Changelings at Court

by Ken Altabef

  She damned Threadneedle and her mother and Moonshadow and all the rest. She never wanted this.

  Chapter 37

  November 5, 1761

  Grayson Hall, Graystown

  “I don’t understand,” groused Eric. “Why don’t these accounts add up?” He shoved ineffectually at the ledger. Mired in a bed of papers and receipts on the desk, the book refused to move.

  The steward, leaning over his shoulder, stabbed a finger at the figures. “It’s the shipping concerns, sir.” He reshuffled some papers. “The expenses have tripled. Too many boats sitting idle in the bay.”

  The shipping concerns. The backbone of the Grayson fortunes. Eric raised the papers closer to his face. Somewhere along the line he’d started to need a reading glass.

  The farms he understood. With the Grayson name tarnished by association with the faery cause, the serfs could not sell all their crops to the usual buyers along the coastal towns. Clandestine operations had been necessary to cart the produce inland and sell it there surreptitiously, divorced from the Grayson name. Those efforts were costly and still not enough to completely solve the problem. Whatever they couldn’t sell, Eric gave to the faeries at Barrow Downes, forgiving the rents of the farmers as payment for the excess crops. Of course the loss of the rents didn’t help his bottom line either. And rents from the shops and craft houses in Graystown and Graysport were now routinely delinquent. He could not press them. The fault was his own.

  The economics of oats and wheat were easy enough to understand. Eric had always been a gentleman farmer at heart. But the shipping concerns and the complex web of alliances they depended upon had always challenged him. Two years ago his shipping manager, Rupert Edwood, had resigned his post. And now, ever since the Wild Hunt had terrorized Newcastle-upon-Tyne, exports from the north of England had dried up. Jamaican rum, sugar and molasses were all being rerouted further along the coast. He had three ships sitting high in the water at Graysport and two in London. Berths at London Harbour did not come cheap. And those ships required significant upkeep, even sitting idle. He might as well sell them or scrape the names off their hulls and take up smuggling. That too, had been a Grayson family enterprise a century ago. There were still the smuggler’s tunnels under the estate to prove it.

  He thought whimsically of hiring that pirate Draven ‘the Raven’ Ketch to take charge of his imaginary smuggling operations. But even that fearsome sea scourge had retired, had settled back in Martinique last Eric had heard, sitting on the beach and sipping rum at sunset. Or something like that.

  A happy ending for Ketch and misery for Grayson. That doesn’t seem fair.

  Eric rubbed out an entry in his ledger. “You’re right, Richard. We haven’t accounted for the upkeep on the Verity nor the Henrietta.”

  The steward lowered his voice to a pathetic whisper as he added, “Nor the lack of revenues from the Sunderland farms.”

  Eric snapped the ledger shut. He sat looking at the leather binding for a moment. “I have no plan. I have no answers.”

  “We can only hope these situations are temporary, sir. Another few seasons…things will change. Let us maintain hope for the future.”

  “Yes. Let’s hope.”

  Truth be told, Eric had but little hope left. Under his faltering hand, Graystown seemed destined to become a pestilential slum, or worse—a den of thieves where the people could only suffer. He had not the funds to provide an adequate constabulary any longer. Befriending the faeries had hurt not only his family but all those who depended upon him. Were poverty and ruin to be the legacy of the Graysons? What would Griffin say? Eric glanced up at the old man’s portrait but saw only an empty place on the wall where it had resided before Theodora had taken it down.

  With renewed suspicions falling on the Graysons, Eric wondered how long they might still keep his wife’s secret. Several times the King’s men had visited the manor house asking questions about the Changed Men, but Eric’s staff had put them off. One time they came with a writ and searched the place, but didn’t find anyone. The Changed Men had been safely stashed away, down in the smuggler’s tunnels. At least the redcoats hadn’t dared to bother Theodora. Not yet, anyway.

  “Any word from the bishop?” Eric asked.

  “None as of yet, sir.”

  Six months and still waiting. The Church, thought Eric. The last refuge of the lost and desperate.

  “Well, I’m going to step outside for a breath of fresh air. Clear all this stuff away before dinner, would you, Richard?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Eric had not gotten very far before one of his Changed Men came running up at him making an obscene squawking noise. Gregory Hardison. The man with the unblinking barn owl eyes and the thorny scraggle of beard. He still wore the blue and yellow livery of the Grayson groundskeepers.

  “Come at once, my Lord. Come at once.”

  “What is it, Mister Hardison?”

  “Tragedy, Lord Grayson. And treachery!”

  Eric grabbed the man by the arm to stop his hopping about. “What the devil are you talking about?”

  “A desecration. In the chapel yard. The crypt.”

  “What desecration?”

  “You’d best see for yourself, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Hardison resumed his bird-like squawking and could not be made to say anything else useful on the walk to the little chapel cemetery. Aside from the bizarre physical changes he had suffered at the hands of the Chrysalid, his personality had been altered as well. He could hardly put a coherent thought together on a good day.

  A gusty September breeze and its attendant chill made Eric wish he’d stopped to put on his greatcoat. He had only intended a little stroll around the enclosed garden and not a trek all the way out to the cemetery. It always seemed especially cold and windy out in the chapel graveyard. Eric instinctively stepped into the alcove of the large marble structure that housed the family crypt.

  “Yes!” said Hardison. “There. There.”

  “Inside the crypt?”

  “Yes!” he said, hopping anxiously from foot to foot. He would say nothing more, would not explain what business he could possibly have had inside the crypt nor what he had seen there. Eric was in no mood for his pathetic antics but saw no use in pressing him further. Instead he swung open the wrought iron gate and stepped inside. When he turned about to see if Hardison intended at least to accompany him, the gate clanged shut and the Changed Man engaged the padlock.

  “What the hell!” shouted Eric. “Mister Hardison, you let me out of here right this instant.”

  Hardison broke into a fit of apoplexy that had Eric worrying for his safety. He rolled about the ground, foaming at the mouth and shaking convulsively. This fit was accompanied by gurgling noises that seemed a distorted form of tragic laughter. Eric rattled his cage but the gate was securely locked.

  Hardison regained his senses, as they were, and looked at the gate with a shocked expression on his face.

  “Let me out,” said Eric plainly.

  Hardison wiped the foam flecks from his lips, nodding his head vigorously then broke into laughter again and ran off. Eric could hardly get angry at the poor bastard. Some of the Changed Men had inherited a faery’s tricksy nature and could not help themselves. Most likely by tomorrow Hardison would be as good as ever, not even recalling this incident.

  But that doesn’t help me now, thought Eric. He could hardly stand here calling out for help. How long would it be before someone happened by to let him out? He had faced more than enough degradation for the day already. In any case there was another way out of the crypts at the other end. He stepped inside.

  The central corridor descended slowly down to the lower level, with individual crypts to either side. Eric took a lantern hanging on a hook at the entrance and struck flint. He presumed there was no actual desecration and the entire thing had been an impish urge on the part of the deranged Hardison, but he might as well look.
Certainly nothing seemed to be amiss. The November chill intensified as he passed beneath the row of statuary representing Graysons past. A sudden draft blew out his lantern. Eric’s skin prickled. There could be no draft inside the crypts. The air was stuffy and dank enough to prove it.

  He carried no tinder with which to relight the lantern. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom he found there was still enough light to go by. In any case, he knew his way around to the other side. The next chamber was the one that housed his parents’ coffins. Eric lingered at the entrance but did not go in. He had no time for grieving today. He only wanted to get through to the other side as quickly as possible, not confront all the tragically painful memories of his many lost relatives. Then he heard a strange muttering sound like a draft of wind giving low voice to grievances of the past. Very peculiar. Then he heard a clatter from the next room.

  What now?

  He passed through a low archway that led to the next section of the crypt. At center of this room lay Griffin’s dark mahogany coffin. Elegant carvings covered the lid, showing hunting parties and scenes of martial prowess from great wars of the past. On the wall above the coffin were a series of semicircular niches that housed sets of curved goat-like spiral horns. These had once belonged to faeries Griffin had killed in his Purge. I should really take them down, Eric thought, but I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what to do with them. He stood listening intently for a moment but heard nothing else. He turned back toward the corridor.

  The grumbling wind surged again and this time it seemed too much like a human voice. “Ffoooo!” it seemed to say.

  A chill ran down Eric’s spine. He would not linger here.

  He made haste down the length of the corridor and took a sharp turn into a nave to the left. This room contained several empty niches, including a space reserved for his own entombment. At its far end stood the cast iron door that lead to the exit from the crypts where a half-flight of steps would take him back to the surface. He rattled the knob but the door wouldn’t budge.

  Eric felt another deadly chill. Trapped in the crypts. Had that madman Hardison gone round and locked the outer door as well?

  The angry wind surged again. And this time it was a human voice. “Ffooool!”

  And suddenly he knew he wasn’t alone.

  “Hardison!” he called out, even though he knew it wasn’t. “Is that you?”

  He watched a hazy figure coalesce out of the darkness on the other side of the chamber. Eerily indistinct, just a set of eyes, a square face with close-cropped hair. A gathering of darkness that might have been a wide-brimmed Puritan hat. It carried a strong smell of death, perhaps not so unusual in this burial chamber belowground, but it seemed too potent, too fresh.

  A deep rasp rang out, “What… what have you done?”

  That voice froze Eric’s blood. He knew that voice.

  “I did what was right.”

  “Consorting with faeries? Bringing them into my house?”

  “My house.”

  “Corrupted. Debased. Taking a faery to wife? I hope to God you didn’t sire any children with that creature.”

  “Too late.”

  “Fool. You don’t know what they are. You don’t know what they’ve done.”

  “I’ve had enough of this.” Eric rattled the knob again but it wouldn’t give. He turned to face the figure in the seething darkness. The figure did not advance. Perhaps it preferred the anonymity of shadow.

  The voice continued. “You don’t know what she’s done.”

  “Who do you mean? Theodora?”

  The wraith seemed to recede into the darkness. Eric heard a scurrying sound, like rats retreating into their burrows.

  “Answer me! Theodora? What do you mean?”

  “She’s a killer. A murderer! My blood is on her hands, and her teeth. Grayson family blood!”

  Eric did not like to hear it but thought it might be true. I guess I always knew it was faeries that killed Griffin. But Theodora?

  The ghostly figured had vanished into the darkness but its voice, losing steam as well, had just strength enough to say this, “The faeries are not what you think. You have been deceived about their true nature. She is not what you think.”

  With a sharp click the back door to the crypt jerked open and daylight seeped in. Eric cast one last look into the chamber but the shadow was gone, chased away by the light. A warning, from his dear departed grandfather. A warning about Theodora.

  He went up the steps.

  Chapter 38

  It was the dead of night.

  Dresdemona regarded herself in the full-length mirror. She had only one slender candle burning in a fine silver candelabra but the silvered mirror magnified its light. She stood alone in the Queen’s powder room off the main bedroom. The pig king slept soundly in the royal bed just a few feet away. Snoring softly. She had satisfied him once again with an erotic illusion that had left her, as usual, bored and dissatisfied.

  Her face in the mirror was not her face. This, by itself, did not bother her. The English did not deserve to see her as she truly was. For all she cared they could gaze upon this thick-lipped, long necked imbecilic visage for as long as necessary.

  The high collar of her green velvet sleeping gown was trimmed with a fine, and particularly uncomfortable, lace ruching. She tore away the constraining neckline. At last she could breathe a little.

  She searched among the items on the dressing room table, knocking aside a jumble of perfumed soaps, tooth sponges, powder for her hair and vials of lavender water. She found what she was looking for—an ornate mother-of-pearl fan—and snapped it open. On either side of the fan were scenes panted in primal colors, scenes from one of her favorite operas – Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. A bereaved Greek musician delves into the land of the dead to retrieve his lost love. Although it had a suitably tragic ending, she found the story trite and idiotically sentimental. It was the music she adored. The humans had developed this art to an unexpected near-perfection. Handel, Cavalli, Purcell. At least she’d found one consolation of her internment among these savages.

  The Queen’s powder room seemed too much like a prison to her. An elegantly decorated prison whose cornices were positively dripping with rich mahogany trim and whose walls were covered in fine green damask. Several etchings hung to either side of the mirror, representing one of George’s pedantic obsessions, hideously technical drafts of various bridges and waterways. A pair of ornately carved table stands also flanked the mirror. Gilded with seraphs of gold, each held a large glass basin containing a pair of gold-fish.

  Dresdemona glanced at herself once more in the mirror and startled abruptly. A square purple-skinned face stood sneering over her left shoulder, spiral horns of black extending from its forehead.

  “You!” she whispered.

  “Me,” he said.

  She glanced frantically to the side then caught herself, straightened her shoulders, and said, “You can’t be here. What if—”

  Aldebaran pressed his fiery lips to hers, kissing her as if to make up for lost time, his acid tongue raking her own.

  She pushed him away. “You can’t be here. What if somebody sees? Some lady of the bedchamber is always lurking about. They rarely give me a moment’s peace. Change back. Right away. Idiot.”

  He snickered. “But then they would see you kissing with your dear brother…” He pressed himself against her again but before his mouth met its goal she slashed upward with the edge of the fan. Two of the wooden ribs broke away, but not before she had etched a thin line across his cheek. A trickle of black blood flowed to his chin, a much darker color than the usual faery purple.

  Aldebaran growled and turned away. He plucked one of the goldfish from the bowl and squeezed it between two fingers. He regarded it intently as it flapped and squirmed, until its guts ran down. He tossed the bloodied mess into a large claw-footed bathtub sitting in the corner. “That tub might be fun…” he said. “Let’s have a soak.”

  “I told
you to leave.”

  “What’s wrong, Dresdemona? Afraid I will place a stain on this candied opulence that you’ve come to desire? Do you think I haven’t noticed? Running hither and thither with your pathetic, fat-bellied king? Comedies at the theatre, a tour of the pleasure gardens in the afternoon, a jaunt to the opera to hear the parrots sing?”

  He leaned in close and took a sniff of her powdered hair. “Disgusting.”

  She stepped away. His jealousy was hot as molten lava and as tempting as it may be, she should not play with that fire.

  “Is he a good lover?” asked Aldebaran, enraged.

  Dresdemona laughed. She simply couldn’t help herself. “Maybe you should ask the bedsheets or the carpet. Do you think I’d ever let him lay his grubby little hands on me?”

  It took him a moment to figure that one out.

  “Oh, stop being so abominably jealous,” she said. “The baby’s yours. You’ve nothing to fear.”

  “Baby?”

  “Of course. The plan only works if there is a child.”

  The startled look on his face was precious. Dresdemona flicked her tongue at him, “I thought I’d better tell before you rip it from my stomach.”

  “But when it’s born—”

  “When he’s born. Only a male can rule in succession, dear.”

  “They’ll see what it is. They’ll see.”

  “They’ll only see what I let them see.”

  Despite her bluster, she thought he might be correct. It was possible there’d be no way to hide a child that was half faery and half Nephilim. But she would face that problem only if the child were actually Aldebaran’s and not Meadowlark’s. She felt confident her child would be a full-born fae. That child would sit on the throne of England and Ireland, and all of Europe.

  She ran her hands along her consort’s rock-hard shoulders, following the line to massage the taught muscles of his neck. She sank her teeth into his earlobe. He could stand it no more. He spun her around, tearing at the hem of the velvet sleeping gown and shoving her toward the little card table upon which she played late-night games of whist with Meadowlark posing as Johanna Hagerdorn. One of the table’s legs snapped and it clattered noisily to the floor.