Fay gave her name, and allowed the man to lead her to the fishing chair. His fingers were strong and slender, adorned with many silver rings. And there was a scent that clung to him; something like woodsmoke and spices, a woodland scent somehow, she thought – a world away from Piccadilly Circus. Fay sat down, feeling suddenly tired and dazed. Someone – the woman he called Mabs – handed her a plastic cup of some kind of spirit, hot and harsh, but comforting as it settled. The taste was strangely smoky, but sweet, and it went to Fay’s head almost at once. Mabs poured another shot.
‘Drink up. Winter’s in the wings.’
Fay sipped a little more. She wondered how Alberon and his friends would manage once the weather turned. She had heard of rough sleepers finding their way underneath the city, into the disused Tube stations and under ventilation grates. Was this what they had done? How had they managed to open the gates that led to the Tube station, anyway?
Mabs reached into the fire pail and lit a skinny cigarette. The scent was both familiar and strange, the smoke as strong as incense. She cupped her hands around it, sending tendrils of smoke around her head. In the light of the fire it was hard to tell her age or ethnicity. Her face was small and sharp-featured, and her long hair might have been white or blonde, arresting against her dark skin. She was wearing a long velvet coat that might have been blue, or purple, or brown; opulent in the firelight, though Fay could see it was ragged and worn. Behind her Moth and Cobweb shared one of those tiny cigarettes, its scent both un-identifiable and tantalizingly familiar.
‘Here. Try one,’ said Alberon, handing his cigarette to Fay.
She started to refuse – she had not smoked for twenty-two years – and yet the contact was welcome. She took a drag of the cigarette – it didn’t taste of tobacco at all, but of something like oak moss, and acorn wine, and honey, and fresh popcorn. And it gave her an immediate buzz – a warm and sleepy feeling that seemed to wrap around her like a coat lined with thistledown.
Alberon smiled. ‘Feel better?’
Fay nodded, and in that moment, she realized she actually did: that the iron-grey mist that had swallowed her life had somehow gently lifted. For how long, she could not say, but for now the sensation was new and wildly exhilarating. She glanced up at the moon, and it looked so large that it might have been a hot-air balloon landing over Eros.
‘That isn’t really Eros, you know,’ she said, through a mouthful of sweet-scented smoke. ‘That’s his twin brother, Anteros, the god of selfless love. They look just the same, except that Eros’s wings are like a bird’s, and Anteros’s like a butterfly.’
Alberon smiled again. ‘Is that so?’ Fay was surprised she had spoken aloud. The words danced around her like butterflies on tiny little golden wings. Butterfly is a golden word, she thought. It smells of honeycomb.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Alberon. ‘You’re not used to madcap. It won’t do you any harm, but it might make you see things differently.’
Fay looked at the cigarette in her hand. Madcap? she thought. What on earth’s that? A cloud of golden butterflies rose from the fire in the galvanized pail and crackled across the face of the moon like a spray of fireworks. A scent came with them; a rich, sweet scent like roses steeped in honey. A little cascade of tumbling notes unrolled and dispersed into the air. Fay looked around and realized that Peronelle was singing.
The elphin knight sits on yon hill,
Bay, bay, bay, lily, bay
He blows his horn both loud and shrill.
The wind hath blown my plaid away.
The song was unfamiliar, the words so heavily accented that she struggled to find their meaning, and yet something in Fay responded to them in a deep and instinctive way. The little notes blew like dandelion seeds, tumbling into the golden air, and to her surprise she found herself laughing aloud in simple joy.
‘Every sage grows merry in time,’ said Alberon, still smiling. ‘Madcap is as madcap does, my Lady, Queen Orfeia.’
‘What did you call me?’ Fay tried to say, but the madcap, or whatever it was, was really starting to take effect. She could feel the smoke in her mouth turning into musical notes; brittle little quavers and crystalline semiquavers taking flight like fireflies.
‘Sing with us,’ said Alberon. ‘Sing with us, and all will be well.’
It would have felt so good to sing again, even for such an audience – and yet she found she could not. Even under the madcap’s spell, something kept her silent: the notes that fluttered on her lips were as soundless as falling snow. Peronelle continued to sing: a tune Fay almost felt she knew:
Queen Orfeia crossed the bay,
Bay, bay, lily, bay
Cross’d the sea to Norroway
The wind hath blown my plaid away.
The others joined in: she could see their words; Alberon’s dark and heavy as ink; Mabs’ like a ladder of silver thread; the other three, little dabs of light against the coral darkness. But even now, when she could see the notes and feel the harmonies, Fay still could not find her voice. And so instead she danced; first alone and then, when Alberon reached out, within the circle of his arms.
‘I would so love to hear you sing,’ he said in his low and pleasant voice. ‘Music and madness are lovers, my Queen. And memory – who needs her?’
Fay smiled. ‘Memory is a mother,’ she said. ‘I could no more give up my memories than I could lose my shadow.’
The madcap had reached a kind of multisensory climax. Music blended with colour and light; scent and taste with movement. Mabs was dancing with the smoke, the skirts of her long coat carding the air. The moonlight was singing in shades of marshmallow and violet; the motes from the fire were like little bells. Alberon’s hand was at her waist, the other was cool at the nape of her neck. And they danced like lovers in the smoke, which smelt of rose and sandalwood, of cardamom and clove, until at last the music stopped, and the song came to an end.
Peronelle started to clap – not entirely approvingly, Fay thought. ‘Brava, Queen Orfeia!’
That name again. ‘I’m Fay,’ she said.
‘Of course you are,’ sang Peronelle. ‘Fay and fey as Fae can be.’
Madcap as the Queen of May;
Heartless as the harvest moon.
Thankless as the thistle-tree,
The wind has blown my plaid away.
‘What does that even mean?’ Fay tried to stand, and found her legs unreliable. She threw out her hand to steady herself, and just then she saw a light shine out from under a broken paving stone; a yellow strip of brightness like the light from under a door. No sooner had she noticed it, it went out. She imagined people behind the door, watching, hiding; breathing in the dark.
She pulled away from Alberon’s grasp and turned to Peronelle. ‘What was that?’
Peronelle laughed. ‘That’s madcap for you.’
‘There was light under the pavement. A light.’ As Fay’s anxiety mounted, she sensed the madcap responding. The feeling of delirium was gone; now her skin was all prickles and thorns. She felt as if she was on the verge of awakening from an ominous dream; as if all the colours in the world were draining into the ground, one by one. Peronelle went on singing, in a voice that was sweet and mocking: