The Swan Maiden

by Heather Tomlinson

  Lady Sarpine frowned at the light brown hair straggling out of two long braids. Doucette's rumpled skirts earned another

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  pointed stare before the comtesse spoke. "What is required of a chastelaine?"

  "A chastelaine presents the picture of elegance and composure at all times. She directs the work required to keep her castle and its people in good order," Doucette recited. Again. The words felt engraved on her tongue, she had repeated them so often.

  "What must she not do?"

  Doucette stared at her feet. "A chastelaine never contradicts her husband in public, never loses her temper with children or servants. She rules both kindly, but with a firm hand. Though her knowledge is superior, she does not perform her servants' tasks for them, lest she lose their respect."

  "You said the same yesterday, after I found you grubbing in the orchard with Om Toumas, and later, up to your elbows in flour with Na Patris. Now you do good Na Claro's work?"

  Doucette flushed at the unfairness of the accusation. "I was just checking the spring linens for moth holes, as you directed," she said, patting the sheets stacked on a chest, "but when I saw Na Claro couldn't reach the top of the bed frame--"

  The comtesse held up her hand. "Indulge your tender heart elsewhere, my treasure. Sixteen is too old to be climbing on the furniture whenever the whim strikes you."

  "Yes, Mother."

  "That's my obedient girl." A hint of approval softened Lady Sarpine's voice. "You'll do very well, as long as you remember your station." But when the comtesse turned to address the waiting servant, all indulgence disappeared. "I rely on you to remind my daughter of her duty, Na Claro," she said in freezing tones. "She is not to be dirtying her hands in this chamber."

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  "Your pardon, Lady Sarpine." The old woman bobbed a curtsy over her basket.

  "Couldn't you send a maid or washerwoman to help her, Mother?" Doucette asked. "The silk panels still need to be hung, and the blankets aired."

  "Very well." The comtesse surveyed the room with a distracted air. "Lady of the Seas, so much remains be done before the queen and prince arrive. Did you supervise the steward counting the gold plate?"

  "Yes, Mother."

  "And speak to the bee-man? Her Majesty is partial to spring honey. She must have the first he collects."

  "Yes, Mother."

  While Beloc's Château de l'Aire boasted its own small court of knights and nobles, never in Doucette's memory had their county hosted such exalted visitors. In anticipation of the royal family's arrival, the comtesse was celebrating the annual rite of spring cleaning with an almost religious fervor. More than once, Doucette had wished for an Animation spell to power mops and dust cloths across the castle's vast expanses of floor and woodwork.

  "Oh, and the welcome gift?"

  "Yes, Mother," Doucette said patiently. "When I finish with the linens, I'll go to the goldsmith's. He already showed me the wax castings for the medallions. Last week, that was, the day after Azelais and Cecilia left for Tante Mahalt's. I thought them very fine. The medallions, I mean," she clarified, though she needn't have bothered. Her sisters always looked exquisite.

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  Dread pinched the comtesse's features. "The girls didn't leave any of their wretched Animation spells in the guest chambers?"

  "Neither said anything to me," Doucette said.

  Not that they would have. Doucette tried to push down the spurt of resentment. It was a battle she lost every time she remembered Azelais and Cecilia's parting tricks. No reason to think that this day would prove any different.

  Lady Sarpine frowned. "We'd be ruined if your sisters' vulgar idea of a jest caused a royal guest to spend a night flapping back and forth with the shutters. After that episode with the abbess... we'd best have a servant check their quarters' latches, hinges, and fire tools, to be safe." She swept out of the bedchamber. "Anfos! Where's that boy? Anfos!"

  Doucette unfolded the last two pillowcases. "No moth holes in these,"

  "Oughtn't be." The servant sniffed as she piled the old bed linens by the door. "You had packed them with cedar balls, like I taught you?"

  "I did, Na Claro."

  Retrieving a set of silk hangings from a chest, the woman cast a doleful glance at the height of the bed frame.

  She might as well have said "poor old knees" out loud, Doucette thought wearily. "Give them to me. I won't tell Mother, if you don't."

  "But, little lady--"

  Ignoring the token protest, Doucette climbed onto the bare mattress and reached up to clip the first of the whisper-light panels to the bed frame. A gust of air swirled in through the

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  open window, carrying the smell of flowering almond from the terraced orchards below the castle walls. The breeze flirted with Doucette's wayward hair and set the white silk panel to billowing.

  After working her way around the bed, Doucette jumped down and dusted her palms on her skirts while she admired her handiwork. "Doesn't that look fine? What pleasant dreams Mother and Father must have." Wistfully, Doucette remembered soaring with Cecilia's wind-sail. "You could lie in this bed and imagine you were flying."

  Na Claro said nothing.

  "Haven't you ever wished for a swan skin?" Doucette asked. "To wrap yourself in feathers and leave the world behind?"

  The old woman sniffed. "Can't eat magic, can you?"

  "No, but--"

  "A sorceress can conjure a handful of grass to look like cake and taste like cake, but grass is grass, in your belly or outside it."

  "I know." By admitting it, Doucette hoped to avert the usual lecture, but the old woman was well and truly launched.

  "Like your lady mother says, domestic order creates its own enchantment."

  "She doesn't say it to Azelais and to Cecilia," Doucette muttered.

  "Eh?"

  "Nothing." Doucette freed one of the panels, which the wind had twisted around the bed frame. "Housework's not like real spells, Na Claro. Divination. Animation. Transformation." The litany of High Arts rolled off her tongue. "Stones into rubies, straw into gold."

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  For once, the idea brought with it a prick of unease. "Straw into gold...."

  "Hush." Na Claro gestured anxiously at the chamber door. "You know Lady Sarpine doesn't like such talk. Besides, despite their clever ways, you've got something neither of your witchy sisters can boast."

  "What's that?" Doucette picked at a loose flap of skin on one finger. "Calluses?"

  Na Claro's wrinkled hand patted hers. "A true heart. Worth more to your folk than false gold, believe me."

  "It's kind of you to say so." Doucette blinked at the woman's unexpected compliment. "Well. Let's turn the mattress, shall we? And then I'll be off to the goldsmith's."

  "You go. Lady Sarpine told me to finish."

  "Don't be silly. It's too heavy to manage by yourself."

  "No, no!" Clucking like a frightened partridge, the old woman interposed herself between Doucette and the bed. "You've done enough! Truly!"

  Doucette put her hands on her hips. "Feathers settle over time. You know Mother will scold if the mattress is poorly aired."

  "Please, little lady. Stop!"

  "It's no trouble." Despite the servant's protest, Doucette heaved the mattress onto its side.

  The sight that met her eyes more than explained Na Claro's anguished moans. Doucette's elbows straightened to shove the mattress away. It fell to the floor with a loud thump.

  The blood ebbed from her head and retreated down her body like a cold tide, leaving her unsteady on her feet. Doucette

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  crumpled to her knees beside the bed frame and stared at the cloud of gray-tipped white feathers that had been concealed between the mattress and its supporting webbing.

  She had never seen the thing before, but she knew exactly what it was.

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  Chapter Six

  ***

  T he truth stole her breath. A swan skin! Doucette panted, h
er thoughts racing wildly. "I've never seen one like it. Mine--it must be! Azelais and Cecilia wore theirs to Tante Mahalt's, and this one's a different color. Oh, how beautiful!"

  She reached out with trembling hands to pull it toward her.

  Soft as milk, as clouds, as snow, the dappled swan skin enveloped her in a luscious warmth. Doucette caressed the feathers before turning accusing gray eyes on Na Claro.

  "Mother didn't want me to find this, did she? That's why you fussed. How long have you known and never told?"

  The old woman tottered to a wooden chest and sat down on the lid. "Lady Sarpine made us promise. Said she'd turn us out of the castle--every woman attending your birth--if she heard one whisper about you being a swan maiden."

  A swan maiden!

  Doucette buried her face in the feathers. From the crumbs of lore she had picked up from her sisters, she knew that a swan skin was the key to Transformation, the greatest of the High Arts.

  Exhilaration rushed through her, followed by a sharp stab of regret. Suddenly, Doucette wanted to weep for all the times she

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  had watched her sisters change into bird shape and fly away without her. She could have joined them. She, too, could have danced on the wind and returned starry-eyed. Everything she needed--everything she was--she held between her two shaking hands.

  The extent of her parents' betrayal dawned slowly.

  Being born a swan was the clearest possible sign of magical power, but her father had denied it. He had lied to her on that fateful birthday.

  Doucette cast her mind back. No, he hadn't said she didn't have a swan skin, only that she would never wear one.

  Because they had hidden it.

  Which meant that while her sisters pleased themselves, free as the swans they could become at will, she was trapped. Of course, her mother had acted as though she was bestowing a great privilege on Doucette, to follow always two steps behind Lady Sarpine as she glided about the castle. But instead of magic, the comtesse's youngest daughter had learned domestic arts: how to make candles and dry meat, how to supervise servants. She could direct castle workers to fix a roof, hang new shutters, or prune fruit trees. She knew how to keep accounts and could compose a tournament menu for two hundred hungry knights, their ladies, and their servants. As her mother repeatedly said, casting spells formed no part of a chastelaine's duties.

  And, oh, how Doucette had envied her sisters their ability.

  She raised her head, stammering in confusion. "But--but-- our family's power was built on magic. Azelais and Cecilia are training to be sorceresses. Why didn't Mother and Father let me?"

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  "Beloc folk esteem the High Arts, little lady, but Lady Sarpine was born in western Mardèche, where they think differently. The de Brochets are a proud family without a fish bone's worth of magic to their name, and that's the plain truth." The old woman had recovered enough of her composure to give Doucette a shrewd look. "Sorcery's caused plenty of trouble between folk that have it and those that don't. Your parents' marriage keeps the peace between the two counties, but it's a delicate balance, eh?"

  Doucette nodded, and the old woman continued. "With the comte's blessing, your sisters do as they please, and no one dares tell them different. Mayhap Lady Sarpine has other plans for you."

  "The prince, you mean? An alliance with the Crown." Doucette thought about it. Her fingers stroked the swan skin, shaping each brilliant white feather as it shaded into gray. Plume by plume, she tenderly restored order to the crumpled mess her coat had become, squashed under the mattress. "That's why Mother wouldn't say which visitors she expected until after Azelais and Cecilia had ridden away. She didn't want them to know or interfere."

  "Not my place to speak for her."

  "She's hinted I'd be chastelaine of a great domain. I assumed she meant me to marry some Mardèche lord or one of Beloc's nobles. As long as it wasn't that pompous Lord Luquet." Doucette frowned. "But Father's so proud of Azelais and Cecilia's magic. Why did he allow Mother to hide mine?"

  "Lady Sarpine gets her way," Na Claro said dryly. "Though Lord Pascau didn't let her destroy your swan coat outright. He

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  said they could as well give it to your husband. What man wouldn't want such a hold on his wife?"

  "Without it, she couldn't ever leave him." Doucette clutched her swan skin. "No matter what he did."

  "Aye," Na Claro agreed.

  The idea filled Doucette with horror. After holding her own coat of feathers, the long-hidden part of herself, she couldn't bear the thought of losing it. With sudden decision, she marched over to the tapestry bag that held the comtesse's embroidery. Doucette upended the bag and shook it, spilling colored woolen balls and skeins onto the floor.

  "Lady Doucette--"

  "I'm sorry, Na Claro." Doucette rolled up her swan skin and stuffed it into the empty bag. A calm certainty had wrapped itself around her. "But I'm not giving up mine ever again. Not for Mother, and not for a man I've never met, prince or no."

  "But--"

  "First, we're going to make up this bed." Doucette shoved the mattress back onto its frame and picked up clean linens. Sheets snapped as she shook them out.

  "No good can come of disobeying your mother's wishes, little lady," Na Claro warned.

  "Tuck in that side, please, Na Claro, then carry the dirty linens down to the laundry. If you're not here, you can't know that I spilled the yarn." With the toe of her shoe, Doucette nudged several of the woolen balls under the bed. "Or that in going after them, I discovered my swan skin." She fixed the older woman with a commanding look. "Come back with a few other

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  women and Mother, too, if you can manage it. Best if she sees for herself how blameless you are."

  "Lady Doucette!" Na Claro sounded caught between consternation and understanding. "I'd have expected such sly counsel from Lady Azelais or Lady Cecilia, but I never thought you'd deal in schemes."

  "No?" Doucette smoothed summer-weight blankets over the sheets, plumped the bolster, and twitched the coverlet into place. "The saints only know, Na Claro, what else I'll discover before this day is done."

  The servant's lined face puckered with worry. "Do take care. Magic's no substitute for good sense."

  "So they say." Doucette's lips twisted. "I wouldn't know, never having had the chance to make the trade." She slung the tapestry bag over her shoulder and opened the door for the older woman. "Go ahead. I'll follow in a moment."

  The door closed behind her with a soft click.

  Instead of walking down the tower stairs after Na Claro, Doucette went up. At every step, the emotion rising inside her threatened to erupt in a storm of tears, or shrieking, or wild laughter. She didn't know which would be worse, so she bit her lips to keep them all back.

  A maid descending with a full hamper bobbed her head as she passed. "Good afternoon, little lady."

  Doucette averted her eyes and nodded, hurrying to the chamber she shared with her sisters. Once safe inside, she fell across the bed, her arms wrapped around the tapestry bag. Ragged sobs tore out of her throat.

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  Her life had been built on a lie.

  For so long, she had envied her sisters their freedom and their powers, feeling she had little in common with them. Younger than Azelais by four years and Cecilia by two, Doucette had always felt set apart, so much less mysterious and graceful and clever and powerful and beautiful than they. Yet all along, had she known it, they shared a stronger bond even than blood: the bond of magic.

  What if her parents had allowed Doucette, like her sisters, to spend the summers with Tante Mahalt? She might have flown with them over their aunt's domain. If she had mastered the High Arts, Doucette, too, might have stood a chance at inheriting the sorceress's great estate.

  All the years wasted, and for what?

  So her sisters could belittle her, while she trained as a chastelaine. Doucette stared at the tapestry bag through tear-blurred eyes and wiped her streaming
nose on her sleeve. So her parents could marry her off to a nobleman who only prized magic that he controlled.

  As Na Claro had said, few brave souls ordered Azelais and Cecilia around. But Doucette was subject to instruction by all the castle servants, many of whom had performed their appointed tasks since before her birth. Doucette hadn't realized how tired she was of doing everyone else's bidding until the moment she had seen her swan skin and known she had a choice.

  She could stay home, be judged by the prince her mother had invited, behave exactly as her parents expected.

  Or she could go and decide her own fate.

  Doucette's hands shook as she opened the tapestry bag and unfurled her swan skin. Gray-tipped white feathers spilled over

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  the coverlet. The breeze played over them, stirring the plumage into the semblance of life.

  Doucette clenched her fists. Sixteen years, you've waited, her mind's voice whispered. No longer.

  Her fingers plunged into the feathers. Soft and warm, the swan skin offered a silent promise.

  Change.

  Did she dare?

  Doucette crossed to the window, pushed aside the embroidered curtains, and stared out of the luxurious room that suddenly seemed a prison.

  Over the years, Doucette had heard her father instruct her sisters' escort. Like them, she could follow the sheep flocks to a lake in the mountains, then seek the lake's eastern shore. The river Immeluse would lead her the rest of the way to her aunt's castle, to a season of studying magic with Azelais and Cecilia. If she dared.

  The wind kissed her cheek.

  Doucette sat and took off her shoes. Her hose. Her gown and the soft chemise underneath. Folding each item, she set it on the bed. The breeze gusted, stirring dried rose petals in a wooden bowl and raising tiny bumps along Doucette's skin.