‘Come with me,’ Deortha demanded.
Will followed the sorcerer down flight after flight of steps until he found himself in a small, bare antechamber lit by a single torch. The Fay left him there, alone, for what seemed like a lifetime. He paced and brooded and made silent vows until he heard the door creak open.
Turning, he stared into the sorcerer’s pale eyes. Deortha stepped aside with a sweep of his arm to reveal Jenny, her expression dark with suspicion. Will felt his heart leap. His head spun with the thousand imagined speeches he had dreamed of making when they met again, but he uttered none of them. Instead, he found himself transfixed by the luminescence of her youth and beauty.
She had not changed in the fifteen years they had been apart. Her milky skin was smooth, her brow unlined, her cheeks full and her eyes bright. Unconsciously his fingers crept to his own unkempt, unshaven face, tracing the pattern of years, the wrinkles round his eyes from long spells under a mediterranean sun, the laughter lines bracketing his mouth from lush days in the Mermaid with Kit Marlowe and spicy nights with the doxies in Liz Longshanks’s stew. There was the true tragedy. He had thought her only a prisoner, but trapped in this timeless place she had drifted away from him in years and experience, the commonality of their life and the bonds forged by being in the same place at the same time shattered for ever. Though she stood only a sword’s length from him, she might as well have been a thousand miles away.
And yet it was still Jenny. He refused to allow sour thoughts to tarnish the moment, and moved to embrace her.
Sharper than a slap to his face was Jenny’s cold look. She half turned to the sorcerer and demanded, ‘Who is this?’
Will recoiled. In her eyes, he could see no trace of the Unseelie Court’s taint. Jenny truly did not recognize him.
His voice barely a whisper, he said, ‘This dark place has swallowed your memories. Cast your mind back to England, to Warwickshire and the village of your birth. Remember the hours we walked in the woods together, or dallied on the banks of the millstream.’ He watched her brow knit, but no recognition sparked in her features. ‘I am Will.’ He felt a lump rise in his throat.
She shook her head. ‘If we knew each other once, it is long gone. This place is all I remember. How could it not be? I have dwelled here now these past thousand years.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
SILENCE LAY LIKE a shroud across the antechamber. In that emptiness, Will could hear his world crumble and fall away. At the door, Deortha listened for any intruders. ‘Dreams are elusive,’ the sorcerer said without emotion. ‘And sometimes the most fervent wishes float out for long years and return like an arrow through the heart.’
‘No,’ Will snapped. ‘I will not accept that.’
‘And what will you do? Stab it with your dagger? Plunge your sword through its heart?’ Deortha turned back to him, his pale eyes glowing in the gloom. ‘Here is an enemy that is immune to all your vaunted martial skills.’
Reaching out one imploring hand, Will stepped towards Jenny. She near-leapt away from him. ‘Stay back,’ she said. ‘No stranger can approach the King’s consort.’
Will felt his blood run cold.
‘And there lies the heart of this great tragedy,’ Deortha said with a sour undertone. ‘We are thrust together in a bitter struggle of monumental proportions. Many lives hang in the balance, and power, and the very shape of what has been and what will be. And all that we fight to achieve has been placed at risk. By this.’ He waved a contemptuous hand towards Will and Jenny. ‘By the insignificant desires of three lovesick fools.’
‘Enough,’ Will said. ‘Tell me some truths.’
‘Truths?’ Deortha glowered. ‘Do you remember aught of how you came to us?’ he asked Jenny.
‘I have always been here,’ she replied, her chin raised defiantly.
‘You are not one of us. You are a mortal.’
‘And you have always despised me for it,’ Jenny snapped.
Will was surprised to see anger in the sorcerer’s face. ‘If you have only contempt for humans, why did you steal Jenny away?’ he asked.
‘We are strong and you are weak,’ Deortha replied, pursing his lips, ‘but sometimes . . . some of my kind . . . are infected with a flaw of the spirit. A black corruption that eats away at their hearts. We keep our secrets well. We lie to ourselves and pretend. But our history is littered with the failures of those who have turned their affections towards your kind.’
Will watched Jenny’s face, a chill rising as he began to understand.
‘Our King . . .’ Deortha formed the word as if he had a pebble in his mouth, ‘came across this woman while at play in your land. It is in his nature to give himself to foolhardy pursuits. Day after day, he watched her, until he believed his heart held affection.’ He waved a hand as if dispelling a stench. ‘Love.’
‘So he took her,’ Will said with quick anger. ‘He forced her to submit to his will.’
‘We have nothing but time.’ A cruel smile flickered on the sorcerer’s lips. ‘We can wait for the waves to turn the rocks to sand if we wish. Time does our work for us. Mandraxas only had to wait. Here in this place, the years eroded her resolve, which at the beginning was great indeed. Removed from the comforts of her own life, it became like a half-remembered dream. She saw only our home, and the wonders it contained, and slowly she fell into its embrace.’
As she listened to the sorcerer’s words, Jenny hung her head, a faraway look in her eyes as if something deep was stirring inside her.
‘How can it be,’ Will asked, ‘that only fifteen years passed in our world and a thousand here?’
‘The rules of existence are not as simple as your “wise men” would have you believe.’
Will felt hollow. He had always believed the solution to his suffering was simple – to bring Jenny home. But this . . . this seemed insurmountable.
‘And still you think us devils, even though we show love for your kind,’ Deortha said. ‘Let me reveal one more secret. Then perhaps you will see who are the true devils. Your own kind knew where this woman had been taken, and why. Indeed, they encouraged it.’ The contempt was barely restrained.
‘Why would they?’ Will snapped, all his long-held suspicions turning to hot anger. This must have been what Grace overheard Cecil and Essex discussing as the court left Nonsuch.
‘A good question. Yes, why?’ The sorcerer smiled, but his eyes remained icy.
‘Tell me!’ Will fought the compulsion to beat the answer out of the Fay.
‘In good time.’ Deortha raised an index finger. ‘Firstly, nothing is ever lost. You must know that this is true. What was still stirs within her, if you can but find it.’
Will saw Jenny studying him. When he smiled, she did not look away. Perhaps there was hope yet, he thought. ‘And you tell me this out of the goodness of your heart?’ he said to the sorcerer sardonically. ‘What is it you require in exchange?’
‘I wish you to take this woman away from here.’
‘What gain is there for you in that?’
‘He would not have me whispering in the King’s ear,’ Jenny said acidly.
‘She has stolen what little steel Mandraxas had.’ Deortha ignored Jenny’s glare. ‘We cannot win this war while she sits beside the Golden Throne. And we will never have our Queen returned to us.’
‘How so?’
‘The King does not want the Queen returned from her imprisonment at your hands.’ Deortha circled Jenny like a carrion crow eyeing a wounded rabbit. She stared at the torch through heavy lids, pretending to ignore him. ‘He would lose both the Golden Throne and this woman he loves so much. The Queen would never allow such an abomination to continue. If she knew a mortal sat as King’s consort beside the Golden Throne, her fury would be terrible indeed.’
Will paced beside the black basalt walls, weighing the Fay’s words. His thoughts raced, confused by the revelations, and he fought to make sense of everything he had heard. After a moment, he smiled to himself. ‘Mandraxas does not want to free the Queen for he would lose what he cares for most,’ he mused. ‘And so the plots of Elizabeth’s court are reflected here. You are more like us than you realize.’
