Gossamyr (11 page)

Twenty paces away the caravan began to move.

"She has no right," Gossamyr growled. Unmoving, she
found she had no desire to leap up and run attack upon the carriage.
For much as she wanted to believe she could win any challenge, the
threat of so many mortal weapons becalmed her bravado. "The fée
are not animals. Did you see her? She was close to death. Her
wings... oh..."

"Stand up." With Ulrich's offer, Gossamyr clasped his
hand and stood. "I know naught what you are about, my lady. But
I can wager a guess."

She lifted a defiant chin. In the darkness it was difficult to
determine whether he jested or spoke a challenge.

"We shall be off, without further mention—"

She jerked from his touch.

Beneath the wool cloak, she felt the hem of her pourpoint fall
away from her waist. "Oh!" She clutched the fabric, hearing
the dried leaves crumble.

"You are falling apart at the seams,"he said. "Tough
bit of luck."

Blight! Her father had not been jesting when he'd said the
Disenchantment takes quickly.

Apprehensions brewing, Gossamyr eyed the caravan that wobbled off
down the road. Oh, but she had looked upon Disenchantment. Pale and
shivering and in chains. Let it not be so cruel to her!

A testing bend of knee determined her leathers still held. The
tough material should hold. But who knew what the Disenchantment
could do? Had Shinn known she would literally lose the clothing from
her body?

Gossamyr jerked as Ulrich moved aside the cloak to look her over.
The sweeping movement of the wool ripped the back of her pourpoint.
Quickly, she pressed a hand to her chest.

A low whistle punctuated his astonishment. Ulrich tugged the cloak
tightly over her groping arms and secured the perimeter with a
scanning eve, though the night could not allow him distance. "You
need proper attire, fair lady. Most urgently."

"There may be a seamstress in the next village."

"You heard the knight; Armagnacs have entered Aparjon. We
will do well to pass around the city."

"But—"

"You are too quick to fight, my lady. I will not risk my neck
standing aside you as we enter an embattled city."

He removed the saddlebag from his shoulder and carefully placed it
across the mule's flanks. "We must make haste. I would let you
ride behind me."

"Behind you?" She had never shared a mount with anyone.
Why, there was barely room on the beast for Ulrich's long limbs and
overstuffed saddlebag and the crossbow. "Impossible."

"You are a bit of a spoiled one, eh?"

"What?"

He turned, one arm propped at his waist, the other hand tapping
impatiently upon Fancy's back. "I said, you are spoiled."

"You think I've gone bad? Do I...do I smell?" She
attempted to scent her immediate air but only smelled the coolness of
the night and a faint tang, which she attributed to Fancy.

"Spoiled, as in rotten. Everyone jumps to your whim. The
princess demands her pleasures. Whatever you should ask is given."

"What be wrong with that?" She stabbed her staff into
the ground.

They both looked to the ground to spy the clump of dry hornbeam
fluttering out from beneath the cloak. Flakes of the enchanted,
disarrayed and damaged.

"What is it I have heard about Faery finery and coin?"
Ulrich pressed a wondering finger to his chin. Glee sparkled in his
eyes, Gossamyr sensed, for it was dark save for the carriage lanterns
bobbing down the road. Private as it should have been, he enjoyed her
humiliation immensely. "It disperses to dust once introduced to
the mortal realm." He toed the flakes of her decimated
pourpoint. They disintegrated to a glitter of dust.

Gossamyr nodded. "Very well. Be there another village close?"

"Pray there is. Now mount behind me. I promise I shall not
attempt to befriend you along the way."

"Splendid."

"Though I wager it shall be difficult to ignore a naked rider
clinging to my waist."

"I am not naked."

"Steal not my hope, my lady."

The sky thinned and receded. A flutter of his wings proved
ponderous. Never before had he felt as though the world might...slip
away. That his footsteps would not take hold on a path simply not
there. 'Twas as if he were falling through the roots.

Images from the fetch proved Gossamyr had successfully arrived in
the Otherside. She had even found a companion for the road. Shinn was
not overconcerned a mortal traveled at her side; the man would prove
a boon. As well, Gossamyr had easily managed the attacking bogie. He
would have expected nothing less. The vision of the caged fée
had disturbed him perhaps more deeply than it had affected his
daughter. She was strong. Capable.
Not a single reason for any
mortal to cage her.

And yet with every breath, Shinn felt the shiver that had become
his bane more deeply. Mortal touched. The result? His mortal passion.
A sweet punishment. And so much he had reaped from that risk.
Greatest of all, his child.

Gossamyr was gone from him. Gone.
Child of mine.

Should he have told her more? Revealed—

He just...he wanted her to return to him. But Gossamyr's truth
would prevent that.
She must never learn her truth.
For if she
continued to Believe she would Belong.

Clutching the curved crystal doorpull that opened into Gossamyr 's
bedchamber, Shinn stood for a breath, blinking, struggling to find
hold. The spice roses Mince cut daily for her room seeped into him,
cloying and powerful. Gossamyr's scent.

He had set his only daughter off on a dangerous mission. It had
been the right choice.

There had been no real choice. Shinn had known for some time
Gossamyr would be called to the Otherside. The mortal passion was
ever persistent. He could not interfere. Would Gossamyr sacrifice to
remain on the Otherside? Would she wish to do so?

"It is the bargain we made,Veridienne. For your home, you
must sacrifice"

"I sacrificed my home for you, Shinn! To love you."

"I acknowledge that, but to have it back, you must
—"

"Very well. I will do it. I will...leave her."

"Oh!" At Shinn's sigh Mince popped her head up from the
floor by the bed. "Lord Wintershinn." She tugged at her
tight blue gown, pulling it snugly over two gentle rolls on her
stomach. Her small wings fluttered madly as she backed away. Eyes not
meeting his, the rumpled fée backed right into the armoire and
bent a wing.

"Is there something amiss, Mince?" Shinn strode by the
bed. His fingertips grazed the cold, precise marble and danced
through the hanging bed curtains. Nothing out of ordinary. He walked
to the window where the long arachnagoss sheers fluttered on the
breeze. He turned abruptly, catching Mince in the act of shutting the
armoire—on a finger. "Are you looking for something?"

"Looking? Me?" The syllables shook more rapidly than her
tell-tale wings. "Why ask you that, my lord? Oh, no,
just...tidying up a bit. What of you? You're not looking for
Gossamyr?"

"Nay."

"Marvelous. Oh! Er, fine. Just fine."

Now he understood. Mince sought Gossamyr.

"I'm out to the yard."

"What for?"

"Oh? To check...for something. Erm, the peacocks must be
shooed from the roses."

"She is gone, Mince."

"She?" The matron paused by the door, turning to him
with delicate fingers curled into one another. "Who, Lord
Wintershinn?"

"Gossamyr has gone to the Otherside."

"No, I—I just saw her. I'm sure she's here somewhere,
swinging from the roots—I'll start there, my lord. She never
disappears for overlong."

"I sent her."

Mince gaped, seeming to momentarily choke on her own breath.
"W-why? How?" she breathed. "Did you...tell her
everything?"

"She seeks the Red Lady. I sent her through a Passage. You
know her truth will keep her from returning to me."

"Oh! But she needs to know! You've sent her to face the very
woman— Oh, dear."

Forgoing the village of Aparjon for what Ulrich claimed to be
another not three leagues to the east, the duo plodded through
unmarked grasses and followed a low rabbit-ravaged hedgerow for some
distance until a narrower, lesser traveled road attracted them. There
were no trees as far as she could see. The world was very silent.
Eerily so.

Ulrich called ahead to Gossamyr. "We should seek shelter for
the night, 'tis nearing matins."

"You don't think we'll make the village?"

"Likely not."

Sensing the man's exhaustion, Gossamyr conceded. "Very well."

Tugging Ulrich's cloak about her shoulders seemed to hold the
crumbling pourpoint together. She hoped. She had dismounted earlier
and now walked, finding the exercise more fitting than joggling along
on the miserable old mule. She sensed the beast tread alongside the
Infernal, and did not wish to put more of a burden on it than
necessary.

The fetch preceded her at a clever distance. She had ever thought
fetches only recorded noteworthy events. Mayhap Shinn missed her as
much as she was beginning to miss him? To have the fetch follow her
at all times?

Miss her father? It had been but part of a day.

The only thing she missed right now was the illumination of Faery.
This mortal night clung to Gossamyr on all sides. Crickets chirped
and unseen rodents scampered along the grassy borders of the rutted
path. She could not see Ulrich for the gloom, but judged him less
than twenty paces behind her.

His suggestion to stop was not entirely unwarranted. She did feel
the strain of her journey tug at the muscles in her calves and
shoulders. Yet the struggle to stride freely while keeping the cloak
wrapped—blight!

Gossamyr dropped the ends of the cloak and let the sweeping fabric
dangle. If her garments were to fall off, then so shall it be. For
she wanted to skip, to revel in this atmosphere that welcomed like a
warm embrace.

"Oh, Hades, be gone."

Gossamyr smirked at Ulrich's hissed remark. The man had babbled
most of the way. He had a strange compulsion to compare things, or
rather label them as either "the same" or "not the
same." She could not figure what he was about. But she had to
confess, having a companion eased a bit of her growing discomfort.
Alone in a new land. Physically capable, but...her thoughts had begun
to return to a place of safety.

She missed Mince. The matron was ever there, a companion, a
confidante. A willing foil when Shinn would question Gossamyr's day,
and she had snuck off to tournament. And always there to bring her
whatever she may request, to know before Gossamyr spoke her need.

Spoiled? Never before had she heard that term to describe one who
is given all she needs.
Such as a lady who travels with a caged
faery in tow?

Hmm...not like that. Nor did she smell.

An eerie feeling of disquiet shimmied about Gossamyr's body. It
wasn't as though she were frightened by the darkness. Nor could she
summon worry for any beastie that might leap out from the shadows at
her. In truth, a tiny niggling at encountering further outcasts from
the Netherdred did bother. Unfamiliar, this world. And yet,
intriguing. Horizontal and stretching for leagues that fell off the
horizon as if the Edge. Mayhap it was an edge? Veridienne had
detailed the stretch of France in her bestiary. It was edged by a
vast ocean—tribe Mer-de-Soleil territory; merfolk and selkies
and kelpies abounded there. But she had no measurement for distance
in this land. Unless it was down. So she must rely on Ulrich's
navigation.

Many Faery tribes inhabited the realm the mortals called France:
the Rougethorns, the Wisogoths, the Quinmarks, just a few. Yes, a
huge nation, and she but an itty speck skipping toward sure danger.
If she wasn't careful she might lose her grip and fall—as she
had once amidst the tangle of roots that reticulated about
Glamoursiege. Avenall—her Rougethorn; ever charming and
chivalrous—had caught her then.

Who would catch her now?

"No." Ulrich's voice had receded. "Not now. A
crossroads? Wicked luck. Now
this
is the same."

With every step Gossamyr felt the world close about her as if the
cloak wrapped tightly against her flesh. Enchantment sluiced from her
pores; she could feel it as a tangible prick. An ache hummed in her
heart, a central tremor that called from the shadows of mortality.
Home,
it whispered.
Embrace it.

No, no, no! Home was Faery. Not here.

Gossamyr fought back the invisible enemy, but the ache did settle
to a fine pulse, ever there. 'Twas the mortal passion, vying to wend
into her veins.

"Be damned with you all!"

Gossamyr stopped and swung about. Neither Fancy nor Ulrich were in
sight. But she could hear him...talking to someone?

"I beseech thee to allow me passage. No? Very well,
that
way. Yes, follow my direction. You there, follow the finger. Up,
up and away with you. Bloody saints, I shall be here all through the
night!"

"Ulrich?" Gossamyr stepped cautiously through the sooty
darkness. The whisper of a breeze through the long reeds that lined
the path danced them to a crisp shimmy. Her bare feet made not a
sound on the dirt road. The cloak whipped out behind her.

She spied Fancy, unloosed and grazing over a patch of clover.
Another outburst from Ulrich stirred Gossamyr to a trot, her staff
held horizontal and shoulder level, ready to spear.

"Another? Be patient; wait your turn. This way. Not so
pushy!"

"Ulrich?" Now Gossamyr could make out the gray outlines
of Ulrich's head, bowed and swaying as if in deep thought. She veered
from her approach as he swung out a hand and pointed starward.

"You. Yes, you next!"

"Whom are you speaking to?" There was not another person
in the vicinity. To be sure, Gossamyr turned a complete circle—staff
cutting the night—scanning the circumference. Scentless, the
air. Strange, she did neither smell the dirt or grass. She noted they
stood at a crossroad, Ulrich exact center.