Fairy Godmother fhk-1 Page 8

  "How is it that this is nothing more than a cottage from outside, and all this on the inside?" Elena asked, pleased for the opening at last to ask what she had been dying to know.

  "Ah. That is rather difficult to explain. In fact, I'm not entirely certain that I can, except to say that it is magic, and it is necessary." Madame Bella shrugged. "There is nothing to show on the outside that this is not the abode of an ordinary White Witch, or even some peasant who has chosen to live apart in the forest. I told you that we have enemies, and it has happened in the past that in order to facilitate their schemes, they began by eliminating the region's Godmother. Not often, but it has happened."

  "Oh," Elena said, sobered. So, this Godmothering business was dangerous. She felt a little touch of fear at that moment. She wasn't used to danger. Life with her stepmother had been hard, lonely, unhappy and unpleasant, but not precisely dangerous. Danger was something that happened to other people — why, hadn't she considered and discarded the idea of simply running away and taking her chances because of the danger?

  Difficult, complicated, and now dangerous. But on the other hand, I will never be bored, and no one will be making a slave out of me. There was a great deal to be said for that, and as for the danger —

  I will be helping to make other peoples' dreams come true.

  "You will make dreams come true, Elena," Madame Bella said, softly, in an uncanny echo of Elena's own thoughts. "And dreams are dangerous things in and of themselves." She cast another look around the library. "Look at them! Dreams and nightmares, hopes and fears. Compared to some of the trials that our heroes and heroines must face in order to earn their happy endings, what we Godmothers encounter is really trivial so long as we are careful to keep our true nature hidden. You'll see, when you come to read them, for not every tale has that happy ending. Not every hero is brave enough, resourceful enough, or lucky enough, even with our help, to triumph in the end." There was a shadow on Madame Bella's face, and she seemed to be recalling something that was very sad indeed. Then she shook her head. "Read the books, Elena, and you will see."

  The rest of the ground floor was given over to working rooms. There was a dairy-room, a stillroom, the kitchen, of course, a little office, a sewing-room; in short, everything this establishment needed to be self-sufficient. "We take care of a great deal of our own needs here," Madame said with pride. "There are two villages within walking distance, and we have arrangements with people in both of them for things like flour and so forth. The villagers all believe that I am a White Witch, and often come to me for spells and cures, and pay me in things that we need." She smiled. "Which, of course, is another reason why my home appears to be a simple cottage on the outside. You will soon see that we do not squander magic on the things we can supply by the same means as anyone else. We help our local people, earning our way the same as any other craftsman, and our local people, since they do not know that I am a Godmother, assist in creating the illusion that I am just the local White Witch. They will see nothing amiss in my having taken an Apprentice; in fact, I suspect that they will be somewhat relieved."

  "That sounds like an excellent arrangement to me," Elena replied, feeling relieved, for she could not envisage herself as a farmer, and the House Elves did not seem young nor strong enough to be farm-workers. Of course, according to the tales she had heard, there was no telling with Elves; they might look frail, yet be strong as an ox.

  "In the same way, we aid the local Faerie Folk in return for their help, both in terms of the service that Hob and Robin and their wives give us, and in magic. They, however, know that I am a Godmother, and by now, they have heard about you." Madame Bella smiled broadly. "The Faerie Folk always seem to know about something within the hour of it happening."

  Outside the house — which still looked, and from all angles, like a simple two- or three-room cottage — were the gardens. In the front were the flowers and ornamental plants; two on either side were herb-beds. The culinary herbs were to the right of the cottage, the healing herbs to the left. Of course, there were some herbs that served both purposes, but as Madame pointed out, having them in both gardens meant only that she could be sure that there would always be enough.

  In the rear was the kitchen-garden, with handsome red hens industriously scratching among the planted rows, looking for insects or weed-sprouts; this was where they found the Brownie Lily, working diligently among the young cabbages.

  And as she listened to their quiet clucking, she got a shock. She certainly heard clucking — but she also heard something else.

  "Greedy, greedy, greedy," muttered one hen, jealously eyeing a choice patch of ground that a bigger hen was scratching. "Not enough bugs," grumbled another, and the rest simply evidenced contentment.

  She could, indeed, understand the speech of animals.

  It took her a moment to catch her breath when she realized the truth, it seemed as if, for now, her life was going to be one disconcerting moment after another.

  Finally she caught her breath, so to speak, and turned her attention back to what Madame was saying about her garden.

  If ever there was a model vegetable garden, this was surely it — the rows were as straight as could be, the young plants healthy and flourishing. And if Elena was any judge, the gardener had started her plants in stages, so that there would be vegetables at the perfect state to harvest all summer long. It was difficult to manage, and took a great deal of skill, as well as careful management of cold-frames. Elena had never managed it properly, and only knew two farmers at home who had done it — and their produce almost always went straight to the Palace.

  "Ah, Madame Bella!" said the Brownie, rising to her feet and brushing soil from her canvas apron. "I've some lovely sparrow-grass coming; not for dinner today, but definitely for tomorrow. This would be Mistress Elena, then."

  "Yes," Elena answered for herself. "And you are Lily; these are wonderful gardens!"

  "Oh, I do my best," Lily replied, with a shrug. "It's good to be where people appreciate that."

  The last of the tour took them to the byre at the bottom of the garden, with the stable beside it. There was a donkey in the stable — presumably unmagical, since it gazed on both of them with supreme disinterest and went back to the hay in its manger. It was an old beast, by the grey of its muzzle.

  In the byre were two red-brown milch-cows with mild eyes, who were equally disinterested in the two humans. Well, that explained where the fresh milk and cream were coming from. Fortunately, they didn't say anything. Elena wasn't at all sure she could cope with talking cows as well as talking chickens at the moment.

  Altogether, this would have been exactly the sort of situation where Elena would have been happy as a servant. She certainly had never envisioned herself as the mistress of such a place. It was a little daunting.

  And when you added in the talking animals —

  How am I ever going to be able to eat meat again ? she wondered with sudden dismay. But then, she remembered just how incredibly stupid the chickens had sounded. She had always known that chickens weren't bright, and the fact that she could understand what they were saying to each other hadn't changed that. All that was different, really, was that instead of merely intuiting the meaning of their calls, she actually knew it.

  It occurred to her, as Madame Bella opened the garden gate and beckoned her to follow out into the woods surrounding the cottage, that there was another aspect to all of this. In the tales that she knew, there were often animals that were, well, more than mere animals. Whether they were magic beasts, or from the Faerie Realms, they were always the equal and sometimes superior in intelligence to humans —

  — like that little humpbacked horse that had drawn Madame's cart last night, for instance.

  And now she would be able to speak to them, as Madame could, which was probably Madame's entire reason for giving her the dragon's blood to drink.

  Madame followed a path winding among the enormous trees of this forest, and Elena followed h
er, though once they got under the deep shadows cast by the heavy growth, she looked back at the sunlit gardens longingly. Elena was town-bred, and in fact, since Madame Klovis had taken over the household, she had never been any farther from her house than the market-garden. The trees she knew were all tame things, neatly trimmed and confined to gardens, surrounded by seats or planted in jardinieres. These were wild trees, huge, taller than the clock tower, so big that three girls could have stood around them, stretched out their arms and barely have been able to touch their fingertips together. The thick bark was green with moss, and beneath their branches the woods lay in a murmurous twilight. Anywhere that there was a gap in the canopy, the undergrowth ran wild — where there was no place for the sun to penetrate, mushrooms made little colonies, moss carpeted the ground and the fallen tree limbs, and the occasional odd, pale flower bloomed.

  Every time a twig snapped or a bird called, Elena jumped. And it didn't help that she could understand what those birds were saying, either, because it was mostly, "Hey! Hey, hey, hey!"

  So what were they shouting about? What was lurking out there, hidden in the tangles of vines, behind the fallen trees, in the shadows. Bears? Wolves?

  Worse?

  "Madame Bella?" she whispered, not wanting to make any noise louder than that. "Where are we going?"

  The Godmother glanced back at her. "I need to show you to the Faerie Folk — their official representatives, that is; my Brownies don't count. Most of them can't abide salt and cold iron, so they cannot come to us, we must come to them."

  Elena shivered. The Brownies were one thing; they were small and earthy, and impossible to be afraid of. But there were all manner of Faerie Folk that she wasn't at all sure she wanted to be "shown" to. Dangerous creatures dwelled in the Faerie Realms, and even when they were marginally friendly to mortals, they were chancy to deal with; unpredictable and easily offended. What if she offended one of them?

  Perhaps worse, what of one of them took a fancy to her? No mortal could resist Faerie glamour; she could be lured away, only to discover, when her Faerie lover tired of her, that when she tried to return home, she would turn into a withered old crone, or even die, once she set foot outside those charmed precincts. For while weeks or months had passed for her, hundreds of years would have passed in the mortal world.

  But it was too late for misgivings now, for there was a glow ahead of them that was not sunlight breaking through the heavy canopy, and there were bright and dark figures moving in that glow.

  As they neared the spot, Elena saw that it was a clearing in the woods, ringed with palid mushrooms, carpeted with deep green moss studded with tiny golden flowers. In the center, two stumps and a tightly entwined series of ancient vines formed a pair of thrones, cushioned with leaves so dark a green they looked at first glance to be black, and ornamented with huge, trumpet-bell flowers in of pale pink, pale blue, and cream. Two tall, thin, impossibly beautiful creatures sat in those thrones, creatures with leaf-pointed ears, cascades of silver-gilt hair, and garments of that damasked silk that only the Elves could weave. Their skin was so pale and translucent they could have been carved from moonstone, but their enormous, curiously slanted blue eyes were alive enough as they watched Madame and Elena approach.

  Surrounding the thrones was a crowd of other creatures, most of which Elena could not put names upon. There were Unicorns, silken-soft and cloven-hoofed, and tiny, perfectly formed, perfectly naked winged women no more than a foot tall. There were tall, shrouded creatures that seemed to bring a deeper shadow with them, and Elena instinctively knew that she did not want to look under their cowls. There were green-skinned women clothed in leaves and flowers, and men with goat-legs, tiny horns half-hidden in their curly brown hair, and sly, knowing eyes. And those were just the ones that Elena could see.

  Madame led her to within twenty paces of the sylvan thrones, and stopped, making a deep, but not servile, bow. "Majesties, this is my Apprentice, Elena."

  The two on the thrones, who evidently must have been the King and Queen of the Elves in this Kingdom, if not all of the Faerie Folk, turned their impassive gaze on her. And, after a long moment of scrutiny, nodded.

  "A good choice, Madame Bella," said the woman, whose musical voice was as lovely and indescribable as her face. She stood up, and beckoned to Elena, who reluctantly came nearer. "So, Apprentice, have you been warned? Do you know the dangers as well as the duties?"

  "I left that to you, Majesty," Madame Bella said, serenely. "As is the custom."

  The Elven Queen smiled, coolly. "So you do remember. It is well. Mortal woman, stand before me, and see. These are the foes you will contend with, mortal and immortal."

  The Queen extended the slender willow-wand in her hand until it touched Elena's forehead.

  And in a single moment, it seemed, a torrent of images poured into her mind. None were pleasant, and many were terrifying.

  It was one thing to be warned about the evil magicians, and to remember all of the things she had read and heard. It was quite another to see them at work, in rapid succession. And some — were horrors.

  Some of the horrors were blatant — entire countries laid waste, the inhabitants made into hopeless slaves, afraid to do anything but obey because of the cost of disobedience. Some of the evil ones were precisely as she might have expected, gloating despots squatting on thrones they had no right to, torture and exploitation the hallmarks of their reigns.

  But some were subtle, and once Elena realized what she was seeing, the implications were chilling. Often the evil one was not on the throne itself, but was the power behind it, whispering into the monarch's ear. The effect was insidious; rather than creating despair for all, the dark one created factions, pitting the privileged, wealthy, and titled against those beneath them, placing the effort of exploitation one layer below the monarch. This kept despair from being total, for there was always the hope — "But when the King learns of this...." — even though the hope was destined never to be fulfilled. These spiders spun a cunning web, beginning as they always did by eroding conditions gradually, with rights converted to privilege, then the privilege revoked on one pretense or another, always for an excellent reason, always on a "temporary" basis, until the next "privilege" was taken and the previous grievance forgotten. Then as one hand took away, the other, the King's, would give — something trivial, but pleasurable. Games perhaps, or entertainments. Nothing controversial, of course. A competition that would elevate the winner into the ranks of the wealthy and prominent — so that the illusion was maintained that this was possible for everyone. It was as if wholesome bread was being taken, and a tastier bread made with sawdust used to replace it.

  Or, perhaps the one behind the throne would start a war on some trumped-up cause — a little war, of course, against a weak but convenient enemy, one that would be difficult to lose, that would stir up patriotic fervor, one that would, of course, entail "sacrifices for the good of all and the security of the realm" under cover of which more "privileges" could be "temporarily" taken.

  Clever and insidious, and damnably difficult to counter. And all the while, the spider spun his web, battening on the misery and depression, growing fat and ever more powerful, and in the darkness behind the throne, indulging himself in secret cruelties against the "enemies of the state."

  These, more than the others, were the ones that were the most dangerous to the Godmothers, the White Wizards, the Good Wizards. The first class were brutal, but seldom thought past the moment. The second planned ahead, months, years, decades — anticipated opposition, and moved to counter it well in advance. These were the ones who swiftly cleansed their countries of resident magicians, either directly murdering them or instigating the local peasantry against them, and then ensured that no one else would move in by creating intense hostility against "foreigners" and "outsiders," cleverly engineering their rhetoric so that the blame for anything that was bad would be laid to the door of "outsiders." Since that effectively made isolationism a certa
inty, it protected the evil ones further, for anything outside the borders became suspect, even hated, and there would be no chance for anyone to learn that things might be better, elsewhere.