The Crafters Book Two (19 page)

“Even so.” The voice was a thrumming in the air, a deep vibration within their skulls. “I am a spirit foreign to the land, but strong enough withal, especially on such a night as this. Give over, Faerie lord! Give over, ghost! For I shall hold thee bound till thou dost cry ‘Hold, enough!’”

“Never shall I bow so!” Qualin raged. “What hellspawn hath brought thee here?”

“A spawn of mortal folk, and not of Hell at all,” said a resonant voice behind Anthea. She spun about with a gasp, and saw a gentleman in breeches and Hessian boots, though his coat and neckcloth were gone and his shirt torn wide open, showing a manly, muscular chest. “Roman!” she cried, then blushed. “I mean, Mr. Crafter!”

“The same, Miss Gosling.” But Roman’s gaze was fixed on Qualin and the ghost. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Wouldst thou speak as though in a drawing room, thou fool?” the Faerie lord snapped.

“Why not?” Roman said, with airy disregard of the circumstances. “We may as well be civilized, after all, since we cannot do one another harm. Anthea, would you do the honors?”

Anthea noticed the use of her Christian name alone, but knew it was no time to charge him with a breach of etiquette. “Mr. Roman Crafter, may you be pleased to make the acquaintance of Qualin, a lord of Faerie, and his lady, Lolorin, with their child. The knight is my old friend, Sir Roderick le Gos, late of Windhaven Manor.”

“Quite late, I should judge, from the cut of your armor.” Roman looked Sir Roderick up and down. “Still, it is becoming; you must give me the name of your tailor. I thank you for your kind intercession on behalf of Miss Anthea, Sir Roderick.”

“It is my pleasure,” the knight responded, “for I am privileged to think of her as my ward, though not in the eyes of the law—and you shall have to answer to me, Mr. Crafter, if you wish to know her better.”

“Why, Sir Roderick!” Anthea protested, blushing furiously.

“I gather he is the senior male of your house,” Roman inferred.

“If you are being so civil as to make introductions,” Qualin ground out, “might we know the name and style of this creature who has bound our swords?”

“My apologies,” Roman murmured. “He is a creature of the sea, and I made his acquaintance during a storm in the tropics. We got on famously, and he has chosen to accompany me for a brief space. In fact, it is through him that my cousin purchased my rise from powder monkey to midshipman, and thereby to ensign and, eventually, captain.”

“Yet he advanced by his own ability,” the spirit hummed. “Call me, as he does, merely ‘Erasmus.’ ”

“Saint Elmo’s Fire!” Anthea cried.

“Excellent, Miss Gosling,” Roman said, with surprised pleasure. “Not too many landlubbers know the term, or that ‘Elmo’ is the shortened form of ‘Erasmus.’ Yes, he has that name among the superstitious, though to tell you the truth, he has as little to do with saints as with demons—though I promise you, he can give living mortals quite a shock. Yet he seems to have taken a fancy to my inquisitive turn of mind.”

“And to your boldness and talent in dealing with spirits,” Erasmus hummed. “What say you, Roman? Shall I free these two banty roosters?”

“Banty roosters!” Sir Roderick choked.

“You will have to forgive my friend,” Roman apologized. “He has taken up many idioms that he learned from me in my youth—oh, very well, my early youth. But the question he asks is valid. Will you both sheathe your swords and try to deal in reason, if he releases you?”

“Well, I will attempt it,” Sir Roderick huffed.

“And I.” But Qualin’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Yet I warn thee, I will not permit the lady to be taken from us, if she doth choose to stay.”

Roman glared at him for a space, then said, “Fair enough. She is, after all, her own person. It is your decision, Anthea, and we will all abide by it. Agreed, gentlemen?”

Ghost and Faerie grumbled assent, and the glow drifted away from their swords to hover, a sphere of light, by Roman.

Anthea paled, and almost cried out in protest. Was she to be left without support in this? Though she did have to admit that she did not want to be compelled to a course of action she would not like, it would nonetheless be wonderful if someone else could only tell her what it was she wanted—and could be right.

“Please acquaint me with the nature of the contretemps,” Roman said. “Apparently the issue is the freedom of Miss Anthea Gosling. But why should there be any contention against it?”

“First tell me,” Qualin growled, “who you are, and how you came into my hill.”

“I am Roman Crafter, late of His Majesty’s Navy, and later of the United States of America.”

“What is that?”

“A country in the West, beyond the Isles and the ocean.”

“It cannot be.” Qualin’ s eyes burned. “Mortal eyes cannot see the Western Haven.”

“Quite right; the only ones we see are quite mortal, I assure you, and though they have their own population of elementals and spirits, none of them are of your race. As for myself, I had the bad fortune to be impressed into the British Navy, and the good fortune to meet Miss Anthea Gosling. When Erasmus told me that she had been spirited away by an a utter cad, I rode as quickly as I could to overtake them. I lost their track on the road, but Erasmus cast about and found them for me, and I arrived in time to spare her the worst of his attentions. Yet when I’d done with him, she had fled, and I was quite concerned for her further safety. Erasmus was good enough to seek you out again and unravel the spell that barred the entrance to this hill. I felt your presence and followed.”

Anthea stared. “But—the door ... the lock ...”

Roman frowned. “What door?”

“That huge old door in the hillside! He used a six-inch key to open it!”

Roman shook his head, gaze still on Qualin. “Only a bush, and a cave mouth.”

Anthea’s breath hissed in. “A glamour! It was an illusion that Qualin cast.” She looked up at the tall Faerie lord. “Did you think I would be more willing to help if I thought you lived in a rich house?”

“Aye, certes. If ’tis not so, thou art quite unlike all others of thy kind.” Qualin’s gaze stayed on Roman.

“Then,” Anthea breathed, “everything else I see is also a glamour. Take it away, please! You cannot expect me to dwell in the midst of a lie!”

“Thy kind ever have,” the Faerie lord snapped; but Lolorin murmured, “My lord, I prithee—let her see what is real.”

Qualin stood stock-still for a moment; then he shrugged, tossing his head. In the blink of an eye, the tapestries and carpet were gone, as were the rich wooden panels behind them. Damp rock walls showed in their place, webbed with niter where they merged into the cave’s roof. The four-poster bed was gone; Lolorin lay on a heap of old straw atop a rocky shelf, and her coverlet was several old furs sewn together, with patches of hair missing. Her gown was only linen, stained with age, and Qualin’s glorious raiment had faded to the dun colors of an old, threadbare tunic and hose.

“This is the truth thy kind so praise,” Lolorin said. “Why, I cannot tell—I had liefer live with glamour.”

“So would most of us.” Anthea felt her heart sink.

Even Roman looked somber, but he said, “You cannot expect a gentlewoman to live under such conditions!”

“Glamour will warm and comfort her,” Lorlorin protested.

“The lady is safe.” Qualin’ s tone was brittle.

“Be sure we shall not maltreat her; we have too great a need of her.”

“Need?” Roman turned to Anthea with a frown. “Would you acquaint us with the nature of that exigency, Miss Anthea? Surely you did not come into this hill of your own free will.”

“But I did, Mr. Crafter,” Anthea explained, “at least, into the cave that is the mouth of this tunnel. I sought to hide from Lord Delbert ... .” She shuddered at the thought of him.

“Do not fear,” Roman said quickly. “He is fled to the Continent, and will trouble you no further.” His eyes hardened. “I made quite sure of that.”

Anthea nearly asked what Roman could have done that would have made him so certain, but her courage failed her.

“I take it,” Roman went on, “that Lord Qualin then appeared, to entice you further in.”

“Why, yes,” Anthea admitted, “though I can scarcely blame him, since he did it to protect his own child.”

“Child?” Roman glanced sharply about the room. “Ah, yes!

The lady Lolorin, and the babe you mentioned. I take it they have need of a mortal nurse.”

Anthea blushed. “So they have explained it to me—and I am the only human woman they have come upon. If he does not have human milk, the baby will die.”

“So I have heard.” Roman frowned at Qualin. “But I confess to confusion. Has your race, ever so powerful, now grown so decadent as to need the services of a mortal nurse?”

“Nay!” Qualin exploded. “ ’Tis thy race that hath done it, thy kind that have filled the land with Cold Iron; thine air doth reek with the fumes of the blood of the earth! The insidious aura of unchecked Cold Iron doth pervade the aether, and doth sap the strength from our limbs! Even here, in the fastness of the Welsh mountains, doth that vibrating reach—even here, far from all cities, doth it deplete us!”

“ ’Tis true.” Lolorin’s eyes seemed even more huge. “ ’Tis therefore that my frame cannot bring forth milk rich enough for my child.”

“Unchecked Cold Iron?” Roman frowned. “What is this you speak of? Men have used Cold Iron in every way they can, for millenia!”

“Not so,” Qualin replied, “for your smithies have grown huge, and pour out vast quantities of the stuff—and more and more of it is alloyed and purified into such as was once reserved for swords!”

“Of course!” Roman lifted his head, understanding coming into his eyes. “Steel has a broader and stronger aura than mere iron—and there is more and more of both abroad, as horses are shod and wagons multiplied! Tell me, is it the Midlands that are especially noisome to you?”

“Aye. Where once was our haven, there are stinking piles of brick that are filled with bits of Cold Iron! Their aura pervades the Midlands; they blight the land!”

“Mills,” Anthea whispered.

“And their ramshackle towns,” Roman agreed. “Small wonder the Faerie Folk are vanishing.”

Anthea frowned. “But the tales of your kidnapping mortal wet nurses go back hundreds of years!”

Lolorin nodded. “Cold Iron began it—and as thy kind spread its use, so didst thou use it to hew down our trees, which did shelter our kind, and without which we cannot endure. Thus we retreated from thee and thy metal, for ’tis poisonous to us. We weakened, yet we persisted—till now.”

Qualin nodded stiffly. “Our folk began to flee, when they found that scarcely a house could be found in all Britain that was not filled with nails of Cold Iron. Aye, they did fly to the Western Isles, where I trust they remain to this day.”

Roman frowned. “The Western Isles that I cannot see?”

“Thou wouldst not, nor any of thy kind—nay, nor will any of thine instruments of alchemy reveal them to thee. Of all the sons of Mother Earth, only those of the Blood may find them, or the roads that lead there.”

Anthea looked up at Roman. “What instruments of alchemy are these?”

But Roman only answered, “I never did like being excluded ... .”

“There is no aid for it,” said Qualin. “Thy kind have not the eyes to see these Isles. Yet our folk did, and most fled; yet some did cling to our earth, and what remained of our forests, for ’twas the land and the trees that did give us birth, look thou, and we despaired of living without them. Aye, some few of us do bide in determination.”

“How is it that the aura of Cold Iron weakens you?” Roman said softly.

“ ’Tis counter to the coursing of our strength,” Qualin maintained. “ ’Tis too measured, too harsh. It doth disrupt all our magics, without which we cannot live.”

Roman nodded. “No wonder you fled as far from the cities as possible.”

“Not enough,” Anthea whispered, staring at Qualin. “It is leaching the life from you. How can you bear to stay?”

“We are intractable,” Lolorin said, her voice low. “For look you, ’twas our land ere any of thy kind did come here, this Britain, this England—and how could it be either, an there were no Faerie folk here?”

Qualin nodded. “Therefore we bide.”

“It must be immensely lonely,” Anthea breathed.

“I’ truth,” Lolorin whispered, “there are few enough of our kind that bide in all England—in all Europe, mayhap in all the world.”

“But how can you endure?” Anthea asked. “Even after this child has grown ... “ She looked down at the baby, which looked up at her, wide-eyed. She smiled tenderly. “Oh, Roman! I cannot leave so sweet a child to perish!” She looked up at Lolorin, her eyes swimming with tears. “How unfair of you, to show me the baby, when you knew it would tug at my heart as strongly as any man could!”

Lolorin only smiled, but with sadness and longing.

“Her point is well taken,” Roman said, his voice low. “She must be free to go where she will, without coercion—and when she chooses.”

Qualin’s mouth tensed with impatience. “Thou shalt have her so, when the babe no longer hath need of her.”

“How long will that be—a year? Two? She is a free woman, you know.”

“She shall not be our slave,” Lolorin said. “ ’Tis as thou sayest—she shall be handsomely paid, and we shall dismiss her in a year and a day as promised.”

“In your time, perhaps. But how long will that be in our time? Seven years? Fourteen?”

Qualin didn’t move, but something in his eyes showed that Roman had hit home. “We shall ensure that it be no longer in thy time than in ours.”

Roman shook his head. “It is not enough. You cannot ask her to forfeit her youth.”

“Thou dost presume.” Qualin seemed to draw inward, compacting, like a tiger readying itself to spring. “Thou dost not chaffer with the Old Ones.”

“If the lady’s freedom is at stake ...”

“Nay!” Lolorin cried. “Wilt thou two, in the pride of thy manhood, give the lass greater cause to weep than she already hath?”

“I do not wish it.” Anthea’s voice caught in a sob.

“Which?” rapped Qualin. “That the man be hurt? Or the babe starve?”

“I do not wish it! Neither! I cannot stand for Mr. Crafter to be hurt, or the babe! But if only I can save the infant, I will!”