Free Songs of Love & Death by George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois Page B

it.
5
    R OB DIDN’T KNOW how he was presenting a normal appearance. If he was.
    The change of calendar! How could he have ignored it? How could his father?
    Five years ago the calendar had been corrected by going from the second day of September to the fourteenth. As Mistress Darby said, many of the simple folk believed that eleven days had been stolen from them. There had been riots demanding their return. People with birthdays during the eleven days had fretted about how old they were.
    He’d regarded all this with amusement. Why hadn’t he realized?
    No one could tell how faery viewed such human matters as dates and calendars, but if the rules applied to the old date, it would explain the gatheringstorm—and not the one visible in roiling clouds. At first it had been a dark chanting in his head, but that had turned into a cacophonous chorus that flogged him toward Five Oaks. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
    Over the past hours he’d become aware of them around him. Gleeful Oberon and furious Titania. No wonder. If the rules kept to the old calendar, his birthday wasn’t the twentieth day of June, eleven days away, but the ninth.
    Tomorrow.
    If he didn’t bed Martha Darby before tomorrow, perhaps before eleven in the morning, his hour of birth, Oberon would be free to finally exact his revenge on the line of Sir Robert Loxsleigh.
    That left no time for niceties and wooing. By kind means or cruel, he must have her in the next twenty hours. He tried to compel calm. They would be at Five Oaks in hours, even with the worsening weather. Oberon’s work, he was sure. Once he took Martha to the old hall, where faery energy burned so fiercely, she would have to believe, have to agree to anticipate the wedding. Even she, the prim daughter of a canon of York.
    If not?
    Damnation. Oberon had chosen well and done his mightiest, but he could not be allowed to succeed.
    But then the rain swept toward them, sheeting down, pounding the rough ground of the road.
    “We must stop at the next inn, Mr. Loxsleigh,” Martha said. “We risk becoming stuck in the mud.”
    “The road’s sound,” he said desperately, “and it’s not far now. Perhaps only an hour.” The coach had slowed, however, and he could feel the labor of the horses. The postilions would be miserable, but they must press on. Then the wheels sank and the coach stopped.
    He opened the door to jump out. “We must lighten the load!”
    The coach lurched forward then, the wheels finding new purchase. He fell back into his seat.
    “This is folly!” his bride declared. “Look, I see lights ahead. We must stop. We can’t climb out to lighten the load in this weather. My mother could catch her death.”
    He wanted to rail at her, but every word was true. They could not go on.
    “Very well,” he said, desperately seeking solutions. “My apologies.”
    The lights turned out to be a small inn, but called the Maid Marian. Was that a hopeful sign or a twisted joke? It had two tiny bedchambers for them, but they would have to take their supper in the common room. That didn’t matter. He made his plans.
    He ordered supper for them and hot punch, making sure it had plenty of honey and spices. When it arrived, he strengthened it with the flask of brandy he had in his valise.
    Mistress Darby declared it excellent and drank two glasses. Martha drank well of it, too. He topped up her glass when she wasn’t looking and saw her drain it again.
    Mistress Darby began to nod off. She started. “Oh, my, the long journey has tired me out. I’m for bed.”
    She left the room somewhat unsteadily. Martha rose and he saw her steady herself on the back of her chair. “I, too, am tired. You set too hasty a pace, Mr. Loxsleigh.”
    “Perhaps I did. I am simply impatient to see you in my home.”
    He watched her struggle to focus. “I am
not
going to marry you.”
    “You must. You know the story now. Remember Oberon’s revenge.”
    “Fablesh…” She frowned. “Fables for the