“But I’m half fairy!” I cried.
“No teind is better than half. Half a teind is better than a whole,” he said softly. “And once he’s used human, half or whole, then the treaty’s broken.” Then, “Whsst. I’m gone.” And he was.
Outside in the hallway I could hear Mama’s voice, along with those of the others. She, still laughing at something Oberon had said, came into the room where I was, her nose twitching, like a cat when it smells a mouse.
“I smell Bogle,” she cried. “Has that filthy Puck been near?”
I shook my head at her. “I’ve not seen Puck since the audience, Mama,” I said, truthfully enough. She looked me in the face as though to tell whether I was lying or not, and then she said, “We of Faery value truth above all else, Beauty.”
“I know you do, Mama,” I said, thinking over what I had said to be sure there were no lies in it.
She sat down on the bed beside me. “Do not put yourself in peril, daughter,” she said.
“In peril, Mama?”
“If you make cause with the Bogles against us, no place or time will be safe from Oberon’s vengeance. The Bogles are always snuggling up to mankind. They mix more than they should.”
I thought this a strange thing for her to say, she who had married my mortal Papa. Was that not mixing? Or even snuggling, come to that. Evidently she did not feel the need to be consistent. I had noticed the same thing among the aunts. What they told me to do was not always what they told others, or what they did themselves.
Mama went on. “Oberon will find you if you offend him, no matter where you go.”
“Why should I offend any of you, Mama?” I cried. “You’re my mother. These are your people.” And, indeed, why should I? What did she know that I did not?
Satisfied at what she saw on my face, she told me to create a marvelous dress and come to dinner.
I ate fruit and bread and clotted cream and none of the venison. I drank what would have been too much wine anywhere else. All around me others were eating the meat with good appetite. I don’t think anyone noticed that I left it well alone. Once or twice I looked up to find Thomas’s eyes upon me and my plate. Once or twice I looked up to see Queen Mab staring at me with curiosity. I smiled carefully back, and cast my eyes modestly down. If she had enchanted a man and his wife for refusing her their child, what might she do to one who entertained Bogles in her bedroom? All the time I was thinking about the doctrine of transubstantiation and wondering if the man and wife were still present in the venison, though they had been enchanted into something else.
After everyone had gone to sleep, I heard the scratching at my door again. This time I knew it was Thomas, and he slipped into my room like a shadow. He was clearly frantic, his hands trembling, his eyes flicking like hummingbirds from one place to another. “I have to get out of here,” he said.
“I know,” I told him, going on to tell him how I knew.
“Queen Mab says she will neither let me be used as teind nor let me go,” he said, his voice shaking. “But Oberon says he will use me as he sees fit. Queen Mab says she will use you, instead, but Elladine is in favor with the King, so he will not permit that. Oh, Elladine is in excellent odor just now for having brought a half-human woman into Faery, even old as you are. They are all in a frenzy over you.”
“Can’t you just run away?”
“How? In what direction? Are we under the sea or high in the air? Are we deep beneath the earth under a barrow, as some say, or are we in some enchanted land beyond the bounds of earth? In what direction should I go? And when I have gone, what is to keep Mab from turning me into a deer and hunting me down as she did today with those others? I can escape from this place only by human help, and there is none human here but you.”
“When is the teind to be paid?” I asked.
“Soon,” he whispered. “Faery time is not the time of earth. It flows fast, it flows slow. Sometimes it almost stops, wandering like the tortoise, long hours in the space of a breath. Other times it dives like the hawk, a year in a moment’s pace. I only know it is soon.”
He left me then, as quickly as he had come, his face haggard with fear. I lay on the bed, looking out at the sky, scarcely darker now than in midday. Blue, spangled with stars. There had to be a way to help him. Had to be a way.
Mama and I had a picnic together in the meadow. I had asked her for it, as a favor, wanting to, as I put it, “know her better.”
“You must tell me some things,” I assured her. “Simply must, Mama, or I shall make the most dreadful mistakes. You must tell me what not to say in front of Queen Mab or King Oberon, or any of the others.”
“Don’t talk of treaties or Bogles and all will be well,” she said, not looking me in the eye.
“Can I speak of the teind to hell?” I asked innocently.
She blanched. “It would be wisest not.”
“Then you must tell me what it is, so that I will not mention some aspect of it inadvertently.”
“It’s a payment,” she said impatiently. “To the Dark One. For guarding our borders. For keeping out … other influences.”
“Angels?” I asked. “But, aren’t you acquainted with angels?”
She looked around, making sure we were not overheard. “If you are speaking of those from Baskarone, Beauty, then be sure they
