A silly grin followed Gossamyr’s explosion. While the air seemed to fit her like a charm, it did not want her to get too comfortable.
Of a sudden, a strange, mournful tune touched her ear. The small clink of saddle furnishings punctuated the song with syncopated notes.
Gossamyr spun to eye a horse and rider ambling down the path. Her right hand stiffening and fingering the waxed cord of an arret, she homed in on the approaching target and crouched to strike.
Paris—downnorth
Aaee aaaa…mmm…oooo….
The melodious call beckoned him along the rough limestone garden wall, arms stretched to flatten his body and meld with the twilight shadows. Wings scraped against stone, but for the task he did not mind the pain.
Again came the sonorous call, a seductive beckoning. He closed his eyes and rode the shiver that vibrated his very bones and bubbled his blood. A strange and overwhelming desire always transpired at the call. For a moment it blocked those just-beneath-the-surface longings to flee, to mutiny.
Down the alley the door to an inn opened to emit or eject. The beat of drums, pounding to a rhythm of the Indian isles, escaped and fixed a tempo inside his breast. It synchronized with his heartbeats and played dull tympani to the succubus’s call.
His fingers curling around the corner of a darkened cobbler’s shop, he peeked to spy the nondescript black lacquered carriage across the empty market square. Red curtains of heavy plush covered the glassless windows; a thin, painted red line danced an arabesque across the gut of the carriage. The equipage, plumed in even more red, stood motionless, sleeping upon their feet. The coachman slept as well; a forced rest, that.
Aaee…aaaaa…mmm…
He dived into the shudder that swelled in his muscles and centered in his groin. Moans leaked from his tight lips, aching for her touch, to be controlled by his mistress. Though the call spoke of private pleasures and selfless devotion, he knew this one was not for him. He only received the call in the privacy of his lady’s manor.
So he watched as from out of the shadows crept a lone man, tall and armed at his left hip with a sword. They always approached with cautious steps and plumed hats pulled low. Elegantly dressed in doublet and thigh-high boots, a chain of ornamental gold hung heavily about his shoulders—rich, then.
Fée, the watcher deduced, for their kind betrayed themselves with their carriage. Ever haughty and slim, unable to sulk under the oppression Paris pressed down upon all. Regal rogues. Yet Disenchantment had melted away this one’s wings.
Not mine, the watcher thought. Puppy still has wings.
The fée ran a glove, palmed in mail, along the carriage body, inexplicably tracing the fine red line—when a lithe hand swept out from the window. Flinching as if singed, the fée’s hand recoiled, but as quickly dashed back to clasp the female’s fingers. He bent to inhale the aroma of lemon soaking the fine kidskin glove.
The watcher rubbed together his bare fingers. Dry cracks from squeezing lemons to extract the oil from the slippery rinds tormented his flesh. Good Puppy.
One final call. This melody lingered, wrapping its music about the fée’s volition and securing hold.
As the carriage door creaked open, the watcher hated her. Slipping a hand into the leather sheath at his hip he drew up a long thin needle of silver, capped with a smooth, perfect ball of winter-forged iron.
Pin man.
No. I am your puppy, yes?
Moonlight danced on the pin’s tip. Fixing to the thin shimmer of silver he mesmerized himself, falling into the moment and the singular admiration of the narrow shine. Anything to avoid thinking of her…and what absence denied him.
Moments later the carriage door again creaked open. One long leg thrust out, followed by a torso and the other leg dragging closely behind. The fée stumbled, catching himself upon the ground with his gloves. Mail clished across the cobbles. The tip of a steel-capped sabre sheath drew a metallic line in the wake of the clatter. Curious, the Parisian fée choose metal weapons over the finer stone instruments. Did the Disenchanted no longer fear the bite of iron or the burn of steel?
The watcher pressed his back to the wall and closed his eyes, clutching the pin near his thigh. Silver, yes, but a strange magic protected him from its devastating burn.
The fée managed to right himself, wobbled as if soused, then sauntered toward the shadows. Boots, spurred and jingling, trudged closer. A racket of riches announced the fée’s approach. The watcher felt the wind of movement as a gloved hand smacked the wall near his ear—steadying, grasping a moment to catch a breath that from this moment on could only be a dying cry.
The fée passed without notice. Almost.
The pin held firmly in his palm, the long needle sticking out between his first and second finger, tugged at fine silk hose and pierced. The small cry from the fée preceded his jerk to swing and eye his attacker. He stared at the pin man for but a second—memorize those strange-colored eyes and smooth silvery skin dotted with red—then staggered onward.
Drawing the pin along his torso, one deft twist tilted the point to his nose. The pin man drew in the scent of the fée’s blood, savoring it as if a bung-cork plucked from the cask of aged Bordeaux—not so much sweet as sour, and laced with an earthen origin. Scent of Faery. Had he ever lived there? Yes! But…when?
He dashed across the way, and lifting the carriage door open without making a single creak, entered the dark box. Crawling upon the carriage floor and coiling his legs up under him, he stretched an arm along the soft, sensuous damask skirts, feeling beneath all the frill and lace her thigh, the sharp curve of her hip and waist. Burying his face into her lap he sighed and snuggled into salvation.
The tips of sharpened fingernails grazed his scalp as his mistress raked a hand through his long hair. “Such a good puppy you are.”
He snuggled his face deeper into the warm thickness of bone-colored damask and lemon and the cloying aroma of woman. Always she allowed him this small moment. A reward for a task begun.
But not completed.
THREE
The horse seemed more a mule for it did not span half so high as the eighteen-hand destriers Shinn’s troops had once ridden into battle. Gossamyr loved to ride the stallions across a flower-dappled meadow, her arms stretched wide to catch the wind—it was as close as she ever came to flying. But never too close to the Edge.
The careless tune suddenly ceased and a dark-hooded head looked up at the block in the road.
“Well met?” called Gossamyr, waving to appear unthreatening. She had no intention of attacking until she determined a menace. “Be you friend or foe?”
The male snorted. “You shall have to divine that for yourself.”
Taken aback, Gossamyr straightened and unhooked an arret. It wasn’t so much the rude reply but the tone of it. Harsh and deep, and not at all friendly.
The man heeled the mule toward Gossamyr until they stood but two leaps from her. Truly a mutant, the beast. For what purpose did so small a horse serve when its master’s feet toed the grass tops?
The rider remained astride, unconcerned the proper greeting should see him bowing before her. Green-and-black horizontal-striped hosen, tight as spriggan-skin, emphasized his long legs; a shock of pattern weeping from the blur of black wool cloak and hood. His pale face was severely scored by a thin beard and mustache the color of burnt chestnuts. Following the length of his blade nose, Gossamyr focused on his blue eyes filled with more white than color. Eerie. She had not before looked into eyes of such color.
“I…offer you no bane,” she tried. How to address a mortal? “Er…kind mortal.”
“Oh?”