Page 102 of The Changeling

Together we rode back to the castle, the stallion plodding wearily, his head hanging. Carlin limped behind us. The stars had faded, and the sky was a leaden grey. As we clomped across the drawbridge, the sleeping sentry stirred and looked about him dazedly, but did not seem to see us.

Robbie walked like an automaton back through the silent castle. I tried to help him, but it was like I was not there at all. When he got back to his bedroom, he took off his coat and threw it on the floor. Then he untied his boots, let them drop, and flung himself on his bed. His hair dripped with sweat.

‘Robbie, love,’ I whispered. ‘Why do you dance all night?’

He did not answer.

‘Will you make him dance to his death?’ I said to my mother.

‘Why? Why?’

She did not answer either.

For more than two years, I had held the faery queen at bay, chanting a spell of protection at dawn and at dusk, holding my will fast. I had thought I could withstand her. What a blind fool I was.

My mother’s implacable will was behind all that had happened. The queen’s defeat and flight towards death. Nan’s drowning. Mam’s burning. Sorcha’s near-starvation. Robbie’s boots, worn to holes each night.

I had to find some way to break her cruel enchantments.

I warmed some water, then gently undressed Robbie and washed him clean. He was so thin I could see all his ribs, the knobs of his spine, the jutting arc of his hips. His feet were blistered and swollen. I salved and bandaged them.

Then I sat by the fire, my head leaning against the cushioned backrest. I was exhausted too, but I could not rest. The faery music thrummed still in my blood, and my muscles twitched and jerked. I could not get the sight of Robbie dancing out of my mind. His movements had been so wild, so compulsive. As the night had worn on, he had danced himself to exhaustion, and the faeries who had danced with him had cruelly mocked him. There had been no joy in it.

Why had my mother cast such a strange spell on him? Was it revenge because he had danced with another lassie, instead of me? Did she hate him because he was mortal? Did she hate him because I loved him?

I dreaded what she would ask me to do next. I had hidden a dead baby at her command, and exchanged him for a faery child, and now that changeling was the king of Scotland.

I did not know enough. How could I hope to defeat my mother and save my sister and my lover when I was so ignorant?

I was too tired to think. I needed to sleep. I went down to Mam’s old room, where Sorcha lay asleep, curled like a child beneath the heavy quilt. Firelight warmed the old stone walls, and danced over the worn tapestry of women singing and dancing in a green forest. I took off my shoes and my kirtle, crawled into bed, and laid my head on the pillow. Carlin leapt up and curled in the crook of my knees. I drew the quilt around me. It was faintly scented with lavender. For weeks Sorcha and I had been sleeping in a cave, on a bed of bracken, with no blanket but old sacks. Every rustle of leaves or crack of twigs had jerked me awake. Here I could close my eyes, and sleep as quietly as if angels watched over me. A peculiar sensation of falling. I dreamed Nan sat beside me and stroked my forehead, whispering, Sleep, hinny. All will be well. Sleep …

III

Lambkin

I woke much later, and lay for a moment not knowing where I was. Sorcha lay curled beside me, her eyes fixed on my face.

‘Maaaa?’ she bleated. ‘Maaaa?’

Gently I rubbed my knuckles against her soft, furred cheek. ‘I will do my best to break this curse on you, lambkin.’

She nodded.

I got up and sat by the fire with the pouch of omen staves on my lap. Slipping my hand within, I whispered, ‘In the Lady’s name, help me see, help me understand, blessed be.’

The omen stave I drew out was a slim, forked twig carved with the rune of coll, one straight stroke with four sideways strokes to the left. Hazel, tree of epiphany.

Carlin whined and scratched at the door. I had not taken her out in hours. Still holding the hazel stave, I went out through the kitchen. All the servants stilled at the sight of me, their faces wary. In silence, I walked past them all, my gaze fixed on the door at the far end that led out into the kitchen garden. At last we were outside. Carlin squatted to relieve herself, and I gazed around at the neat rows of rosemary and thyme, tall sage with its soft silvery leaves, the clipped bay hedge, the espaliered apple tree still heavy with fruit, the ground beneath littered with golden leaves.

I rubbed the rune carved into the hazel stave with my thumb.

Nan’s cunning book had a charm for summoning the Sight with a hazel twig. I had never read it before, though I had read Nan’s book so many times as a child. She must have added in the page after I had run away.

A gardener was burning leaves and fallen branches at the far end of the orchard. The castle children were helping him. Holding burning branches, two boys ran in circles about the bonfire, singing:

Hey-ho for Hallowe’en

When all the witches might be seen