"We stopp't suddenlie in a little green meadow in the dark woods. The meadow waz full of flowers and the sulkie man sayd that such flowers had never before been seen anie-where. But Sir John sayd he waz a fool and Sir John sayd he knew the names of the flowers as well as his own-they were Shepherds' Sun-dialls, Milkmaydes' Buttons and Dodmans' Combs. In the middle of the meadow waz a little chalke pit. This old pit waz mostly hidden by tall grasses and the flowers that Sir John had named. And out of the pit came a noyse of humming. The men held back the dogges-to their very Great Distresse-and we went very quiet to the pit and look't down. And what doe you thinke we sawe there?"

"I doe not know, Dr Foxton."

"A Faerie, Miranda! And what doe you thinke it waz doing?"

"I cannot guess, Dr Foxton."

"Well!" sayz Mr Aubrey. "It had a little spinning wheele and it waz spinning wonderfully fast and twirling its long, blacke taile. Quick! cries Mr Shepreth. Say your Spelle, Mr Aubrey! and he leapt into the pit and we all leapt after him."

"I am entirelie astonished," sayz I. "But what did you learne? What did the Pharisee tell you?"

"Nothing," sayz Dr Foxton crossly. "We asked it all our hundred and fortie-seaven questions-which is the reason of our staying so long on Lickerish Hill and coming home so late to dinner-but 'twas the most ignorant Pharisee."

We are all silent a moment.

"But it listened to all your questions," sayz I. "That is strange. It would not so much as come when you summoned it before."

"Quite, Miranda," sayz Mr Aubrey. "And the reason is that we had not gott its name before. The wordes of the Spell and its owne true name held it fast. It waz obliged to hear us out-though it yearn'd to goe on with its worke-it had gott a fearful great pile of flax to spinne. We gott the name by chance. For, as we peep't over the edge of the pit, it waz singing its name over and over againe. We were not at all enchanted by its song. An Ingeniose Spinner, Miranda, but no Poet. Fairies love to sing, but their Inventions are weak. They can get no further than a line or two until some kind Friend teaches them a new one."

We are all silent againe.

"And what did it sing?" sayz I.

"It sang: 'Nimmy, Nimmy Not; My name's Tom Tit Tot,"' sayz Mr Aubrey.

"Well!" sayz I. "I am very glad, deare Scholars, to Deare that you have seen a Pharisee, but I am happier still that you have gott safe home againe. Goe to your dinner but I feare it will be a poor one."

Now comes the Pharisee creeping through the evening mist with the skeins of spun flax upon his arme. First I shall guess Solomon then I shall guess Zebedee. But then I must tell him his name and poor Tom Tit Tot must goe howling awaie to his cold and lonelie hole.

Now comes Sir John, all Frowne and Shadowe, on a horse as blacke as a tempest, with Wicked, Worse and Worst-of-all beside him. And when he haz seen the spun flax then he and I shall goe downe together to date and drinke with the happy Scholars who even now are composing a chearfull song about four gentlemen who once sawe a Pharisee. And all our good Servants shall come home and each shall have sixpence to drinke Sir John's healthe.

"I am writing my historie," sayz I. "Where doe I begin?"

"Oh!" sayz Mr Aubrey, "begin where you chuse, Miranda, but putte it downe very quick while it is fresh and sprightly in your Braine. For remembrances are like butterflies and just as you thinke you have them flie out of the window. If all the thinges I have forgott, Miranda, were putte into His Majesties Navy, 'twould sink the fleet."

NANCY KRESS.

Nancy Kress lives in Brockport, New York. She is the author of twelve books: three fantasy novels, six science-fiction novels, two collections of short stories, and two books on writing fiction. Her most recent novel is Beggars Ride, the third in the trilogy including Beggars in Spain and Beggars and Choosers. Kress's short fiction appears regularly in Omni, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and other major science-fiction publications.

"Steadfast" is a dark reinterpretation of the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the love of a soldier for a ballerina, "The Steadfast Tin Soldier."

STEADFAST.

by Nancy Kress.

How does it feel, Mademoiselle, to be called out of retirement in order to dance at the Opera gala for the coronation of Louis Napoleon?

That is a silly question, young man. How do you imagine it feels? Are you not in the business of imagining, for your ridiculous newspaper?

But, Mademoiselle, if you will forgive me, at your age it is unusual for even such a great ballerina to be- You know nothing of great ballerinas. Do not believe that you do.

The first thing he noticed was the blood.

Dried rust-colored stains on the wide stone step: scattered stains, faint in the lantern light. Yet the soldier saw them immediately. He stopped and stared at the step, at the heavy oak door above. The yellow light shone on his uncreased uniform.

"Allons, Lefort," his friends called. "The ladies await!"

"He is more fascinated by light-footed charmers."

"Light-skirted, you mean."

"Come along, Lefort, you don't wish to linger here. The dancers have all departed!"

"He likes them limber in the sheets . . . Gaspard? Dis donc, we will see you later, at Madame Nathalie's."

"The last of our nights, and he studies a doorway . . . au revoir, mon ami!"

The soldiers moved off, laughing. The lantern, carried by a servant, moved with them. Gaspard Lefort stared at the blood until he could no longer see it in the darkness. Tomorrow he would march to the war in Austria. He was eighteen years old, privately educated, and this was the first time he had ever left his village near the Pyrenees.

The heavy door opened and a woman, backlit from within, stepped onto the wide step. She wore a long dark cape with the hood pulled over her head. "You, there! Tell your master to bring the carriage-I am ready!"

"I am not . . . I have not the honor to be . . . I mean, I don't know where your carriage is."

She peered at him. "You are not M'sieu Carlaine's man?"

He moved into the light. "I am only a soldier, Madame." He remembered to say, "And General Napoleon's man."

She laughed and threw open her cape, and Gaspard saw his mistake. She was not a Madame. No more than fifteen, dressed in a skirt of filmy white layers that ended startlingly short of her ankles. On the low satin bodice rode a brooch, a silver rose flattened to show tiny scattered pearls like tears. Glossy black hair pulled back and ringed with flowers, mouth painted red, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The toes of her white slippers were streaked with blood.

"Napoleon's man," she mocked. "Then you are bound for Austria."

"Tomorrow, Mademoiselle."

"Then you must not be late. Those who conquer must be on time." She fingered the rose at her breast and glanced impatiently up the street.

"Yes, Mademoiselle," he said meekly. "Wait, don't . . . don't go inside!"

"Why not? I am cold." But the girl moved closer to him, clear to the front edge of the step, and made no move to close her cape.

"You . . . you are injured. The blood . . . "

"And where do you come from, mon petit, that you have never seen a dancer bleed through her slippers? The great Marie Salle could bloody four pairs of shoes during a single performance!"

"Who is the great Marie Salle?"

"Ah, you know nothing. But you leave for the war tomorrow, yes? Do you think I'm beautiful?"

The soldier couldn't answer. He nodded.

"I can see that you do. And you have never seen a ballet girl. Ah, mon pauvre, watch."

She pulled off her cape and flung it at him. It settled over Gaspard's head. He fought free of it, as blinded by her mocking laughter as by the light wool. On the smooth stone the girl curtsied low, smiling, and rose. She whirled, and danced a few steps, and smiled over her shoulder. She rose on the ends of her toes and balanced there-how could she do that? how was it possible?-and began to dance on the tips of her feet, spinning and swaying and forming such graceful arches with her arms that the soldier turned as hot as if he already heard the Austrian guns.

She danced for several minutes to unheard music, and ended with one leg high in the air, impossibly high, balanced on the ends of her toes. Nothing moved. The air stilled, and the light from the still-open doorway did not flicker, and the dancer stood on one leg while the world stopped.

A carriage rounded the corner.

"Oh, vite, give me my cape! Go away now, he doesn't like to see me with young men . . . go away, I tell you!"

The soldier shrank back into the shadows. The carriage stopped and the girl climbed in, crying, "There you are! I have just this minute come out!" Her voice sounded stretched and sweet. The carriage door closed, and the horses clopped down the cobblestones.

Someone within closed the oak door, but not before Gaspard had studied both the carving above, 'L'ecole d'Opera Ballet,' and the fresh blood smeared across the smooth stone of the stoop.

He bent to rub his finger across the stain, and put the finger to his lips.

On the contrary, Mademoiselle, you are mistaken. I know a great deal about your dancing. I have followed your long and astonishing career quite closely.

Tant pis pour toi.

The next day, Gaspard did not leave to join his regiment. By midafternoon he had stationed himself in an alley, from which he could see the oak door. Carters passed by, and peddlers. A laundress, a butcher's boy, a street cleaner. An orange girl, who smiled at him with a provocative dimple. He didn't really see her, nor the dancers as they hurried in at dusk, except to note that none of them was the girl who had danced for him.

At evening he made his way, asking many stumbling directions, through the city's theaters: "Please, Monsieur, is this where the dancers from L'ecole d'Opera Ballet rise up on their toes?" At the Opera, he bought a ticket. In the foyer hundreds of candles glittered in chandeliers. Gentlemen in high-starched collars laughed with women in gowns so flimsy and low that Gaspard blushed. No one in his village wore such gowns. Almost his nerve failed him, but he remembered that he was now a soldier and looked straight ahead, unsmiling, until a contemptuous old woman showed him to his seat and thrust out her hand for a coin. He gave her one and, when her hand stayed out, another, although he was a little frightened that all the old women might then want coins. But they did not.

She was not on the stage. There were other dancers there, skimming along on the ends of their toes, floating like the ghosts old drunken Massine, his father's stableman, used to tell about at home. But not her. This must be the wrong theater. Gaspard was just about to leave, numb with disappointment, when a long line of girls danced out onto the stage and there, at the end, was she.

He sank back into his seat, his legs watery.

She danced for only a few minutes, before the line of girls joined hands and floated off the stage. It seemed to Gaspard during those few minutes that, after all, her leg did not lift as high as the other dancers', nor hold as steady. She wobbled. It didn't matter. He had no heart for anyone on the stage but her, and afterward he waited in the theater alley. But this time a rich man's carriage waited even before she came out the oak door. All he saw was a glimpse of her dark cape, parted for a minute over the flattened silver rose on her breast. One glimpse, and the fresh blood smeared on the stone from her slippers.

The next morning, he left for the war.

Your history, Mademoiselle, your personal history, that is . . . it is most. . . complicated.

You mean I began as a dancer of no particular talent but great beauty, who in the demimonde of that day made her way as a whore, do you not?

You are very frank.

As your magazine is not. A pretty little essay you were planning, n'est-ce pas, about the glory of womanhood under the first Emperor? A marzipan of an essay?

Our feminine readers are refined.

No. They are merely squeamish.

The soldier fought at Ulm. He fought near Vienna. He fought at Austerlitz. In each battle the Emperor was victorious, and Gaspard himself distinguished for courage and loyalty. The shells exploded around him, and men died screaming, and the soldier fought beside his dead comrades with a fury he had not known he possessed. He became someone else, charging across the Austrian battlefield, thrusting his bayonet into the bodies of the enemy. He did not know himself. Afterward, he sat alone beside his campfire and shook his head to clear it, and felt his blood still surging in his veins, exhilarating as drink. His blood, and theirs. The greater the victory, the greater the surging power, as if he had taken into himself the life of those he had slain.

He was only a little surprised to discover how much he loved war.

In April he returned to Paris with the Legion d'Honneur on his uniform. The first night, he looked for the dancer.

She wasn't dancing at the Opera. He studied the ballet girls as they floated across the stage in tiny delicate steps-bourees, he had learned those were called-and as they left by the side door for the carriages of rich merchants or government officials. More than one dancer threw Gaspard an admiring glance, tall and strong in his blue uniform. He ignored them all, until the last.

"Pardon, Mademoiselle, but I am looking for someone . . . a dancer of this height, with black hair and blue eyes, very beautiful . . . she was here last summer, dancing in the chorus, but she did not dance tonight."

The girl wrinkled her pretty nose. "Ah, Amalie Dumont. You had best forget her, mon ami. She is above your reach, under the protection of Monsieur Endart, the diamond merchant." She eyed Gaspard's wide shoulders. "But if you should like some other company . . . "

"Where does this diamond merchant live?"

The girl shrugged. "Discover that for yourself."

He did. He could discover anything, do anything. Walking toward the house rented for her by Monsieur Endart, it seemed he could smell her in the spring air: rose perfume, and clean sweat, and the chalk rubbed on the stage floor that rose during the performance to halo the dancers in ghostly clouds. He went straight to the front door, and the decoration on his uniform got him admitted by the flustered footman.

She came down the stairs to the trim foyer, with its small polished table and fashionable rug. Monsieur Endart was generous. Her glossy hair was piled high on her head; jewels sparkled at her throat. The thin fabric of her dress was cut low over her breasts, and bulged below. She was heavily pregnant. "Yes, Monsieur?"

He blurted, "We met last year. You danced for me. In the street, outside the Opera . . . "

She didn't remember. "In the street? I did? How vulgar of me."

"I have never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life."

"I thank you." She dropped him a little joke curtsy. "But if you would state your business . . . "

"Only to see you again."

She frowned, and glanced up the stairway. "I see no reason for that. We have never even properly met."

"You are Amalie Dumont. And I am Gaspard-"

"I don't care who you are." A door opening, above. Her eyes darkened. "I am afraid you must leave, M'sieu. You should not have been admitted. But I was told . . . "