by Catherine Hurcombe

Content Warning: Death

I have wandered, he thinks, for too long. The sun hangs heavy in the sky, like an overripened peach, left too long to be plucked, and the birdsong has almost the cadence of a lullaby. Yet he cannot bring himself to return home—not yet, at least. Perhaps the sky could grant him another hour of light; he just needs a little more time…

He does not know why tonight feels so important. Earlier, he could scarcely mutter an excuse to his mother and sisters before he was out the door, off into the hills. It must be the muses speaking to him, he decides. They must have some particular tale to offer him this evening, if only he has the patience to hear it. Yes, that must be it. It is not in him to question it beyond that. It is as if by some instinct, he knows he cannot return home until the itch has been scratched.

A twig snaps behind him, and his head whips towards the sound. A man stands across from him. Silent. Watching.

“Good evening, sir. I say, you gave me quite a fright.”

Sir seems fitting for the mute figure, although his appearance is decidedly worse for wear. His frame carries the memory of strength, but it has withered away—caused by some kind of malady, no doubt. Much of the man’s flesh is covered by ragged chainmail and threadbare trousers, although, he notes with some relief, he carries no weapons. His hair is grown wild and unkempt, and even from across the meadow, he notes an almost feral look in his visitor’s eyes.

His heart quickens. An exiled knight, perhaps, condemned for crimes he did not commit? Or a son, unable to part with the armour of his departed father? Already his mind whirs with new ideas and his fingers itch to pick up his quill. But he restrains himself; he must earn this stranger’s trust. There is something about the man that draws him in and he can almost hear a voice inside his mind, urging him forwards. The muses, then. They have not finished with him yet.

“Are you quite well, sir? I have some food in my saddlebags.” He smiles, more to himself than to his companion. “My sister, you see. She refuses to let me go off on such wanderings without an adequate supper.”

At the prospect of food, the man’s initial reticence seems to fade, and he approaches with the desperate exhaustion of a starving beggar. Whoever he is, he has evidently been away from home for some time.

“I am Sigric. What is your name?”

The man does not answer at first, his gaze transfixed on the parcels of food Sigric is now retrieving from his bag. Beatrix has treated him once again; the smell of freshly-baked loaves wafts towards him, and he carefully removes the paper wrapping from his feast of goats’ cheese and gooseberry preserve. It is not until the meal is in his hands that the man speaks, in a hoarse voice that grates like the cawing of a crow.

“I am—was—Sir Brendbourne.”

Sigric nods slowly, waiting for him to continue. He pops a crumb of cheese into his mouth as he does so, the sharpness exploding across his tongue.

“I… Do not know if my title still stands.”

“Do you mind my asking, sir, what happened to you? I have lived in these parts a long while, and I have never seen the likes of yourself before. And I would surely recall—if you pardon my saying so—seeing someone so… Afflicted.”

Sir Brendbourne brushes off the latter comment, much to Sigric’s relief. “I am aware of my current shortcomings. But I fear the worst is yet to come.”

He chews on Sigric’s proffered hunk of bread, and Sigric notices that despite his sickly countenance, the sun has lent a ruddy hue to his gaunt cheeks.

“I find I am rather thirsty, my friend. I would be happy to tell you how such a fate befell me, if you could spare some water?”

Sigric almost jumps up in his haste to fetch his waterskin, and pass it to his companion. Sir Brendbourne ducks his head in acknowledgement, but winces, as though even the slight movement has caused him pain. He takes a deep swig, and Sigric catches himself leaning forwards like a child hearing tales around the campfire.

“It started,” he speaks hoarsely, “with a woman.”

Thus began his story.

“I had not known many women before. My mother, of course, and my younger sister, but I was still a boy when I was sent away to train, and as a knight, I grew up largely in the company of men. The others made no secret of their trysts with the local girls, and more than a few wasted their coin on the whores in the next village, but I was loyal to my lord, and my vows to serve him came above any cravings I might have had for anything more.

“That was until I met her.

“I was on a patrol when I spotted her, so uncommonly beautiful, she should have seemed out of place amongst the woodlands near which she wandered. Yet her presence there seemed fitting, somehow. As though she did not merely wander there but was of the land itself.

“Describe her? No, friend, I cannot. There are some beauties in the world that even the poets cannot do justice; they would go mad in the trying of it. But a mere glimpse of her stole the breath from my body, and even in that first moment, I would have laid waste to a dozen lives just to see her smile.

“And, to my surprise, she appeared to feel the same. For when she saw me, her eyes glittered, and she held out a golden hand to greet me. Of course, I was glad to take it.

“I cannot say how long I lingered at her side, and I will spare you the blushes of the more… Intimate details. But the days passed, and I remained drunk on the giddy pleasure of her love. They say it is the faery fruit that corrupts you, but I was under her spell long before a morsel ever touched my lips. Her very song was like a siren’s call, her honeyed kisses a poison to my feeble flesh. I would not have dared to deny her, the faery magic within her was so potent.

“But one night as we lay, our bodies coiled as one, I dreamt, and in my dreaming, I saw the truth my waking heart denied. Swathes of men, women too, surrounded me. Their pale bodies writhed like worms, so numerous that I could scarcely see past them into the darkness of the world beyond. The air stank of sweat and urine, yet with a sickly undercurrent of honey wine.

“‘Help us…’ One cried.

“‘Spare me, cruel maiden!’ Another begged.

“‘She has us in her thrall!’ An old man’s voice quavered.

“With my scream clawing up my throat, I awakened in a cold sweat. But my faery-wife no longer lay beside me. Instead, I was alone on this very hillside, a terrible, impossible loneliness blazing in my heart. Yet my dream had been too late to save me.

“I called for her until my shouts turned to whispers, long after reason told me I must leave this place. Yet I had not the will. And where the strength of my mind failed me, the strength of my body soon followed. I was a starving man, unsated by the mortal world through which I stumbled. With each day, I weakened, until some days, I would collapse from the exertion. Still, I could not relinquish my efforts to find her. My beauty. My faery queen.

“And this is how you find me now: no longer the lord I was, unknowing if the world from which I came still lives at all. Yet with all the knowledge I bear, I cannot leave. Not when she might someday come back.

“Heed me, my friend, go. Do not linger here, not when night has come. Return to your family while you can.”

“Well,” Sigric mulls on his companion’s story, feeling it wash over his tongue like a fine mead. “That is certainly an interesting tale. And a tragedy, of course.”

“You understand my plight, yes?” There is an urgency to the man’s speech that was not there before, and he grips Sigric’s wrist with a grip tight enough to bruise. “You understand that you must go, must not risk the same fate which has struck me?”

He glances down at the fingers holding him, dirt and blood caked beneath the nails. “I understand.”

Sir Brendbourne’s shoulders sag, and for a moment, he feels a surge of pity for the man. For a moment. Then he smiles.

“Unfortunately, it is too late.”

He allows the features of the farm boy to slip off, like an actor’s mask, and his– her– true form shines against the dying light.

“It seems your wisdom comes too late, my knight. A shame he could not hear it before I found him. Before I made him mine.”

Sir Brendbourne’s eyes widen at the softness of that voice, like bells and birdsong and the first strawberry of the summer all rolled into one. The last of Sigric falls away, and she breathes in a contented sigh as her own body embraces her once more. These mortal men, so weak and pathetic; their flesh cannot withstand a might such as hers. And their minds fare little better, as both Sigric and her knight have proven.

“You…”

“Yes.” She smiles, the same smile he swears he would have slain armies to see, perhaps if he had, she might have spared him. But she has no purpose for faint-hearted men, knight or otherwise. “Me.”

He moves as if to scramble away, but he is so frail now that the attempt is laughable. The men’s remaining feast is knocked to the ground, and she frowns. A pity—the boy’s sister had indeed put together quite a spread.

Her knight still has questions, but she does not listen to them. She has heard the same spiel before, a dozen times, and from a dozen mouths.

What do you want from me?

Why are you doing this?

The man is begging now, or crying, some kind of grotesque human plight. She does not care what, precisely. Was this not what he wanted, only moments before? For his lady love to come back? Someone ought to have warned him to choose his wishes carefully.

Night beckons ever closer, and in a flash of her sharp-toothed smile, the faery’s hills turn to silence.

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Catherine Hurcombe (she/her) is a fantasy novel and short story writer based in the UK, currently working on a debut novel inspired by her fascination with Greek mythology.