Changelings at Court

by Ken Altabef

  Cavendish seemed hardly taken aback. He stepped casually to the side, nearly knocking over an elderly lady out for a stroll with her two dogs. The dogs gave Cavendish a pass and hissed at the Green Man instead.

  A thick-bladed sciavona appeared in Cavendish’s hand, drawn quickly and suddenly from a concealed sheath. He brandished the basket-hilted Scottish sword with a flourish. The crowd erupted with a chorus of panicked voices. They did not expect lethal weapons to be so readily available within the garden. But apparently such rules did not apply to practiced rogues such as Cavendish, nor to vigilantes with a mastery of illusion.

  Threadneedle was quite aware of his opponent’s skill with a blade and decided to waste no time on showmanship. He lunged forward and back, feigning a central attack, then swung his blade side to side in a vicious decapitation stroke.

  Cavendish parried both attacks almost effortlessly. “Let’s have at it then,” he said softly, almost as an afterthought.

  Passersby lined up on either side of the pair, jeering and throwing whatever sundries came to hand at the villain. A half-peeled orange nearly struck Cavendish in the face but he bisected it with a quick stroke of his weapon, still smiling.

  Chapter 22

  Eric seized his opportunity to approach King George. The King seemed particularly unnerved by the commotion nearby, especially as a tomato flew past his own head. Open swordplay in the middle of the garden was bad enough, but the villain was precisely the man he had come to meet, exposing their illicit arrangement to too many suspicious eyes, and the presence of the green-clad vigilante frightened him even further. He felt sure to be identified, exposed or endangered. He looked frantically from one side to the other, wondering which way to turn.

  Eric stepped close to the King and presumed to take his elbow. “This way, Your Highness.” As the King of England spoke very little English, Eric addressed him in French.

  The King jerked his arm away and looked at him askance.

  “Lord Eric Grayson,” he explained.

  King George still seemed confused. “Are…are you a member of parliament? Sir?”

  “No. No, I’m not. I hold title and lands in the north, at Durham Bay. You knew perhaps my father Henry or my grandfather, Griffin Grayson.”

  “Grayson…Lord Grayson… I don’t recall.”

  “It is of no importance, really, given our current circumstance. I suggest you follow me. Quickly.”

  He took the King’s elbow again and this time the old man allowed himself to be steered away from the commotion to a small potter’s area at the back. A gardener’s shed stood there, amid stacks of terra cotta pots, budding plants and various gardening tools.

  “We’ll be safe here for the moment,” Eric explained as they passed behind a plaited wooden screen lined with creeping ivy and red roses. “The scuffle will soon be over and then I’ll check if it’s safe for you to go back out.”

  The King straightened his grubby coat. “I am grateful—Lord Grayson, did you say?—but still I wonder how you came to be here?”

  “It’s no accident, I’ll admit. I wanted to speak to you about a matter of state. I have a proposition.”

  The King looked particularly annoyed at this, and glanced around for anyone who might save him from this new, unwanted intrusion. Finding no help, he grumbled softly. “It would seem you have my ear for the moment, Lord Grayson, like it or not.

  Eric adopted a quiet, confidential tone. “The matter concerns—”

  “Beg pardon?” The King cupped his ear.

  Eric raised his voice as loud as he dared. “The matter that concerns me is regarding the faeries.”

  Try as he might, Threadneedle could not break Cavendish’s defense. It was maddening. The man seemed completely at ease, lazily parrying every attack with his heavy Scottish weapon. He had not, as yet, bothered to attack.

  Threadneedle’s weapon was much lighter and he ran no risk of tiring his arm, but his growing impatience was another matter entirely. He considered setting off a sudden display of faery lights just in front of Cavendish’s boorish little nose. With such a distraction he might well bring his blade home and end the contest. But he dare not reveal that the Green Man was of faery blood. He was a mysterious figure to be sure, but if the crowd had proof of his lineage as fae, the hero would soon face a barrage of rotten tomatoes himself.

  Faery lights were out of the question. Threadneedle could not be so obvious as that, but he simply had to do something. He sent a two-handed slash straight down at the top of Cavendish’s raggedy black wig. The rogue easily blocked the attack, as Threadneedle knew he would, with an upward thrust, his blade held crosswise. The parry provided a perfect platform. Threadneedle kicked up his heels and spun into a cartwheel, balancing himself on his opponent’s blade, held aloft by Cavendish’s strong arm. The faery did an aerial somersault, tumbling high over his adversary’s head to land behind him. The crowd cheered this remarkable feat of superhuman agility, but when Threadneedle launched a strike from behind, the villain parried that attack as well.

  Threadneedle had lived a hundred years and fought many men. He easily recognized the fighting style Cavendish was employing against him. Not surprisingly, given his choice of weapon, it was a highlands Scots style. A solid defense, to be sure, but there were certain repetitions in his movements, a reliance on rote that made the defense quick and effective but also predictable. Every time Cavendish was approached from the left, he swept his sword across with a downstroke to the right. Threadneedle thought he could exploit this by feigning a leftward approach then circling his lightweight blade under the sciavona’s guard with a thrust at Cavendish’s groin.

  Threadneedle swung away, but to his amazement, Cavendish was not fooled in the slightest. Perhaps he had detected the plan in Threadneedle’s eyes. Or perhaps the devil could read minds. He did not parry with the usual cross-stroke but instead stepped to the side. When Threadneedle’s thrust found only empty air, Cavendish slashed his blade at the faery’s knee. The heavy sword bit deep and, for the first time ever, the Green Man grunted in pain.

  A splash of Threadneedle’s blood hit the ground and he prayed no one might notice that it shone a bright purple instead of crimson.

  Threadneedle stepped back, already limping from the wound.

  “You should withdraw,” said Cavendish in his laconic drawl. “Run away, if you can still run.”

  Threadneedle, who had already provided the desired opportunity for Eric to waylay the king, had little to gain in prolonging the fight. But things had already gone too far. The Green Man had a reputation to uphold. A crowd had gathered around, all watching in rapt attention.

  Threadneedle raised his blade en guarde. “The Green Man does not run.”

  He had to find a way to win this fight. His was the lighter weapon and had advantage of greater speed. The leg wound would restrict his mobility, but in close quarters it wouldn’t matter. Only one course of action still offered him a chance of victory and he could see in Cavendish’s heavy-lidded eyes that he knew it just as well. So they both knew. Now let’s see who wins.

  Threadneedle launched himself forward, pushing off his good leg in several short zig-zag hops. He began a series of furious attacks, parry-and-riposte, left and right, parry-and-riposte. Hindered by his heavier blade, Cavendish could not possibly keep up with the reckless attack. Eventually, Threadneedle struck a clean blow straight through Cavendish’s sword arm. Only a side-step at the crucial moment prevented the strike from piercing the villain’s heart.

  A searing pain lanced through Threadneedle’s belly. Glancing down he saw that the heavy Scottish sciavona had run him through. Cavendish twisted the blade and withdrew.

  Threadneedle stepped backward, suddenly losing his footing on the cobblestones, now slick with his own blood, and fell into the dirt. The pain was excruciating. He rolled over but could not get up. He felt flushed with heat and realized some residue from the iron Scottish blade was still burning inside his gut. The world swam before
his eyes. When he tried to raise himself again, everything turned white, and then faded to black.

  “Faeries?” said the King. “Did I hear that correctly?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What matter, then? There hasn’t been a faery about for twenty years or more. Didn’t we run them all aground? What’s this about faeries?”

  “There are faeries still in England, sir. Oh, if I had a little more time to explain to you we might be better off.”

  King George glanced around impatiently, listening as best he could. “Maybe so, but as soon as the row is finished out there, I must be away. I have a carriage waiting in Oxford Street.”

  An uproar came from the crowd on the other side of the oriental screen.

  “I think,” said the King, “if we set out in the opposite direction. We may reach the street unobserved.”

  Eric could not argue. “May I escort you, sir?”

  “Delighted.” The King sounded insincere.

  Eric suddenly couldn’t recall exactly how he had intended to broach the matter. It was not a long walk to the street, and he had so much to tell. “There are faeries living underground in the north, and other places too. I know them. I’ve known them many years.” He stopped short of referencing his marriage to Theodora. “They are… well, they are wonderful.”

  King George chuckled a bit. “You don’t say. I met a faery once, you know.” He stopped walking, taking Eric’s arm as he leaned close to tell the tale.

  “I was just a child, perhaps only six or seven. We had a lovely farmhouse in Hanover back then, an expansive acreage. I used to roam free in the woods on various boyish journeys of discovery, a pirate plundering the hedges for acorns and berries. I was the first to discover that robin’s eggs are blue, and that ants marked trails in the sand for others to follow.” He chuckled again at that and continued, “Do you speak any German, Lord Grayson? In Hanover we say das unverdorben wald. The unspoiled wood. And one day, as I walked that leafy path, I saw one. Oh, she was a beauty! Such fine golden hair, a face round and plump as a ripe apple. Her eyes… she… she positively glowed. I was struck dumb at the sight of her, I tell you. Or maybe she held me that way, captive to her spell. I couldn’t speak, I dare not. I was afraid it was only a dream.

  “She made quite a fuss over me, straightening my collar and smoothing my hair, and all the while humming a faery tune, every note as clear as a bell. A tune that put songbirds to shame. That song would be the envy of Handel, or Schȕrmann, or Bach himself. And then she leaned over and laid a gentle kiss on my cheek. She giggled. She was the most exquisite thing I’d ever seen. And then she was gone.

  “But I never forgot her. I had such pleasant memories of that encounter in the wood. That faery’s kiss—I shall never forget it! It came to mean different things to me as I grew older—in childhood the sweet brush of her lips was like candy, a taste of honey and sweet cream just to think of it. And then later, in adolescence, the memory brought a dawning sexuality and longing. She’d been naked, you know, but I never realized it until years later. The curve of her breast, the swell of her hips, those delicate fluttering wings. Silken wings! Kept me up at night, I can tell you.”

  Eric could not disagree. Thinking of his wife, he might put forth the exact same sentiments.

  The King resumed their walk down the promenade, but his thoughts were still far away. “Body and soul, I have longed for her. But I never saw her again.

  “I think of that kiss still, in my dotage.” King George chuckled some more. “Yes, I think of that kiss often still. Lost youth and all that, you know. Is she still out there, I wonder? They say a faery kiss can bind a soul in captivity forever. Of course that did not happen to me. Except perhaps in the most small, inconsequential way. What I wouldn’t give to feel her kiss on my cheek once more. Yes, I want to know faeries again.”

  “Perhaps you may,” Eric said. “They often live hundreds of years.”

  “Quite. And what were you so eager to ask of me, young man? And be quick about it.”

  “A proposition. If I grant the land—a place of their own—the faeries can be a great help to us in many, many ways. They only need a place of their own, to live unmolested.”

  “Faeries in England again,” mused the King as they passed out through the west end gate of the park.

  “They can be allies, I assure you. They can be friends.”

  A flicker of amber light crossed the old man’s eyes and he gave a little nod. “Yes. Yes, I think so. It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The carriage driver cleared his throat loudly. George stepped to the short step. Eric worried he might depart without saying anything more but he turned round and said, “Well, I think it’s a wonderful idea. I’ll take it up with Mr. Pitt in the morning. And we should meet again, you and I. Say in a week’s time or some such.”

  Eric offered his hand. “You won’t regret it sir. I promise.”

  Cavendish had no intention of leaving the Green Man alive. Nora saw it in the way he hefted the sword, adjusting its weight for an awkward downward blow. She had no choice.

  She put forth the illusion of green mist, a shimmering curtain crawling its way across the fallen man’s body. This development did not seem to deter Cavendish, who had already fixed his victim’s position on the green sward below.

  Imitating the Green Man’s annoying high-pitched laugh, Nora stepped out from the crowd. Though she had brought no actual weapon, she slashed the illusion of the vigilante’s thin dueling sabre widely in front of her. She made the swishing sounds out of the corner of her mouth, as best she could.

  Cavendish spun round. “What’s this?” he raged.

  Nora had no weapon and no hopes of fighting this man. She’d bought a monetary reprieve for Threadneedle, but at what cost? She could not duel this deadly rogue with thin air.

  She desperately needed a plan.

  “Time for a reckoning,” she announced, imitating Threadneedle’s voice as well as she could. She stood firm against the oncoming villain, struggling to maintain a casual air. Then she tipped her tricorn hat backward to allow a good look at her face. Of course the face she presented was an illusion. It was a dead man’s face, little more than a skull with a few shreds of flesh that resembled the Green Man.

  Cavendish spun to look again at the spot where the dead man lay but found nothing except an empty bit of lawn. He turned back to Nora. She maintained her death-head illusion, laughing, grinning a skull’s malicious grin, swinging her illusory blade from side to side as she had seen Threadneedle do at the onset of the duel. “Come. Come to me.”

  This was too much for Cavendish. He did not fear many things, but this sight rattled him to the core. He had had enough. He threw his sword at her as if it were a Roman’s spear. Acting quickly, she knocked it away with the back of her fist. Within the blink of an eye he disappeared, pushing aside the crowd to make his escape.

  Nora turned to the gaping masses, still laughing merrily. She made sure that they saw her face change from the grinning ghoul to the cool, confident smile of the Green Man. She made sure to let them know that he was not dead, could never be dead. Always he would protect them from harm.

  The green mist swirled again.

  Chapter 23

  Nora struggled to hold Threadneedle upright, balancing his weight upon her shoulder with one hand while she pounded on the Menagerie’s stage door with the other. At this late hour Henrietta Street was practically deserted, but she dare not make too much noise and draw attention.

  She used the secret knock the staff had arranged between them—three beats fast and two slow.

  “Come on,” she hissed, then had to use both hands to prop up her charge again. Threadneedle was only half awake, his legs trembling, most of his weight slumped upon her shoulder.

  She pounded on the door again. The cover of the peep-hole slid to the side.

  “It’s me. Anne Meadows,” she said in a low voice. “Open up.”r />
  The back alley had no street light. She knew she couldn’t be seen in the darkness.

  The stage door creaked open and Spagnelli’s squat figure stood in the door frame. His face was flushed, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled halfway up to the elbows and dripping wet. Nora realized she must have dragged him up from the basement, interrupting his work at the bilge pump.

  Spagnelli’s eyes flew wide as he noticed her disheveled state. “Dear girl! What’s happened?”

  “This man needs help.”

  “What? Who?” Spagnelli struggled to see past her into the darkened street.

  “It’s Richard Templeton. He’s been hurt—stabbed.”

  “Templeton! Come in, come in. Here—let me help.” He took Threadneedle’s weight on his own shoulder and Nora stumbled backward. With the pressure off, she almost fell down. She’d already pushed herself beyond her own limit and exhaustion crashed over her in a heavy wave.

  “Good Lord! My back isn't quite what it used to be,” groaned Spagnelli. “Let us lay the man down—”

  He staggered into the back room and gently lowered Threadneedle down atop the cot. Colorful costumes, hung from the cross-pipes overhead, swayed in his wake. Lady Cleopatra’s headdress clattered to the floor. Spagnelli swept aside a fortune in painted pasteboard jewels and a Roman short sword made of jointed cardboard and lit a tiny oil lamp on the desk. “This—this is Richard Templeton?”

  There was no hiding the truth now. Threadneedle had passed out again and, his power of illusion gone, had reverted to his normal faery appearance. Though still dressed as an ordinary lamplighter, he had no glamour to disguise his pale green complexion, pointed ears and long, fey features.

  “You mustn't tell!” Nora pleaded. “Oh, I don't know if it will even matter. Look at me, extracting promises when he’s already at death's door.”