“Mortals do not succumb so readily in the fae realms.”
“How old did he appear to you?”
Shrike shrugged. “Of middling age?”
“Like myself?” Wren pressed. “Or like Mr Grigsby?”
“Somewhere in between. Nearer to Mr Grigsby than to you.”
Middle-aged after a century. Wren pondered the notion in silence, quite forgetting himself as he mused over its implications. The bleating of a goat recalled him to the present. “But to your story. A century after he found you.”
“By then he’d met other fae and impressed on some of them his worth as a craftsman. While we belonged to no particular court—he swore he’d never serve another king so long as he drew breath—we traded our wares and kept up a more comfortable life than in our humbler beginnings. Our leather bartered livestock, grain, smithed goods. Anything we couldn’t cultivate for ourselves from the forest’s bounty. We were free-men, in Larkin’s words. I think we might have remained happy in our own company for another century or more.”
“But he passed on,” Wren said when Shrike fell silent.
“Aye.”
As the silence threatened to resume, Wren asked, “And who looked after you when he’d gone?”
The ghost of a wistful smile tugged at the corners of those handsome lips. “My own self.”
A pang struck Wren’s heart. He well knew what it was to be lonely. Except for Mr Grigsby, he’d lived in cold isolation ever since he’d left the Restive Quills. Now that Shrike had found him, however, he dared to believe his loneliness might abate. He only hoped Shrike might find the same relief in him. “If Larkin could see what you craft now, I think he’d feel very proud of his ward.”
To Wren’s astonishment, a rosy tint came to Shrike’s swarthy visage. In his low burr, he replied, “Thank you.”
Wren’s mind continued on down the path of Shrike’s craft to further muse on what he’d glimpsed in the cottage. “The leather armour is the work of your own hand, I presume? Will you wear it in the solstice duel?”
“Aye.”
“Do all the fae wear leather armour? Does the Holly King?”
“Nay. He was a knight afore his queen crowned him. He has silver mail and plate yet.”
Wren grew uneasy. “Should you not garb yourself alike, then? To make it a more even match?”
“I’ve never worn mail or plate. Less than two months’ time is not much to learn to fight under their encumbrance.”
Fair point, Wren supposed. “Best to trust in armour of your own making, then.”
“And in you.”
Wren’s pencil ceased moving. “What?”
“Your sigil of protection,” said Shrike, as though it were the most natural sentiment in the world. “I felt its potency. I know it will prove true.”
Wren wished he could share in his certainty. While he, too, had felt the astounding magical effects of the sigil on Samhain, it still seemed impossible that something of his own making could withstand the test of the Winter Solstice.
“And I know,” Shrike continued, another slight and becoming smile gracing his handsome features, “that a clever hand inscribed it.”
Heat bloomed in Wren’s face. He had to admit it felt rather inspiring to know Shrike thought so well of his work. While he might not consider his own hand particularly clever, as he laid down the final strokes of the portrait sketch, he thought he might have produced something clever at last, if only by choosing a worthy subject.
“Here you are,” Wren declared, turning his sketch-book so Shrike might see.
Shrike cocked his head at the portrait. Then he rose from the stone and strode towards Wren. He took the sketch-book from Wren’s hands with more reverence than Wren thought it deserved. Wren held his breath and awaited his opinion.
~
It’d been many years since Shrike had spoken so many words aloud at once. Few folk demanded his history, and of those few, he felt inclined to answer still fewer.
