The Lost Queen Page 6

  “Give me your hand, Princess.” She was at the level of the deck. A sailor was waiting for her, wearing a cream shirt and sky blue trousers tucked into high leather boots. Tania took his hand and stepped on board the ship.

  A familiar voice rang out from the throng of Faerie folk who were gathered on the deck.

  “Welcome! Welcome indeed, my daughter! This is a joy unlooked for.” King Oberon stepped forward and took her into his arms. He was dressed all in white, with diamonds sewn into the folds of his padded doublet and with a fine filigree of charcoal thread patterning the collar and cuffs. His white crown circled his forehead, holding back his long yellow hair, the crystal band inset with a ring of precious and rare black amber stones.

  Tania gazed into his face with its close-cut golden beard and mustache and those deep-set piercing blue eyes. “Hello,” she said, embracing him fondly. “It’s nice to be back.”

  “And you have returned in perfect time for the Festival of the Traveler’s Moon,” the King said. “Come, tell us your news quickly, before we set sail for Logris.”

  Clasping his hand, Tania looked around at the familiar faces that surrounded her on the deck. Her sister Hopie was there with her husband, Lord Brython, at her side, both of them clad in simple brown. Cordelia was there, too, her red-gold hair shorn about her shoulders and her face a mass of freckles. She held up one arm, a kestrel on her wrist. Sancha was at her side, dressed in her usual sable velvet, her clever brown eyes dancing in her smiling face.

  “I’ve got some good news,” Tania said, seeing the light of hope in Oberon’s eyes. “We haven’t actually found Titania yet, but Edric and I have spoken to someone who has met her. Or at least who met someone who looks exactly like her.”

  “I had not looked for you to find the Queen so swiftly,” Oberon said.

  “The search isn’t over yet,” Tania said. “But we’ll keep going, I promise. I couldn’t have got this far without Edric’s help.”

  “Where is Master Chanticleer?” Sancha asked. “Did he not come with you?”

  “Well, no,” Tania said. “I didn’t really mean to come here myself, but I kind of got carried away.”

  “And so shall we all, ere the night is much older!” said the King. He gave Tania a final loving look, then turned toward the high quarterdeck at the stern of the ship. “Admiral Belial, all are aboard. Weigh anchor and let us be gone!”

  The admiral was standing at the quarterdeck rail, tall and gaunt and wrapped in a navy blue cloak. He raised his hand and the decks sprang alive with sky-blue-clad sailors, swarming down ropes and running across the decks. Wide capstans turned slowly to the rhythm of whistles and tambourines. Voices called from mast to mast.

  “Isn’t Eden here?” Tania asked, looking around for her eldest sister. Zara also seemed to have disappeared.

  “Indeed she is,” said Sancha. “She is below decks preparing for the voyage. She will be with us soon.”

  “Come to the forecastle,” Cordelia said. “Eden and our father will be there shortly.”

  Tania made her way through the gathered courtiers. She saw the Earl and Countess of Gaidheal among them; they smiled and nodded to her as she passed. She climbed the stairway that led to the forecastle and walked forward along the narrowing deck. Sancha and Cordelia joined her as she stood at the rail, gazing out over the prow of the ship.

  “How far is Logris?” she asked.

  “Oh, many hours by water—but not so far by air,” Cordelia said with a mysterious smile. Tania was still wondering what she meant when her sister lifted her arm high into the air.

  “Go, Windfarer!” she called. “Lead the way!” The kestrel spread its wings and leaped from her arm. It swooped low from the side of the ship. Tania leaned out, watching as the bird almost skimmed the waves before it flapped its wings and soared upward into the night sky.

  “The wind has died down,” Tania said, looking up at the hanging sails. “How are we going to get moving?”

  “Zara will whistle us up a fine wind,” Cordelia said.

  At that moment Tania heard the high, clear notes of the flute come wafting toward them. It was a beautiful melody, slow and melancholy at first, a song that might be sung by mariners who had been too long at sea. Tania felt tears prick her eyes as the aching melody drifted over the ship. But then the tune grew livelier, filled with hope and joy—a tune from the hearts of sailors who have seen their home port by the light of a rosy dawn.

  A breeze began to stir the great silvery sails. At first it was only the merest trembling of the canvas, a flicking and fidgeting of rope ends and the warmth of moving air on Tania’s face. But soon the cheeks of the sails began to fill. The ship creaked and sighed, the sails belling out, the timbers thrumming. Tania’s hair blew fitfully across her face until she had to hold it back in her fist, her eyes narrowed against the rising wind.

  Zara’s tune came to a crescendo, the melody rising until it ended in a piping skirl of music.

  The shattered reflection of the moon lay on the sea, the countless stars like pinpoints of white fire dancing around it on the black water. Tania leaned farther over the rail, watching the dark water burst into white foam as the prow ploughed the waves.

  “Well met, my beloved sister.”

  Tania turned and saw Eden standing behind her, her pure white hair flying in the wind. Many of the care lines seemed to have been smoothed away from her sister’s face since the last time they had met.

  “I think we’re close to finding Titania,” Tania told her.

  “I hope it is so,” said Eden. Her voice was calm, but Tania knew that her quest meant more to Eden than any of them, for it was Eden who had sent their mother through the Oriole Glass into the Mortal World.

  Oberon mounted the stairs to the forecastle.

  “Eden?” he called. “Shall we give the Cloud Scudder its wings?”

  “Yes, Father.” Eden squeezed Tania’s arm and walked to where the king was standing.

  “What’s going on?” Tania asked Sancha. The ship was moving already, its sails full-bellied with Zara’s enchanted wind.

  Sancha smiled. “You will see.”

  Oberon and Eden stood side by side in the middle of the deck, their heads high, their deep blue eyes reflecting the moon. Slowly and with perfect symmetry their arms began to rise, their hands palm upward, held open with fingers spread wide.

  And as their arms lifted, Tania became aware that they were speaking in chorus, their voices blending together in a slow, mesmerizing chant:

  Hallowed moon—blesséd moon—belovéd moon wingéd moon aloft in the crucible of the night

  Traveler’s Moon, the dreamer’s moon—the starlit songster of time

  sing your songs of years unending—dream your dreams of roads unbending

  listen, yes, listen now—the star-filled silences call across the seas

  light our way hence to Ynis Logris—the Island of No Hope’s Fading

  guide our footsteps true—to the Island of All Time’s Waking lead us through this pure night to the Island of No Love’s Parting

  to Ynis Logris—the Isle of Our Delight

  Tania was so caught up in the solemn hymning of the two rich voices that it was a minute or two before she was aware that the angle of the deck was changing under her feet. She adjusted her stance, taking hold of the rail as the slope of the deck steepened.

  It was as if the ship was rising on the swell of a huge, slow wave, but surely no wave could rise and rise for such a long time. Surely there had to be the crest and the fall into the trough. Surely?

  The Faerie lords and ladies on the lower deck had become silent. Mariners hung watchfully from the rigging.

  Puzzled, Tania looked over the rail. The ship was rising prow-first from the waves. White water cascaded, foaming and swirling as the great silver hull lifted higher and higher.

  Tania gaped, clinging to the rail as the keel drew clear of the sea. Drops of white water fell from the curved timbers as the ship rose into
the sky. She heard gasps and exclamations from around her as the horizon fell away. The receding face of the sea looked like beaten black iron as the galleon sailed into the star-filled night.

  The prow turned and now the ship was heading toward the round disk of the moon. If it had been huge before, now it was colossal. Moment by moment, its light grew brighter. Frozen with astonishment, Tania hung on the rail as the moon expanded until it seemed to fill the entire sky.

  At last she had to throw her arm over her face and close her eyes against the blaze of light as she felt herself washed over by a surge of liquid silver.

  A few moments later Sancha’s voice sounded close by. “We are there.”

  Tania opened her eyes. The moon was gone and the chanting had ceased.

  Tania gasped. “What happened?”

  Sancha pointed back along the ship. The great full moon lay astern now—still immeasurably huge, but less blindingly bright. Eden and the King were standing at the far rail, the King’s arm around his daughter’s shoulders.

  “Zara played up a wind for our sails, and Eden and the King guided our course,” Sancha said. “Look you now—Ynis Logris lies below.”

  The ship was high, high above the waves, the sails straining and the hull creaking gently as it divided the air. Far below, an island of green-clad hills floated in a girdle of white sand on the dark bosom of the sea. Three galleons lay at anchor in a shallow bay on the nearside of the island. Tania could see small boats coming and going as people and provisions were ferried to the shore. Higher up the long sandy beach, bonfires had been lit, and the aromatic scent of wood-smoke came up to her as she leaned over the prow.

  The Cloud Scudder was dipping now, moving in a long slow curve toward the island.

  The ship touched the waves so gently that Tania would have been unaware of it had she not been watching with a fast-beating heart as the sharp keel clove the water and sent up flukes of white foam.

  The Cloud Scudder settled in the water close to the other three ships. Commands rang out and the anchors were loosened and the sails furled. Boats were already being lowered from the sides.

  “What now?” Tania said.

  “Now we go ashore,” Cordelia said. “The bonfires are lit, the entertainments have been arranged: Let the revelries begin!” As she spoke a small shape came soaring down out of the night sky, and with a series of keening cries, Windfarer came to rest on her wrist.

  “Yes, indeed, my friend,” Cordelia said to the bird. “You speak true. It has been an age of sorrow since last we set foot upon the dancing sands of Ynis Logris. But tonight all that shall be amended.”

  Eden came walking across the deck toward Tania. “Come,” she said, holding out her hand. “Our boat awaits.”

  The festivities took up the length and breadth of the white beach. Tania wandered enthralled among the revelers—sometimes with one or two of her sisters, sometimes alone—watching high-born lords and ladies make merry alongside footmen, servants, and stable boys. Kitchen maids danced with earls, a marchioness sang a duet with a gardener, a groom shared a joke with a princess. For one night all the folk of Faerie were equal under the Traveler’s Moon.

  Tables stood near the bonfires, laden with flagons of ruby and white and crisp yellow cordials, and with dishes and bowls of fruit and sweetmeats—honey-cakes and sweet pies and fire-roasted chestnuts and frosted candies.

  Tania met up with Hopie and her husband, Lord Brython, and they walked together along the seashore for a while, listening to the music and the laugher that mingled with the gentle wash of the waves.

  “You have not asked about Rathina,” Hopie said, pausing, her arm linked into her husband’s. “Do you not wish to know her fate?”

  Tania looked awkwardly at her sister. “I saw she wasn’t here,” she said. “Is she okay?”

  “Is she ooh-kay…?” Hopie echoed slowly, as if exploring the strange word on her tongue. “No, Tania, I would not say that our sister is okay.”

  Tania vividly remembered the last time she had seen Rathina. It had been in the Hall of Light. Oberon had come to Tania’s rescue, thwarting Drake’s intention to do her harm after his schemes to gain the power to walk both worlds had failed. But then Rathina had revealed her part in Tania’s ordeal and her secret love for Gabriel Drake. Her last words to Tania were burned into her memory. I hate you. I wish you were dead. Not a good memory to carry of someone she had thought was her closest friend in all of Faerie.

  “Your sister fled the palace two nights ago,” said Brython. “She was seen by a stable boy, clad only in her gown with neither cloak nor bag, riding her horse out onto the northern downs in the dark watches of the night.”

  “Perhaps it is best that she is gone,” Hopie said quietly. “Maddalena is a wise beast and she will ensure that her mistress comes to no harm. And it may be that with time and solitude, the madness of her passion for the traitor Drake will abate.” She gazed out toward the horizon. “Such is my wish,” she said. “But I have little hope that it will end thus. The poor child was fey with the bitter dregs of unrequited love!”

  “Fey?”

  “Touched by madness,” Hopie said. “I fear that even were the King to use his Arts to find her and bring her back to us, the creature that returned would be but the husk of our sister, and that we would know her not.”

  Tania turned away, her heart breaking at the thought of her sister alone and friendless, gnawed by love for a man who had used her and who had never cared for her.

  Tania spent a while walking alone along the seashore after her conversation with Hopie. The memory of Rathina’s betrayal and of her hatred was still raw in her heart and mind.

  “No!” she said. “This is meant to be fun!” She turned, intending to go back up the beach to where there were people to distract her, but she saw Zara and Cordelia coming across the sand toward her.

  “Well met!” Cordelia called. “But why do you walk here alone?”

  “She is playing the part of the sorrowful maid in the ballad,” Zara said. “Do you remember Evensong, Tania?” She began to sing.

  Of an evening in December, when the frost lay on the ground,

  she was walking wild with fever by the bitter ocean strand

  and the wind gnawed at her fingers, and the ice cracked in her hair,

  weeping seagulls swept around her, she did nought but stand and stare

  Tania smiled. “Did I look that fed up?” she said. “Sorry. I’ve been talking to Hopie about Rathina. It made me feel bad.”

  “Indeed, the treachery of our sister throws a darkness over all our hearts,” Cordelia said.

  “But there is nought to be gained by such long faces,” Zara said. “I will not have it, not on such a night as this. See, I shall lighten your spirits.” She drew her flute from the confines of her dress. Putting it to her lips, she walked into the shallow waves.

  “Where’s Windfarer?” Tania asked Cordelia.

  “He is away in the hills, hunting up a supper,” she replied. “He will return when his belly is full.”

  Zara came to a halt with the waves eddying around her knees, her gown clinging in wet folds to her legs. The tune she was playing was quite different from anything Tania had heard before. Streams of dancing notes rippled among languorous rolling melodies, descending at times into long, deep, rumbling tones that reverberated in Tania’s ears and made her shiver.

  “She is playing an ocean song,” Cordelia said softly.

  A few yards beyond where Zara was standing, the face of the sea began to boil and seethe. Suddenly a host of fish came leaping into the air, shedding water like jewels off their iridescent scales.

  A larger shape plunged out of the water: a dolphin, its sleek sides gleaming as it twirled tail over snout before sliding beneath the waves once more. Then more dolphins joined in the wonderful marine ballet, leaping in high curves from the sea, crossing one another’s paths, shedding trails of shining water droplets, somersaulting and vanishing again into the water with a
flick of their fluked tails.

  Closer to the shore, where the water was shallower, a dark, hard-edged shape emerged slowly from the waves. It was a few moments before Tania could tell what it was—but then she recognized the blunt bullet head and the smooth green dome of the shell and the powerful flippers that hauled the huge turtle up into the surf.

  Beside her, Cordelia stiffened. “That ancient gentleman is an unusual visitor on these shores and at such a time of year,” she murmured. “Maybe he has news for me.” She ran to the creature and crouched in front of it, her hand on its head, speaking softly to it as it lay among the lapping waves.

  At last Zara brought the fluting to a stop and walked out of the sea, holding her flute in one hand and her wet skirts in the other. The fish and the dolphins vanished under the water and the surface became still again. The huge turtle turned laboriously and crawled back into the foaming sea. Cordelia came walking back to where Tania and Zara were standing, her face thoughtful.

  “Is something wrong?” Tania asked.

  “I do not know,” Cordelia said. “Yonder seafarer told me that he roams often beyond the rocky shores of Dinsel and out into the waters that lie between our Realm and the cruel island of Lyonesse.”

  “Let us not speak of that place,” Zara pleaded. “Not tonight!”

  “What’s the problem?” Tania asked.

  “He told me that he has seen lights in the ruined fortress of the King of Lyonesse,” Cordelia said. “Lights where there should be no lights.”

  “Jack-o’-lanterns and marsh goblins belike,” Zara said with a shudder. “It is thousands of years since the King of Lyonesse and his Gray Knights brewed their evil in that haunted place. While our father holds sway in Faerie, we need never fear that deadly peril again.” She caught Tania’s arm. “I have great thirst after playing such salty songs. Come, let us eat and drink and be merry. The night is yet young and we have much to see and do before morning.”

  Tania looked at her. “Morning?” she said. “Zara, I can’t stay that long. I’ll get into big trouble if my parents find out that I’m not in my room.”