The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “My lady, I was standing on the side. You no doubt saw me. I am honestly eager to honor your wishes and be gone, and I dislike this confusion as much as you do.”

  “I know you,” she says, trembling, her voice very low. “I know you for what you are. I told Randolph but he would not believe me, and Gregory fairly revels in dissolution. I would unmask you in this hall and send town criers to spread the truth about you, save that my good lord would be set upon by decent Christian folk were it known he had trafficked with such a creature.”

  And your household destroyed and all your riches plundered, I think; yes, the poor welcome such pretexts. You do well to maintain silence, Alison, since it buys your own safety.

  But I dare not admit to what she knows. “I am but a woman as yourself, my lady, and I share your concern for Randolph and the girl—”

  “Nonsense. They are both charming young people who dance superbly.” Gregory has reappeared, affable and urbane; he seems more relaxed than he has all evening, and I trust him less.

  So does Alison, by the look of her. “And where have you hidden our two paragons of sprightliness, my lord?”

  “I? I have not hidden them anywhere. Doubtless they have stolen away and found some quiet corner to themselves. The young will do such things. Alison, my sweet, you look fatigued—”

  “And the old, when they get a chance. No: I am not going to retire conveniently and leave you alone with this creature. I value your soul far more than that.”

  “Although not my body,” Gregory says, raising an eyebrow. “Well, then, shall we dance, all three? With linked hands in a circle, like children? Shall we sit and discuss the crops, or have a hand of cards? What would you, my lovelies?”

  Alison takes his hand. “Let us go find our nephew.”

  He sighs heavily and rolls his eyes, but he allows himself to be led away. I am glad to be rid of them; now I can search on my own and make a hasty exit. The conversation with Alison worries me. She is too cautious to destroy us here, but she may well try to have us followed into the countryside.

  So I make my way through corridors, through courtyards, peering into corners and behind pillars, climbing winding staircases and descending them, until I am lost and can no longer hear the music from the great hall. I meet other furtive lovers, dim shapes embracing in shadows, but none are Randolph and Caitlin. When I have exhausted every passageway I can find I remember Caitlin and Gregory’s discussion of roses and hurry outside, through a doorway I have never seen before, but the moonlit gardens yield nothing. The sky tells me that it is midnight: Caitlin will be rejoicing at having eluded me.

  Wherever she is. These halls and grounds are too vast; I could wander all night and still not find her by dawn. Gregory knows where she is: I am convinced he does, convinced he arranged the couple’s disappearance. He may have done so to force me into keeping the tryst with him. That would be very like him; he would be thrilled by my seeking him out while his guests gossip and dance in the great hall. Gregory delights in private indiscretions at public events.

  So I will play his game this once, although it angers me, and lie with him, and be artful and cajoling. I go back inside and follow hallways I know to Gregory’s chambers, glancing behind me to be sure I am not seen.

  The small chapel where Lady Alison takes her devotions lies along the same path, and as I pass it I hear moans of pain. I stop, listening, wary of a trap—but the noise comes again, and the agony sounds genuine: a thin, childish whimpering clearly made by a woman.

  Caitlin? I remember Alison’s threats, and my vision blackens for a moment. I slip into the room, hiding in shadows, tensed to leap. If Alison led the girl here—

  Alison is indeed here, but Caitlin is not with her. Doubled over in front of the altar, Gregory’s wife gasps for breath and clutches her side; her face is sweaty, gray, the pupils dilated. She sees me and recoils, making her habitual sign of the cross; her hand is trembling, but her voice remains steady. “So. Didn’t you find them, either?”

  “My lady Alison, what—”

  “He called it a quick poison,” she says, her face contorting with pain, “but I am stronger than he thinks, or the potion weaker. I was tired—my leg … we came here; it was close. I asked him to pray with me, and he repented very prettily. ‘I will bring some wine,’ he said, ‘and we will both drink to my salvation.’ Two cups he brought, and I took the one he gave me … I thought him saved, and relief dulled my wits. ‘Mulled wine,’ he said, ‘I ground the spices for you myself,’ and so he did, no doubt. Pray none other taste them.”

  So much speech has visibly drained her; shaken, I help her into a chair. What motive could Gregory have for killing his wife? Her powers of observation were an asset to him, though he rarely heeded them, and he couldn’t have felt constrained by his marriage vows; he never honored them while she was alive.

  “It is well I believe in the justice of God,” she says. “No one will punish him here in the world. They will pretend I ate bad meat, or had an attack of bile.”

  “Be silent and save your strength,” I tell her, but she talks anyway, crying now, fumbling to wipe her face through spasms.

  “He tired of me because I am old. He grew tired of a wife who said her prayers, and loved other people’s children although she could have none of her own. No doubt he will install you by his side now, since you are made of darkness and steal the daughters of simple folk.”

  Gregory knows far better than to make me his formal consort, whatever Alison thinks. “We choose daughters only when one of us has been killed, Lady Alison. We wish no more than anyone does—to continue, and to be safe.”

  “I will continue in heaven,” she says, and then cries out, a thin keening which whistles between her teeth. She no longer sounds human.

  I kneel beside her, uncertain she will be able to understand my words. This does not look like a quick-acting potion, whatever Gregory said; it will possibly take her hours to die, and she will likely be mad before then. “I cannot save you, my lady, but I can make your end swift and painless.”

  “I need no mercy from such as you!”

  “You must take mercy where you can get it. Who else will help you?”

  She moans and then subsides, trembling. “I have not been shriven. He could have allowed me that.”

  “But he did not. Perhaps you will be called a saint someday, and this declared your martyrdom; for now, the only last rites you will be offered are mine.”

  She crosses herself again, but this time it is clearly an effort for her to lift her hand. “A true death?”

  “A true death,” I say gently. “We do not perpetuate pain.”

  Her lips draw back from her teeth. “Be merciful, then; and when you go to your assignation, tell Gregory he harms himself far worse than he has harmed me.”

  It is quick and painless, as I promised, but I am shaking when I finish, and the thought of seeing Gregory fills me with dread. I will have to pretend not to know that he has murdered his wife; I will have to be charming, and seductive, and disguise my concern for my own safety and Caitlin’s so I can trick her whereabouts out of him.

  I knock on his door and hear the soft “Enter.” Even here I need an invitation, to enter this chamber where Gregory will be sprawled on the bed, peeling an apple or trimming his fingernails, his clothing already unfastened.

  Tonight the room is unlit. I see someone sitting next to the window, silhouetted in moonlight; only as my eyes adjust to the dimness do I realize that Gregory has not kept our appointment. A priest waits in his place, surrounded by crucifixes and bottles of holy water and plaster statues of saints. On the bed where I have lain so often is something long and sharp which I force myself not to look at too closely.

  “Hello,” he says, as the door thuds shut behind me. I should have turned and run, but it is too late now; I have frozen at the sight of the priest, as they say animals do in unexpected light. In the hallway I hear heavy footsteps—the corridor is guarded, then.

&nbs
p; The priest holds an open Bible; he glances down at it, and then, with a grimace of distaste, sideways at the bed. “No, lady, it won’t come to that. You needn’t look so frightened.”

  I say nothing. I tell myself I must think clearly, and be very quick, but I cannot think at all. We are warned about these small rooms, these implements. All the warnings I have heard have done me no good.

  “There’s the window,” he explains. “You could get out that way if you had to. That is how I shall tell them you escaped, when they question me.” He gestures at his cheek, and I see a thin, cruel scar running from forehead to jaw. “When I was still a child, my father took me poaching for boar on our lord’s estate. It was my first hunt. It taught me not to corner frightened beasts, especially when they have young. Sit down, lady. Don’t be afraid.”

  I sit, cautiously and without hope, and he closes the book with a soft sound of sighing parchment. “You are afraid, of course; well you should be. Lord Gregory has trapped you, for reasons he says involve piety but doubtless have more to do with politics; Lady Alison has been weaving her own schemes to destroy you, and the Church has declared you incapable of redemption. You have been quite unanimously consigned to the stake. Which is—” he smiles “—why I am here. Do you believe in God, my dear? Do your kind believe in miracles?”

  When I don’t answer he smiles again and goes on easily, as if we were chatting downstairs at the dance, “You should. It is a kind of miracle that has brought you to me. I have prayed for this since I was very young, and now I am old and my prayer has been answered. I was scarcely more than a boy when I entered the religious life, and for many years I was miserable, but now I see that this is why it happened.”

  He laughs, quite kindly. His kindness terrifies me. I fear he is mad. “I came from a poor family,” he says. “I was the youngest son, and so, naturally, I became a priest. The Church cannot get sons the normal way, so it takes other people’s and leaves the best young men to breed more souls. You and I are not, you see, so very different.”

  He leans back in his chair. “There were ten other children in my family. Four died. The littlest and weakest was my youngest sister, who was visited one day by a very beautiful woman who made her lovely, and took her to parties, and then took her away. I never got to say good-bye to my sister—her name was Sofia—and I never got to tell her that, although I knew what she had become, I still loved her. I thought she would be coming back, you see.”

  He leans forward earnestly, and his chair makes a scraping sound. “I have always prayed for a way to reach her. The Church tells me to destroy you, but I do not believe God wants you destroyed—because He has sent you to me, who thinks of you only with pity and gratitude and love. I am glad my little sister was made beautiful. If you know her, Sofia with green eyes and yellow hair, tell her Thomas loves her, eh? Tell her I am doubtless a heretic, for forgiving her what she is. Tell her I think of her every day when I take the Holy Communion. Will you do that for me?”

  I stare at him, wondering if the watchers in the hallway can distinguish words through the thick wooden door.

  He sighs. “So suspicious! Yes, of course you will. You will deliver my message, and I’ll say you confounded me by magic and escaped through the window. Eh?”

  “They’ll kill you,” I tell him. The calmness of my voice shocks me. I am angry now: not at Lord Gregory who betrayed me, not at Lady Alison, who was likewise betrayed and died believing me about to lie with her husband, but with this meandering holy man who prattles of miracles and ignores his own safety. “The ones set to guard the door. They’ll say you must have been possessed by demons, to let me escape.”

  He nods and pats his book. “We will quite probably both be killed. Lady Alison means to set watchers on the roads.”

  So he doesn’t know. “Lady Alison is dead. Gregory poisoned her.”

  He pales and bows his head for a moment. “Ah. It is certainly political, then, and no one is safe tonight. I have bought you only a very little time; you had best use it. Now go: gather your charge and flee, and God be with you both. I shall chant exorcisms and hold them off, eh? Go on: use the window.”

  * * *

  I use the window. I dislike changing shape and do so only in moments of extreme danger; it requires too much energy, and the consequent hunger can make one reckless.

  I have made myself an owl, not the normal choice but a good one; I need acute vision, and a form which won’t arouse suspicion in alert watchers. From this height I can see the entire estate: the castle, the surrounding land, gardens and pathways and fountains—and something else I never knew about, and could not have recognized from the ground.

  The high hedges lining the road to the castle form, in one section, the side of a maze, one of those ornate topiary follies which pass in and out of botanical fashion. In the center of it is a small rose garden with a white fountain; on the edge of the fountain sit two foreshortened figures, very close to one another. Just outside the center enclosure, in a cul-de-sac which anyone exiting the maze must pass, another figure stands hidden.

  Left left right. Gregory wasn’t explaining a new dance at all: he was telling Caitlin how to reach the rose garden, the secret place where she and Randolph hid while Alison and I searched so frantically. Doubtless he went with his wife to keep her from the spot; with Alison’s bad leg, and the maze this far from the castle, it wouldn’t have been difficult.

  I land a few feet behind him and return to myself again. Hunger and hatred enhance my strength, already greater than his. He isn’t expecting an approach from behind; I knock him flat, his weapons and charms scattering in darkness, and have his arms pinned behind his back before he can cry out. “I am not dead,” I say very quietly into his ear, “but your wife is, and soon you will be.”

  He whimpers and struggles, but I give his arm an extra twist and he subsides, panting. “Why, Gregory? What was all of this for? So you could spy on them murmuring poetry to one another? Surely not that. Tell me!”

  “So I can be a duke.”

  “By your wife’s death?”

  “By the boy’s.”

  “How?” I answer sharply, thinking of Randolph and Caitlin sharing the same goblet. “How did you mean to kill him? More poison?”

  “She will kill him,” he says softly, “because she is aroused, and does not yet know her own appetites or how to control them. Is it not so, my lady?”

  My own hunger is a red throbbing behind my eyes. “No, my lord. Caitlin is no murder weapon: she does not yet know what she is or where her hungers come from. She can no more feed on her own than a kitten can, who depends on the mother cat to bring food and teach it how to eat.”

  “You shall teach her with my puling nephew, I warrant.”

  “No, my lord Gregory. I shall not. I shall not teach her with you either, more’s the pity; we mangle as we learn, just as kittens do—and as kittens do, she will practice on little animals as long as they will sustain her. I should like to see you mangled, my lord.”

  Instead I break his neck, cleanly, as I broke Alison’s. Afterwards, the body still warm, I feed fully; it would be more satisfying were he still alive, but he shall have no more pleasure. Feeding me aroused him as coupling seldom did; he begged to do it more often, and now I am glad I refused. As terrible as he was, he would have been worse as one of us.

  When I am finished I lick my fingers clean, wipe my face as best I can, and drag the body back into the cul-de-sac, where it will not be immediately visible. Shaking, I hide the most obvious and dangerous of Gregory’s weapons and step into the rose garden.

  Caitlin, glowing in moonlight, sits on the edge of the fountain, as I saw her from the air. Randolph is handing her a white rose, which he has evidently just picked: there is blood on his hands where the thorns have scratched him. She takes the rose from him and bends to kiss his fingers, the tip of her tongue flicking towards the wounds.

  “Caitlin!” She turns, startled, and lets go of Randolph’s hands. “Caitlin, we mu
st leave now.”

  “No,” she says, her eyes very bright. “No. It is already after midnight, and you see—nothing horrid has happened.”

  “We must leave,” I tell her firmly. “Come along.”

  “But I can come back?” she says, laughing, and then to Randolph, “I’ll come back. Soon, I promise you. The next dance, or before that even. Godmother, promise I can come back—”

  “Come along, Caitlin! Randolph, we bid you goodnight—”

  “May I see you out of the maze, my ladies?”

  I think of the watchers on the road, the watchers who may have been set on the maze by now. I wish I could warn him, teach him of the world in an instant. Disguise yourself, Randolph; leave this place as quickly as you can, and steal down swift and secret roads to your father’s bedside.

  But I cannot yet speak freely in front of Caitlin, and we have time only to save ourselves. Perhaps the maze will protect him, for a little while. “Thank you, my lord, but we know the way. Pray you stay here and think kindly of us; my magic is aided by good wishes.”

  “Then you shall have them in abundance, whatever my aunt says.”

  Caitlin comes at last, dragging and prattling. On my own I would escape with shape-changing, but Caitlin doesn’t have those skills yet, and were I to tell her of our danger now she would panic and become unmanageable. So I lead her, right right left, right right left, through interminable turns.

  But we meet no one else in the maze, and when at last we step into open air there are no priests waiting in ambush. Music still sounds faintly from the castle; the host and hostess have not yet been missed, and the good father must still be muttering incantations in his chamber.

  And so we reach the carriage safely; I deposit Caitlin inside and instruct the driver to take us to one of the spots I have prepared for such emergencies. We should be there well before sun-up. I can only hope Lady Alison’s watchers have grown tired or afraid, and left off their vigil; there is no way to be sure. I listen for hoofbeats on the road behind us and hear nothing. Perhaps, this time, we have been lucky.