Queen Mab (3 page)

And then the dream faded to reality.

Queen Mab found herself standing alone in an empty room with two sleeping figures in a bed.  Her owl still waited on the window sill.

Her mind tried to piece together the memory of the dreamscape.  It felt like catching raindrops.  The thoughts slid through her fingers and were gone.  Only one image stayed in her head. She had been successful in securing the return of her bull.

Nothing else remained.

She would return home tonight, leaving the Capulets and Montagues to play out whatever end they wanted to this game of war.  She had won, and that was all that she desired.  She looked in the mirror and admired her face in the glass.  Such a face could stop men in their tracks, she thought before she left.

Q
ueen Mab stood before her dressing table.  She had flown upon her owl to her palace outside Verona, overwhelmed with the satisfaction of victory.  Her estate stood untouched from the ravages of the war, its topiary gardens tended by the faerie folk, her home of gold and butter colored marble gleaming from their ministrations.  Her palace existed in a space which could only be found by those who sought her by name, only seen by those who knew what was already there.  But she knew that no one would trouble her tonight.  For the first time since the war began years ago, there would be no dreams.  She called to her faerie attendants.  "Come!  Prepare my bed!" she cried.

With a rustle of wings, her two handmaidens entered her room, chattering and giggling as they came.

Queen Mab did not look over her shoulder as she felt their hands untie the laces, their nimble fingers freeing her from the vice of daily dress.

"Tomorrow shall be a celebration," she pronounced.  "The war is ended!  My sacred bull returned!  And all our people can look forward to returning home after ages of this mortal bloodshed."

Her ladies murmured in excitement.

"Tell the house to prepare for the feast!" Mab stated as she turned.

The two fairies recoiled as she met their eyes, stumbling back as if to get away from her.

"What is the matter?" Mab asked.  When they did not answer, but continued to stare, she looked about the room wildly for the thing that frightened them.

The one faerie whispered, "Have you looked into the mirror, my queen?"

Mab turned and saw nothing but her face.  "What?  You act as if there is something wrong."

"You do not see?" said the other.

"No," replied Mab.  Her heart became cold as she saw her handmaiden's fear turn from fright to disgust.  "Is this some mean trick?"

"We must away," said the first.  "We must tell the house to prepare for the feast without delay."

The two flew out of the room like the hounds of hell themselves were nipping at their heels, glancing back as they left as if to see if they were pursued.  Mab looked again in the mirror.

"They think to make the fool of me," she hissed.  "Perhaps that Faunus has corrupted their minds.  I shall not tolerate disloyalty in my own handmaidens.  Tomorrow, I shall seek their replacement."

But on the morrow, when the first mote of sunlight fell upon the room, her handmaidens came in to wake her as they had always done, only they behaved as if they could not see her.  Though they could hear her voice, they searched high and low for their missing queen, thinking it some sort of game.  Her shouts and screams only elicited giggles, her demands brought their playful remarks.  Mab drifted restlessly through the house, watching the preparations for the feast, and yet no glance fell her way, no object moved at her touch.

Then she stepped into a sunbeam.

Verona dissolved.  Her eyes opened and she awoke as if from a dream.  She was once again in her bed.  She sat up, startled, and looked around.  It was her room, but it was as quiet and as cold as a tomb.  Her breath came out in frozen clouds.  Icicles hung from the corners of her dressing table and dripped like wax from her sconces and chandeliers.  She called for her handmaidens, but her voice echoed down the empty hallways and no one replied.

She touched her skin, her hair, the bedclothes, a hairbrush.  She was real and so was this world.  She tried desperately to remember what means of witchcraft had been practiced upon her, but the dream of the night before, from the moment when she was in Lord Montague's home to the moment she departed upon the back of her owl, was gone in a haze of forgotten memory.

Her naked feet padded her way across the biting marble stones to her balcony.  She opened the doors.  The sky was dark, without a single star, and the world covered in snow.  No footstep of man or beast marred the blanket of perfect white.  She called out again to the world, hoping for some sign.  Silence was its response.

She tried to shrink her form, to call for her chariot to take her away.  But she held no more power than an ant telling an elephant to bow before it.

She had been banished from the touch of day.

Terror gave way to anger.  She stormed through her empty palace.  It was as if it was frozen in time with her as its prisoner.  She dashed objects of beauty upon the floor and walls, treasures she had spent years gathering like a magpie.  But no amount of screams or sobs, destruction or threats changed her situation.  Mab sat once more upon her bed.  She was trapped.  There was no escape.

Exhausted and emotionally wrought, she lay her head upon her pillow and closed her eyes.

And then she opened them.

She was once again in her Verona.  She looked around the room and it was as she always knew it.  The cold was gone, the sounds of the house filled her ears.  That tomb of white was now replaced with the warmth of gold gilt and candlelight.  She rose and ran to her balcony.  The sun had set and the stars welcomed her home.  Her heart leapt with gladness, overflowing with gratitude for just a moment before it turned to bitter rage at this kidnapping. 

She cooled its heat by telling herself it must have been a trick of the mind. 

But her guests were arriving for the battle-won feast.  Dragons and faeries, gnomes and dryads, they lined her garden and filled the night with raucous merriment.  Now was the time for celebration!

Ready to put aside the strange dream and join in the festivities of her victory, she walked to the top of her grand staircase and looked down upon the ballroom of revelers. The crowd hushed.  The horned and pointed faces of her faerie friends turning towards her.  The dancing stopped.

But it was not in reverence. 

Their alien black eyes widened with fear.  Their bodies shrank. Nervous laughter tinkled across the floor.

Her mouth dried. 

"The battle is won, my friends," she said with forced lightness.  "You need not recoil.  No favors shall I ask of you today, no commands shall spring from my lips.  Tonight we celebrate!"

Their voices did not rise as one in support of her call.  Instead, they backed away.  They placed their goblets upon the tables and made carefully for the doors like prey creeping out of the den of a sleeping bear. 

"You act as if I am a monster," she raged. Like a dam breaking, they ran.  "Dare you to abandon your queen?" she cried as she flew down the steps.  Their voices screamed in terror and cried out in fear. 

Her faerie captain, one she once thought a dear friend, fell to his knees gibbering and pleading.  "Oh vile creature!  Spare me my life!"

Something, some soft part of the last remains of her heart, broke.  She roared as he scrambled away. "A vile creature you say?  Very well!  So you shall have!"

She chased them from her hall, chased them from her house, chased them all away until the only fear and laughter came from the repeated memories still ringing in her ears.

As she looked out upon the rising moon, she thought she saw the silhouette of a goat man and heard the drifting melodies of a joyous, piping tune.

"Q
uite happy, they are," whispered Juno, looking down upon the couple as they gazed upon their son.

The birthing room was still shuttered in darkness.  Though the crisp chill of fall nipped the air outside, the heat in this room from the fire caused sweat to prickle upon Lord Montague’s brow.  Exhausted, his wife lay upon the pillows of her bed as her midwife bathed their wailing child, unaware that this birth was witnessed by the gods. 

Faunus played a bored trill upon his pipes.

"Are you so weary of this world that you can no longer appreciate the joy of hearth and home?" asked Juno with a smile.

"I have never appreciated the joy of hearth and home, goddess."

Juno laughed, "You are not one to mince words, are you, Faunus?"

"Mince steps, perhaps, but never words," Faunus replied.

"Look upon them," said Juno.  "Look at the progeny of a century of planning."

Faunus stroked his beard, looking closer with a whisper of unfeigned interest, "I see now why you brought me here.  This is the son of the son...?"

"Yes, of the son of the son of the couple you protected from Queen Mab.  I have never forgotten their devotion to me, and indeed, generations of their family have not forgotten either."

"You chose wisely," Faunus complimented.

"The House of Montague is strong.  The strength of the gods beats within their veins.  Their protection was well worth the price of that sacred bull you stole, is it not, Faunus?"

Faunus shrugged.  "But to what end, Juno?  At what cost is this child?  More than just the bull which you took after it was rightfully won by me."

"Relinquishing that bull secured this House." 

"I care not for politics and babes."

Juno's eyebrow rose as she looked over at Faunus. "My... a century has almost passed and yet do you still mourn the loss of your queen of dreams?"

"I would not say mourn," replied Faunus.  "But do you not miss the way my people might ride through both day and night?  Do you not miss the taste, the hunt, the flavor that she brought to the darkest moments of this world's turn?"

Juno looked back at the family.  "Do not feign affection.  You do not miss her presence, old friend, despite what your lips might say.  Your lips were always the better for silencing than speaking, so speak it plainly or do not speak at all. "

He leaned forward. "Ah, Goddess Juno, as perceptive as you are wise.  I should have known better than to think I could deceive you."  He motioned to the window, at the cracks of light yearning to contaminate the room.  "Worry has indeed begun to trouble my days.  I think perhaps that Mab shall grow weary of the night.  I know her well.  She shall grow tired of her prison. I fear she shall seek to overthrow thee."

Juno laughed, "A goddess fearful of a queen?  You have spent too much time in the courts of man.  Mab is defanged.  She is as toothless as this newborn babe whose bite relieves his nursemaid's aching and swollen breast."

"You made a castrato of her for a breeding pair of Montagues.  Think you that a demigod takes such an insult as a lesson?  Think you that this education makes her hold her power less dear?"

Juno smiled like a cat with cream. "She shall learn to love or learn to love her prison, and whichever she chooses makes to me no difference."

"Heed my warning!"

"I hear you, Faunus, and shall decide myself how ominous the sky."

"The clouds hang black and heavy with the storm."

"And perhaps they shall blow through.  Now, hush.  It is the time of naming."

The mother rocked her newly born child and whispered to her husband, "Romeo.  I name thee Romeo."

Juno nodded in approval. "It is a good name."

The mother passed the child off to the nursemaid and settled back against her pillow.  Her husband pressed his lips against her brow and left the room.

Faunus raised an eyebrow at the cold that had fallen upon the couple.  "The winter follows the autumn harvest, I see.  Perhaps we should have kept the bull."

O
utside Mab's window, the rolling hills of Verona were covered in a deep layer of frost gleaming in the moonlight.  The chamber in her palace was just as cold, the grey stones of this room icy to the touch.  As she breathed, a cloud of white spoke the direction of her words.

The winter months of Italy brought her the most delight.  The days grew short and the hours that her feet might tread the earth grew long.  The cold was like a kindred reflection. It matched the distant chill that had taken up residence in her heart, that unending fear of walking in the sun and waking in a world where lonely powerlessness went on without end.

But here in Verona she ruled the night and gladly kept the darkness as her friend.  Rarely did she have visitors.  Indeed, most mortals were too fearful to seek out her council.  And rightly so.  She was not moved by pity or desperate stories in need of her compassion.  Her price was hefty and rarely could a man afford the bill.

Even so, there was a man before her here in her mortal dwelling.  A man who had found the path to her palace, and so must have sought her directly by name.  This man knelt as he rightfully should before her slippered foot.  He seemed to recoil every time he looked up at her face, casting his eyes to the ground, as if overwhelmed by the power he saw in her.  It pleased her that he seemed knowledgeable of the rightful ways that one should address a faerie queen.

She smiled.

"Queen Mab," he murmured as he knelt before her, hand placed over his heart in fealty, if not devotion.  "Forgive me for coming to you with a petition."

She thought for a moment, pausing to consider if she were in a mood for the dreams of man, so often tied to power and wealth.  But perhaps he might surprise her.  Perhaps he might give her a moment's distraction from the passing hours.  She waved a slender finger so pale from the darkness of night, it looked like snow.

"My grandfather of old passed down the story that you were always a friend to our family, that your favor granted us special counsel and privilege," the man said. 

Now he raised his eyes, eyes as brown as moistened loam to look at her, to plead.  She descended from her throne and took the man's chin within her two fingers, turning his head this way and that.  She sensed a regal bearing in his stance, in the way he pulled from her touch, as if not used to the hands of a stranger upon his face.  The mark of Capulet still remained and reminded her of that foolish promise she had made to that ancestor of his.