Page 30 of The Changeling

‘You might like this one,’ Mary said, drawing a heavy tome from her shelf. ‘It’s a book of old tales and ballads, written in Scots.’

I clutched it to me and gave my awkward bob. ‘Thank you, madam!’

That night, I began reading by the wavering light of my candle. At first I was painstakingly slow, for there were many words I did not know, but gradually I began to understand more. One story told the tale of Thomas the Rhymer, taken to the Otherworld by a faery queen for seven years, but then set free so that he would not be sacrificed in a tithe paid to hell. I sat for a long time with my finger marking the spot, thinking.

The seventh daughter of a seventh daughter is the only one who can stop the slaughter, my mother had chanted. Only she can break the curse and pay the price …

What curse had to be broken? What price would I have to pay?

I stood before the queen’s great glass mirror, staring at myself. My face was thin and colourless, with high angular cheekbones and a triangular chin. My ears were subtly pointed too, with almost no lobe. My eyes were dark and shadowed, and seemed far too big for my face.

How had I ever thought I was human?

Tears blurred my vision. For a moment it seemed as if a dark tangled forest stretched behind me, and I wore a crown of twigs, with a raven perched on my shoulder, regarding me in the mirror with a glittering obsidian eye. I recoiled, only to realise it was the reflection of one of the queen’s tapestries, and that the raven was nothing more than the shadow formed by a fold of the cloth and a flicker of light on a thread of gold. I laid my hands over my heart as if to try to hold it still in my chest. I am safe, I told myself. No-one kens where I am.

I kept away from the mirror after that, though. I was afraid of what I might see.

Christmas came.

Signor Rizzio sang the midnight mass and made the queen weep. I wept too. The dark shadowy church, the candles and the incense, the singing, it seemed to open a rift in time so I was a little girl again, standing with my mam and my nan and my twin in the church at Monzie, safe and loved.

But that time had been a lie. I was not one of them, and had never been.

I was so afraid that someone would guess I was a changeling that I held myself apart from all of Mary’s other servants. I ate by myself, feeding scraps to Carlin under the table, and I spent my time thinking up new delicacies for the queen to eat.

Her French cook prepared all the food for her public banquets, and created elaborate rich dishes laden with butter and cream and red wine and brandy. I, however, made the food she ate in her private quarters – simple soups, bite-sized cakes, and warm possets which did not upset her delicate stomach. I knew she would like something light after all the feasting that week, and thought I would make her parsnip and heather honey soup. There was no heather honey in the royal pantries, though, so I ventured out to the Grassmarket in search of some. It would not be as good as Nan’s, of course, but it was still distinctly Scottish.

I had not been back to the Grassmarket since the day I had arrived in Edinburgh, and begged for work in all the inns. It was not a happy memory. I did not linger after I had bought the honey, but hurried away through the crowds, my plaid wrapped close about my head and face against the cold.

Carlin began to wag her tail and whine in excitement, pulling so hard on her lead that I feared she would break it. I tugged her close in case she meant to steal some sausages or a meat pie, only to see Mam and Sorcha standing by a stall, showing a scroll of paper to a man.

Instantly, I flattened myself against the wall, my heart thumping so hard I felt suffocated. Part of me wanted to run to them, to throw my arms about them, and hug them close. The other half of me shrank back, unable to bear the thought of them seeing me.

I sneaked a look around the corner and saw Sorcha was showing people a drawing of me she had made with charcoal. She had always been clever with her fingers. I felt a spurt of joy. They were looking for me. I almost went to them then. Carlin was trying to tug my arm out of its socket in her eagerness to greet them, and I was so pleased to know they cared enough to walk all the way to Edinburgh.

But then I saw the faery queen. She stood in the shadow of the wall, the hood of a heavy cloak drawn close around her thin face. No-one else seemed to notice her. The crowd eddied and flowed around her, never coming close enough to touch her. Mam crossed to the next stall, unrolling the drawing of me, and the faery queen’s eyes followed her, hot with hate. A raven was perched on her shoulder, hidden within the hood. I shrank back, concealing my face with a fold of my plaid. My heart banged sickeningly. Carlin whined and I shushed her, hurrying away through the crowd. She turned and looked back at Mam and Sorcha, but I made her come with me, ducking down an alleyway and out of sight.

The faery queen must be following Mam and Sorcha in the hope they would lead her to me. I had to keep away from them. Tears ran down my face, and I dashed them away. It was hard to sort out my feelings. I had run away from home, but longed for it constantly. I was hurt that Mam had lied to me, but frightened my real mother meant her some kind of harm. I missed Sorcha acutely, but was jealous that she was Mam’s true daughter. I thought of Robbie constantly, but had not forgotten that he had gone away on his father’s orders and never sent me even one small sign to say he was sorry.

I wanted to belong somewhere, but did not seem to fit anywhere.

I pulled the nettle thread out of my pocket and wound it in intricate patterns about my fingers, wishing for smog and sleet and snow, anything to hide me from my mother’s eyes. The wind strengthened, needling my face. Awnings flapped, trees bent and creaked, rubbish bowled along the street, and Carlin’s ears blew inside out. Hailstones clattered on the slate roofs and pinged against the windows. One cracked and broke, showering the street with glittering shards. A panicked horse reared and kicked, and screams and shouts rang out as snowflakes whirled down from a sky that only moments before had been blue. I picked up my skirts and ran, Carlin racing beside me.

By the time I reached Holyrood Palace, the pointed spire of the tower wore a white cap, and my footsteps left dark holes sunk into the thick white mantle that lay over the courtyard. I went in, trembling all over, and untied the knot in the string with stiff fingers. The blizzard did not stop, though. Servants hurried everywhere, securing shutters, bolting doors, stuffing rags under doors, finding buckets and shovels and staggering in under loads of firewood. The wind wailed like a banshee about the tower, and the queen and her ladies-in-waiting huddled by the fire, everyone exclaiming at the sudden change in the weather. It was so cold, the water froze in the jug and I had to crack it with the hilt of my knife before I could boil it for a warming tisane.

I worried about Mam and Sorcha, and where they would find shelter, and about all the poor homeless vagabonds sleeping rough in the streets. If it had not been for the queen’s kind heart, I would be one of them. I filled a basket with leftover food from the Yule feast, and took it to the front gate to give to the beggars. They crowded about me, bowls held out imploringly. Heart aching, I filled their dishes to the brim. At the back was an old bent man dressed in the ragged remains of a priest’s robe, his scant silver hair growing around a bald spot like a tonsure. ‘Father Benedict?’ I said uncertainly.

He flinched from me. ‘Nay, just a man, an ordinary man.’

‘Father Benedict! It’s me! Caiti. Dinna you remember me?’

He gazed at me with rheumy, uncertain eyes. ‘Caiti?’

‘Aye, it’s me. What are you doing here?’ Even as I asked the question, I knew. The priests of the old religion who refused to convert to the new had been driven from their parishes. I had been sad when Father Benedict left, but never wondered where he had gone.

‘Come,’ I said gently. ‘Sit. Eat.’

He gobbled the food down. His nails were black broken crescents.