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From Hob’s white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, it was apparent that he was in an unusual ill-humor when Dream appeared in the seat beside him. Enough so that the man did not even startle or so much as glance at Dream. Indeed, he barely blinked, only gave Dream a curt nod and went back to navigating the winding country roads.
“I half expected you not to come,” Hob muttered. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
“If you’re so against this errand of yours then it puzzles me that you would go at all,” Dream observed.
Hob sighed and muttered under his breath, “Gwen insisted, so…Yeah. Means I’m going.”
“Your former partner?”
Hob nodded. “I managed to find excuses the last few years, but all bets were off when Gwen learned about you. If you didn’t show, I was still going to end up spending the whole day catching her up on you. On, well, us.”
“One would think she would view a rival with jealousy,” Dream said. For his own part, he could not imagine having much interest in meeting any new lover of Calliope’s, even if he wished his former wife nothing but happiness. He knew himself too well to think such an encounter could possibly end well.
“Gwen? Nah, she’s not like that.” A fond smile crept across Hob’s lips, as if it couldn’t be suppressed for long. “Honestly, it’s been thirty years since then. She’s married now, her son’s all grown up… Besides, it’s not like we even dated long enough for her to get too attached. Still wanted to be friends though. Remarkable woman.”
“Thirty years. And yet you’ve made no attempt to disguise your age?” Dream frowned.
“No need,” Hob said easily. “Gwen knows about me.”
“You told her?” Dream remarked with surprise.
Hob gave a lazy shrug and shot Dream a wan, lopsided smile. “I tell a lot of people, actually. Most of them just don’t believe me.”
“Hmm. After our encounter with Lady Johanna, I would think you’d be more cautious in that respect,” Dream said, not entirely pleased at the thought that Hob’s cavalier attitude may have persisted despite that day.
“Nah. It’s a lot safer than you’d think, really,” Hob said and settled back into the driver’s seat, eyes on the road, one hand idly draped over the steering wheel. “Everyone’s got their quirks these days. For example, yeah? One time, I dated this woman who was absolutely convinced she was the reincarnation of some ancient pharaoh. Hatshepsut, I think. You know, one of the famous ones. Because of course despite all the billions of people who’ve ever lived, everyone thinks they were someone posh in a past life. Even though, y’know statistically, nearly everyone back then was a poor farmer grubbing around in the mud for their supper.”
Hob snorted and cast Dream a sidelong look and shrugged before turning back to the road. “But, then again… maybe she was, who am I to say? I mean really, who am I to say? Me, Hob Gadling, who’s coming up on my 667th birthday? Who am I to say whether or not she was really Hatshepsut in a past life? Hardly my place, isn’t it? But the thing is, I didn’t believe her. And I still don’t, even if I think there might be something to that whole reincarnation business. Even though I’m living, breathing proof that there’s some sort of magic out there, that there’s more to this world than what we can see. Even though I have you in my life! But here’s the thing, right? Even if I did believe her, it’s not like I was going to go lock her up and call all my Egyptologist colleagues ‘round to interrogate her about the secrets of the Old Kingdom, because that would be mad. Just like everyone else, I figured she’d made it up. Like it was just a little story she told herself to make herself feel special at the end of a long day. And you know what? It’s exactly the same thing people do when they shrug off me telling them I was born in the 1350s and that one day a gorgeous stranger showed up in a tavern and made me immortal,” Hob said, and shot Dream a wink. “Except for Gwen. Gwen actually believed me, and then you know what she did? Smartest thing a person’s ever done when I told them: she dumped me on the bloody spot. Right then and there.”
“Could you have not kept your secret to yourself and thus retained her affections?” Dream said. “Or is it your practice to inform all of your lovers of the truth?”
“Some, not all. Depends on how long we’re together, yeah? And how much longer I think we’ll be together. S’really not even an issue until we start creeping up on a decade anyway. After that? It gets harder to hide,” Hob said. “Gwen was different, though. It was only a couple months before I told her. I had to. I just… couldn’t keep it to myself. It wasn’t fair to her.”
Hob swallowed. His fingers drummed on the steering wheel and he glanced over at Dream as he said, “Gwen is black. From America. African-American, y’know? Anyway. She moved to England to study here and fell in love with the place, God knows why. Then, one day, she drags me to this Renaissance Faire. Same one we’re going to today, actually, and we get to talking about history and whatnot. About the—the shipping business. The slave trade. She kept… going on about how it wasn’t my fault, right? ‘Cause it all happened before I was born. Well, obviously as a white Englishman I was the beneficiary of a system of privilege that had built its wealth off the exploitation of her ancestors and all that, but she said it’s not like I was personally responsible…”
“But you were,” Dream finished. Hob’s throat worked and he nodded.
“Yeah,” Hob said. His voice was strained and he coughed to clear his throat. “Yeah, that’s why I told her the truth. I had to, right? She deserved to know. And I didn’t deserve someone as bloody wonderful as her in my life if it meant lying to her face about what I did. Then, just my luck, she believed me. The one time it ever happened in six hundred years. Usually it takes a few tries before they realize I’m not joking. Eleanor didn’t believe me the first time I told her. But Gwen… like I said, she’s remarkable. She sussed it out right then and there that I wasn’t lying.”
Hob blew out a sigh and chuckled ruefully to himself. “And that’s why every few years I get dragged back to this godforsaken Renaissance Faire even though I’d have a much more pleasant afternoon if I spent it chewing my own foot off.”
“To meet her.”
“Yup,” Hob said, popping the ‘p’. “She made me promise and everything. Said she wasn’t interested in hitching herself to a bloke that was going to outlive her but said she still wanted to be friends. And I was feeling so shit that day that, like an idiot, I said yes. Even to the bit where we’d meet back up at the Faire. So every few years, she drags me back there, we catch up on things, and she gets the chance to ask me a load of questions about what life was really like in Tudor England.”
“It was not your past, then, that ended the dalliance?” Dream said.
“Not according to her. We... talked about it,” Hob added with a grimace. “Talked for as long as she wanted and I told her about the truth of it all. The ugliness. The greed. The… apathy of men like me. Sometimes she still has questions about what that vile business was really like, and I tell her. But no, she said the bigger problem for us was that she wanted to grow old with someone and obviously I was never going to be that man, so it was better to call it off there before either of us got any more attached. It was a long time ago, anyway, so there’s no need for that triumphant little smirk of yours.”
“I was not smirking,” Dream said loftily.
“Bullshit, even if I couldn’t see it I could feel it radiating off of you,” Hob chuckled. “Gwen hasn’t been your rival since 1992, Dream, so be nice.”
The Renaissance Faire was a place of dreams. He could feel them floating about the humans in attendance. Fantasies of fairy tale princesses, and dragons, and knights. Children laughed and clashed wooden swords against each other. Young men and women wore colorful approximations of ancient garments or purchased replica swords to carry on their belt loops for a day before they would inevitably go up on the wall to gather dust.
It was a place of stories, and laughter, and celebration of a past that was not perhaps fully understood and yet was longed for by those wishing to escape the digital glow of modern life. These were Dream’s people, this was his place: one where reality was only of nominal importance compared to the elegance of a good story. From the moment he stepped foot within the boundaries of the Renaissance Faire, Dream felt himself relax.
The same could not be said for Hob Gadling.
The further they walked into the heart of the Faire, the tighter Hob’s shoulders hunched. He gave a disgusted sigh and studiously avoided the gaze of merchants hawking their wares, actors strolling along the paths and declaring snippets of Shakespeare to one another, and what appeared to be hunting masters inviting the Faire goers to shoot longbows or throw knives and axes.
“Gwen said to meet her by the jousting ring,” Hob said and jerked his chin towards what appeared to be a wooden amphitheater bedecked with colorful pennants snapping in the late summer breeze.
“Then why are we going in the opposite direction?” Dream said.
“Because I need a drink first,” Hob grumbled.
Dream drifted along beside him, taking in the sights, the smells and taste of dreams as well as, rather bafflingly, of enormous turkey legs as they approached a row of food stalls.
“Turkey legs, honestly,” Hob muttered in disgust at the sight. “As if we ever had turkey legs this big, right? They’re from the bloody New World! Do you want anything? Wine, beer, a swift concussion? I could go for any one of those right now.”
“Wine would be acceptable,” Dream said.
“You got it. If there is one good thing I can say about this place, it’s that no one is counting how many drinks you order,” Hob groused as they walked. “I’ll warn you though, the wine is piss, straight out of the box. Probably the most accurate thing they serve.”
Which was how Dream ended up with a glass of truly terrible wine in hand—Hob had been absolutely correct in that respect— walking alongside Hob who had managed to procure two cups of beer, one of which did not last long. Hob downed the first cup as if intent on drowning himself in it, and was sipping the second at an only marginally slower pace when they reached the jousting arena. There, leaning against the wooden railing, was a truly stunning woman in what appeared to be her late-fifties. Her dark braids were streaked through with silver and hung about the shoulders of her golden velvet gown.
Hob leaned against the railing beside her, half-empty cup of beer held idly in one hand, and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “You know, a married woman would never in a million years have been seen in public with her hair down like that, back when that dress was fashionable.”
“Good to see you too, Robbie,” Gwen laughed. She straightened and the two of them shared an embrace, Hob carefully keeping his beer at arm’s length behind her, all while Dream stood off to the side. There was obvious warmth in her voice and bearing towards Hob, the familiarity of people who had known each other’s bodies intimately, once. But though he admittedly searched for it, he found no trace of lust in the glances they shared with one another, only fondness and memory.
Good.
“Is this him, then?” Gwen said, her eyes bright as she turned towards Dream.
“Yeah,” Hob said. He reached out an arm, beckoning Dream closer and when he stepped within reach, Hob put an arm around him and gave him a one-armed hug laden with affection and a hint of possessiveness. Dream stood a little taller, nudged a little closer to Hob to lean into that touch with possessiveness of his own. He caught Hob’s amused, knowing look out of the corner of his eye and deigned to ignore it. “Yeah, this is the man himself. Dream, love of my life, this is Gwen. Gwen, I’d like to finally introduce you to my old stranger.”
“He told me about you for the first time here at the Faire, you know,” Gwen said and nodded to a tree-covered hill just off to the edge of the faire. “Right over there by those trees. We’d barely been dating a month and I just knew, right then, that if you ever came back from wherever it was you’d gone off to, that’d be it for us. He would have dropped me so fast my head would spin if it meant getting back to you.”
“Jesus, Gwennie,” Hob laughed and scrubbed his free hand self-consciously over the back of his neck. There was a blush forming beneath his stubble and at the tips of his ears, Dream noted with fascination. “Was I really that obvious?”
“It was the early 90s and I asked point-blank if you were gay right after that, so yeah, I’d say you were dropping some pretty strong hints.” She gave Dream a wry look. “He’s crazy about you, you know? Once he opened up about his little secret, he told me all about you. You could just see it in his eyes whenever you came up that you’re his favorite subject. I’m glad to see it worked out.”
“Oh my God.” Hob covered his face, the blush having spread to cover every inch of it. When he spoke, his words were muffled by his palm. “Do you see it as a personal challenge to find new ways to make me hate this place every time we meet here?”
“Yup. Got it in one. Better be careful, or I’ll convince Dream that this is the perfect place for your wedding. Just think of it, plighting your troth surrounded by buxom pirate wenches and bargain bin Shakespeare festival actors that mix up their thee’s and thou’s.”
Hob gave a full-body shudder as if he truly did consider the possibility a fate worse than finally accepting death. He dropped his hand to glare at Gwen. “Luckily for me, Dream was also around back then and finds this whole place as ridiculous as I do. Don’t you, love?”
Dream raised an eyebrow at Hob and greatly enjoyed the look of dawning terror on Hob’s face as he gave the question serious thought.
“It is a place of dreams, and stories, and affection for the past, unbound by considerations of reality,” he said. Hob’s jaw dropped. “And I sense a great love and respect for William Shakespeare here that I find… pleasing. In truth, I can think of many worse places to pledge oneself to another.”
“Don’t you dare,” Hob breathed, his expression stricken with abject horror.
“Looks like you’re outnumbered, Robbie,” Gwen said in a sing-song. She took Hob’s hand that hung limply at his side and tugged him towards the seats overlooking the jousting arena. “Come on, I’ve got a whole itinerary picked out for us. Front row seats at the joust, then the archery contest, and the Shakespeare play is at three.”
“Which play?” Dream inquired with interest.
“Hmm…” Gwen squinted as she thought. “Midsummer Night’s Dream, I think? It usually is. Y’know, all the faeries make it a crowd pleaser for this lot.”
“Ah," Dream said with a faint smile. "That is a personal favorite of mine, as well. I think I should very much like to stay for it."
Beside him, Hob made a noise like he was dying.
“Love it!” Gwen grinned. “Last time, they invited the audience up to dance with the faeries at the end. There was a Maypole and everything, the kids love it. It’s really very sweet. Robbie loathed every second, of course.”
“I don’t mind the faeries, actually,” Hob said in the whisper of a broken man. “Everyone loves the faeries in that play. The bloody Tudor Court loved the bloody faeries. It’s not the parts they just make up today that are the problem. It’s the parts they think they got right from that time that are painful! And the pompousness. Dear Christ, the sheer bloody pompousness of the actors that think they know what they’re talking about, pretending like they bloody knew bloody Will Shakespeare and got the chance to ask him…!”
“Which you did,” Gwen said, nodding along agreeably to what appeared to be an old, familiar rant.
“Which I bloody did!” Hob snarled.
“And I’m sure you’ll tell us all about it, Robbie,” Gwen smiled and patted Hob’s arm consolingly. “In great detail. While we watch the play.”
“Dream, please,” Hob whined as Gwen pulled him forward like a rag doll but putting up no true resistance. “Tell her you want to do something else. Anything. She’ll listen to you.”
Dream smiled at his lover and nodded towards the seats, “Come now, Hob. If we do not hurry, we will miss the joust.”
“Why do you take such pleasure in meeting Hob Gadling in this place?” Dream asked after a rather enjoyable if wildly inaccurate show of knight’s clashing against one another on horseback. Throughout the joust, Hob had slouched deeper into his seat, reluctantly watching the spectacle with all the grace and enthusiasm of a sack of rotting potatoes. He trailed between them now, a beaten man, as Gwen and Dream talked over his head.
“Because it’s hilarious,” Gwen grinned. She nudged Hob in the ribs with her elbow and he sighed and hung his head. “Seriously, how often do you get the chance to invite an actual Medieval peasant to a Renaissance Faire?”
“At least a dozen, in your case, Gwen,” Hob muttered and Gwen’s smile only broadened.
“Besides, he’s much more chatty about living through all that when he’s here. Try to drag it out of him at the pub and he’s all, I barely met Will Shakespeare, or I don’t remember much from fighting for the Royalists in the Civil Wars, I was drunk most of the time and it wasn’t that interesting, but here it’s like every other word out of his mouth is about how something is wrong.”
“Because it is wrong,” Hob sighed.
“Which is why I take him to the archery competition each year,” Gwen added. “Because if he’s going to bitch and moan about how everyone is getting it wrong, then he might as well put his money where his mouth is and show how to do it right.”
“It’s not even a proper competition,” Hob groused. “These idiots use actual longbows, yew longbows. They say it’s historically accurate. Well, of course it bloody well is, but it’s also stupid, you can buy a compound bow right now with the same poundage that doesn’t take a bloody lifetime of training to shoot! Or you could be really smart and just use a gun.”
“But you have a lifetime of training to shoot this one,” Gwen reminded him with a companionable pat on the shoulder.
“Yeah, because the king demanded it,” Hob sighed. “Every Sunday for every man from the age of fifteen to sixty had to go out back to train with one of these. Do you know how long I’ve looked between the ages of fifteen and sixty?”
“Since 1370,” Dream said crisply.
Hob jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Dream. “Right, what he said. Since bloody 1370. Best part of buying the knighthood was that I didn’t have to bloody practice with the bloody longbow anymore.”
“Like you didn’t give it up long before that,” Gwen scoffed.
Hob glared. “Of course I skived off before that, but I still felt guilty about it until then!”
Dream watched with bemusement as, despite his protests, Hob still dutifully stalked up to the competition line, exchanged a few words with the volunteer, and accepted the yew longbow that was as tall as he was. He then began sifting through the quiver of arrows. Hob seemed to go through each arrow individually, checking the fletching, taking some out to stare down the shaft, and all the while the volunteer looked on, clearly exasperated at this man in a regular button-down shirt and jeans going through their arrows as if he actually knew what he was doing. Which, of course, he did.
“This is the best part,” Gwen said, leaning into whisper in Dream’s ear with an eye still on Hob. “Have you ever seen him shoot before?”
Dream considered the question and admitted, “Only in dreams.”
“You must have some weird dreams then,” Gwen scoffed. “He’s very good. Stands to reason, right? No one is training with those monsters anymore. Even the ones who are strong enough to pull a bow like that didn’t grow up with it like he did, they don’t have all their muscles and bones in the right place from all the practice. No one alive does.”
“He said you knew he was telling the truth when first he told you of his age,” Dream observed. “It would be far easier to believe that he was lying, or mad. Yet you believed him.”
“Yeah, well, there was always something off about Robbie,” Gwen said. She watched as Hob lined up the shot. “Something that was always a bit larger than life. Almost like there’s layers to him, you know? All atop the other. Like it makes him somehow more dense than the rest of us. And there’s that calm, kinda like he’s your grandad. Nothing shakes him. But the night he told me, right, about what he’d done, back in the 1700s? He was shaken. Just… absolutely rocked down to the core. I’d never seen him like that, like he was going to be sick just thinking of it. And I might not have gotten my doctorate in history like he did, but I read a lot on my own, mostly for fun. So I quizzed him on things, things most people don’t know. But even before I questioned him about it, deep down? I just knew that he was telling the truth. And I couldn’t just let someone like that, an actual immortal, pass out of my life after, could I? Even if I knew it would never work out between us.”
“Why would it not?” Dream said. Gwen glanced up at him, her dark eyes searching his. Then she shrugged and turned back to the archery range.
“Listen, it never would have worked, if that’s what you’re worried about. Even if he was just a normal guy. I knew it the day we came here. I love this place, I mean, look at me. I’m still coming here thirty years later. I’ll probably come back every year until the day I die. But he hated it. Hated every second of being here and made no secret of it. Now, I’m not saying that would have been a deal breaker for the right guy, but Robbie… Robbie was never the right guy. We had fun, but even if he had been a normal guy, even if he really was the same age as me at the time, it still wasn’t looking good for us after that.”
Gwen’s lips pursed and she sighed. “But he’s not a normal guy, is he? And neither are you, right? I mean, you’re at least as old as he is. Older, I’m guessing, if you’re the one who made him like this. You know him better than anyone, I bet. So you must know about that… that guilt he’s carrying around with him, about what he did. And I’m not saying he’s wrong to carry it, not one bit. God knows, I might have had family on those ships. But I’m not the one who can absolve him. It’s not my fucking job to absolve him. And it was never going to work if every time he looked at me, he was just going to be reminded of all that terrible shit he’s done. The second I realized I believed him was the second I knew we could never work, because he always, always would. That guilt is older than me and it’s still going to be there long after I’m gone.”
“There are some things that can never be forgiven,” Dream agreed softly.
“Yeah. And that’s probably true, in his case. But that’s his cross to bear, not mine,” Gwen said. She looked sidelong at Dream. “He said you were the one who talked him out of it, you know.”
“Did he?” Dream said, tilting his head in surprise. Just how much had Hob shared of his past with this woman? Of their past?
“Yeah. He said you told him it’s a poor thing for one man to enslave another. I’ll never forget that line. How he phrased it. It was so odd, right? No one talks like that anymore. At least, not outside places like this," she said, nodding towards the thick of the Ren Faire crowds. "That was good of you, to tell him to stop. From what I’ve read, most people who looked like you two back then wouldn’t have given a shit.”
“I only did what was necessary,” Dream murmured. Yet the answer felt… insufficient. He looked down at Gwen, pondering his answer. He remembered Nada, whom he’d placed in Hell for defying him. Remembered the Corinthian, who had called his master many things, among them that he was little better than a slaver. Remembered Burgess and his glass prison, where all Dream had known or loved was stripped from him and he was sold, body and soul, to the sadistic hedge wizard. “I felt it was my responsibility to do so, as my choices were in part responsible for his continued presence in this world, and whatever harm he might cause. And I wished to spare him the pain of such mistakes.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Gwen’s brow furrowed. "Sorry, but I've wondered this ever since he told me. You stopped him eventually, sure, but it sounds like he was a slaver for at least a few years. Why didn't you say something sooner?"
Dream’s lips parted. He knew the truth of that answer. Yet as swiftly as he knew it, he knew the shame of it. Still, this woman deserved the truth. “At the time, we only met once every hundred years.”
“Ah, got it. So you just didn't know before that? Before he told you," Gwen said.
“No," Dream murmured. "I knew.”
Gwen frowned. “You knew? And you didn't say anything sooner... why? Because it would break some made-up rule you’d set for yourselves?”
“Yes.”
“But you broke that rule eventually, right? You see him all the time now that you’re together.”
“Yes.”
A muscle twitched in Gwen’s jaw. She grated, “So you could have broken that stupid rule any time you wanted but instead, you waited. You waited while people, children, suffered and died because of him? And even if you didn’t give a fuck about them, you waited while Robbie, the man you love, did things he still hasn’t forgiven himself for? When you had the power to stop him, or at least warn him? All for…for what, mathematical fucking symmetry?”
Dream’s lips parted, then pursed again. He nodded. “Yes. And that too is one of the countless sins for which I will never be forgiven, nor will I ever forgive myself.”
“You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?”
There was the faintest twinge at the corner of Dream’s lips. A smile, one might call it, frail with bitterness and self-deprecation. “Yes. I do.”
"Fucking hell." Gwen regarded him, anger turning her dark eyes to chips of flint. Then she looked away, back to Hob. “Maybe you two really were made for each other.”
“Dream! Gwen!” Both of them looked up at Hob’s call. He had finished selecting his arrows and had them set aside in preparation for the competition. “You’d better be watching! I’m only going to do this once!”
“Until the next time I drag you out here, Robbie!” Gwen called back with a grin.
Hob rolled his eyes. “Of course, m’lady.”
Gwen stuck her tongue out after Hob, earning her a grin before he who turned back to the targets. A few onlookers gathered after hearing Hob’s shout and he knocked the first arrow to the bow.
“You know these things about him and yet, you are his friend,” Dream observed. “Despite all that he has done.”
“And I’m your friend too whether you like it or not. Don’t think you’re getting out of this so easily, Mr. Tall Dark and Prissy,” Gwen said, without taking her eyes from where Hob readied himself before the targets. “You both know what you did. Nothing I say or do can top what Robbie does to himself every day. And what would it even accomplish if I cut myself out of his life over it? Why do I have to be the one to make a stand because of what some rich white assholes did over two hundred years ago? Fuck that. That ain’t fair. I’m going to enjoy my chance to come to the Faire every few years with an actual immortal and watch him bitch and moan his way through the archery contest.” A grin slipped back onto Gwen’s face. She looked at Dream over her shoulder. “You should watch too, by the way. Never tell him I said this, ever, but he makes it look good.”
“You’ve got two minutes,” the volunteer droned. “The competition is timed, we announce the winner at the end of the day.”
“Not going to need that long,” Hob said called, though his words were clearly pitched back over his shoulder for Gwen. “Ten seconds each, that was the king’s rules.”
“Right, good luck with that. Fastest time we’ve had this year was a minute and a half,” the volunteer scoffed.
Hob smiled to himself grimly. “Second rule, you don’t pull on the string. You put your back into pushing the bow away.”
And Hob did as he said, pushing the yew bow forward with his arm and keeping the string locked in place beside his ear. He did so with the fluidity of second nature, and planted the first arrow at the center of the closest target.
There was ripple from the onlookers, but no great shout of surprise. There were still five more targets, all of them further away. But Hob was already reaching down to sweep up the next arrow and knock it as quickly as drawing a breath. He stared down the length of his arm, and loosed, driving the arrow with terrifying weight into the second target, half way up the shaft. That shot drew a gasp, and shouts from the onlookers for their friends to come see what was happening.
Hob was grinning broadly now, Dream could see from where he stood and feel in the dreams that swirled about now in opalescent wisps rising from his body like steam on a frozen morning. His father’s hand on his shoulder, guiding him. The row of targets in Buckingham’s camp in Burgundy where he practiced with his fellow soldiers. Countless Sundays of practice. Hunting with his son, Robyn, on their estates outside London and dropping the stag with a pinpoint shot that drew gasps from Robyn’s friend, while Robyn himself beamed with pride at his father’s skill.
Good memories. Bad memories. All mixed with the pain of loss. All rushing back in a flood when he gripped the bow in his hand, felt the twinge of muscles that never really forgot their strength, the callused pads of his fingers that his immortality had frozen in place. No man alive had the same calluses, the same scars, the same marks of war and muscle memory of these ancient days. No one else could plant the third, the fourth, and the fifth arrow with such practiced skill.
The last shot took the longest as Hob measured up the shot, training the bow higher to account for the distance and Dream saw a flash in Hob’s dreams echoed in the dreams of those who watched him with baited breath. Of Agincourt and the arrows that had fallen like rain upon the French soldiers and sprouted across the field below like blades of grass.
Hob loosed. There was a pause, longer than the others, as the arrow drove through the air, rising, then falling in a perfect arc to pierce the target through its reddened heart.
Hob nodded to himself and thrust the bow at the volunteer without a backward glance at the targets. On the walk back to Dream and Gwen he shook out his hand, grimacing a little as he did so.
“Fifty-eight seconds,” Hob said with an air of self-satisfaction. “They’ll not be beating that one in a hurry.”
“That long? I must have missed it,” Gwen teased. “Got distracted half way through and wandered off.”
Hob shot her a mocking glare. “Well then next year, we can skip it entirely.”
“Oh come on, Robbie, it was magnificent and you know it. Besides, you should be thanking me for giving you the chance to show off in front of your beau,” Gwen nudged him.
Hob looked up at this catching Dream’s eye. He gave a modest half shrug, as if to dismiss it all but his eyes were watchful.
“She is correct,” Dream murmured. “You are skilled beyond the measure of any living man at this art. It was a worthy reminder of the rich and varied life you have led, my champion.”
Hob made a strangled noise at the back of his throat, quickly stifled, his eyes gone wide as he stared up at Dream. He coughed to clear his throat. “Yeah, well… It was nothing, really. Are we done here? Christ I could use another beer.”
“To the beer tent it is!” Gwen announced.
“Thank Christ.”
“…so that we have drinks while we watch the play!”
“Fuck.”
“Dream, they are absolutely butchering the Bard. Can we please cut our losses and go?” Hob moaned, pressing his face against Dream’s shoulder. He had used every opportunity throughout the play to fetch Dream, Gwen, and most importantly himself new drinks. Now at intermission, there was a visible flush mounting in Hob’s cheeks
“I for one found the part of Bottom quite amusing in this performance,” Dream said with a faint smile over Hob’s shoulder at Gwen, who winked back.
“They don’t know what any of the words mean, Dream,” Hob mumbled into the cloth. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually feel bad for that drippy little milksop’s work right now.”
“See, sometimes he just says shit like that! He says he’s met Shakespeare, Dream, actual Shakespeare!” Gwen said, pointing down at Hob. “But when I ask him about it, he won’t tell me what he was like!”
“I already told you, he was a drippy little homewrecking milksop who eventually grew into a half decent measure of talent,” Hob grumbled. “It’s not like I bloody knew him once he was famous. I accidentally picked the table next to him at a pub one time and it was the biggest mistake I made that century because he ruined a night I’d been planning for one hundred years. That’s it.”
“I knew him,” Dream murmured.
“Knew him,” Hob snorted. “The only reason we’re seeing this play is because you made him famous. If I had just picked a different corner of the White Horse, we’d be watching Marlowe right now.”
“Wait, what?” Gwen squawked. “What the hell does that mean, Robbie?”
“He is correct, but only in a sense,” Dream said to Gwen’s bewildered look. “If not for my meeting with Hob, William would most likely not have written A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Not in its present form, at least, as I was the one who commissioned it that day. However, William’s other plays would most likely exist and eclipse Christopher Marlowe’s works in time, even without this particular comedy’s existence.”
“What?” Gwen gasped.
“What?” Hob shouted.
Dream glanced between them. “William would still have become an accomplished poet and playwright on his own terms without my aid. However, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest would not have been written in their current form without my association with him.”
“Robbie, who the hell is your friend?” Gwen breathed.
Hob did not answer. Hob was staring at Dream. Then, without another word, he grabbed Dream by the wrist and rose to his feet. At the look in his eye, both furious and strangely pleading at once, Dream rose as well, and allowed Hob to pull him along he stormed away from their wooden theater seats and between a row of colorful tents selling multi-hued bodices hanging on display. They emerged on the other side under an oak tree, where Hob rounded on Dream.
“Is that really why you ran off with Will Shaxberd that night?” Hob demanded. “To commission a play?”
“Two plays,” Dream corrected. “One in the near-term, another to be written at the end of his career.”
“But that’s why you went off with him,” Hob insisted. He grasped the lapels of Dream’s coat, staring intently at him. “That’s why you picked him over me. Because you wanted to commission a play?”
Dream tilted his head to the side. “I did not choose him over you that night, Hob. The matter was unrelated to our meeting.”
“It felt pretty damn related when you cut me off mid-sentence to go talk to him instead!” Hob retorted.
“I had need of a playwright for a gift I had in mind for Queen Titania and King Auberon of Faerie,” Dream said mildly. “William was my chosen vessel and, in exchange, I encouraged his natural gifts.”
“So you didn’t fuck him?” Hob snapped.
Dream blinked and his brow furrowed as he looked down at Hob. “No. My interest in William was never amorous, Hob. Our encounter that night was merely a business transaction. Of the two of you, you are the only one with whom I’ve shared my body or my heart.”
Hob’s stared, his expression wild and his cheeks flushed from the half dozen beers he’d drank that afternoon, and Dream tasted them on his lips when Hob dragged him forward and kissed Dream for all he was worth.
Hob broke away first, panting. “I have been wondering what I did wrong that night for over four hundred years!”
“A great many things…”
“Please don’t ruin this for me, I’m busy being ecstatic right now. And spiteful. But mostly ecstatic.”
“… But none of those involved my taking Will Shaxberd as a lover that day or at any point after,” Dream finished.
Hob blew out a sigh as if a hundred years of weight had fallen from his shoulders and swayed on the spot. He laughed helplessly to himself under his breath. “Christ, that’s amazing to hear. You have no idea.”
“You were married at the time, as I recall, Hob Gadling,” Dream said dryly. “On matters of fidelity, I would have been the blameless party had I taken Will up on his offer.”
“It’s the principle of the thing, he ruined our evening! I wouldn’t blame you for taking up with literally anyone else, but that man in particular… wait, what do you mean taken Will up on his offer?”
Dream valiantly suppressed any expression, particularly amusement, from crossing his face. He said coolly. “Did I say that?”
“Yes! You never said Will offered before! I knew it! I fucking knew that gawky little milksop propositioned you!”
“It was many years after that when Will offered his suit, Hob,” Dream said calmly. “He was no longer a ‘gawky little milksop’ but an accomplished playwright by that time.”
“You realize that doesn’t make it any better, right?” Hob exclaimed with a huff.
“There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you two!”
“Gwen!” Hob yelped as she appeared, pushing her way between the racks of Ren Faire garb to reach where they stood behind the tents. “Ah, crap. Sorry for leaving you like that. We didn’t mean to be gone so long…”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, forget the stupid play, Robbie. I’ve seen it before! And I knew you’d be only too happy to ditch me there for the second act,” Gwen huffed. “But seriously, am I hearing this right? Are you two actually fighting over whether or not he cheated on you with Will fucking Shakespeare?”
“No,” Dream said, with a faint smile at Hob, who squinted at him suspiciously.
“Ok, because it sounded like…”
“We are not disputing the matter because it did not happen. Despite his interest, I never lay with William. But even if I had, it would not have constituted infidelity towards Hob, who was himself married at that time.”
“I’m going to have a stroke,” Gwen muttered. “Is he fucking with me, Robbie? Because if he seriously got propositioned by Will Shakespeare then I wouldn’t be a proper Whovian if I didn’t point out that 57 academics just punched the air. Are you the Fair Youth? Please don’t tell me you’re the Fair Youth or I really will have a stroke!”
“He’s not the Fair Youth, Gwen,” Hob interjected.
“Actually…” Dream said, at the same moment. Hob and Gwen turned to stare at Dream. He shrugged. “It is entirely possible I was... one such source of inspiration for those sonnets, though perhaps one of several. William had many lovers and infatuations. Consummated or no, they often found their way into his works.”
Gwen stared, then shook her head, blinking rapidly. “Wait. Just wait a minute…Robbie, does this mean the anti-Stratfordians are right or wrong if he inspired Shakespeare?”
“Damned if I know.” Hob sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Christ, becoming a professor has made this so much worse, because I actually have to know all about that twat for my job. Does anyone else need a beer? I need a beer.”
The shadows grew long across the fairground as late afternoon faded into early evening. The fair gradually began to calm as the shows reached their end, the weapon throwers packed up their knives, and the various merchants and hawkers began to shut down their booths.
Hob at this point had assembled an impressive collection of empty beer cups in front of him, while Dream’s glass of wine had never emptied. Largely because he had surreptitiously continued to fill it with something more drinkable than what was on offer at the Faire. For the moment, he remained silent, enjoying the glimpses of the dreams of those around them, and listening Hob and Gwen laughing and chatting as they caught up on old times.
“Will you stay for the party after?” Gwen said after the bar officially closed and they were shooed away from their table towards the gate. “Honestly, it’s the best part of the Faire. All the musicians and wenches and knights get together and drink themselves stupid. There’s a bonfire, singing, everyone’s sleeping with each other, it’s great. These nerds can get it.”
“Gwen, my dearest, darlingest, smartest, and most beautiful friend,” Hob said, his voice slurring only a little, and he placed both hands lovingly on her shoulders to look deep into her eyes. “Believe me when I say this comes from the very depths of my heart and my grubby little soul, and, from a place of over six hundred years of living on this good green earth through sheer bloody-minded refusal to kick the bucket, when I say: I would rather die.”
Dream snorted, earning an incredulous look from both Gwen and Hob. A smile twitched at the corner of Gwen’s lips and then she sighed theatrically.
“Fine. I should have known you’d say something like that. Still, I can always hope. Thought maybe this time I could trick you into actually picking up your reward from the archery contest," Gwen said.
"Nah, let the runner-up have it," Hob said, waving her off. "It's not really a fair fight anyway."
"Such a generous soul," Gwen drawled. "I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact the winner gets knighted by the Faire King and Queen and goes up on stage with them for the closing ceremonies wearing a silly little Robin Hood hat."
Hob shuddered. "I've already been knighted once, thanks. Anyway, that hat's called a bycocket, and I looked like a twat in 'em back when they were popular, so that will be a hard pass for me."
"Shame," Gwen said wistfully. "I would have loved to have seen that, if only for the blackmail material. It was good seeing you again, Robbie, and your beau. Don’t be a stranger.” She leaned in to kiss Hob on both cheeks, and Dream felt he was doing very well after the day spent together that he did not bristle at the sight.
“Never. I’ve had enough strangers for a dozen lifetimes.” Hob winked at Dream. “If you ever need me, I’m just a phone call away. As long as you don’t want to meet at the Ren Faire. Then I’m several continents away, or possibly in space.”
“What about you?” Gwen said, looking to Dream. “Can I count on you to be my new Ren Faire buddy, Dream? He can’t say no to both of us.”
“Please no…” Hob groaned.
Dream smiled and inclined his head. “I think you will find that I am always here, Guenevere Jones, as I am in all places built upon dreams.”
“What? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Gwen said, shooting Hob a baffled look. Then her mouth dropped open in outrage and she gave Hob a light swat on the arm. “Wait, you told him my full name? Robbie! You know I hate it when people call me that! They always think I made it up for the Faire!”
Hob barked a laugh and shook his head. “I swear, Gwen, I didn’t tell a soul. He just does that sometimes. He did it to me too, actually, first time we met. No one, and I mean no one, had called me Robert in ten years. Hell, not a single one of my mates even knew my name was Robert, and then the Black Prince over here just saunters up and plucks it out of the air in front of everyone. You get used to it, after a while.”
“But how?” Gwen exclaimed. “Wait, is it magic? Like, real magic? Is that how he does it?”
Hob’s grin broadened and he shrugged with a sidelong look at Dream. “I’m afraid that’s not my secret to tell, love. Maybe someday, if you're patient. I only had to wait, oh, six-hundred years for him to tell me how he did it?”
“Six-hundred thirty-four,” Dream corrected softly, earning a laugh from Hob.
“Oh come on, Robbie!” Gwen exclaimed with mock severity.
“Sorry, it’s out of my hands,” Hob said, spreading them open to demonstrate. “Maybe sometime when you haven’t spent the day torturing this poor Medieval peasant at this bloody awful Faire, I’ll find in in my heart to tell you. Until then, well…”
Gwen gave an exasperated sigh but mischief yet glinted in her eyes. “Fine. Dream, I hope to see you here next time too. Be sure to treat Robbie exactly the way he deserves until then, alright?”
Hob shuddered and cast a look at Dream. “Please treat me a little better than that.”
“I shall sincerely endeavor to do so,” Dream murmured. “Thank you, Gwen, for a pleasant day. It is one I will remember fondly.”
They exchanged their final goodbyes and parted ways, Hob and Dream walking back towards the exit to the Faire. After a moment, Hob’s hand slipped down and wrapped around Dream’s. The spring returned to his step and his eyes brightened, as if every sight that wasn’t the Renaissance Faire receding behind them was one deeply cherished.
“Oh, by the way, I think I had at least forty beers back there, so it would be safer if you drive,” Hob said after a moment. “Probably should have mentioned that sooner.”
“I will not,” Dream said crisply.
“Ah. Shit. Is this to get me to go to that party? Please don’t tell me you want to go to that party,” Hob groaned.
“Hmm.”
“Dream, please.”
“I thought instead that I would simply transport you and your vehicle back to your home. If, of course, you are amenable?” Dream said.
“Oh, thank God,” Hob sighed, leaning heavily against Dream as they walked. “Yes, please Dream, take us home. And promise me you were just joking when you said you liked it here and that we will never, ever have to come back except on Gwen’s orders.”
“I will make no such promise,” Dream said with a secret smile of his own.
“Fuck.”