I was the only one who saw what was happening. Ilene crumpled to the floor, very slowly. I’d brought my cloak to the banquet with me, folded over my arm, thinking I might want to escape if things got dull. I spread it like a fishing net, to hide what was left of the Princess. “Fenoderee,” I whispered, and there he was. “Take it away,” I said. “And put the cloak back under my bed upstairs.”
He was gone only for an instant. Then he was back. “Where did you put her?” I whispered.
“Under the church with the other old bones,” he whispered back, then made a face at me and departed. Faery folk aren’t very respectful, sometimes. That was consecrated ground!
Then I caught myself and realized that was merely another way of saying “magical ground.” She could lie there as well as anywhere.
A few moments later, Prince Charming, the hereditary Prince of Marvella came wandering toward me with Snow on his arm and a silly smile on his sweet old face. He was looking for his wife to tell her he’d found his long-lost daughter, but Princess Ilene was nowhere to be found. I helped them look for a while, until I got tired. Then I came up here to bed.
Giles brought me a cup of wine and asked where we would go now.
“Home,” I told him. Meaning Westfaire. Or, at least, somewhere near there. I long for home.
NOVEMBER
King Zot of Nadenada gave us an escort to Bayonne. There we found it simple to join a group of travelers who were seeking passage to England. Good weather held. A merchantman presented itself in due course. Five days north, we landed once more at Bristol and found a carriage we could hire to take us to Sawley, where, after inquiries, I found the man who claimed to own Wellingford (though I much doubt his claim would stand a legal test). I paid him a few years’ rent on the Dower House.
And in that house we have come to rest, Giles and I, keeping our old bones busy hiring people to refurbish the place and manage the farm land around it, and finding half a dozen women to keep it clean. It is not a wreck, not like some places in the countryside, but it is certainly dilapidated. I converted gems back to cash, and cash into investments with a certain House of Levi in England. This time, just in case I decide to go away and come back in five hundred years, the money is to be paid to whoever knows a few code words. I’ve had enough of darting about planting forged documents.
SPRING 1418
Winter came and went. Despite the cold, it has been the happiest time of my life. Strange to say that with youth gone and all the pains of age very much with me, but it is true. Giles is a loving, dear companion, a sweet and kindly friend.
A few days ago I decided I wanted to see Westfaire. I told Giles just enough for him to help me, and we went through the water gate together, floating on pigs’ bladders, for neither of us is strong enough to push through that deep water. Inside it is just as I left it. We climbed slowly up to the tower, me holding the cloak, Giles clutching the boots to keep us from falling asleep. As we climbed, he paused often to catch his breath. He was not this weak when we were searching for Snowdrop. It must be a very recent thing.
Beloved is still there in the tower, still lovely, still sleeping.
“How long?” Giles wanted to know, reaching out to touch her face. “How long will you sleep?”
“You.” Not “she.” Oh, Giles. Giles.
Well, according to Joyeause, she will sleep thirty more years, until kissed by a handsome prince, though, according to Carabosse, that wasn’t the real curse at all. Supposing that both of them are right (and I do not take Aunt Joyeause so lightly as old Carabosse does), at the end of a hundred years, someone may be able to take Beloved out of Westfaire and kiss her awake. If I am to see that event, I must live to be one hundred and sixteen years old. Looking at myself in the glass, I don’t think I’ll make it. Still, if and when that day comes, Beloved will know it was all worth it, being my friend. She’ll have the best of it then.
I wrote her a note. “Beloved, you are Beauty. And Beauty is gone, long ago. Live her life as well as she would have lived it, or even better.”
As I turned toward the stair, I saw my mysterious thing, still sitting upon the chest. It’s a clock, of course. One of Carabosse’s clocks. The hand has moved
