The River's Gift

by Mercedes Lackey

  No, I won't!she wanted to scream, but she could only nod numbly.

  With her stomach in knots again, it was just as well that they didn't give her much time to eat. The maid brought porridge on a tray, and new milk. She managed to drink the milk and forced a few bites down her throat, then set the tray aside. Before she'd even gotten out of bed, two male servants hauled a huge tub into the first room and set it up before the fire. Right after the tub came a parade of maids with buckets of hot water, a mountain of towels, screens to set up around the tub to hide her from view of the door, soaps, perfumes, and scented oils.

  Once again she was treated like a giant doll; two maids stripped her to the skin and unbraided her hair. They assisted her into the tub and wouldn't even let her wash herself; they scrubbed every bit of her as if they suspected she'd never had a thorough bath before, rinsed her with more clean water, then washed her hair three times with three different concoctions, and rinsed it with rose-water. They rubbed her with scented oils, wrapped her in towels, and sat her down beside the fire while three of them combed her hair with ivory combs until it was dry.

  By now, the morning was completely gone. They brought her more food, which she pretended to eat while they cleared away the bath-things. As soon as the room was clear, they whisked the food away, then braided up her hair and wound it around her head and assisted her into a thin, clinging silk slip of a chemise.

  Now came the dressmakers, bearing the wedding finery, and she shrank inside herself when she saw it. But there was no hope for her; she was surrounded by maidservants and seamstresses, with Lady Katherine to oversee them all, and she didn't have a prayer of escaping from them.

  It was a sumptuous gown, but of an antique style, and she suspected it had been the Lyon wedding gown for several generations, carefully preserved and fitted to each new Lyon bride, setting the Lyon stamp on her before the vows were even spoken.

  Up onto a stool she went, and the fittings began. First the underdress, a fall of ivory samite with closely fitted sleeves, coming down to points on the backs of each hand, and laced tight about the body. It had a modest train and very little trim, just gold embroidery on the hems and at the neck. But it had to fit perfectly, without a wrinkle, and the seamstresses seemed determined that nothing less than perfection would do. Eventually, Lady Katherine gave a reluctant nod, and the undergown was deemed suitable.

  When they were finally satisfied with the underdress, it was time for the gown. This was a heavy silk damask of scarlet, with huge, trailing open sleeves lined and trimmed in ermine, a train longer than she was tall, embroidered all over with sitting lions in gold. This, too, must fit closely to the body, with never a wrinkle or a pucker. It was terribly heavy, and the weight of the train alone was enough to make her shoulders ache. The seamstresses kept fussing around her, taking tiny, invisible tucks and stitches, never satisfied even when she was unable to see anything amiss.

  When they finally stood away from her and their frowns turned to smiles, she sighed, thinking that they were done. But they weren't.

  Next to be fitted to her was a set of jewels; a heavy belt made of gold lions' heads with ruby eyes, a matching necklace, and matching armbands that clasped about her upper arms, just where the huge sleeves started to bell out. Then came a veil of the same ivory samite as the undergown, also embroidered with gold around the hem and held in place with a circlet of gold studded with tiny rubies. All these required more fussing and fitting until her head throbbed and her vision blurred.

  At long last, seamstresses, jewelers, and Lady Katherine all declared themselves satisfied. Once again Ariella was stripped to the skin, the wedding finery arrayed on stands until the morrow, and Ariella was allowed to put on a simple woolen gown and come down off the stool.

  But not to rest—no, now came a dozen pairs of silken hose to try on, then shoemakers, who took tracings of her feet and cut soles then and there, which they sewed to the embroidered tops of red damask slippers to match the gown. They had to make a total of a half dozen shoes and fit them to her feet before Lady Katherine judged two of the shoes suitable and permitted them to be placed with the gown.

  Lady Katherine left without having said a word directly to her all afternoon. Her captors allowed her to have a little rest; supper arrived, though all Ariella could really eat was the soup and some bread.

  She had hardly finished that when the maidservants returned carrying a vast array of cosmetic jars. They stripped her to the skin again, directed her to lie down on a rug in front of the fire, and went to work, rubbing creams and unguents into her skin, unbraiding her hair again and combing perfumes through it. With one maid for each hand and one for each foot, her nails were filed to perfect ovals and buffed until they achieved a pearllike gloss; every trace of a callus had been removed, and her skin was as soft as a rose-petal.

  All this would have been very pleasant if she hadn't felt exactly like a pagan sacrifice being prepared for the knife.

  While the maids worked, they chattered in high, breathy voices, like the twittering of little birds. Ariella would rather they'd been silent, for all they could talk about was the wedding celebration of the morrow and the feast still going on somewhere below.

  "There's a fountain of silver that will be pouring wine for everyone," sighed one. "I watched them setting it up—"

  "Well, I've seen the cages of bears for baiting, and you should have heard them roar!" The girl shivered pleasurably. "They are monstrously fierce, and they'll make a fine showing against the dogs!"

  "Pooh, who cares for such things when there will be dancing?" asked a third, industriously polishing the nails of Ariella's right hand. "I've heard the hired minstrels, and they are wonderful!"

  "Well, I've got a surprise for you all, for I was at the feast tonight, and there's a magician come! Lord Lyon agreed to let him work some splendid magics at the wedding ceremony itself!" crowed the one at Ariella's left hand in triumph.

  "What?" "A magician?" "But Lord Lyon doesn't care for magicians—" All the rest spoke at once, and the knowing one waved them to silence.

  "He will, I tell you, for I was there!" she declared. "He asked to be admitted to the feast and presented himself to Lord Lyon—and oh! I swear to you that I have never seen a handsomer man except the Lord himself! Hair as long as my arm and so black! Face like a pagan god, with such green eyes! Dressed all in black velvet he was, too; it was clear to see that he was not only a magician, but a man of noble birth." She sighed, and the others twittered to each other. "He made his compliments to the Lord, said he was from some outlandish foreign land, and begged that he might have the honor of performing magic for the wedding to make it the talk of the land. Lord Lyon was suspicious, but the fellow kissed a cross and held a sword, so he wasn't one of—them—so it was all right. Lord Lyon asked what he planned to do, and the man said that he would give the Lord a smaller entertainment right then!"

  "Well?" "Then what?"

  The maid laughed. "Oh, I wish you had seen it! First he made a fog rise up in the middle of the floor, then a tree grew up through the fog, all bare branches, but shining like gold. Then the branches suddenly burst out in emerald leaves and rosy flowers, then the flowers turned to scarlet fruit, then the fruit burst open to release a flock of birds all in yellow and red and green that flew up to the ceiling and disappeared! Then the leaves on the tree turned red and gold and fell to the floor, and the branches of the tree shot fountains of fire, and then the whole thing vanished into thin air!"

  Ariella thought with an aching heart of the beautiful visions that Merod had conjured, and wondered how anything so tawdry as the girl had described could compare to the glimpse she'd had of the Great Ones dancing. Some southern mountebank, likely, with cheap illusions that passed for real magic among those who had never seen the genuine article.

  The maids, however, were more than impressed with their fellow servant's description and voiced their envy while speculating on what the foreign magician might produce on the morrow.
One girl voted for a troop of knights on winged horses to escort the bride and groom, one for a forest of silver and gold trees with fiery birds singing wedding songs, and one for fountains of sparks and fire, and great fiery bursts of sky-illuminations, with an invisible band of musicians playing in accompaniment.

  When they had finished turning Ariella into a soft, primped, perfumed and polished creature she hardly recognized, they assisted her into a fine nightgown, gave her a hot, sweet posset to drink, and put her to bed. There must have been something akin to the Abbot's potion in the drink, for she fell asleep before they finished closing the curtains around her.

  The maids woke her at daybreak, singing as they brought the wedding dress to her. It might just as well have been a shroud, for she felt no joy in seeing it, only despair and a wild wish to rend it to pieces and escape.

  But there was no escape, and the maids encased her in the heavy, entrapping folds of the dress, then smothered her in the veil, with her hair loose and unbound beneath it. They weighed her down with chains and fetters in the form of jewelry and exclaimed how lovely she was. Then they led her down to meet her doom.

  At the foot of the stairs, Lord Lyon waited with a troop of his guards, all garbed for the occasion in splendid red surcoats over their mail like the one the Lord himself had worn the day he came for her. He, for once, was not in armor; he wore a scarlet damask robe that matched her gown, and he took her hand with a smile so feral and hungry that she shrank inside the heavy gown, feeling her heart contract to a hard, cold knot.

  He said nothing but simply led her along yet another torchlit hall to another door. This one led to a stone- paved courtyard filled with people in festive array, and a low platform on the opposite side held a portable altar and a man in the robes of a priest.

  But a handsome, striking man standing immediately before them was not in the bright peacock colors of the rest of the guests. Instead, he was clothed from head to foot in black velvet, even to boots and gloves of the same material. He bowed when Lord Lyon appeared, and stepped forward, holding out his hands.

  "For you, my Lord, to place your seal upon your bride," the man said in a melodious tenor as he placed a massive gold ring in the shape of a lion with ruby eyes in the Lord's hand. "Remembering that some things must be grasped and held against all odds."

  Lord Lyon exclaimed with pleasure, for the ring was of such fine workmanship that every hair in the lion's mane had been perfectly formed, and the rubies flashed with far more fire than the ones Ariella wore. But the beauty of the ring gave Ariella no pleasure, only a further sinking of her heart.

  But the man had turned to her, and had taken her free hand, placing something into it and clasping her fingers around it. "For you, Wild Swan," he said—and there was something about his voice, and something in his emerald- green eyes, that seemed strangely and tantalizingly familiar. "Remembering that some things are meant to be shared."

  He dropped her hand; whatever he had put in it was round, cold and hard—but it didn't feel like a ring. She relaxed her fingers a little, just as he stepped back and raised his hands—

  She hadn't felt any real interest in the gift, but his sharp glance at her hand drew her own gaze to what she held. It was a rainbow-filled sphere as transparent as crystal, as fragile as a bubble, and cool and smooth as a sphere of ice.

  "And now," he cried, before she could react, "I bring you magic!"

  The air exploded with colored lights, flashes of rainbow fire, and showers of sparks. Lord Lyon cried out involuntarily and threw up his arm to shield his eyes, dropping Ariella's hand.

  She stepped away, clenched her fingers tightly on the magician's gift, and felt it shatter in her grasp.

  A white-hot lance of fire pierced her from head to toe until she thought she saw her own bones shining through the skin, and yet there was no pain—only the fire filling her, spreading through her veins, along her nerves, penetrating every part of her.

  The weight of veil and golden band dropped from her head, and she stretched her chin upward—craned her neck up—

  —and up, and up—

  Her arms pulled in at her sides and grew shorter; her fingers stretched out longer and longer, fanning wide as they lengthened, skin weaving a web between them. The gown vanished, the undergown shredded, tore, became threads of gossamer flowing over her elongated fingers— —became white feathers, clothing her powerful wings. She was light! Lighter than a thistledown, light enough to—

  :Fly, Wild Swan!: called a voice in her head.:Fly! Fly for your freedom, fly and follow me!:

  Without thinking or wondering how, she launched herself into a sky still filled with showers of sparks and sheets of heatless flame. With powerful beats of her wings, she drove herself upwards, as beside her a swan as black as the deepest velvet matched her wingbeat for wingbeat. She was a swan, a huge swan whiter than snow, flying with strength she did not know she had.

  In a moment, they were at the height of the towers. In two, they circled high above the castle roof. In three, they banked together off into the west. The figures of the wedding party below were as small as the painted people in an illumination, and one tiny scarlet-clad manikin gestured wildly and impotently in their direction.

  But it was too late, for already they were beyond the reach of human or arrow. Perhaps, if someone had brought a goshawk out and set it after them, perhaps the powerful predatory bird would have caught one of them—but no one had, and in the fifth and sixth moments, they were gone, wings whistling in the chill air, speeding out of the sight of Lord Lyon and Lyon Castle forever.

  The wild joy Ariella felt at that moment was only eclipsed by her incredulity as she tried to form her thoughts into words she hoped that her companion would hear.

  :Merod?: she gasped, craning her head around on her long, graceful neck to look at him. He looked back at her, the mischief she remembered so well sparkling in his green eyes.

  :I wondered how long it would take you to recognize me.: He chuckled.

  :But—how? How did you know what happened? How did you find me? Why did you come for me?:

  :Follow,: was all he said, and she did, flying until even her powerful wings tired, and he led her down to land on the chill waters of a remote wilderness lake.

  He swam straight to the bank without stopping, and she followed in his wake. The moment their feet touched land, she felt a pang, a shiver ran through her, her vision blurred, and she found herself standing in shallow water, the remains of the samite undergown in rags about her.

  The black-velvet-clad man lifted her by the waist and deposited her on the bank, wrapping his black cloak about her to shield her from the cold.

  "You're—" she said, staring up into his green eyes, dumbfounded. "You're—not a riverhorse."

  He chuckled. "Three gifts, my love. I was only mortal long enough to venture into that cold castle and pass your captor's tests. One wish to change, one wish to escape. Now I—we—are swan-folk, less Faerie than Kelpies, but not exactly children of Adam, either. We are swans upon the water and in the air, man and woman on the land, thanks to the Great One's gift."

  "I thought you said you never had a reason to become a mortal—" was all she could say.

  "I never had anyone I cared to share the other wishes with, either—until now," was his reply, then he bent to kiss her mouth, and she melted into the kiss, and there was no reason to speak again for a very long time.

  "Where are we going?" she asked when there was breath and reason to speak.

  "Away," Merod replied and laughed. "Anywhere you like, beloved. We have all the world and the wings to take us there."

  "Anywhere you like," she told him as he released her from his embrace to lead her into the water again. And as the cold water crept past her knees, she felt that shiver of power pass through her, and she was swimming at his side.:Anywhere at all, so long as it is with you.:

  He arched up, wings flapping in triumph, as he trumpeted his pleasure. She echoed his triumph, and then they
rose together into the air, wings beating together in time with their hearts, seeking the setting sun.

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