The Realm of the Faerie, the Great Founding Labyrinth within the Tower of London, and Idol Lane, London

Louis dreamed, but this was as no dream he’d ever experienced as a man, nor even as a soul waiting impatiently through hundreds of years for rebirth. He dreamed as if he were awake; that is, he existed as if in a dream, but he knew this was no dream.

This was enchantment and magic and power such as he’d never encountered previously, not even when he laid down the foundations of the Troy Game with Genvissa.

Louis ran the Ringwalk. He sometimes ran as a man, but more often he ran as something fourlegged, far more powerful and swifter than a man.

He ran as the white stag with the blood-red antlers, and he ran through dream and reality, through land and mist, through time past and time future, and he ran until his heart pounded frantically in his chest, and he ran because he had a heart to pound frantically in his chest.

And he was glad.

Sometimes Louis ran alone, but more often than not other faerie creatures ran beside him.

Sidlesaghes, in their thousands, sometimes singing, sometimes silent.

The Lord of the Faerie. Laughing, sharing laughter.

Sometimes his father, Silvius, and Louis did not know if Silvius accompanied him because Louis was his son, Brutus-reborn, or if because Louis was Silvius’ long-time companion, the stag, risen from his death.

As Louis ran the Ringwalk he learned, or rather, as Louis ran the Ringwalk he absorbed. He absorbed the memories of all those who had run as the Stag God previously, and he understood that somehow Noah had undergone the same process when she had become Eaving. He discovered he could remember back to the dawn of life, back to the primeval world, back to when he, the white stag with the blood-red antlers, was nothing more than an ambition, a dream, a needing.

He remembered that first day he’d taken form, slithering free of his mother’s birth canal, dropping to the forest floor—not on his side or belly, as other fawns, but on his four feet, running from the moment of birth.

Born for the Ringwalk.

He remembered those who had hunted him, and those who had protected him. The faerie folk who had been his friends and lovers, and the creatures who had hated him and who had tried to kill him: other gods, frantic druids, fearful Christian priests.

Of them all, only the Darkwitch, Genvissa, had almost succeeded, and from that the stag had learned—he had only one true enemy, and that was the Darkwitch.

Louis ran the Ringwalk, and as he ran, he changed.

Life in Idol Lane transformed. Jane, who had lived there almost all her present life, had known only humiliation, day after day, year in, year out. Now, something else replaced that humiliation. Tolerance. Amusement.

Friendliness.

Generosity.

Her reward, for teaching Noah the ways of the labyrinth.

She didn’t trust it, this new world of Idol Lane. She was terrified of what would happen when Weyland discovered that it was not her teaching Noah, but Ariadne. However, for the moment, for this brief time when Weyland relaxed and the house became bearable, almost likeable, Jane determined to enjoy it.

Where once Jane had been a prisoner of the house, allowed out only when Weyland sent her on some closely watched chore, now he tolerated her coming and going virtually as she wished.

Noah did not often choose to leave the house on those days she did not go to the Tower to learn from Ariadne. Jane wondered if it was because she was fearful of meeting Catling somewhere in the streets, or if she just preferred to stay close to Weyland. Whatever the case, Jane took whatever chance she could to wander the byways and nooks of London. She rarely saw anyone she knew, and few people recognised her now that her face had healed and she walked with more pride than Jane the whore had ever managed.

Weyland largely left Jane alone. She’d been the butt of his viciousness all through the years when there was just her and him (until Elizabeth and Frances, the procession of broken girls through the house meant little to either Jane or Weyland). Now, Weyland had something else to amuse him—Noah. Jane wasn’t sure what Noah had done (had she slept with him? Jane puzzled over it, and then decided she didn’t truly care one way or the other. If she had then that was Noah’s damnation, and the woman could deal with it herself). On the evenings that they returned to the house from the Tower, Weyland would take Noah in his arms and kiss her, and taste the rise in her power, and would then smile and relax, well pleased. He was happy, he was sure of himself, and he left Jane alone.

Thus, there being no one to disturb her, Jane slipped deeper and deeper into her own world. Or, rather, she sank deeper and deeper into the world of the Lord of the Faerie. Somewhat like Weyland and Noah (had she known it), Jane existed in her own little realm of happiness. Jane spent most of her waking hours thinking of nothing but the Lord of the Faerie and what the faerie realm offered her. Release, freedom, a new life. And something else, something Jane hardly dared think about. She felt like a girl again, her heart thudding whenever she reflected on the Lord of the Faerie, her breath shortening whenever she remembered a way in which he had glanced at her, or the manner in which he had held her hand, and she would spend hours trying to interpret these tiny gestures in the best possible light.

Release, freedom, a new life, and possibly, possibly, love.

And all for a song.

When she had left the Faerie, and its lord, he had said to return to him the next time she and Noah came to the Tower. “We will show you the Ancient Carol,” he said, “so that you may best know how to greet dawn and dusk.”

What the Faerie asked of her was simple (and yet so complex within that simplicity), and what they offered rich beyond expectation…but first Jane had to escape Weyland. He could still control her, should he want.

He could still kill her, and Jane was very afraid that he would do just that the moment Noah completed her training and Weyland felt that Jane was superfluous to his needs.

This single fear regularly interrupted her otherwise happy reveries with a stomach-knotting terror.

Freedom and hope lay proffered before Jane, but between her and that offer lay that single insurmountable hurdle.

Weyland Orr.

Three days after Noah’s initial training session (and Jane’s strange ordeal atop the summit of The Naked) Ariadne had called them back to the Tower.

It was three days too long for Jane. The instant Ariadne met Noah at Lion Gate (her lover not in evidence this time), Jane turned her back and walked to the rotting scaffold, and then beyond. She could barely contain her excitement—The Lord of the Faerie awaited!—and the moment she reached the scaffold she looked about, breathless, her eyes wide.

“I remember when you were Swanne,” a gentle, amused voice said behind her, “you could not wait to be rid of me.”

Jane spun about. “Coel!”

He was leaning, arms folded, against a massive tree trunk two paces away (Tower Fields had again vanished, replaced by the ancient forest). He straightened as Jane came over, and took her hands, and kissed her mouth.

“Welcome home, Jane,” the Lord of the Faerie said, very softly.

He conveyed her to The Naked. On this occasion, both the summit and the slopes were bare of anything save grass, the Lord of the Faerie’s throne set to the eastern portion of the summit, and the magpie, sitting on an arm of the throne.

“Master Magpie,” said the Lord of the Faerie, “shall be your song-master.”

At that he let go her hand, and stood back, and Jane felt a pang of great loneliness. But she took a deep breath, and stepped forward, and the magpie smiled (its beak curving most marvellously) and bowed its head, and spoke.

“Welcome, Caroller. Have you come to learn the ways of the dawn and the dusk?”

Jane’s sense of loneliness abated as curiosity and eagerness filled her.

“What have I missed all these years?” she said, looking down at the magpie.

Life, came the Lord of the Faerie’s whispered reply in her mind. Joy.

“And thus,” said the magpie, “you shall greet the dawn and dusk with life and joy, and with majesty and reverence, so that both the day and the night shall grace the Faerie. Is this something you can accomplish?”

“I wish to,” said Jane, and that appeared to be the right answer, for the magpie smiled once more, and then began to hum. It was but a simple phrase, repeated over and over, but Jane could hear a great complexity running through it. She frowned, concentrating, and wondered if she could ever master its intricacies.

“Sing it,” the Lord of the Faerie said, and Jane jumped slightly, for suddenly he was behind her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders.

“Sing it,” he whispered. “Complete your penance.”

And so Jane, drawing a deep breath to steady her nerves, opened her mouth, and began to sing.

She’d never thought she had a good singing voice, but somehow the melody she sang, that simple repeated phrase the magpie had hummed to her, created a richness of its own. To her stunned surprise, Jane heard the complexity she’d recognised in the magpie’s voice repeated in her own, yet ten times over, so that the phrase became redolent with meaning and imagery, even though she sang only with tone and not with words.

Jane stopped suddenly, amazed.

The magpie and the Lord of the Faerie laughed, the magpie flapping his wings, the Lord of the Faerie sliding his hands down Jane’s body to her waist, turning her about, and kissing her once more.

“Each time you come back to The Naked,” he said, “Master Magpie shall teach you another phrase of the Ancient Carol until you have accomplished it all, and then, who knows? I loved you once, maybe I shall again.”

“Don’t tease me,” she whispered.

“I only offer possibilities, Jane.”

Another moment of silence, in which they looked at each other, and then looked away.

“Jane…” the Lord of the Faerie said, his voice drifting away. Then he sighed. “It is time to go. Noah has done for the day.”

Ariadne asked Jane, many times, where she went while she and Noah spent their time within the Tower, and Jane affected a bored air, and said that she did little but wander about the grassy spaces of Tower Fields plucking at flowers.

At this Ariadne always rolled her eyes, and Noah looked at Jane with such cynicism as she delivered her “I spent the day being bored” explanation, that Jane wondered if perhaps she had some idea of what truly happened. But Noah did not question her closely, and so they continued, Jane and Noah travelling every few days to the Tower. There Jane would watch Ariadne and Noah disappear inside the Lion Gate, then she would walk to the scaffold.

There, always, waited the Lord of the Faerie, and he would take her to The Naked. There, each day, Jane would learn a new phrase of the Ancient Carol, and fall a little deeper into hope, and even deeper into love.