Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven (24 page)

That had been the very day they moved in. The little maid had come over to see what the “English ladies” needed doing, and Nan had sent her back with letters to be posted with the family mail. She’d done so deliberately, so that the squire was aware that her name-dropping had the backing of truth. She knew very well that the addresses would be examined minutely, and that Lord A’s address would cause no end of high excitement.

It was probably the first time anyone in that lofty a set of circles had been written to from Gower Manor—though what with David Lloyd-George being the MP from this area, the Criccieth post office would be seeing missives going off to those with even loftier titles. Criccieth was very proud of its native son, and Nan must have heard a hundred predictions that “He’ll be the Prime Minister one day, never doubt it.” Still, the squire was not included in those circles, as he was not “political.” That was yet another bit of Criccieth gossip.

Their first night had been restful; there had been no singing from the bar to wake them, and the beds had been soft and scented with lavender. Breakfast had been just as tasty, if plainer, than the fare at the hotel. Cooking on the pretty little stove was like playing at keeping house. It felt as if they were really here to enjoy themselves.

Unfortunately, as Nan was all too well aware, they were not. Nan turned away from the kitchen window that gave a view of a lovely little garden. “Well…” Nan began, only to be interrupted by Sarah.

“I wish we really were on holiday,” her friend sighed. “This is lovely.”

Ordinarily Grey might have chimed in with an agreement, but Grey was stuffing herself with new peas, fresh from the garden, with a gluttonous abandon that could only be matched by a toddler with a jar of jam and no adults in sight.

“Well we’re not. Neville was off like a shot when I let him loose, I think he might actually have a—scent, or whatever it is that you can trace magic by.” Neville had been so eager to get out, he’d practically been dancing on his perch, and he hadn’t been at all coherent in his speech. He and Nan had other ways of communicating though, and she had gotten the distinct impression that as the cart carrying them and their belongings had neared Gower Manor, he’d picked up something promising.

Lord A had expressed no disappointment that they had as yet found nothing—but Nan didn’t like to keep him dangling like this. She wanted to be able to write “We’ve found the party you are looking for, and we are watching him for trouble” sooner rather than later.

“Well I hope this business lasts a good long time,” Sarah replied as she put their clothing away in the commodious wardrobe. “If I were to pick one spot in Britain where I would like to spend the whole summer, it would be here.”

Nan had to agree with her. For one thing, the weather around here was nothing like she’d been warned they’d get in Wales—rain, fog, and more rain. Instead, they got beautiful, sunny days, temperate nights, heavenly sea-breezes. For another, the cottage was just nice enough that it felt special, and not so luxurious that she felt uneasy, as if she was somewhere she had no right to be. It had three nice, cozy rooms below and a loft with a bed in it above—bedroom, a sort of sitting room, and a little kitchen. Sarah had claimed the loft immediately. The kitchen even had its own pump. Baths might be done the old-fashioned way, heating water in a kettle and bathing in a tin tub in the kitchen in front of the fire, but at least they wouldn’t be doing so on a riverbank, with a crowd of curious native children around them, waiting to see if their pale color was something that would wash off, like a layer of white mud. Or with other native children on guard for them, watching for crocodiles or hippos or snakes.

The former had been amusing; the latter, not so much.

The furnishing of this place had obviously been done out of the
attics of the Manor, which was not to say that the furnishings were shabby or uncomfortable, merely old-fashioned, perhaps a trifle countrified, which suited both of them.

Grey looked up from her peas. “Neville’s coming,” she remarked, and put her head back down in her bowl.

A moment later Neville landed in the doorway, stalked into the cottage, then used a chair seat and the back of the chair to get to his perch. He shook his head and quorked, querulously, his way of saying that his vocabulary didn’t extend to what he wanted to say.

Nan came over to him and put her hands around his head, staring into his eyes, letting impressions come to her.

As often happened, she got a raven’s-eye view of things. By now she no longer felt dizzy when experiencing memories of flying. Finally she let him go, and got him a bowl full of bits of bread soaked with milk and some curds and currants for good measure.

“He’s frustrated. There is definitely magic down on the coast, but he can’t make out exactly where it is. It’s like a fog over a certain area. He has the sense that whatever is doing the magic is making that fog deliberately, in order to confuse,” she told Sarah.

“That sounds difficult…” Sarah replied thoughtfully. “I should think that would denote a high level of skill.”

Nan could only shrug. “All right. I think we have done as much as we can by ourselves. I’m going to see if you-know-who answers when we try calling. If he doesn’t, we’re no worse off, and if he does, he’ll save us a great deal of trouble.”

“I have the Shakespeare.” Sarah produced two little brown volumes immediately. “I had the feeling we were going to need them.”

“And I found a fairy ring when I was exploring the garden.” Nan raised an eyebrow. “Which makes me wonder if we’ve been expected…”

“You never know… hmm… you know, I think we should not be empty-handed this time. We should bring tea.” Sarah began cutting slices of bread. She wrapped them in a napkin, then got a pot of strawberry jam, another of butter, some hard-boiled eggs and a bit of paper with salt in it, and put them all in a basket with knives
and more napkins. Nan looked at her curiously, then shrugged and filled a jug with water from the pump. Sarah added some pottery mugs to the basket and put the books on top. “That should do,” she said. She took the basket, Nan carried the jug, and led the way to the fairy circle she had found, a ring of mushrooms growing as neatly as if they had been planted there.

They put the jug and the basket down carefully outside the circle, stepped into the ring with great care not to disturb any mushrooms, and took the books, opening them to the familiar pages.

Nan took out her sprigs of oak, ash and thorn, put them on the grass between her and Sarah, and pitched her voice low. “How now, spirit! whither wander you?”

That was Puck’s part. As the fairy queen Titania’s handmaiden, Sarah replied. “Over hill, over dale / Thorough bush, thorough brier / Over park, over pale / Thorough flood, thorough fire / I do wander everywhere / Swifter than the moon’s sphere; / And I serve the fairy queen / To dew her orbs upon the green. / The cowslips tall her pensioners be: / In their gold coats spots you see; / Those be rubies, fairy favors / In those freckles live their savors: / I must go seek some dewdrops here / And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear. / Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone. / Our queen and all our elves come here anon.”

Nan continued, still taking Puck’s part, shading her voice with warning. “The king doth keep his revels here to-night: / Take heed the queen come not within his sight; / For Oberon is passing fell and wrath / Because that she as her attendant hath / A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; / She never had so sweet a changeling; / And jealous Oberon would have the child / Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild; / But she perforce withholds the loved boy / Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy: / And now they never meet in grove or green / By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen / But, they do square / that all their elves for fear / Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.”

Now Sarah narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at Nan, her voice full of suspicion. “Either I mistake your shape and making
quite / Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite / Call’d Robin Goodfellow: / are not you he / That frights the maidens of the villagery; / Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern / And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; / And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; / Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? / Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck /You do their work, and they shall have good luck: / Are not you he?”

Before Nan could answer, the sound of slow applause stopped her. They both turned.

A very handsome young man stood there, clapping his hands with approval, wearing the sort of clothing that would not have been unusual on any of the young farmers hereabouts: linen shirt, open at the throat, heavier smock over it, loose brown trousers, barefoot. He had a shock of reddish, curly hair, a very merry round face—and there was no mistaking the green eyes that danced amusement at them. He confirmed Nan’s guess by clearing his throat and taking the next lines. “Thou speak’st aright; / I am that merry wanderer of the night. / I jest to Oberon and make him smile When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, / Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: / And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, / In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks, against her lips I bob / And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale. / The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, / Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; / Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, / And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough; / And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, / And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear / A merrier hour was never wasted there.”

Then he grinned, and held out his arms. “And merry met again, my pretty girls! Your Robin has missed you!”

“Puck!” squealed Sarah. Nan just grinned, and without any sense of embarrassment whatsoever, the two of them skipped out of the circle to embrace him like the old friend he was.

He kissed the tops of their heads, being more than a head taller than either of them. “Eh, now, you’ve grown, you two.”

“And so have you!” Sarah retorted. “Thou naughty sprite! We know
now
you can take whatever shape you want to. You’re just humoring us!”

“Welladay, welladay, would you rather I was your beamish boy, all apple-cheeks and innocence?” He stepped back from them, and between one breath and the next, became the boy they had first met.

“We like you however you choose to be, boy or man or Prince of Logres,” Sarah said firmly. “Or Pooka or Hob or sprite. You’re still Puck and still our friend no matter what shape you take.”

“Eh, well said, sweet Sarah.” A blur and a blink and he was the young man again. “But I think I’ll be wearing this suit o’skin for now.” He sniffed. “Do I smell jam?”

“Very nice jam,” Nan affirmed. “We brought you a tea—though we didn’t actually bring tea, just water.”

“Piff, I can remedy that.” He waved a hand airily. “Well, spread your carpet on the green, and let’s have tea whilst you tell me what brings you to the land of Daffyd and Deryn.”

They had brought a cloth to save their skirts from staining, and Nan laid it down while Sarah spread out the food. On pouring out the water, it appeared that Puck had done something to it. “Cowslip wine,” he said, around a mouthful of buttered, jam-spread bread. “Never fear, ’tisn’t strong enough to get a child tipsy, I just fancy it.”

“Well, it’s a short tale,” Nan said, carefully buttering her own slice of bread. “Lord Alderscroft got wind of a new Elemental Master somewhere hereabouts. A Water Master, he says, but the Elementals won’t say who it is or exactly where the person is. He wants us to find this Master and… well, explain the Lodge and the Circle, and see what happens.”

“Hmm-hmm, and spy in the meantime to see if the new Master is likely to fall into dark paths.” Puck nodded. “Seeing as he trod that road himself, nearly to his own undoing. With pain comes wisdom, at least in his case.” He finished his slice and started on another. “And I reckon you two have come to the conclusion that you aren’t going to find out who it is.”

Sarah sighed. “Yes. So… well, we thought we’d see if
you
would help. Since you’re the Oldest Old Thing—”

“Ah, on land but
not
in the sea, my pretties, and this new Master has a Master, and that Master is Llyr.” He nodded, though both of them looked at him, mystified. “Oh, yes, Llyr, wave-crowned, Oldest Old Thing in the Sea as I am on the Land. Sea-lord as I am Land-lord, and guardian of the Selch and the Pooka and all the other Fair Folk of the waters. He saw this one, and saw the power in her, and claimed her as his own, and no more ready to see power go to the bad than I am, he’s seen she gets training.”

Nan gaped at him.
She!
Well that would give Lord A a bit of a turn!

Puck grinned at them. “Aye, aye, a girl-child it is, and your lord never considered that, now, did he?”

“Not really,” Sarah said, and smiled just a bit. “Well, then, can you help us?”

“Hmmm, now that is a question. I wouldn’t want to tread on Llyr’s toes, no I wouldn’t. He’s a bitter thing, and cold, and his thoughts are dark, on account of family troubles in the long-ago, and oh, but he is quick to anger.” Puck finished his second slice of bread and leaned back, mug full of cowslip wine in hand. “Mind, he almost never shows his own self, leaving working his will up to his creatures. And he’s like the sea, all smiles and sunny on the surface, but dark and deep and sometimes deadly beneath. Welladay. I shall tell you what I can do. I’ll show you where she is, and I’ll give you the means to see through Llyr’s magic, and what you do then is up to you. Bearing in mind that you won’t want to anger Llyr.”

Nan let out her breath in a long sigh. “That’s more than I’d have dared ask for,” she said. “I don’t want to presume on our friendship.”

“Which is why you are my friends still, oh pretty goose.” He passed his hand over the top of the jug, which was still half-full, and gravely poured out mugs full of something golden as honey for each of them. “And now that I think of it, I want you to be keeping
an eye on this maiden for me, as well. Dark things are watching her and will try and use her. It is so with all who are strong and ignorant.”