The Black Swan (32 page)

By this point Wolfgang had been doing his best to make up for Siegfried's relative abstinence, and had done more than his share of damage to the wine bottles. So when a pretty girl grabbed his hand and wanted him to give her a dancing lesson, he was just well-lubricated enough to think it was a grand notion.

Before Siegfried could interfere, Wolfgang was already on his feet, following the insistent tugging on his hand. “Now then, gransire,” the girl said in a coaxing voice, “how do
they
dance, these great lords and ladies? You can show me, can't you?”

“Of course I can,” Wolfgang replied, flushed with spirits, and not just the wine. “Here now, you—” He gestured imperiously at Uwe, while the courtiers hid their smiles behind their hands, and the queen watched with amusement. “Give me a bransle, if you please.”

Feigning obedience and hiding a smirk, Uwe picked out a tune, and Wolfgang staggered through a few steps, completely unaware of how unsteady his steps were. “Give that a try, pretty one,” he said in a kindly tone. “But don't feel too bad if you can't master the steps; they're devilish tricky.”

“Ah—let me see, now—” She nodded at Uwe, who began the tune again. “Like this?”

She performed an exaggerated parody of Wolfgang, complete to the staggers, and now it was more than smiles that the courtiers were hiding behind their hands, it was laughter. Siegfried sighed, but decided against interfering. The queen clearly enjoyed seeing the old man make a fool of himself; if he interrupted, she was bound to be annoyed.

Benno frowned and fidgeted in agitation. “Siegfried, we have to do something!” he whispered. “Wolfgang is making a fool of himself!”

“And the queen is in the mood for a fool right now,” Siegfried whispered back. “Don't bother; she won't let Wolfgang get hurt physically, and his reputation isn't so clean that he's doing any damage to it.”

And chances were, Wolfgang would remember this as his great conquest of the pretty little village wench, and not as the moment when he played the court buffoon. Queen Clothilde did not have a court jester; she didn't much care for buffoonery or the coarse jibes and mime that passed for humor with most professional fools. But she did take full advantage of moments when people were willing to make a mockery of themselves, and her courtiers were alert for opportunities to amuse her.

So when the girl managed to coax Wolfgang into another stumbling repetition of the dance, and parodied him yet again, Siegfried simply shook his head at Benno and signaled patience.

This time it was Wolfgang who insisted on doing the steps a third time, insisting that she still hadn't gotten them right. He tried to grasp her wrist to lead her through the right paces; she evaded him, much to the open hilarity of the rest of the court.

Then she capped her insolent performance by briskly skipping through the pavane three times perfectly, but at twice the speed that Wolfgang had managed—forcing Uwe to make his fingers fly to keep up with her. At the conclusion, she whirled Wolfgang around and around in a circle as if she were playing blind-man's bluff with him. Then when he was quite dizzy, she let him go, to stagger back to the table where Siegfried and Benno caught him and got him to sit down, out of breath and quite bewildered, while everyone else howled with laughter.

“By Jove!” the old man managed, holding his head with one hand and panting, completely out of breath. “By Jove! Bright little wench, isn't she! Lively! By Jove!”

Since it was obvious to both of them that Wolfgang hadn't the least notion what a fool he'd been made to look, Siegfried just sighed, and surreptitiously hid the last of the wine bottles, waving the innkeeper away when he would have brought more.

Now that the entertainment—both planned and impromptu—was at an end, the queen rose from her seat to signal to the rest that it was time to return to their camp. Siegfried left Benno in charge of Wolfgang, and hurried to her side when she beckoned to him.

“Are you certain I cannot persuade you to come back with us, my son?” she asked, with a little pout. “The ladies are all desirous to see more of you, not less.”

“Not if I am to fulfill the request of the lady nearest my heart, my queen,” he replied with hollow gallantry, more for the sake of the listening courtiers than for his mother's, since he was severely annoyed with her at this point. “You specifically requested swans for your feast, and I specifically pledged that you would have them.”

The queen sighed; it was, or so it seemed to Siegfried, a rather theatrical sigh. She didn't get a chance to say anything, however, for Benno suddenly shouted, pointing to the sky behind Siegfried.

“There!” the young man cried, voice rising with excitement. “Look, Siegfried! Just as they promised us! Swans!”

Siegfried whirled, to see the welcome vee of white birds just above the trees, shining in the last light of the sun against the darkening eastern sky, heading in the direction of the lake. There was no doubt of their identity, either; they were too large and too white to be geese; white domestic geese were usually too fat to fly, anyway.

Siegfried forgot about playing the courtier to his mother, and joined Benno, the two of them shading their eyes against the westering sun and trying to count the flock. The queen gave a peculiar, silvery laugh, and called out to both of them.

“Ah, you are entirely too like your father, silly boy! Once the scent of the hunt was in his nostrils, he was not to be distracted by anything else! Come, friends.” She gestured to the rest of the court and her guests. “Let us leave the young men to the sport of pursuit, and perhaps when they have had enough, we can persuade them to pursue other quarry!”

With the heralds leading the way, and the rest of the nobles trailing obediently behind, the queen made good her word.

“Are there plans for this hunt, Uwe?” the queen asked casually, as Uwe stationed himself beside her horse with his lute slung across his back and one hand on the palfrey's neck “to steady it.” “I am a little worried; shots in the darkness are so dangerous.”

She knew that Uwe could only reply obliquely here in public, and took cruel pleasure in forcing him to come up with unexceptional ways to speak of things they dared not say in plain speech. “With Benno at his side, Siegfried should come to no harm, my queen,” he replied smoothly, thus telling her that there would be no “accident” tonight. “But there is a plan being carried out—so to speak. An ambush of sorts.” He smiled, as if at a joke. “An ambush of love, or so one father hopes. Our friend the baron is arranging for Siegfried to meet his daughter tonight at the lake, in advance of the feast and fête. Presumably he believes that such a meeting will be more conducive to a romance than a public meeting surrounded by strangers.”

“What, in the woods? Alone? Without a chaperone?” She allowed her eyebrows to rise a trifle. “With a man of Siegfried's reputation?”

Uwe shrugged. “No doubt the baron will be present. His daughter is much sheltered, and probably unsure in company.”

He left unsaid things that they had already discussed; Clothilde's lips curved upward. Should Siegfried take advantage or insult the girl, the sorcerer might well take care of their problem altogether.

“It is very kind of him to give a shy girl the opportunity to meet with my son out of the reach of wagging tongues and spying eyes,” she said lightly. “But that shows how much he dotes on her, I expect.”

“She will certainly be able to display herself to advantage without having to trouble her little head about what might be said about her,” Uwe agreed, his face a mask of genial good humor. “If she is as shy and fragile as you think, it were best Siegfried first sees her in a place where she feels more sure of herself.”

“A jewel sparkles brighter in a setting of black velvet than in a cluster of other gems,” Clothilde pointed out unnecessarily.

Uwe laughed. “My queen, soon it will be
you
who turns poet, leaving me without employment in your household!”

“Never, Uwe,” she mock-assured him, leaning down from her seat and patting his shoulder as if he were a small child. “How could I ever manage without you?”

How indeed,
she thought complacently, as she straightened up again and gazed up to road to the camp.
I would be hard-pressed to find a replacement half so willing to soil his hands for my sake. But it would be a very foolish thing for me to tell you that in earnest.

It also occurred to her that once the problem of Siegfried was taken care of, she might not need him anymore.

Ah, indeed,
she reflected, with another tiny smile.
And I will have no such difficulties in removing Uwe; I simply command, and it will be so. If Uwe begins to forget his place, perhaps I should do just that. It is so much easier to be rid of a mere minstrel than a prince.

B
Y the time Siegfried and Benno organized their hunt, the sun was down and the stars had started to appear overhead, brilliant and clear in the cloudless sky. It was going to be a wonderful night, cool, but not cold, with hints of fallen leaves and smoke on the breeze. The moon would rise at three quarters, granting plenty of illumination to hunt by, particularly when one was hunting snow-white quarry. The hunting party trooped off onto one of the many regular paths that led through the forest to the lake: a half-dozen servants with torches, Benno and Siegfried, and no more. The prince and his friend were the only two who were armed. Perhaps if the swans proved too difficult to kill, he would bring along some of the expert huntsmen on his next attempt, but for the moment, he preferred things as they were. He wouldn't have taken the torch bearers if he hadn't needed extra help, but someone would have to carry out the dead birds, and swans were beastly heavy. The servants wouldn't stay waiting in the forest without the torches, fearful of ghosts and night-walking spirits.

Besides—there was the dark forest to get through before he made it to the lake; torch bearers would be welcome for that. He
could
have carried his own torch, but that would not have been “fitting,” and his mother would surely have fussed when she learned about it.

The small procession set out, with waves and cheers from some of the villagers. They hadn't gotten more than a hundred feet into the forest before he was very glad of the presence of the torch bearers. The forest seemed to swallow them up; when he looked back along the path, he couldn't see the least sign of the village. The dense, tall trees cut off starlight—he got only the merest glimpses of an occasional star through the thick branches that met above the path. It was so dark beneath the trees on either side of the path that the darkness itself absorbed the torchlight. He had forgotten that most of the trees in these woods were black pines—tall, with thick, heavy branches and dense needles.

From the darkness came sounds—but not the dreaded howls of werewolves and tortured spirits that the torch bearers feared. Nothing more sinister emerged than the far-off call of an eagle-owl, vague rustlings in the dry leaves, the cracking of small twigs. Those were enough to make the servants' imaginations create uncanny things out there in the dark; their nervousness communicated itself to Siegfried and Benno, and when the death scream of a hare suddenly broke the silence, every man of them jumped, then laughed, shamefaced.

Just when Siegfried had begun to wonder if they were on the wrong path, starlight showed through a break in the trees just ahead. They picked up their pace at Siegfried's signal, and when they reached the spot where the growth thinned, they found themselves right on the shore of the lake.

Siegfried took a moment to have a good look around. Trees grew right up to the edge of the low cliff on which they stood; as he went to the edge and looked down, he saw that they were just about three feet above the surface. Before them stretched the dark, still water, as reflective as a mirror; the stars winked back at themselves from the quiet surface. There was no sign of the swans, but from what the prince had learned from the villagers, this place was a veritable maze of little coves and long arms of water, and the swans could be hidden in any of them.

“You men stay here,” he directed the servants, much to their obvious relief. “Benno will go to the left, I will go to the right; that way we won't shoot each other by accident.”