The Changeling Child

by E. D. Walker

  Beatrice restrained an urge to trace the smooth lines of her own face, to check for wrinkles on herself. She’d already grown so much plumper after the birth of her son. Wrinkles were probably the next step. Her own complacency about her looks, which had felt so freeing that morning, had dissipated now like the fog of sunrise. Beatrice’s beauty was her only personal asset, the only thing she could control, and it was the only thing that had saved her from the life of a poor outcast once upon a time. The Baron of Réméré had not married a penniless orphan like Beatrice because she had a dazzling personality.

  Yet for all that Beatrice feared the tarnish of time’s touch, she would not trade her son for anything. Not to have the first blossom of her youth back, nor all the gold in the kingdom. But she would preserve her beauty for him, use it to serve him. She’d traded her looks and love for favors once upon a time. She could do it again for her son if she had to. I’ll have Petronilla prepare a rinse of lemon juice for me tonight.

  Once inside Beatrice’s rooms, Mad Mary seemed in no rush to discharge her errand. She went straight for the baby and lifted Beatrice’s son onto her hip, making him laugh. His innocence kindled some inner light within Mad Mary and made the wrinkled crone more palatable to look upon. Well, no surprise that a midwife should have a way with babies. Mary had delivered the boy herself only a few months ago, after all.

  “Tell me about the problems in the village?” Beatrice asked.

  Mad Mary glanced sharply over. “You mean our troubles with the Fair Folk.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your husband didn’t care to listen to me this morning. It’s been a long time, in fact, since any of the castle folk troubled themselves about our problems in the village.”

  True enough. Stephen had let his lands and his people slip to the brink of ruin, but Beatrice meant to mend all that. To see her son’s legacy secured if nothing else. “Tell me about the baby. Please?”

  The midwife clucked her tongue and set the baby on the floor to roll on a blanket. “Ah, we’ve always had changeling troubles, my lady. But it used to be the pretty girls that they wanted. And sometimes pretty boys. Once a year or so, some sweet young thing would disappear into a fairy hill or into the woods. Or a new wife would take sudden sick, and we’d discover it was a changeling all the time, and we’d burn it out.”

  “‘Burn it out’?”

  “Hot poker down the throat. Or tie them to a stake and set them alight.”

  Beatrice must have made a face, because Mad Mary sniffed and settled her skirts about her knees. The midwife held her hands out, palms up, in a what would you gesture. “’Tis the only way.”

  Country ways. “When did they start taking babies?”

  Mad Mary stiffened, jutting her chin out. “They haven’t. Not yet. I’ve seen to that.”

  “I heard you helped save a baby from them.”

  “Yes, and another baby just today. He was a few months old, but this morning I caught the damn beasties trying to make a switch, trying to replace the real baby with one of their own sickly ones.”

  Beatrice shuddered and bent to lift her boy into her arms. He burbled happily at her and stared fascinated at her necklace, tangling his pudgy baby fingers among the pearls. Ice threaded through her heart, like the lake freezing over in winter. To go to your baby’s bed and find a false child, a changeling, in his place. To lose him, to never hold him or hear him again… “The fairi—the Fair Folk tried to substitute one of their own?”

  “Yes. That’s probably how this whole mess started. One of their own pups was born sickly, and now they want to switch him out for a healthy one of ourn.”

  “How many young children are there in the village, and how many pregnant women?”

  “Too many.”

  Beatrice dug her fingers against her temples. She was used to the intrigues of court politics: currying favor, clawing your way above the other ladies, love affairs and secrets. She knew how to catch a man’s eye, how to turn that to her advantage. What did she know about running an estate, about helping people? Her lady mother had died when she was a baby. Her noble father hadn’t even taught her brother how to manage their lands, let alone his coddled daughter. All her family knew to do was seize manors through combat or guile. She wasn’t sure any one of them had ever bothered learning how to run one.

  Her husband would be no help in this matter. He lacked subtlety and would just storm all over the place, trying to fight magic with swords. Might as well try to joust with the clouds, or kill a rainstorm with arrows. But who else was there? “I will speak to my husband and see if we can help you with your efforts, Mary.”

  Mad Mary flicked her a wry glance. “As you please, my lady.” The midwife bent to make funny faces at the baby.

  Beatrice didn’t fully understand the midwife’s cynical look until she spoke to her husband later that day once he’d returned from his ride.

  Her husband’s apartments were always a mess of manly pursuits: a hunting spear in one corner, a crossbow draped across the bed, and his suit of armor on its stand across from the entrance. Luxurious furs covered the feather mattress on his bed—their bed when he had sport in mind. After her son’s birth, he had not pressed for those attentions from her. Not yet. She did not exactly miss that part of her marriage. He was a kind lover but not a passionate one, which was to be expected from a man of her husband’s advanced years and somewhat generous girth.

  His blue-gray peregrine chirruped as she entered the room, shifting on its perch. The bird tilted its head to eye her. Her husband had bought the falcon a few weeks ago, another token to celebrate their son’s birth. Beatrice restrained a sigh thinking of how much the animal had cost. Especially since she had no idea how the baron had bought the beast. Maybe he had a store of coins she didn’t know about.

  Stephen smiled as she came into his room. As frustrating as he could be at times, she still warmed all over with fondness when he looked at her like that. They didn’t have a love match, per se, but she certainly felt far more affection than she’d ever thought possible when she’d first agreed to marry him. A somewhat exasperated affection depending on his spending that week, but still a close cousin to familial love. Without their marriage, she would have been a penniless orphan doomed either to serve in another woman’s household or to become a barren nun in some out-of-the-way temple. Or a whore.

  Stephen had given her a home and a family of her own. Though he didn’t love her as deeply as he had loved his late wife, still his first wife had only ever given him one daughter and a stillborn son. Beatrice knew Stephen would do much to protect her if only for the sake of the much desired son she had given him.

  Still, with a past like hers, Beatrice needed to live up to the faith he had placed in her. No impropriety. No lovers. No gossip. She trailed her fingers across her pearls, then forced her hand away. A baroness did not fidget.

  Stephen rose as she entered, and he took two limping steps to clasp her hands. “Hello, my beauty. How does our son today?”

  “Marvelous well, my lord.”

  “And you? I heard the midwife had visited the castle again. Are you well?”

  “She did visit, but it was on quite a different errand.” Beatrice cleared her throat. “I sent for her to learn more about the trouble the village has been having. That our steward mentioned this morning.” His brows lowered in a frown, and Beatrice hurried on before his temper could grow. “I thought that you and the steward are much too busy to listen to her, but I could spare the time. My duties are not so pressing.” She let just a touch of simpering into her smile and her eyes. In the king’s court, Beatrice had learned to control her face as accurately as a knight controls his lance.

  “Trouble in the village, you say? What sort of trouble?”

  She steeled herself, knowing well her husband’s distaste for the supernatural. “The trouble with the fairies.”

  Stephen voiced a loud guffaw and dropped her hands from his own. “Oh my darling girl, don’t let that ma
dwoman suck you into her crazed superstitions.”

  “You—you don’t believe? But…your son-in-law, Lord Gabriel. He is a self-confessed werewolf.”

  Stephen shuddered and shook his head. “Peh. No one knows what did that to the boy. Black magic most likely. Manmade magic. But fairies and pixies haunting my woods? No, my dear, it’s just not true.” Stephen cupped her cheek, his gaze kind. “More likely the madwoman is making up tales to cover her own failings as a midwife. Fairies indeed. That supposed Fairy Hill has been here for years beyond count, and I’ve never heard anything about any fairies.”

  Maybe you weren’t listening. Beatrice bit the inside of her cheek to keep the unwise words in, then composed herself to try a different tack. “Still, many of the villagers believe the midwife. Panic is brewing. Perhaps, as a gesture of good will, you could send some of your men-at-arms to the village to guard the pregnant women and the children. Just a few.”

  He touched her chin, looking so fondly indulgent that it made her cheeks heat with embarrassment. “Sweet child, no. I will not send my men on such a fool’s errand.”

  Girl. Child. As if she hadn’t had the king’s court (including the king) wrapped around her littlest finger once upon a time. As if she hadn’t borne Stephen as strong and fine a son as any man could wish for. As if she hadn’t buried father and brother both yet still managed to find a place in this world. Were those the accomplishments of a girl? A child?

  Oblivious to her flash of pique, Stephen bent to kiss her forehead. “Your kind heart does you credit, my angel.”

  She had no kindness in her and never would. Couldn’t he understand it was in his best interest to keep the villagers happy? To protect his lands?

  Clearly believing their interview at an end, he flopped back into his chair and took up the knife he’d been sharpening at her entrance. She narrowed her eyes and sidled around his table, drawing his arm around her waist as she settled her plump bottom on his lap. He raised his eyebrows, but a smile flickered on his face, and his hand slid upward to fondle her bosom gently—he remembered she was still full of milk.

  Beatrice blinked her eyes, fluttering her lashes as she summoned tears like a falconer summons his bird. “Oh, husband, you are probably right. I am a silly girl, but oh, how I worry for our son.” She wailed the last bit out and dropped her head to his shoulder, letting a few tears fall to soak into the fabric of his tunic.

  He patted her shoulder with one beefy hand. “Here, here, what’s this?”

  “The fairies are trying to take infants, my lord. Babies just like our own dear Little Stephen.”

  He stiffened at that and grasped her shoulders to hold her away from himself. Beatrice sniffed and gazed sadly into his face, silently urging him to work with her for once. He chucked her under the chin with two fingers, then eased her off of his lap. “All right, my dove.”

  “You’ll send guards to the village?”

  “No, no. One better: I’ll send for that magician of the king’s. That Llewellyn.” Stephen stroked his beard thoughtfully. “He’s a sodomite, but effective for all that. And King Thomas trusts him absolutely. Perhaps the magician has finally repented his blasphemies. That might explain it.”

  “Ex—excuse me?”

  “Did you never hear that gossip? The magician and the king’s brother Hugh used to carry on together. Scandal of the whole court, but then Prince Hugh died and the whole thing was hushed up. Oh, but that was before your time.” Stephen flapped his hands as if clearing his words out of the air. “Anyway, Llewellyn helped sort out that business with Gabriel the king’s heir and my daughter. If the magician can keep a werewolf like Gabriel in line, then I’m sure this Llewellyn can handle a few troublesome imps.”

  Llewellyn, here? Beatrice’s stomach dropped. The king’s magician Llewellyn had been there during the duel in which her brother had been killed. As far as she knew, the magician Llewellyn had helped to orchestrate the whole thing.

  Unfortunately, her husband was a king’s man through and through. He wouldn’t want to hear about her prejudices against King Thomas or his pet magician. She clasped her hands behind her back to hide their shaking. “Oh no, my lord. I’m just being silly. Don’t bother the king’s magician with my foolishness.”

  “Nonsense. You are worried, and I will do all that is within my power to see you comfortable and safe. You and our son.” He pressed a kiss to her palm.

  Now he would help her. Now when it cost him nothing but the vellum to write a letter. Beatrice swallowed her annoyance and trudged out of his rooms, her mind racing.

  Her brother had died because of Llewellyn and his king. How could Beatrice ever keep her son safe with help like that? I’ll just have to solve it myself.

  Before the wicked magician Llewellyn arrived.

  Chapter Two

  After her frustrating interview with Stephen, Beatrice returned to her room and forced Mad Mary to tell her what they might do to speak to the fairies. Beatrice could tell the midwife thought her foolish, but a poor woman like Mad Mary did not say no to the lady of the castle.

  So it was that Mad Mary brought Beatrice a simple homespun dress and snuck her out of the castle gates that night. They told the guards Beatrice was the midwife’s apprentice, and no one questioned them. Beatrice had already sent her ladies to guest chambers that night, claiming she needed to be alone to nurse a headache, so no one would notice her empty bed. Her son she had left in the care of his two nursemaids with strict instructions to let no one but her into his room.

  The road from the castle to the forest was long, cutting through the fields and skirting the village. Mad Mary nodded to the few folks they passed while Beatrice hung back, her hood pulled low over her face and hair. She was the only woman she knew of in these parts with red hair, and she had no wish for tongues to wag about her being out of the castle at night.

  By the time they reached the forest, the sun was setting, but the Greenwood was already dark and ominous with shadows, like ink spilled over a page. Mad Mary lit the small candle in her lantern and jerked her chin toward the line of trees. “Come on. Let’s get this madness over with.” Beatrice raised one eyebrow, and the midwife bobbed a belated curtsy, her face wry. “My lady.”

  Beatrice bit her lip, darkly amused. “You said yourself there are too many innocents in the village to defend it effectively. Perhaps if we speak to the fair—to our Good Neighbors, then we can come to a truce of some kind.”

  “Be wary of deals made in this dark wood. You might think you’ve won your heart’s desire when it turns out all you’ve done is bartered your heart away to get it.”

  Beatrice’s pulse thumped, her heart pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer. Her gown hung clammy against her skin, soaked with her sweat. “If you think this is such an awful idea, why did you come?”

  “Did I have a choice? Baroness.”

  Beatrice winced.

  Mad Mary’s gaze softened in the lantern light, and she tilted her head to the side in a small shrug. “Anyway, I happen to have a soft spot for a new mother and the madness she can get up to trying to protect her babe.”

  Beatrice shook her head and glanced about. She should have been offended, but there was something tempting about being not a noblewoman, not the Baroness, but just a woman. A mother.

  Foolishness. “Just…begin the summoning, Mad Mary.” The river gurgled faintly nearby, pleasant to the ear. They were not close yet to the meadow and the small hill the villagers called the fairy hill, but an outcropping of rock lay among the trees here, just off the road. “This looks a suitable place.”

  “As my lady wills.” The words were proper as could be, but Mad Mary’s voice was bone-dry, ironic. Beatrice decided it was beneath her dignity as the Baroness of Réméré to argue with a madwoman, though.

  Instead, the baroness watched with interest as Mad Mary went about her preparations. The midwife had already made sure that Beatrice wore a ring of iron on a string around her neck for protection. Now the midwife pu
lled out a bag of salt and drew a circle around the two of them, careful to keep the line of salt full and even. “Hold this.” Mad Mary passed Beatrice a shallow dish while the midwife fished out a clay jar from her own pocket.

  “Mother’s milk, donated from one of the village women.” Mad Mary lifted the small bottle high as if in a toast. “And don’t ask who it was for I’ll not tell you.”

  Beatrice fought to keep her face neutral, certain she was imagining the sympathetic ache in her own breasts. “I thought a dish of cream or goat’s milk would work.”

  “Bah. To summon some lower Folk maybe, a brownie or a pixie. But they aren’t the ones behind this plot. You want to ask the Big Questions, then you have to make payment that’s equal to the question.”

  Beatrice gnawed at her lip, deeply unsettled. Gooseflesh rose on her arms as she looked around again. All had gone silent in the woods, a watchful stillness. She didn’t need the gleam of eyes in the dark to know they were observed. She felt the slither of attention across her body as strongly as if the creature were actually crawling across her skin. The only light she and Mary now possessed was the lantern they had brought.

  An icy wind howled suddenly through the trees, and the flame of the lantern flickered as if taunting her.

  “Ah, now, none of that, none of that,” Mary snapped, and she wasn’t speaking to Beatrice. “We’ve come for answers and we’ll pay a goodly price for them, but that doesn’t mean you lot can mess about or play your little games.”

  The wind stopped at once as if Mary’s scolding had actually worked. “What have you brought?” a voice called from the trees. It was a low rasp, almost a croak, yet the whispery voice still managed to fill the forest clearing and make Beatrice’s ears vibrate with the force of its sound.

  Mary poured the contents of the small vial into the dish and then, ever so carefully, set the dish on the ground just outside the circle of salt. “I’ve brought mother’s milk from a lass true of heart and fair of face. Three swallows for three questions answered.”