Changelings at Court

by Ken Altabef

  In a blur of motion Rainbird held Andrews, an able swordsman, completely at bay. He was twice her size but seemingly only half as quick.

  To say the fight was going badly would have been a morbid understatement. Eric wished the redcoats had been able to take precautions against faeries such as coating their blades with garlic. Of course, in that case they would have been found out at the entrance, forfeiting the element of surprise. But even that would have been better than this slaughter. Eric barely got his blade up in time to deflect another ambitious thrust from Blackwing. The faery’s laughter was unnerving. All three were laughing. Damn, Eric thought, we’re going to lose. Bad enough to be cut down in a fight, but that hideous laughter…

  Out of sight, Andrews screamed as he died.

  Once again, Lord Grayson was rescued from his own impending death by one of his men as Destry Rusk stepped to his defense. This man was no accomplished gallant; he was a simple farmer. The two of them could not possibly hold their own against both Blackwing and Rainbird. Eric had just enough respite to blow the whistle he kept strung about his neck. A high-pitched note cut through the air. It was barely audible to the men, but the faeries noted it with a recoil. Eric blew again.

  By the time she reached the top of the stair, Nora was winded. The bell tower tilted at a slight cant that made her feel disoriented as she climbed the three flights up. The top floor landing was not quite level either and left her stumbling toward the side. A large pair of brass bells hung from the rafters and she nearly knocked into them. What a horrible spy she would have made then, advertising their operation to the entire town. There was only one room at the top of the bell tower. The doorway, surprisingly, had been left wide open. She hurried to the spot.

  Inside was a little bedroom, the resting place for the monk whose duty it was to ring the bell at first light and wake the others. The spartan accommodations included only a small flat cot and a rugged writing desk. The solitary window had been draped over with a heavy tarp, leaving the room in a gloomy semi-dark. The princess sat neither on the cot nor the desk chair; she crouched in a corner of the room hiding her face from her attackers.

  Princess Charlotte was beset by a half dozen pricklers. Nora had never seen one before but there was no mistaking the little imps. They looked like dust bunnies but with all sharp edges, fuzzy balls made of small blades and knitting needles sticking out at odd angles. Their only human feature were a pair of beady little eyes hidden somewhere within the mass of metal thorns.

  The malicious little imps darted back and forth, pricking at the princess wherever they found bare exposed flesh, stinging an ankle here, the arch of a foot there. Charlotte had retreated into a helpless ball not even bothering to shoo them away. Having grown tired of such fruitless attempts, which no doubt only gave new openings for her tormentors, she had resigned herself to huddling for protection and sobbing bitterly.

  The princess did not notice Nora’s entrance. But the wicked little imps did and one of them charged at her, stabbing her in the shin.

  “Ouch!” she cried. “You little monster!”

  Upon hearing this human exclamation, the princess looked up from her misery. But there was no time for introductions now. The squad of pricklers were rolling toward Nora and she had no real way to combat them. Though small, they could be very dangerous when provoked. She could think of only one strategy. These imps had been bred by the cruel Winter Court. As far as she knew, the only thing that frightened them were their faery masters.

  In a flash she altered her glamour from middle-aged monk to full on Winter Court faery. She fashioned her face into the epitome of arrogance and fey cruelty, creating a long hooked nose, upswept cheeks and fiery eyes. Her mouth became a horror of rotted teeth caged by black, bitter lips. She flashed a set of long, cruel fingernails with an actress’ flair for the dramatic. And then she raged at them with the appropriate air of autocracy, “You dare! You dare sting at me?”

  The pricklers froze in their tracks.

  “I will roast you alive!” she raged. She wondered what the critics on Barker’s Row would say of this performance. A bit overdramatic perhaps, and certainly not worthy of Horace Wilde.

  The pricklers had no such artistic objections. They rolled and tumbled, racing frantically about the room. They juttered under the cot or desk, took a moment to regain some shred of confidence and then lurched out again, flashing sharp little blades and needlepoints.

  Nora remembered the other thing this type of imps feared. Light. She growled at them and ran forward. Casting a glamour on her feet of a bright yellow light, she made as if to stomp them and this frightened them so much that at last they just disappeared, retreating back to the dark pocket dimension from which they had come, in a puff of black smoke and dissolution. Good riddance, she thought.

  The princess stared at her with open terror.

  “What? Oh, you don’t understand,” she said, quickly dropping her wicked disguise entirely and resuming the plain appearance of Anne Meadows, the quiet seamstress next door. “I’ve come to help.”

  Princess Charlotte was having none of it. If she feared the pricklers, she was absolutely terrified at what she had just seen of Nora. Good lord, thought Nora, what have they done to her?

  Nora stepped closer but Charlotte cringed as if she were again beset by a score of nasty little imps. Nora stepped back. “Let’s start again, shall we? My name is Nora Grayson. And, yes, my mother is a faery, but we’ve come to free you from this place. There’s no time. You just have to trust me.”

  Chapter 55

  Just as Eric blew the whistle a second time, Blackwing sent his rapier through the heart of Destry Rusk. Time seemed to freeze for a moment, as Eric looked into the dying farmer’s bulging eyes. His mouth twisted slowly but no words came out. Eric was sorry for dragging these men into this fight. So very sorry.

  The faeries all seemed to pause at the sound of the shrill whistle. Whether they realized its significance or the sound simply tormented their sharp ears, Eric couldn’t be sure. Perhaps they were reacting to that tingling sensation that had been described to him, the strange itchy feeling a faery gets when confronted with another of its kind. Or maybe they just smelled trouble.

  And trouble came their way immediately as the Summer Court faeries burst into the room. Theodora and Arabelle dashed in from the front doorway. Threadneedle came crashing through a window beside the hearth. He rolled across the floor amid a hail of broken glass and came to his feet at speed, hurling himself directly into an attack against Pox. Eric was thrilled to see them. Of his own forces only Jergens and himself remained, but he was confident the faeries would be able to turn the tide of this fight.

  Indeed, Pox abandoned his attack on Jergens immediately, shoving him aside in order to face Threadneedle’s blade. Eric quickly turned his attention to his wife.

  Theodora was a skilled swordswoman in her own right, having been trained in the art decades ago by Threadneedle himself. She had recently exercised her skill in her role as the Green Man. Those times she had assumed the mantle of the slim, green-clad vigilante, she had proven herself the master of many a roguish London swashbuckler. But paired against Blackwing, she had no such easy win. The faeries fought with such rapid attacks Eric’s eyes could barely keep up, just to watch. Sword strokes were lost in a haze of acrobatics and wildly flashing faery lights. Eric saw Theodora evade several very close calls, the narrow misses each threatening to end her life.

  He feared for her safety. He did not intend to sit idly by. His old wound was hurting badly after his exertions and he didn’t know how much use he could be, but he threw himself into the battle, hoping to surprise Blackwing with a sudden approach from the side. The faery seemingly had eyes in the back of his head, or perhaps he was swiveling so fast, turning and weaving in several directions at once, that he could not possibly be surprised. He was aware of Eric’s clumsy attack. He turned the English lord’s blade aside, kicking high into the air, spinning round to bring his own rapi
er driving down for a thrust straight between Eric’s shoulder blades. Theodora grabbed Eric’s bicep, yanked him out of the way and took the brunt of Blackwing’s momentum as he came crashing down. Theodora grunted in pain as she took a driving elbow to the forearm and Eric thought he heard the chilling snap of bone.

  Eric stepped in again, but Blackwing came up from his crouch, swirling his sword in a fine circular arc that ripped Eric’s sword hilt from his hand and sent it sailing across the room. Again, Theodora saved his life by pushing him out of the way.

  At this point Eric realized he was more a hindrance than any help to his wife. Across the room, Arabelle and Rainbird seemed quite evenly matched, exchanging blows and ripostes with careful precision rather than obvious animosity. When Frederci Jergens tried to get a slash in at Redbird she spun round and skewered him. She left her rapier in his belly, drawing a slender dagger with which to parry Arabelle’s next thrust.

  And that was the last of Eric’s men. Amidst terror and disgust, he felt a renewed urgency to go and look for Nora. He had no way to help either of his faery companions. His clumsiness had already caused Theodora to be injured.

  The Winter Court faeries were too quick, too savage. Threadneedle and Theodora could find no way to break them. Theodora held her left arm cradled painfully to her chest and she could not keep Blackwing at bay much longer.

  Threadneedle fared no better. Pox parried a stroke and then spun in and elbowed him in the face. Threadneedle skipped out of the way, doing a half cartwheel that was not entirely intentional, and Pox flew through the air in a nimble leap to drive his point at the faery’s chest. Threadneedle barely avoided the killing stroke, rolled on the ground and came back shakily to his feet.

  All of Eric’s men were dead or downed. Arabelle and Rainbird were still evenly matched, though Arabelle had only a dagger to Rainbird’s sword. Eric felt he was swirling through one nightmare after another.

  “Withdraw!” he shouted. “Get away if you can!”

  Of course he knew that to disengage without getting run through the back was no easy matter. But there was nothing more he could do. He had to go after Nora. He headed for the archway that she’d originally gone through but stopped suddenly as a bright white light flooded the room.

  Moonshadow, wielding all the power she had recently acquired from Mother Moon during the feygappe, had entered the room. She stood near the entrance, fully naked as usual, her slender arms raised above her head. Her skin shimmered as bright as the full moon itself, her bald head thrown back, her lips pursed tight in concentration. The wave of intense light arced away from her to cross the room and Eric felt a blast of searing heat extend in its wake. The heat did not burn him or the others of the Summer Court but Pox and Rainbird stepped back, visibly shaken, and Blackwing screamed.

  Eric watched him crumble to the floor, his slender arms and legs withering away to fine gray dust.

  And then Moonshadow took a step forward. And then she screamed.

  Moonshadow fell forward and Eric saw Arabelle standing behind her, having planted her dagger into Moonshadow’s back.

  “No!” Theodora cried. She rushed to Moonshadow’s side.

  Pox and Rainbird regained their composure and stepped toward Threadneedle. The two Winter Court faeries attacked simultaneously and Threadneedle parried one blow and ducked the other. Arabelle came at him from the side. Crouching low, he kicked Arabelle’s leg out from under, throwing her off balance. He grabbed her wrist and brought her down as a shield to cover his roll. On his way up he slashed down at her, not too proud to slay a woman on her back. The circumstances were much too dire for chivalry now. Pox blocked the swing with the edge of his boot.

  Threadneedle was driven back to the archway, fending off both swords and Arabelle’s dagger but it was clear he could not last. A deep rumble came from the hallway at his back. Eric wondered what new horror would be visited upon them now.

  They heard the shouting of a large company of men. Threadneedle was pushed to the side as at least a dozen men, dressed in tattered black robes, flooded into the room. The monks of St Mark’s were a ragged bunch but they were fighting mad. None had conventional weapons but there were enough clubs, long poles and garden implements to comprise a fearsome attack.

  The Winter Court faeries had seen enough. Pox threw his sword at Threadneedle as the three bounded for the front exit. The monks continued after them and even Threadneedle, wounded and exhausted as he was, made to go with them.

  “Thread!” Theodora called. “I need you here. Now!”

  Eric and Threadneedle rushed to Theodora’s side. She had removed the dagger from Moonshadow’s back but the naked, slender faery lay in a widening pool of violet blood. Theodora turned her half-sister over and pressed her hand to the wound. “Help me! We have to connect. We have to stop the bleeding.”

  Both Theodora and Threadneedle knelt at their leader’s side, heads bowed in concentration. Threadneedle placed his hand atop Theodora’s. Eric saw each of their faces soften into a strange mixture of bliss and extreme concern. He knew that look well enough. He had seen it many times as the faeries had helped to heal his recent wounds.

  “I won’t lose her as we lost Gryfflet,” Theodora said.

  “To the same foul hand, no doubt,” Threadneedle said.

  “I won’t lose her. I won’t!”

  Eric wished he could help. But then he realized he had forgotten all about Nora. He imagined she must be responsible for the monks’ sudden appearance. Just as he turned to go after her, he saw his daughter enter from the archway and following behind her came a bedraggled Princess Charlotte.

  Moonshadow groaned softly.

  Theodora bent down to speak into her ear. “We’ll get you away. You’re going to be all right.”

  “Sister…if I…”

  “No! Don’t say it. Nothing’s going to happen to you, I promise.”

  Chapter 56

  Bored.

  Bored, bored, bored!

  Meadowlark sat high atop the palace at St. James’s. He wore the guise of his namesake, a small yellow-breasted bird.

  The view of London from the rooftop was all so very, very impressive. To the south, just across Pall Mall, lay St James’s Park, Totthill Fields and the bustling, much-travelled Thames. To the west Knight’s Bridge, Hyde Park and Chelsea. In all directions the palace was surrounded by the grimy soot-stained streets, the gabled roofs and chimney pots, all the brick and mortar that confined the human residents of this fabled city. Out there people were conspiring, conniving, cheating each other out of all sorts of personal goods, laying with each other’s wives behind each other’s backs, servicing all sorts of tawdry needs for all sorts of tawdry strangers just to earn a few quid, stabbing relatives in the back, putting pennies over dead men’s eyes and all sorts of other interesting endeavors. And here he was, sitting impotently above it all, crouched like a gargoyle on the roof. A waterspout! A discarded toy! Fie!

  Here he was, pining for a woman like some tragic character out of Romeo and Juliet.

  But Dresdemona was so enticing, so wickedly beautiful, so overpowering in her estrous, he could not even think of her clearly. She had taken root in his mind like some type of addictive weed, digging itself deeper and deeper. When he was away from her he obsessed over every detail–the rich, copper color of her skin, those penetrating eyes, the bite of her razor-edged teeth and the hot caress of her tongue. When he was near her, he could not think at all. She humiliated him, exposed and penetrated his every weakness, and most of his orifices as well. She had made him bark like a dog.

  But most of the time, she ignored him. And without her he could find nothing worthwhile or interesting to do. Tormenting the House Guard or the King’s hapless courtesans could not satisfy. Petty jokes were, after all, just petty jokes. Masturbation for a starving wit.

  How had he come to this? For ten years he had pined away after Theodora—no, no not Theodora—Clarimonde. He had at last realized that he was in love with Clarimo
nde but too late, too late, love spars with hate, and he’d had to sit idly by and watch her carry on with that oafish Lord Grayson. When he couldn’t have her, he’d run off to the Winter Court and encountered that other one—even worse—the Dark Queen. Dresdemona was beguiling; that was for certain. And he’d fallen into the same sweet trap, wanting, pining for but not really having. Oh, she’d let him do certain things, just a taste here or there when Aldebaran was away. But all in all she belonged to him, that hideous Nephilim half-demon, or he belonged to her or some such thing, who could tell and there he was again, poor misbegotten Meadowlark, the reluctant Romeo pining away for something he could not really have. The few brief moments he shared with Dresdemona served only to torture him all the more, just like his past flings with Clarimonde had fueled his unrequited passions for Eric Grayson’s bride.

  How did he keep getting into this situation? Only one conclusion, something he’d never realized before—he was a helpless romantic!

  But it was boring.

  He longed to be free.

  Maybe he should just go, spread his wings and fly! Ha, ha, yes!

  But of course he couldn’t really fly and he’d simply tumble off the roof to his death below.

  Mayhap that was best.

  End this tragic farce.

  Oh, woe is me. Woe is me, Romeo.

  Or mayhap not.

  He didn’t really feel like dying over a woman.

  Dresdemona. Dreadful Mona. Wasn’t she just a frail waif after all? Lonely. Pathetic. The neediest one of all? Now he could see her plan quite clearly. The whole of it, laid bare! She was pregnant. And somehow that nasty condition—downright unhealthy, he thought—had reduced her charms. She was up to something. She’d been using some type of secret magic to make her seem more desirable. It wasn’t fair!