The Swan Maiden

by Heather Tomlinson

  Doucette released the shutter and moved to stamp on the sparks before the makeshift bed caught fire. "Good night," she said.

  "Good ni-eeeeooow!"

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  The window shutter swung wide, pulling the man halfway out the window before he succeeded in slamming it closed.

  The shutter opened again.

  Closed again.

  Opened.

  Ignoring the tiresome fellow's cries for help, Doucette retired to her bedchamber. From time to time in the night, a distant knocking sound roused her from evil dreams. The next morning, her head ached and her eyes felt full of sand. It seemed her visitor had spent an equally unpleasant time.

  When she freed him from the window latch at dawn, Om Garmel cradled his arm to his chest. "Lady, how did I offend?"

  "Men often sleep ill in a sorceress's house," Doucette answered austerely. She handed him his gloves and bag and showed him to the door. "Good-bye."

  "Good-bye." Head low, Om Garmel trudged away.

  Doucette pulled up the drawbridge and secured its chain before returning inside to Transform the broken plates and soiled velvet cushions her uninvited guest had left behind.

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  Chapter Thirty

  ***

  A s the days lengthened, Doucette's garden flourished. Seeds sprouted and bright green leaves unfurled into the welcome banners of spring. She carefully tended the young plants, thinning the carrots, staking the peas and beans, watering and weeding and fussing over the seedlings.

  Inside the castle, she prowled her silent rooms like a caged beast, picking up her needlework and dropping it again. She stroked a fur robe, turning it from winter white to summer brown. As always, the magic came easily, bubbling out of her like an inexhaustible spring. She changed her golden plates to blue-and-white porcelain, pictured different scenes for all her wall paintings. When she Transformed her bed hangings to summer silks, she remembered the fateful day of spring cleaning in her parents' bedchamber and how she had found her swan skin.

  A year later, nobody kept her from flying where she willed.

  On the thought, Doucette strode out to the courtyard and changed into a hawk. As so often when she took bird shape and flew over the woods, she turned west, as if pulled by an invisible string. Soon she glimpsed familiar tile rooftops and swept in a wide circle around Vent'roux.

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  She was done with Jaume, she reminded herself. That part of her life was finished.

  Still, when she soared over pastureland flecked with sheep, her hawk's eyes tracked the shepherds, alike in their broad hats and simple clothes, watching their wooly charges. The flocks were gathering, it seemed, making ready for their annual journey to the mountain pastures.

  As the breeze stirred the grass below, memories ruffled Doucette's serenity. Perhaps she had followed these same sheep in the exhilarating flight to Tante Mahalt's. Doucette thought of bathing in the hot pools, of Jaume walking toward her hiding place with his little dog capering beside him.

  How innocent her younger self had been! Keenly eager to discover her sorcery, unaware of the treachery and triumph succeeding days would bring. She had been so frightened, then, and now... Doucette was mistress of her own domain, independent and powerful beyond her dreams.

  So why did the memory tug at her? Why did she envy that foolish girl, succumbing to the promise in two merry brown eyes?

  A group of men caught Doucette's attention. Their easy stances, their lanky bodies. The resemblance between them was so strong she didn't need to see the curly brown hair under their broad-brimmed hats to recognize Jaume and two of his brothers.

  Curiosity sent hawk-Doucette a little lower. She circled lazily over their heads, until the brown-and-white dog sitting by Jaume jumped up and yipped with excitement. The men looked around, then up, shading their eyes with their hands. Doucette veered away, but not before Eri shouted and pointed. She

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  glanced back and saw Jaume staring after her, hands at his sides while Fidele barked and pranced.

  Stupid, Doucette scolded herself. What purpose was there in raising the ghost of a love she had left behind?

  But Jaume was well, her heart sang. A little thin, but healthy, his skin browned by the sun. Perhaps he, too, had forgotten what had passed between them, and was making a new life without her.

  The thought brought no pleasure.

  Doucette flew back to her castle and resumed her human form. Driven by an upwelling of restless energy, she kneaded dough for bread, chopped vegetables for stew, and baked a cake. In the garden, she picked the first tender lettuce leaves. Disdaining the Animated hoe, she sank to her knees and yanked weeds up by their roots, wishing her tumultuous emotions could be as easily subdued.

  The sight of Jaume had reawakened an undeniable, seemingly unquenchable longing. Doucette was a little frightened by the strength of her desire to drop out of the sky and speak with him. More than speak, if she were honest with herself. She had wanted to taste his kisses again, to feel those strong arms close around her.

  Given her stained skirts and the lank state of her hair, it was fortunate that she had resisted the temptation, Doucette told herself sternly. For a powerful sorceress, she was a rather dirty example. A bath and fresh clothing would restore her spirits. And if she chanced to see Jaume again, her appearance wouldn't disgust him.

  Luxuriating in hot water, Doucette considered the gown she would make. She was in the mood for something special.

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  Violet-colored, she decided, trimmed with lace as creamy as her pearl earrings. A stroke of her hand, a whispered word, and it was done. The purple silk rustled over her skin. She hummed as she braided her hair and clipped on the pearls.

  Steaming with yeasty promise, the bread came out of the oven. Doucette put it aside to cool, then set the table with her new blue porcelain and floated water lilies in a silver bowl.

  Before she could admire the effect, the gate bell rang.

  Doucette laughed out loud. When she wanted company, it seemed, she had only to dress for it. And if she bad conjured a gown to please one curly-haired, dark-eyed Vent'roux man in particular, why shouldn't her desire bring him to her door?

  She had left the drawbridge down after picking the water lilies. On the far side of the moat, the bell-ringer waited courteously.

  Her pulse quickened with expectation, but upon seeing the elegant person who stood there, Doucette was hard-pressed to hide her disappointment.

  No lost servant or woodsman, this young man's black eyes and pointed features were attractive in a foxlike way, framed by shoulder-length red-brown hair. A wide embroidered band bordered the neck of his blue tunic, and his shoes curled up into fashionable points. A sword in a tooled leather scabbard hung from his belt.

  Doucette's polite invitation sounded flat to her own ears. "Come in and be welcome, traveler."

  'Thank you, Lady.' The man walked across the drawbridge and bowed. "Sieur Nicolau de Valescure Saint-Senlis, yours to command."

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  Om Garmel must have reported Doucette's presence to his employer. Doucette wondered whether the servant's story had included the hours he had spent banging to and fro with the Animated shutter.

  Sieur Nicolau's serene expression showed little fear of suffering a similar fate. Unlike her previous two visitors, the nobleman surveyed Doucette's luxurious appointments with calm approval.

  "Exquisite. A fit setting for your beauty, Lady--?" His voice rose on a note of inquiry.

  "Doucette," she said, and belatedly curtsied. "Doucette Aigleron, Sieur."

  "Of the Beloc Aiglerons? Why, I've had the honor of meeting your parents." Sieur Nicolau kissed the tips of his fingers. "Lady Sarpine, what a treasure."

  Doucette thought of her last sight of her mother, shrieking threats at Jaume from a swollen, bee-stung face. She shrugged away the unpleasant memory. "We didn't part on cordial terms."

  "Ah," Sieur Nicolau said. Tactfully, he changed the subject. "What
a marvelous residence, and constructed in a season! I understand you're a practitioner of the High Arts?"

  "Yes," Doucette said.

  Sieur Nicolau favored her with a warm smile. "Beloc's loss is Donsatrelle's gain, that such a great sorceress would make our humble county her home."

  Deciding to be amused by his flattery, Doucette invited the nobleman to share her meal.

  Each dish was met with fulsome praise. He pronounced the stew "superb," the bread "excellent," the greens "delightful."

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  After the cake had been sampled and likewise approved ("divine"), Doucette offered to show her guest the rest of the castle. With impeccable courtesy, the nobleman extended an arm.

  For a moment Doucette had the strange sensation that she had been transported back to the Château de l'Aire, to a court she had never imagined. There she, not Azelais or Cecilia, was considered the fairest, and knights vied to serve her, and paid her compliments, and asked her opinion about their verses.

  The only thing that tempered her enjoyment was the calculation in Sieur Nicolau's eyes as he praised her handiwork. But it was only natural, she thought, that he should be curious about an enchanted castle springing up in the forest where a ruined hermitage had been.

  They strolled outside to admire the glow of sunset on the pond and returned to sit by the fire, where Sieur Nicolau recounted amusing stories about Donsatrelle's noble families. "Though none of our county's beauties," he said suavely, "could hope to outshine a lady of your refinement."

  "You're very kind," Doucette said.

  "In truth, I am overcome." Sieur Nicolau's expression turned serious as he took Doucette's hand. "I had meant to wait, to make your acquaintance properly, but my dear, dear Lady Doucette--if I may make so bold as to style you after a single delightful evening--I believe we might make a mutually advantageous alliance."

  Doucette drew back. "How so, Sieur Nicolau?"

  Still holding her hand, the nobleman sank gracefully to one knee. "Lady Doucette, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

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  "What?" Doucette stared at him.

  "No, don't answer immediately. I've startled you, I see. Only consider, dear lady, what we might accomplish, between my connections and your Arts. Why should you languish in the wilderness, when you could ornament the entire realm as comtesse or duchess--nay, as a queen!"

  "But, Sieur Nicolau, I don't trust--I don't know you," Doucette stammered, surprised into speaking the awkward truth.

  "Know me? Trust me?" He laughed gently. "Your pardon, Lady Doucette. Such charming frankness deserves an honest response. You may trust me to further both our interests, far better than, shall we say, a shepherd ever could?" He winked at her alarm.

  "Your little adventure is the talk of Donsatrelle. But now that your former swain is to marry a Vent'roux girl--"

  "What?" Doucette said again, even more stupidly than she had the first time.

  "I thought," Sieur Nicolau squeezed her palm, "that you might welcome a suitor who could restore you to the world's admiration and your family's esteem."

  Though Sieur Nicolau blathered on, Doucette didn't hear the rest of it.

  Jaume was to wed?

  A cold fog filled her chest; she couldn't breathe. Her hands tightened over Sieur Nicolau's until he winced. She wrenched away from him and jumped up from her bench to pace back and forth between the fire and the door. She hoped the motion would hide the trembling that had started in her stomach and spread to her arms and legs.

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  After the shock, anger swelled inside her. Potent as magic, it coursed through her body and stopped the shaking.

  The spirit Lavena had said that Doucette lacked pride, but she could summon enough to hide her true feelings from this titled opportunist, this--this--velvet vulture who hovered at her hearth. If Sieur Nicolau thought to wound her with his sly announcement and then sway her will with his fine manners and easy compliments, he was mistaken.

  "You have me at a disadvantage, Sieur Nicolau," Doucette said. Her voice sounded calm, as if it came from a woman standing outside the inferno of Doucette's heart and mind, speaking the words good manners required. "As you say, your suit is unexpected. Perhaps we could talk more in the morning?"

  "Certainly." Sieur Nicolau's smirk broadened, fanning the flames of Doucette's silent rage.

  He dared imagine he could twist her to his will, but he would repent his presumption! A sorceress was nobody's toy, least of all this pompous courtier's, with his pretty clothes and his silky condescension.

  Doucette paused, her hand by the door, and bent her head.

  Bolt, strong bolt, stick fast to his hand, lock and unlock until I release thee.

  The surge of magic made her clutch the doorframe for balance, but Doucette felt a savage delight in the strength of the spell streaming through her.

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  Haughty Sieur Nicolau might not enjoy experiencing a sorceress's true power as much as he imagined.

  "Your pardon, Lady Doucette?"

  "This bolt is stuck," she said. "Would you be so kind as to pull it closed?"

  "As you wish, dear lady," he answered.

  But the moment he shot the bolt home, the iron bar reversed course. Sieur Nicolau closed it. Again it opened, dragging his arm to one side. He chuckled uneasily. "Ahem. This bolt seems to possess a mind of its own."

  "As do I," Doucette purred.

  The nobleman's face changed as he realized that he could neither remove his hand from the bolt, nor still its motion. He tried, but the bolt jerked his unwilling arm from side to side. "Lady Doucette," he said sternly, "it is ill done, to tease me."

  The hauteur that glazed Sieur Nicolau's features would have been more convincing, Doucette thought, without the sweat beads dotting his brow. The pompous lordling imagined it his duty to instruct her in manners?

  She curtsied with an elaborate flourish. "Good night," she replied, and left him before a worse punishment occurred to her.

  The tide of anger and magic swept her down the corridor to her bedchamber. Blinded by the tears that burned her lashes, Doucette didn't see candles slumping into wax puddles as she brushed past the wall sconces.

  Her head was ringing with remembered voices. Na Claro's quavered with emotion. "Our sweetness has found a husband to treasure her."

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  "Their promises are not to be trusted," Tante Mahalt said, low and urgent, while Jaume's voice held tender laughter.

  "You're the only one I'm kissing."

  The only one. The only one. The lie echoed behind her eyes.

  "No!" Doucette said aloud and pushed aside the bed curtains. At her touch, a silk panel smoldered, then sparked like the green branch of feather-pine it had once been.

  Doucette threw up her hands in surprise.

  Overhead, the bed's canopy rippled into a sheet of fire. Doucette jumped back to avoid the burning clumps of blackened needles that dropped to the coverlet. In an instant, the rest of the linens, too, were burning.

  Entranced, Doucette watched the flames consume her bed.

  She spun to the left and her hand stabbed out, dashing scent bottles and jeweled gloves and colored ribbons to the floor. Flames leaped, emerald and apricot at their heart. The ghostly fragrance of lilies touched the air before it was suffocated by the scent of burning cedar.

  Doucette sobbed a laugh, partly in surprise, but more with a kind of angry satisfaction.

  Why not let it burn?

  Let it all burn!

  From the ashes of her swan skin, she had found the courage to dare the Rassemblement. What phoenix might arise out of the destruction of everything her magic had wrought since then?

  Deliberately, Doucette gestured at the chests, the benches, the lovely rugs and gowns and hangings her imagination had called forth. Spells hissed over her tongue and set the furnishings alight.

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  When the quick, bright crackle of twigs and grass failed to satisfy, Doucette turned her a
ttention to the wooden shutters. A stroke of her hand, and they flared into blue flames. She basked in the glow, though the smoke made her retreat into the corridor. Wind sighed through the window and stirred ash into a glittering cloud.

  Doucette craved more.

  One man had betrayed her; another sought to use her. Hurt and outrage demanded release. Like a moth pushing free of its cocoon, Doucette stretched her arms over her head. Power burst from her hands as she chanted destruction into the thick air.

  The roof exploded outward in a clap of heat and light. It sucked Doucette's hair straight up from her head and then knocked her flat onto her back. She shrieked, clapping her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to shut out the thundering roar.

  When she brought her hands down, the sight of the blood trickling over her fingers shocked Doucette out of the mindless passion that had possessed her. But it was too late to call back the magic she had unleashed.

  Majestic as a summer sunset, molten radiance washed down the walls. Unlike wood and straw, the stone was slow to react. It groaned and sagged, crumbling away from her like a wall of wet sand.

  Doucette realized her own danger at the same time she heard a loud yell.

  Sieur Nicolau!

  She pushed herself to her feet and ran to the front of the castle.

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  "Help!" The nobleman stood at the door, his face contorted in the fire's glow. Soot from the burning shutters dusted his shoulders, and his hand jerked back and forth as the enchanted bolt continued to close and open, dragging him with it. "Please," he choked, "help me!"

  With a muttered word, Doucette released him. The two of them stumbled across the drawbridge and chased their shadows down to the pond. As Doucette beat out the sparks that had fallen onto Sieur Nicolau's tunic, he coughed smoke from his lungs. Behind them, the castle burned like a beacon in the night.