Mama had said that in her letter, though I did not know what she meant. “What about my baptism?” I reminded him.
“Oh. Well, fairies, being separately created, were not tainted by the original sin of our first parents, so baptism—for them—wouldn’t be necessary. So much of what the Lady Elladine had to say was correct. On the other hand, if the duke is your father, and I have no real doubt of that,” he blushed, obviously remembering that Papa seemed to have sired half the children in Westfaire village, “you are half mortal, and that half needed to be baptized, which your Mama had not considered, and it was properly done.”
“Holy water and the white cloth around my head and everything?”
“Exactly so. Exorcised, annointed, and the chrisom bound round your head.”
“Are they Christians?” I asked him. “F … that is, my mother’s people? Or are they infidels?”
“Well now,” he wrinkled his brow at me. “I don’t think that question would mean much to ah … them. If they are immortal, then they don’t die. If they don’t die, they don’t fear hell. If they don’t fear hell, then they aren’t stained by sin. If they aren’t stained by sin, why would they need to be Christians? Or you can argue it frontwards to the same effect. The question of their being infidels doesn’t apply, does it?”
Which just shows you that even though Father Raymond was old and a little dithery he was still capable of reasoned argument.
[Which just goes to show you how much sheer fantasy exists even outside Faery.]
“Then Mama wasn’t trying to keep me from being a Christian?” I asked. “When she told Papa it wasn’t necessary?” There was more to this than he had told me, but I had no idea what it was. Mama had seemed to blame religion for something to do with her people, and nothing Father Raymond had said had explained that.
“I think it more likely she just made a oversight in theology,” Father Raymond said. “She thought it wasn’t necessary, forgetting you were half mortal. We can’t blame her, after all. I don’t imagine fairies spend much time studying catechism. In any case, I was there and I heard your fairy aunts giving you some very nice gifts, and you’ve always been a very good girl, so don’t worry your head about it.”
“What nice gifts did they give me?” I asked, though Mama had already told me.
“Oh, they gave you a good nature, for one thing. And charm.”
I hadn’t known about those, particularly the goodnature one. Sometimes I didn’t feel at all good-natured.
“By the way, Beauty,” he said. “I wanted to be the one to tell you that Giles has gone away on a journey for me.”
“Giles,” I said stupidly. “Giles?” wanting to cry.
“He’ll be away for a year or so,” he said, watching me intently. I didn’t say anything. After a moment he asked, “Is there something you need to tell me?”
I just stared at him, hating him. Then not hating him, just blank inside. There was a hole there that nothing would fill, ever. Father Raymond had done it for me, because he thought it was best, but I wished he hadn’t.
I shook my head at him, “No, Father.” I had nothing to tell him, nothing at all. There was a lump in my throat, and I could hardly get the words out. There was nothing I wanted to tell him ever again.
“Well then,” he said, trying to be comforting. “Well then.”
By the time Giles comes back, I will either be dead, or married, or asleep for a hundred years, or gone off looking for my mama, and who knows if I will ever return.
11
[When Elladine of Ylles had written her letter to her daughter, my hand had helped move the quill. Not that Elladine is incapable of either writing a letter or loving a daughter, but when she writes she is prolix and when she loves she is sentimental rather than sensible. She gave no thought to what would be involved in loving a half mortal child. Elladine is like others in Faery who have taken the easy way. Like Joyeause, she dabbles. Power is painful, in the getting and the keeping, and Elladine has never thought it worth the pain. So, she flutters and travels and glamorizes and enchants and now and again falls in love, sometimes with mortals. Knowing this, I inserted some words in her letter and removed many others and put the box in her hand already equipped.
Israfel and I were counting on the love of a child for its mother. We had no mothers; we have born no children; so we take the matter largely on faith, but we counted on it nonetheless. Beauty would long to see her mother, off she would go to the place we’d prepared for her, a place remote from the real worlds, a place where the Dark Lord would not think of going for any reason, in short: Chinanga.
Chinanga is one of the imaginary worlds, well off the mainline of invention. It had taken me a long time to find it, and I’d been looking for it. No one who was not looking for it would be likely to stumble over it Elladine would get there only shortly before Beauty herself arrived (Israfel and I had arranged that, as well); once there they could get to know each other, safe in a place time could not touch. So we planned.
Further, we planned—deviously, dangerously—for Beauty to leave Westfaire without anyone knowing she was gone. She would make use of the things in the box, and when the time was right, she would be ready!
Unfortunately, we
