John blinked. Then something moved at the edge of his vision and he turned to find Queen Gloriana standing at his other elbow.

“There,” she said, favouring him with a smile. “I have thrown Calidore his dance and sent him away. A pretty cavalier, that! Always smiling and smirking and bowing, but ‘tis a mask, ‘tis all a mask. I am weary for honesty. Dance with me, sir mortal.”

After the slow measures of the previous dance, the musicians struck up a lively jig. It was unfamiliar to him, and John blundered through it obscurely certain that behind her faint smile the Queen was laughing at him.

Ah, he thought, trust him to make a fool of himself dancing with the Queen of Elfland.

But it finished at last and the Queen, with one delicate hand clapped to the summer-twilight busk of her gown, beckoned him with a smile to the dais beneath the unicorn tapestry. She sank breathlessly into her chair and snatched up her fan.

“Now, Sir John, tell me your woes.” She pointed to an embroidered footstool. “And sit, sit, sit! I will not crane my neck at you, sir!”

John pulled the stool closer to her seat and obeyed, hunching his shoulders nervously over his clasped hands. Where to begin?

At the beginning. In Middleton Dale.

“Lady Queen, I am no knight.”

“No knight? La, sir! This is an ill practice, to begin with a falsehood. Here you come into my company in silk satin and pinked leather, and you tell me you are no knight?”

“Well, madam, if it please your grace,” John amended, “in my home in mortal England, I am no knight.”

“There, that is better; continue.”

“I am a smith in the Middleton Dale, and in the same village there was a maid named Janet Fuller.”

“Janet Fuller.” She said the name slowly, with an amused twist at the corner of her mouth. “Faith, a plain, limping, workaday name; the lady is well named to sit at home and spin.”

“Well, madam, I am a plain, limping, workaday man myself, and have no need for your Pandoras and Proserpinas.”

“But you rate yourself too low! It is a wise man knows the histories of the Other Realms.”

John shook his head. “It was a week from our wedding-day that Janet went to Faerie and tasted the goblin fruit. We walked in the woods the day after, and being caught by the sunset, we must have wandered into Faerie, for in the blink of an eye I beheld her changed into a nightingale. I could do nothing. A screech-owl-bore her away to a dark tower, while I stood like a dead tree, still as a stone through the force of enchantment, until the Witch came to release me.”

“A courteous lady, forsooth.” The voice, light and drawling, dropped from above and John looked up to see Sir Calidore towering above them with a cup of green-stemmed Venetian glass in each hand. “It appears she has used you more kindly than she has used others.”

John felt the knight’s unspoken accusation, but he kept his eyes on the Queen’s face. “Had you seen her mock and taunt me, madam, neither kind nor courteous would you deem it.”

“Oh, aye, sir. Surely we should have been there to see for ourselves,” said Sir Calidore. He offered one cup to the Queen and the other to John.

“I will not eat or drink here,” said John.

“What, Sir John!” The Queen’s eyes widened. “Will you not taste of our hospitality?”

“Madam, forgive me.”

“You were warned against it, no doubt?” And the Queen shook her head with a smile.

“Ah, an excellent and cautious youth!” Calidore interjected with a lift of his chin which set the pearl in his ear swinging. The Queen hid her face behind her fan. John set his jaw. He had not met a great many lordly folk, but he was sure no mortal gentleman worth the name would treat even a village smith with such discourtesy.

Gloriana, seeing his expression, dropped her fan. “Forgive me, John-a-Dale. We are friends, are we not?”

“I have come to discover whether it be so, lady.”

“Oh, fie!”

“Calidore, hush.” The Queen turned back to John. “You seek aid against the Witch of the Dark Tower, no? Tell me, what manner of aid do you imagine will avail you against those strong enchantments?”

John lifted his palm upward in a weary gesture. “I dreamed of a Rose, red as blood, with a pearl among its petals. I do not know why, but I trust it will help me.”

The Queen searched his face for a tortuously long moment. Then she shook her head. “The Rose? Ah, John-a-Dale, you have dreamed in vain.”

“It seemed to me that if such a thing existed, it would be found only in Faerie. I pray you...”

“But I tell you it is a dream. As well ask the Unicorn above my head to come down and give you its healing horn.”

“Then if not in Faerie, perhaps elsewhere? Might it be found in mortal lands?”

“Perhaps.” She shook her head. “There I go not. I can give you no aid, sir.”

“Not even the name of one who might know?”

“Faith, no. Not in Faerie. Alas, sir!” and she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Believe me! I would aid you if I could, but as well ask me for a Unicorn.”

John rubbed his temples. “Well, lady, is there no other aid you can give me? Is there no other way by which the Dark Tower might be overthrown? Sir Thomas Lene told me I would find champions here, famous knights of Faerie.”

“There, that is a more reasonable boon. And yet…” Gloriana broke off and settled back in her throne, thrusting her head forward, resting her chin on her hand, as if considering some course of action. At that angle, shadows collected under her brows so that he could hardly see her eyes. But at last she threw out her hand to Calidore and said, “Find Sir Thomas Lene.” To John she said, “It is a desperate venture, John-a-Dale, and you little know what you ask of me. Speak to my lords before you make your decision.”

A knight swaggered up to the dais, a ruffianly man with fierce bristling mustaches and a puff-shouldered simar coat that made him look as broad as two ordinary men. The Queen smiled and gave him her hand and said, “Sir Guyon! Welcome to you, and twice welcome! We did not look to see you here.”

“Faith, no,” said the knight named Guyon, bowing over her hand, “Nor did I, for I have been drinking and dancing in the Wishing Fish tavern. But I was much troubled by a hermit who preached at me to mend my ways, and I thought, ha, it may be the seventh year, but even so, Cleopolis will be more to my liking than the graveyardish speech of yon hermit. Will you dance, sweet sovereign?”

“Aye, if I may do so, and keep my feet on the ground.”

Sir Guyon laughed, and the features which a moment ago had seemed small and furious in his broad face wrinkled up with a coarse merriment. He whisked the Queen into the dance, and John was left standing on the dais alone.