Will shivered despite the heat. “An uncanny quest forzooth. Well, I’ve aye found All Hallows Eve good for rangin’, sine gaemekeepers stay indoors throughout thic night. Know’st thou where this plaece may be?”
“Hardly closer than I’ve said. Islands are not plentiful in the western Mediterranean Sea. However, Oberon’s people failed to find it. Therefore I think it has a magic of its own, including a girdle of invisibility. Mariners espy naught save empty waves, unless by sheer chance they come within a certain close distance. That may well have happened from time to time, men may actually have made landings, though they could never quite find it again, given their primitive navigation in earlier ages. I wonder if it may once have been Caiypso’s isle, or Circe’s—” Rupert’s words trailed off.
“An’ thou’rt ranzackin’ tha records for mentions what might pw’int tow’rd it?” Will asked. (Rupert nodded.) “Winnin’ scant booty, zeems liake. How much longer’ll thou taeke?”
“A week should exhaust this library.”
“An’ thee,’speci’lly if thou’lt not eat. Chomp, measter! What’s thy scheame afterward?”
“I’ll buy a boat.” Rupert’s fingernails whitened where he clutched the table edge. “Belinda’s money; my penance.” Decisive again: “A small craft, which two can man. We’ll need no more, in this sea and season.
Why add risk of betrayal, when word of my coming here must soon reach agents of our enemies? We’ll crisscross the area of possibility, starting at the likeliest parts, until—” He bit savagely into the food.
“Till tha year grows too oald; or King Charles be beaten; or zomething drags us under,” Will said. “An’ liake thou toald, our odds be none I caere to waeger a clipped farthin’ on. Well, Oberon an’ Titania loaded tha dice in our faevor, last time. Maybe now tha’ can hit on a way for shufflin’ tha spots around. If not—” He shrugged. “There be no other gaeme, hey?”
It rocked to a slow swell beneath a cloudless sky. Apart from that motion, the water might have been green and blue glass. Westward heaven stood gray-violet around a sinking moon, eastward whitened by a sun not yet risen. The air was cool, but barely gave steerage way; the sail hung more slack than taut, often flapping as the yard slatted about.
Jennifer half sat, half sprawled in the sternsheets. Her hands were raw on tiller and cordage, the lips in her burnt face had cracked open to the dry blood, eyes smoldered emptily beneath swollen lids.
A night at sea, a day, another night, she thought, and here’s another dawn. Will I see dusk? How long till thirst will free me from itself? Her neck let go. As chin struck chest she gasped back to consciousness. / must not sleep! Impossible at best to tack along that course the ring once pointed… through shifty winds or none, and unknown currents, by sun, moon, stars unlike the stars of home, observed through haze of weariness and scorch… impossible surely if I fall asleep.
She cleated the line she held and scratched in salt-stiffened hair. My skull’s quite hollow—Nay, there is much sand within the shriveled kernel of my brain. Have I gone mad? Am I indeed possessed? This scow’s not even very good at tacking. I know no longer where I am, or why. I ought to make for shore, where’er’tis nearest—whichever way that is, unless too late—not plod eternally to seek a Dutchman whose own witch-pilot somehow must have’ died.
She raised her head, though it went slowly. Why, there’s my reason! How could I forget for e’en a minute? If the spell has failed, he too may be bewildered and beset. With God all things are possible, they say, although, of course, the most of them unlikely; thus it may be I’ll find him—help him—find him—If not, I died in trying, like a soldier.
She turned the helm a trifle, seeking the most use out of what breeze she had.
A swirl in the water drew her look. Why,’tis a dolphin, she realized. Aloud, a croak forced from leathery mouth and tongue: “Greeting, Master Dolphin! Good morrow to thee. Come, I bid thee welcome. The antics of thy kind beside this hull, the liquid lightning beauty of their pace, have helped me keep my reason and my life. God loves the world; He gave it dolphins—Oh!”
That was a parched scream. For the swimmer had drawn alongside, arced up in a cataract of spray, caught the first sunbeams on spear-bright flanks, and shimmered into something else.
Jennifer shrank back. The one who perched on the middle thwart laughed. The sound was like bells, heard far away across summer meadows through dawn-dreams when she was a child; and he sang more than spoke: “I thank thee for thine invitation, lady, and do accept with pleasure. Pardon me if I surprised thee when I doffed my cloak. I have no few of them—as this—”
Abruptly a dragonfly hovered, the absoluteness of blue. “Or this,” it said, and a dove preened an iridescent breast. “Or this”—a young man, brown, golden-curled, in a brief white tunic, strumming a lyre, wings on his cap and sandals—“or this”—a vortex of radiance, not unlike what had come from the ring before it faded, but whirling, whirling—“or this,” the being said, and returned to the first shape taken aboard, “or many more.”
“What sending art thou,” Jennifer’s words dragged, “and from where, and why?”
“Am I so terrifying in thy sight?” he teased. “I can become a gorgon if thou’d’st liefer.”
Her breathing began to slow. Certainly his aspect could in itself only charm: a boy of seven or eight years, slenderness clad in breechclout and a lily garland across the fair locks, eyes big and cornflower-colored in a countenance dusted with freckles—but less than a foot tall, and winged like a butterfly which had been patterned on a tiger in a field of gillyvor.
No matter his minuteness, she could easily hear him, and read the concern which crossed his features: “Wait. Thou hast sailed too near the edge, I see. No babe has drained thee, but a red-hot vampire, and thou art more a mummy than a mother. Abide a moment.”
He was gone. She stared, opened and closed her mouth, could get forth no noise. Untended, the rudder waggled idle, the yardarm rattled, and the sail spilled its wind.
A footman appeared before her. “Milady, tea is served,” he intoned, set a tray on the after thwart, and became the boy-sprite, perched gleeful in the bows.
She gaped. A pot of China ware steamed upon the brass, next to an eggshell-thin cup; there were plates of cheese, raisins, cakes; beside a pitcher of milk stood one of water, both bedewed from their coldness, and an honest clay mug to pour full.
“Quaff slowly, nibble, till thou’rt wont to life,” he warned.
“I know,” she answered, “but know not how to thank thee… Oh, thou’st naught against a prayer?”
“Nay, I’ll join.”
Reassured, she knelt for minute, as he did in the foresheets. Meanwhile the sun had come wholly in flight and the sea lay a-flash.
With wondering care, Jennifer started to drink and eat. Her rescuer found a comfortable position against the gunwale, kicked his heels, and said: “No doubt thou’rt curious about this business. Well, I am Ariel, the airy spirit who once served Prospero upon that isle which thou’st been dogging, till he slipped me free.” Her stupefaction sent him into a gale of mirth. “I read thy mind. Fear not.’Tis very pure.” He grew solemn. “And thus I learn how Faerie’s faring ill. I’ve kept myself too long in isolation—lost track of time, mine island is so pleasant. Now must I help thy cause and Oberon’s. Else might erelong the foe bestride my holm, his iron passionlessly ravish her, then flense the daisies from her dying flesh and on her bones erect a countinghouse.”