She shoved aside a peasant stinking of dung. "Stand off!" she shouted. Roughly jostled, she made way to the man lying on the ground.
Mayhap it was because of her forceful shout, but more likely because the shout had come out in a female voice, that all the men ceased their violent antics and stepped back.
Women rely on men to protect them.
No time. And no desire. There were no protective fee lords to question her actions this day. Besides, this was the first clue to the Red Lady she had seen.
Gossamyr swept her eyes over the open cuts on the man's arms. From the kicks, no doubt, for the short, but deep lacerations looked to be self-defense wounds. He had vomited into the dirt from the torture. Slapping a palm to his forehead, she twisted his head to look into his manic eyes. Red with blood. But surrounding his eyes, where the dirt and dust and the browning
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from the sun had not touched, she noticed something even more remarkable.
Faery dust. Minute, likely unnoticeable to the untrained eye. A scan of his exposed flesh did not sight a blazon.
"What be this?"one of the attackers said, gasping from exertion. "Sister, there is nothing you can do for this man."
Sister? Ah, the wimple.
"Put him from his misery!"
"He is touched with the plague."
"'Tis the falling sickness!"
"He contaminates our village. Ride him out!"
The crowd held no mercy for this poor one. Gossamyr needed to get him from them if she might gain opportunity to question him.
She bent to study the victim's eyes. "Fee?" she murmured so only he could hear. "Glamoursiege?"
"Wi-Wisogoth."
One of the oldest and most revered Faery tribes. If he yet wore the blazon it painted across his back.
The fee sobbed and grasped at Gossamyr's arms, pleading for mercy. "I am but a victim," he murmured. "I do not want to die."
"Unclean!" shouted out from the crowd. "Plague!"
"This be not the plague," Gossamyr shouted, hoping to divert the madness that ebbed about the circle. She could hold her own against a Faery evil but this crowd of mortals honed an edge of uncertainty to her confidence.
The redness in the fallen fee's eyes formed a sheen of viscous blood. Gossamyr studied the flesh on his face. It was red, most likely from struggle—but no, the very pores were bright little pinholes of blood. Or was it blood? The fee bled ichor.
"Whence have you been?" she asked.
"I've come.. .from Paris." A thick glob of crimson gurgled up over his lips.
The surrounding men stepped back, cursing and crossing them-
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selves. Whispers to—what Gossamyr guessed—various saints rapidly volleyed over and above her head.
"What is it, Sister?" Ulrich called.
"Grant me a moment."
"That's right," Ulrich addressed the crowd. "Step away. Allow the sister of the cloth to examine the victim. No trouble here. Be on to your private matters."
Gossamyr avoided touching the red substance, for there was no way to determine its virulence. "Paris? You are Disenchanted?"
"Yes," rasped out in a sputter.
"Winged?" He wore a cape. If the villagers saw—
"No longer."
o
Bone, she thought. But the absence of wings would only keep back suspicion of Faery. How to convince the angry mob to allow her to bring him away with her? Surely, if they suspected he was contagious they would escort her and him from the village.
Keeping a close huddle over the fallen fee, Gossamyr used her bodv as a shield.
J
"Did you meet any women? Touch them?"
"So many... Gorgeous and giggling and— There was one," the man gurgled. "Pretty. Pale and... wearing plush as white as snow. Her hair.. .like rubies... So curious the marking on the side of her face."
"What did she do to you?"
"She—" a macabre grin carved itself in the flesh on the man's face, and then his eyes flickered shut"—kissed me. Her kiss, it was marvelous. Like Faery. Her breath.. .drenched with.. .home."
Crimson gushed from the man's eyes.
"What be this substance? It cannot be blood."
"The red," he said on a sigh.
His face, lush with the bloodlike tears, reminded Gossamyr of her three-day crying jag that had changed her life, so subtly, and yet, for ever after. Tears salted with loss. Mortal tears were valuable to the fee—much sought after and traded for incredible sums.
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Shinn had instructed Mince to clean away Gossamyr's tears—not mortal complete—following her fall to misery. What the nursemaid had done with them, Gossamyr had never questioned.
The man's head fell limp in Gossamyr's palm. Dead. From a kiss.
Gently, she set his head upon the ground and, using her staff, stood and made eye contact with the circle of morose watchers. 'Twas a remarkable moment to stare down so many mortals, and yet such fascination quickly grew bleak.
"'Tis the plague!" rose up from the crowd. "Do you see the blood?"
"Silence!" Gossamyr's shout eddied a nervous stillness to the marketplace. "It is not the plague. Nor is it—" No explanation for the red. "It is merely..."
How to explain without causing greater panic? And without revealing herself?
Threading her fingers through the beads hanging about her neck, Gossamyr pondered her dilemma. The sea of frightened faces circled her, seeming to move like a wave soon to crash upon the rocks. Aware they thought her a woman of their mortal religious ranks, she perused her options. How soon before the revenant parted from the body? The one death she had witnessed years ago had taken little time. Shinn had explained length of dying was unique to the individual fee. If only there were a way to stop the essence from leaving the body... or mayhap, guiding it to safety?
Gossamyr glanced to Ulrich. Could the soul shepherd help?
"Sister, help us!"
Studying the rosebud beads soaked in lampblack coiled about her finger, Gossamyr struck on an idea. Might she use their faith? A faith she knew naught. But all religions revolved around worship of a greater good, of a divine being, yes? The wooden cross dangling at the end of her necklace sat in her palm. A symbol they revered.
"This man.. .suffers a rare sickness,"she said. Grasping the cross
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and holding it forth, she made show to wave it over the fallen fee. "There is no risk to others who might touch him."
"Be you a surgeon, Sister?"
"No, but I have seen this before. He must.. .be buried.. .beneath the... shadow of a cross." She caught Ulrich 's disapproving grimace. "Yes. Er, before vespers."
"Why, Sister?"
The only reason she could summon on such short notice; that was why.
Twinclian occurred only with the untouched essence—a sacred extension of the body. The fee were averse to mortal consecration, so an Enchanted fee would never rest. But such might control this Disenchanted's twinclian. Might that keep the revenant at bay? Give Ulrich opportunity to attempt his soul shepherding?
"If you will allow it, my assistant—" she cast a stern reprimand toward Ulrich, who looked ready to protest"—and I will dispose of the body."
"No!"
"We know naught of you!"
"I am a Sister of your church. Er.. .my church."
"The Catholic church!" Ulrich shouted. And then he sternly said, "Gossamyr."
"Be you God-fearing?"
"You want him for yourself!" someone called. "We'll keep the body."
"You cannot!" She straightened, meeting the man who had spoken boldly. "You think to challenge me?" Certainly a proper challenge would require him to recognize her position by first kneeling into a bow.
But he merely tilted a queer gaze upon her. "Do I face down a woman of the cloth in a challenge?" He eyed her staff. "Or a blasphemer in want of her own suspicion?"
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&
nbsp; "Come along, Sister. Vespers to be said." Ulrich gripped the back of her wool gown and tugged. Gossamyr choked, and was literally lifted from her feet. "So sorry to have interrupted this gleeful, er, dire event. Go along. God grant you all peace and safety." He nudged Gossamyr. Hard. "We 're off."
"You stand too close." A tug of the wimple unloosed it from the tight choke about her throat.
"Times like this we're both too close—to an imminent uproar that may likely involve pain. To us. Now move!"
Facing the crowd, she drew her finger across her chest then swept it down her stomach. It wasn't right, she knew, but on occasion she had witnessed Veridienne doing something of the sort.
"What was that for?" Ulrich hissed in her ear.
"I need that body."
Another tug swung her around behind a cart parked but ten long strides from the scene. Ulrich pressed a palm over her shoulder to the wooden body of the vehicle, effectively pinning her. "You need a change of religion."
"I don't understand you."
He nodded over his shoulder to the thick circle of naysayers. "They think you wish to sell the body."
"Why would I do that?"
"For coin! Why else would you want it?"
"Did you not see his eyes?"
"All that blood?"
"It is not blood." Itching the wimple, Gossamyr then palmed Ulrich's face and—closeness be blighted—explained, "The Red Lady. It is her kiss that releases the revenant from the Disenchanted fee men. The revenant must come out of the body. It cannot happen before the eyes of these innocents. Do you understand?"
Ulrich's swallow was audible. Gossamyr felt much the same. For a time he simply gazed upon her, his marvelous eyes not revealing his truths, but merely a solemnity that confused.
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"What are you thinking? Can you work your soul shepherding on it?"
"Oh, no." He twisted his face from her hand. Two strides moved him closer to the crowd, a bend at the waist attempted to survey the scene between legs and shuffling children. He swung and hissed back at Gossamyr, "I don't, I've never— You're sure he's a faery? I don't see any wings— Watch it!" Ulrich dodged to avoid a hunched man wielding a dagger. He moved with the angry crowd around the body. "That man poked me!"
Gossamyr spied the man. She could not see his face, for a cloak covered all, including his hair, but she did see the weapon. It wasn't a dagger but a long pin of sorts. Fixing her staff under her arm, she joined Ulrich's side. "Shall I poke him back?"
"No!" Ulrich turned her away from the crowd and shoved her to a walk. "You've already brought enough suspicion upon our heads. Let's away from this place. It is creepy."
"We cannot leave." She dug her toes into the ground. "I must keep an eye on the body."
"They want to rip the body asunder and bury it deep for fear the plague will creep under their doors and kill them all."
"That is macabre. He will bring them no harm. Not unless the revenant escapes. Revenant, Ulrich. An indestructible skeleton with sharp teeth and a desire to rip out one's essence with its bony hands."
Ulrich eased a hand over his chest and winced.
"Yes," she answered his unspoken fear, "it will leave a mark."
"Fine, but let's keep to ourselves until the crowd settles. Show them we have no interest in stealing their plague-ridden body. We'll keep the dead faery in sight, I promise."
The body was unceremoniously tossed into a cart slimed with old greens and wheeled around behind the stables connected to the Pig's Snout tavern. Soaking it in oil was required, for the heavy sub-
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stance would fill the shell of bone and coat its flesh, keeping the plague at bay until it could be burned. Old Basequin, who normally buried the unnamed dead, would have to be roused and a keg of valuable lampblack cracked open.
The man who had waited in the shadows of a dilapidated church for the last angry villager to leave now scampered across the grounds and fixed himself to the shadows that cooled the cart. A wisp of red hair slipped over his cheek and he tucked it back inside the hood of his cloak.
Very little time had passed since the fee had fallen, and yet, flies buzzed over the dead fee's face, settling on the red-filled eyes for a few beats before taking to flight and repeating the danse macabre. The flitter of a dragonfly's wings alerted, but the man paid the large insect no mind.
Glee in his eyes, the man raised a long shining pin over the fee's skull—and waited.
EIGHT
"You are not hungry?"
"I cannot abide strange meat." Gossamyr bit into a bruised yellow apple and proceeded to consume the mushy fruit in six more chomps. They'd slipped inside the tavern and sat near a window so dirty there was but an eyehole of sight to the crowd still looming around the body. Too anxious to sit and wait, Gossamyr had walked back outside. Now she stood next to the hay cart parked at the edge of the square, one eye on the ground where a lazy mongrel slept behind the shade of the cart's rear wheel.
"Strange?" Ulrich chomped on a thick chunk of deer. He balanced a bread trencher in his palm, not too thrilled to be eating on foot. "Let me guess, you eat toadstools and flowers?"
"You make it sound an unnatural diet."
"I suppose it is in the eyes of the chewer."
The cart the fee had been tossed into was now pushed around behind the stables but two buildings down from where they stood. Gossamyr remained alert, ready for the moment when the last of the angry villagers might leave the body alone.
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"So you tell me this red lady steals the essences of disenchanted faeries?"
"Yes."
"How? And if the faery is disenchanted.. .why would this essence have any enchantment in it? It makes little sense."
Gossamyr stopped chewing. As elementary as the man's mind worked, he did raise a point. Surely someone had to remove the essence. For 'twas certain it was not with the revenant when it left the body, for then the revenant would have little reason to return to Faery in search of such. How then would the Red Lady get said essence? It was not Enchantment that lingered in the essence but the body's glamour. Mayhap the essence had been removed long before the fee expired?
"Do you not know?" she entreated Ulrich. "Surely the death of a fee is no different than your mortal deaths."
"I cannot see a soul. No one can. It is a feeling. I connect with the remnants of life as it leaves the body or after it has already vacated. But what I don't understand.. .is this revenant thing the same or is it separate from the essence?"
"Separate. Why must you label things same or not the same?"
"I.. .well, what would you do if twenty years of your life had disappeared in a snap?"
Gossamyr couldn't even guess. Though her concept of a mortal year was midsummer to midsummer—a very long time. She supposed she might react the same. The same? Most likely she would never again be the same should she lose a portion of her life due to her trip from Faery.
"Yes, the same," Ulrich whispered over her shoulder. The grease from cooked meat shining his lower lip appealed very little to her. "Thoughyou are not the same."
"You have not before met me so you cannot determine my sameness." She stabbed her staff to ground and, with another bite
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of the apple, followed the billowing cloak of the hooded man she knew had poked Ulrich. What was he to?
"True. But as a representative of your common mortal woman you are not the same."
"What think you of me representing a fee woman?"
He poked at the gape in his teeth with his tongue; trying to dislodge food? "No wings."
"Not all faeries have wings, you said so yourself."
"You do sparkle."
"I thought this hideous headpiece covered—"
"There is a smear on your cheek. Let me get it."
She dodged his sticky reach and instead swiped her own dirty palm across her cheek.
"Fine and well," he offered. A chomp of the
trencher filled his cheek with a bulge of hard bread. He silently offered the lump of finger-poked bread to her. Gossamyr shook her head. Ulrich tossed the morsel to the dog sleeping beneath the cart.
"I should slip around behind the building and keep an eye on the body."
"A death watch?"
"If I see anything come out from it I must kill it before it can flee to Faery."
"What if it is the essence you see leaving the body?"
"I know what it looks like. It is remarkable."
"Well, you'll not be able to feel the essence, that is my talent."
"Then you must come along." The more she thought on it, the more she realized she had no idea how the essence was removed. It could be long gone, or it may yet have been released.
"To the body. Quick!"
The color was beautiful, deep scarlet and speckled with luminous pockets of palest pink. It hovered above the dead fee's head, lingering, undulating, as if adjusting to the atmosphere outside the
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body. Or perhaps preening. The essence generally behaved as it had when enclosed within the body. Cocky, elegant and proud, as were most fee.
"Another prize for my mistress's collection. Come, pretty one." The man stabbed the essence with his silver pin. A shriek of death accompanied the action. And following, the howl of the revenant as it began to clamber out from the fee's body.
Even as the skeletal fingers emerged from the core of flesh and muscle, the pin man scampered off. No need to remain and witness the hideous event. Or risk decapitation by an angry revenant.
"Do you see?"
Ulrich looked where Gossamyr pointed. What he saw stopped him cold. The blood slowed in his body and a shiver curled up his spine. Let the bold faery charge into danger, he had come to his limit battling supernatural beasties. Current supernatural beastie being half in, half out, of the dead faery's body. A skeleton, animated and jaws yowling, pushed out of the chest. Boned wings stretched wide in a whoosh. The tattered membranes between the wing bones shrilled a vile note through the air.
Gossamyr reached die cart, staff wielded for fight. The revenant had completely emerged and crouched upon the boneless shell of flesh and fabric, an incubus newly birthed from its host. It glanced to Gossamyr. Deep red glowed in the skull's eye sockets. Fangs glinted. Fingertips clattered, bone against bone, in a challenging gesture. Yowling to the heavens, the creature leaped into the air.
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