Lucia laughed and offered him more wine. Church declined and was surprised by the flicker of sadness in her eyes when he said he was heading back to his chamber.
As Church and Jerzy approached their quarters, Evgen was waiting for them. Church did not trust Niamh’s guard captain. He was sure it was only Niamh’s patronage that prevented Evgen from eradicating him in an instant.
‘You have a visitor,’ Evgen said in a monotone. ‘He arrived at the gates of the court shortly after your return.’
‘I have no idea who that could possibly be.’
‘He says he knows you. He was a mortal … once.’ Evgen smiled nastily. ‘He is known in the Far Lands as the pet of the queen of the Court of the Yearning Heart. He has announced himself here as Thomas Learmont of Earlston. Also known as Thomas the Rhymer.’
8
‘Who is this Fragile Creature?’ Jerzy asked as they followed the echoes of Evgen’s boots down the winding stone steps.
‘It depends if he is who he says he is,’ Church replied. ‘Thomas the Rhymer is a figure from the myths of my people, like King Arthur – very much like Arthur, in fact. Both of them were supposed to sleep under a hill until the darkest hour when their people would need them again.’
‘So he was a great warrior?’
‘Not in the same way. According to the old stories, Thomas was kidnapped by the Faerie Queen while he slept under a hawthorn tree. He stayed with the Fair Folk for a while and was given two great gifts: the power of prophecy and the Tongue that Cannot Lie. If you can actually call that a gift. True Thomas, they called him. When he returned home to Scotland he made his mark, achieved legendary status and then disappeared back to Faerie. But that might not have happened yet. Or maybe this is it happening now. I can’t get my head around the whole time-not-being-linear thing.’
‘Perhaps he simply ran out of friends in the Fixed Lands because of all that truth-telling,’ Jerzy said.
Evgen led them into a large chamber in the castle’s guard-tower where a man sat alone, swathed in a cloak with a hood pulled over his head. Evgen nodded to Church and left.
The man stood and removed his hood to reveal a dour face and lank brown hair. Intelligent but troubled grey eyes surveyed them forensically. ‘This is it, then.’ His Scottish accent softened his irritable tone. ‘A naïf and a fool.’
‘What winning ways,’ Jerzy said drolly. ‘We must introduce you to the queen.’
‘I’ve been teaching him the humour of our world,’ Church said. ‘He particularly likes irony and sarcasm.’
‘I am glad you are using your time wisely,’ the stranger said. ‘After all, you could simply be fighting for humanity and the whole of Existence.’
Church tried to read how much the stranger knew, but his eyes gave nothing away.
‘I have been gifted –’ Thomas enunciated the word venomously ‘– with the ability to see into the future. We are fated to walk the same road, at least for a while.’
‘Friends, then,’ Church said.
‘Oh, I would not go that far.’ Thomas the Rhymer smiled tightly.
9
Jerzy raised his flagon. The Hunter’s Moon was as packed as ever. ‘Well, then, Tom—’
‘Thomas.’
Jerzy’s grin was challenging. ‘No, I think it has to be Tom.’ He winked at Church. Tom shook his head wearily. ‘I raise my glass to a hero in the making. A legend.’
‘I think,’ Tom said pointedly to Church, ‘your monkey has had more than enough lessons in irony.’
Church raised his own flagon ironically. ‘You are, then, Thomas Learmont.’
‘Yes.’
‘And it happened as the story said: you were taken by the Faerie court—?’
‘The queen of the Court of the Yearning Heart entertained me until she grew bored with my ways.’
‘And she gave you the two gifts?’
‘Curses, not gifts. It was an act of punishment.’
‘Punishment for what?’
‘For not being … entertaining enough. The gods grow bored easily.’
Jerzy’s mood dampened. ‘Though it irks me, I fear we have much in common. The Golden Ones like to act as patrons, sometimes friends, even lovers, but they are cruel masters and they have only their own best interests at heart.’
‘But being able to see the future—’ Church began.
Tom shook his head. ‘To see the misery of growing old, the indignities, the countless occasions of pain and suffering that lie ahead for yourself, your loved ones, your friends? To see your own death? To know when and how and have it haunt your dreams? There is a reason why man was made to drift through his days in ignorance.’