The Royal Changeling

by John Whitbourn

  ‘But you s-s-swore …’ he gasped.

  For once in his eel-like progress through life Charles Stuart was caught red-handed and he knew it. His loveable rogue image could not avail him.

  ‘Not now!’ he commanded. Happily, the Elf-King came to his rescue.

  ‘These creatures are half-blind,’ he told the assembly, thereby distracting James. ‘They live amidst reality but do not perceive it. If we are to cleave to them, they must know what we know and see as we see. You all must agree to such an obscenity. Shall it be done?’

  Perhaps his audience had pondered the question before or were not fettered to a mortal pace of thought. Whatever the reason, they did not dispute the fleeting space allowed for consultation.

  ‘All the known tribes have come from hiding,’ said the King. ‘An unprecedented array. This present age has not seen its like. I speak for the Southrons and I say yes. What say Albion?’

  A tuneful assent came from one part of the circle.

  ‘And Black Crow?’ They cawed likewise.

  ‘Shining-Path and Dalriada?’ The two clans affirmed as one.

  And so the solemn litany went on, through ‘Tenement-Elves’, ‘Morisco’s’ and ‘Goddodin-Riders’, ‘Citadel-stock from the man-free Tyrol’, ‘Feather-cloaks of Paris’ and ‘Old-City Zion orthodox Elves’. The question was demanded of the ‘Camague lancers’, the ‘Low-Country barge-Elves’, the ‘Burgundian stradiots’, ‘Constantinople Blues and Greens’ and the ‘Englisc Companions’ – and numerous others the humans didn’t catch. Universal, melodic, consent was obtained.

  ‘There is one more thing that is needful,’ said the King, when the secret register seemed called. ‘Nothing can proceed without the Keeper of the Gate.’

  For a moment there was quiet and Charles was about to voice his need for brandy. That was soon forgotten though, when the Hill beneath them spoke.

  The answer came, not like thunder or a giant’s roar, but as a quiet, private, voice beside each and every ear, perhaps even to the nearby resting Neolithic barley-Lords in their barrows.

  ‘The Long Man hears,’ it whispered softly, the sound of a young man far away, emanating from the earth itself. The door is open. You are not dead but you may enter.’

  King Charles reckoned he could sound confident when he wanted to, but this was something else. A true ruler had spoken. Then, if that wasn’t amazement enough, they saw the Elf-King prostrate himself in homage.

  When his fearful respects were paid, he summoned them over.

  “Jacob called his sons to bless them”,’ he said, mocking them with scripture. ‘And he said “gather together and I will tell you what will happen to you in the end of days …” ’

  He pointed and they looked. Windover’s summit was no longer so bald and bare and windswept as before. A grove of slender trees now improbably graced its crown, high above their natural habitat and set a-dance by the gusting breeze. Then they looked closer and saw that wasn’t so. The sylvan ring was independent of worldly weather and subject to its own laws. The movement of the boughs proved to be an illusion; the out-ward sign of shifting shapes. A legion of trees, each similar but slightly different, came and went in swift succession, mimicking obedience to the Sussex blow. A gentle light came from within, transmuting the air around to gold.

  ‘The Grove of Possibilities,’ the Elf-King told them. ‘It is raised for you. Proceed within.’

  It is no reflection on them to recount that the three men looked about, seeking excuses not to comply. It was thus they noticed the dying begin.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Theophilus, aghast.

  The Elf-King humoured them and turned to see. He noted that individuals in most groups round the hill had started to fall. Some tribes were only mildly afflicted, but others had gaps torn in their ranks.

  ‘Magic is costly,’ he informed them, blandly; not able to share their concern. ‘Even with the Gate-Keeper’s assistance, some things are not cheaply gained. Each of the First-born retains only a little magic within. We must yield up many to pay the price.’

  He would have left it at that but saw that his guests were unappeased. That puzzled him, for how was this any worse than one of their ‘plagues’ or ‘battles’? Surely it was better to rationally decide on a day to die? The King found it hard to keep in mind that newcomers were of a higher order than dumb beasts. You could see why some tribes used them as meat animals.

  In what might have been an act of kindness, he turned back to add more.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We think it’s worth it.’

  Charles studied the trees as they approached, intent on retaining a fingergrip on reality, but couldn’t readily identify the type. Bare and leafless at this stage in their own seasonal round, they might have been any one of a dozen British species. The inner light which bathed them did not assist recognition. Realising the task would be difficult, he abandoned it and surrendered to the flow.

  The second they stepped within, the landscape changed, the strange light flickered. From inside the grove they looked out into a world transformed.

  A soldier still, Theophilus’s first thought was his unprotected back. Finding that safeguarded by a high brick wall he scouted their immediate confines. The grove had become ordinary, just half a dozen trees, a plain and simple copse in the corner of a field.

  As befitted a King, Charles was more interested in the prospect before them. Keeping his feelings from his face, he regally surveyed the scene.

  ‘And where might this be?’ he asked, affecting unconcern.

  ‘This is what might be,’ answered the other King present. ‘If you believe such theories, the world has travelled round the sun over three hundred times since your day.’

  They separately decided to let that news be. Whatever they might say, no human can truly credit a future not favoured by their living presence.

  ‘But w-where are we?’ said James, gesturing to the rows of brick houses beyond the field. ‘What is this city?’

  ‘It is not a city,’ the Elf informed him. ‘The current age thinks it only a village. We are in …’ he seemed to commune with some data borne on the air, ‘… the Valley of the Ferns.’

  Oglethorpe forced his brain to work. ‘Farncombe, do you mean?’

  The Elf-King nodded his long head. ‘That is the current designation,’ he confirmed.

  ‘I live near here!’ Theophilus exclaimed, happy to find one point of reference.

  ‘Lived,’ said the King, with casual brutality. ‘Yes, your Godalming is over there, a few miles away. Even your house still survives, after a fashion.’

  ‘And my descendants?’ asked Theophilus, unable to deny the desire for proxy immortality.

  Again the Elf-King consulted his invisible informant.

  ‘I do not see any there. Others have inherited.’

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘I can offer some comfort. A nearby “museum” boasts an “Oglethorpe Room”. A society bearing your name fosters friendship with the Americas. Your memory still stalks this place.’

  ‘And what about the Stuarts?’ asked Charles, keen to get in on the prophecy dispensing. ‘Do we manage to …’

  The Elf cut him short.

  ‘We are not here for petty thoughts,’ he reproved them. ‘You will ask me the result of horse races next. Besides, this is only what may be.’

  ‘I’m g-glad to hear it,’ said James. Believing that the days to come were a matter for God alone, he’d had no questions anyway. ‘Look at the way the buildings pile one on another. Our Southwark stews are more spacious.’

  The Elf-King smiled.

  ‘Times change. This is accounted countryside now. There are patches of open left but they are ruled and regulated: not wild. You have bred and spread.’

  Charles didn’t care for the relish displayed for present misfortune.

  ‘Must be hard for you people then,’ he said. ‘I thought you didn’t care for our company or crowds.’

  The King
had no difficulty in agreeing.

  ‘We survive,’ he said, without sorrow or self-pity. ‘Unseen and disregarded, lingering in odd corners, in the places you do not want or cannot have. This age does not believe in us, you see, and that is our salvation. We can await better days. Meanwhile, since we are here, let us assess this slice of happenstance.’

  The grove flared again and then flew, carrying them with it like gossamer on the wind. The prosaic little copse it had hidden in was left far below.

  The Elf-King appeared at perfect ease with both the place and means of transport. Ever-watchful, Charles noted that and lay aside kingly dignity (and fright and nausea) to query the knack.

  ‘You know this place, don’t you?’ he asked the Elf, determined, by hook or by crook to get a handle on him like he had on everyone else.

  ‘I will be here,’ the King confirmed. ‘Or I am here, if you prefer. The two I’s share the same matter and we communicate. I tread in a time I will one day walk. It therefore has a certain … familiarity.’

  Being of an experimental, press-things-to-the-limit-and-see-what-happens sort of temperament, Charles wanted to enquire the consequences of the two ‘I’s’ meeting. Perhaps fortunately he didn’t get the chance. The grove rematerialised to show a new scene.

  They were on a high hill crowned with houses. A grander sort of dwelling graced one side of the street, whilst plank fencing shut off the drop on the other.

  Gaudy wheeled boxes lining the road were the initial focus of curiosity until the Elf-King dismissed them in tones of hatred. ‘Cars,’ he spat. The humans’ attention was re-directed over the fence.

  ‘See,’ he commanded. ‘This is all that remains.’

  Charles, at six foot and two inches could look over with ease, but James and Theophilus had to crane. None of them knew whether to be consoled or cast down.

  The horizon was green. There were fields and woods and farms as far as the eye could see. This ‘village’ came to end and then the country began. That was the cheering part. It was only a second, closer, inspection that revealed the canker in the bud. Distant and silent, they observed the path of a mighty highway and the ceaseless progress of ‘cars’. The verdant panorama was delineated with cut-off lines of concrete-grey.

  ‘They call such reservations a “green belt”,’ the Elf-King told them. ‘Beyond that London is waiting.’

  ‘For what?’ asked Charles, resignedly.

  The King ignored him, lost in his own thoughts.

  ‘There are parts the car-bound ones do not visit for decades on end,’ he mused. ‘We can survive there: there and similar places – for a while. We sicken and sadden – but we survive.’

  The man-King shook his head decisively. ‘I see now – and believe. There’s weightier matters at stake here than my dynasty – and Lord knows that’s dear enough to this old heart. It would be hard to be fully human amidst such pandemonium, such a wound upon the world. This shall – must – not be. We have brought hell to live on Earth.’

  The Elf turned on Charles, alarmed.

  ‘Have you understood nothing?’ he asked, as animated as they’d ever seen his kind. ‘This is the best that can be hoped. You have not yet seen Hell!’

  He then opened a door in the fence and took them there.

  ‘Speak freely,’ the Elf-King advised them. ‘He cannot hear you.’

  They studied the slim black-clad young man busying himself round his tiny abode. Though pale and wan, he seemed possessed of all his faculties.

  Somehow crammed into this poky space, the grove likewise went unnoticed. Its shifting branches scratched the walls and ceiling. Anyone with eyes to see should have seen.

  ‘Deaf, is he?’ asked Charles. ‘The constant noise I suppose.’ It was a good guess. Traffic noise and uproar permeated even up to this dwelling in the sky.

  ‘No,’ said the Elf, quashing the neat theory. ‘I have removed us one or two degrees. We can be neither seen nor heard.’

  With that comforting news they felt at liberty to inspect this cubby-hole the fence-door had opened onto. The task didn’t long delay them. A few hundred square feet were all the man had to call his own. Likewise, seventeenth-century taste led them not to dwell on the scanty fittings. Their eyes flitted over a utilitarian wilderness of metal and black cloth, of geometry and abstraction, failing to find refreshment.

  ‘The window tells all,’ said the Elf-King. ‘You look. I will not.’

  ‘Are you here also?’ enquired Charles, remembering the King’s previous easy orientation.

  ‘No,’ he replied, looking blankly ahead. ‘I am alone here. My people are gone.’

  The three men crossed to the one small pane of glass alleviating the half-gloom. The grey City started many, many floors below and went on without end.

  ‘The year is the same as before,’ the Elf-King told them, whilst averting his eyes from the scene. ‘But here you have made different decisions regarding the questions put you. Observe and be wise.’

  In fact there was little to observe. One part of the metropolis was the same as any other. In the distance there were hills, but they too were coated with towers. In-between them all the ‘cars’ flowed like blood.

  ‘Where are we then?’ asked Theophilus, a country-boy by birth and thus marginally more chilled than the others. ‘London?’

  ‘As was,’ nodded the Elf. ‘It is Solent-City now.’

  They turned to look again, vainly hoping perhaps to glimpse the sea and thus a limit to the horror. Then the tinny chiming of a bell distracted them.

  They had forgotten their busy companion. Ignorant of uninvited guests he was attending to his devotions.

  That rather surprised them. Metaphysics in such a world seemed out of place. The Elf-King wryly noted their disbelief.

  ‘Do not revise your opinions,’ he said. ‘It is not what it seems.’

  Having sounded a tiny bell, the man now knelt before the small, matt-black altar on which it stood. Three times he slowly touched his forehead to the floor in homage.

  ‘Oh, Market,’ he said with both love and fear hand-in-hand in his voice, ‘you are ace, you are ace, you are ace. Don’t make me a mug, give me the edge. Tell me your secrets. Let me know you more closely and love you more dearly and give me the edge …’

  There was more but the Elf-King tuned him out. The fervent mouthings and carpet-bashing continued in silence.

  ‘He buys and sells things,’ the humans were told. ‘Invisible, intangible things; things not yet made or never to be made or that might be made. He speaks down invisible channels to trade, shaving profit from speed and wafer-margins. Thus, though the age professes to believe in nothing, a strange faith has crept in along its fault lines. They so often seek the mind of “the market” that men now credit it with life. Decades of terming it each day “nervous” or “confident” have brought it to incarnation. This man would not confess his creed to his cold colleagues but many secretly share it.’

  ‘Blasphemy!’ exclaimed James, regarding the worshipper with horror. ‘A f-false god!’

  The Elf-King was less moved. ‘But one that might answer prayers,’ he observed caustically. ‘Unlike some.’

  The Duke’s further protest was aborted by a languid raising of a palm. ‘It is an arid creed, I grant you. There is no room within for the likes of you or I. My folk are gone, and so is anything you might conceive as fully human. A deity called Accountancy has prevailed and it demands cruel sacrifices.’

  ‘For what reward?’ asked Theophilus. ‘I can’t see the appeal.’

  ‘Look about,’ answered the Elf. Its bounty is spread before you.’

  ‘What?’ spluttered Charles disbelieving, and angrily indicating the view. ‘That?’

  The Elf-King confirmed it with a nod. ‘Man can learn to abide anything,’ he said. ‘That is both your species’ strength and curse. In time even bitter fruits become bearable. Ash acquires a taste; nerves deaden and the pain goes away.’

  ‘And does all this l
ikewise depart, pray God?’ persisted Charles.

  ‘Nothing lasts for ever, King-of-England. I will spin the wheel of time and show you.’

  They looked out again to see the sun streak across the copper-coloured, polluted sky. A day passed in a wink. Then the solar round became a golden arc and finally so swift as to be invisible. The leviathan-city changed.

  First there was decay, then ruins, then revival leading to more ruins. For a short while there were mosques but they too fell. They saw movement in the wreckage and signs of human toil – but less and less and finally none.

  ‘At last,’ said the Elf-King. ‘The Earth lies at peace – without you.’

  ‘Same again?’ asked King Charles, reviving already, and helping himself from the barrels behind the bar.

  James, Duke of York, was less able to put facts behind him and his tankard remained untouched. Beer was of no help in matters appertaining to the soul.

  ‘When was that?’ he asked the Elf, his brow still furrowed.

  The second King present stretched his long legs out on the pub bench.

  ‘Sooner than you think – to use a later literary phrase. A few brief centuries, a few decisions – and Arthur – lay between you and … that.’

  There’d been little conversation since leaving the hellish end-time. They’d escaped it to emerge, shocked and silenced, in the hollowed trunk of a vast and ancient yew-tree in Wilmington Churchyard.

  ‘Another portal,’ the Elf-King had explained as they freed themselves from its embrace. ‘They are thick on the ground hereabouts.’

  They could well believe it. The great tree looked like one of Adam’s early plantings, split by long-ago lightning and reliant on huge chains wrapped round its upper trunk to hold it intact. Since Theophilus had noted it before – albeit from the outside – the testimony of location was as welcome as a mother’s cuddle. Further reassurance arrived in the form of the soldier sentinels left behind – firmly fixing their temporal position. Less convenient were their officers’ natural enquiries – about how their Sovereign came to be in a tree and so on – but these were brushed aside. Left alone at last, the foursome had staggered into the village and looked back on Windover.