The Black Swan

by Mercedes Lackey

  He held the ring at the top of the cage between his thumb and forefinger, and moved the cage until it was squarely in the path of the moonbeam. The tiny bird inside fluttered its wings in helpless alarm, but the moonlight fell squarely on it, and it could not evade what was coming.

  The moment the light touched it, the bird froze in place. It shivered violently, then the shivering increased, until for a moment it was a vibrating blur in the thin, blue light. It uttered a terrified chirp, and dropped to the floor of the cage, still vibrating in every feather.

  Then it wasn't a bird at all, but the mouse that the Silent One had brought her earlier that evening, a mouse that picked itself up from the bottom of the cage and squeaked with profound unhappiness.

  Odile looked up at her father, glowing with pride and expectation; she had mastered the transformation spell that enabled her father to control his captives, keeping them in the form of swans by day, and maidens only as long as the moon was in the sky. Granted, it was only a mouse—but it was a small step to go from mouse to maid, smaller by far than to master it in the first place.

  So she waited, holding her breath, hoping for a word, a sign, the least hint of praise.

  But von Rothbart stared woodenly at the tiny mouse, saying nothing at all—then turned his hard gaze back to his daughter. "Can you remove the magic?" he asked, as she had known he would.

  "Yes, Father," she affirmed, but her heart was beginning to sink although she gave no sign of her disappointment. He isn't impressed. I had been so certain he would be—I was wrong. I thought I had accomplished something important, but it must be that I have only done what I should have. The approval she craved more than food or drink would clearly not be forthcoming. Once again, she had failed to exceed her father's expectations— and he had made it abundantly clear that merely fulfilling them was not worthy of praise.

  "See that you are certain in the spell and its removal," he said gruffly, an odd glint in his eyes for a moment, a glint she did not understand, and was not entirely certain she really saw. "Magic is useless if it cannot be reversed or removed."

  With that, he put down the cage and waited. Stifling a gulp of disappointment, blinking eyes that stung for just a moment, she removed the magic, taking the sparkling motes of power back into herself as they drained from the mouse, until it was no more than an ordinary, if severely confused, house pest.

  Von Rothbart turned, his feather cape rustling softly, and left the room without another word.

  Odile watched her father's back, swallowing involuntary bitter tears of disappointment and rejection, feeling her head droop a little as her heart sank with dejection.

  Still, her fingers were steady as she reached for the cage to release the captive. She unlocked the catch, pulled on the door— and frowned. The door was stuck—but it had moved freely enough before.

  She moved the cage into the light, and examined it carefully; to her astonishment, the cage was now mildly deformed, making the door stick rather than moving freely on its hinges. There was only one way, one time, that could have happened—when her father had picked up the cage to examine its contents and then held it as the sparrow became the mouse. His powerful hands had, for some reason, contracted around the top and base of the cage, subtly deforming it.

  THE sky lightened from black to gray as dawn neared. All over the gardens, birds shook themselves awake, and a few tentative songs replaced the chorus of frogs and crickets. Von Rothbart was in his suite with the great door shut; if he was not already asleep, he soon would be.

  Odile, however, had one more duty to perform before she retired to her bed, and it was one she did not begrudge spending the time on.

  This morning the moon would set and the sun rise at nearly the same moment, and the setting of the moon marked the moment when the maidens would undergo their own transformation, As Odile paced down the steps of the manor, the maids cast wary glances at her, then abandoned their tasks, taking her appearance to mean that their evening was at an end. They rose from their seats, dropped the flowers they had been gathering, deserted their dances in mid-step, and drifted to the water's edge, gathering there on the soft grass in a rough group. Jeanette awakened the new one and, rising, took her by the hand to draw her to her feet and lead her to join the rest. Even Odette left her seat in the shadows of the marble pavilion and came to the water's edge on the island. Odile followed, but did not actually join the group, keeping a delicately calculated distance between herself and her father's captives.

  They all waited, in silence, as the moon touched the horizon, then descended.

  When the last sliver of pale disk slipped below the horizon, the maidens stiffened, then dropped to the ground in awkward curtsies, as if faint, their silken gowns puddling around them.

  A peculiar, opalescent mist rose about them, a mist that separated into pockets surrounding each girl, then closed in on them. Odile watched closely, eyes narrowed and forehead furrowed, drinking in each subtle nuance of her father's magic, searching for the refinements she had clearly not mastered.

  The mist shivered, the girls trembled, then the mist settled over them, obscuring their forms completely in shimmering whiteness for just a moment.

  Then the first rays of the sun touched and banished the pockets of mist—and the graceful heads of von Rothbart's flock of enchanted swans rose from their recumbent, feathered forms, dark eyes shining softly in the rosy dawn light.

  By ones and twos, they stretched out their necks, ruffled their feathers, and stepped into the water of the lake. Eight black swans swam amidst the white ones, dipping their heads in willing obeisance to the most beautiful and graceful of all as she glided toward the gathered flock from the shore of the island refuge, a swan wearing a tiny golden crown on a necklet resting on her snowy breast.

  Odette was as flawless and lovely as a swan as she was as a maiden, and Odile experienced a twinge of jealousy, and tried to banish it.

  If she had been as beautiful of heart as she is of face and figure, she would not be paddling in Father's pond wearing nothing but feathers. She allowed her control of her expression to slip just a little as she met the mournful gaze of the queen of the swans. Her lips twisted in a sardonic smile. You brought your fate upon yourself, no matter how much you would like to deny it, Odette. If you had paid half as much attention to the state of your soul as you did to your mirror, you would still sit at your father's side.

  But the swan turned her eyes away, and led her flock across the lake, taking them into the shelter of the reeds where they could not be seen. Odile wasn't worried; they couldn't escape, and in the form of swans, they couldn't work any harm on themselves. Her father's spells prevented them from flying off unless he led the flock, just as they prevented the maidens from leaving the grounds and gardens.

  But she paused at the edge of the water as the last of the swans vanished into the reeds. The surface of the lake, unruffled by bird or breeze, mirrored the pink-streaked clouds overhead. There were no mirrors in the manor; von Rothbart forbade them. She knelt on the bank and leaned over to look at her reflection, automatically putting her hand to her hair to smooth it from her brow.

  Her reflection looked back at her, solemn blue eyes above sharply defined cheekbones, skin pale as porcelain, hair of spun silver. She studied herself, critically. Not unattractive, but too thin and too odd for beauty. My hair is the wrong color, my eyes are too pale. No, I am no competition for any of the swans, and certainly not as beautiful as Odette. Surrounded by beauties as she was—even the four little swans were lovely, and getting more beautiful as time went on—she could not help contrasting her appearance with theirs.

  Even her father had made comments. "Take more care with your looks," he would say in irritation. "Peasants look more pleasing than my own daughter. My captives look like queens, and my daughter a drudge. "And yet, she was not supposed to take over-much care of her looks, either—for he would chide her for vanity if he thought she spent too long in the hands of the Silent Ones
. It was hard not to feel jealous of the so-perfect Odette, supernaturally lovely without effort.

  In a burst of impatience, she flicked her fingers in the water, destroying her reflection, and rose to her feet. Her duty was at an end for the night, and she could seek her own bed until the sun dropped below the horizon tonight. While she slept, the Silent Ones would see to it that the swans were fed, with bread and grain, with crisp greens and savory herbs.

  Odile walked slowly toward the steps as the early sun gilded the granite and gave it a spurious warmth. Birds caroled joyfully all around, the same birds that shivered in silence and fear when von Rothbart donned his feather cape and took to the sky as a great owl. Now the garden that had been a study in soft black and silver-blue last night showed the true colors of its palette— yellow lilies and white, pink, and red roses, the blue of cornflowers, the purple of violet and pansy, the gold of calendula and chamomile. Fragrances spicy and sweet filled the air as flowers opened their petals to the sun. Phlox and meadowsweet nodded as she passed, gentian and lupine lifted heads as proud as Odette's to greet her. In many ways, she hated to sleep the day away, and sometimes would scant herself on sleep in order to drink in the sun and morning air.

  Not this morning, though. She was in no mood to enjoy the birdsong or the riot of flowers, and besides, the spell she had worked so hard to master had worn her out. She stifled a yawn with one hand as she slowly mounted the stairs, and the thought of her soft bed in her darkened room had more appeal than the azure sky and emerald lawn.

  Magical work never seems to tire Father, she thought resentfully. Why does it always exhaust me?

  The door opened as she approached. Von Rothbart was certainly asleep at this point, for if he had not been, there would not have been a single one of the invisible servants free to open the door for her.

  She passed through the portal, and it closed behind her. The two torches in the Great Hall had already been extinguished, and the golden morning light poured through the clerestory windows high in the walls, shining on the strange creatures frozen in the weave of the tapestries, glinting from dim jewels, as dust motes danced in the slanting beams. In the shadows below, Odile made her way to her bedroom, where thinner beams of light played and flirted through cracks in her shutters, and a gentle breeze sighed through the same cracks and brought a hint of the garden into her chamber.

  Invisible hands helped her shed the gossamer folds of her mid- night-silk gown; more helpers brought her a wispy sleeping shift the color and texture of dawn clouds. It slipped over her head, and she tugged it into place, while the servants tidied everything up. The bed covers turned back beneath the ministering of another of the Silent Ones, and Odile needed no further invitation than that. She climbed into bed, and the bed curtains slid shut around her, cutting off the playful sunbeams and leaving her in lavender-scented darkness as profound as the night.

  Now, at last, she could lose herself in sleep, and perhaps in her dreams her father would be pleased with her.

  Chapter Two

  WITHIN the cedar-paneled robing room, a handful of women hovered over their ruler, speaking in carefully modulated voices. The queen hated what she called "cackle and gab," and this soothing murmur was more like the hum of contented bees. Seated at her dressing table, cosmetics spread before her in a palette of open jars, Queen Clothilde frowned at her mirror: The traitorous object revealed far too many wrinkles around her eyes, and too many silver hairs among the blonde. I must try the saffron rinse after all, I suppose, ruinously expensive as it is—or bring back the fashion for henins and wimples to hide hair altogether.

  "The gold-spangled headdress and the red-gold coronet," she ordered, in a voice scarcely louder than that of her women, and the ladies hurried to fetch the precious objects from the wardrobe. With the spangles to distract the eye, and the reflections from the ruddy gold adding bold color, her silvering hair would be less obvious. There was nothing to be done about the wrinkles, except to carefully paint her face with egg white and alum to tighten her skin and try not to smile or frown once it dried.

  She attended to her face herself, and did not allow her ladies- in-waiting back inside her chamber to dress her hair until after she had done all that art and artifice could contrive to erase what time had done to her. Alum and egg white at the eyes and mouth to shrink the skin tight, powder to cover the shine. . . . She dipped tiny brushes in the pots on her table; rose quartz held the carmine for the lips and cheek to counterfeit the blush of youth, malachite the kohl and mica to add depth and sparkle for the eyes, all imported at unthinkable expense from the Holy Land. Charcoal powder in sweet oil, made into a paste, darkened her lashes and brows, and a touch of belladonna in the eyes themselves gave her a wide and doe-like innocence. Alabaster held the alum, and she mixed the egg-white concoction fresh each morning on a matching alabaster palette. Talc ground to powder she dusted over her face with a hare's foot, softening the effect of cosmetics so that only the most experienced eye could tell that she used them at all. When she was satisfied with the effect, she beckoned to the door without turning her head, and an augmented group crowded into the room.

  While her ladies combed and arranged her hair, then put on her jewels, headdress, and coronet, her ministers stood at a respectful distance, presenting her with some of the less-urgent questions of the kingdom. Items of a truly pressing nature and great importance were saved for the Council Chamber, but there was no point in taking up the time of the Council with the trivialities of household matters.

  In fact, these matters were so very trivial, that had she not insisted on having final approval of everything, she need not have troubled herself with more than half of them. More often than not she didn't pay a great deal of attention to the droning of her ministers in the morning, once she had the gist of what they were droning about.

  This morning, however, was different. "Repeat that," she ordered sharply, losing her usually tranquil tone as something she thought she'd heard actually struck her with palpable shock. Her

  Minister of the Household started with surprise at the snap in her voice.

  He recovered his aplomb immediately. "I said, Madame, that as Prince Siegfried's eighteenth birthday is but six months away and fast approaching, Your Highness should take thought to an appropriate celebration. He will, of course, be assuming the crown once his majority is achieved, and the subject of his coronation will be handled by the full Council rather than your Privy Council, but the celebration is a Household concern. It would be advisable, for instance, to invite eligible young women to present themselves with a view to a swift engagement, and a marriage following the coronation. The young women of your court are amiable enough but—" he hesitated, "—hardly suitable in rank, much less in dower."

  Clothilde stopped herself from clenching her jaw out of habit, and from frowning only by reminding herself of the recent application of egg white. "I will take thought for all of these things, Heinrich," she said smoothly, schooling her voice to dulcet sweetness. "You may trust me to arrange everything for the celebration-, I would hardly care to put such important arrangements for my beloved son in the hands of anyone but myself. Is there anything else?"

  "Only your signature here, Madame," said the Minister of Supply, presenting his list of household expenses to her. She freed a hand long enough to inscribe her name and press her signet ring into the hot wax of the seal, and the men retreated, leaving her alone with her women.

  She allowed them to fuss over her a little longer, then dismissed them with a wave of her hand. They gathered up their combs and brushes and bowed themselves out, leaving her alone with her thoughts. After a moment, she rose from her dressing table and retreated to her private sitting room, taking a seat on the throne-like chair nearest the window and picking up her embroidery. But she set no stitches, for it was her thoughts that held her full attention.

  They were not pleasant thoughts, for although she had taken pains not to show it, the Household Minister's words had come as a vio
lent shock to her system.

  Can it really have been eighteen years already? Her throat tightened with dismay. How could the time have passed so quickly?

  For eighteen years she had held supreme power in this kingdom, answerable only to the Emperor himself—and the Emperor rarely bestirred himself to take interest in anything outside of his own court. For eighteen years, since the death of Siegfried's unlamented father, hers had been the strong hand on the reins. King Ulrich had been a foolish man, a poor ruler, and no one had been particularly dismayed by his death shortly before the birth of his son—least of all his widow Clothilde.

  Though the ministers were quite taken aback when they attempted to rule me as they had ruled him. She permitted herself as much of a smile as would leave the egg white undisturbed. She had foreseen that something might happen to make her a widow, for Ulrich was a heedless sportsman, reckless in the hunt and the joust, throwing himself into all manner of hazards and trusting to his luck to save him. Sooner or later, she had expected that luck to run out, and eventually it had. By that time, with charm, tact, and her considerable beauty, she had already taken pains to win the loyalty of Ulrich's knights; when the ministers and nobles attempted to put her in her place, there had been a brief scuffle and an execution or two, but on the whole, she had assumed the throne without a great deal of difficulty as Siegfried's regent.

  But the throne was mine only as Queen Regent, in trust for my son. . . . She repressed another frown.

  That was the rub; she had always known, somewhere deep inside, that she would not be the reigning monarch forever, unless a similar accident occurred to her son. She had been very careful of his health in the earliest years, for she knew that several of the defeated nobles were watching her sharply at that point, but once he was of an age to be turned over to tutors, she had encouraged the same reckless behavior in him as his father had shown. Sadly, he had never been quite reckless enough; meanwhile his eighteenth birthday had seemed unthinkably far in the future, and there had always been plenty of time to consider what to do when the time to turn over the throne neared. Now it was here, and somehow she had been caught unawares; no accidents had occurred, and he was healthy and fit.