The Watchtower (6 page)

"His hair is darker than it looks in his portrait," I answered, trying hard to keep my voice even. The image of Will standing in the sunlight had caused something to contract in my chest. Only the soft murmuring of the lumignon, who were in my hair and about my face now, kept me from openly crying.

"Interesting," Jean Robin replied, his woody brows furrowing.So much is not known about the vampire. If he were truly
undead,
then there would be no change over the centuries, but I have wondered if the vampire's state is not somewhat akin to mine, and if, just as the tree cells and sap replaced my human cells and blood, so some other substance has replaced the vampire's cells and blood."

"Do you think, then, that the process can be reversed? Will thinks that if he can summon a creature in a lake who was able to make a fey mortal, he can be turned back into a human."

"Ah, so that's why he's so anxious to find his way back to the Summer Country." The knotted roots growing over Jean Robin's shoulders rippled, and I realized he was trying to shrug. "I don't know, but I'd be curious to find out! You must follow him."

"Yes, that's what I'd like to do. I've gone to Saint-Julien's every day for a week, but there's been no sign. How long was Will here before he got a sign?"

"Let's see ... he arrived in January and then he disappeared in May..."

"Four months! I could have to wait four months?"

"We've watched seekers wait years. But then, for some a sign appears after only a few days."

"And there's nothing I can do to hurry it along? There's no other way to find the path to the Summer Country?"

"No. At least I think not. Probably not." The roots that made up Jean Robin's body writhed with discomfort. "The stories of another way are most certainly rumors."

"What rumors?" I asked, plucking a fairy out from the inside of my T-shirt. The little creatures were becoming quite intrusive.

"Well, as I mentioned before, the boat people ... er ... the
fees de la mer,
that is ... reportedly come from the lost kingdom of Ys, and some believe that Ys was part of the Summer Country. So it makes sense that the door to the Summer Country might have been created by the sea fairies--"

"Ouch! I think one of your little friends just bit me!"

"Oh, no, they don't have teeth--thank God!--but they do like to sew, and they're sometimes rather clumsy with their needles. Anyway, as I was saying, if anyone could tell you a shortcut to the Summer Country, it might be one of the boat people."

"And how do I get in touch with them?"

"Well, that's the problem. They're not exactly ... welcoming. Especially to foreigners. Ironic, since they themselves are immigrants, but that is often the way, don't you think? The more established immigrants are mistrustful of the more recent arrivals."

"Yes, I'm sure," I said, trying to cut off another lecture, "but isn't there any way to talk to one? Surely there must be some sort of go-between."

"Why, yes! How astute of you to think of it! There are channels of communication between the more enlightened of each nation of fairies--an academic community, so to speak. I suggest you speak to my old friend Monsieur Lutin at the Jardin des Plantes. He can usually be found at the Labyrinth. Tell him that Jean Robin sent you. He might be able to get you an introduction to one of the boat people."

"Monsieur Lutin at the Labyrinth. Okay. Just one more question--"

"Um, far be it from me to stifle anyone's intellectual curiosity, but I'm afraid you'd better be going. If you intend to ever go at all."

Jean Robin slanted his eyes meaningfully toward my feet. Following his gaze, I was shocked to see that a fine network of roots had been sewn over them. Light fairies were darting back and forth, knitting the roots into a pair of tight stockings. When I tried to extend my hands to shoo them away, I found they were bound together in my lap. It took all my strength to break the finely stitched bonds. I kicked off the roots from my feet and stood up, scattering an infuriated flock of lumignon.

"I apologize for my friends. They saw how much I was enjoying your company and thought you'd make a nice companion for me."

I was about to reply angrily, but then I saw that the gleam in his eyes had grown and spilled down his cheeks in long, resinous streaks. "No harm done," I said, shaking the last of the root threads from my hands. "I'll send your regards to Monsieur Lutin, then?"

"Yes, please!" Jean Robin said, brightening. The lumignon had already swept away his sap-filled tears with their wings. "Ask him to send me some samples from the Alpine Garden. I would love to see some edelweiss again as a reminder of my journeys through the Alps."

I told him I would deliver his message.

"Good luck to you, Garet James. It has been a great pleasure making your acquaintance. Please don't hold it against the lumignon that they tried to detain you. They did it for love of me." His rooty lips twisted into a rueful smile.

"Yes," I said, smiling back. "I can see they do love you very much." I said au revoir then and turned away, thinking as I climbed back up the stairs that if this was what came of being loved by the fey, then I'd rather do without their love.

4

The Party

Will Hughes was too concerned about his father's troops possibly waylaying him on the road to London to immediately follow the poet there. Instead he fled west to Cornwall, to the tiny Roman fishing village of Marazion. There he concealed himself for a week, mostly in the cellar of Stephen Fawkes, whose son Charles, a year Will's junior, he had once befriended at a fencing competition and corresponded with occasionally.

His cellar days were gloomy and tedious, mostly spent reading by the light of a dripping candle, and he had to constantly remind himself how awful it would be to be brought back to Swan Hall in shackles as an alternative, mistreatment he knew his father to be capable of. He lived that week only for the brief time when dusk was under way, making him difficult to recognize when he went outside, but leaving enough light to get about in.

Cornish twilight had a rustic beauty to it, the moon silvering shallow waves of the Irish Sea, while sea winds softly rustled tall grasses bordering a sandy beach. Will didn't stroll the beach itself, but he'd walk along paths cut through dense underbrush inland, enchanted by the sound of waves and the sight of gulls gliding downward in final dives as the world blackened around them. On a few occasions, as the sky came within an inch of darkness and he knew he had to turn back, Will froze in his stride, beset by a sort of premonition. He'd feel for an instant as if he'd materially blended into the night, become a part of it, and that this was in some way going to be his future, no longer a part of the everyday world of flesh and light. Will shook off these unsettling sensations, for they had no rational basis. But he was disturbed enough by them each time to consider whether it might be more prudent to return to his father. The answer to that question, however, optimistic lad of nineteen that he was, was always a resounding "No!"

After a week he'd had enough of these moments of being a shadow among greater shadows, alongside the dreary dankness of the Fawkes cellar. He purchased a two-year-old silver horse, Owlsword, from Stephen Fawkes and rode to London, three nights galloping and three days restlessly sleeping in the most secluded woods he could find. In a brief meeting before their mutual departure from Somerset, the poet had given him a note to obtain lodgings under the name Sam Andrews at the Hungry Steer, a tavern with rooms above at 10 Harp Lane. The location was in a fast-growing slum to the west of the Tower. The proprietress of the Steer was Ophelia Garvey, a woman of rough demeanor and advanced years whose response to most attempts at conversation was a glare. She was, however, helpful enough to direct him to a nearby inexpensive stable to board Owlsword, Will having gotten attached to the frisky but amiable young horse during their ride to London.

His first few days in London were barely an improvement on his time in Cornwall. There was some obscurity in the crowds that bustled about, but not enough to let him comfortably linger in public, or dine out, or look for the poet at the Globe Theatre or at the building owned by the King's Players nearby. And he had no idea where the poet's lodgings were. Nor could he try to rekindle the handful of other acquaintanceships he had in the city. There had been no public disclosure or legal restraint by his father in regard to his flight, but that could just be his cagey stealth at work. Clarification--some communication if not a definite truce (reconciliation seemed out of the question)--was required before Will could feel safe in public. He would simply have to wait to be contacted by the poet.

He spent his days in his room reading poetry by Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, and Christopher Marlowe, or in random walks, the collar of his doublet pushed up and pinned together to hide his face as much as fashion allowed. His signet ring he took off and looped onto a chain he wore around his neck and under his shirt, lest someone see it and recognize the family crest. Nights he dined mostly on bread and beer in his tiny, barely furnished room, waiting, wondering if the poet'spossible abandonment of him might not be worse than his father's scorn.

Six days after his arrival, Mrs. Garvey knocked on Will's door just at sunset in an unusually talkative mood and gave him a gilt-edged envelope.

"Ay, some fancy-pants rode up just now with three black feathers in his cap, on a horse what looked like it had been polished like a statue. For Samuel Andrews, Esquire." Mrs. Garvey paused to look quizically at Will, not for the first time, as if he might be Samuel Andrews and he might not be. No doubt many years of being a landlady for the transient had nourished some instincts in this area. "And look at the gold on it," she went on. "Had I known you keep this kind of company, I'd be charging you twice as much. Three times."

Will laughed to humor her. "I am grateful for the consideration you have shown with your modest charge," he said somewhat formally, wondering how best to flatter her. It wouldn't have mattered, as Mrs. Garvey shut the door to his room before his sentence was fully out of his mouth and stormed away. Perhaps his language had been too upper-class for her taste.

Will opened the note. It was from the poet. Will recognized his elegant script immediately from drafts of sonnets the poet had shown him:

Dearest Will,

Your becoming a member of our troupe has been mildly delayed by some Machiavellian shenanigans among the patrons but I nonetheless expect to have Lord Grosvenor's signature on the necessary documents within a fortnight. In the meantime it is a great pleasure for Marguerite and I to cordially invite you to a celebratory gathering we will be hosting this coming Sunday evening at 6, at 22 Lyme Street. The point of the celebration you can guess!

Yours in deep comradeship and with even deeper admiration.

Three evenings later, Will walked to 22 Lyme Street for the poet's Sunday gathering. He wore the fine gray doublet, crimson-tinted black silk cape, and ruffled white shirt he had purchased the day before at Gresham's Royal Exchange. The buckles on his new belt and boots gleamed as though polished with a cloth made from light.

It had rained hard until the middle of the afternoon, but the sun had been out for hours now, giving the soaked streets a gloss and gleam to match his apparel; the very air had a radiance to it as if its usual smoke and odor-stained texture had received a scrubbing. With little more to go on than the aristocratic stationery of the invitation, Will was anticipating as he walked an elegant dinner for a select few. It would be thrilling to see the poet again and meet some of his theatrical friends, not to mention the beautiful Marguerite. He felt as if he were strolling into his future.

As he approached Lyme Street he could see, a mile away at the merge of Cornhill and Threadneedle Streets, the golden grasshopper suspended above Gresham's Market, one of the latest additions to the still sparse London skyline. It shone like a second sun, just above the horizon.
You are the sun to shine on all of England,
a line from the poet's sonnet celebrating him, ran unbiddn through his thoughts. He hoped the evening would be like a coronation, for more than one great public life to come.

But as he approached 22 Lyme, he suspected that his concept of a refined occasion might not have been accurate. A raucous din seemed to be coming from the new, well-timbered house of three stories at that address, which had ceremonial pennants in an array of colors flying from all its eaves and windows. The din became more distinct the closer he approached, one percolating with chattering voices, loud guffaws, boisterous boasts, and even the occasional inebriated shriek. Will allowed himself the preposterous hope that another party was taking place in nearly the same location, but his final few strides forward educated him that this was not so.

His mood sank in anticipation of a tiresome evening dodging drunks and feigning vulgar merriment, though he could not imagine how a sensibility as refined as the poet's could have attracted the vulgar babble he was listening to. But he moved bravely onward. He wasn't shy, and he could get through the evening--no doubt, if all else failed, by charming whatever circle of youthful females gathered around him.

Will plowed through the throng congregating at the doorway and, once inside, began to methodically seek out the poet. But the crowd on the first floor was so dense that moving through it was like trying to navigate swamp grass. And the first few people he queried seemed ignorant of the gathering's purpose, gazing back at him drunkenly, so asking for the poet's location seemed futile. He found it convenient to fall in with a trio sitting at a cramped table playing ruff and honors in need of a fourth. After a round of introductions to Tom, Pete, and Finn, he managed to angle his rickety chair so that at least he could catch glimpses of the first floor's entrance and main staircase and, in the meantime, pass the time tolerably well. Sooner or later the poet and Marguerite would no doubt be moved to introduce themselves to the crowd.