Changeling

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘First you must quench the lights.’

  ‘Why?’ The word came out hard and aggressive, which was at least something.

  ‘Oh, because firelight is so much more restful. Because firelight and twilight mingle together to bring dreams. What do you think, Fael? Shall we sit by the firelight together and see what dreams we can spin? Shall we see if we can turn dross into gold or straw into silver, Fael?’

  In the same half-dream, Fael wheeled the chair into the large square kitchen, and unlocked the door. She waited, but he stayed just beyond the focus of clarity, and after a moment she spun the chair back to the music room, and positioned it before the desk, watching the half-open door. The fire burned up as the little current of air fanned it slightly and then died down to a dull glow.

  There was a blur of movement, the whisper of silk brushing the ground and he was there. Fael received the impression of a long black cloak and of a deep-brimmed hat with flowing locks beneath it. Covering his face . . .

  ‘Shall we write your father’s musical for him?’ said Christian Roscius and crossed the room to sit in the darkest corner.

  ‘Why?’ said Fael. ‘Why would you help me to do this? I don’t know you. Even if we do have Professor Roscius in common, I still don’t really know you – you won’t even tell me your name.’

  ‘It’s midnight,’ said Christian suddenly, half-turning his head to listen. ‘Can you hear? Somewhere a church clock is chiming midnight.’

  ‘All right, so it’s midnight. So I’m a night-person – that’s why I’m working late. You said you were a night-person as well. What about it?’

  ‘Midnight is the time when all unholy alliances are struck,’ said Christian. ‘Are we going to strike a midnight bargain, Fael?’

  ‘I’m not striking any bargain with— What kind of bargain?’ said Fael, curiosity momentarily overcoming anger.

  ‘If I help you, and if this reaches the stage, I’ll want recognition and acknowledgement.’

  ‘So that you can share in the profits?’

  ‘No. The money doesn’t interest me.’

  ‘Then you’re very unusual indeed,’ said Fael. ‘You’re probably unique, in fact.’

  ‘I probably am. Well?’

  ‘No,’ said Fael hotly. ‘I’m damned if I’ll enter into a ridiculous melodramatic bargain with somebody I don’t know! Tell me your name and where you live, and then I’ll think about it.’

  ‘No,’ said Christian. ‘That will have to be part of the deal. But if we create between us something acceptable to your father’s backer, on the opening night I’ll tell you who I am. I’ll be there with you in the theatre.’ He stopped, and then said, half to himself, ‘The Harlequin.’

  ‘How do you know it’ll be the Harlequin?’ demanded Fael.

  ‘I do know. The strands are all being gathered up. And on the opening night I will be there, Fael. When Tod acknowledges you, you’ll tell them the truth. Then I’ll tell you who I am.’

  ‘My father—’ This was fiercely disloyal, but it had to be said. ‘I don’t think you should count on him giving me acknowledgement,’ said Fael. ‘He’s not above letting the whole thing go through as his own. Especially if it looks like being a success. You do realise that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do realise that,’ said Christian.

  There was an abrupt silence. Then he said, ‘But I’ll still do it, Fael. I’ll help you – we’ll work together in secrecy and I’ll come here at night. For as many nights as it takes.’

  ‘Why does it have to be in secrecy?’ demanded Fael. ‘And how do you know I won’t yell for help and have you on a charge of trespass or breaking and entering or harassment or something? I might very well do that,’ said Fael. ‘I might trick you.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘Why won’t I?’

  ‘Loyalty,’ he said at once, and Fael stared at him, and had a sudden unpleasant vision of Tod’s wrath if he knew she had told a stranger that he could no longer write. And that he had had to ask his daughter to write a commissioned show for him. This disturbing young man was right: if the mad alliance really was struck, Tod was the last person she would dare tell. But it might be possible to do it on the crest of a wave. On opening night, with everyone delighted with one another; with Tod restored to fame. She could imagine saying, ‘I had some help, of course. With the musical side. Let me introduce you – ‘Yes, it would be easy and natural and honour would be satisfied on all sides. But there was a long journey to be taken first, and if it had to be taken in company with this stranger—

  She said, sharply, ‘How do I know you aren’t a maniac or a psychopath?’

  ‘You don’t. You’ll have to take it on trust.’

  ‘Well, how do I know you’re even capable of helping me?’ This had to be the maddest conversation anyone had ever had.

  The stranger made a brief gesture that might have indicated amusement. ‘You’ll have to take that on trust as well,’ said Christian. ‘You’ll have to put me on probation for a few nights. It’s up to you.’

  ‘And if I simply say, thanks, but no thanks? What then?’

  ‘I’ll vanish and never bother you again.’ He leaned forward, and Fael caught her breath. But he seemed able to judge the flickering firelight, and the deep-brimmed hat with the long flowing hair under it still cast a darkness over his face. ‘But between us, Fael,’ he said, ‘we could create something that will make everyone sit up and blink. Something memorable; something to lift people out of their workaday worlds for a space. Something that will spin an enchantment about them, so that they remember that there was once magic in the world.’

  Once there was magic in the world . . .

  Christian said, very softly, ‘We could take the cynical, materialistic, twentieth-century audiences into worlds they have forgotten. Worlds they believed in as children: worlds that live beneath a curtain of fir woods and heather . . . Worlds where the moon is low and foxgloves grow on the hills . . . Where the fair humanities of pagan religions still have the force and the beauty, and where ancient beckoning bewitchments still have the power to snare human souls—’

  He paused, and Fael, torn between a growing fascination and an irritated suspicion that she was being manipulated, said, ‘That’s a jumble of quotations if ever I heard one. In a minute I suppose you’ll start talking about being ill-met by moonlight and Queen Mab’s chariot of an empty walnut—’

  ‘It was a hazel-nut, actually. But the images are there, for all that, aren’t they? Midnight revels and the lost languages. The vanished peoples of the earth . . .’

  Fael said, half to herself, ‘Nicht die Kinder bloss speist man mit Märchen ab.’

  ‘It is not only children one feeds with fairytales,’ said Christian at once. ‘Precisely.’ He leaned forward, and this time the firelight fell across the lower part of his face. For the first time Fael caught sight of what looked like thin black silk completely covering his face. A mask? But he moved back into the dark corner at once, and when he spoke again his voice was prosaic. ‘I think you could write a story like that, Fael,’ he said. ‘I think you could plunder the old myths and the half-lost legends and weave them into something very memorable and beautiful.’

  The spider-web idea was already solidifying into something stronger and something that was beginning to look violently exciting. Fael’s mind was starting to tumble with vivid images: warrior kings and heroic quests; witches and giants and dark sinister enchantments. And beneath it all, like a bubbling undercurrent, a sub-text: a faint scattering of contemporary glimpses. Battles that mirrored the Bosnian war or Vietnam. Kidnapped princesses that echoed terrorist hostage situations. Parvenu dictators and greedy royalty and howling packs of paparazzi with faintly wolfish features . . . A light thread of modernity going all the way through. He’s given me the germ of it, thought Fael with sudden delight. He’s pointing out the way. She found herself wanting to say, Go away, go away quickly and let me get all this down on paper!

  But when s
he spoke her voice was guarded. She said, ‘Yes, I see. I think I could do that.’ And thought: Oh God, yes, of course I could! ‘But,’ she said, very levelly, ‘I couldn’t compose the music.’

  ‘No. But I could.’ The silence dragged itself out again. The midnight chimes had long since died away, but Fael thought that something of them stayed on the air; a shivering awareness, a faint, far-off thrumming, like the prickle of electricity before a storm.

  ‘Well?’ said Christian, at last. ‘Is it a bargain?’

  To plunge fathoms down into this exciting, beckoning world . . . To make that journey, hand-in-hand with the dark compelling creature, this mysterious satanic familiar . . .

  ‘Yes,’ said Fael, softly. ‘Yes, it’s a bargain.’

  Chapter Four

  Tod seated himself at the oval mahogany table in the Greasepaint’s upstairs conference room, and looked around him with gratification.

  This was it, this was the start of the marvellous journey he had dreamed for so long of making. This was the journey that would take him back to the centre. He put firmly from his mind the memory of Fael seated at the desk in her room, smudgy circles of fatigue beneath her eyes. Fael would do it, she would not let him down.

  He had prepared a little speech – nothing very much, really, but he dared say people would be expecting it. Once the preliminary introductions were over, and everyone was supplied with a glass of wine or sherry, he was going to deliver it. He would do it with humility and modesty and it would be very well-received, although he would have to be careful that he was not forestalled by Julius Sherry, prosy old fool, who had always been too fond of the sound of his own voice, and who already appeared to consider himself in some kind of senior position in all this. In fiscal terms Julius’s contribution was minimal – he had suggested putting up a paltry fifteen thousand which was a mere flea-bite for a man of his substance! – but his position as a trustee of the Harlequin made him worth four times that sum and he would therefore have to be treated with a degree of respect. The old goat had obviously lunched well if not wisely, which was unfortunate, because he was eyeing Mia Makepiece with a bloodshot eye and a roué’s mien. Tod frowned. They could not afford to upset Gerald Makepiece at this delicate stage of the proceedings. Once the cheque was signed and cleared Tod did not care whether Mia Makepiece screwed the entire company and half the audience as well.

  On Julius’s other side was the representative from Tod’s bank, who wore an air of strong disapproval and looked as if he might disclose the embarrassing extent of Tod’s liabilities to his masters at the least provocation. This was another anxiety Tod could have done without, because the bank’s involvement was a very hefty one indeed, in fact there had been an extremely unpleasant interview earlier in the week, at which expressions like ‘serious breach of agreement’ and ‘call in the first mortgage’ and even ‘re-possession of the property’ had been freely bandied about. Tod had come away feeling positively flayed.

  Tod cleared his throat, waited pointedly for Julius to stop patting Mia Makepiece’s hand, rose to his feet and gave of his best.

  Gerald Makepiece had been enchanted to find himself scurrying along into the heart of steamy Soho, and charmed to be entering a place that was apparently Tod Miller’s club. Gerald’s experience of clubs was limited to seemly emporiums for the pursuit of golf or bridge, so that the Greasepaint came as a bit of a surprise.

  He had been prepared for Soho, of course – one saw the place on all kinds of TV documentaries and news items – and he had expected the streets to be teeming with humanity, and to be liberally sprinkled with sinister-looking clubs and cinemas, as well as dozens upon dozens of bistros and wine bars and restaurants of every creed and colour and persuasion. But it had not previously occurred to him that people held important business meetings in shabby-fronted buildings with the facade peeling and a lingering smell of stale tobacco everywhere. He was also slightly disconcerted by the Greasepaint’s doorman, who looked like an ex-pugilist.

  The upstairs room to which they were conducted was a mite better, although Gerald would not have dreamed of holding any kind of meeting in a room where the windows were so grimy you could not see out of them. But he must remember that he was in a different section of society now. Raffish. Bohemian. The words pleased him.

  He was entranced to find himself shaking hands with Sir Julius Sherry, the famous theatre magnate. Tod Miller had introduced Sir Julius as one of the trustees of the Harlequin Theatre, and said there was a good possibility that they might secure the Harlequin for the show. Gerald knew about the Harlequin; he had gone to his local reference library to read up about London theatres in preparation for today, and the book he had found had devoted quite a large section to the Harlequin. It was very well thought of by the book’s author, who said it was one of the oldest sites in London, and told how it dated back nearly to Charles II’s day. The book also said that during its years under the musical direction of James Roscius, the Harlequin had gained its present reputation for musical shows.

  Sir Julius was a far more robust person than Gerald had been expecting; he had clapped Tod Miller on the back on his arrival, and immediately launched into an anecdote about some luncheon he had just attended, which appeared to necessitate the use of several words Gerald had not thought people employed in mixed company. But he thought he managed to laugh in the right places, and he began to think he was not acquitting himself so ill. Mia, of course, was completely at home here; she was able to laugh with Sir Julius as if they were old friends, and then to talk in a serious and responsible fashion with somebody called Simkins, whom Gerald vaguely understood to be representing some kind of bank investment.

  They were all given a glass of wine to toast the new venture, and Gerald opened the notebook he had brought, with its orderly headings about ‘Salaries’, and ‘Staff’, and ‘Premises’, and ‘Profit and Loss’. Tod Miller made a little speech and Gerald listened attentively. Most interesting it was, all about how they were about to take a journey together and how they were about to become wayfarers in the motley land of chance with Tod at the helm. It was unfortunate that Sir Julius belched rather loudly at this point, but he covered it up quite well and everyone was mannerly enough to pretend not to have noticed. Of course, he was not a young man, Sir Julius, although Gerald noted wistfully that he had a good head of snowy hair. But set against that he was stout and florid-complexioned and very nearly grotesque, so that it was generous and sweet-natured of Mia to listen to his stories so tolerantly and not to mind when he patted her hand and leaned close to her.

  Tod had reached the part in his speech about steering them all through turbulent waters and reaching the haven of success, when the door at the end of the room was flung open and a derisive voice said, ‘Jesus God, Toddy, are you speechifying again? It’s time someone broke you of that habit, for it’s a terrible bore to everyone.’

  Framed in the doorway was a young, or at least youngish man, with untidy black hair that needed cutting, a long, belted raincoat that looked as if it had been dragged on in the dark, and black-fringed grey eyes.

  He received a rather mixed welcome.

  Sir Julius, with a mischievous look on his jowly face, rose at once, and said, ‘Flynn. My dear boy, come in.’ And then to the table at large, ‘Flynn Deverill. One of my co-trustees of the Harlequin, ladies and gentlemen. Flynn, this is Gerald Makepiece, his wife, Mia. And – ah – Mr Simkins.’ The glance he sent to Tod crossed from faintly mischievous to definitely malicious. ‘I asked Flynn to join us, Toddy,’ he said. ‘The board likes to have two trustees present when considering new ventures. And I knew you’d be glad to welcome him on board your – ah – storm-tossed ship.’

  ‘Toddy’s ship sounds more like the Hesperus,’ said the irreverent young man. ‘But so long as it doesn’t turn out to be the Marie Celeste or – God forfend! – the Titanic, and us the rats scuttling away from it, it won’t matter. Will I sit down now that I am here?’

  ‘I suppose you
’d better,’ said Tod, ungraciously.

  ‘Oh, do sit here,’ said Mia Makepiece, who had fixed her eyes on the newcomer the minute he appeared. She leaned forward and smiled, patting the vacant chair next to her. Flynn appeared to consider this and then walked to the other side of the table and took a chair opposite Sir Julius.

  ‘How far have you got?’ The grey eyes that were far too beautiful for a man surveyed the company. ‘Has Toddy milked you all of your life savings yet?’ said Flynn. ‘Or promised you the riches of the world if you’ll bow down and worship him? I wouldn’t believe a word he says if I were you. He wrote one musical twenty years ago and after that he sold his soul for a mess of pottage.’

  Tod said very coldly, ‘I didn’t know you were on the Harlequin’s board, Deverill.’

  ‘Why should you?’

  ‘Flynn was one of Professor Roscius’s protégés,’ said Sir Julius.

  ‘Well, I know that, of course. I didn’t think boards and finance were your style, Flynn.’

  ‘Did you not?’

  ‘Roscius was instrumental in involving Flynn in the Harlequin’s board,’ said Sir Julius.

  ‘Ah yes, Professor Roscius guided your early footsteps, didn’t he?’ said Tod.

  ‘He did, but it was the devil who guided them afterwards,’ said Flynn. ‘Is that wine you’re serving us? Then I’ll have some, unless it’s that rubbish Toddy gets off the wood.’

  ‘Oh, give him a drink, somebody,’ said Tod, crossly. ‘Flynn, the meeting started half an hour ago. If you knew about it, I do think it might have been polite of you—’

  ‘Oh God, has somebody told you I’m polite? Don’t believe him, whoever he was. The thing is, you see, that I wanted to miss your speech, Toddy, and I almost did, only – God Almighty, is this your idea of wine? Is it? Well, all I can say is, it’s not mine.’

  Mr Simkins, who privately agreed with Flynn, said reprovingly that they had a lot to get through and he had another appointment.