CHAPTER VIII
AN AUDIENCE WITH THE MARQUESS
In Which September Meets the Marquess at Last, Argues Several Valid Points but Is Pressed into Royal Service Anyway, Being Consoled Only by the Acquisition of a Spoon and a New Pair of Shoes
Somewhere, under all those brambles, there was probably a building.
A palace even. Certainly September could make out towers, a portcullis, even a moat of floating golden flowers. Not golden in the darling little way folk in our world call buttercups or certain girls’ hair golden: These flowers were genuinely gold, burnished, glowing, deep. Yet they were soft. A pleasant wind crinkled their petals as they drifted along on a lazy current, spinning and gently colliding. But the briars tangled up everything else, great vines—thicker than September herself—whose thorns were awfully sharp and angry looking. They braided each other, ran up and down the walls, snarled in great knots. Here and there were clutches of pale gold berries, their skin so thin that September could see the juice sloshing inside them. But neither she nor the Wyverary could glimpse even an inch of masonry. It was as though the Briary had just grown that way and had never been any different.
No guards flanked the door—if it were a door. Large flowers bloomed aggressively through an arch in the brambles in a sort of door-like fashion. Their centers were clotted with glistening pollen. September reached out her hand to touch one, and A-Through-L cried out a wordless warning! But the flower simply soaked her hand in pollen and closed its petals over her fingers, searching and suckling with its silken blossom. Satisfied, it wrinkled away and aside to allow September to duck into a hall hung with dim, sun-dappled shadows.
The flowers drew closed again sharply, keeping the Wyverary outside. A-Through-L bellowed, and the bellowing of any Wyvern is terrible to hear. He struck the flower; it remained, tough and unyielding as bronze. The brambles writhed a little as if in silent, viny laughter.
September walked through the grand hall, trying not to make noise on the beautiful polished floor. A giant, heart-shaped double staircase ran up to a bank of windows. There was a neat rack on which to place one’s shoes and umbrellas. A kind of light drifted in between the bramble-vines, falling on a grandiosely framed painting of a tall, lovely woman with long golden hair tied back with a velvet bow. Her hand rested on a Leopard’s head, and in her other, she held a simple wooden hunter’s bow. She wore an ivory crown and a smile so wide and kind September felt she could love that lady all the days of her life and never feel cheated, even if the lady never looked twice at such a poor, shabby soul as September. In the painting, she seemed to glow. That is what a grown-up looks like, thought September. Not like the grown-ups in my world who look sad and disappointed and grimy with work and bored with everything. What do the storybooks say?
“In the fullness of her strength.”
“Did you come all the way here with only one shoe?” came a sweet, wondering voice.
September whirled away from the painting. In the center of the heart-shaped staircase sat a little girl, holding her chin in her hands. She had thick cherry-purple hair that hung in old-fashioned sausage curls to her shoulders and that magnificent, terrible hat poised on her head like a cake tipping to one side. The hat was black, September could see now, as she had guessed when this child had shaken hands with the bear on-screen. The feathers shone blue and green and red and cream-colored. The jewels glittered dark and violet. Next to her, a huge Panther purred languidly and watched September out of one green eye.
“That must have been just awfully painful,” the child simpered. “How brave of you!”
The Marquess ran one hand luxuriously along the Panther’s spine, winding her fingers in his fur—and drew up a pair of exquisite black shoes, like September’s, if September’s shoe had grown up, gone to a great many balls and theatrical to-dos, and found a dashing mate. They had little heels and black crystal lilies on the toes, with bits of ribbon looping and whorling all around, speckled with garnets and tiny black pearls. She held them out to September, whose bare foot, truthfully, ached and throbbed with cold and blisters. She wanted to take them, she did, but taking gifts from wicked Queens, even if they are called Marquesses, even if they are very pretty children not big enough to hurt anyone, is a dangerous business, and September knew it.
She shook her head with much sadness. The shoes were so beautiful.
“I am only trying to help you, child,” said the little girl. She set the shoes gently on the gleaming floor and ran her hand along the cat’s spine again. This time, the Marquess drew up a silver plate piled high with wet red cherries, a wedge of black cake crusted with sugar, swollen raspberries and strawberries, several lumps of dark, dusty chocolate, and a tall goblet of steaming hot cider.
“You must be so hungry. You’ve come so far!”
September swallowed. Her throat was dry, her stomach empty. But this was certainly Fairy food. The worst kind, the kind that never let you go if you even taste it once. “Is that Queen Mallow?” she said instead, nodding toward the portrait and forcing her voice to be friendly.
The Marquess looked up at the great painting and scowled. Her curls shivered and went deep blue, the color of the sea. She sighed and snapped her fingers. The rich plate disappeared.
“You would think that new management would have the right to redecorate. But some magic never bends, not even if you tear at it with your own teeth. No matter how I tear, the portrait stays. She was never that beautiful, though. The painter must have been a loyalist.” The Marquess turned away from Queen Mallow’s sweet gaze and focused on September again. She smiled. “But she is dead, my child. I promise you that. Dead as autumn and last year’s apple jam. But we haven’t come all this way to dish gossip about ancient history. How have you been enjoying Fairyland, September?”
“How do you know my name?”
“You filed papers, of course. You have a visa. What in the world do you think all that is for, if not to make certain that I know everything?”
September didn’t say anything.
“Well, I do hope everyone has been nice to you and hospitable in every way they can think of. It’s important to me, September, that you’re treated well.”
“Oh, yes! Everyone has been terribly helpful and kind—except the Glashtyn, I suppose. I had heard that Fairies were nasty and tricky and cruel, but they’re not, not really.”
“Oh?” said the Marquess with arch amusement. She stroked the Panther with her small hands. Her fingers were covered in jeweled rings. “But they are, truly, September. Just the worst sort of folk. You’d never believe how wicked! They’re nice because I make them nice. Because I punish them if they are not nice. Because I put them on the Greenlist if they are not nice. Before I came, Fairyland was a dangerous place, full of brownies spoiling milk and giants stomping on whomever they pleased and trolls telling awful punning riddles. I fixed all that, September. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to invent bureaucracy in a world that didn’t even know what a ledger was? To earn their submission, even to the point of having their wings locked down? But I did it. I fixed it for children like you, so that you could be safe here and have lovely adventures with no one troubling you and trying to steal your soul away. I do hope you didn’t think you had charmed them all with your sparkling personality, child.”
“Why do you keep calling me a child? You’re no older than I am.”
“Really, September. You’re going to have to be a bit more discerning than that if you expect to get along here. I suppose I shouldn’t expect any better from a Midwesterner. They teach you such frightful things about the world.” The Marquess paused. The tips of her hair grew silver and shining. “Do you like my Panther? He is called Iago. I love him very much and he loves me. I used to have a Leopard, but she ran off some time ago. Could not change with the times, I suppose.” The Marquess nodded toward the portrait of Queen Mallow, whose hand still rested on a Leopard’s head. “That sort of thing is so tragic, don’t you think? I do so prize
adaptability.” The Panther Iago growled at the mention of his predecessor.
Could she mean my Leopard? thought September. The Leopard of Little Breezes? She did not like to think of the Marquess riding her Leopard, even for a little while.
“Cats are temperamental,” offered September softly. “I have heard you have lions, too.”
“Too true!” cried the Marquess, her hair wholly silver now, gleaming like true metal. “On both counts! Lions sleep a great deal, for it is from their dreams that their strength chiefly comes. They are closeted in their chambers, snoozing away on lacy coverlets. Now, I believe you wanted to steal a Spoon from me?”
September bit the inside of her lip. This was not precisely how she had thought her adventure would go. How could she be brave for the sake of the witch Goodbye if she were found out before she could even try?
“Don’t be ashamed, my love. I would not be a very good Marquess if I could not tell when troublesome little Ravished children are incoming with poor intentions toward me and my belongings. After all, the Ravished are always trouble. Any ruler of Fairyland must learn to watch out for them particularly, as they have a nasty habit of dethroning one and undoing decades of hard work.”
“But … Miss Marquess. The Spoon is not one of your belongings. You took it from the witch Goodbye. That’s stealing. So it’s not really very wicked of me at all to want to steal it back—stealing things back is hardly stealing at all.”
The Marquess cocked her head to one side and smiled. Somehow her smile was worse than her frown. The Panther licked his black paws nonchalantly. “Is that what she told you? That I stole it? What a dreadful misunderstanding! I shall have her to tea immediately to apologize. You must appreciate my position, September: I was under the impression that all things in my realm belong to me, and Goodbye was under the impression that Good Queen Mallow would arrive at any moment to save her. You can see how things got terribly confused!”
“Where…” September cleared her throat. Her hands shook. “Where I come from, if a person has a Spoon, no one can come and take it just because they’re the governor or something.”
“I think that’s very naive of you, September.” The Marquess put her finger on her delicate chin as if an extraordinary idea had just occurred to her. “Tell me, what does your father do?”
September felt her face flush. “Well, he was a teacher. But now he’s a soldier.”
“Oh! Iago, did you hear that? You mean to say that one day the governor or something came and took your father even though you were quite sure he was yours and yours alone? Well, that is certainly different. A Father is nowhere near as valuable as a Spoon! I can see why you prefer your sensible, logical world.”
“Well, they didn’t kill anyone in the process!”
“No, September. They wait until little girls like you are out of sight first. War must always be done out of sight, or it shocks people and they stop immediately.” The Marquess’s hair slowly deepened to the color of blood.
September squeezed back tears. “Why did you kill Goodbye and Hello’s brothers?” she cried wretchedly.
“Because, child. They were not nice. They defied me. But I do not wish to talk about them, or anyone else dead and, therefore, not useful. We were speaking of your parents. I do wish children could pay attention!” Her voice got very hard all of a sudden, no longer bright and full of teatime conversation, but keen and deadly interested. “What about your mother, September?”
“She … she builds engines.” September did not think she ought to mention airplanes in Fairyland—visions of fleets of bombers belonging to the Marquess flooded her mind.
The Marquess stood suddenly. She was wearing a short blackberry-colored dress with violet stockings, all lace and stiff magenta petticoats. She rushed down the stairs to stare September directly in the eye—they were precisely the same height. The Marquess’s blue eyes were full of interest. The Panther slowly descended the stairs behind her, unconcerned.
“What if I told you that I would give you the Spoon? That thievery need never be mentioned between us? You can take it back to Goodbye and her silly sister or use it to stir soups of your own, whatever you like.” The Marquess was very close, as close as kissing. She smelled like beautiful, dying flowers. “I can be nice, September,” she whispered. “It is only right that I behave as I require my people to behave. I can help you and pet you and give you lovely presents. I can be a faithful guide.”
September felt much as she had when Goodbye had tried to convince her to be a witch. But there was no glamour. The Marquess was not a witch. It was only that she was so terribly strong and so terribly close. “But not for nothing,” September whispered. “Never for nothing.”
“Never for nothing.” The Marquess wavered back and forth like a snake charmer. “But it is such a little thing, and such fun to get, that I’m sure you will leap at the chance. You want to have fun, don’t you? And marvelous adventures? That’s why you came to Fairyland, isn’t it? To have adventures?”
“Yes…”
“Well! What is the use of ruling Fairyland if one cannot make little children happy? There is a place, September, oh, very far from Pandemonium. A place where it is always autumn, where there is always cider and pumpkin pie, where leaves are always orange and fresh-cut wood is always burning, and it is always, just always Halloween. Doesn’t that sound splendid, September?”
“Yes…”
“And in that place is a thing I need, closed up in a glass casket in the heart of the Worsted Wood.”
“But the Green Wind said the Worsted Wood was forbidden—”
“Government has its little privileges.”
“He said it was dangerous—”
“Posh! What does he know? He is not allowed here. And never will be, whatever he told you. The Worsted Wood is just wood. No more or less dangerous than any other wood. If there are ravening beasts, well, they have every right to live and eat, don’t they? If there are spells, they have a right to weave. All you must do is go there and eat candy and have a wonderful time with the spriggans and jump in leaf piles and dance in the moonlight—and before you leave, with a full belly and the first whisper of snow blowing through your hair, open the casket and bring me whatever it is you find there. Even if it is ridiculous, even if it seems useless and small. That isn’t so much to ask, is it? In exchange for a Spoon that tells the future?”
“What … what is in the casket?”
“That’s none of your worry, beautiful child. Your pretty head needn’t trouble itself with that.”
September bit the inside of her cheek, but the Marquess was so close. She tried to think of the Green Wind, of his pleasant green smell and the clouds whisking by as they flew over Westerly. She felt calmer—a little calmer. Not terribly much calmer.
“Why can’t you get it yourself? You can go anywhere…”
The Marquess rolled her bright blue eyes. “If you must know, it’s a cranky casket, and if I were to go … well, let us say, it would not give me the same gift it would give you, who are innocent and sweet and gentle of spirit.”
“I’m not … I’m ill-tempered and irascible…”
“Now, who told you that?” The Marquess caressed September’s face softly. Her hand was hot, like fire. September flinched beneath her blazing touch. “How rude of them. You are quite the sweetest child I’ve ever met.”
“I can’t. I just can’t do what you want unless I know what it is. Everyone is afraid of you, and when folk are afraid of a person, it usually means the person is cruel in some way, and I think you are cruel, Miss Marquess, but please don’t punish me for saying it. I think you know you’re cruel. I think you like being cruel. I think calling you cruel is the same as calling someone else kind. And I don’t want to run errands for someone cruel.”
“I will never be cruel to you, September. You remind me so much of myself.”
“I don’t know why you would say something like that when you are a Marquess and I am a nobody, an
d no one anywhere is afraid of me,” September said, and really, it was quite brave of her. “Still, I can’t.” September blinked several times, trying to clear her head. In her pocket, she clutched the glass ball the Green Wind had given her. “Unless you tell me the truth,” she said as firmly as she could. “And give me the Spoon now, not later, when I’ve returned.”
The Marquess looked at September appraisingly. Her blood-colored hair was slowly lightening to a gentle pink, like candy floss.
“How strong you are, child. You must have eaten your spinach and brussel sprouts all up and drunk all your milk, once upon a time. Now, let us think! What would a beautiful monarch send you for? Oh, I know! The glass casket contains a magical sword. It is so powerful that it doesn’t have a name. It is no spoiled, painted dilettante like Excalibur or Durendal. Naming a sword like this one would only cheapen it and make it tawdry. But the casket is also old, and also opinionated, and were I to stand in the forest and cut its fastenings … well, it would not give me the true sword.”
“But you would use it … to kill more witches’ brothers, I think…”
“September, I swear to you, here and now, in the presence of Iago, Queen Mallow, and your single, solitary shoe, that I will never use that sword to harm a soul. Little unpleasantries are necessary when one rules wicked, trickstery folk. But I would not soil such a sword by using it for simple, everyday murdering. I intend something much grander.”
September wanted to ask. She burned to ask.
“Ah, but that I will not tell you, little one. You are not ready to know. And loose lips sink glorious new worlds. Fairyland is still so beautiful for you. You would not believe me if I told you how sour it can go. Suffice it to say that I shall find the source of this sourness, and with the blade of the sword you bring me, I will cut it out. Will you get it for me? Will you take Goodbye’s Spoon and go to the Autumn Provinces in my name?”