Changelings at Court

by Ken Altabef

  “She’s not here,” James said.

  “Let’s don’t give up.”

  Then James realized his mistake. The trick was not to look for Moon Dancer in any one place, but to realize that she existed everywhere within the tree, bound completely with the other. Instead of intensifying their search they must simply relax and expand.

  Yes, Moon Dancer’s soul was very faint but she was still there. She had reached the same peaceful repose as her host, passing the years in pleasant existence, absorbing nutrients from the salty loam of the earth, drinking in clean rainwater, even drawing power from her old friend Mother Moon through the open faces of the many leaves stretching toward the night sky.

  They joined Moon Dancer in her state of natural bliss.

  “It’s wonderful!” said Arabelle.

  James pulled back. “We shouldn’t disturb her.”

  “Maybe not,” Arabelle returned. “I don’t care. You’re the one with the mystery.”

  “Who...is that? Who…is there?”

  Too late now. “It’s me—James Grayson.”

  “The… son. Oh yes… I remember. What we went through… to get you into this world...”

  James was well aware of the difficulty faeries had in reproducing and the extreme efforts put forth by the denizens of Barrow Downes, enacting the ancient rites and rituals on Theodora’s behalf.

  “She needed a son…” Moon Dancer’s voice was hazy and distant, lost in memory, still half-asleep.

  “To appear human,” Arabelle said. “To win Grayson’s trust.”

  “Yes. That is true.”

  Yes, it was, thought James. The state she was in, he knew the old woman would not lie.

  “Who is that…with you?”

  “Arabelle Starbright.”

  “Someone new. How wonderful that we should meet this way… And you are lovers. This makes me happy.”

  “How much longer must we stay underground?” Arabelle asked abruptly. “If we fight, will we win?”

  “I don’t know.” Moon Dancer’s voice receded again and James felt annoyed that his girlfriend had asked such questions. Moon Dancer was drifting away. Now he might have lost his chance.

  He pushed forth. “There’s something I need to ask.”

  “I am tired...”

  “The girl Marjorie Hightower. Why was she killed?”

  A long pause followed, but the old woman finally said, “To make way for Clarimonde. That is an old secret, a terrible dark thing. A faery stain.”

  “So it was the faeries.” Clarimonde, James knew, was the faery name for his mother Theodora. “Who killed her? Was it Meadowlark? Redthorne?”

  Another long pause and then Moon Dancer’s feeble voice returned, “Neither.”

  “Then who?” James pressed.

  There followed a silence so profound it seemed they would not get an answer, but Moon Dancer’s voice came one last time, offering just a breathless whisper across the long divide. “You don’t want to know.”

  James felt the old woman’s spirit receding back into the white mists, moving upward and away, giving him the impression that he and Arabelle were falling. This disturbing sensation startled the pair of young lovers out of their reverie. They woke, kneeling together, hand in hand, before the great tree root.

  Arabelle sighed. “She seemed so old, so small. Not at all as I expected.”

  “Damn,” said James. “Now we’ll never find out.”

  “Maybe it was her. Moon Dancer, I mean. She certainly seemed guilty enough.”

  “Regretful is not the same as guilty,” James said. “Besides, I suspect Moon Dancer holds herself accountable for everything they did in those days. We still don’t have an answer.”

  “Maybe take a cue from her then, James. Some things are better left alone.

  “But there’s still the girl. She suffers, she’s not at rest.”

  “Then do whatever you must.”

  Chapter 34

  Theodora pulled her shawl tight across her shoulders. The rain had stopped but the air remained moist, chill and unwelcoming. It was a short walk along the garden path to the guest house and she had not bothered to bring an umbrella. Hopefully she wouldn’t get drenched upon her return.

  The gloomy weather matched her mood perfectly. Over the past year, the prospects for the fey had consistently deteriorated. The events of All Hallows Eve, with the Wild Hunt raging across Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the murder of the Earl Hargrave, had set off a firestorm against them. The new King George was a stickler for civil obedience, still striving uncertainly for legitimacy and respect, and a bit of a crusader at heart. He was not one to tolerate the desecration of a church at midnight by a rampaging horde of faeries. His redcoats had renewed a persecution of the faeries the likes of which she had not seen since the time of Eric’s grandfather Griffin Grayson. In those days faeries had been left hanging on public display to rot in gibbets by the roadside.

  The new George was not quite so gruesome, but his justice was equally as deadly. A quick beheading, kept well out of sight, did the job just as well. Only a few faeries had been treated in this manner so far. Her people were well-accustomed to hiding and kept their mounds carefully camouflaged. But the British attacks took their toll. Dances were no longer held on the heaths by night lest the faery lights be seen by redcoat sentries or tattling townsfolk. Consequently, Mother Moon had become almost a stranger to them now. Faery power was at an ebb tide all across Britain.

  Theodora believed that the Winter Court was to blame for the attack upon Newcastle, for their current situation, for the whole damn thing. Of the Dark Queen, she knew very little. What possible motive could Dresdemona have in causing such a strain in relations with the humans? What could she possibly gain? Was she just malicious? Lashing out at innocent people?

  There must be something more at play. If King George II had been murdered by faeries, as some had suggested, this new provocation by the Winter Court must somehow be connected. Dresdemona had effectively destroyed their chances of any cooperation with the crown. But why?

  Moonshadow made sure to keep the Summer Court well-hidden at Barrow Downes. She had become utterly defensive, cautious, almost helpless. With Threadneedle wounded, the faeries had been cut off from information regarding the royal court and any information pertaining to whatever mood prevailed in the city. It was a good thing Nora had given up her masquerade on stage at the Menagerie. With suspicions on the rise, she was sure to have been caught otherwise. At Barrow Downes, internal strife was rapidly growing—promoted chiefly by Arabelle and her followers. The young faeries grew ever more restless. Dangerous. A full-scale revolt seemed inevitable even despite Theodora’s constant efforts to quell tensions. Theodora had been forced to spend so much of her time at Barrow Downes, she’d neglected her duties at Grayson Hall.

  Perhaps it was a good thing she’d been so long away from home. It was no secret that the Grayson estate was under surveillance. The King’s men had come several times to inquire after the Changed Men, but they were now hidden in the smuggler tunnels under the estate—driven underground just like the faeries. Duncan Thomas, the Changed carpenter who insisted on living in town, had finally been driven away, taking his family with him. There was a warrant out for the arrest of Edwin Theobard, a Changed Man who had made a life for himself masquerading as a wandering troubadour.

  Circumstances had taken a very bad turn indeed and were deteriorating quickly. And the thing Eric had asked her to do would be the ruination of them all. She didn’t even want to think about it. Maybe Trask would offer some hope for her, some little bit of good news to lighten her spirits…

  She knocked on the cottage door. Trask would be inside, she knew, for there was no place else he could be. With the increased scrutiny aimed at Graystown, he was just another fugitive maintained in secret by the Graysons. If only Griffin Grayson could see this—Changed Men, faeries and outlaw alchemists all over his estate. He’d turn over in his grave.

  The cottage d
oor opened and a man appeared amidst a billow of noxious fumes. He was a peculiar-looking man with greasy shoulder-length hair, half-moon spectacles, and poor teeth. He wore a white linen smock stained and splotched by various chemicals.

  “Come in, Lady Theodora. Do come in. It’s good to see you. Unexpected, but very good.”

  Theodora paused to allow some of the peculiar scent to waft out of the room before immersing herself.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting some experiment.”

  “Always something. Always busy. But nothing too pressing. Come in, please. Have a seat.”

  Trask motioned vaguely at the interior of the room although there was apparently no place to sit. The cottage had been transformed into a makeshift laboratory many years ago and the little sitting room was brimming with a variety of odd-looking instruments, calipers, prisms, beakers, glass tubes, haphazard stacks of paper, parchment and old volumes. The clutter seemed to increase each time Theodora visited, as if by some arcane magic it was bound to propagate on its own.

  Trask was a study in contradictions. He was a fugitive, still sought in Belgium for his crime—the jealous murder of his gay lover—but he was also a very harmless man. Polite and good natured. He was a lion of science and alchemy, but had financed his researches by trafficking in illicit drugs and bogus remedies. Searching always for his elusive elixir to prolong life. But getting older all the while. Theodora had financed his efforts and sheltered him, considering him a quirky but very sweet man. He had been in hiding on the estate for ten years. At one time a wealthy heir to the Rákóczi fortune and a Prince of Transylvania, a patron of the arts and high society, he had nothing left now except this quest.

  “I’ll stand,” she said. “I’ll only be a minute. I just wanted to ask. Have you any new results? Any hope for my Changed Men?”

  “Many new results,” he said, “but very little progress I’m afraid. When the Chrysalid affected them, it didn’t just change their appearance. They are truly changed, all the way down to the core of their essence. Body and soul, one might say. They aren’t really faeries of course, but they have inherited some of the remarkable regenerative capabilities of your race. The essence of nature, growth, and rebirth—stubborn and determined—just as a tiny shoot will find its way and grow through any crack in the firmament, the way a tree’s tap root can slowly shift and topple a stone monument though it weigh ten tonnes or more. They are blessed with the longevity of the faeries.”

  Theodora knew how important longevity was to this man. It was his life’s work.

  “Until I isolate the element that grants these powers—I call it Wild Tyme, for lack of a better name—until I can identify and characterize this specific humor, I have no way to reverse the changes. It’s quite a thorny problem, if you will excuse the feeble pun. Is it some new bodily fluid they have gained, or merely a physiologic shift in the balance of the four humors we already know? Blood, black bile, phlegm and yellow bile. I try various treatments, but their condition always regenerates.”

  He shook his head. “I have succeeded so far only in prolonging their suffering, not curing it. If I could just isolate this element—the Wild Tyme, so to speak—I could deal with it directly.”

  “And you’d have discovered your universal medicine—your Elixir Vitae or whatever you choose to call it. The secret to immortality.”

  “Hmmm, yes, yes. Unlock the longevity of faeries, and one might well produce an extreme longevity for humans. Yes. I would have it!”

  With a wild sweep of his arm, he knocked a simmering beaker from the table. “Oh, dear, forgive me my exuberance.”

  “That’s all very well and good, but I want progress. I’m providing you with very costly materials and support. Not to mention sanctuary here.”

  “I understand. But that’s just the thing. My problem is also the key to your problem. Any attempts I make to restore the Changed back to their humanity are reversed by the effects of this element, the Wild Tyme. It keeps reverting them back to their mock-faery state. I can’t seem to beak it. Only if I can isolate it, can I work against it.”

  “And have it for your own personal reasons as well.”

  “Everybody wins.” He flashed his crooked set of yellowed teeth at her. “The triumph of science. That sort of thing…”

  “That’s not good enough. They suffer, Trask. And I can stand it no longer. Maybe you’ve taken the wrong tack. What if, instead of trying to cure them of this change and restore their humanity, you sought to accelerate it? To push them all the way. To finish what the Chrysalid started.”

  “To make them full blooded faeries?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not what they want.”

  Theodora scoffed. “They don’t know what they want! If you were to push them further, make them full faeries they could take refuge among my people, they would be accepted. It would be better for them.”

  “I’ll think about it. I’m not sure how it would be possible. Accentuate the Wild Tyme…” He became obviously interested and began pacing back and forth. “I will add this to my researches.”

  “Make it a priority. Thank you.”

  As she turned to leave, he said, “And one other thing.”

  She tuned back. “Yes?”

  “I want to say ‘there’s a ghost on the grounds’, but that sounds so terribly dramatic to me. The fact is my devices have detected a strange sort of energy. A disturbance in the ether. I am pretty sure. There is a ghost here.”

  Theodora smirked. She had sensed it too, a lurking presence looking over her shoulder and getting stronger of late. “This doesn’t surprise me, Trask. Grayson Hall has a long and sordid history. There are lots of ghosts here.”

  Chapter 35

  King George lay face-down on the bed, his nightshirt pulled halfway up, his naked buttocks glistening in the candlelight. The entire scene was comical, absolutely comical. The King madly thrusting and grunting, his passions rising to fever pitch. He was alone on the royal bed, doing his best to drill a hole in the overstuffed horsehair mattress. It was an impressive bed—huge and sturdy, the rich mahogany frame letting out nary a squeak at the King’s energetic exertions. Each of the four posts were as thick and ornate as Corinthian columns, hung with blue damask canopies to match the luxurious valences and curtains decorating the rest of the suite.

  Dresdemona frowned. She stood off to the side, merely providing the illusion that was driving the King’s passions. Sweet Charlotte, poor dear girl—poor dear virgin—writhing seductively beneath him, whispering in his ear, driving him on.

  She wished she didn’t have to bother with this. It had already been such a long day.

  Immediately upon her arrival as Princess Sophia Charlotte, Dresdemona had been introduced at length to an endless assortment of new relatives. The King’s mother Augusta, Princess Dowager, watched her with hawkish eyes, but greeted her with courtly politeness. Maybe, thought Dresdemona, one power-hungry snake knows another upon sight, however the illusion. The King’s brothers and sisters all seemed well-pleased and his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, lavished her hand with sloppy kisses. He seemed both a drunkard and a dolt.

  They hurried her off to her fitting rooms, escorted by her two handmaidens-in-disguise while Aldebaran, playing the part of her brother Adolphus, enjoyed a cigar with the men. The Duchess of Ancaster, in her role as Mistress of the Robes, had taken charge of her trousseau and the Duchess of Hamilton, as First Lady of the Bedchamber, had dressed the new princess for the imminent wedding ceremony. The women chatted incessantly as they stuffed her into the uncomfortable confines of bustier and bodices. Her outfit included a ridiculous little cap of purple velvet and a dress fabricated mostly from silver tissue paper, trimmed with silver edging and covered with an astonishing array of jewels. The sleeves were simply dripping with pearls of a size and clarity Dresdemona had never imagined. The facings of the gown were adorned with glittering gemstones and diamonds set in a pattern made to resemble sprigs of flowers. For her pa
rt, Dresdemona would have preferred a dress adorned by actual flowers. These shiny baubles were just useless stones to her. They had no spirit, no life, no worth. But she luxuriated in them anyway, because they meant so much to the humans. And now here they were crusting her tiara and bodice. Lavished upon her.

  The delightful irony of that thought gave her only momentary pleasure, before unpleasant reality set in once again. For one thing, she would have preferred a wedding gown that fit properly. The real Sophia Charlotte was much thinner and more frail than Dresdemona, and seemingly had no bust at all. While Dresdemona projected the illusion of a similarly slender frame, the realities of breasts and hips were not quite so cooperative. Lady Hamilton cursed under her breath as she struggled to fasten the fishhooks at the rear, all the while criticizing the shortcomings of the provincial German tailor who had sent obviously incorrect measurements of Charlotte several months ago from Mecklenburg. Even the least renowned London outfitter would have measured her properly at least.

  A spectacular mantle, in ermine and rich purple velvet, had been fastened about her neck with gigantic clusters of pearls at all the clasps, so heavy with jewels it dragged her entire bodice halfway down to her waist. As she entered the grand hall, the observers would have been treated to an unexpected and scandalous view of her breasts if she had not tweaked her illusion at the last moment.

  A lavish state dinner was held as preparations were finalized in the Royal Chapel and the court began to assemble for the ceremony. The introductions were resumed and grew maddeningly tedious. Dresdemona had never imagined such a parade of filthy, wine-soaked and malodorous people pretending courtly manners and nobility. If this was what passed for sophistication in human society, she was in for a life of endless amusement.

  She enjoyed the food. Partridges stuffed with truffles, venison in pastry, sweetbreads—all served on golden plates. The King proclaimed her beauty loudly and often and the others smiled awkwardly. She kept quiet, acting properly sheepish, and let the fool talk. And talk. And talk. Then there were minuets and courtly dances. Through it all Dresdemona struggled to keep calm, and by some miracle kept herself from killing several of the most boorish courtesans.