The Changeling Child Read online

  The Changeling Child

  The Fairy Tales of Lyond

  by E.D. Walker

  Published by EDW Books.

  Original Copyright 2016. Elizabeth Walker

  Edited by Deb Nemeth www.deborahnemeth.com

  Copy edits by E-Book Formatting Fairies www.e-bookformattingfairies.blogspot.com

  Cover designed by Najla Qamber Designs: www.najlaqamberdesigns.com

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio www.polgarusstudio.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.

  Contact the author: [email protected]

  www.edwalkerauthor.com

  DEDICATION

  Since this is a book deeply concerned with motherhood, it seems appropriate to dedicate it to my mom Jean…

  Love you, Mama.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Also by E.D. Walker

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter One

  When Beatrice caught her husband’s gaze straying to the window of the chamber for the third time in as many minutes, she was tempted to kick his ankle. Unfortunately, she was a noblewoman and the lady of the castle. Outbursts of that kind were beyond her now.

  Instead, she forced herself to cross her ankles beneath her skirts and give their castle steward all her attention—one of the castle’s lieges should, after all. “I’m sorry, could you explain again? What is the issue with the kitchen roof?”

  Beatrice’s husband Stephen, the Baron of Réméré, stared extravagantly out the window into the yard below, where his men were already saddling his horse for a day of falconry. Stephen was nearing fifty, more than twenty years her senior, a battle-hardened knight with dark hair streaked with gray and skin deeply tanned from hunting. For all that he had an old man’s dignity and honors, sometimes he seemed to have no better discipline that one of his pages.

  Their steward nervously rustled his reports and correspondence. She gave him a small encouraging smile. He straightened at once, red tinting his sallow cheeks. “Unfortunately, we did not manage to secure the wardship of the young Baron of Unfrah as we’d hoped.”

  Beatrice winced. “Who did King Thomas give the wardship to?”

  “The Duke of Aquinnah.” Stephen snorted. “As if that man needs more wealth.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She worked to keep her voice soft, to keep the frustration out.

  “I didn’t want to concern you, my love.” Stephen gave her hand a half-distracted pat.

  Concern her? As if she hadn’t had the managing of their household almost since the moment they’d married last year. Merciful Fate knew Stephen never bothered to concern himself with the estate, and his carelessness might have been the ruination of Réméré if Beatrice hadn’t taken matters into hand.

  One of the ways Beatrice had been hoping to secure an influx of coin was to gain that wardship. Five hundred marks a year they could have received to oversee the Unfrah land and take the young heir under their protection. She restrained a wistful sigh. Apart from the money, it might have been nice for her baby son to have another child about.

  Beatrice folded her hands in her lap so she couldn’t fidget. The lady of the manor does not fidget. “Without the wardship we can’t afford lead for the roof of the kitchen, can we?”

  The steward shook his head. “No, my lady. The roof must be repaired, though, even if we can’t afford the new lead roof.”

  Blight it. Beatrice tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair as she thought. “The outer chamber in the high tower is shingled, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Then we’ll just have to take the shingles off the outer chamber and put them on the kitchen to make the necessary repairs. We’ll have to thatch the outer chamber for now.” She’d been hoping to replace all their shingled roofs with lead this year. Instead, they were going backward. Beatrice touched the pearls at her throat—a gift from Stephen at the birth of their first son a few months ago—and counted the baubles with her fingers. Perhaps she could remove a few pearls from the back of the strand and sell them. Her hair covered that, so who was to notice?

  “Thatch. Yes. An excellent idea, my love,” Stephen boomed in his resounding bass voice. He creaked to his feet and limped around his desk, away from the window. “That is the end of our business today, is it not?”

  The steward twisted his hands together. “My lord, there is that matter I discussed with you before.” His gaze darted uncertainly to Beatrice. “The matter which the village midwife brought to your attention.”

  Stephen’s face darkened red with anger. “That nonsense? Peh, don’t waste my time, man. And do not waste my wife’s time with that foolishness either. Come, my love. I’ll return you to your ladies.”

  A lady does not disobey her husband. Although she burned with curiosity to hear the steward’s tale, Beatrice allowed Stephen to take her hand and lead her out of the chamber.

  ***

  After Stephen rode off with his men for a day spent in the forest with his hunting birds, Beatrice assembled her ladies to make her own small pilgrimage to the high castle walls. The midwife had told Beatrice that her baby son needed sunshine and fresh air to grow into a strong young lad, and Beatrice was strictly observant of the midwife’s orders.

  They remained out in the sun long enough to warm her skin and the linen of her dress. The wind caught at the gauzy blue veil over her hair and kept trying to fling it into her eyes. She should go back inside. If she stayed in the sun much longer her milk-white skin would freckle. Some of her ladies were already grumbling as much under their breaths.

  Beatrice found since her son’s birth she worried less about her own looks. Perhaps because she felt more secure in her husband’s affection. She was the Mother of the Heir now, after all. What did her looks matter? And, oh, it felt as if she hadn’t been outside in ages. The past few months, since her son’s birth, it seemed almost as if she’d been turned into a wraith of herself, always sleeping, never leaving her rooms.

  I might finally be getting my strength back. Her husband had insisted she nurse the babe herself, as was her pious duty as his mother, and she hadn’t objected. She loved those quiet moments with the baby, when the world melted away and it was only the two of them. She just wished it didn’t exhaust her so, as if the child was drinking away her life-force as well as her milk.

  The view from the castle parapet this morning dazzled her. She could almost imagine herself soaring free on the winds. The village lay to the left, small but bustling with thatch roofs on the houses and then, across the river, the Greenwood. The beautiful mass of green trees, rippling as though alive, whipped about in the wind, carrying a crisp earthy scent to her on t
he air. Her land now. Her son’s land someday. If only I can keep Stephen from draining our coffers dry.

  “My lady.”

  Beatrice let out a gusty sigh. “I come, I come.” She stepped away from the parapet edge and fell in behind her ladies as they made their way toward the stairs. She toyed with the pearls on her neck. Would Stephen even notice if I sold the whole strand? How many shingles can each pearl buy?

  “—haven’t seen her about in ages.” Voices echoed from the stairwell ahead, two of the men-at-arms talking, it sounded like. Beatrice and her ladies fell back, waiting for the men to emerge so they would not have to pass each other on the narrow stairs. The guards were still a few steps down, but the stone of the stairway carried their voices and projected them louder than the men had probably intended.

  “—a body fit to make a man weep, the most beautiful lady—”

  Beatrice hid a small laugh behind her hand and cast her eyes over her ladies-in-waiting, wondering whom the guards might be talking of. Probably not Sybille, poor thing. Her chest was still flat as one of the page boys’. Perhaps they spoke of Petronilla; she was a lovely girl with cool sable-brown skin, pretty enough to turn anyone’s head surely.

  “Ay, she’s fine to look at,” the first guard continued, “even since the babe was born, but she’s no lady.”

  Beatrice froze, and now all her ladies were looking at her. She herself was the only noblewoman to give birth recently in the castle.

  “What do you mean?” the other guard asked, both their voices growing louder with their approach.

  “Why, the baroness is a slut, man. She might have been born an earl’s daughter, but King Thomas kept her as his mistress for years. Then she was passed from man to man at that court of his.”

  Beatrice’s face heated, and her blood pounded in her ears.

  “Our baron must have been mad to marry the girl.”

  “That hair. Those eyes. That bosom…”

  “Beauty hiding a black heart. I heard she tried to poison the queen.”

  That’s a lie. Certainly Beatrice had wished Queen Aliénor dead, but she’d never done anything about it.

  The other man snickered. “I heard she took two men to bed with her at once.”

  That…was not entirely incorrect. Mostly she’d watched the two men enjoy themselves with each other. If it came to an accusation, the men would be in greater trouble than she. Castration at best, burning at worst. Although the lax morality of the king’s court back then had meant that charges were never brought against anyone. Here, though, in this backwoods country town, such arrangements and affairs were—almost—unheard of.

  “I heard she bedded other women.”

  That was true, although only one woman, and she’d hoped her female lover would have been more discreet about it. Cases against noblewomen were rarely prosecuted, and never in Beatrice’s lifetime, but that didn’t mean her past couldn’t be used against her somehow. Beatrice cast her eyes heavenward.

  “Well, her whole family has bad blood. Her brother tried to kill the king’s nephew.”

  “Yes, can’t expect much from the sister of a traitor.”

  “She’s brought a curse down upon us. No doubt. That’s probably why all the trouble in the village started—”

  Beatrice turned on one heel before the guards could emerge at the top of the stairs. If she saw their smug faces she’d probably have them killed, which would hardly improve her reputation. She stomped all the way across the parapet to the other staircase. The veil covering her hair blew off her shoulders to billow out behind her. Sweat beaded on her upper lip. Winded and dizzy, she descended into the dimness of the stairway.

  Petronilla fluttered after her. “My lady, wait. You’ll trip.”

  Beatrice sucked in a deep breath and waited, her hands clenched at her sides until her eyes adjusted. The moment they did, she set off again down the stairs, all her ladies in a tizzy behind her. Petronilla caught up and paced her on the stairway, tentatively reaching out a hand. “My lady?”

  “I’m fine.” The gossip was true, of course, all of it. Well, except the bit about poisoning the queen. But Beatrice had been naïve enough to think her marriage could wipe the stains on her character away, remake her into a respectable baroness, wife, and mother.

  She shoved the door to her chambers open, and a small bell-like laugh exploded, wiping all her unhappy thoughts away. Her baby son smiled at her, cooing and gurgling, trying to push up on his arms, staring at her with wide blue eyes from his blanket on the floor. No one had loved her so simply, so unconditionally, since her own father had died. Her baby, her precious Little Stephen, was all that mattered—securing his future, his safety. Beatrice smiled at him but turned away almost at once.

  Because of the things she’d done, whispers might follow her son forever. Bad blood. Whoreson. No matter what she did going forward, it seemed impossible she would ever live down the wanton impropriety of her youth. She didn’t mind suffering the social consequences of her misadventures, but it appalled her that her innocent baby might have to.

  She was safe enough now, her husband and his connections a bulwark against any legal reprisals that might arise. But if Stephen should die before their son was of age…the rumors, the spiteful gossip could be used against Beatrice, could be used to take everything away from herself and her son. After all, how could an unnatural whore like her possibly raise a decent child, possibly run a profitable estate? They could take the estate. Maybe take her son away to be raised by more respectable strangers.

  Beatrice hugged her arms tight against her chest, feeling chilled despite the sunlight pouring through her window.

  Her ladies finally made their way into the room, chattering among themselves before settling down either to play with the baby or to sew him more clothes. In only a few months it seemed the whole world had pivoted to revolve around her black-haired darling.

  She shook her head and settled in at her desk, digging through her correspondence. Nothing to be done now. Immediate financial ruin loomed as the more pressing concern anyway. Stephen was alive and well, and no social harm could come to her or her son while her husband lived. She felt stronger today, after all, so she should take advantage of it to work. Perhaps work would take her mind off spiteful gossip as well. She sent one of her ladies to fetch the steward, and he arrived in her chambers almost at once.

  The steward bowed. “Baroness?”

  “What was it you tried to talk to my husband about this morning? The issue with the village midwife? Is Mad Mary causing trouble?”

  The steward’s lips pinched, and he made a small negative gesture with his hands. “It is nothing to concern yourself with, my lady. Mad Mary is probably overreacting.”

  Beatrice knew the midwife. She was eccentric, but not prone to hysterics. “But I am concerning myself. If it is such a small matter it hardly merits the attention of my husband or yourself. You work so hard, I know. Perhaps I can take some of the burden up.” She flashed her teeth at him and he blinked, momentarily dazzled. Her beauty was still good for some things. “You’ll bring Mad Mary to me so she can tell me the matter herself?”

  “Of…of course, my lady.” He made another small bow, then hurried away.

  Beatrice idly twirled the quill in her hand, wondering what the village’s peculiar midwife had gotten herself into this time. Beatrice forced her attention onto her correspondence while she waited for the midwife to arrive. Bills, bills, bills. Does my husband ever do anything but spend money?

  A while later, a soft knock sounded at her door.

  “Enter,” she called.

  Pages were a common enough sight in the women’s quarters, but this one was uncommonly nervous about his errand, shifting on his feet and twisting his chapped red hands round each other. “My lady, Mad Mary is here for her audience.”

  Beatrice started to speak, then hesitated and studied the boy. The castle pages were practically professional gossips. Useful gossip could be as good as coin to a
smart lad who knew how to trade with it. “Do you know what the midwife wishes to speak to me about? Is there any rumor bubbling up from the village?”

  “I’ve heard tell…that is…she—she says the Fair Ones have come out of their hill.”

  Her ladies gasped.

  Beatrice raised an eyebrow, but the boy just swallowed and continued, two red splotches standing out strong on his cheeks, “Mad Mary was at the castle gates this morning. I saw her myself. She was screaming that the fairies tried to take a baby last night.”

  “Don’t say that word, fool.” One of the nursemaids snapped out the baby blanket she'd been folding and glared at the poor page. “Or you’ll draw their attention here.”

  “We call them the Good Neighbors or the Fair Folk, lad,” Petronilla said, more gently than the nursemaid had.

  Country ways. Beatrice had grown up at court, among the nobility, in the bustle of the king’s capitol. She’d never had such close contact with the fey folk and other uncanny occurrences that came with living so close to the woods and wild lands. The closest she’d come had been the king’s pet werewolf, and no one had known he was more than a simple wolf at the time.

  Beatrice didn’t know if she even believed the tales in the village of Fair Folk, and yet she had still hung an iron horseshoe above the entrance to her rooms where she and the baby slept. “‘You said they tried to take a baby?”

  “Yes, Baroness.”

  “What happened?”

  “Mad Mary stopped them.” He shrugged. “That’s what she does.”

  ***

  Mad Mary was a weathered old crone, hunchbacked, with a long hank of iron-gray hair. Her face was a mass of wrinkles with a color like sun-baked clay. Her eyes were so deep-set Beatrice could not even see them.