“Here?” she asks politically, as she takes in the cool glade where they’ve halted.

It’s a very pretty clearing. 

Hob had picked it out a century prior, when his banditry and sellsword ways had granted him enough coin to escape both the unsavory life, and the stink and press of London. He’d purchased the deed for a few small fields and this little patch of woods, and named the tiny farm “Glade Estates” in jest. And in hope. For he did hope, one day, to transform it into a mighty country seat, worthy of the aspirations and titles he worked toward.

He’d returned to London once the purchase had drained him of his money, and found a place as a printer’s apprentice. He’d intended to use what scant extra coin the profession provided to sneak away for a week here and there to lay foundations and design a grand mansion. But first he’d need a cottage in which to stay while doing said planning, laying, and building. Luckily he had all the time in the world to do so, and could afford to take the grand project slowly.

But the more he visited over the next few decades, the more he realized that he prized the simplicity of the little cottage he was creating here, and the peace of being alone with his thoughts and secrets in a way that he could not in London. When he took ill or was injured severely, it was a place of refuge and a haven from prying eyes who would wonder why he was not yet dead of his wounds. He could heal in private and return a whole man. Or as a different man, entirely.

With no hired hands or tradesman to get in his way or gainsay his notions, the glade became a place to work with his hands and challenge his creativity and mind. This became an ever-more valuable treasure as his ascent through the social order meant he increasingly spent his free time sitting on his bottom and drinking. And while he dare not leave behind anything too valuable or worse, tell-tale of his true nature, the little stone cache he’d hidden in the forest proved to be a dry and safe place to guard his few carefully hoarded mementos of the last two centuries.

Deciding to keep Glade Estate humble, Hob worked hard over the decades to build the four-room stone cottage by hand, whenever he needed a break from the stink and the plagues. Or, when hiding from London society long enough to return as his own son. 

Now completed, the cottage consisted of a small Great Room, with cooking hearth and bread oven against the wall in the centre of the cottage, surrounded with all the attendant tables, cupboards, and chairs necessary. To the left of that were two small rooms to act as pantry and dairy, and another room to the right was outfitted as best he could manage to mimic the incredible Turkish hammams he had visited as a sellsword. 

While he had no hot underground spring to tap into for water, the nearby river water could be heated in the great copper pot he’d installed in one corner of the room, over a stone basin to cradle the fire. A little bit of clever engineering saw the pot itself suspended on a pole with a handle, allowing it to be tipped into the soaking tub and mixed with cold water and bath oils until it was just right for a body to laze in comfortably. Above the washing room, to take advantage of the heat of the copper, was a loft containing a few low chests for clothing, and an equally low bed strung with rope and laid with an extravagantly overstuffed eiderdown mattress.

It’s been decades of back-breaking labour to collect, pile, mortar, and plaster the local grey slate into walls; to fashion and tar the timbers himself with all his shipwright’s tools; to white wash and thatch; to build fencing and train brambles into hedgerows, and plant all manner of fruiting plants and bushes in orderly rows beyond the kitchen door; to plane and joint the wood for each stick of furniture; to lovingly craft the hearth grate and fire tools at the local blacksmith’s; in short, to learn trade after trade, skill after skill, to turn this first piece of land he was able to call his own into a real and honest home.

Instead of funneling his growing shipyard wealth into a great country manor, he’d used it instead to purchase land on the unfashionable south side of the Thames. Let his gold be spent where it would be admired by his fellow courtiers. And let this haven remain modest. This cottage, and its glade, and its woods, and its two remaining small fields were his own personal project.

Today, the two fields were rented to the family whose own fields abutted them. In payment asked for no coin, but for the good maintenance of his garden, orchard, and house while Hob was in the city.

He is rightly very proud of his little retreat. It is not a fine house, all red bricks and glass, not like the one he’s having refurbished in the city as a surprise for Eleanor at that very moment. But it is his–theirs, now–and it is good.

And, if the neighbors have done their duty by the eccentric Sir Gadlen, it should also be scrubbed clean, filled with fresh bedding and linens, and stuffed full of all the best victuals, libations, and cookery ingredients good London gold can buy.

“Yes, here,” Hob confirms, screwing his courage to the sticking place. He swings down from his mare and walks her to the hitching post before the sweet little wood shed leaning against the stone wall of the cottage. This will stand in stead of her barn for the next month, and will be warm enough with the bathing room on the other side of the stone wall.

“Are you not a knight, my husband?” Eleanor asks as the lone coachman steps down to open the carriage door and set out the stepping stool for her.

“I am, my wife,” Hob replies, stripping off his thick leather riding glove to hand her down out of the carriage and onto the thick, mossy grass ringing the cottage garden.

With Eleanor safely on the ground, Hob helps the coachman and driver to unload their trunks, piling them beside her. He’ll bring them inside himself, later. He wants to show Eleanor what she is now mistress of, first. 

He thinks it a great treasure indeed. Eleanor, who has seemed amiable enough these four days' journey with their stripped-down comforts and service, seems unconvinced.

“And did you not tell me that you were wealthy, my husband?”

“I did, my wife,” Hob admits, a smile curling into the side of his beard when she offers him a displeased frown. Oh, how he enjoys teasing his sweet and canny lady.

As proof of both his wealth and his generosity, he digs out his purse and pops a gold coin into the palms of the coachman and driver. Along with this he adds a letter of instruction for them to return to Gadlen House, which confirms his instructions for the renovations, and his orders for them to return to Glade Estate in thirty day’s time for the return journey.

“And did you not tell me, my husband,” Eleanor goes on, throwing her arms wide to encompass all that she can see, sending the fan tied to her wrist gyrating in the air with the aggrieved gesture. “That we were to reside at your northern estate for this, our honeymoon?”

Hob sends the carriage and it’s intruding humans and horses on their way.

“Indeed I did,” Hob confirms jovially as he waves goodbye.

“Then why are we alone, standing beside a pokey little crooked cot, with no servants nor people of any sort to speak of, my husband?” Eleanor asks, with a look that might turn lesser (or mortal) men to stone in their tracks.

“Because, wife,” Hob says, and pauses as the carriage rounds a bend in the forest road and is completely out of sight. 

Then he whirls on her, grabs her fast by her bottom, and heaves her up against his chest. He cranes his head up to capture her mouth for a filthy, filthy kiss, the likes of which he’s been dying to gift her since they woke together in bed the day after the wedding. He has refrained until now, as they’ve been surrounded by fellow travelers, or servants, or busybodies for nigh on a week. 

Eleanor squeals first in surprise, then delight. She laughs and clings to him, arms around his neck, dainty feet kicking in the air as he backs them toward the cottage. Her lips meet his on the tiltyard of their lust, thrust for thrust, sally for sally. So consuming and marvelous is it that Hob’s back hits the planking of the door hard enough to drive the latch into his hip.

“Oof,” he grunts, and sets Eleanor down. He cinches her tight about the waist with one arm, should she get any ideas about running off after the carriage, and fishes through the pouch at his groin for the key to the door. 

If the motion makes the back of his hand press against the mound of her sex through her skirts, well, that’s a secret for just the two of them.

“Because what, husband?” Eleanor asks him with cheeky breathlessness, all ire gone as she pets her hands down his neck and shoulders. It makes it hard to fit the key into the lock, and he fumbles it twice before the door swings open behind him, allowing them entry.

Eleanor peers curiously over his shoulder, but he will not have her distracted now. He pockets the key and kisses her again to keep her attention where it belongs, guiding her inside as he does. He kicks the door shut behind her, then presses her up against it and gifts her with another of terribly obscene kisses.

When he breaks away for breath, Hob takes her by the very tips of her fingers and leads her slowly, step by backwards step, toward the ladder that will bring them to the loft bedroom.

“Because, wife, with people we are utterly, utterly alone…” He pauses at the foot of the ladder and leans in to nip the lobe of her ear and whisper directly against her plump cheek: “We are tucked away in our private bower with no servants to snoop, no neighbors to gossip, and no courtiers to spy.”

“And so, dear husband?” Eleanor bids him continue with a raised eyebrow.

“And so, dear wife,” Hob says, meeting her eyebrow with a competitive leer. “There are none about to protest when I make you scream.”

#

Hob was serious when he said that he meant to woo Eleanor Gifford properly. He set out to prove himself to be not only a wise political choice on her part for her husband, but also a doting and devoted man and life partner. 

To that end, he spends the first week of their honeymoon laying service to his wife in all the ways possible. 

Hob hunts and cooks what he catches for her, skinning and tanning the hides out back of the cottage to later make mittens and fur collars for her winter-wear. He tends the garden and feeds them both from the early-spring bounty—mostly sallets of tender new leafy greens and herbs, edible flowers, sugar mixed with olive oil, and boiled eggs from the hens he has procured for their stay. He kills, plucks, and cooks chickens. He washes their linens, and reattaches the buttons that carnal enthusiasm has parted from their clothing, and mends tears. He brews quick-beer, and serves cider and wine from the root cellar under the kitchen floor. 

He takes her on rambles or rides around the county, teaching her how to find the secret deer paths of the woods, and showing her off proudly on Sunday at the sleepy local church. He tells her stories and sings to her lute accompaniment to her at night, as they cuddle by the hearth, and bids her sleep late in the mornings. He brushes her hair, and tends her frequent baths, and makes little surprises of lavender and lemon soaps.

And of course, he beds her well and often.

Eleanor has never lived without servants. She’s always had someone else to do labor on her behalf, and while the lack of domestic help had perturbed her at first, within days she found his efforts quaint and charming. And romantic. Hob hadn’t expected his ability to serve a decent roast fowl to be an amorous endeavor, but Eleanor’s reciprocity that night had proved him wrong. And her ardor had yet to cool.

Soon enough, she was keen to become his helpmeet in turn, asking him to show her what small tasks she could accomplish to make his larger ones easier or more agreeable. 

And so, one gentle, sunny afternoon in their second week at the cottage, Hob has Eleanor stirring the dough for Prince Biskets.

It is May 1st, 1583, and Hob is two hundred and twenty-seven years old today, give or take a few weeks on either side. Hob has selected May Day as his birthday, for the calendars have changed often enough depending on who is in charge and (what country he is in) that he's quite forgotten what day he was really born—if anyone in his family had ever known at all. His mam had always called him her little Bobby Bunny, “born in the spring with hairy ears”, so May 1st had seemed appropriate.

He’ll be meeting his Stranger again in six years, and this time he’ll be able to share all of his joys of his newly married bliss. Perhaps even, by then, show the Stranger portraits of his children, if Hob’s strange nature allows for his seed to take root. Or introduce his Stranger to his family themselves, if their initial meeting at the White Horse goes as smoothly as the last one and his Stranger can be convinced to visit a second night in a row.

That morning, Hob had chivvied Eleanor out of bed at dawn so they could wade into the garden of climbing meadow flowers and harvest the first dew of Spring to wash their faces.

“No one does this any more, husband!” Eleanor had laughed, pleased with the old-fashioned bumpkin ritual.

“I do, wife,” Hob had said. “Make sure to wash behind your ears.”

“You make sure,” Eleanor had countered and tackled him into the verge. Whereupon they engaged in the most traditional and ancient of all the May Day festivities:‘gathering fresshe’ and staining their underlinens bright green with their activities.

After they broke their fast, Eleanor had presented him with his birthday gift—a handkerchief of fine white linen, which she had embroidered herself on the carriage ride north.

“This is a funny little design, is it not, husband?” Eleanor had asked, showing him a sketch. “I saw a whole row of these darling little squiggles on a letter one of the courtiers thought he was being discreet about, just before our wedding. Throckmorton, I think it was. When I asked him what it was, he told me it was a new pattern of stitching for his waistcoat, and that he thought it was to be all the rage quite soon. So I put it down on paper straight away.”

Hob thanked her for the delicate needlework with all the thorough appreciation that such beautiful thoughtfulness deserved, which kept them quite occupied until luncheon.

Now they are making prince biskets to take down into the village for the May Day celebrations. Their most colourful clothes are laid out away from the hearth, where they won’t get ashy, and the flower crowns Eleanor had woven for them that morning during the afterglow are waiting patiently on a hook by the door. 

His wife has told him that each of the flowers she’s chosen signify their ardor and attachment, but Hob’s already forgotten which each one is supposed to mean. He’s finding it hard to keep a lot in his poor brain this last fortnight, considering how well fucked-out it is.

“How long must I do this?” Eleanor whines playfully from where she’s seated on a stool by the hearth. Spring though it may be, the clouds are thick in the sky today, and winter’s chill has not entirely retreated from the English countryside.

“The whole of one hour,” Hob reminds her, again. He looks pointedly at the hourglass, where only one quarter of that time has slipped down the funnel, and bends to stoke the fire in the bread oven he’d built into the wall beside the hearth.

By the time Eleanor has finished, the fire should be well burned down and the embers ready to rake out so they can bake using just the heat absorbed by the stones. Normally he would preserve the glowing coals under the clay cerfew to use the next morning, but tonight they’ll be bringing back a torch lit from the May Day Bone Fire to heat the cottage.

As these biskets are for May Day as much as Hob’s birthday, he resumes grinding up the last of the winter-sown spinach to colour the little cakes green with the mortar and pestle. That finished, he perches on the edge of the table to mix the resulting paste with some of the leftover rosewater to liquify it, and then tips the whole lot into Eleanor’s mixing bowl.

She scowls at him for adding to her labors, but he softens it with a sweet kiss on the crown of her flaxen head. Leaving her to stir, Hob retreats to the bathing room to freshen up, and when he returns to the little great hall to relieve her of the bowl so she may do the same, Eleanor’s appreciative gaze travels the length of him more than once.

“I have fur enough to stay warm without clothes,” Hob demurs, flushing under the predatory way her cornflower blue eyes flash with mischief. “And putting my soiled clothes back on simply to finish the baking would defeat the purpose of washing up in the first place.”

“Careful your fur doesn’t catch fire when you rake the oven,” Eleanor murmurs, rising from her stool and raking her nails through the dense curls along his thighs. “I’d hate to see the pelt of so fine a woodland animal scorched. You are so much a faun I half expect you to have a tail.”

She pinches his tail-less bottom. Hob shivers delightedly. 

“When you dress,” he murmurs against the side of her head. “Leave off your braes, and I shall do the same. And then when we watched the play and cheered on Robin Hood and his Maid Marion, and eaten our fill, and drunk ourselves into delight, and have jumped the fire to purify ourselves for the coming year, your naughty faun may chase you into the woods and desecrate your temple anew.”

“Is that what this is?” Eleanor whispers, running her fingers now through the hair on his chest. “Foliage instead of fur? Are you the Green Man, come to pluck the last flowers of my virtue to wreathe your maypole?”

Hob feels himself flush deeper, and swats her arse through her skirts. “Off with you, wife, before you distract me and we end up burning our contribution. Then how will we ever show our faces in the village again?”

“Oh, you know the church will have ale and bread enough to buy without you arriving at the village square baring a fortune of caraway and rosewater, you louche spendthrift,” Eleanor teases. But she does make for the bathing room, where Hob has already left her a pitcher of hot water. She sheds pieces of her clothing along the way in a trail that any tempted tracker could easily follow.

Hob is very tempted. He is also very determined to make a good showing at the village this year, and steps stockingless into his boots and throws on an oiled canvas coat to protect himself as he rakes out the coals, butters and fills the baking cups, and puts the biskets in in the oven.

He may be immortal, but a red-hot ember would damage his skin as easily and painfully as any other mortal man. It would ruin the day, the honeymoon, and if it was a truly terrible injury, his plans to ensure that Eleanor really and truly loves him (and has done so for at least half a human lifetime) before he shares the truth of his nature with her.

The coals raked and left in the hearth to cool, the biskets in the oven, a cup of cider poured for himself, and fine clothes to don, Hob feels content and charitable. He loves his life. He loves his wife. He loves his home, and the fruits of all his labours.

And, he muses as he listens to Eleanor singing to herself over the splash of the water as she washes, he has so much to live for. The world is a good, good place, and there is nowhere to go in it but up.

#

A Couple Centuries Later…

It’s not a surprise party if Hob knows it’s happening, and Hob knows it’s happening because Delirium is terrible at keeping secrets.

But he doesn’t want to ruin her fun. So when he returns from the university early that evening, he allows himself to be redirected to the back garden by floating koi that only he can see, and laughs with genuine delight when Del pops out from behind his little brick-and-iron firepit and shouts “HaPpY BIrThDaY!”

A merry little blaze is already going strong in the wrought-iron bowl, not quite a bonfire to rival May Days of old, but a wonderful nod to the tradition. In place of a maypole, someone has decorated the Inn’s downspout with ribbons and flowers the likes of which the Waking doesn’t often see. But the tradition of a sideboard groaning under the weight of fresh, green food (either naturally green or not)

Hob can’t help but hope that someone is planning to put on the traditional Robin Hood panto. He’d sell a finger to see Matthew in green tights.

Hob relinquishes both his briefcase and a kiss to Morph, who was lingering in one of the shadows of the bramble hedge (old habits, and all that). Patrick hands him a can of London Pride, and Hob is hustled over to one of the loveseats parked around the fire to accept the congratulations of the partygoers. 

He’s perfectly happy to be steered around, and to let the party come to him. It was a long day of lectures and student meetings, including one poor student who’d burst into tears when Hob had assured them that he’d be very happy to offer learning accommodations if they’re struggling.

The outdoor sofas are comfortable, the food is good, and the company is wonderful, the strains for music coming through from the pub are mellow, the beer is cold, and Hob is a tired old man who is absolutely delighted to be sitting down.

All told, Hob’s six-hundred and sixty-eighth birthday party in the back garden behind The New Inn is significantly less of an ‘affair’ than his six-hundred and sixty-sixth had been. Lucifer, for one thing, has since returned to Hell so is unable to attend. But all of his in-laws are here this time (in varying degrees of believable mortal guises), along with his mortal friends from Elizabethan Manor. Harriet, Glenn, and Shami have all shown up with their partners and kids. 

And the Otherkind of London have stayed away, probably terrified to be in the presence of any of the Endless, never mind six of the seven (plus one former entity). Except for his former PhD mentee who is, apparently, currently dating Bod.

(Hob looks forward to a time when Daniel is powerful enough to step into the Waking as Dream. For now, he’s just started kindergarten in New Jersey, and it’s too long a jaunt across the pond  for just an afternoon’s celebration.)

He’s plied with well wishes and booze, flower crowns, kisses on the cheek, and a plate piled high with Dee’s beautiful culinary efforts. It’s a wonderfully casual party, people mingling, drifting in and out of his orbit, and no time freezes or Celestial sneering.

“Prince Biskets,” Harriet says, holding one up to show Hob as she plops into the seat right next to him, newly vacated by Shami. “Childhood favorite?”

“Oof,” Hob says, laying a hand over his heart. “I weep for your writing team if your math is that bad. Childhood. Robyn’s childhood, not mine.”

All the same, Hob takes one of the offered biscuits from Harri, and bites into it.

They’re softer than he remembers them being, likely due to Dee’s fiddling with the recipe, but the burst of caraway and rosewater against his tongue brings tears to his eyes with the sudden overwhelming sense memory of those glorious four weeks at Glade Estate. 

The little cottage, regrettably, is no more—just some stone walls slowly tipping over under the weight of climbing ivy and time, lost to Hob along with everything else that was stolen when Sir Robert Gadlen the Third was drowned. The fields have long since been absorbed into the nearby farms. The garden and orchard had grown wild enough to fill up the forest glen. 

That place is gone.

But the taste of it, right here, is heavy and sweet on his tongue.

He chews slowly, swallowing around a lump growing in his throat. The back of his eyes burn with emotion.

“The last time I had these,” Hob confesses softly, “I was on my honeymoon with El. We made these for May Day. She gave me a handkerchief that damn near got me hanged for my birthday.”

“Hanged?” Harriet asks, eyes lighting with academic curiosity. She’s the biggest fan of Hob’s hot tea, even more of a gossipmonger than Matthew, because she doesn’t care that the people in his stories have been dead for centuries.

Hob leans back against the loveseat cushions, cranes his head up to take in the rich splash of twilight colour lingering over the hedgerow ringing in the garden in an effort to keep the tears that threaten from falling.

“El was too clever by half for her role in court,” Hob tells Harri with a fond, faraway smile. “She got bored easily, which turned her into a bit of a magpie. She had a little notebook, and she’d write down snatches of song, or funny jokes and conversations, or pretty pieces of design.”

He catches Morph’s eye across the fire, knows his husband is listening in, and knows that there is no resentment or envy in the former anthropomorphic personification of the Human unconscious when Hob speaks of his first spouse. Only interest in Hob’s stories of her, and compassion for the way he loves and misses his mortal family. 

Hob beds forward and with a finger, makes some squiggles in the fine sandy gravel ringing the firepit. “She embroidered the design she’d overseen on the hanky herself. She was so proud of it, and she’d kept it a secret from me the whole journey. Throckmorton told her it was a new border for his waistcoat, and she’d believed him.”

Harriet’s mouth drops open. “That’s Mary Queen of Scot’s cypher.”

Hob brushes the code away with the bottom of his shoe and raises the remaining half of his biscuit to her with a lopsided grin. “And guess who rolled up to court five weeks after his marriage flashing it around every time he had to wipe his nose? Both sides wanted me dead for that. Elizabeth called me traitor, and Throckmorton knifed me in my sleep. Didn’t take, obviously.” 

Hob meets Morph’s eyes over the fire again, and finds his husband is smiling, affectionate and heavy-lidded.

“Dear lord, what happened?” Harri begs, breathless in her curiosity. “How did you talk your way out of it?” 

“Good Queen Bess’ spymaster Walsingham confiscated my snotty hanky and used it to break open the plot,” Hob says. “He never quite believed that El’s interest in the design was innocent, but it got me out of the noose, at least.”

Harriet whoops in delighted laughter.

Morph rises, skirting around the fire to drop himself right onto his husband’s lap. Human though he may be, Morph is still cool as night. “Today is a day of celebration, my husband,” Morph says. “No more tales of loss.”

“No,” Hob agrees, holding remaining bite of Prince Bisket into Morph’s petal-pink mouth. “You’re right, my husband.” 

Hob knows himself well enough now that he woos through acts of service, through cooking and feeding, through gifts, through quality time given. Through biscuits offered, and baths drawn, and workspaces built. Through solars and speciality drafting desks.

Morph rolls his eyes, but accepts the bite. “You are still so determined to fatten me up,” Morph complains after he’s swallowed. “One of these days, I will be too plump for your lap.”

“Never,” Hob promises, and grabs a handful of Morph’s skinny arse in pointed appreciation.

Harri laughs at the indignant expression that crosses Morph’s face, like a petulant cat, and all is right with the world.

There’s nowhere to go but up.

The original recipe did not have the green coloring, and I was a little worried how adding the spinach paste was going to change the taste of a dessert. But it wasn't bad at all and had a very unique flavor, especially with the rose water and caraway seeds. I also used a muffin tin and filled only a third to get the saucer shape.

Ok so let's begin!

------

And so, one gentle, sunny afternoon in their second week at the cottage, Hob has Eleanor stirring the dough for Prince Biskets. It is May 1st, 1583, and Hob is two hundred and twenty-seven years old today, give or take a few weeks on either side.

Now they are making prince biskets to take down into the village for the May Day celebrations.

“How long must I do this?” Eleanor whines playfully from where she’s seated on a stool by the hearth.

“The whole of one hour,” Hob reminds her, again.

[I, of course, used an electric mixer, but I did beat it for almost 20 minutes!]

As these biskets are for May Day as much as Hob’s birthday, he resumes grinding up the last of the winter-sown spinach to colour the little cakes green with the mortar and pestle. That finished, he perches on the edge of the table to mix the resulting paste with some of the leftover rosewater to liquify it, and then tips the whole lot into Eleanor’s mixing bowl.

...The coals raked and left in the hearth to cool, the biskets in the oven, a cup of cider poured for himself, and fine clothes to don, Hob feels content and charitable. He loves his life. He loves his wife. He loves his home, and the fruits of all his labours.

[The biscuits make an appearance again in the present.]

"Prince Biskets,” Harriet says, holding one up to show Hob as she plops into the seat right next to him. All the same, Hob takes one of the offered biscuits from Harri, and bites into it.

They’re softer than he remembers them being, likely due to Dee’s fiddling with the recipe, but the burst of caraway and rosewater against his tongue brings tears to his eyes with the sudden overwhelming sense memory of those glorious four weeks at Glade Estate.

-------

Bonus Spring Sallet!

[The salad is actually mentioned earlier in the story and I originally planned to make only the biscuits. But the description of the salad was so pretty that I wanted to make this for dinner. All the flowers are from my garden! 🌸]

[Hob] He tends the garden and feeds them both from the early-spring bounty—mostly sallets of tender new leafy greens and herbs, edible flowers,

...sugar mixed with olive oil, and boiled eggs from the hens he has procured for their stay. 

------

At his most bold, Hob had imagined himself as a liegeman, or a romantical knight-errant experiencing the adventures and quests of human life on behalf of his otherworldly Lordling Stranger. He’d worn his Lord’s colours in gallantry without knowing his name, and ached for their once-a-century meetings, and never dared to daydream for more than that. Except for in 1789. But if you had seen Morpheus in those breeches, you’d hardly have been able to keep your lewd little fantasies from springing into existence, either.

But then had come the TV show, and the resultant scouring of Hob’s soul, and the missed messages of flowers, and hideous bouquets, and vaguely kinky monsterfucking sex on the shores of a sea full of dreams and nightmares. And after that had come a year of experiencing the joys of the Dreaming together, exploring the Waking together, and reaffirming their passions in the liminal space between the two that was Hob’s bed, and then a promise of retirement and domesticity, and honestly, you can’t blame Hob!

Being both Unaging and Immortal, and therefore obligated to move on from his established life every forty-or-so-years, Hob Gadling gets to keep so little: only his name, his memories, and his word. So now that he has Morpheus to call his own, he wants to keep him as close as possible, for as long as possible.

Hob Gadling is, and always will be, a clingy bastard.

But it’s not like he’s carrying a ring around in his pocket.

“Uh-huh,” doctor Harriet Butler says from the other side of the table in the university’s canteen.  Everything about Harri’s expression–the twinkling gaze, the mirthful curl of her lips, the little shake of her head–makes it very clear that she’s taking the piss.

She’s popped by the school to pick his brain and leave him a copy of her new manuscript for him to review. It’s a narrative nonfiction about court life in the heyday of Elizabethan England, and while Hob didn’t personally know the courtier the tale follows, he knows that his red pen will likely be of some use to Harri. And he’s delighted to do it, besides. He can’t wait to see what their time together on set has wrought in her prose.

“Should I be getting a ring?” Hob asks, derailing himself when he realises that he’s been banging on about this for the whole of their little lunch date. “I mean, he was married before, but that was to a Grecian goddess.”

“The ancient Greeks wore wedding rings,” Harri points out. 

Hob lets the noise of the crowded canteen wash over him as he contemplates that… that Morpheus would know what it meant if Hob ever presented him with a ring. 

It’s too soon!

Is it too soon?

Hob’s already pretty much demanded that Morpheus move in with him. And to be fair, while he hasn’t been pining for the last seven centuries, now that they are together, he is as sure about Morpheus as he is about not wanting to die.

But does that mean that Morpheus is sure?

The rambunctious shouts of excited students, the clatter of lunch trays and flatware, the muszak playing gently over the tannoy, it’s all just so noisy. He sometimes forgets how quiet the world used to be. Taverns were loud. Festivals were loud. Full churches were loud. But the ever-present music and white noise permeating every moment of existence hadn’t been woven into all the terribly small and mortal parts of his life.

It reminds him, all of a sudden, of how… well, how not grand Dr. Bob Gadlen’s academic little world is. What time isn’t taken up by marking and preparing lectures is devoted to guiding malleable young minds, or to influencing city and historic councils (which takes a lot of research and a lot of passionate speeches at after hours meetings), or to researching and practicing guest lectures, or to spending a weekend with cobwebs in his hair and a hammer in his hand and sweat on his brow as he personally repairs the disintegrating parts of The White Horse, or putting on a stupid suit to go into the City to sort out his real estate investments and charitable donations, or taking a spare shift at the Inn to cover for a sick employee, or… or any manner of small, boring, uninteresting mundanities that make up the life of Doc Bob.

And maybe that’s not something that Dream of the Endless, Morpheus the God of Sleep, the Lord Shaper, the Prince of Stories, the King of Fantasy and Nightmares, the Oneiromancer wants.

“Maybe he doesn’t even want a ring, maybe that’s not something that…” Hob says, slouching back in his chair and feeling very suddenly like a small, silly, over-excited child. “That anthropomorphic personifications of the human unconscious do.”

Harri points at him with her salad fork. “You also said that you didn’t think that he would want down-and-dirty sweaty animal sex and–”

Hob groans and covers his face with his hands. “I can’t believe you got me drunk enough to tell you about that.”

He could drown himself in his soup. That could be a thing. It would get him out of this conversation. Unfortunately, it would not deter the only mortal friend who knew what he was. She’d just wait around for him to wake up, probably with her camera out to catch the pieces of noodle sliding from his cheeks.

“Be honest, Hob, is this angst about Morph maybe not wanting a ring? Or is it about your fear that Morph may not want to be tied down before he’s even really lived as a human? Or are you worrying that once he is human and free of his function, with all the world at his feet, he may not want marriage with you?” Harri asks, painfully astute, as ever.

Painfully.

“Godswounds, I didn’t even think of that,” Hob groans and swirls his soup dejectedly. “I mean, I told him that I’d take care of him, when it was all done and he was… you know…”

“Dead?”

“We’re not using that word,” he says sternly.

Harri shrugs and doesn’t let his grumpiness get to her.

Hob tugs on his ear. “But it never occurred to me that… that he might deserve the chance to live apart from me, you know, get his own flat, cook his own meals, travel, maybe meet someone else, someone–”

“Okay, okay, this is spiraling,” Harri says, and slips around the table to wrap Hob in a crushing hug.

Hob lets his verbal torrent dry up, and presses his forehead into her shoulder. She gives him another good hard squeeze, and then sits back to meet Hob’s eyes.

“Listen, you asked him to move in, and he said yes, so don’t second-guess yourself. He’s made it abundantly clear how much he enjoys being yours,” she adds with an eye roll. “I’ve never ‘accidentally’ caught sight of so many bruises and hickies in so many interesting places as I have in the last six months.”

“He could make them go away, you know,” Hob mimics Morpheus’ dramatic sand-flinging finger wiggle. “Before he wears a low-cut shirt or reaches up for something on a high shelf.”

“And he doesn’t, so what does that tell you?” Harri squeezes his shoulder once and shakes him a little. “Come on, Doc Bob, you’re supposed to be the wise old one here.”

The thing is, Hob is human. And therefore he has that very human urge to find love and cleave to it. And Morpheus is very slowly, very gradually becoming human himself. Night after night, a little more of Morpheus’ power trickles from him into the infant Morpheus has only ever called “the child” or “my heir” as the little boy sleeps.

It’s literally a trickle, and Hob knows this because the day the baby was born, a massive hourglass appeared in the middle stained glass window behind his lover’s throne. 

In the left-hand pane, a stylized depiction of Morpheus-as-Dream gazes magnanimously down upon any who enter the hall. The rightmost pane depicts an infant dressed all in white, hair and skin as colourless as his clothes, eyes the colour of shamrocks. And every night, when Hob meets Dream at the seat of his power, the lad in the right-hand pane appears older, brighter, his gaze more otherwordly. And every night, the Morpheus in the left-hand pane appears more human, his eyes less fathomless, his skin less eldritch-white and more pink with health.

 And every night, there is more sand in the bottom of the hourglass than there was previously.

Hob still hasn’t met the child, nor Morpheus’ mortal niece and nephew. He hasn’t insisted either, figuring that Morpheus will share his family, and his successor, with his lover when he’s ready. But he’s becoming less and less the master of the Dreaming with each passing hour, and Hob can’t help but wonder if maybe Morpheus doesn’t want him to meet them. That maybe he’s deliberately keeping his Endless life separate from his soon-to-be-human one.

So that when it’s all… all over, then there will be nothing tying him back to his Endlessness.

Maybe that’s what Morpheus wants.

Or… or maybe Morpheus just doesn’t trust Hob with his own Endless family. Maybe he’s keeping them from Hob, the way that Hob hoarded Eleanor, and Robyn, and Wee John (though he hadn’t, not really; if Morpheus had appeared in the welcome hall at Gadlen House at any point of his marriage and demanded to be introduced to Hob’s wife and children, he would have fallen all over himself with pride to do so.)

No, Hob’s being ridiculous. Morph’s just busy. Turning over the entirety of your kingdom and selfhood to an entirely different person, while also training that other person how to be you, while they are already, in essence, completely you, is… well, it sounds like a lot. Morpheus has just been distracted, that’s all.

“It’s too soon for rings, anyway,” Hob hedges, voice rough and brain spinning. Although, Too Soon has a different meaning nowadays. He’d met and married Eleanor within the span of three months, and they’d only waited that long because the banns had to be read on three consecutive Sundays before they could be trothed.

But in the twenty-first century, it seemed like dating for anything less than a year before popping the question was considered inordinately fast. And as much as Hob likes to tease his lover and call their centenary meetings’ ‘dates’, they weren’t. Not really. Not in the way that it means now.

“And there’s so much happening, I don’t want to be a distraction, or a… a burden, or–”

Harriet pinches him.

“Okay, okay,” Hob capitulates. “I’m overthinking it.”

“You are,” Harri agrees, and goes back to both her seat and her salad. “You want to be with him. And he wants to be with you. You will be. You are. So there’s no rush. You both have literally all the time in the world.”

If Hob had to bet which of the Endless would ask a boon of him first, his money would have been on Desire. He knows Desire and Dream have a rivalry, which Hob figured the former would have capitalised on the second they had free reign.

And to be honest, Hob spends a lot of time in their realm since he’s worked out how to translate Morpheus’ overdramatically, swoony Victorian flower messages. Hob is obviously pretty well known to the each of the Endless, and thought Desire in particular would have a favour or just a prank or a snipe they’d want to pull.

Yet, it’s been months, and none of Morpheus’ siblings have formally introduced themselves to him. That he knows of, of course. He wouldn't even begin to guess at what they looked like in human form—though he figures they’d all be as Otherworldly beautiful and easy to pick out of a crowd as Death and Morpheus had been. 

No one has approached him for strange little favours, or pulled him aside for awkward conversations, or appeared mysteriously over his shoulder while he’s marking in his office. The only folks who’ve buttonholed him lately are some of his students wanting him to sign autographs or chair their Alphabet Army Club, now that it’s been splashed all over the media just how terribly queer Hob is.

(Hob had been right, and that photo of him smoldering at Morpheus on the red carpet had put Oscar Issacs and Jessica Chastaine’s similar shot to shame. He’d had it professionally printed and framed to hang in his bedroom.)

But like the tinny, annoying buzz of the fridge on days when a headache or stress has made the white-noise impossible to ignore, every once and a while, Hob remembers that he’s pledged to service to six entities he doesn't know, doesn’t trust, and doesn’t have any way to contact. Having been made vassal to each of the Endless, Hob was at their beck and call, sworn to serve them where he could, in exchange for permission and approval to be courted by Morpheus. And yet…

Hob hadn’t actually been party to those negotiations, which at that time had felt insultingly high-handed of Morpheus. His lover had not only made promises of subjugation on his behalf, but did so without Hob even knowing the talks were happening. Acts of Service, especially in the guise of feeding people and wheedling his lover to try new foods, might be Hob’s love language, but being sworn to serve something and someone without his consent had been… he’d been well and truly miffed.

Especially since he hadn’t been present to negotiate limits. Hob was willing to do pretty much anything and everything Morpheus asked of him (or any other iteration of Dream of the Endless who came calling, honestly), Hob was not about to fuck someone for Desire, or kill someone for Death, or slip roofies into someone’s drink for Delierum, or… or whatever else an anthropomorphic personification may ask of a human.

He was absolutely unwilling to harm anyone else.

But Morpheus had reassured him that whatever boon may be requested, it would not be in service of hurt or pain, either to other sentient beings, or to himself. Mollified by that at least, Hob had begun to envision what sorts of heroic quests or deeds he may get to embark on in the name of his de facto in-laws. Perhaps saving some damsels, or participating in a spy sting, or going on an epic adventure to retrieve a lost artefact.

So far though... nothing.

So when his first Endless comes knocking, so to speak, it takes Hob a few minutes to figure out what it is that he’s looking at. He had assumed messages from the other Endless would come on scrolls, or sealed letters written on parchment, or through some sort of animal herald like Matthew.

But no. And it is not via a herald.

It is not Desire.

Destiny contacts Hob through, of all things, text message.

Hob is enjoying the mild evening out back of the Inn, in the section of the property that is Hob's private garden.

Out front and around the side of the building, the gravel parking lot is peppered with more picnic tables, bike racks, and flower-choked planters than spaces for cars, which is Hob's subtle way of encouraging his patrons to not drink and drive. The forsythia that Morpheus' regard had caused to spontaneously grow all along the borders is just starting to show little yellow buds, and it's quite pleasant out there this year.

Pleasant. But busy.

At the back of the building, Hob's garden is ringed in with an old-fashioned bramble hedgerow, planted with blackberries, raspberries, and roses. Matthew had eaten his roly-poly fill the previous autumn, competing with the New Kid, who'd foraged fresh ingredients for cocktails and tarts. The carpet of clover that makes up the yard is thick, resilient and just beginning to spring back to life from its time crushed under the winter snow. In the centre of the little green field sits a circle of flagstones and fine red graven, just large enough for three curved loveseats and a small fire cairn.

It's an excellent place to watch a brisk spring sunset, and right now Hob is torn between wanting to start a fire, and being terribly comfortable cozied up on one of the loveseats under a blanket. Morpheus won't be back from his heir’s afternoon nap for at least another hour, and it's starting to grow too dark to proofread any more of Harri's manuscript.

Hob's just decided that maybe he'll pop inside and pester Patrick for a laugh when his phone pings. He doesn't recognize the name or the number, and when he swipes the message open, he has to read it three times over before he clues in who it might be from.

Vassal - I task you with this quest: heal the rift that lies between Rose and Jed Walker’s friend Lyta Trevor-Hall, and Dream of the Endless. It would behoove us all to strengthen the ties that bind.

The contact appears in Hob’s phone as D#1, which makes Hob snort. Sure enough, when he opens his Contacts, he’s got Ds 1 through 7 listed, though D#4 has no associated phone number. He immediately changes D#3 to Best Beloved. Morpheus has no cell phone, of course, that Hob knows of, so he wonders how the Endless are actually managing texting.

He considers showing the text first to Morpheus, and then to Matthew, and after deliberating both possibilities, decides to undertake this doing for Destiny on the sly. After all, if he’d wanted his brother to know, the Destiny would have looped either one or both of the fussy black birds Hob calls his own into the communication.

This is a task for Hob, and Hob alone.

The call of adventure thrumming in his blood, Hob collects up the manuscript, blanket, red pens, phone, and empty pint glass, and patters inside. He knows Rose Walker and her brother Jed live in New Jersey, are the grandchildren of Desire and the late sugar heiress Unity Kincaid, and they became the sole benefactors of her fortune when she died. Beyond that, he has no idea where they might be, or what they might look like, or even how he would go about getting in contact with them. 

And through them, this Lyta Trevor-Hall.

But he is a researcher in profession, and a horrible nosy busy-body in life, and wealthy enough to hire all the private detectives he might need. So he drops his stuff on the sofa, slides his laptop out of his hunter-green leather satchel, and gets to work.

Turns out, though, that Hob needs none of those advanced research skills or wealth. A single Google search turns up Rose's social media profiles, a dozen news articles about Unity and the Sleepy Sickness, a further seven articles in industry magazines about the Kincaid Sugar Trust, an announcement in Publisher’s Weekly about Rose’s forthcoming YA novel, and a single newspaper article about the brutal serial-killer death of a couple named Barnaby and Clarice.

He spends the next hour reading and making notes. He stops only the once to punch a sofa cushion while wishing it was Barnaby's face, then pour himself a careful measure of whiskey. Not too much, though. He wants to do this next bit sober. 

Hob writes and deletes about five different versions of an introductory email before deciding to YOLO FOMO YEET whatever-it-is-the-youth-say-today is, and slides into Rose Walker's DMs.

Hi! You don't know me, but my name is Bob Gadlen and I'm a professor at the University of York in London. I'm reaching out because my boyfriend is a buttoned-up, emotionally constipated twat, and though he'd never say it, I think he misses you.

It’s enough information for Rose to Google him, and get a good idea that he’s who he says he is, and is a public enough a figure that he may be trustworthy. Hob then attaches a selfie he took downstairs in the pub of The New Inn. In the photo, Hob is laughing with crinkled cheeks and an open-mouthed smile, leaning back against the banquette. Morpheus is tucked in behind his shoulder, scowling at the camera with glacier-blue eyes, face resting against Hob's neck. Matthew is visible in the corner of the photo, perched on the sill of an open window, beak stuck in Morpheus' glass of wine.

It's just coming on the end of the work day in New Jersey, so Hob assumes that he's not going to get an answer right away. Especially if Rose has her privacy settings jacked all the way up. So he sets down his phone and starts researching flight costs and hotels. 

A few seconds later, though, his phone pings.

Yeah, Rose Walker has replied. That sounds like Uncle Dream.