Isle of Winds (The Changeling Series Book 1) (12 page)

“You presume to dismiss me?” Strife hissed, but Irene cut him off.

“I am the custodian of Erlking, and yes, you are dismissed. I revoke my hospitality to you. Do not enter Erlking’s grounds again.”

Silence reigned in the room. Finally, there came the sound of footsteps and a door opening and closing. Robin looked to Woad.

“What the hell was that all about?” he whispered.

Woad made a face. “Who knows? Come on, if we’re quick, we can get to the doors before Strife, make sure he leaves like he’s supposed to.” He set off through the darkness, leaving Robin to follow him once more, too slow to argue.

They reached the front door at a run, almost tripping over one another as they were flung open and the tall and willowy figure of Mr Strife appeared, stalking down the steps. There was a horrible, terrifying moment when everything seemed to freeze. Robin and Woad, caught in the light spilling from the entrance hall, stared up at the silhouetted figure, just as Strife himself stopped mid-stride, looking down in surprise at the two boys.

“Well,” he said icily after a moment, his eyes boring into Robin. “Here we have the man of the moment.” A smile appeared on his face, like a slit in old parchment. It reached nowhere near his eyes. “How … very … interesting.”

He descended the last few steps, his pointed black shoes crunching lightly on the gravel, the tails of his frock-coat floating out behind him. He looked remarkably like his brother, Moros. But where he had had orange hair, Strife’s was a vivid green.

“We have not had the pleasure of being introduced, young fae,” he said. His eyes flicked for a second to Woad. “And look here, you have a pet. How nice.”

“My Aunt told you to leave,” Robin said defiantly.

Strife took a step towards the two boys. “Yes, she did,” he acknowledged with a courtly nod. “And I must. Rules are rules, after all.” He smoothed the front of his waistcoat. “But we shall meet again, young one. Of that, have no doubt. You cannot stay in Erlking forever.” He looked at Robin, and the boy could not help but notice that his eyes looked like those of a shark. Dead and black and predatory. “It will be most … interesting to find you, out in the world.” Small sharp teeth appeared between the thin lips. “Yes, that will be a most educative day for both of us.”

Robin refused to back up a step, though his skin felt like crawling away. “Maybe you should try looking for your brother instead,” he said sarcastically, trying to sound braver than he felt. “I hear you’ve lost him. Shame, really. You make such a handsome couple.”

Strife’s smile widened into a humourless grin. “You are not one to be lecturing me about family, young faechild. Look to your own relations first.”

Robin felt his face grow hot. “My parents are dead because of your stupid war!” Woad grabbed his shoulder. He had not noticed that he had taken an angry step towards Strife, who had not backed away.

Strife’s eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t talking about your parents, child,” he hissed.

“Oi! Get out of it, you!” a voice suddenly bellowed, making Robin jump. Mr Drover had come around the corner of the house, trailing both Henry and Phorbas behind him. He looked furiously at the looming Mr Strife. “You ain’t welcome here! You get off before I throw you off.”

Strife curled a lip at the hurrying man in total disregard. He glanced once more at Robin.

“Good day to you, young master,” he said, bowing slightly. “When you come to my Lady’s court, you will find more hospitality than I have found here.”

He turned and strode off down the gravel path, Mr Drover and Phorbas following after him.

Henry joined Robin and Woad at the steps, the three of them watched as Mr Strife made his way towards the gates.

“What happened?” Henry asked, wide-eyed. “You just upped and disappeared, and then Hestia comes out to get dad, saying there’s some man come to see your aunt who shouldn’t have, and that she told him to go away and he didn’t, and no one knew where you were and … bloody hell is that a faun?” Henry blinked, having just noticed Woad.

Robin, who stared after Mr Strife until he was out of sight, looked back at Henry at last. “What? Oh. Yes.” He flicked a thumb at Woad distractedly, still mulling over his confrontation. “Henry, this is Woad. Woad, this is Henry.”

Henry nodded in approval. Robin was always faintly amazed how unsurprised the boy seemed by all things otherworldly.

“Good to meet you,” He said. “Nice tail. I’m Robin’s friend, Henry.”

Woad eyed this newcomer suspiciously for a second or two, his tail swishing back and forth for effect. Then he said, quite challengingly, “I can hold my breath for eleven minutes. I bet that’s longer than you.”

Chapter Thirteen –
The Lady of Dannae

Woad stayed at Erlking after that night.

It was all very strange how things happened. Hestia jostled the boys inside as usual. She had given Woad a horrified double-take, and then tried to shoo him away like a stray dog, casting about the hall for her broom.

Before anything dreadful could happen, Aunt Irene appeared in the hallway, looking rather harassed and peering at them all archly.

“What is the commotion?” she asked quietly and crisply. “Is the house on fire? I cannot imagine what else would cause such a furore when I am trying to have two different conversations at once.”

“A faun!” Hestia cried, near hysterical. “A faun on my steps, my lady! As blue as an arctic fish and as bold as brass! I shall expel it at once!”

Irene waved her into silence and peered at the three figures standing in the doorway.

“Is this your faun?” she asked Robin simply.

Robin stuttered in confusion. “Mine? No … he … I mean, we…”

“It is a rogue faun!” Hestia shrilled, her thin hands fluttering about her apron. “Come to stick the windows and loosen the floorboards! My poor heart! It will take the leading from the windowpanes and hide the soap!” She waved a furious finger at Woad. “I will not have soap hidden in this house!”

“Is it a strange faun?” Irene asked Robin calmly, ignoring the housemaid’s histrionics. “In so far as there has ever been a faun that was not.”

“He’s not a stranger, exactly…” Robin floundered. “He’s called Woad. We’ve … met … before.”

Irene nodded as though not remotely surprised by this. “So he is your faun after all then,” she said. “Very well, upstairs all of you. I want to speak with your father, Henry, and your tutor, Robin, and I cannot do that with any degree of concentration with a hissing faun and a shrieking housekeeper rattling around the foyer.”

All the blood drained out of Hestia’s face and she began shaking slightly with mute indignation.

Henry grinned in triumph and clapped Woad on his back, ushering him over the threshold. “Fantastic!” he said, “Welcome to Erlking, little ‘un.”

The three boys went to Robin’s room. Woad, who had apparently lost all interest in the events of the evening, was rifling nosily and unashamedly through Robin’s sock drawer with all the curiosity of an archaeologist.

“You can stay if you want, I think,” Robin told Woad. “Unless you’ve got somewhere to be. Where’ve you been staying anyway?”

“Under a bush in the woods,” Woad replied, sniffing cautiously at a can of coke.

“A bush?!”

“It’s a very good bush!”

Woad looked at the window. The wind was howling around outside. There was frost forming on the glass. “Although … I suppose I can keep a better eye on you if I do stay here.”

“Why though? Who told you to?”

“You’d have to ask
her
that,” Woad said.

“Ask who?” Robin pressed.

“You’d have to ask her that too.” He seemed to reach a decision. “I will stay. For your own sake…”

Robin couldn’t help but grin. “Well if you’re sure. I know you might miss your nice bush out in the forest.”

Woad made a put-upon face, jutting his small chin out bravely. “I’ll make the best of it here.”

Woad declined to use the bottom end of Robin’s bed and instead elected to curl up on the windowsill, tucking his blue tail around him. Before Robin was into his pyjamas, the faun was already fast asleep snoring like a chainsaw.

* * *

Aunt Irene had left Erlking by the following day. She did not, in fact, return for the entirety of the week, during which the weather turned colder still and the sky over the hills filled with snow that refused to fall. Robin asked where his aunt had gone, but Phorbas, far too intent on giving Robin ever more reading and homework, didn’t seem too interested.

Aunt Irene returned at Saturday lunchtime, and much to Robin’s delight and Hestia’s exasperation, did not immediately expel the faun from Erlking.

Robin was called to her study that evening. Hestia stood beside his aunt with her arms folded and a look of determination on her face. Woad tagged along and both of them filed quietly into the study.

“Robin,” Irene began. “I must thank you for your patience in my absence. There were matters I needed to attend. Hestia informs me that your faun has been staying with us since Halloween.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Robin replied, with a glance at the tight-lipped maid. “He’s not ‘my’ faun though. He’s his own faun.”

“I have also heard reports that he has been making quite an impression here,” said Irene. “Hestia has memorised a rather impressively list of infractions.”

Robin opened his mouth to protest but Hestia jumped in first. “I have not had one wink of sleep! I have so much to do in this house. And now I turn around and always there is the little blue animal trailing footprints through the hallways, hiding my dusters, shouting at the soufflés!” She took a deep, shuddery breath. “It is out of control. It brings disorder and chaos wherever—”

“Enough, Hestia,” Irene raised a hand to silence the trembling woman.

“Soufflés are a cursed food,” Woad muttered quietly. “They cause insanity and lycanthropy.”

“He’s not that bad!” Robin argued. “He is noisy, okay, and I suppose he gets underfoot, but he’s just got a lot of energy, that’s all.”

Woad grinned white teeth at Irene innocently.

“You must keep your faun under better control if he is to stay here, Robin,” Irene said sternly. “I will have peace in this house. It is not in my nature to go running after boys, blue or pink, and I cannot abide a swishing tail at the breakfast table. It is not considered decorous.”

Robin’s hopes rose. “So, he
can
stay?”

“Stay?!” Hestia shrieked.

Irene glanced at her, then back to Robin. She laced her long fingers in her lap. “I do not know why you have befriended this creature, my nephew. And I have many questions as to what it is doing here, and why it has been watching you.” She peered momentarily at Woad. “I could, of course, ask you, but I am not your gaoler, Robin. Erlking is yours now as much as it has ever been mine and your associations are your own.” Robin opened his mouth to speak but she silenced him with a gesture. “I would not expect you to question me on my comings and goings, and so to you I extend that same courtesy … within the boundaries of reason. The faun may stay. I shall arrange rooms for it.”

Hestia made a choking noise. “Madam, I must protest! The creature is a thief!”

Irene peered at the housekeeper. “That is a very serious accusation, Hestia,” she said mildly.

“Woad hasn’t stolen anything!” Robin protested angrily.

“He has been in my larder!” Hestia shook an accusing finger. “I had a whole winter’s supply of Mobotom mushrooms and nearly half have gone! Little by little! He is stealing them from under my nose!”

“You are mistaken, Hestia,” Irene said. “Fauns only eat meat.”

“This one…” Hestia insisted with narrowed eyes, “… is greedy!”

Irene looked to Woad, who said nothing.

“I shall not place any accusations at the faun’s feet,” Irene decided. “But Hestia, I shall arrange for Mr Drover to place a lock on your larder door. That way, only you will have access to the foodstuffs. This, I hope, will not hamper you in your midnight snacks with the estimable Mr Phorbas.” A tiny smile flickered at the corner of the old woman’s lips as the housekeeper flustered, turning crimson.

* * *

The house was busy almost every day from then on. After one of Robin’s extremely boring mana-management lessons, Henry announced that he and his father would be moving up to Erlking until the New Year.

Irene also spent more time there as November wore on. She seemed busier than ever and spent most evenings locked away in her study with only the scratching of her pen and the tick of the clock for company.

Woad did his level best to balance out this serenity, however. Though Robin explained that a little more restraint was required inside the house, Woad seemed to interpret this as moderating his sprint through the corridors to a fast trot, now just barely making the vases wobble on their plinths.

To Robin’s relief, within a few weeks the faun had finally been convinced to use the inside toilets instead of escaping outside whenever nature called, although he burst into hysterical laughter when Robin patiently explained how the loo worked. Indeed he spent the remainder of that particular day flushing toilets on every floor until Hestia caught up with him and chased him outside with a broom.

Aside from this, Robin’s studies with his tutor carried on as normal during the ever-shortening days. His progress in practical casting was coming along well. He had got the basics of Whitewind now, a healing cantrip, but he was still rubbish at offensive magic. Friday’s mana-management were also troublesome. In an effort to stop Robin nodding off, Phorbas tried to liven up these sessions by bringing artefacts from the Netherworlde, a kind of supernatural show-and-tell. Each week there was something new and bizarre to see. A potted version of snapping foxgloves, which Robin learned grew best on a diet of chicken eggs, and a large glass jar of what looked like very old pickles, until Phorbas laughingly explained that they were Gorgon’s eyes in bile. One Friday, Phorbas brought a carved pipe, which his tutor grimly explained was carved from fae-horn. It was important, Phorbas explained, that Robin have no illusions as to how his people were now regarded in the Netherworlde.

As November wore on, the last autumn leaves fled from the grounds. Mr Strife made no further appearances and there were no strange howls at night. It seemed that when Aunt Irene had told the cadaverous man to stay away, her word had been law. Robin began, against all odds, to relax.

* * *

“Your aunt would like to see you, boy,” Hestia announced one evening, bursting into Robin’s room without knocking. Henry had mutteringly suggested that she did this in her endless quest to find them doing something wrong. Instead, Henry and Robin were lying on their stomachs playing draughts, while Woad rummaged through Robin’s sock drawer, trying on every pair methodically before casting them aside.

“What does Aunt Irene want me for?” Robin asked, puzzled.

Hestia’s eyebrows swooped up haughtily. “‘What does she want’, he asks! Does the child think Hestia hasn’t enough work without being a secretary as well?”

“It can’t be anything bad,” Henry said, noticing Robin’s worried expression. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve done anything wrong since…” He sighed wistfully. “Well, since forever.”

Robin found his aunt in the red sitting room. “Come in, boy, and close the door. This house is full of draughts. It makes the old wood warp and does my bones no favours either.”

“You need not be concerned, Robin” she said, noticing his expression. “You have done nothing wrong.” She paused, thoughtfully. “Or at least nothing that has yet reached my ears.”

Robin smiled with relief.

“I am, as you know, unaccustomed to many traditions of the human world,” Irene continued. “However, I have been doing some reading and Mr Drover has also informed me that during the following month, it is Christmas, and that usually … presents are involved.”

Robin now gave his aunt his full attention.

Irene reached over to the desk and picked something up. “In view of this…” She held out a gift. “You may open it tonight.” She seemed to falter for a moment, as though trying to remember something. “Ah yes … and, well, greetings of the season.”

Robin looked up at her. “I can open it now? Really?” There were still four weeks to Christmas.

Irene nodded. “I see no reason why not. There will doubtless be other gifts on the day itself, but this…” She tapped the package with a fingertip, “… This is something I feel you might find enlightening now.” She smiled briefly. “Open it in your room. One-oh-seven,” she added cryptically.

Robin frowned, but she shooed him out of the room, turning her attention back to her desk.

Later, alone in his room, he threw himself onto his bed, package in hand. Tearing off the wrapping, he found a large, ancient-looking book, bound in cracked brown leather and covered in traceries of gold. Robin’s face fell. A book … More homework?

The embossed lettering declared the haughty old work as:

‘A CONCISE AND INCOMPLETE GENEOLOGY OF THE HOUSES OF THE FAE’

BY DAMSON, HAWTHORN AND THISTLEDOWN

Etched on the frontispiece was a large, multi-branched tree. Its boughs swaying silently in some unfelt breeze.

Robin flipped through the pages at random. The old, mottled parchment felt stiff and waxy between his fingers. Each page was filled with tiny handwriting, squeezed in around the pictures. Some of the sketches were nothing more than faint pencil lines. Others were inked, coloured with dark pigments.

He flicked back and forth through the many pages, reading the titles.

House of Coltsfoot: including Baron Coltsfoot and the Battle of Briar Hill.

House of Buckthorn: with ref. to Lady Buckthorn’s silver mirror.