Lady Changeling

by Ken Altabef

  “You know,” March whispered as they began to walk away, “most of the other landed gentry would’ve just called in the King’s infantry to resolve this type of dispute.”

  “No,” said Eric. “The redcoats are a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes. Leaving a trail of men hanging from roadside posts only creates a score of others with new grudges to settle. All that was needed here was some small adjustment to the payment schedule and a little show of respect.”

  “Give them a few farthings and next time they’ll want more…”

  Eric waved away his concerns. “The money lost is only a small sum. Meaningless in the grand scheme of our holdings.”

  March deferred in his own inimitable style—with a little growl of displeasure.

  “Thanks for your help,” Eric added. “An excellent performance. Frightened the knickers off them, playing the right bastard like that.”

  “Who says I was playing?”

  “I’ll buy you a mug of beer down at Buckman’s tavern,” Eric said with a smile. “Maybe a cool drink will simmer your terrible bloodlust.”

  March chuckled dryly. “Agreed. First let’s walk the pier and make sure there aren’t any other problems brewing here. A few of your family’s ships are in port and it never hurts to be seen walking along the docks.”

  The port was the oldest part of Graystown—a wild jumble of shabby clapboard buildings clustered along the foot of Beacon Hill. The settlement stretched haphazardly inland, extending halfway up the steep slope like the tentacles of some enormous sea-beast reaching toward the manor house that sat upon its crest. The town had only a single paved street, just barely wide enough for a horse and carriage to pass through, and was otherwise riddled with crooked alleys and narrow passages between its irregular wooden buildings.

  The two men made their way down a wide boardwalk that jutted out into the harbor from the crumbled sea-wall. The big clumsy wharf held enough jetties to allow two dozen ocean-going ships to tie up simultaneously and more than half the berths were currently occupied. The boardwalk was lined with tables and stalls making a mini-market, insufferably loud, where merchants who’d shipped goods from all over Europe sought to quickly sell off some of their freshly unloaded wares and set sail again. At the far end of the line a small mortar installment was nestled into the sea cliff, courtesy of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. A sailor waved at them from the roof of the barracks, the only building in Graysport Eric did not personally own.

  The usual crowd mulled along the dock: local fishermen, boat-people in heavy sea coats, traders in fine hats and white neck-cloths, and the occasional wandering gypsy. But an uncommon commotion, even far and above the usual din, had erupted among the dockworkers.

  “What’s all this about?” Eric asked one of the men nearby, a Belgian sail-maker named Fourtresse.

  “They’re bringing a man ashore. Some famous outlaw or some such.”

  “Outlaw?” asked March. “What outlaw?”

  But before the Belgian could reply the crowd adjusted itself. Recognizing Lord Grayson and his man, they cleared an open avenue toward the nearest jetty. A short man wearing a long oilskin coat had just come streaking up the pier.

  “I’ve got him, I’ve got him!” he sang with glee. He noticed Eric and his joy increased a hundredfold. He made straight for the English lord. “I’ve got Draven Ketch on my boat!”

  “The Raven? The bloody pirate?”

  “Not likely,” muttered March.

  “Yes it’s truth. God’s truth. We caught him adrift on the reef. His ship went down.”

  “What ship is that?” asked Eric.

  “The Black Hand I assume.”

  “You assume? You didn’t see it?”

  The merchant captain shrugged. “Didn’t see hide nor hair of it. Nor any crew either. The ship’s a total loss, I guess.”

  “Then how do you know it was the bloody Hand?” asked March. “How do you know it’s him?”

  The captain began to stammer. He really had no answer.

  The Spanish Main, it sometimes seemed, was home to twice as many pirates as honest sailors. Cut-throats, rogues and expatriates with various grudges against the Crown. But only a few rose to the status of legend, and not many wore it as well as the Raven. Ketch had wreaked havoc across the Atlantic for a dozen years and never been caught. The Black Hand was a fast ship with a ruthless crew. The Raven’s favorite weapon was called a comet—a fist-sized cannonball wrapped in oil-soaked rags. The rags were set ablaze and launched at an unsuspecting ship. Once this unwelcome surprise landed on deck it was impossible to throw overboard as it quickly spread its flame along the planks. Ketch had burned down as many ships as he’d plundered, and was not known for leaving survivors.

  “It’s the Raven, M’lord,” said the merchant captain. “Sure as I’m standin’ ‘ere.”

  “Bring him out, then,” suggested Eric.

  “Right,” said the captain. He took a few hurried steps toward his vessel then turned back. “There’s a reward of fifty pounds.”

  “Then you’ll soon be a very rich man, if you’ve got the right fellow there. Bring him out.”

  The crowd took up the chant. “Bring him out! Bring him out!”

  The captain waved his hat at them, then raced for his boat.

  “What ship is that?” asked Eric. “I don’t recognize her masthead.”

  March squinted at the ship. A small two-masted frigate sat at the dock, its barrel-shaped hull ripe with barnacles. All her hatch-covers had been opened for unloading. “I can’t make out her name but it isn’t one of yours. A ferry for tobacco out of the Hebrides I’d say, guessing from the smell. She’s low in the water, probably just come to unload freight.”

  A muffled explosion erupted from the ship, followed by a waft of thick gray smoke up from the hatch.

  Sailors shouted from below decks. “Fire! Fire aboard!” Those words struck terror in every sailor’s heart, even the men standing safely on shore. Hand-thrown bombs were the Raven’s trademark. Many a ship’s master had been surprised by a bomb tossed on deck just before receiving a visitation from the rogues of The Black Hand.

  A dark figure shot out of the hatch like a cannonball. There was a blur across the quarter deck and a splash.

  “Was that--?”

  The pilot’s ladder was let down and three men boiled out of the ship and raced down the gangplank. It took them a moment to realize that if they intended to follow the fugitive they were going to have to get wet.

  Eric and March rushed to the wharf’s edge. The crowd at the dock followed behind them.

  “I’ll be damned,” said March, “if he isn’t swimming with his hands still tied.”

  “I don’t see him,” said Eric. “He’s gone under.”

  The water had a muddy brown tinge, its oily surface cluttered with reeds and bits of loose straw. Eric turned to March but he was already gone.

  Panic began to spread as the men on shore watched the murky water for any tell-tale ripple or sign. “He has to be here somewhere.”

  “Under the wharf, I’d guess,” Eric suggested. The men stepped back as if fearing that bloody death might come round the edge of the pier at any moment. The merchant captain shouted at his men. “Get in the water! Flush him out!”

  Reluctantly a few men obeyed their captain and dove in but had little luck trying to find the pirate. The captain paced restlessly across the gangplank and cursed loudly. He was afraid of losing his reward but not quite willing to dive into the water himself.

  A wild demon of a man suddenly appeared down the jetty, dripping water. His wet hair draggling on his shoulders, sea water running down in mad rivulets, he had a wild look in his eyes such as Eric had only ever seen once before—on a steer that had just been visited by a branding iron.

  The pirate soon found himself fighting three men at once with his hands still tied. It was quite a show. One of the harbor men swung a sword at his neck. Ketch easily avoided the stroke. He must have nicked the rope on the
edge of the blade because he snapped his bonds, setting his hands free. He downed one man and seemed to be getting the better of the other two, swinging his fist like a pole axe, kicking like a mule. Eric heard screams of pain but wasn’t sure if they were coming from the men or the maniac fighter.

  Sopping wet, the pirate seemed some sort of water demon, each swinging fist trailing a stream of water. He left his attackers in a confused jumble on the planks and made a run for it, heading up the quay.

  His goal must have been to try and slip away in one of the narrow alleys between the sea-merchants’ houses. It looked as if he might just make it when Fitzroy March stepped out from behind the bait-house. He’d predicted exactly where the rogue would wind up. The pirate caught sight of him just in time to be stopped cold by March’s fist.

  March was being generous. He was equally deadly with the rapier or pistol.

  Eric rushed down the pier as a group of men surrounded the fugitive. He was the darkest man Eric had ever seen, with skin as black as coal-oil burned by the mid-Atlantic sun. His face looked as if it might once have sported a fine mustache and goatee but had lately sprouted a grizzly hazard of a beard. Whether this uneven mess of rough hair demonstrated a lack of upkeep or was meant to inspire fear was not entirely clear. The left side of his mouth was riddled with little sores, which Eric took to be the French pox. He was dressed in a loose, sopping tunic of gray homespun, with leather trousers and heavy boots.

  He stared at them for a moment, completely dazed, looking every bit like a sailor who’d suffered a major sunstroke. Eric wondered how long he’d sat out on that rock in the boiling sun before the merchant ship had found him.

  “He doesn’t seem tall enough to be Draven Ketch,” someone said.

  “It’s him,” said another man. “Believe me, I know. I saw him kill a man once in Hispaniola. I think.”

  The crowd waited as the pirate came slowly awake. Throwing a bucket of cold water over the pirate didn’t seem a reasonable option since he was already covered with the stuff. He struggled to his knees but the pressure of a single hand on his shoulder held him down. All the fight had been knocked out of him. It was hard to reconcile this pathetic wretch with the legendary Raven. The last anyone had heard about Draven Ketch he’d been in command of a small fleet of ships terrorizing trade all across the Atlantic.

  “Your name?” asked Eric.

  The man’s head shook like a rattle and an inarticulate sound came from his throat, much more a groan than an answer. Then he suddenly came alive, eyes blazing, mouth snarling. “Not… not here. Not now. The stars! The stars!”

  March stepped forward. His rapier flashed in the sun to leave its tip poised at the brigand’s neck, the slightest pressure indenting the skin. With a flick of his wrist, the man’s throat would be cut. Eric thought March wouldn’t do it, though the steely gleam in his eyes betrayed no such weakness.

  “Hold on. This man hasn’t actually killed anyone as far as we know. We’ll have to have answers from him first, at least something more than the ravings of a lunatic.”

  “I’ll ask again,” said March. “What’s your name?”

  The man produced another stream of inarticulate sounds, possibly containing a few words. They might have been some twisted form of German, but not French or English as far as Eric could tell.

  March took the rogue’s chin in his hand and pressed the rapier a little deeper. “Last chance. Name?”

  The pirate looked past him, had perhaps not even heard him. “The stars, the stars…”

  March shoved him down and then sent the rapier into the back of the man’s hand impaling it through the wooden pier. The man cried out with another stream of gibberish that ended in a gurgle.

  “Lay off,” said Eric. “We won’t get anything more out of him like this.”

  “It’s coming! It’s coming, coming, coming…”

  “What’s coming?”

  “The stars! And the woman! She wants to kill us all!”

  “He’s completely round the bend,” said March.

  “It’s him though, isn’t it?” asked the merchant captain hopefully. “The Raven?”

  Eric had no idea, though this man certainly smelled as bad as any pirate ever did. Aside from his very dark skin tone, Eric had no idea what Draven Ketch was supposed to look like. Descriptions of the pirate varied with the terrified state of the observer. One report described a man with devil’s horns, a lion’s mane of black hair and flames shooting from the eyes. “We’ll see. Bring him to the main house. We’ll sort it out there.”

  The captain hesitated. “The reward…”

  “If he is who you say he is, you shall have the reward. I swear it.”

  Chapter 6

  “I did it!” shrieked James. He danced around with childish glee. “I did it!”

  Theodora followed the boy across the great lawn. His toss had knocked over the post but the ring had indeed landed around it in a lopsided sort of way.

  “And so you did! Very good, James. That’s worth three points.”

  “Let me try,” said Nora. “I can do it too.”

  “All right.” Theodora led her daughter into position while the nurse reset the toppled peg.

  “Hey!” objected James. “She’s too close. That’s not fair.”

  “It’s fair,” said Theodora. “Your sister’s arms aren’t quite as long as yours, you know. She can stand a little closer.”

  Nora let fly. The ring sailed wide of its mark and bounced off the nurse’s shin.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Nora. “Sorry, sorry.”

  “It’s quite alright,” said the old woman, massaging her shin. “These old legs have seen worse. Try again. But wait. Let me get just a little further away.”

  After the nurse had removed herself to what she considered a safe distance, Nora tossed the rest of the rope rings. None hit the mark and the children set about retrieving them from their far-flung destinations.

  “Oh, what a shame. You’ve ruined your dress, Milady,” said the nurse. She indicated a tear in the fabric near Theodora’s ankle. A small twig still clung to the lace.

  “I wonder how that could’ve happened.” Theodora brushed the twig away. “It’s nothing. But I am getting a bit tired from all this running around. Would you mind terribly finishing with the children while I rest a little while?”

  “Not at all.”

  Theodora walked several yards down the garden path. After a few moments her legs felt as if they might give out and she sat on a small white marble bench in the shade beneath the hedgerow. She leaned forward, resting her forehead on the rim of a circular birdbath at the center of the garden. The fountain had a classical theme with a little brass statue of Neptune brandishing his trident in its center. All around the sea god, half submerged in the water, a half dozen bare-breasted naiads frolicked in seductive poses. The cool marble felt wonderful against her bare skin. She was a little out of breath, just from chasing the children around. It was getting harder and harder to pretend.

  She took a deep breath and centered herself. It was a lovely day, the lawn so perfect and green, the children laughing and playing. She must persevere.

  A sharp glint reflected off the old bell tower above the manor house’s small chapel. A stark reminder of Griffin Grayson. The hard gray stone of the chapel’s façade was just as much in tune with his character as the grim visage that peered down from the portrait in the dining room. The heavy iron bell hung silently in its belfry at the top. That bell hadn’t rung in years. She hoped she would never hear it again. Its solemn note was a call to war, a paean to violence and destruction and cruelty. And blood.

  So much blood in the past. But it wasn’t all Griffin’s fault. No, not really. A good deal of the blame could be laid at the faeries’ doorstep too. A sea tide of blood and death.

  The current troubles had started with Swallowtail. The horrible thing she’d done to that poor little girl. A cruel little joke that had wound up killing hundreds.

  The
faeries had always been fond of mischief, of causing unwary travelers to lose their way on the moors or inspiring a harmless bit of madness every once in a while. Their habit of buying things in the marketplace with magical coins that reverted back to worthless stones after they’d gone had long irked the merchants. The fey made a game of it, masquerading as anything from simple milkmaids to exotic visitors flush with cash. For the most part their tricks were only meant as a bit of frolic and fun. But the townsfolk didn’t see it that way.

  The general distaste for faeries was exaggerated by cautionary tales the mortals used to frighten their children to make them behave. Stories of witches and malicious faeries cavorting in the wilds. Children grew up in fear of the Dark Queen sitting her high seat in the midnight wood, of murderous river sprites eager to lure unsuspecting swimmers to a watery death, and Black Annis—a blue-faced hag known for grinding her teeth as she stole children from their beds.

  Well, that part of it was true…

  But still, a reasonable equilibrium had been reached over the years. Then it all fell apart. Forty-five years ago, but Theodora remembered it as clearly as yesterday...

  In the twilight hour before sunset on Midsummer’s Eve, a young girl lingered in the woods to fill her basket with wild berries. Theodora didn’t even know the girl’s name. She was nobody important—the daughter of an unmarried seamstress living in squalor in some back alley of Graystown. She was a creature of the city, of mud and ox-carts and coal-smoke. But wandering among the elderberries and stands of alder and blackthorn trees she came upon a group of faeries dancing in the twilight.

  The girl knew enough to keep quiet. She’d been warned about the secretive ways of the wild faeries. And thoughts of Black Annis must certainly have crossed her mind. Surely she’d been told that the thing to do in such a circumstance was to turn and walk quietly away. If only she had done that. But these faeries weren’t blue-faced hags at all. They were young and beautiful, spinning and twirling, unashamed in their nakedness. So instead, curious and excited, the girl crouched among the creepers and vines to watch them frolic. She inched closer and closer. Too close. Even still, she might have come away alright except that one of the faeries’ antics struck her as funny. The girl giggled. The sound was like a twig snapping loud and clear on a silent night.