Though I very much wanted to pursue that subject, I had other matters at hand which needed concentration. “I heard some of the Sidhe speaking, Mama. They said I might be used as the teind.”
“Nonsense,” she cried. “Who would say such a wicked thing.” There were tears in her eyes, the first I had seen there on my behalf. So, like it or not, she was fond of me. Or she was afraid. Or she cried for some other reason.
I almost stopped then, not wanting to be disloyal to her, but something made me go on. Perhaps the anguish I’d heard in Thomas’s voice. He had been so fearful, so terrorized, so very human. I said, “So I thought. They have a perfectly good teind in Thomas, do they not? And yet, someone said they thought he might escape.”
“He cannot escape.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know the spell set upon him. The only way he could escape would be if a human woman were to see him riding by, were to ask for him and hold him tight, despite all the changes Mab could put him through, hold him fast from midnight to dawn, then he could leave Mab and return to the land of mortal men.” She said it carelessly, as though it didn’t matter.
“That’s not very likely, is it?” I asked faintly.
“Not likely at all, which is why Mab thought it up,” she said. “So you’ve nothing to worry about. It is not long until Samhain, All Hallows Eve on earth, the night when the teind is paid. Once that is done, we’ll have no more worries for seven Faery years.”
“Mama,” I asked, changing the subject, “I think it’s time I learned some magic. What am I half fairy for, otherwise.”
That night I told Tom-lin what Mama had told me. “Have you such a human woman, Thomas?” I asked. “I could attempt it myself, but I’m only half and it might not work. Besides, it would so offend Mama and my other kindred, I could not stay in Faery.”
“My fair Janet,” he said. “Oh, yes, my fair Janet might well hold fast against all hell.”
“Where will I find her,” I whispered.
“Near Ercle’s Down is a wood, named for the carter’s house which is there and, near the wood, a well. By that well, roses grow, and Janet will come there at sunset to pull a rose in my memory, for it was there I pledged her my love and gave her a rose in troth.”
“In what country?” I asked.
“Why,” he replied, “in Scotland.”
So, in the midnight hours of Faery, it was to Scotland, to Ercle’s Down I went, begging my boots in a whisper to take me quietly.
I came there on a late afternoon in summer. I begged directions from a passing shepherd, who directed me to Carterhaugh Wood, and I went there, quickly enough. The well was less easy to find, for there were a number of wells. Only one grew roses, however, the last one I went to, at the edge of the woods. I waited impatiently for evening, watching the shadows lengthen. As it was growing dark, when I had about given her up, she came walking across the downs toward the trees. I was about to go out to her when I felt a tug at my sleeve, and there were Puck and Fenoderee. “Now that you’ve led us here, best leave it to us,” Puck whispered.
I bridled.
“Nae, lass, leave it to us,” Puck admonished me. “Ye have none of the language needed, and it has to be set in rhyme.”
“Why does it?”
“Because she’ll not believe it’s from him, otherwise,” and he gripped my hand tightly for a moment. I could feel his hand there for a long time after he had gone.
The girl came to the well and pulled a rose, and I heard Puck’s voice in fair imitation of Tom-lin’s.
“The Queen of fairies caught me up
in a far green land to dwell.
And though it’s pleasant in that land,
I’ve a fearful thing to tell,
For at the end of seven years
they pay a teind to hell;
And I’m a fleshy human man,
that the Dark Lord would like well.
The night is Halloween, my love,
the morn is Hallowday;
Then win me, win me, if you will,
as well I know you may.”
It went on for some little time, but was clear enough for all that, despite being interrupted by the girl’s questions every line or two. Puck told her how to recognize him, that is, Thomas: right hand gloved, left hand bare, hat cocked up and hair down, riding nearest the town. He also told her where she would encounter the ride (at Miles Cross) and what horrors he would probably turn into, and that she must hold him until dawn. When he had done, we watched the woman go running back across the downs, her hair loose and tangled behind her, then Puck took me by one hand and Fenoderee by the other while I commanded the boots to take me back outside Oberon’s castle.
There we stood upon the terrace, looking out across the midnight meadows, listening to the night creatures and the stream, both murmuring.
“That was a courageous thing you did,” said Puck. “To help your fellowman.”
“Help fellowman, play Faery false,” I said bitterly. “One is the same as the other. I am neither nor, Puck. I am confused and wishing myself other than I am.”
“Would we could help you, Beauty. Will it help to know you are helping Faery, too?”
“How?” I asked, very sceptically.
“They break the treaty if they give Thomas to the Dark Lord. And that will harm
