Lady Changeling

by Ken Altabef

  But still, not everyone had become so high-minded overnight. March wasn’t surprised to find a captured faery maltreated and on display, even though Henry would not approve. Whether it was male or female he couldn’t tell. Probably it had adopted this child-like form to evoke some sort of sympathy. It looked at him with those huge watery eyes. To trick him. That’s what faeries did. They tricked people. They were very good at it. Surely Henry would want him to set it free, to reprimand the barker and shut the carnival down under burden of a heavy fine.

  But Henry wasn’t there and would never know March had been. He turned his back on the faery, the snickering crowd and the vicious barker. He didn’t want to dirty his hands with any of them. Besides, there was a scented dancing girl waiting for him somewhere.

  But these faeries dancing in the wood on Midsummer’s Eve were a different story. They weren’t child-like and helpless. Even their dance was full of sharp, knifelike movements as if their entire bodies were weapons. They might as well have been rehearsing some Oriental fighting technique. They were clearly dangerous and seemed to ooze an air of maliciousness. March became even more concerned about Lady Grayson. Did these creatures pose a threat to her? What had they done with her?

  The music changed, rising in intensity until it became much more complicated than anything that could possibly be coaxed from flute and lyre and tambourine alone. Three more figures entered the ring. Among them was Lady Theodora. She wore a flimsy diaphanous gown of pale pink silk, a shimmering garment that showed off all her feminine curves in an almost indecent way. March couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was she in danger? Had she been drugged just like the two guards? He was barely able to restrain the urge to rush forward.

  But a rising suspicion held him back. This entire escapade—the mysterious relatives, the wild ride through the woods, and now the dancing at midnight—it all seemed to fit together. He remembered Eric’s veiled warning. Be ready for anything. Is this what Lord Grayson had suspected?

  Wait and see, he told himself. Let’s just wait and see.

  Lady Theodora didn’t appear to be in any immediate danger. She shed her gossamer dress, letting it fall to the forest floor with a sensuous switch of her shoulders. She stood naked in the moonlight, tall and beautiful.

  The music slowed and the dancers joined in a slithering pavanne. It was a sensuous dance indeed. Their shoulders touched, their arms entwined. Lips parted and exchanged wet kisses. The faeries shifted and changed, sometimes taking on hues of green or bark brown. Their hair resembled corn silk one moment, then stiffened to twigs, then fell like water about their shoulders. March kept his eye on Theodora. But always she remained as she was, a human woman among wild forest gypsies.

  Something hit him, hard, on the side of the head. March, who’d been crouched behind a bluebell bush, toppled over. He rolled across the forest carpet and came up in a half-crouch, ready to face any new adversary.

  “Shall we raise the alarm, brother?” asked the first faery.

  “And spoil our fun?” quipped the other.

  One was dressed in a green velvet outfit that might just as easily have been a shirt and breeches of living moss. The other wore a delicate chain mail shirt that glinted in the moonlight, a scabbard at his hip, and nothing else. His cock was freely visible and erect at the prospect of the fight.

  “Did you think you could sneak up on us?” the green man asked. “Did you think we wouldn’t smell the sweet human blood in your veins?”

  “Or the stink of your fear?” added the faery wearing chain mail.

  “Or maybe it was just the gunpowder,” said the first. He burst out laughing, his wide, wet grin showing slender eye-teeth curled upward like tusks.

  “Why settle for just a whiff?” growled March. “I’ll give you a face full!”

  He’d been expecting trouble and had his gun already primed. In a flash he drew the pistol and held it at arm’s length, pointed directly at the center of the green man’s forehead. Nothing else need be said. He pulled the trigger.

  The hammer tripped and the powder flashed but the gun failed to fire. A tiny twig had lodged itself in the firing mechanism.

  The faeries laughed some more. Chainmail’s pointed tongue stuck out so far it nearly lashed March’s cheek.

  March smiled grimly along with them. “Let’s get to it, then.” He drew his rapier.

  Both the faery men held light dueling swords, so this was to be a match of finesse rather than sheer power. For March this was not a problem. He was just as comfortable with a sword or a battle axe.

  The green man was the first to attack, slashing with a quick, wide stroke aimed at March’s chest. He stepped nimbly backward, keeping clear of striking range, but a nest of rowan branches left him no more room to retreat. The green man slashed and slashed with pernicious glee.

  March matched the faery’s blade hit for hit. When his chance came he pinwheeled the green man’s blade and dashed it aside. But he didn’t get the chance to press this advantage because the other faery appeared close on his other side.

  Chainmail launched a quick thrust. March barely intercepted it and the passing blade slashed his pants and thigh.

  “First blood!” announced the faery with a wicked grin. He sniffed exaggeratedly at the air. “And ’tis sweet. Sweet.”

  Had this been simply a duel to settle a matter of honor the faery would have won. But the malevolent look on Chainmail’s face made it clear that this was no duel. This was a fight to the death.

  The weird music echoing back from the glade surged again, providing a driving accompaniment to their battle. Apparently the lecherous faeries in the clearing remained much too preoccupied to notice this skirmish brewing a hundred yards away.

  Facing two opponents simultaneously forced March to spend most of his time on defensive parries, but his sword arm was tireless and his style endlessly patient. He stepped lightly and quick, circling away from the attacks without letting his adversaries position themselves one on either side of him and catch him in the middle. He planned a double attack. The faeries were having a fun time of it, striking here and there without rhyme or reason. They fight like children, March thought, with wild attacks and mayhem. Focus and control will win this fight, just like all the others.

  At the first lull in the assault he stepped toward the green man, slashing a feint at the faery’s head only to change direction mid-stroke. He swung his blade down for a midsection slash. He expected the strike would hit but was immediately disappointed—where the faery had stood just a moment before, there was now only a hint of green mist. Undeterred, March launched into the second part of his attack, spinning a quarter turn and slashing a lightning strike straight for Chainmail’s throat. The faery blocked this attack easily but March’s sword happened to strike the green man on the backstroke. How the faery had gotten behind him he didn’t know. But he was pleased to see a fresh slash across the faery’s cheek and a thin line of blue-purple blood.

  The green man spat a faery curse.

  “First blood,” said March.

  The music in the clearing had become loud, jarring and totally insane. It now featured the deep rumble of tribal drums, a chaotic metallic jangling and a painful buzzing that could hardly come from a pitch pipe. The noise was wheedling its way into March’s skull, shaking his concentration in a way he could not afford. Keep your wits, he reminded himself. Keep an eye on the green man. He’s the better swordsman of the two.

  Each of the faeries had a greater reach than Fitzroy March but the green man seemed to have arms a mile long. “Bluebell, death knell,” he said, and began an all-out assault.

  March parried as best he could. The green man’s guard was too strong; there was no possible way he would ever get close enough to make an effective strike. But he didn’t have to. He allowed the faery to drive him to his knees, taking the point of the faery sword through his shoulder and putting a pained look on his face. The fight seemed all but finished.

  Chainmail simply
watched, content to let his wounded friend take the prize.

  March waited his moment and then, in one quick practiced movement, he drew a weighted dagger from his belt and jabbed it upward. From his half-kneeling position, with the faery swordsman slashing boldly down at him, March had the perfect angle. The blade sunk into the faery’s neck.

  The green man spun away. He fell to his knees, coughing blood. So much for the better swordsman.

  March was on his feet and had assumed a defensive position before Chainmail even realized what had happened.

  “Tricksy bastard!” The faery was so enormously angry, a mottled green color spread across his face. March could have laughed.

  “Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t—”

  Before he finished the thought, Chainmail was upon him again moving faster than March would have thought possible. Tendrils of green mist swirled around him, trailing from the faery’s arm at every stroke. March parried and parried. At times it seemed as if his blade was sometimes met by only empty air and at others clanked against an invisible blade that couldn’t possibly be there. He kept his gaze locked on Chainmail’s eyes. Some of these strikes were mere illusion. But the eyes would tell him where the real slashes would come.

  Chainmail realized he could not get the better of March with this tactic and stepped back. He was fuming and spitting venom. You frustrate easily enough, March thought. A true swordsman need be patient, but faeries were anything but patient. Running out of tricks?

  Time to attack. March threw himself at Chainmail. He tested the faery’s defenses and found them weak, scoring a series of hits across his adversary’s chest and shoulders. But this accomplished practically nothing. Each time the point of his rapier skidded easily across the chain mail shirt, doing very little harm.

  The faery whirled like a dervish but his counterattacks were sloppy and hadn’t enough weight behind them.

  The unearthly music had become the most effective weapon in the fight. March had no defense against it. He might have covered his ears to block out the maddening noise but could hardly swordfight in that position. The jarring, jangling noises wheedled into his brain, making him all but blind. He could see nothing but white noise and flashes of green light.

  He struck out, using the angle of his opponent’s slashing attack to predict where the faery’s vulnerable area must be. The unprotected groin. March’s rapier bit deep and the faery howled in pain. A torrent of purple-blue blood ran down his leg.

  “That’ll take the steel out of your prick.”

  As Chainmail stared down at his wound, March kicked out, planting the heel of his boot square in center of the faery’s chest. Chainmail toppled backward. He scrambled to his knees, bringing his sword up in an unsteadily lunge that March easily swatted aside.

  March stepped in and whipped his rapier across the front of Chainmail’s throat, slicing windpipe, artery and vein. The faery went down, gurgling his last breath.

  The maddening music stopped immediately, leaving in its place only the original sounds of the three-piece faery band in the woods. Two-piece actually. The lyre and the flute had kept on while the tambourine, having lost interest, had joined the dance.

  Lady Theodora was still dancing in the circle. She seemed completely at home among these creatures though not one of them, still naked in the moonlight, still unchanged. At least half a dozen others swirled lustily around her. One thing was clear. They meant the lady no harm.

  Another thing was equally apparent. There were too many of them for March to fight, especially when he’d been instructed to keep out of sight. Time to go.

  He dragged the two dead faeries into suitable positions, arranging them so it looked like they might have killed each other. Not entirely convincing, but it was the best he could do. He still had to get his two men back to the safety of Grayson Hall. And tell Eric all.

  Chapter 15

  Eric couldn’t sleep. Alone in his bed, he tossed and turned, sweating in the summer heat. Every time he closed his eyes he thought of Theodora and the dark shadow hanging over them. Suspicion had tainted their marriage. The loss of trust was ruinous. His fault? Or hers?

  But the trouble was not just between the two of them. The entire mansion seemed different of late, the halls echoing with hushed voices and loose talk, a pirate in the cellar and tension in the air. The shadow grew and grew, spreading its wings over Grayson Hall like some giant predatory bird. Enveloping them all in suspicion and fear. Endangering the children. The children!

  He sat up in bed. Something was wrong with the children. He was certain of it. They weren’t safe.

  He threw the blanket off and, foregoing his robe, leapt from the bed. He ran across the hall. The door to the children’s room was slightly ajar. He felt dizzy, felt the hallway swaying sideways. Don’t open that door.

  But he did it anyway. The children were both asleep in their beds. Neither James nor Nora making even the tiniest sound. All was quiet. But everything was not okay. Everything was wrong. How can they sleep so quietly? I don’t even hear them breathing.

  Eric rushed forward in the gloom. James slept in his bed, curled up, his face turned away under his blanket. Eric reached a trembling hand forward. He hesitated as he clutched the fine linen. Don’t look, he told himself. Don’t look.

  But he must look. He yanked the blanket away.

  There in the bed lay a small shriveled log of dried brown wood. My God! No!

  He reached for it and was repulsed by the surprising softness of the rotten wood, its unnatural warmth. He turned the misshapen log toward him. There, in the grain of the wood, were the distorted features of James’ face. Tiny white maggots nested in all the lines and curves.

  The eyes opened. The boy’s knot-hole mouth twisted in a silent scream.

  Eric screamed in his sleep. He sat up, soaked with sweat. For a minute he wasn’t sure where he was, what was happening. Had he actually screamed? He calmed his breathing. He was in bed, alone. A dream. It was all just another hideous nightmare.

  Finnegan Stump’s voice rang inside his head in a dreadful squawk, “What interest could I possibly have in them? Wretched changeling children?”

  Changeling children.

  Changeling children. An enchanted piece of wood, secretly left in place of human offspring. The real children were taken away to be raised by faeries while the changeling was left to grow sick and die. A malicious faery joke.

  He jolted from the bed, pausing only to wrap his robe over his shoulders. Fear for the children pulsed white-hot through his veins.

  He ran across the hall. The nursery door hung ajar, exactly as in the terrible dream. He pushed it open.

  Both children were fast asleep, their nurse Lucinda dozing in a chair beside Nora’s bed. She woke instantly on his arrival into the room.

  “Are they all right?” he asked, half out of breath.

  Lucinda looked over at Nora, squinted for a second and said, “They’re fine. Why shouldn’t they be?”

  “I had a dream—a nightmare. I dreamt they had the Rot.” This was not precisely true, but close enough. He didn’t dare mention anything about changelings, or faeries.

  “Oh, what a dreadful thing,” she whispered, trying not to let the children hear.

  Eric took a deep breath.

  Lucinda gently took his elbow and led him out of the room. Eric wouldn’t go past the doorway, keeping the children in sight.

  “Well, there’s no need to worry about the Rot,” she said. “That misery’s all over and done with. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He felt as if he were answering a schoolteacher.

  “Not surprising you’d have a nightmare. I dream of it too sometimes, on cold winter nights especially. I lost my poor dear Robert to the Rot you know. What I wouldn’t give to have him back.”

  “What God takes, he doesn’t give back.”

  “God? I beg your pardon sir, but God had nothing to do with it. More like the Devil. It was all the faery folk’s d
oing as everybody knows. Filthy blights!” She turned her head and pantomimed spitting on the floor.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “As sure as I live and breathe. How can I believe anything else? Revenge, it was. Bloody revenge, pure and simple. Your grandfather hunted them down something terrible. Now don’t get me wrong. I never had much use for their kind. Always causing trouble and such. But it was terrible some of the things Lord Griffin done. I remember screams in the night. Those bells! That’s the stuff of nightmare too.”

  Eric had no choice but to agree.

  “Of course you can’t really know what it was like,” she continued, “if you don’t mind my saying so. The Purge. You weren’t even born yet. Faeries strung up in the market square. And we lost many a good man in that fight too. Graystown set on fire, and magical fire it was. Horrible. Crops burned. Some of the men were made to kill each other, thinking a friend a foe under some faery illusion. They don’t fight fair, those blights. I guess we couldn’t expect them to. But the Rot, now the Rot was something else. Men, women and children…”

  “I remember the Creeping Rot well enough,” Eric said.

  “Aye.”

  “I remember my father ranting and foaming at the mouth in his madness.”

  “Aye. Poor Lord Henry.”

  “My mother with gray scale across her face.”

  Lucinda winced. “Aye. So terrible. Sir, let’s not speak of it now. Gives me a chill, it does.”

  “And my brother, screaming obscenities as he died, completely mad.”

  Of all of the misery caused by the Rot, the death of his brother had been the worst. Eric had idolized Hake, who was two years older. Hake was a bit of a throwback to their grandfather, always playing at soldiers and pirates and saying he’d stab a faery if he met one. ‘Right through the heart,’ he’d say, ‘as if they had hearts.’