Page 24 of The Changeling

When dawn came, Carlin and I dug our way into a haystack and slept a while. I woke stiff and cold and hungry as a wolf. The fog hung heavily, beading the bent brown thistles with dew, hiding the shape of the hills. We shared half the loaf and walked on. The road led through a wood, and I was able to forage a few nuts and mushrooms. Carlin gazed at me mournfully, and whined. I made a snare from my nettle string, a stone and two forked sticks and, with Carlin’s help, flushed a quail, which I drove, fluttering and squawking, into the snare. Then came the worst moment, the betrayal, when I had to kill it. I hated that part. But if I did not eat, I would die.

The next day we passed a burn that ran through a grove of willow trees. I made a fishing line from my nettle string, a twig and a hawthorn barb, and baited my hook with a shred of leftover quail. I caught some fish, impaled them on sticks, and cooked them over a small fire. I set my damp boots and stockings to dry, and stretched my bare feet to the flames. My legs ached, the muscles in my calves cramping. I wished I was at home, Mam bringing me a cup of milk warmed with honey and Nan scolding me as she massaged my calves with melted wax infused with rosemary. I wished Sorcha was curled up beside me, telling me the latest gossip she had heard in the weaving-room as she tried to make a pleated ruff like the one the queen was said to wear. I wished I belonged there, that I was truly part of their family, and not a cuckoo in the nest, a changeling child, heir to a dark faery realm, a place of peril and prophecy.

Carlin whined and put her paw on my lap.

I ruffled her ears. ‘At least I have you.’

She licked my hand.

The mist began to drift away, and the night sky blazed with stars like tiny watching eyes. It was the dark of the moon, a time when hunted creatures could pass through the landscape unseen. But from tomorrow the moon would begin to grow, and I feared the faery queen would soon find me. Dark moon was the best time for cursing and curse breaking, banishing and binding, Nan had always said, so I drew the nettle thread out of my pocket and chanted the spell of concealment again, tying a knot in the cord. The mist swirled down again.

It took me more than a month to travel the fifty-odd miles to the Firth of Forth. I found my way cross-country, searching for food as I went, and sleeping rough. Some days I did not walk at all, but stayed crouched under a tree, watching the rain pelt down, so weighted with heartbreak and homesickness I could scarcely find the energy to stroke Carlin’s velvety ears. My feelings were in such a tumult, I did not know how to manage them. I only knew I had to get away, I had to hide myself from the faery queen, I had to thwart whatever plan she had for me.

Often as I crouched by a fitful fire, eating whatever I had managed to forage during the day, I took out the nettle string and wound it about my fingers in intricate shapes. The string seemed to stretch or shrink according to my needs, being long enough for a fishing line or strong enough to tie a bundle of kindling, yet I could still coil it and tuck it back inside my pocket.

When the moon was once again dark, I tied another knot in its length, repeating the spell of concealment, and the next day trudged into North Queensferry, where boats carried passengers back and forth across the firth. I had no money to pay the fee, so mustered my courage, drew my tattered plaid over my head, and limped into the market square to sing an old ballad. A few people tossed me some bawbees, enough to buy some food and my passage over the river, with one small coin left over.

I sat in the ferry, Carlin at my feet, and examined the bawbee closely. It was stamped with a crowned thistle with the letters ‘M’ and ‘R’ on either side. M for Mary, R for Regina. I wondered where the queen was. I imagined going to her castle, telling the guards the girl who had cooked the marigold cake had come to serve the queen, being given hot pottage and a warm bed and a place at court.

My daydreams kept me comforted till we reached the far shore, and I began the long trudge to the city. My hands and feet were frozen, my skirt bedraggled with mud. Carlin was the most miserable hound you had ever seen, her wiry hair hanging in wet tendrils, her tail tucked under her belly, amber eyes regarding me reproachfully. When I went to buy a meat pie to share with her, I found my coin had disappeared from my purse. I could not understand how I had lost it. Had I been robbed? I had seen or felt nothing. I searched the cobblestones all around me, retraced my steps, hoping to find it. But my coin was gone.

I did not know what to do. Carlin and I needed food, shelter, warmth. I went from inn to inn asking for work, but was driven away with sharp words. When I tried singing on a street corner, a beggar with a filthy bandaged stump of a leg and sores on his mouth swore at me and told me it was his corner, and he’d gut me like a herring if I didna get lost.

The crown steeple of St Giles rose out of the fog far above. I climbed towards it through the last light of the day. A steep cobble-stoned road ran between tall houses with overhanging galleries that felt as if they might topple on me at any moment. Some were made of stone with crow-stepped gables or turrets with pointed roofs, others were criss-crossed with oaken beams or steep rickety stairs. All had tall chimneys that billowed smoke to darken the heavy fog. People were everywhere, calling out their wares, going about their business. One man had his ear nailed to the stocks, pigs rooting in a pile of refuse about his feet.

Keeping my head down, not meeting anyone’s gaze, I limped to the cathedral, hoping for sanctuary, but the nave was crowded with people listening to the rantings of a black-robed man with a beard as long and coarse as a horse’s tail. He was small and shrunken, but his voice and fists were huge and angry like an ogre’s. Long wooden pews were set in rows for the congregation to sit, something I had never seen before.

I sank down on one. My whole body ached. The preacher thundered on about some harlot who had turned Edinburgh into nothing better than a Parisian bawdy house. It took me a while to realise he was talking about the queen. Carlin did not like his angry voice. She pressed against my legs, trembling and whining. A man in a long black robe told me that I could not bring my dog inside, that animals had no place in the house of God and that I was disturbing the congregation who had come to hear Pastor Knox’s sermon. He hustled me out so roughly, I stumbled and fell to my knees. He dragged me up and thrust me out the door. I sat on the steps in the rain, as desolate as I had ever been, my arm about Carlin’s neck.

If animals were not welcome in church, were faery children? Would I be welcome anywhere if people knew what I was?

VI

Singing for My Supper

A man bent over me.

‘Look at you, lass, so ragged and dirty. Come with me, and I’ll give you a bawbee so you may buy yourself a bonny ribbon for those bonny curls of yours.’

I looked up at him blankly.

Why would I want a ribbon when I was as hungry as a wolf?

Something in his face made my skin creep. It was like the way Lord Patrick looked at Mam. Anger, contempt, and something else I did not understand. I just knew I felt uneasy.

Carlin growled.

‘Come on, lass. You won’t get a better offer at this time of night. I’ll make it two bawbees.’

‘For what? I have naught to sell. Do you want me to sing for you?’

‘Sing?’ His voice was incredulous. Then he laughed. ‘There’s a new term for it! Aye, I want you to sing long and loud, lass. Come on now.’ He seized my arm and dragged me up, and Carlin snarled, baring her teeth. He kicked her in the ribs, and she yelped.

‘Dinna you hurt my dog!’ I hit him hard with my stick.

He grunted in pain, and tried to strike me. I dodged him, and ran away down the street, Carlin racing beside me.

‘Filthy whore,’ he shouted after me.