“It is no affair of yours what I do,” the Queen replied in a silky voice. “Be back about your swamp dancing, Puck. We’ve had this talk before.” I didn’t know what a teind was, but his voice made it something serious.
“There’s a new one come, as well,” he went on in an even voice. “And she’s none of yours,” and he turned and looked at me with a wry look as though to say, “Fancy seeing you here.”
Mama rose on the dais and beckoned to me. I stepped forward uncertainly. Puck watched me with his green eyes, like water over stones. He had a brown face with great bushy brows and a wide mouth. My old acquaintance. I started to greet him, then, warned by something in his eyes, did not. Still, I was so taken with his familiar face I almost didn’t hear what Mama said. “She is ours, Puck. My daughter. Beauty. Borne by me to a human noble and come to Faery to seek her mother.”
He looked saddened by this, though why should he? He knew who I was, who I’d always been. Who had sent him to watch over me, back at Westfaire? I had always assumed it was Martin, or maybe Mama. Obviously not, but then who? Carabosse? He shook his head at me and turned to those on the dais. I stepped back to feel Thomas’s hand rest lightly on my shoulder.
Puck tried again, “So, sad though it be, she’s here by her own will, Mab. Still, there’s Thomas the Rhymer who is not here of his own will. He’s not been lastingly harmed as yet, but what use will you make of him?”
“I say it again, Puck. Take your Bogles back to the swamps and the streams. Get back to the crossroads. Tell your brownies to get to their sweeping, your leprechauns to their shoemaking, your kobolds to their mines. There are enough humans out there for you to cosset without worrying over mine.”
“He isn’t yours,” said Puck, something strained in his voice. “Queen Mab …”
“All that is mine is mine,” she chanted. “And all that is yours is mine as well. If I so choose.”
“I beg you not to choose,” he said to her holding out his hard, square hands. His words were an entreaty, but she merely laughed, then went on laughing with those about her as the Bogles conferred among themselves. Puck threw up his hands, then turned to leave, the others coming behind him. Except for one very small, plain one with a scythe over his shoulder, who slipped out of their ranks and took me by the hand.
“I am the Fenoderee,” he whispered. “If you have need of a friend, call me.” Then he, too, was gone.
Thomas spoke in my ear. “Unless you wish to see the Fenoderee destroyed, do not tell anyone he offered to be your friend.”
“I won’t tell anyone but Mama,” I said.
“Then he is surely dead,” Thomas said.
I turned on him angrily, but he had gone back into the crowd. Looking at Mama on the dais where she laughed with Queen Mab, however, I decided I did not need to tell her about the Fenoderee. I had not called for a friend, and the little Bogle’s offer did not necessarily warrant mention.
The audience seemed to be over. The nobles were coming down off the dais, talking with one another in careless voices. Curiosity would certainly not be out of place, so when Mama came down to me, I asked her what all that had been about.
“Puck and his following tend to be officious,” she said with her remote, careless look. “They have taken it upon themselves to be protectors of man.”
“I thought angels were the protectors of man,” I said in a puzzled tone, remembering things Father Raymond had taught me.
“Well then,” she laughed, with a nasty twist to her amusement. “Puck has taken it into his head to become an angel. It’s an old argument, going far back into time.”
I hoped she would tell me more, but Oberon came up just then, and we both fell silent as we made our deep reverences to him. He invited us to join him in the hunt, and we went out to mount horses already standing ready in the courtyard. This was in accord with something I had already noticed about Faery. Food was always ready when one was hungry. Horses were saddled and bridled when one wanted to hunt. Water was hot when one wanted to bathe. Possibly the most altogether magical thing about Faery was that we did not have to wait about for other people to do things before we could do the things we wanted.
We rode out, the horses’ hooves making a steady drumbeat as we crossed the bridge and came onto the road of velvety dust. I thought that all the soil of this place must be soft, else the silver shoes on the horses would not last. Mama rode up beside me and hissed, “Riding clothes, girl! Have some manners!”
I looked up see everyone clad in riding clothes with high boots and flowing skirts on the ladies and their hair done up in narrow caps with veils flying behind. As soon as I saw it, I was dressed the same as they, but it had taken my perceiving them to do it. I had done it myself. This gave me a momentary exultation followed by a shiver of fear. If I’d been a child when I came here, I’d have done it without even thinking. What else could I do, just by thinking about it?
We hunted white deer that day. Two of them, a stag and a hind. They fled like the wind, and we pursued like the gale. They fled like the hawk, and we came after them like the eagle. They fled like the flame of candles, and we burned their
