The Swan Maiden

by Heather Tomlinson

  Azelais sneered. "We're to believe that?"

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  "Perhaps explanations can wait until we've seen to your escort," Mahalt said.

  "Yes, Tante." Azelais's even voice and lowered lashes failed to hide her fury. She hoisted her own leather bag over her shoulder and turned her back on Doucette.

  At the head of the group, Captain Denis bowed over his horse's neck. "Lady Mahalt."

  "Will you and your men take some refreshment, Captain?" she asked.

  "Thank you, Lady," he replied politely, "but we'll provision ourselves in the village, by your leave. Do I understand that you have taken charge of Lady Doucette as well as Lady Azelais and Lady Cecilia?"

  "Yes. You may reassure her parents on that account."

  Mahalt's dry tone told Doucette that her aunt knew exactly how comforting Doucette's mother would find the news.

  "As you command, Lady," Captain Denis said. "We'll return for all three at summer's end."

  Mahalt nodded. "Safe journey to you," she said, then limped up the streambed. Azelais followed closely behind her.

  "Good-bye!" Cecilia blew kisses at the armsmen as they urged their horses, including the two Azelais and Cecilia had ridden, through knee-high water and up the muddy bank. "Till summer's end!"

  "They won't spend the night?" Doucette asked Cecilia in a low voice.

  "No, never." Nonchalantly, Cecilia handed Doucette her travel bag and hiked up her divided riding skirts. "Twelve mighty

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  warriors and every one afraid that Tante Mahalt would turn him into a toad if he presumed to spend a night under her roof"

  "Would she?" Doucette said.

  "Who knows?" Cecilia glanced upriver to make sure their aunt was out of earshot. "After the husband she had, the Queen of the Birds doesn't care for men."

  "Did he break her foot?"

  "What?"

  Doucette felt stupid for asking, but she had wondered. "To keep her from running."

  Cecilia hooted a laugh. "No, silly. Lavena did that."

  "The spirit? Why?"

  Cecilia shrugged. "A spell, what else? Tante Mahalt told us. The Rassemblement, it's called. Sounded too uncertain for my taste, frankly, what with jumping into Lavena's Cauldron and not knowing what you'll look like after your companion puts you back together. If he can find all the bits and bones." She shuddered delicately and smoothed her coat of white feathers. "I m happy with the power I have, though of course Tante Mahalt had no choice."

  "She didn't?"

  Cecilia's mouth set in a straight line. "Her husband locked away her swan skin," she said, very low. "Afraid she'd leave him, so he stole her magic in the name of love."

  Doucette turned her chin into her own swan skin, touching the feathers for comfort. "How did she get it back?"

  "After the Rassemblement, no lock could keep her out. She recovered her swan skin and flew from Beloc to Luzerna."

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  "So he lost her anyway."

  "Yes." Cecilia hesitated, intent on the river bottom's uneven footing. "You had better know the rest, now that you're one of us. He tried to stop her."

  "And?"

  "He died."

  "What?" Doucette almost dropped her sister's travel bag. "She killed him?"

  "It might have been an accident. Tante didn't give us the details." Cecilia faced Doucette with a challenging expression. "Have I shocked you, little sister? Until you know what you would do to regain your magic, your freedom, don't you dare judge her."

  "But murder?"

  With a toss of her golden curls, Cecilia returned to her usual levity. "Maybe the fool picked up an Animated ax and it hacked him to bits." She shot Doucette a sly smile. "Around sorceresses, a man should take care where he puts his hands, don t you think?"

  Blushing at her sister's innuendo, Doucette picked her way along the wet stones. She knew very little, really, about the woman to whom she had entrusted her hopes.

  But what choice had she? Tante Mahalt was the only sorceress Doucette knew who might be willing to teach her the High Arts. She must trust in her aunt's goodwill.

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  ***

  Summer

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  Chapter Eleven

  ***

  H er head ached. Doucette leaned against the bedchamber door and rubbed her cheekbones, trying to relieve the pressure behind her eyes. Her head felt too solid, as if her skull had been packed with dough and baked. After a day spent Transforming herself with a wand instead of the swan skin, her very shape felt foreign. Her balance couldn't be trusted, and she kept expecting to see a hawk's talons at the end of her arms instead of fingers.

  Aside from these odd aftereffects, working magic had proved every bit as exciting as she had hoped. With two months of intense practice behind her, Doucette had learned to Animate simple tools and Transform objects in ways limited only by her imagination and will. Though often, as today, it left her feeling very strange.

  Her mind was stuffed to bursting with all the natural observations, magical theory, and dire prohibitions Tante Mahalt had instilled. Lurking below the day-to-day struggle to remember it all, fears about what her mother would do at summer's end surfaced to trouble Doucette at unguarded moments. She had flouted Lady Sarpine's wishes. What measures would her mother think suitable to answer such flagrant disobedience?

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  Between the work and the worry, Doucette slept fitfully. At times she dreamed of falling, or of meeting Jaume again by the lake, where events occurred quite differently. In the best dreams, he didn't scorn her, but took her hand and kissed her--oh, so sweetly. Those were nights she didn't want to end, though when she woke she felt doubly foolish for yearning after a man who had laughed at her.

  Hanging her swan skin on a peg, Doucette sank onto the bed. She'd take a nap before mending the tear she had noticed in Azelais's favorite overdress. In return, perhaps her oldest sister would have the grace to mute her constant criticism.

  Doucette pushed Azelais's discarded green gown and linen shift to one side and plumped the pillows into a nest. Though unadorned, the bed was comfortable, like the chamber Tante Mahalt had assigned them. It seemed much larger than the one she and her sisters shared at home. Or perhaps the impression of space came from the fact that the mistress of the Château de l'Île had a more restrained taste in furnishings than her sister-in-law.

  At the Château de l'Aire, jars of flower-scented lotions and bowls of dried petals accented polished walnut-wood tables. Cushioned benches, silver candlesticks, embroidered hangings, and rugs brightened the stone chamber, and a welter of gloves, shoes, fur robes, books, and musical instruments added to the cheerful clutter.

  This room had a large bed and three wooden stools.

  It was austere enough to pass for a cell in the abbey of Saint-Trophime, but for the enormous weaving, taller than a man and three times as wide, that covered one wall of the tower room.

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  Within the tapestry's border of stars, a crowned black swan flew over a field of flowers.

  As Doucette relaxed into the pillows, the door opened and Cecilia flounced in, her feathered cloak twitching.

  At once, she spotted the gold chain on one of the stools. "Your work, Doucette?"

  "Yes," Doucette said, yawning. "Braided straw. What do you think?"

  Cecilia fingered the links. "A pleasing color, though it weighs a bit light for gold. The hammer dents are a clever touch. It might pass for true."

  Offended by the suggestion, Doucette sat up. "It's meant to be pretty, not to deceive."

  "No?" Cecilia pulled a hand mirror from her bag. Draping the chain against her throat, she studied her reflection. "When did you enchant it?"

  "This morning."

  They both glanced out the narrow western window. The sky was tinged with the apricot color heralding day's end.

  Cecilia pursed her lips. "If the spell holds until dawn, it shouldn't unravel. Not bad."

  "You sound surp
rised. Didn't you think I could learn?"

  Cecilia shrugged and dropped the chain on the bed. Restless as a cat, she prowled the chamber, trailing her fingers over smooth stone walls and window ledges. She straightened the swan hanging. "We're not used to being shown up by our baby sister. Though I'll admit your domestic talents have been useful. Since Tante Mahalt doesn't keep servants, we're usually sick unto death of millet porridge and onion soup by the end of our stay.

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  Your cooking we like." Cecilia flashed a mischievous smile before her blue eyes sobered. "But watching you master the lore we thought our own? No."

  "Why not?" Doucette said. "I've just as much right, but Azelais acts like I'm her enemy."

  "Aren't you?" Cecilia took another turn around the room. "Think, Doucette. Only one of us can inherit Tante Mahalt's crown."

  "True." Abandoning her plan to nap, Doucette pulled the green gown onto her lap and rolled the torn hem between her fingers. "Lend me your needle case, would you, Cecilia?"

  "Forgot it," Cecilia said. "Azelais likely packed hers. Prepared for every occasion, that sister of ours." Cecilia rifled through Azelais's bag and tossed Doucette a leather case. "There. With colored thread to match each one of her gowns."

  "Naturally." Doucette threaded the needle and repaired the hem with small, even stitches.

  Cecilia picked up the chain again and poured it from hand to hand. Links clinked against one another with a dull, metallic sound.

  "Don't mistake me. I intend to wear Tante Mahalt's crown." Cecilia wrinkled her nose. "Though I don't blame you for trying. Being any kind of sorceress is better than a chastelaine's dull life. If you'd put aside your silly scruples, you, too, could avoid the fat old duke or baron Mother's no doubt scheming to procure."

  Doucette decided not to mention the prince. She set the last few stitches in the hem and knotted the thread. "If you and I are sorceresses, who'll marry and provide the Aigleron heirs?"

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  Cecilia tossed her head. "Azelais can do it."

  The swan tapestry rippled as the bar supporting it swung away from the wall. A black head, poised on a long, graceful neck, butted open the door that had been concealed behind the wall hanging.

  Doucette caught a glimpse of the balcony outside as the black swan marched from the flight court into the bedchamber.

  "Did your ears burn?" Cecilia said. "We were just discussing you."

  The swan hissed.

  The door closed; the tapestry returned to its place.

  With her beak, swan-Azelais dislodged a diamond pendant from her feathered breast, then twisted her neck. The necklace twinkled across the room.

  "Temper, temper." Cecilia laughed and snatched the diamond pendant out of the air. She dropped necklace and chain in a glittering tangle on the bed.

  Ebony plumage shimmered with color before the swan skin split open. Azelais stepped out, her face half hidden by the sweep of her long black hair.

  Doucette admired how her sister never sprawled on the floor, gasping, when she returned from swan to human shape. "Your gown's mended."

  "Give it here." Naked, Azelais stalked to the bed. She pulled her shift over her head, then snatched the gown so roughly that the needle Doucette held twisted and bit deep.

  "You're welcome," Doucette said crossly and sucked her wounded finger. So much for courtesy.

  Cecilia clucked. "What ill humor rides you, Sister?"

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  Azelais hung her black swan skin next to Doucette's dappled one. "I saw them, by the chain of lakes." Spots of color stained her cheeks. Her lips tightened as she attacked her loose hair, coiling it into a knot, then jabbed her wand through the black strands. "They're coming."

  "Who?" Doucette's pulse sped. Had Azelais, too, met the brown-eyed shepherd and his little dog? Had her beautiful sister been wearing her swan skin? Or not?

  None of Doucette's affair, if Jaume decided he preferred Azelais. Men were always pursuing her sisters. Or being pursued. And it wasn't as though Doucette held any illusions about her own looks. She was accustomed to walking in her sisters' shadow.

  Doucette opened Azelais's leather case. Before she could tuck the needle inside, it slipped and pricked her again. Tears of vexation, she told herself, swiping her arm across her eyes. Not of disappointment. Stupid shepherds. Stupid needles.

  Cecilia was counting on her fingers. "Already? Early, isn't it? We should have had another month."

  "Ask her." Azelais bared her teeth at Doucette. "Mother will have made Father's life a misery, fretting over how her 'sweet-ling,' her 'treasure,' has fared with the godless sorceresses."

  Cecilia's blond eyebrows winged upward. "You mean her other two daughters and their aunt? Those godless sorceresses?"

  "You know Mother fears our magic, Cecilia. She never cared how long we stayed away while she had Doucette to follow her around like a fledgling chick." Azelais glared at her youngest sister. "We've two days, at most. It's your fault Captain Denis is fetching us so early."

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  "Captain Denis?" Doucette dropped the needle case, which skittered under the bed. She bent down to retrieve it.

  "Why, you sound relieved," Cecilia said. "Who did you think Azelais meant?"

  "She can't wait to show off her new accomplishments at court," Azelais said sourly.

  "No." Doucette could hardly tell them about the man who'd been haunting her dreams. A shepherd. Her sisters would laugh in her face.

  Fortunately, a swallow swooped into the room and cut short Azelais's harangue. The bird twittered at them and flitted out.

  "Tante wants us," Doucette said. She left the needle case where it lay, seized her swan skin, and ran down the stairs ahead of her sisters.

  Mahalt was waiting for her nieces in the great hall.

  For the first time that summer, she did not wait alone.

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  Chapter Twelve

  ***

  D oucette crossed the threshold and looked up in wonder. Fluttering plumage filled the raised gallery that wrapped three sides of the castle's vaulted hall. All around, birds made a restless, white-capped sea of brown and gray and black, streaked with the vivid blue of bee-eaters and the pale rose of flamingos. On the gallery's waist-high railing, flocks of little birds-- warblers, sparrows, linnets, and woodlarks--had assembled. Tall white egrets and majestic herons peered over their smaller cousins' shoulders. Swallows wheeled through the stone arches that surmounted the railing. At the far end of the hall, a pair of crows quarreled with a hawk, until an owl clapped its wings and silenced both parties. Magpies scolded; a peacock screamed like a lost soul.

  Closer, a seagull shrieked near Doucette's ear. She flung her arm up to protect her face, then lowered it when the gull flew by.

  Cecilia skidded to a stop beside Doucette. Azelais arrived hard on her sisters' heels. Temper forgotten, her dark eyes shone with excitement. "What does it mean?"

  "All the birds of the world have come," Doucette said.

  Mahalt stood by the hearth, where a blackened pot hung

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  over a small fire. Their aunt wore a crimson gown. Rubies and diamonds flashed at her ears. She called the three young women, her voice low and calm.

  Confidently, Azelais strode forward. "Yes, Tante Mahalt?"

  Cecilia and Doucette trailed after her, staring at the masses of birds.

  "Your escort from Beloc arrives earlier than expected," their aunt said.

  The young women nodded.

  "You knew? Good. Vigilance becomes you. A sorceress will always have enemies seeking to curb her power and independence." Mahalt's dark gaze traveled from one face to another. "I have not spoken of this overmuch, but I tell you now: Beware of men. Their promises are not to be trusted. If one finds your swan skin, he will make your life a misery."

  "Yes, Tante," Azelais said. Cecilia murmured agreement.

  Not all men were untrustworthy! Doucette wanted to say, but she held her tongue.

  "You see our guest
s." Mahalt gestured at the gallery.

  The sisters nodded.

  "The birds come to witness who will be Queen after me," Mahalt said.

  "Queen of the Birds?" Cecilia bounced on her toes.

  Azelais licked her lips. "You're ready to choose your heir, Tante Mahalt?"

  "Choose?" Mahalt drew out the word. "No. The title is not mine to give, but rather yours to earn."

  "A magical contest?" Cecilia clapped her hands.

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  Excitement hummed inside Doucette. She, too, had a chance. If she were named Mahalt's heir, perhaps her parents would realize how wrong they had been to hide the swan skin from her.

  Except I'm not ready, another part of her wailed silently. With only two months of practice, how could she equal Azelais's and Cecilia's spellcraft?

  "I had hoped you would have more time to prepare," Mahalt said, her glance resting on Doucette as if reading her thoughts, "but Sarpine forces my hand. There are several parts to the trial." She pointed at a table where three river stones rested. "First, you will Transform an object. Azelais?"

  "Yes, Tante." The dark-haired girl tapped one of the stones with her wand and muttered under her breath. The rock sparkled, then flattened like a lump of melting butter. Its gray color warmed to a rich green.

  Thin. Thinner. Thinnest.

  When elegant folds of fabric draped across the table, Azelais nodded in satisfaction. The color of the scarf matched her dress exactly.

  Mahalt picked up the length of green silk. The fabric whispered over her hands. "Nicely done," she said, "though the weave is loose here"--she pointed to a section. "And here.

  Azelais flushed.

  "Observation," her aunt reminded her. "You must picture exactly what you want before you begin."

  "Yes, Tante."