The Golden Swan

by Nancy Springer

  Raped her? The goddess? Did he really mean that? The words should have been cried out in rage or shock, but they were not. Neither of us knew how to answer Frain’s unnatural calm. He stared back at us for a while and then turned away.

  “She went away dishonored, with her hair streaming down over her face,” he said, and he would talk no more that day.

  How Trevyn knew it of Frain, I am not sure, but it was true. Frain was frightened of the savagery within, of that which comes out in dark and dreams.

  Though I had gone human, I was still a night creature by nature, napping by day, restless after dark. I roamed the castle when other folk were abed. And that night as I roamed I met with Frain. He was naked, for all folk slept naked in those days, and one glance told me he was not himself. His fair and gentle face was set in dangerous lines, and he walked like a beast that stalks its prey. As I watched, he crouched and crept his way to the great hall, and from the wall behind the dais he took a long smiting sword, an ornament that had not been used in years—well, there was no need in Isle. Then he stood there with the weapon in his one good hand and his withered arm dangling. He had to lean against the sword’s weight and contort himself for balance. He stood hearkening, but when I made a noise he did not hear me. He was in some other place.

  “Tirell,” he breathed into the darkness. “Come and meet your doom, Tirell, for what you have done to me. Fabron, you deceiving bastard—”

  Fabron was his father who had given him away. Frain stood taut and naked holding the great sword, cursing Fabron and Tirell with every sort of punishment he or his gods could visit on them. The hatred in those curses chilled me, that and the blind stare of those clear brown eyes in the night. I fled to get Trevyn.

  “Sleepwalking,” he said as soon as I had told him about Frain. He came with me, lacing his breeches as we ran. “He has been having trouble sleeping, so tonight they gave him a draught, and now he is sleeping with a vengeance. Where is he?”

  Frain had left the great hall. After a few minutes we found him prowling catlike down one of the corridors. “Tirell, you coward, where are you?” he asked the night. The tone was full of threat. The sword was raised.

  “I have to disarm him,” Trevyn said. “Dair, go get me one of the wooden practice swords from the barracks.”

  He’ll slice it right off, I protested.

  “I think not. That sword is old, dull of edge. A wooden sword will do.”

  I brought it as quickly as I was able. Even so, Frain had stalked through a quarter of the castle by the time I got back, with Trevyn never far from his side, warning the guards out of his way. Frain had come out to a platform when I found them. Trevyn and a cluster of guards whispered nearby. Frain stood, no longer the coolheaded hunter, his anger pulsing hot, blood heat.

  “Tirell!” He shouted the challenge, it rang from the stone walls. He had forgotten Fabron, it seemed.

  Trevyn took the wooden sword from me and stepped forward to meet him. At the first touch of the mock blade to his own, Frain lunged forward, filled with lust to kill.

  “Mothers!” Trevyn exclaimed, but it was not Frain’s passion that surprised him. Frain was a master swordsman.

  He was splendid, deadly. Even I could see that. The guards gasped, watching him. Trevyn was skillful, he had been well trained, but weapons had never been his main love. Dreaming had, and peace. There was no room for dreaming in that night.

  “What am I to do with him?” Trevyn wondered aloud, breathing hard.

  He had two good hands, and Frain had only one. Trevyn was trying to engage Frain’s sword with his wooden one while he used his other hand to wrench it away. But it was all he could do to parry Frain’s blows, far less get hold of that hilt. Frain was lightning fast, brilliant, murderous. Trevyn could not stand his ground. He gave way, circling back, feeling for advantage.

  “Coward,” Frain taunted.

  Hardly a coward, who faced him with a mock weapon. The guards eyed each other, wondering if they could help Trevyn without breach of honor, without hurting his pride.

  “Surround him, you fellows,” Trevyn panted, forgetting pride for the time.

  The guards moved to obey. But before they reached Frain the wooden sword broke with a horrible snap. I shouted with fear—Frain’s sword flashed straight for Trevyn’s head! He fell. But as the guards lunged forward a movement of his hand stopped them. And Frain stood still and lowered his long sword, breathed one last curse and walked away.

  Trevyn waited until he was well down the corridor before he got up.

  I thought you were as good as dead! I told him, shaking. There was a welt on his head. He smiled at me.

  “Praise be, I caught the flat of it. And Frain is satisfied with his revenge. At least I hope he is.”

  He was. He went back to his bed and fell sound asleep. Some time later we slipped in and stole the sword away from him to take it back where it belonged. Trevyn went to see him first thing the next morning.

  “What happened to you?” Frain demanded, staring. There was a bright red mark across the left side of Trevyn’s forehead.

  “I lost a bout to a better,” Trevyn said wryly. “How are you? Did you sleep well?”

  “I—no. Please, my lord, no more draughts. I slept, but I had the most—terrible dream.”

  “No more draughts,” Trevyn agreed readily, seating himself. “What was the dream?”

  “I—” Frain looked down, uncomfortable. “I was—quarreling with my brother.”

  “Oh?” said Trevyn, prodding for better truth. Quarreling was hardly the word.

  “Really, my lord, it was nothing, it was of no significance. Dreams are unaccountable things.” Frain looked quite pained. Trevyn had mercy on him, or a partial mercy.

  “This brother of yours—you say he is a True King, and yet he ravished your beloved, crippled you—”

  “He was not himself,” Frain said hotly. “If you knew what he had gone through—” He would have sprung to sword for Tirell’s sake, I felt sure of it. How odd! He who had been ready to kill him a few hours before—

  “The suffering comes before the kingship,” Trevyn remarked.

  “Yes.” Frain gave Trevyn a wondering glance, all his heat cooled. “Yes, my lord, you know, you understand. I—remember how he wept after he had wounded me. Then I fainted, and by the time I awoke he had come back from madness, he was better, truly better, warm and whole as I had not known him to be since—since it had started. He was the brother I had always loved. He took my hand and met my eyes with love and sorrow, and the land itself hailed him, and all the people were rejoicing because the blessing of the goddess was on him—”

  “So how could you be so petty as to sulk about a little thing like an arm?” Trevyn put in dryly.

  “An arm and a true love.” Frain tried to match Trevyn’s tone and his smile, but could not. “I went away,” he added.

  “To find Ogygia and lay your case before the goddess.”

  “No, that came later. First I went to the lake to find Shamarra. But everything had changed. The swan had gone black and was as crippled as I, and the water itself was fearsome. When I looked in I saw—never mind.” His eyes shifted and he hastened on. “There was a woman there, a sort of queenly goddess, and she told me that the wrath of Adalis was on Shamarra because of her overweening. She had been transformed into a night bird and sent to wander the wind.”

  Trevyn looked both startled and intense. “What did you say is the name of your goddess?”

  “There are many names. Every woman’s name is a name of the goddess. There is Eala the swan and the white horse Epona, and Morrghu the raven of war, and Vieyra the hell hag, and Suevi, Rae, Mela—dozens of others. But the mother of Vale is Adalis.”

  “I thought you said that. I heard, but I could not believe my ears.” Trevyn put a palm to his hurt brow with a sigh. “Frain, if you can say that most holy name so offhandedly without the castle stones flying from their places and raining destruction on your head, truly you
must be of immortal kind.”

  “Really?” Frain said that softly, but his excitement grew as he talked, he leaned forward and his voice rose. “You mean you call her by that same name, and she is here, she can respond to you? Do you really mean that?”

  “She is here as much as anywhere,” Trevyn said with some small wonder, for the goddess makes every land her own.

  “Why, then,” Frain breathed, “this must be Ogygia after all.”

  “Perhaps. If you say so. I am surprised that it has taken you so long to find it.”

  “Have you ever tried to find a legendary land?” Frain asked, a hint of vexation in his steady voice. “I never knew there were so many lands that lay beyond Vale. I trudged across them, places and places of them, and no one had ever heard of Ogygia, all they could do was point me toward this one and that one who might know, and I asked them all to no avail. Follow the setting sun, they said, and find the ocean. And when I found it at last, I walked the length of that vast shoreline looking for Ogygia or news of Ogygia: And I had never seen an immensity like that of the sea.” Frain’s voice was tinged with awe and terror. “I knew when I saw it that it was as the woman by the lake had said, that I could no sooner reach Ogygia than the crippled swan. But I had to try.”

  Trevyn sighed in vexation of his own. He had indeed been to legendary lands, and he badly wanted to explain to Frain the ways of the All-Mother. But he knew that Frain had to find her on his own.

  “There is an island far, far west of here,” he said finally, “where the elves have made their home, the ancient folk. There I spoke with the goddess once on her mountain of the moon. The name of that island is Elwestrand. Wild swans fly there. But you cannot go there unless she sends one of her swimming ships for you.”

  Frain’s face sagged. “Why, it sounds as if I must go there nevertheless,” he whispered.

  “I think not. But we will speak to her soon and see what she has to say to you.”

  “Where? How?” Frain rose to his feet in his excitement, and Trevyn could not help smiling.

  “As soon as the weather has broken and you are strong. In a suitable place. Patience!”

  Chapter Four

  The thaw came, and then the early spring sun. Catkins sprouted on the twigs. Frain felt ready to travel, so on a bright morning we made our way out of Nemeton. Trevyn and Frain rode in cavalcade and I walked by Trevyn’s side. Once out of town, on the wealds, they put their horses to the trot, and I ran. I had learned to run again, on two legs now, and it felt glorious to be out in the air again, reveling in the tangle of lusty springtime smells and the feel of strong limbs—but my speed was pitiful compared to what it once had been.

  I can barely keep up, I complained to Trevyn, and he slowed the pace.

  “By human standards,” he said, “you are an extraordinary runner. Certainly the fastest I have ever seen.”

  Having only two legs is a bother, I mourned.

  “Well, then, ride, as I do. You will have four again.”

  I faced the prospect doubtfully. Even my own human height was still sometimes dizzying to me, and the horse was higher yet. Still, I knew they could not always be waiting for me.

  “Or share a mount with me,” Trevyn added.

  I felt Frain’s chilly glance on me. At once pride took over, and I got on a horse of my own. I learned to ride within a few minutes. It was not hard. I had only to keep my balance and try to come to agreement with the steed. I spoke to the horse as I would to any fellow creature, and I never learned a man’s way of dominating it. No matter. We rode pleasantly. By midmorning we crested the uplands and paused to look back on Nemeton. We could see for miles the course of the deep river that flowed down from the Great Eastern Forest, and just beyond the city we could see anchorage and the masts of ships and the gray glint of the sea. But we turned our backs on the sea for the time, riding toward the north and west.

  We were going to a place just at the southern skirts of the Forest, a place where the river forked and formed a sort of island, where there was a sacred grove. The Wyrdwood, it was called. If the goddess had to be summoned she was more likely to come amiably there than anywhere else in Isle.

  I grew to enjoy riding over the next few days. It was indeed rather like having four legs again. I think Frain liked riding too. He needed only one hand to hold the reins, and he could do it as well as anyone. In fact, he rode as well as Trevyn. It was not hard to tell that he had been a prince, that he had been born to ride. But he would not wear a sword. Trevyn had brought him one with a cloak when we were making ready, and he had refused it.

  “The shield arm won’t work for me anymore. I have no defense,” he said, shrugging. “I do better to stay out of trouble.”

  Trevyn had raised his brows at this talk of defenselessness, but of course he could not tell Frain he knew better. “It is only for show in Isle anyway,” he had said. “Wear it. You are of rank.”

  “I gave up both rank and swordsmanship some years ago,” Frain had said.

  So he rode swordless. What an oddling he was. I did not care, I liked him. There was the bond on us, but I liked him for himself as well. Alas, he felt no such liking for me. He stiffened with discomfort when I rode beside him.

  “Nille tha riste, Dair,” Trevyn told me privately. “Do not despair.”

  We came to the holy grove on the third day. Trevyn led us in, and the trees loomed above us, hushed and mighty. That place was full of magic, anyone could feel it. All the magic in Isle centered there. Frain rode steadily, and I knew once again that he was brave, for more than one man of the company went pale with fear. The retainers were afraid to look behind them, knowing that they would see no way out, that the grove we had just entered would seem to go on pathless and forever. Trevyn saw their terror and had them stop.

  “Wait here,” he told them. “We three will go on to the center alone.”

  So Frain and Trevyn and I rode down the spiraling spaces between the giant boles. Trevyn knew the way quite surely. He sensed the center. It drew him, it was in him. He had been born here, in a way.

  The center was only a circle of green meadow around a young and growing tree. A unicorn grazed there. It moved off when it saw us, its solitude disturbed. White flowers that looked like lacework grew there. The tree was in new leaf, and the leaves were jade green and amethyst, sapphire, ruby red and tourmaline red and topaz. They glowed in the sunlight, and they sent flakes of it skimming across the grass at every stir of the breeze.

  “This is her tree,” Trevyn said.

  We got down and let the horses graze. “Alys!” Trevyn called, not loudly. “Mother of us all, come to us, if you please.”

  “What was that you called her?” Frain whispered.

  “Her sooth-name.” Trevyn barely glanced at him, for he was listening, alert. “Not so very different from your name for her.”

  “You think it is the same goddess?”

  “How can it be otherwise? There is only one goddess, despite the many names. And she is only one aspect of the One who has no name,” he added. “Alys!” he called again, and then we sat on the grass. We sat until nightfall and on into the forest night which is all shadow and no light. From time to time through the long wait Frain glanced doubtfully at Trevyn. He sat undisturbed, and Frain sat as well.

  With night came the goddess. She was only a rustle of breeze at first. Then a cool voice spoke from the neighborhood of the sacred tree. “Alberic,” she asked, for that was Trevyn’s true-name, “what do you want?”

  “A favor for a friend, Lady,” said Trevyn to the voice. It was no use flattering the goddess or being less than forthright with her.

  “Ask anything you like for yourself, King of Isle, but ask nothing for your friend. He does not know me.” She sounded annoyed. “You have summoned me here—”

  “It is for myself, Alys, for my heart has gone out to him. Help him. Please.”

  “He has no wisdom. He is no better than a child.”

  “As I was when y
ou first knew me. If he is ignorant, then he needs your guidance the more. Mother, he has felt the touch of your hand, I know he has.”

  Frain sat by himself, trembling at the strangeness of the voice in the night and not able to understand what was being said, for of course Alys and Trevyn spoke in the Old Language. I wanted to go to Frain, but I knew he would take no comfort from my closeness.

  Alys sighed, a breath of wind.

  “Alberic, you greathearted nuisance—” she said, and there was a puff of red light, red as fire, and the most horrible of hags confronted us from midair. It struck terror into me, I felt my sweat run, and it wrung a stifled scream from Frain.

  “The Lady is out of humor,” Trevyn said tightly in Traderstongue, speaking to Frain. “She is not usually so—unlovely.”

  “He knows that,” Alys snapped. In quick succession she took form as swan, red roe deer, raven, white horse, and a woman holding three red apples in her hands. She was blonde, gray eyed, grave. “Adalis,” Frain whispered.

  “I am all of these and more,” Alys acknowledged. Suddenly a shimmering beauty stood in the night, a woman who shone like running water, her hair a silky torrent of silvergold, her soft green robe flowing to her feet. Frain jumped up with a cry. “Shamarra!” he gasped, but as he moved the vision shifted shape. A ragged brown bird stood there instead.

  “Why did you do it to her, why!” Frain shouted, sobbing, plunging forward. But on the instant the bird stretched hugely, horribly, a nightmare thing, it was a feathered serpent rippling up over our heads, then something with horns, then something with a woman’s laughing, shrieking head—all fast, too fast to fathom. It hissed and writhed and menaced, sending Frain staggering back with the shock of it. I caught him as he nearly fell, and in an instant Trevyn was beside us as well, and the goddess laughed and laughed in the night.

  “Why does she laugh?” Frain asked Trevyn from between clenched teeth.

  “She says you are a fool to think Shamarra still stands and weeps.”