Page 37 of Confounding Oaths
“You should probably know,” Itold the Ambassador the following day over a light supper of poet’s tears and chrysanthemums, “that you’re about to have some mortals looking for you.”
“You can saypeople,Robin,” he chided me. “And I am technically mortal as well.”
I wasn’t about to let that stand. “We’re all technically mortal. Even the great lords and ladies of our courts can die in theory.”
“So I’ve heard, but I don’t believe it.”
I wasn’t entirely sure I did. And certainly I have not been spreading any rumours about specific instances. My lord Oberon in particular has always held his current throne, came by it by entirely fair means, and has no blood on his hands whatsoever. And no ichor either. “Gods have died. Titans have been cast down. Even the eternal is impermanent.”
The Ambassador drained his glass. “Why are you really here?”
“A friendly visit.”
“Say that twice more.”
I feigned a sigh—it is a habit, I think, I have picked up from too long observing humans. “The Lady has taken an interest in a girl in whom I have also taken an interest. Her brother will be looking for you. And he will have solicited the assistance of a mortal champion—”
“Do they still make those?” asked the Ambassador casually.
“Once or twice a generation. And they’re each as infuriating as the last. But that aside, he will want you to undo what has been done. Or tell him how to undo it. And I wanted to make sure that you were ready to give him an answer that will … be to the advantage of our mutual lord.”
In the Ambassador’s lily-woven bower beyond space and time, something that was pretending very hard to be sunlight slanted down through things that were pretending very hard to be trees, dappling him with gold. Long ago (as you reckon it) he was the source of a quarrel between my master and his lady, and has since that day dwelt in the Other Court from which he has, from time to time, journeyed out to carry word between the human world and the fairy kingdom.
“You mean you want me to use this opportunity to fuck with Titania.”
I shrugged. Another mortal affectation. “It is both of our duty, and the Lady is her creature.”
“And how exactly will this mortal locate me?” asked the Ambassador, not quite suspicious. One is suspicious only when one is uncertain.
“I couldn’t possibly imagine.”
The thing that was pretending to be the wind sighed a melody. “My my,” said the Ambassador. “I have guests. What a remarkable coincidence.”
Knowing that he would not receive visitors in the space beyond(I had encouraged him to, but he kept raising objections about things like “being able to get out again” and “grip on reality” and “inexperience with nonlinear time” like the utter killjoy he is) I went out to see who it was. I, of course, had no forewarning as to the identity of the intruders because I had no involvement with any sequence of events that could have led to anybody being present.
“Remind me again,” Mr. Caesar was saying to Miss Bickle, “how you know this will work?”
“It came to me in a dream,” she told him, with ironclad surety.
“And you’re certain,” said Captain James, who made up the final third of their party, Miss Mitchelmore being otherwise employed with her lover, “that this is the right tree?”
The tree in question was old and gnarled, its branches spreading wide and forming, if one so fancied it, the top and side of a frame or a portal. Daffodils, just in season, strewed the ground beneath, although their exact position was never quite the same the second time one looked.
“I am positive. It was most vivid. I have never felt anything like it, and you should know I have exceedingly vivid dreams all the time.”
Mr. Caesar did, in fact, know this. Indeed he had been treated to detailed narrations of several of Miss Bickle’s more vivid dreams and had agreed to this little jaunt partly in the hope that he would be treated to no more.
“I’m extraordinarily sorry about this,” said Mr. Caesar. “I’m aware that it’s a rather odd thing to be doing.”
The captain shrugged. “Still better than the opera.”
“So now,” Miss Bickle explained, “we just place the offerings”—she lifted the hamper that she had brought for the purpose—“on the right spot beneath the boughs.”
Mr. Caesar was still looking profoundly sceptical. “And you’re surethat teacakes, clotted cream, mature cheese, and a decanter of brandy are appropriate for conjuring an otherworldly intermediary?”
“They seem a fine enough present to me,” said Miss Bickle, her lips turning artfully downwards into an aggrieved frown. “And I don’t see you stepping forth with any better ideas.”
Captain James made a thoughtful expression. “Blood of a virgin? A handful of grave dust?”
