“Hurm, harm,” a slow voice answered. Something shifted in the dark archway. It might have been mottled a greeny‑brown like weedy water, shining with healthy, slick highlights in the reflected light. “Master Poet,” it said, in reedy tones of slow delight, “have you also come to offer me a poem for passage?”
“No,” Will said. A bridge‑troll. What else could it have been?“What would you take in trade for the answer to a question?”
“Ask me the question and I will tell you the price.”
“Tell me the price and I will tell you if I wish the question answered,” Will said, having some little idea of how such bargains worked.
“Hurm,” the troll said. “Very well. ‘Twill serve, ‘twill serve. Quest your question, then.”
Will drew a breath. “Where is Sir Christofer Marley, that I may find and rescue him?”
“Ah. Harm. No charge for that one, Master Poet. No charge. For knolls troll what trolls know, and I know I cannot answer it: there is no person by that name.”
Will let his head fall back upon his shoulders. “Too late,” he said. “Kit’s dead.”
The troll coughed, and Will got a glimpse of long fingers as it demurely covered its gaping, froggy mouth. “Perhaps a different way of phrasing the question, hurm?”
Will blinked. Never ask me,Kit had said, and now Will thought he understood. “Where is – ” my lover?But that was a question “with too many answers to serve Will’s purpose, to his sudden chagrin. “Where is the poet whose song you were just now singing, Master Troll?”
The troll chuckled, seeming pleased at his care, and trailed long fingers crooked as alder in the water. “And on to the matter of payment, froggily froggily. Would give me a song?”
“Any song I have,” Will said without hesitation.
“A bauble?”
“Nothing could be as precious to me as Kit’s life, Master Troll.” Will thought of Hell, and a quiet garden, and tried not to let the troll see the cold sweat that dewed his forehead. An animal was picking its way cautiously through the brush not too far away. Leaves crackled while Will waited.
“Hurm, harm.” The troll lifted a crooked finger and pointed. Give me the ring in your ear.
Automatically, Will reached up and let his fingers brush the warm, weighty gold. “It’s magic,” he said, though he was already fumbling with the clasp.
“Trolls know what trolls know.”
“It lets me stay in Faerie without being trapped here.”
“Then you’d better hurry home, hurm.”
Farther upstream, beyond the bridge, a stag crashed out or the underbrush and paused at the top of the bank. It gave Will a wild look, then bounded through the stream.
“Stag,” the troll said, following his gaze. “Good eating. The earring, harm?”
Will tossed it gently, underhand. The troll picked it out of the air like a flycatcher after gnats and popped it into his mouth. He belched a moment later –a toadlike, bubbling sound–and croaked: “Look down wells and look in the dark wet places. Look in forgetful places, and for forgotten things. Ask those that know the secrets whispered under earth and between stones.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all I know,” the troll said. “Don’t drink the water, mortal man. Go home now.”
Will refused Morgan’s tisane, over her smile, when they had returned to her cottage. She said nothing about the troll’s pronouncement, but Murchaud grumbled. “He told us nothing but riddles.” He rubbed his hands as if they still ached.
Will shook his head. “Nay. He told us everything he needed to. Ask those that know the secrets– ” He stood. “He’s a Faerie. Do youexpect him to play straightforward?”
Murchaud looked up. “Where are you going now?” Will smiled. “To strike a bargain with a snake.”
Act V, scene xiii
Faustus: When I behold the heavens then I repent And curse thee wicked Mephostophilis, Because thou hast depriv’d me of those joys.
Mephostophilis: ‘Twas thine own seeking Faustus, thank thy self. But thinkst thou heaven is such a glorious thing? I tell thee Faustus it is not half so faire As thou, or any man that breathe on earth.
– Christopher Marlowe, Faustus,Act II, scene ii
When the rasp of the hinges heralded Baines’ return, Kit was again huddled around the rough, round shape of the scold’s bridle. He’d lost track of the comings and goings, the feedings and tauntings, and could now think only, of the ever‑rising pain, and wonder when it might release him. Curled tight as a caterpillar, his fingers laced through the bridle as if the touch of iron could ease his agony, he still flinched when the light struck his face. “Puss,” Baines said. “I’ve bread and cheese and a little ale for thee.”
Kit whimpered. The thought of food made burning bile rise in his throat.
“None of that, puss.” A gentle voice, as something struck the floor far enough away to pose him no threat. “Mehiel won’t let thee perish. And thou’lt need thy strength for our little ritual, wilt thou not?”
He did not want to cringe in front of Baines, skin welting and hair matted with filth. He got a fist against the earth and shoved himself to his knees, raising a face that Baines grimaced to see. “And I see thou’lt need cleansing beforehand.”
“It’s a hazard,” Kit mocked, finding the ghost of his voice, “of residence in a filthy dungeon. What day is it?” Then – “Oh–!” a cramp like an uppercut to the belly doubled him over. He bit down on a whimper and a flinch.
“Near on Hallow’s Eve,” Baines said. “Only another week or so of our hospitality to look forward to.”
“And then what happens?”
“Nothing thou hast not already proved thou canst withstand, brave puss,” Baines said. “I imagine it might even be less unpleasant than Rheims, if thou dost cooperate a little.”
“And then the sacrifice.” Every word like speaking broken glass. Kit shivered and dropped his gaze to the floor, wondering if they’d let him die cleanly, at knifepoint, or if it would be something drawn out and ugly.
“Peace, pussycat.” There was– Christ–pride in Baines’ voice; the tone was enough to make Kit wish he had something in his gut to vomit. “I’d rather burn a cathedral than see thee come to any lasting harm. What a waste of eighteen years’ work thatwould be.”
Kit bit down on his lip to stop the whimper, and managed only to convert it to a whine. Mehiel,he thought, like a prayer. Mehiel, Mehiel, Mehiel–
“Rest well,” Baines said. “You’ll need your strength.” And gently closed him in.
The darkness was complete. Kit bit his fist against a rising wave of pain and nausea, his teeth gritting on the iron bands. He tasted his own clotted blood, the rank sickliness of the infected, swollen flesh on either side of the immovable rings. It hurt to bend his fingers; he wondered how long he had before gangrene started to claim them, one by one.
Mehiel
«Sir Poet.» A stirring, as of distant attention drawn close.
Is’t true what Baines said, just now?Kit reached out in the darkness and found the scold’s bridle, lifting it with battered hands. The touch of that iron soothed his pain, just a little. Enough to almost concentrate, even in the unhelpful dark and quiet of the pit. The effect of iron on Faerie magic, perhaps. Art keeping me among the living, angel?