AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She stopped. “She’s different.”
“Obviously so.”
“She’s taller.”
“She’s not bloody taller. She’s a bit better kept, but she’s the same size as the rest of you. More of a nutter, I suppose.”
“Among my people, calling someone a nutter is a compliment. Moth is a smashing nutter.”
“I am,” said Moth.
“The squirrel is strong with this one,” said Cobweb.
“I don’t mean it that way,” said I.
“I am simple,” said Peaseblossom.
“We know, love,” said Cobweb. “It means someone who is good at remembering where they’ve hidden their nuts.”
“Fine,” said I. “She’s a nutter of the first rate. Do you think she killed the Puck?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t tending her that day.”
“Squirrels— Your people, I mean, tend her during the day? As squirrels?”
“Aye. She’s a goddess, isn’t she?”
“So we could just go back and ask the fairies who were with her on the morning the Puck was killed if they saw the murder?”
“Aye, if you want.”
“Then let’s do that,” said I.
“Pocket, you daft dog pizzle, she’s probably already killed one fool, do you want to give her another go at a second one? Fine, but I have become trifling fond of you and I shan’t watch you slain.”
“Perhaps not,” I said, thinking she might have a point. But once again, what was the why of it? I said, “Why would Titania wish to harm the Puck? Especially that morning when he was on his way to Theseus on an errand for her?”
Cobweb shrugged. “It makes as much sense as Oberon killing his own jester, yet we are on our way to his castle to ask him.”
“Do you imagine he’ll confess?”
“Oh my, yes, and then he will change Bottom back into a man, and give you the love potion for Theseus, and I shan’t be surprised if he lays a banquet for us, has his goblins bathe you in rosewater, and personally wanks you off in thanks.” She nodded at me, her wide eyes doubly wide to show just how bloody earnest she was.
“Sarcasm will make your tail fall off,” said I.
She feigned alarm and lifted her frock as if to check for a tail, then wagged her bottom at me. “Oh, blast! You’re right. Oh woe!” She bumped her naked hip against me, then scampered ahead to walk with the others.
“Squirrel!” I called, but was paid no mind.
I trod on a bit behind the others, and as I watched Peaseblossom twiddling the tongues on Moth’s hat of many tongues, I recalled Rumour’s parting chorus: “The passion of the Puck lies with the prince.”
“The boy!” I called to Cobweb. “The Indian boy in Titania’s charge, does he change into a squirrel at daylight?”
“No, he is mortal.”
But his ears were pointed. I’d seen them up close. Had Titania killed the Puck to protect the boy for some reason, perhaps from Oberon? The shadow king had banished her from the castle over the boy. If she had sent the killer, it would make sense she would blame Oberon for the Puck’s murder as misdirection.
I hurried to Cobweb’s side. “Were you with Titania when she fetched the boy from India?”
“No, none of us were. We don’t leave the forest except to steal from the mortals.”
“So no one knew this boy’s mother? No one was there for her death, nor the travels Titania says she had with her?”
“Only the Puck. When they traveled far it was always with the Puck.”
“They?”
“When Titania and Oberon travel the skies, of all the fairy and goblin people, only the Puck is—was—allowed in their company.”
“So no ships? No carriages, horses, elephants?”
“Maybe elephants,” said Cobweb.
“She traveled to India on a cracking huge gray animal, taller than a house, with great fan ears, tusks, and a long nose made for grasping?”
“Oh, no. No elephants either, then. Just she and the Puck.”
“Oh, bollocks. I should have never left Puck in the grotto that morning,” said I. “I would have seen he had been followed.”
“I do not think I care for elephants,” said Cobweb. “Wait, which grotto?”
“I don’t know, a great tree and rock hole, with a great stone in the stream shaped like a turtle.”
“Turtle Grotto?” said Cobweb.
“That would seem an entirely appropriate name for such a place.”
“That’s where Titania would meet Theseus,” said Peaseblossom.
“What?” said I, and verily “What” was repeated among our merry band as we stopped and turned our attention to the simple fairy.
“That’s where the night queen bonked the day duke,” said Peaseblossom. “Watched from a tree. I will say, a mortal will take his time in the day, when he’s a mind to. Not like a fairy bloke, quick poke under the tail and they’re off to the next tree without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“Titania was also shagging Theseus?” I asked.
The fairies all nodded.
“Can’t blame her, really,” said Moth. “After you two last night, thinking of giving a human mortal a go myself.”
“Me too,” said Peaseblossom.
“In all this time, you two have never shagged a mortal?” I said.
“Mortal man,” said Moth.
“All what time?” asked Peaseblossom.
“Well, all of your hundreds of years—how old are you, anyway?”
“Seven,” said Peaseblossom, not sounding entirely sure of her answer.
“Seven? Seven?” I turned to Cobweb. “You’re nine hundred years old and your mate is seven?”
“We are not good at counting,” said Moth.
“Nine hundred was an estimate,” said Cobweb.
“The point,” said I, “despite your appalling aptitude with figures, is Theseus and Titania were meeting at the very place where the Puck was killed. It could hav
e been either of them, or both of them in concert.”
“Except that Theseus sent you to find the killer, did he not?” asked Cobweb.
“Yes. No. Oh balls. So did Titania. Let us bugger on to the bloody Night Palace and ask the bloody shadow king to transform bloody Bottom back into a man, fetch us the bloody love potion flower, and confess to the killing of his bloody jester. Should be a piece of piss.”
“You seem bothered,” said Cobweb. “Shall I build a nest and we’ll have a bit of a rest before going on?” She leaned in and whispered in my ear breathily and with no stealth whatsoever, “A wee nap to rejuvenate the humors.”
“And to bonk his boots off,” said Peaseblossom, deftly reading the subtext through her intrepid thickness.
“I am sorely tempted to nap, but I think it best we get to the Night Palace, then rest.” Truth be told I was knackered from the day’s marching and I was not ambivalent about the fairy’s charms.
Cobweb said, “If you and Bottom need to get to Oberon tonight, then to Athens before Theseus hangs your friend, you’ll need to travel all night tonight and all day tomorrow. We fairies will be fine, but you two will need to rest.”
“You sleep during the day, then?”
“No, safer to sleep at night, like this. Less chance of being eaten by a cat.”
“Right, hadn’t thought of that.”
“Fancy a frolic, then?” asked Peaseblossom.
Cobweb put her arm around my waist. I allowed it. “It will sustain you, you being a living thing. You felt it last night, didn’t you?”
I had. The strength and speed I’d felt while chasing Demetrius’s killer—of course, the dance. I didn’t know they had known. “I thought you were forbidden to dance. Isn’t that Titania’s grievance with Oberon?”
“It is. And we are forbidden. But the Puck told us to dance as we please as long as Titania and Oberon do not see us.”
“It feels ever so naughty when it’s forbidden,” said Moth.
“A frolic it is, then,” said I. And without any ceremony or prelude, the three fairies shed their frocks and began to dance.
* * *
Bottom and I walked light after the frolic, this one in close proximity, washed us with an uncanny vigor. I felt again like I could run the rest of the way to the Night Palace, with a fairy or two on my back. I was barely able to resist adding a dance step to my cadence as we marched along the trail and I even taught the fairies the chorus to that alehouse standard “I Give Your Sweet Mum a Spot o’ the Pox.”
