eyes not warning enough? I inhale again, and my prick thickens as I hold her scent against the roof of my mouth: the saltiness of human cunt and the cloying perfume of the arum. She is fey—more so than human, though she does not know it. I wipe my hand across my mouth, still slick with the blood of those useless boys at the tavern. They tried to stop me, but I have long known how to cut a path through a crowd.

  Once on the street I had no trouble finding her, following the trail of scent unfurling behind her. She never saw me as I climbed up into the arms of an outstretched oak and watched over her where she lay squirreled beneath the brush.

  She knows what I am. It must be she who left the spells of unbinding on my doorstep. Only chance kept her from knowing me when first she came into the shop.

  I did not take her there, not in the grass, not under a tree, though it would have been easy and I ached for it. But for the violation to be complete, I will take her in her own house, the old hag’s house. She will not see me coming for I will strew the grounds with my own spells of undoing. And when she is most alone, most vulnerable, I will harvest her blood in a silver bowl and thrust myself deep inside her. Then none will stand against me. I will send word to the Dark Lord that I have found what he seeks because in truth I have, and he will reward me well. In the darkest corners of his courts I will rebuild our clans, until we are strong enough in blood and arms to claim his power for ourselves. Blood to blood, it is the ransom of nations.

  I rub a hand against the ache in my groin. I will make it last, I think. Pain and pleasure. One will be hers, the other mine.

  60

  Meteora Enters the Battle

  Two days and nights passed without sight of Sparrow. It was late in the afternoon and each of us still fractious over what had happened. Robin sulked beneath the withered shade of the trees. Jack struggled to balance a new sculpture in the center of the garden, something with a spiral to soothe these brooding, unhappy children.

  The third evening, I was kneeling before a dying plant, trying to convince myself to be patient, to wait for Sparrow to appear and make amends.

  I plunged my hand into a patch of dried leaves, shuddering as I brought forth a twisted mandrake root. Sitting back on my heels, I surveyed the garden and saw now where the blooms of my new plants were withering. I went to each and found dark tokens of undoing beneath: nightshade blossom, manglewort, even the red spotted caps of kills-quick.

  Sparrow. It had to be her, getting back at us, punishing us and the garden for her humiliation. I jerked the odious plants free of the soil, braided the roots to keep them from bleeding malice and rolled them in a bit of my mother’s silk I carry in my pocket for protection. The white silk was stained crimson and I could have wept at the profanity were it not for the heat gathering in my breast. I set the evil things down on the new wall and grabbed a handful of stones to pound them into harmless pulp. As I raised my hand I was startled by a crow’s screech exploding the stillness.

  Awxes appeared out of the darkening sky, leading a multitude of crows, their voices raised in a cry of outrage. Arrowing his body toward the house, he crashed against the glass window of Sparrow’s bedroom and the rest of the flock followed by threes and fours, laying siege to the window.

  Smoke coiled in a scorched pattern around the window as the crows battered the unyielding glass. Robin staggered to his feet and began to run toward the back stairs. Stuffing stones into my pocket, I followed him from the garden to the house, up the stairway to the second floor, my lungs burning for want of air. Behind me came Jack calling, “Sophia, Sophia!”

  On the landing, Lily was lying, stretched out and unmoving, her tongue lolling out of her opened mouth. Blood was speckled over the white fur of her throat. Pounding his fists on the door, Robin was shouting Sparrow’s name over and over. But I could see at once no mortal strength could unbind the door from its spells of closing.

  “Away,” I commanded and pushed him aside. I placed my hands on the door and shuddered at the skin of treachery beneath my palms.

  And then, amid the harsh battle cries of the crows, Robin’s desperate shouts, even Jack calling out the name that wasn’t mine, I descended into a prescient calm. In the willed silence, I heard Sparrow’s muffled sob, the soft thump of her body, the harsh rasp of her breath.

  I should have thanked the arum then, for the power it awoke in me was not sex, but rage when I needed it most. In my breast a
blistering dragon unfurled, and filled my body from feet to hands with fire. The wood smoked and charred beneath my palms, burning away the rune meant to keep us out. I pushed harder with growing strength until the planks cracked free from their hinges and fell away. Steam billowed in turbulent clouds as I—blind with fury—entered the room.

  Sparrow lay on the floor, the pale ribbon of her naked body mottled with the shifting shadows of crow wings beating against the window. The air was moist with the rotten stench of wormwood punks burning on the floor. A silver bowl waited by her head. Hovering over her was a man, a quill poised over the soft mound of her belly, ink dripping from the sharpened point. I stepped closer and saw where the white skin of her torso was marked with dark spells. The inside of her thighs were covered with scorpions that she should take no pleasure in either touch or cock; a brindled hound snapped at the curve of her breast as though to tear away the flesh. Black adders slithered into knots over her shoulders holding her in bondage, and between the thin stands of her ribs a stake wreathed in mistletoe stabbed toward her heart.

  I should have been afraid when he looked up and snarled. Those high cheekbones, that skin of polished wood, eyes like pulsing garnets. Highborn once, but censured for his taste for blood and treachery. I shuddered at the sight of Sparrow in his grip.

  “I know you now, Long Lankin, blood drinker, soul swallower,” I cried.

  “Go,” Lankin ordered, waving his hand to brush me away, thinking me of no consequence to a Highborn such as himself.

  But the arum was not done with me and a renewed power surged in my breast. Retrieving stones from my pocket, I hurled them with all my strength, not at Lankin but at the windows. The glass shattered and the crows flooded through the broken panes in a black rush of beating wings, beaks, and talons and headed straight for him.

  He threw his arms up, bellowing curses as Awxes attacked his face. The quill skittered across the floor, and the pots toppled over, the black ink burning the floorboards. Lankin’s arms windmilled, and he kicked his legs, trying to free himself of the attacking crows.

  Leaping up—the murder of crows still mobbing his head and shoulders—Lankin ran for the door, but I was there to block him. I should have stepped aside, but I could not, the rage would not let me. I struck him hard across that cruel face and spun him around. He recoiled and struck me back, howling as the skin of his hand burned the moment it touched my cheek. Pain exploded and my head jerked violently to one side with the blow, but I stayed upright on staggering feet, refusing to move from the doorway. I threw a wild fist at him and felt the skin of his cheek split. He rolled away from the door, shaken by my attack. His blood hissed and steamed where it splashed across my knuckles.

  Robin dashed around me, plunged through the flock of crows, and went straight to Sparrow. Pulling her into his arms, he growled and bared his teeth like a mastiff.

  Then Jack was there, and he grabbed Lankin by the scruff, threw him against the wall, and pressed his arm across Lankin’s throat to hold him prisoner. He could not know the power of the Highborn he treated so rudely.

  “Do not touch him,” I cried, my hand held out, though useless to offer a spell of protection.

  Thick smoke and the crack of lightning sizzled in the room. Jack cried out as the first blast knocked him across the room and into the wall. I, too, was hurled back by the force, but stood again and flung myself forward, over Robin and Sparrow, shielding them from the second blast so that the flying splintered wood would not pierce Sparrow’s naked skin.

  Crows shrieked and cawed as they were pierced with the flying wooden daggers. They fell to the floor, wings beating frantically, blood mingling with the spilled poisoned ink.

  Then a deafening roar and a veil of green smoke filled the room that set us all to coughing. Sheltered between Robin and me, Sparrow never moved.

  When the smoke finally cleared through the broken windows, I knew that Lankin was gone. Only then did I raise myself and survey the damage. Two walls blasted open. Four crows dead. Jack rolled into a ball, his shirt covered with splintered wood like the quills of a porcupine, dots of blood where they entered. Two jagged darts of wood had pierced Robin’s hand where it lay over Sparrow’s face in a protective mask.

  “Jack,” I called to the slumped figure and he raised his head, then his hand, and answered. “I’m good. And you?”

  “I survive.”

  “Robin? And the girl? Is she all right?”

  I sat back on my haunches and Robin gathered Sparrow onto his knees, his terrified eyes searching her face. Her arms were limp, her head rolled back lifeless. But her eyes watched me, moved to follow mine. Sickened, I plucked a tiny arrow from her black hair; elf shot meant to keep her still yet aware of the pain while Lankin marked her. I broke it, and tucked the feathered shaft in my pocket. It would be proof of his cruelty. Released from its paralyzing power, Sparrow groaned and her head fell against Robin’s chest.

  “She will be. Robin, help me get her to my bed.”

  We rose, Sparrow in Robin’s arms and Jack leading me by the elbow. At the door, I cried at the sight of faithful Lily, lying so still. Jack leaned down and touched the dog, then looked back at me and shook his head. He stroked her, his mouth drawn tight in anger. I sobbed, the arum’s power ebbing away and leaving me only tears.

  Jack stood back up and held me close while I wept. And I knew then in the deepest part of me, that this was no Trickster Jack. This was a human Jack—a Giantkiller, a humbler of trolls, a Jack who made the princess laugh. He would stand by my side against the dark and he would stay there till we triumphed or died together.

  We limped upstairs, in shock and pain.

  * * *

  THE SERVANT HANDS HELPED ME, tearing linen bandages into strips. So dazed and wounded were we all, that no one was surprised by the hands’ appearance. Sparrow was placed gently in my bed and afterward I washed Jack’s and Robin’s wounds and gave them a special tea brewed strong enough to make them sleep.

  I waited quietly until Jack had dozed off, sitting upright in the embroidered chair, while on my bed Robin had curled like a hound at Sparrow’s feet. I sat in the kitchen, meditating, turning the fragments of knowledge around and around as the twilight edged into darkness and then night shut us in. Serana’s warning had been fair enough—but like all visions it had been ambiguous. The arum had awoken desire in Sparrow and Robin, but it had also provoked Lankin to greater cruelty. It had given me the power needed to fight him, but it had cost the lives of the innocents—Lily and the crows.

  The path for all of us led here, to this house and to Sparrow. And I sighed with heavy heart, thinking it right that somehow after all the seasons that had passed, she should come to me. Or perhaps, that I was brought here to find her. My punishment and my chance to set things right.

  There could be no denying it now. I had seen the proof in her apartment when she lay nude and prostrate beneath the poisoned quill. I had seen the true color of her hair. In that triangle, the hair blazed like spun gold against her cream-colored belly. I realized then that she had been hiding her hair beneath garish dyes, not wanting to call attention to herself. But I knew the color of that hair. No one—neither mortal woman nor fairy—had hair of such color. Except the Queen. And there it was, in front of me. The child who had lain on the grass that long-ago summer, who was betrayed by my indiscretion, was now the girl in my bed, wounded and in need of my protection. This time, I would not fail.

  * * *

  WHEN THE EVENING WAS FULL, I roused myself from the table, found the last bits of my dam’s white silk and basket. Then I slipped into the bedroom and woke Robin.

  “Come with me. I need your help.”

  “Get Jack.”

  “No. This is your doing and mine. It is our duty now.”

  Stricken, he looked up at me and rose. We both knew the dead awaited us below. We could not ignore those who had fought for us.

  On the landing, the serving hands stroked Lily’s body, in a tender farewell
. Only then did I realize that the dog—like the hands and the cat and the house—had not belonged to Sparrow at all, but to the Great Witch. She would not be pleased when she learned the news.

  The hands wrapped Lily in a brocade cloth and placed her in a leather satchel and carried her away. Robin gathered the corpses of the valiant crows, wrapping each one in a piece of white silk, and I placed them gently in a basket. I wept again when I saw the patches of white feathers on two of the smaller crows. The little changeling girls were dead.

  Then Robin and I walked outside carrying our awful burdens. He glanced fearfully back at the house.

  I shook my head. “Lankin will not return, at least not for a while. He has wounds, too, you know. In every battle, there is a truce time to bury the dead and bind the wounds. We are wrapped in that truce now. She will be safe until we finish what we must. I promise.”

  He shivered all over, like a dog new out of the river, but nodded as if he had heard of such a thing before.

  And so we walked swiftly into the deepest part of the park where under the trees, we laid down our burdens. There we dug with our hands beneath decaying leaves and laid those small bundles out in a trough of softened earth.

  We did not speak nor did we stay long for we were both too exhausted from sorrow, from anger, and from the aches of battle. Besides, we had our injured loved ones to care for at home. We made the last of the trek in a small downpour that seemed to have conjured itself out of a cloudless sky.

  * * *

  WE RETURNED TO FIND JACK awake and in my kitchen, starting to cook an extravagant breakfast of eggs folded over herbs, mushrooms, and daubs of cheese. There was soon toast and a mug of tea, hot and steaming, new potatoes frying in a pan, blackened with butter. I felt appetite and life returning. My stomach growled in anticipation.

  However, Robin paid scant attention to the food, returning instead to his place at the bottom of Sparrow’s bed. She murmured a few words to him, and he stretched out beside her, an arm wrapped around her waist.