Tell me, good robin,
What makes you sigh?
I’d not be crying
If I’d learned to fly.
I knew the song. My mother had been exceedingly fond of it. When I was young, she would sing me to sleep with it. She used to say she had been singing it when she met my father.
I was not angry about my pitiful inheritance—most fathers leave nothing to third sons—but I could not live off a song.
“I cannot stay here,” I told myself, “and no one will hire me without a letter of introduction. There is only one option left to me: I must set out on a quest and make my name through heroic deeds. When legends are told of Robin the Brave, I will return and extract my reward.”
I borrowed a little money from my elder brother, packed my possessions, and set out. I hunted in the woods and labored for farmers in return for bed and supper. As time passed, I learned to live off my wits and the provisions of nature.
While hunting in the woods, I discovered a quest I thought would make me famous. There was a man who lived alone in a cabin—this cabin, in fact—who begged me to help him. Wicked fairies had stolen his daughter, and he was too old and weary to journey after her.
I immediately agreed to help him. He presented me with a picture of his daughter and a ring with which to prove my identity to her, and bid me farewell.
I traveled rapidly north, through the borderlands and into Faerie. There, I sought high and low and was eventually directed to the Fairy Queen’s court. The girl was being kept prisoner there.
“Why do you detain her?” I asked the Fairy Queen. “What wrong has she done to deserve this? Behold—I come to claim her. I bear the ring of her father, who has sent me.”
“Then you shall take her,” said the Queen, “but remember you this! Nothing comes from nothing and a price must be paid. Take you this most magic of bows and return to the woods south of here. Shoot the first living creature you see and bring me its head. If you do this, I shall release the girl. But know you this! If you betray my instruction, the arrow you shoot shall pierce your own heart!”
Graciously thanking the Fairy Queen, I took the bow and returned to the woods. But alas—the first living thing I saw therein was the old man, who awaited news of his daughter.
Horrified, I told the old man my dilemma. He was greatly saddened, but agreed to exchange his life for his daughter’s.
I strung the bow and shot him. He died immediately. I cut off his head, buried the body, and returned to the Fairy Queen.
“Excellent,” said she, when I presented her with the head. “You will be greatly rewarded.” She gave me not only the girl, but also as many jewels as I could carry, and the gift of bedazzlement.
I brought the girl home and told her of her father’s death. She did not blame me, but could find no peace in her father’s house. I understood perfectly, and conveyed her to my hometown. Using the jewels the Fairy Queen had given me, I remade the town and made it safe. In their gratitude, the citizens renamed it Robin’s Haven.
“There you have it,” said Robin. “It is time for your story.”
“Not,” said Stephen, “until you have told me yours.”
“I have!”
“You have told me a story, true—but not your story.”
Robin laughed and began again.
Forty-nine years ago, on November the third, I was born in the town that is currently called Robin’s Haven. Back then, it was the very opposite of its current safe, prosperous, bustling self. The woods bordering the north and west teemed with monsters of the vilest sort, come down from Faerie in search of easy prey. Hardly a day passed when something wasn’t stolen and devoured: chickens, pigs, children, and any adult stupid enough to enter the woods unarmed.
Life was nothing more than subsistence, and often not that. Frightened and starving, the town turned upon itself. Gangs formed; riots broke out; people fought over everything and nothing, and the street ran with the blood of neighbors and family.
My parents were killed on the same day: first my mother, who had gone to buy flour; then my father, who went to avenge her.
I was only fourteen.
My brothers and I snuck out in the early morning and buried our parents to the south, away from the ravenous beasts and scavenging villagers equally—but most of all, from men run so mad with hunger that they ate their own dead.
We returned to the relative safety of our hovel to read the will.
To my eldest brother was left our home, including the rotting wooden loom in the basement. To my second brother was left the ancient, faithful nag and a letter begging the army to take him. To me was left a song scrawled on an old shopping list in a stranger’s handwriting. You may have heard the song. It goes:
Robin, oh robin, prepare to die;
Your wings are clipped, you cannot fly;
The devil is coming ’round by and by
And when he does, your end is nigh.
I knew the song; when I was younger, the other children would join hands and dance rings around me and sing all the verses, which concern the robin’s futile attempts to stay alive.
They found it hilarious.
Left with only these memories of mockery for comfort, I pleaded with my eldest brother for help—for a little food or money. My brother refused, and cast me out into the street.
Until that day, I had respected my mother’s wishes and—amid poverty and violence—had obeyed the law. But my mother was dead and I was alone and the evening was already cold. The night roaches had not yet emerged, but I could feel their greedy eyes peering out at me from behind filthy shutters, and knew my time was short.
I broke into my brother’s house and stole my own meager possessions, along with what food, money, and weaponry I could find.
There was only one place I could go where my brother wouldn’t hunt me down: the woods.
I stumbled on for days, hopelessly lost, supplies dwindling, growing too weak to fend off the monsters. I was at Death’s door when I chanced upon a cabin—this cabin, in fact.
There was an old man living inside and, in exchange for all my money, he allowed me to sleep by the fire. In exchange for my story, he fed me a little bread. I told him my tale and, as he listened, his face grew quiet and thoughtful. The next morning, I learned why.
The old man was a master of woodcraft but had a certain weakness for gambling. In order to pay his debts, his daughter had agreed to marry a rich man in a far-off city. His daughter, he assured me, was exceedingly beautiful and had a voice like a nightingale.
Unfortunately, some fairies had heard her sing and, wanting her for themselves—or perhaps struck by jealousy, for who can divine the motives of fairies?—had spirited her away.
The old man swore he regretted his gambling and his daughter’s rash engagement. If only I got her back for him, he would never gamble again, and the three of us would live in the woods in peace. And, in two or three years, he would give me his daughter in marriage.
I agreed readily. Over the next few days, as I gathered my strength, the man taught me woodcraft. I learned swiftly—that sort of thing has always come naturally to me—and after ten days, I was pronounced ready.
I traveled north and spent many long months searching Faerie. Monsters beset me, fairies mocked me, illusions misled me. But at last, I came upon the court of the Fairy Queen.
The queen cares little for the affairs of humans, and I was more than a year in her service before she granted me an audience.
“I am generous,” said she, when she had heard my case, “and I will allow you to take the woman. But nothing comes without a price. Take this magic bow and return to the woods. While you stand at their outskirts, close your eyes and fire a single arrow. Cut off the head of whatever the arrow strikes and bring it to me.”
How was I to know that the man had faithfully watched the borders of the woods for two years, waiting for sign of his daughter? My arrow struck his shoulder and he died in my arms.
Swearing his death would not be in vain, I cut off his head and brought it to the Fairy Queen.
“I have done as you required,” I said, “and it has cost me dearly.”
“As I meant it to. You have earned your reward—and never let it be said that the Fairy Queen does not honor her bargains.”
A guard showed me to the girl’s room, in which she had been kept. She was dead; she had used her sheets to hang herself, and her body had been left to rot for days, even weeks.
When I protested the girl’s condition, the Fairy Queen grew angry. I was certain I had doomed myself, but the Fairy Queen had other plans. “Too many humans,” she said, “traverse the woods and invade my country. Return to the old man’s cabin and live there, killing all who venture past the first bridge.”
“Live there all alone?”
“There will be compensations. I will give you a gift.” And she bestowed upon me the ability to bedazzle.
So here I am, the miserable slave of the capricious Fairy Queen.
“Now,” said Robin, “tell me your story.”
“You must first tell me yours,” said Stephen. “I have heard two stories, but neither is the right one.”
Robin laughed and began a third time.
Forty-three years ago on the thirteenth of April, I was born in the town now known as Robin’s Haven. My parents were scholars specializing in the identification and classification of fairy creatures—which was why they had moved to that town.
In those days, traffic between this kingdom and Faerie was heavy, and fairies of all sorts were a common sight. They brought fairy animals with them—some of them monsters, some of them not, but none ordinary.
Even for experts, studying fairykind is dangerous. When my brothers and I were very young, our parents would hire brawny men from the village to accompany them into the woods and protect them. By the time I was eight, I went instead. My skill at setting traps and shooting arrows had by that time outstripped my competition—and was brute strength is of no use against fairy creatures.
My brothers sneered at me for hunting instead of pursuing my studies. I ignored them. Mathematics and philosophy were all fine, but my vocation was to become the greatest huntsman who ever lived.
Then one day when I was nineteen, my parents were following a spoor at the edge of the woods and wandered in without me.
They never returned.
After much searching, we found the partial remains of two humans, one of them wearing my mother’s tool belt.
That evening, we went to the home of my father’s best friend, who was the town notary. He had been entrusted with the will, and gave it to us. We took it home and read it.
To my eldest brother was left the house, land, and fairy research. To my second brother was left the horse and two years’ tuition at any university. To me was left a song, written by my mother in an otherwise blank field notebook. You may have heard the song; part of it goes like this:
Behold ye the robin who wished to fly
And made himself wings of gold
He plunged off a cliff and fell down and died.
At least that’s what I was told.
But I rather think the reason he’s gone
Is he learned to fly and flies ever on.
We all knew the song, and when my brothers saw I had been left nothing more, they sang it, capering around me, laughing. This was hardly the first time they had acted thus, but they had never done so in such inappropriate circumstances. Black rage enveloped me.
When I became conscious of myself again, I found my brothers lying on the floor, murdered. I packed my possessions and took as much food and money as I could carry. Late that night, I set fire to my brother’s bodies and the house and the nearby houses.
There would be no evidence left by morning.
While the town blazed, I fled north into the woods. No one would find me there; they’d think I had died with my brothers.
I traveled further into the woods than ever before. In the middle, I found a cabin—this cabin, in fact. Believing that no other could survive in these woods, I naturally assumed it was empty, and decided to live there myself. But when I opened the door, an old man awaited me.
“Are you the hero?” he asked. “Have you come to rescue my beautiful daughter?”
My first inclination had been to kill the old man, but the concept of being thought a hero amused me—and I wanted to hear more about his daughter.
“I am that hero,” I said. I could always kill him later. “I have traveled long and far. Tell me your troubles, and I shall banish them. Perhaps over lunch?”
The old man welcomed me in and, over roast boar, he told me his woes. “That is my plight,” he finished by saying. “Will you help me?”
“I will,” I said, and plunged the carving knife through his throat. He fell to the floor, gurgling. I lost no time, but cut out his heart and buried his remains in the garden.
I left that afternoon and walked north into Faerie, to the court of the Fairy Queen. She admitted me, and I presented her with the heart.
“I bring this freely,” said I. “It is the heart of the father of a human woman you hold captive. I offer this heart in exchange for her.”
The Fairy Queen’s eyes glittered, and she asked me my story. When I had told her, she said, “In return for a heart freely given, I release the woman to you. Yet before you leave, allow me to offer you a second bargain.”
I said I was listening.
“The old man was a spy for the human king. When the old man is found missing, another will be sent to live in the cabin in the woods. If you go and live there instead, and let no man pass, I will give you the gift of bedazzlement.”
I readily agreed, not realizing the extent of the bargain.
The old man’s daughter—who turned out disappointingly plain in comparison to the beautiful fairies wearing glamour—was released to me. We traveled together to the cabin in the woods.
“Where is my father?” she asked.
“I don’t know. He probably went down to the town. I wouldn’t worry.”
“Shouldn’t we go find him?”
“He might be elsewhere, and return here to find you gone. No; it is best that we wait here.”
The woman consented. As the days and weeks passed, she became accustomed to living with me, and ceased mentioning her father.
Months went by. I had forbidden her to dig in the garden, but one day a heavy rain washed away the dirt, and revealed the old man’s hand. She dug up the rest of him, and discovered her father had been buried there, his heart cut out.
The woman confronted me, and I did not deny that I had murdered him. She fell to her knees and begged me to kill her too. Eventually, I did.
I could no longer leave the woods to visit the village, but travelers told me it had been rebuilt, enchanted, and renamed Robin’s Haven.
Robin’s Haven. A haven from Robin of the woods. A warning and a reminder.
“And now,” said Robin, “you must tell me your story.”
“I will,” said Stephen. “And I shall do so just as truthfully as you have told me yours.” And he did.
XIV
Run, run, as fast as you can.
It won’t do you any good, but you’ll try anyway.
The next morning, under Robin’s watchful eye, Stephen explained the situation to Dog, and his agreement with Robin. “And if he does not uphold his side to guide me safely through the woods, you are to attack him. But if he fulfills his oath and returns to you while I am alive and well, you are to be his forever and obey no other’s commands.
Dog lay on the floor and put his nose between his paws.
Robin provided Stephen with a flask of melted snow and enough provisions for two round meals—most of which had been, Stephen noted, taken from supplies the company had been carrying. The two of them set out. They ate a little after three or four hours of walking, and had just begun moving again when Robin abruptly changed the subject.
“
It’s a strange thing,” he said, “but I can’t recall reading about enchantments that disperse upon the deaths of their makers—excluding bedazzlement, of course.”
“That’s because enchantments don’t disperse,” said Stephen, “unless they are temporary—in which case they run down in their own time—or actively being channeled—which includes bedazzlement and most kinds of sorcery. But permanent enchantments can last hundreds of years after their maker’s demise. After all, what would be the point of paying an enchanter to ward a house if the wards could be lost at any moment?”
The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter Page 20