The Duke of Oxford’s events were the highlight of the season, and this year’s Midsummer’s Ball was no exception. For one night, the low earthworks that were all that remained of Uffington Castle were transformed into a fairy-tale marvel of gypsy caravans, Arabian pavilions and enchanted forests. A giant beanstalk of brass and paper rose in the centre of the castle, bearing multicoloured lanterns in its branches. Beneath it was a silken canopy, under which a raised dance floor had been set. A hidden orchestra played a selection of waltzes as the lords and ladies in attendance twirled across the floor. Perfectly groomed young men slid gracefully through the throng, always ready with a tray of the finest champagne, or delicious morsels cooked by the finest chefs outside of London.
It was magical, but I’d seen behind the curtain. I’d been there when the scores of sweating men dragged the beanstalk up the hill. I heard the curses as it swayed, the arguments and hammering as the dance floor was set up, the muttered prayers that the rain would stay away, at least until the canopy was in place. Like all things in life, magic could only be bought with sweat and blood.
I, along with the other members of Gideon Darke’s Cavalcade of Curiosities, had been engaged for the evening to provide the entertainment at the edges of the ball. We were there to amuse those who had not the inclination for dancing, or those who wished their diversions with a sharper edge.
For Oxford’s events were legendary, not for their opulence, though no expense was spared, but for the way they rode the line between what was, and what wasn’t proper. And if they sometimes crossed that line, well, there were benefits to being exceptionally wealthy and second in line to the throne of England.
Our camp was set up at the edge of the earthworks, as far away from the centre as could be while still being within the walls. I wandered the edges of the camp, and the fringes of the ball proper along with my fellow freaks, jugglers, stilt-walkers, acrobats and clowns. Those curiosities who couldn’t walk, or were of a more exotic nature, stayed safe in their tents, while their barkers lured in the punters.
Food and drink flowed freely, though not the dainty fair offered on silver platters closer to the centre. Here you could get whiskey, beer, absinthe, and other, stranger and stronger intoxicants. (If you knew the smell, your nose could easily lead you to the hashish and opium tents.) The food looked like rough peasant fare, whole roast chickens, bread torn in chunks from the loaf and served on tin, sausages and haunches of venison, turned on the spit. But make no mistake; this was no more peasant food than the guests who wandered around were peasants. I was looking forward to gorging on the leavings when all the fine folk had gone home.
I had my cards, tied up in silk. I had my basket, full of sprigs of “lucky” clover, picked that morning in the fields at the bottom of the Ridgeway. I wore heavy brass rings in my ears, with more clanking on my wrists. My eyes were kohled, and my skirts trimmed with coins that clinked as I walked. And I wore my shawl low, displaying the tops of my breasts and the black text of my mark.
I approached a group, like I had many times that evening. They were the usual mix of young ladies in white muslin, some newly out for the season and no more than fifteen, and young men in an assortment of uniforms. I readied my patter.
“Lucky clover, ladies and gentlemen? Or perhaps a glimpse of what the future holds?”
One of the girls gasped, and clutched for her friend’s hand.
“Her mark,” she whispered.
A young man stepped closer to peer at my chest.
“Elfshot,” he read. “Is it real?”
“Of course, milord,” I replied. “What else would you expect for the mark of a seventh child of a seventh child? A month after I was born I vanished from my cradle, only to be found, calm and at peace, asleep in the centre of a fairy ring.”
“Are you meaning to tell me you’re some sort of changeling?” he scoffed.
I looked steadily at him, then shifted my eyes slightly down to his chest. Along with many others that night, he had chosen to display the latest, most daring fashion. On his chest, in graceful, curling script, was the words “Honour”.
It took no second sight to know that, unlike my own mark, his would come off with the application of soap and water.
The honourable gentleman sniffed in disgust at me, and the group moved on. But before they passed from earshot I clearly heard the first girl tell another:
“How thrilling this is, meeting these common criminals!”
“But dearest,” her friend trilled. “These are the uncommon ones!”
I’d heard variations on those words ever since the magistrate had handed down judgement for the pocket I’d been caught picking on the Prom. I was lucky, the Machine prediction had given me a whole new life as a fortune-teller with Gideon Darke’s freaks. I just wished the court tattooist hadn’t been so drunk when he needled my fate into my skin in clumsy letters.
I worked the crowd, a fortune told here, a sprig of clover there. To amuse myself I’d look at the guests with painted marks on their chests and decide their true fates.
I read a future of wealth and auspicious marriage for a lady of an age perilously close to old maid. She wore “Love” on her collarbones. (“Laudanum” thought I.)
A young military officer, showing off in his uniform and wearing “Gloriously in battle” looked straight through me. (“Pox”, I decided.) His companion, a simpering chit of a thing, wore white lace and “Broken Heart”. (“Consumption”)
The sun was setting, and long shadows lay across the fields below the castle, when the Master found me.
“Oxford has asked to meet you,” he told me. “He’s curious about your mark, and wants it tested.”
I sighed.
“I hope he’s paying well for the privilege.”
“Oh, he is, m’girl,” said Gideon. “And you’ll get your share. Just don’t get his back up.”
His Royal Highness, the Duke of Oxford and another man were drinking in the tent where, until a few moments ago, dancing girls had been contorting with veils in front of a lustful audience. In the centre of the tent a table had been set, with the Machine resting on it. It looked out of place there, amidst the fine surroundings, worn and battered amidst the luxury.
Gideon introduced me:
“Your Royal Highness, your Grace, may I present Myfanwy, Oracle, seventh child of a seventh child and marked as Elfshot.”
I swept as graceful a curtsey as my heavy skirts would allow.
“Thank you, Darke,” said Oxford. “You may go.”
The master bowed, and left. I stood there, feeling suddenly nervous. Both men stared at me with an intensity I found uncomfortable.
Oxford was young, slender and very handsome. His companion was older, big and solidly built.
“How much of all that is true?” the other man asked.
“As much as is required, your Grace,” I said.
He stood and walked around me, studying me. I felt small and fragile.
“What’s your real name, girl?” he said.
He looked closely at my face.
“It really is Myfanwy, your Grace.”
He reached out to take my hand, turning it over, looking at the palm, tracing the lines of scars on my fingertips.
“Welsh eh?”
“Yes, sir, from Aberystwyth”.
His breath smelled of whiskey.
“And are you really the seventh child of a seventh child?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“Foundling, eh?”
He touched my hair, rolling the strands between his fingers.
I nodded.
“Well, one thing’s for sure, you’re no changeling. No such thing as fairies, right?”
He stood in front of me, staring.
“No, sir.”
He touched my mark, running his fingers over it. I held my breath.
“After all, it’s the age of rationality now, isn’t it? Science reveals all mysteries in the end, does it not?”
I nodded again, not trusting myself to speak. I clutched the handle of my basket, knuckles going white. Not again, I thought, please, not again. Not even for all the money Gideon was promised.
“Oh, do stop tormenting the girl, Monmouth,” said the Duke of Oxford. “I don’t care if she’s a changeling, or a dancing girl from Xanadu. I just want to see her take the test, and verify that mark.”
“Yes, your Highness,” said Monmouth, and he sat.
I took a breath, the first one in what felt like hours.
“Mr Darke, you may come in,” Oxford called. “And you, young lady, you may sit.”
I sat as properly as I could on a cushioned bench while a good dozen of the Cavalcade workers were put to the test with Gideon’s Machine. The Master held his tongue at this mistrust, but I could see his annoyance in the set of his shoulders. He’d obviously been very well paid indeed.
Finally, it was my turn. But I wasn’t allowed near the Machine, instead a drop of blood was taken from my inner elbow by hypodermic needle and squirted into the machine where my finger would have gone. This came as somewhat of a relief, as the blade in the Machine that drew blood was old and blunt, and hurt more and more each time.
Monmouth took the piece of card from the dispensing slot and handed to the Duke without comment. He took a quick look at it, and set it to the side.
“So,” he said. “It appears that at least your mark is true.”
I held my tongue.
“You may read the cards for me,” he said. “Monmouth, you and Darke may leave.”
I felt my eyes widen in surprise. Monmouth paused, as if to protest, then shrugged his shoulders and left. The Master followed suit, but not before picking up the dead weight of the Machine to carry with him.
“Do what you need to prepare for the reading,” Oxford commanded.
I set a chair opposite the Duke, with the small table that had recently held the Machine between us. I untied the silk cloth from around my cards and laid it on the table, placing the cards in a neat pile, face down, in the middle of the silk.
“Are you ready, your Highness? Are you ready to pierce the veil of the future and see what is to come?” I asked.
He sighed.
“Please dispense with the theatrics. I have seen the greatest actors in the world, and, charming though you are, you cannot compare.”
I blushed, chastened.
“Yes, your Royal Highness. If it please your Highness, shuffle the cards in whatever manner you see fit, while thinking of the question you would see answered.”
He shuffled them desultorily, placed them on the silk. I took them up in my hands and turned the first over.
“The first card,” I said, “shows the past. How things were.”
It was the Fool, jauntily walking, head in the clouds, oblivious to the fact that he was about to step off a cliff.
“The Fool, representing cleverness without reason, the inner child, the dreamer and the seeker of beauty. In the past, you have been searching and dreaming, walking a precipice and not falling, poised between one world and the next.
“The second card shows the present, how things are.”
I turned it over. The Fool. That wasn’t right. There was only one Fool in the deck, and this was my deck, not a trick one.
I turned the third card over without words. Again, the Fool. My hand twitched, and I dropped the whole deck, spilling the cards on the table and the floor. All the faces were the same, all the Fool.
I looked at the Duke. He watched me closely, like a cat watches a mouse.
“What have you done to my cards?” My voice shook.
“You may address me as ‘your Highness’,” he replied. His voice held an edge, a warning.
I stifled the urge to laugh like a crazy woman. This was the Duke of Oxford, second son of the Queen of England, not some street corner conjurer or card sharp.
A man who could have me locked up in Oxford Castle before I could blink with no other reason than his whim.
“I beg your pardon, your Highness,” I said, forcing myself to at least act calmly. “But, my cards...”
I trailed off, looking down at them, so many spilled Fools.
“I don’t see anything wrong with them,” Oxford replied calmly.
I looked again, and a wave of tears welled from my eyes. I blinked frantically to clear them, and when my sight returned, the cards lying scattered all had their original faces.
I slipped from my seat, bending down in a low curtsey and holding it.
“Your Royal Highness, I do most humbly beg your forgiveness. I don’t know what came over me, and I am truly sorry.”
“Oh, do get up,” he replied magnanimously.
“Sit back down and have a drink,” he ordered. He drained the whiskey in his glass, and refilled it from the bottle by his elbow, handing the glass to me.
I sat as commanded, and, after a moment’s hesitation, I drank. It burned like fire and tasted of ash. I tried not to make a face, but failed.
“No, definitely not a changeling,” said the Duke to himself.
“It is whiskey from my family’s cellar, aged one hundred and fifty years,” he continued “Those few who have been lucky enough to taste it find it intriguing, but your palate is obviously woefully uneducated.”
He was watching me intently, not blinking. I felt paralysed, hypnotised by his gaze.
“It is called Elfshot,” he said.
I dropped the glass. I wave of heat swept over me and I gasped. I pushed the table over to the side as I staggered to my feet and backed away from him.
“What have you done?” I whispered.
“An experiment,” he replied.
My vision swam again, and I picked up my skirts and fled the tent. Straight into Monmouth’s arms.
He picked me up like a child, hand clasped over my mouth before I could scream. Ignoring my struggles, he carried me away from the festivities, out past the earthworks and into the darkness beyond. Down the hill a few paces to where the ancient form of the White Horse was carved into the chalk of the Ridgeway. He dropped me on its head.
I couldn’t breathe. I tried crawling away from him, the chalk of the White Horse cold under my hands. I only got a few feet away before I voided the contents of my stomach. Not enough, I was sure, and too late. Had Oxford poisoned me? Surely he was not so cruel as to deliberately trigger someone’s mark?
“Why?” I croaked at Monmouth, who was still watching me.
He didn’t answer. The grass beneath me shook. The stars wheeled in crazy dances above me.
I collapsed back on the grass and waited to die. My breath slowed. My limbs grew cold.
So what if Oxford had poisoned me? Even if he wasn’t a crown prince by birth, by law no one could be tried for the death of someone who was marked, for their death was pre-ordained.
I could appreciate the irony, poisoned by a fancifully-named drink. My eyes closed. Time passed.
Monmouth nudged me with his foot, and my eyes snapped open.
“Not dead from that,” he rumbled. “Pity.”
He turned on his heel and walked up the hill, leaving me there.
He was right. I wasn’t dead. And if I wasn’t, there was one thing I was sure of. I was going to get as far away from here as I could.
I pushed myself to my feet and looked past the White Horse, out to the road. It was fully dark, but the moonlight was bright enough so that I could be confident of what I was seeing. The fields that I had seen only that afternoon were gone. A vast forest covered the land below, stretching as far as I could see. There was no glimmer of any light from any of the villages that I knew were there.
I turned and looked back to Uffington Castle. The change here was even more dramatic. What had earlier been earthworks were now high stone walls. A vast tower stood in the centre, and the place blazed with light.
I had a choice. To take my chances in the forest, with only the clothes on my back. Or to look for answers amid the gaiety above.
A wolf howl echoed from the woods below.
I turned and walked back up the hill, towards the impossible castle.
Vast wooden and brass bound gates stood open, and I walked through. Darke’s tents still stood, pitched inside the courtyard, and guests and entertainers still mingled. But this time, scattered here and there amid the young ladies and their companions were far stranger figures.
In the centre of a group of young blades stood a man in heavy armour, with wild eyes and a red cap dripping blood down his face. A beautiful, very respectable lady hung on her companion’s arm with swan’s wings instead of arms. A young woman lay on her back on a bench, while her companion thrust industriously between her legs. His hairy legs had cloven hoofs and his little goat’s tail wagged excitedly in time with their movement. A few paces away a group of grey-skinned, twisted figures with enormous mouths urged each other on as they devoured a whole, raw, carcass of a pig.
No matter how much I blinked, or shook my head, these visions stayed.
I wandered through the castle. Naked figures, no bigger than my hand, and glowing with their own internal light, flew drunken zig zags around the crowd. A man with stag’s antlers on his brow cursed and waved them away as one dove for his drink.
The dance floor was set up in front of the main door of the tower. On the floor, normal people danced a genteel waltz while spinning, whirling, alien figures danced between them, mocking. The beanstalk clung to the walls of the tower like a climbing rose. As well as leaves of brass, silver, gold and coloured silk, it bore large, glowing bean pods. Human figures could be seen pressing against the inside of the pods.
Sitting in state on a stage formed by several large beanstalk leaves was a figure who fairly reeked of power. His body was whipcord thin, his face angular cheekbones upswept and with a tilt to his eyes like a cat’s. And, like a cat’s, his eyes had no whites, with narrow slits for pupils. A golden crown swept his long hair up, and he wore flowing robes in iridescent white. In one hand he held a glass, the other rested on the handle of the sword that laid, naked-blade, on his lap.
Our eyes met, and we stared at each other for a long moment. With a start of recognition I realised, this was Oxford.
He raised his glass in a mocking toast to me, then turned to address the pair of ladies standing to his left.
His ears were pointed.
A word rose from the depths of my memories, from fairy tales whispered in the dark. Changeling.
But fairies didn’t exist!
I caught glimpse of the Master then, and I rushed over to him, heedless of the fact that he was deep in conversation with some guests.
“Mr Darke,” I said, breathless. “Please, may I speak with you a moment.”
He carried on his conversation, as if he had not heard me. I spoke louder, to no avail. I grew bolder, reached out and shook his shoulder.
He absently brushed it, as if to shoo away a fly.
“He can’t hear you,” spoke a female voice from behind me.
“You’re not in his world anymore,” said another.
I recognised the voices; they were the girls who had been so thrilled to rub shoulders with criminals. But when I turned to look at them, they were the ladies who had spoken with Oxford. This close to them, I could see that they were beautiful and inhuman, with all the sharpness and elegance of a rapier. And they were identical in looks, down to the last freckle.
“We’re lucky tonight, dearest,” said one.
“Yes, we are,” agreed the other.
“It’s not often we get a live human.”
They moved closer to me, one standing in each side. Once again I felt paralysed by their unblinking gaze.
“Shame she’s not so pretty,” said one.
“Oh now, be fair,” said the other. “I’ve heard she tells a good fortune.”
“Shame she didn’t see her own,” the first giggled.
I found my voice.
“What has happened to me?” I asked.
“Why, you’ve eaten some of our food,” one said, laying one slender hand on my arm.
“Or drank some of our drink,” said the other, mirroring the actions of her twin.
“Once you’ve done that, you can never leave,” they said together.
“Why?” I asked. I couldn’t think of anything else.
“That’s why,” said one, waving a languid hand at my mark.
“We couldn’t risk your fate coming true,” said the other.
“So you’ll just disappear, and be forgotten,” said the first.
“We wouldn’t want the humans finding out about us, would we dearest?”
“No, dearest, it would take all the fun out of it.”
“So, little human,” they said, wearing identical predatory smiles. “Welcome to Faerie.”
I wept then, distraught, and the fairy women licked the tears from my cheeks like they were nectar.
Sorcha McCall, 8th July 2011
(submitted, but not chosen for inclusion in the Machine of Death Volume 2)
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