Changelings at Court

by Ken Altabef

  Changelings at Court

  CHANGELINGS AT COURT

  Copyright © 2018 by Ken Altabef

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in articles or reviews. Contact the author for more information.

  New York

  This is a work of fiction. Except in the case of historical figures, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ALSO BY KEN ALTABEF

  ALAANA’S WAY

  Book 1: The Calling

  Book 2: Secrets

  Book 3: Shadows

  Book 4: The Tundra Shall Burn!

  Book 5: The Shadow of Everything Existing

  LADY CHANGELING TRILOGY

  Lady Changeling

  Changelings at Court

  Everbright

  FORTUNE’S FANTASY:

  13 excursions into the unknown

  GIANT SLAYERS

  (with Jeff Altabef)

  www.KenAltabef.com

  CHANGELINGS AT COURT

  By Ken Altabef

  Prologue

  September 12, 1760

  Covent Garden, London

  Nora Grayson shot a quick glance into the looking-glass. Had she put on the correct face? Or, more accurately, had she cast aside the many false ones?

  The full-length theatrical mirror showed back a young and reasonably pretty girl standing amid a clutter of dangling costumes and cheap dress gowns. She leaned close and applied the slightest tinge of rouge to her lips, thinking she might have been truly beautiful if only her eyes had been set just a little closer together, or her nose a little thinner at the bridge. Oh well. So be it. Tonight she would be herself.

  Her long chestnut hair, which had not been properly dressed for several days, was currently stacked in a lumpy pile. She wrapped a lightly-perfumed, white linen calash over the whole mess, set a broad blue bow across the top, and let a pair of carefully measured curls flop casually in front of each ear. She smoothed her pale blue pannier dress and gave the modest hoop skirt a rectifying twist. She wouldn’t be the most fashionably dressed woman on the piazza tonight but her beau did not expect her to be. He had no idea she was the daughter of Lord Eric Grayson, and that was just the way she wanted it.

  She brushed a stray curl of lint from the lumpy pattern of faded brocade that fronted the dress. Good enough. She didn’t want to be late.

  She flew out the door and nearly ran down a man in the hall.

  “Oomf!” exclaimed her landlord and employer, Fazzino Spagnelli.

  Nora carefully removed her knee from his groin. “Oh I’m terribly sorry, Master Spagnelli.”

  Straightening up, the portly gentleman replied, “Not to worry, my dear. I’ve often wondered whether my singing would be much improved by being a castrati.”

  “Oh surely it’s not as bad as all that.”

  “Surely not.” He cleared his throat loudly and stood tall, or as tall as someone as short as he, could stand. He straightened the ruffles at his sleeve cuffs, though they seemed already in perfect order and had not been involved in the collision. “And where are we rushing out to in such a hurry? Meeting someone? An assignation on the piazza perhaps?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Well, steer clear of sailors, that’s my advice.” He jabbed a thick sausage finger in the air. “And I also recommend young ladies to be wary of the clergy as well.”

  “No clergy for me,” she said. “I’m meeting my beau, Charles Thurston, tonight.”

  “Thurston? Not that so-called actor who plays down at The Barge?”

  “So called?”

  “Well, his Peachum is not bad, but his Julius Caesar is terrible.”

  “Terrible? I don’t think so.”

  “Be careful. He’s the competition, my dear.”

  “Competition?” she smiled. “What competition? The Barge can’t hold a candle to our own dear Menagerie. The Menagerie is the best company in London.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Spagnelli smiled a beefy smile. “Oh, but an actor! Be careful, Nora! One mustn’t get too involved with actors. False faces all.”

  He embellished this last comment with his trademark wink.

  She frowned. “If that remark is directed at me, good sir, I’ll remind you I am a simple costume girl. Nothing more.”

  “Of course. Your secrets are all safe with me.”

  Nora thought it best to change the subject. “And what excitement have you planned for this evening?”

  “Oh,” he groaned, as if prefacing some dreadful news. “The warden forgot to have the water pumped out of the cellar this week—probably off drunk again I’ll wager—so it will be a long evening for me, alone all night, working the skin off my delicate fingers at the pump handle.”

  Nora was tempted to remark that his fingers were anything but delicate, but decided to let it go. “Enjoy!” she said, trying unsuccessfully to shuffle her hoop past him in the narrow corridor.

  He stepped aside with a courtly half bow. “Don’t worry about me. Ta-ta. Scurry off now.”

  Nora made her way down two flights of stairs and crossed the sitting room, which also served as the theatre’s ticket office. The lamps had already been dimmed and the grand foyer lay empty. She opened the faux-bronze door and stepped out into Covent Garden.

  The street was alive with activity and people. Even at this late hour customers thronged the vegetable and flower markets in the center of the piazza. An evening performance of The Beggar’s Opera had just let out from the theatre at the northeast corner, which happened to be The Barge, and a mass of patrons dressed in fine theatre clothes spilled out onto the street. Charles would be dressing down just about now; he’d be along in a few minutes.

  She smelled spiced coffee, roasted chicken, saffron, pickled herring in seasoned tubs, garlic, burnt whale oil, fresh gardenias in the flower pots, and several competing strains of French perfume. It was a beautiful evening for September. Nora threaded a path between the many coffee houses and bagnios lining the cobbled street. She walked past brothel barkers and their wares—failed actresses trading on their looks and whatever charms they had left. Nora exchanged greetings with the street sellers, many of whom were businesswomen, manning the shops and market stalls. As she crossed the crowded esplanade, she rubbed elbows with rakish aristocrats and scoundrels both, though one could hardly tell them apart.

  I’ve come such a long way from the rural Grayson estates, she thought, and in so short a time. It was all still a whirlwind to her. Landing a lead role in Spagnelli’s playhouse had been a long shot at best, even considering her unfair advantages. Use what you’ve got, her mother had advised, but don’t get caught. Too late for that, of course, but she could trust that Spagnelli would keep his mouth shut.

  “Miss Meadows! Miss Meadows come here!”

  A hand frantically waved to her from amid a throng of people clustered around a table in front of the Bedford Coffee House. There were so many people and too few chairs, and Nora could not tell to which personage the beckoning hand belonged, until the crowd shifted slightly.

  “Anne Meadows, meet my friends,” said a pleasant middle-aged man in a rumpled crushed-velvet jacket. In his lap sat a full-sized lyre, its gilded edges peeling golden paint. “They are theatre-folk as well, recently shipped in from Tuscany. Wonderful stories.”

  The speaker was Reginald Blackstone, a playwright who frequented the Menagerie. He introduced his friends in a flurry of names that flew past Nora in a whirlwind. Reginald ha
d been drinking heavily and he had either slurred half of the syllables badly or these people had shipped in from Italy by way of Kiev or Romania. “Miss Meadows is quite the seamstress,” he explained to his fellows. “She does the costumes at the Menagerie.”

  “Have a drink with us,” exclaimed one of the Italians, who subsequently sloshed half a cup of ale directly across Nora’s bodice.

  “Oh crap!” exclaimed Reginald with great umbrage. “I pray you excuse my very clumsy and idiotic friend.”

  “It’s fine,” said Nora, offering smiles all around. The man then proceeded to spill the rest of his drink, this time dousing the food on the table as he reached across in some soggy-brained attempt to make amends with her dress. She slapped his hand away and, all in the same deft motion, snatched a tiny almond biscuit from the communal serving platter and took a bite. Several of the men worked themselves into an uproar over the incident, displaying their overblown Italian gallantry much too garishly for Nora’s tastes.

  “A song, Reggie, might calm everyone down.”

  “Too right,” he agreed. He took a swig of his own beverage and began to strum the lyre. His fingers were nimble and quick, his singing voice as deep and clear as a bell. He played a love ballad, its incendiary lyrics loosely based on one of King David’s romantic sonnets. The bawdy song hardly served to calm anyone down. The clumsy Italian pressed even closer and began talking of marriage, or at least a honeymoon.

  Halfway through, the tune was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream, a crash, and a violent uproar from the crowd in street.

  The scream had come from the third story balcony of the boarding house above the Queen’s Head tavern. A man had been forcibly thrown from the window, smashing through the glass and grid, screaming his way down to the street. His body landed square atop one of the patio sellers’ tables, scattering fruits and vegetables in all directions.

  All eyes went up, but the culprit could not be found lingering in the boarding room’s window, and attention came crashing back down to the victim of the attack. Terrorized vendors and patrons circled the body in a panic until one man, declaring himself a physician, stepped forward to examine the poor soul. The crowd froze, expectant upon the doctor’s verdict.

  “He’s dead.”

  The crowd resumed their terrified circling, though no one actually left the area. There were several people still milling in front of the tavern when the door burst open and a horrific figure appeared. A large man, strangely tall for a Chinese, burst out of the front door of the Queen’s Head. He had the appearance of a meat-seller, complete with blood splashed apron, sleeves rolled halfway up his brawny forearms and a bloody cleaver in each hand.

  Nora recoiled from the sight. She presumed this must be the man known in hushed whispers as the Butcher of Fleet Street. He was responsible for a string of cold-hearted and bloody murders in that dark district over the past few months.

  Now a true panic erupted in the café area, with people running and screaming in all directions. One unfortunate drunkard got himself turned around and charged straight at the killer. With a backhand swipe, one of the hatchets found its way smack into the middle of the poor man’s forehead.

  The killer seemed crazed, glancing up and down the piazza as if unaware as to how he had found himself in such a strange and alien place. He stooped to casually pull the hatchet out of his latest victim’s skull.

  By now nearly everyone else had cleared out of the street. Reginald Blackstone pulled Nora backward under an alcove at the fish-monger’s.

  “Unbelievable…” he whispered in her ear. This sort of thing might’ve happened across the way in Clare Market’s meat district, where gangs of young butcher’s apprentices occasionally took to fighting with knives and cleavers, but for such a savage scene to take place right here in the piazza was unthinkable.

  The Chinese swung his hatchets in the air, uttering some foreign and unintelligible invective. His eyes wild, he made straight for the Strand. A handful of people, coming back down the street unawares, broke into a commotion as they parted before the crazed killer. The butcher grabbed one of them by the throat as if he were some sort of helpless rag doll. Nora gasped. It was Charles!

  Charles stared into the face of death, his eyes bulging, his mouth contorted into a lopsided, gaping hole.

  The hatchet went up.

  “Hold!” A commanding voice rang out, echoing up and down the esplanade.

  A green mist seeped between two buildings, filling the alley between the boarding house and the confectioner’s. The mist thrust into the street like a wave crashing upon the beach. As it blew off, a tall figure was revealed standing in its wake. He was dressed all in forest green, from a broad feathered hat, a long green greatcoat with white flaps and pearlescent buttons, tight-fitting breaches, all the way down to buccaneer-style boots. His hair ran down his back in a long plait as green as meadow grass. Thin and lithe, he carried himself as part dandy and part capable fighting man. He held a slender walking stick in one hand and a sabre in the other.

  “The Green Man!” hissed Reginald Blackstone. “Good lord, he really does exist!”

  The Green Man’s legend had been growing all across London, his exploits particularly embraced by theatre folk for their especially dramatic flair. He had interrupted several crimes in the low-rent districts, most recently preventing a rape in Spitalfields. Nora had never set eyes on him before; like Reginald, she hadn’t even thought he was real.

  The Green Man flourished his sabre. The butcher cast Thurston aside and he stumbled away, apparently unhurt. The killer began ranting something in Mandarin Chinese, but only made it halfway through his sentence before suddenly charging at his foe.

  The Green Man parried one swinging hatchet with the walking stick and the other with the blade of his sword. A sharp wedge of wood had been bitten from the stick and he looked down at it regretfully before tossing it away. He ambled gracefully to the side, with a lithe movement Nora might have expected to see at the ballet. A wide grin played out across his handsome features. “Shall we dance?” he said with a confident chuckle.

  The killer was at least a head taller than the hero and almost twice as broad, and came barreling on like a steam engine. He swung his weapons crazily in every direction at once. The Green Man was quick with the sabre, though hard-pressed to keep track of the dual hatchets fueled by the killer’s lunatic intent. He skipped carefully to the side, bringing the fight into the vegetable market. The butcher charged ahead, then pulled back, snorting like a mad bull, and then charged again.

  The Green Man was forced into retreat and stumbled over the dead body of the drunk the butcher had slain moments ago. The butcher lumbered over him, a bloody hatchet raised high. The crowd gasped as the blade came crashing down.

  The Green Man leapt aside, executing a one-handed handstand and sliding across a table laden with cucumbers and lettuce heads. He swung around. His long legs scissored in the air, then thrust outward, striking the killer amidships before either hatchet had a chance to strike. The burly Chinese went crashing backward into a cart brimming with cabbages and tomatoes. He overturned the cart, half flinging it at the Green Man. The Green Man deftly avoided the cumbersome missile and drove the point of his sabre through the killer’s left hand, pinioning it to the cart.

  The butcher dropped the hatchet and, with a mighty wrench, shattered the wood panel and tore his hand free.

  He bellowed like a stuck animal and spun around in place. He used the turn as cover for his murderous intention. As he came round again, he flung the remaining hatchet directly at the Green Man’s head. The throw had been perfectly camouflaged by the bizarre nature of his tactics, but the Green Man’s superb reflexes were still intact. He deflected the oncoming blade just in time by striking the spinning handle with the hilt of his sword.

  The killer made another charge, barehanded this time, and in his rage it seemed he might snap the slender hero in two, if only he could get his meaty palms on him. But that was not t
o be. The Green Man was a whirling dervish, spinning to the side, actually getting a leg up on one of his attacker’s knees and circling across his shoulders and down the other side. All the while his sabre slashed in the air almost faster than the eye could see. By the time he landed deftly on the other side of his burly foe, blood was pouring from a number of slashes about the killer’s neck and shoulders.

  The crowd cheered.

  The butcher’s eyes gaped stupidly and he stumbled forward. The Green Man cocked his hat, which had shifted only slightly askew throughout all the various acrobatics, and sized up his target. As the butcher lumbered forward again the Green Man performed an artful slash of the sabre’s edge, parting the front of his opponent’s neck. The killer fell down into the street.

  The green mist rolled back onto the street, summoned again from parts unknown. The Green Man turned to the adoring crowd. He paused to tip his hat gracefully.

  Nora stared in horror at what she saw. The face was handsome and masculine but its lines were quite familiar to her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. “Mother?”

  Her exclamation was lost among the cheers of the grateful crowd. The Green Man finished his bow and stepped backward to disappear into the green mist…

  PART 1: THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING

  Chapter 1

  October 16, 1760

  Graystown, England

  “Thank you, Geoffrey,” said Theodora as she took the silver breakfast tray from the elderly cook. The tray was piled high with flapjacks, boiled eggs and fresh scones.

  He cocked his head. “Breakfast for two, or a small army?”

  “Eric is heading all the way down to London today. The least we can do is send him off with a full stomach.”

  “Aye. Indeed.”