The Swan Maiden
Heather Tomlinson
For Stan
Thank you, my honey
-H.T.
Chapter One
***
I n the quiet hour before dawn, Doucette Aigleron crept from her bed. The chill air made her shiver as, mouse quiet, she finger-combed her hair into two long plaits and dressed in a shift, gown, and pair of thick wool stockings.
Dim gray light filtered through the shutters, picking out silver candlesticks, richly carved chests, the sparkle of silk ribbons, and the softer sheen of three long fur robes hanging on pegs by the canopied bed. Though velvet curtains partly veiled the bed's two remaining occupants, Doucette looked to make sure her rustling garments hadn't disturbed her older sisters. Then, shoes in hand, she tiptoed across the tower chamber and around the pair of leather bags by the door.
One had been packed and strapped closed--Azelais's orderly work, no doubt. Doucette's hand skimmed along the second bag, which overflowed with gowns, gloves, ribbons, and the neck of Cecilia's unstrung lute. A cloud of white feathers engulfed Doucette's fingers. Despite the need for haste, she knelt to caress the swan skin flung so carelessly over the top. Resentment, this day's particular gift, uncoiled within her.
If only she could claim a cloak of feathers like Cecilia's, Doucette would take better care of the precious thing. Unlike
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some people, she would never flaunt her powers in her sisters' faces, never use sorcery to torment others or make them the butt of her jokes. She would show the world that a swan maiden could be kind. Beloc's people would love her, the court's knights and ladies would seek out her company and treat her with respect....
Cecilia stirred and muttered in her sleep.
Doucette froze, waiting and listening.
The mattress rustled as Cecilia pulled a pillow over her golden head and rolled into the spot Doucette had vacated. On the far side of the bed, Azelais lay still, her dark hair a deeper shadow against the coverlet.
Doucette dared not linger. She tore herself from Cecilia's swan skin and closed the door on her sleeping sisters. If her plan succeeded, she wouldn't have to see them again for months.
Hugging the thought close, Doucette padded down the dark stone stairs. She passed the doors leading to her parents' rooms: the comte's treasury, the comtesse's sewing room, and their grand bedchamber, then sped through the Château de l'Aire's familiar corridors. The faint scent of incense told Doucette she had reached the chapel, but no light outlined the edges of its carved wooden doors. Brother Martin had not yet risen to his prayers.
Another potential obstacle safely navigated.
Now she had only to sneak past the gate guard and run. She put on her shoes and slipped out a side door. The usual barnyard smells of horses, pigs, sawdust, and wood smoke hung in the foggy air. Dew beaded the paving stones of the castle's empty upper courtyard. Doucette stepped carefully over the slick surface, keeping close to the wall.
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Outside the kitchen door, a red eye winked open.
She hesitated. If the castle baker was busy enough to fire her bread oven so early, she might have an errand that would take Doucette into town. Abroad on a chastelaine's business, Doucette wouldn't have to hide in the caves after all. Wouldn't that be a stroke of luck!
She hugged her arms to her sides and called softly. "Good morning, Na Patris."
"What? Who's there?"
By the oven's ruddy light, Doucette saw the baker reach into an apron pocket and throw a pinch of salt on the ground between them. The woman held her poker high, like a weapon. "Show yourself," she demanded.
Doucette moved closer, until she could feel the oven's warmth on her skin.
"Oh, it's only you, little lady!" The baker's fierce expression softened. Using the poker, she shut the door on the crackling flames. "With your light hair, I took you for a rock sprite out of the quarry, and I've no time for their tricks today. Come in, do." Na Patris motioned Doucette into the kitchen, which smelled of garlic and onions, yeast and mint. "Tea?"
Doucette accepted a mug and perched on a stool, her face to the mint-scented steam. Most days, she wished Na Patris would accord her the respect due a young noblewoman of sixteen. This morning, the cosseting was a comfort.
Na Patris scattered raisins over a bowl and plunged her floury hands inside. The yeasty odor strengthened as the baker punched the raisins into the dough, turned the speckled mass onto the table, and kneaded vigorously. "Now, then. What's
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brought that worried frown to your face already, and it not yet cock-crow?"
Doucette sipped the hot tea. "You're up early, too."
"Shearing season." Na Patris jerked her chin at the lumpy, cloth-draped planks lined up on trestles. "Started the welcome loaves rising. My husband thinks his cousins---you remember the Vent'roux boys?--will bring their flock to the pens today."
"Oh?" Doucette told herself that the little heart-leap wasn't anticipation at seeing Om Toumas's handsome cousins again but relief at finding an answer to her need. The shearing pens had been erected on the plain below the castle, a goodly distance from the Luzerna road. Someone would have to take the bread for the wool mistress to distribute. Why shouldn't it be Doucette? If she could convince the baker...
She lifted one of the cloths and eyed the rows of fist-sized dough balls. "Shall I mark these for you?"
"If you will, Lady Doucette. Made several batches--those boys are like to eat a dozen apiece, see if the gluttons don't."
Despite her dismissive tone, the curve of Na Patris's lips betrayed the satisfaction of a woman who knows her work is appreciated.
Doucette dipped a knife in flour and scored the first loaf with a Crosshatch pattern.
"Not too close, mind," the baker instructed.
"No, Na Patris." On the next loaf, Doucette obediently widened the space between the cuts, though the first loaf had been fine, in her opinion.
Not that anyone ever asked her opinion.
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The moment her older sisters twitched their jeweled fingers, courtiers leaped to serve them, Doucette thought bitterly. But she, with her light brown hair, light gray eyes, and average looks, was more often mistaken for a well-dressed attendant. The court's knights and ladies, when they troubled to notice Doucette at all, called her "little lady" or "sweetling," as they might a favored hunting hawk or clever dog. As for the castle servants, every one, from the superior steward to the humblest pig-girl, felt free to instruct their apprentice chastelaine on the smallest household matter.
And one day soon, she thought, stabbing at the dough, her parents would find her a husband. Not only would he order her about as her mother did now, but he'd install her in a new household full of servants who thought they knew best. Doucette hated being reminded of all the ways she wasn't like her sisters. Azelais and Cecilia didn't need to beg the baker for a reason to leave the castle.
Unfortunately, Doucette did. And contradicting Na Patris about the proper way to mark the loaves would lead to a lecture, instead of the escape she craved. Biting her tongue, she finished one plank, exactly as directed, and uncovered the next. "So it's welcome bread for the shepherds and--what's that you're making, Na Patris?"
"A sweet raisin couronne for Lady Sarpine's breakfast." The baker separated her dough into three parts, rolled each into a snake, pinched the tails together, and braided them into a wreath. "Then there's the day's trencher bread and a fortnight's travel biscuit for the swan maidens' party."
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"Mm." Doucette thought she had controlled the sigh of envy, but Na Patris raised her head alertly.
The baker's freckled face smoothed into blandness. "Don't they leave for Luzerna this morning, little la
dy? I suppose you're up early to fetch your sisters' meal."
"You don't suppose any such thing," Doucette contradicted her. "Please, Na Patris, may I take the shepherds' bread down to the pens for you?"
"That's no task for a lady. Anfos will do it."
"But I can't bear to watch Azelais and Cecilia ride off to Tante Mahalt's. They get to study magic and flying while I'm stuck here under Mother's thumb, to sew, inventory the linens, and memorize orders of precedence." Doucette almost cut the next loaf in half, so deeply did her knife plunge into the dough. "If I had a good excuse, Mother might not punish me for avoiding the leave-taking. You could help me. Or I'll hide in the caves.'
"The caves! That's reckless talk."
"I've been there before--and found my way out."
"Mind the blade--you'll cut yourself.'" Na Patris snatched the knife from Doucette's hand and slapped it onto the table. "There'll be no bleeding on my bread, little lady."
"Your pardon, Na Patris." Doucette wiped her eyes.
The baker's gruff voice softened. "Well, if I sent a cheese and a jar of honey for the wool mistress, that'd be too much for Anfos to carry by himself. You may as well go. We'll put these breads in the oven, like so, and have you away before the sun clears the eastern hills."
"Oh, thank you!" Averting her eyes so she didn't have to see
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the pity in Na Patris's expression, Doucette hugged the baker's ample waist.
Lady Sarpine often said that a lady never shirked a social duty, no matter how difficult. But of all the days in the year, the one Doucette hated most was the day her older sisters left to spend the summer with their aunt Mahalt, the Queen of the Birds. The second-worst day would come soon enough, when Azelais and Cecilia returned, bursting with new spells to dazzle their father's court.
Doucette wiped flour off the table and tried to fix her mind on the one hope Na Patris had given her.
No--two. There were two reasons to be glad.
For one, Doucette wouldn't actually have to brave the caves under the castle or the fearsome spirit who guarded them. And, if Om Toumas's hunch proved correct, Doucette might soon see Jaume of Vent'roux again.
The prospect lightened her steps as she helped the baker empty the oven.
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Chapter Two
***
D oucette stopped in the center of the steep, rocky road. "You take the bread, Anfos. Give me the honey jar."
"Won't, little lady," the kitchen boy said stubbornly. "Na Patris gave it to me."
"I know you can carry it." Doucette cast about for a likely argument. Anfos took his duties seriously. She couldn't insult him by saying that, between the wheel of cheese strapped to his back and the big jar clutched to his tunic, he looked like a beetle. Worse, he kept them to a beetle's pace. At their current rate of descent, a line of ants might overtake them, not to speak of Azelais and Cecilia's mounted party. "But see? This sack is leaking flour on my gown."
"Girls," the kitchen boy said under his breath.
Pretending not to hear, Doucette shoved the sack of welcome bread at him. "Thank you for trading." She slipped the honey jar out of his arms and tucked it in the crook of her elbow, then picked up her skirts with her free hand and walked on.
Though the clay jar was heavy, her spirits rose with each step. The sun had begun to burn through the morning fog, and the air smelled sweet from the herbs growing wild among the rocks:
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thyme, fennel, sage, and lavender. Close by, a woodlark whistled its descending song: titloo-eet, titloo-eet.
The bird sounded as glad as Doucette was to have escaped from the stone confines of the castle, which perched like a brooding eagle on the steep ridge above and behind her. Though the Château de l'Aire was handsome in its way, she admitted to herself. Built of local stone, its golden walls and towers rose tall over the town that straddled the ridge between castle and quarry. Terraces of flowering almond and cherry trees, gnarled olive and cypress softened the ridge's flanks, until the sheer pitch of the castle's rear defenses merged into the cliffs that protected it from the plain below.
As the road switched direction around a large boulder, Doucette spotted a glint of moving water in the distance. The shearing pens were constructed along the riverbank, so the fleeces could be easily washed. To find the wool mistress, Doucette and Anfos had only to follow the flocks drifting like clouds across the green-and-brown land. Shepherds from all the neighboring counties brought their beasts to Beloc to be shorn before continuing north to summer pasturage in the mountains.
Doucette looked forward to the shepherds' seasonal visits. The lambs were adorable, and their keepers were men and women with merry eyes and carefree ways. Joking and teasing as they worked, few felt compelled to instruct Doucette in herding, shearing, or the finer points of animal care.
But the shepherds' greatest appeal was their music. Each one, it seemed, played an instrument or sang. When the shepherds could be persuaded to climb the long road to the castle, even Lord Pascau's troubadours listened with pleasure.
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"D'you think they'll play for us, little lady?" Anfos piped up, echoing Doucette's thoughts.
"I hope so," she said.
"Om Toumas said his Vent'roux cousins were coming. I like Eri best," the kitchen boy confided. "For all he's the runt of the four, he can sing. And Jaume's not bad on the pipes, neither, though I hope Vitor practiced his drumming over the winter."
"And Tinou?" Doucette asked, amused by the kitchen boy's connoisseur air.
"Eh." Anfos waggled his chin. "Strings all sound like yowling cats to me."
Doucette would have asked Anfos's opinion of her father's harpist, lured at great expense from another county, but the sound of pounding hooves distracted her. "Oh, no."
Anfos cocked his head. "Who's mad enough to take their horses that fast down the--oh." His expression changed as he understood Doucette's dismay. "The swan maidens. Get off the road, Lady Doucette! No, there's thorns that way. Up the rock here--scramble! Or they'll run right over us."
The first rider thundered past, long golden hair and white-feathered cloak streaming behind her like a banner.
Anfos whistled under his breath.
Doucette hugged the sheltering rock. Her toes curled in her walking shoes, now wet with dew and splotched with road dust. She knew she had flour on her skirts and a big sticky spot where honey had dripped onto the front of her gown. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe her sister would gallop on.
A shrill whinny dashed Doucette's hopes. The bay mare whirled and trotted back to the boulder.
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As always, Cecilia looked magnificent, in a wild sort of way. Her blue eyes sparkled, and the golden curls tumbled riotously over her shoulders, mixing with the swan skin's disordered white feathers. "Fairer-than-a-fairy" and "Passe-lys," the troubadours called her, as they called Azelais "Dark Swan" or "Passe-rose" for her equally dramatic coloring.
Doucette felt the familiar, aching mix of admiration and envy well up inside her. She didn't share her sisters' beauty or magic, but couldn't the saints at least have gifted her with a tiny portion of the assurance Azelais and Cecilia possessed?
Cecilia's lovely mouth pursed in mock surprise. "You're out for an early stroll."
Awkwardly holding the honey jar, Doucette climbed down from the rock. She could feel the color rising in her cheeks, though she tried to hide her chagrin with a mask of calm. No sense in giving her sister another weapon to wound her with. "Good morning, Cecilia."
"Wherever are you going?"
"The shearing pens, to deliver a few things for Na Patris. Welcome bread for the shepherds. Honey to Na Soufio."
Cecilia clicked her tongue. "A shame you forgot to tell Mother about the baker's important commission. Poor Na Claro ran her old bones up and down the tower stairs, calling for you."
Doucette dug her toe into the dirt. "I'm sorry."
"It's Na Claro deserves your apology, not me." Absently smoothing
her ruffled swan skin, Cecilia leaned over the saddle and turned her dazzling smile on Anfos. "And who's this?"
He ducked his head. "Anfos, Lady."
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"The kitchen boy?" Cecilia drawled. "Your taste in escorts is delightfully original."
Doucette was spared from responding when, with a jingle of mail shirts and swords, several armsmen reined in behind her sister.
"Lady Cecilia." The first man tugged on his leather cap. "How can we protect you if you leave us behind?"
Cecilia smirked at him. "Ride faster, Renod."
"As you command, Lady."
Her sister's latest conquest, Doucette thought, judging from the man's foolish expression. Sorceresses weren't bound by the rules that governed an ordinary woman's conduct. Azelais managed her affairs with discretion, but Cecilia took pleasure in twisting propriety into knots and tossing it over the battlements.
"What's the delay?" Azelais called from the rear of the line.
"Come see," Cecilia said.
The armsmen shifted their horses to make way for a spotted gelding whose rider wore a feathered cloak as black as the knot of ebony hair at her neck. In contrast to Cecilia's charming dishevelment, Azelais's appearance was immaculate, as always.
"Doucette!" Elegant dark brows drew together. "You missed our leave-taking to carry that ugly jug down the hill? And walking abroad without a proper escort! Have you no scrap of dignity?"
Doucette shrank under the withering stare.
"Don't fuss, Azelais," Cecilia coaxed. "She can hardly fly, can she? Provisioning the shepherds like a good little chastelaine-- I call that sweet."
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"Chastelaine?" Azelais's pomegranate lips compressed. "I see a drudge dressed above her station, but that is easily remedied." She flicked the polished wooden wand from her knot of black hair, murmured a few words under her breath, of which "kitchen" and "rags' were the loudest, and reached down from her horse to tap Doucette's shoulder.
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