Jennifer clutched her breast. Rupert was as shaken. He took a backward step and stammered, “I have no one—”
She leaned near. Her hair floated cloud-wan, bearing odors of thyme and roses. “Not Mary Villiers?” she whispered.
He made as if to fend her off. “She was never mine.”
Jennifer broke from her companions, sped through the dew-bright grass. “Leave off thy gramaries on him, thou witch!” she yelled.
Titania smiled as she withdrew to Oberon’s side. “Here’s one to make exchange of vows with thee,” she said.
Rupert caught the maiden’s wrist. “Be calm, they mean us well,” he began. She halted, but faced the queen and challenged: “What dost thou mean?”
“Thou heardst us speak, my child,” Titania responded gently. “Take each a ring and give it to the other, pledging faith, that he may have a torch to show his way, and thou thyself what safety thine bestows.”
Jennifer stood awhile, staring first at her, then at Rupert, there in whiteness and shadow. The moon was lowering and a thin cold ripple went through the air. At last the girl said, “I cannot give him what he owns already.”
Beneath the oak, Puck remarked to Will, “If he’ll not take the maiden’s ring she proffers, he is a fool, unless his softness lies elsewhere than in the brain.”
“A liavely wench,” the man agreed. “How spendthrift be’t, to risk thic slender waist.”
Rupert looked long at Jennifer in his turn before he joined his clasp to hers and said, as carefully as if his tone might shatter something of crystaclass="underline" “My dear, I am not worthy of thy troth. And’tis a pledge unsanctioned by the law or holy Church—”
Her words stumbled. “It only is forever.”
“I know not, nor dost thou. Let me remind that thou and I are worlds and wars apart. Nor do I like this pagan ceremony.”
“But… thou’lt go through with it… to get the help?”
He nodded. “I am a soldier; and it is my way to charge ahead into the teeth of chance. If thou wilt stand me true till I return, or till I fall, I’ll do the same for thee. Then afterward, if such be fate, we’ll talk.”
She told him through tears, “I’ll live in hope of what thou then may’st say.”
“Kneel, children, here before the sacred stone,” Oberon commanded. They did, hand in hand. As he stepped in front of them, his elves made a whirlpool of dim fire above his crown. He laid palms upon their heads.
“By oak and ash and springtime-whitened thorn, through ages gone and ages to be born, by earth below, by air arising higher, by ringing waters, and by living fire, by life and death, I charge that ye say true if ye do now give faith for faith.”
They answered together, like speakers in sleep: “We do.”
Titania carne to her lord. “Place each a ring upon the other’s hand,” she told them (they obeyed), “and may the sign of binding prove a band that joins the youth to maiden, man to wife, and lights the way upon your search through life.”
Oberon and Titania together: “Farewell! And if the roads ye find be rough, keep love alive, and so have luck enough.”
They and their followers were gone. Darkness overwhelmed the glade.
“Where art thou, darling?” Jennifer cried. “Suddenly I’m blind!”
“The moon has slipped below the tree tops, dear,” he answered. “Bide unafraid till thou canst see by stars.”
Puck nudged Will Fairweather. “I likewise have to hurry on my way,” he said. “Methinks this night has not yet done with pranks.”
“We too must travel off, tha prince an’ me,” the man replied. “When once his landloard finds’a’s left tha inn without a stop for payin’ o’ tha scoare, we’d better have zome distance in between.” His voice was troubled.
“I caered not for this magickin’ myzelf. Her heart war in it, but not whoally his. Half done, it could recoil if’a ben’t caereful… An’ we doan’t even know which way to head!”
“To west, I’d say, where ye can find a ship,” Puck advised. After a pause: “And, h’m, to speak of inns and such—My friend, if sorely pressed for shelter, think of this. There is a tavern known as the Old Phoenix, which none may see nor enter who’re not touched by magic in some way. It flits about, but maybe ye can use his ring to find it, or even draw a door toward yourselves.… I must be off. My master calls. Away!”
He was gone.
Eyes grown used to the lessened light, Will made out Rupert and Jennifer at the rock.
“I hate to send thee back, alone and weary.” The pain was real in the prince’s voice.
“But we can do naught else,” she said. “I will abide, and pray for thee and love thee always, Rupert.”
They kissed. She felt her way off into the forest murk. Awhile he stared after her, until he shook himself and spoke flatly: “Well, camarado, let’s prepare to sail, while tide is ebb and wind not yet a gale.”
VIII
It was unadorned red brick, floor sloping to a gutter which drained into the moat. Above an open hearth with a flue reached a swivel-mounted hook for the great kettle wherein water was heated. Firewood lay stacked beside. Nearby stood a raised counter and sink. Elsewhere buckets, tubs, tools, utensils crowded shelves or hung on walls. The gleam of copper, the deep tints of crockery made this the cheeriest room in the house.
Late at night it had grown cold, though. Sir Malachi Shelgrave’s breath puffed white. The clatter of his shoesoles stopped when he did, but got answered by the creak of the door to outside. Shadows swung monstrous as he raised his lantern.
Jennifer came through. Seeing him, she caught one tattered breath and swayed backward.
“Hold, slut!” he belled. “Stand where thou art or be run down.”
She could not completely obey. She crumpled. Legs sprawled across the floor showed slim through rents in a stained and dripping skirt. Stiff-elbowed on hands, head fallen between hunched shoulders, locks tumbled around cheeks, she let dry sobs quake through her.
Shelgrave loomed above. “I see why God kept me awake this night,” he said deep in his throat, “that from my towertop I might espy thee come slinking o’er the bridge tow’rd this back entrance thou must have left unlatched—how many hours?” Violently: “Speak, harlot!”
Still she fought for strength and air. He set lantern on counter. Stooping through the glooms, he seized a fistful of hair and yanked her head back upward. His other palm cracked her cheeks, right, left, right, left.
Her neck rocked beneath the blows.
“What foul swineherd hast thou sought,” he panted, “to wallow with him in what mucky sty? Ungrateful Jezebel, thou’lt get no peace till I have squeezed the pus of truth from thee.”
“I did no wrong,” she got out, gasp by gasp through the punishment. “I… swear to God—”
He released her and straightened, spraddle-legged, knuckles on hips. The tall hat cast a mask across his face, through which glistened eyeballs. “What, then?”
“I too tossed sleepless,” coughed from her, “thought a walk might help… unthinking wandered far, and…
. lost my way—”
“A maid alone, out after dark? Go to!”
She lifted her arms. “I pray thee, uncle, by the bonds between us—”
Light flashed off the third finger of her left hand. Shelgrave pounced on that wrist. He gripped it abundantly hard to draw a wail of pain. For a minute he stared, before he snatched it off. She nursed the hurt against her mouth. The finger was red where he had skinned it in his haste. Her eyes upon him were those of a trapped doe.
“Who gave thee this?” he whispered at last. Over and over he turned it. The stone sparkled like any costly gem. A yelclass="underline" “I’ll have no further lies!”