The Swan Maiden (13 page)

“You want a fool?” Jaume snapped a twig from an almond tree and chewed on it thoughtfully. “Well, if playing one will get my heart's desire, I'll be proud to wear the belled cap and motley.” Dropping a slow wink at Doucette, he bent and lifted the two honey-filled jars as easily as if they had been empty. Not a quirk of his eyebrow showed that he had noticed her watching the play of muscles in his tanned arms.

Fighting the rush of color that climbed the back of her neck and stained her cheeks, Doucette lifted her chin in one of Azelais's haughty poses. “See that you do.”

“Ahem.” Om Toumas cleared his throat. The hint of mischief in his eyes strengthened the resemblance to his younger cousin. “You'll stay with us in town, eh, Jaume?”

“Thank you, Cousin,” Jaume said.

“Good, good. Well, the kitchen's this way. Patris will be pleased to see you, lad, and not only for the honey. Thank you again for your help with the bees, Lady Doucette.” Om Toumas nodded, Jaume tipped his broad-brimmed hat, and the two men walked away.

When they were out of sight, Doucette leaned against the nearest almond tree and closed her eyes. She shivered; she burned.

Lady of the Seas. What had she done?

Chapter Sixteen

After a breathless run up the tower stairs and a swift change of clothes, Doucette hurried down the wide corridor to the feast hall. She had deliberated too long over her swan skin. In the end, she had fluffed it out and draped it over her shoulders. With every step, feathers fluttered bravely around her face.

She had obeyed her mother's wishes. Now she would pursue her own. With Jaume, Doucette reminded herself. Tonight they would both see the advantages her new powers had gained her.

She paused before the doors to arrange her skirts and pat the wand in her sleeve, then took a deep breath and entered.

Noise and heat struck a double blow.

Though no fire had been lit on this summer evening, candles glowed on the trestle tables, and torches burned along the walls, giving off a smoky warmth. Banners drooped overhead, their colors muted by time and soot. Unlike the silence that reigned in the Château de l'Île, the Château de l'Aire's feast hall rivaled its beehives for purposeful activity. Ladies' voices fluted over the low rumble of knights and nobles. Benches scraped across the straw-covered floor as the courtiers took their places at the long tables. Barking and whining at their masters' feet, dogs scrabbled for position.

Doucette picked her way through the crowd and ascended the three shallow steps to the high table where the comte's family and favored nobles presided above the court.

“Good evening, Doucette.” Lord Pascau leaned back in his chair and patted the dog crouched at his side. Eyes as dark and keen as Mahalt's studied Doucette from above the strong nose, the impeccably trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. Her father's gaze rested longest on the swan skin. “You're looking well. My sister didn't work you to the bone?”

After the first disbelieving stare, Lady Sarpine neglected to acknowledge her youngest daughter.

It boded ill, Doucette thought, that her mother judged her conduct too outrageous to be corrected in public.

“Tante sends her greetings, Father. Good evening, Mother.” Doucette curtsied to her parents, trying to maintain a serene expression. As she slipped into the empty spot between her sisters, she felt as if an invisible sword hung over her head.

“You're late,” Azelais said.

Trust her sister to stick that long nose where it wasn't wanted.

Doucette draped her napkin across her lap. “While you primped, I had work to do, supervising the honey harvest.”

“Honey,” Azelais said scornfully.

“Try some,” Doucette returned. “It might sweeten your disposition.”

Azelais touched her gold circlet. “Strength trumps sweetness.”

But Doucette was no longer defenseless against her sister's contempt. When Azelais turned to speak to Lord Luquet, Doucette took a handful of grapes from a server's basket. With a touch of her wand, she Transformed a grape into a lump of salt and dropped it into Azelais's goblet.

Cecilia noticed, and a spark of interest brightened her face before it set once more into a coquettish mask.

Azelais's triumph was still affecting her sister's spirits, Doucette thought, though a stranger might not perceive the effort Cecilia made to keep up her flirtatious manner.

Moments later, Azelais drank, then gargled in disgust.

Doucette smiled to herself, until Azelais summoned Anfos. “Come here, you!”

“Yes, Lady Azelais?”

When the boy approached, Azelais slapped his face and poured the tainted wine over his head. “Bring me another,” she said coldly. “This isn't fit to fatten swine.”

“Yes, Lady,” Anfos mumbled. His tunic dripping crimson, the boy retreated into the kitchen.

Doucette almost told Azelais that she had spelled the wine, but Cecilia wagged a warning finger.

Twisting her napkin in her lap, Doucette knew her sister was right. She would have to make it up to Anfos later. After all, what would be gained by confessing? Sparking a magical tit-for-tat at the high table would hardly return Doucette to her mother's good graces.

Although her appetite had vanished, the banquet continued, course after endless course. A hearty squash soup was followed by mushrooms fried with onions, spit-roasted rabbit in black pepper sauce, and lamb studded with parsley and garlic.

When she wasn't pushing the food around on her plate to disguise how little she had eaten (an art Cecilia had already perfected), Doucette pleated her napkin between her fingers. She watched the door, her breath quickening whenever a tall, dark-haired man entered the feast hall. Each time, she recognized a courtier or armsman's familiar features.

The meal wore on. Servants took away the roasted meats and brought in sizzling cheese fritters.

A scrubbed, uncharacteristically silent Anfos carried a basin of water for the comte's family to wash the grease from their hands before dessert. Doucette wondered whether it was the demands of waiting on the high table, the episode with the wine, or something else altogether, that made the kitchen boy goggle at her when she dipped her fingers in the basin. She grimaced in belated apology.

By the time pear pies and sweet custards had given way to the salted almond wafers, dried fruit, and spiced wine that would close the meal, Doucette felt limp.

With relief, not disappointment, she told herself. After the meal, she had to confront her parents and assert her claim to independence before explaining that she was in love with a shepherd. It was tactful of Jaume to give her room to clear the air. Not his fault that, surrounded by her family, she felt so alone.

“You'll tear that napkin,” Cecilia said. “How did the poor thing offend you?”

“Never mind.” Doucette slid down the bench and smoothed the fabric over the lap of her green-gold gown.

“Do tell.” The metal band glinted in Azelais's ebony hair as she turned to Doucette. “You've been twitchy as a sand lizard since you sat down.”

Doucette was saved from answering by a commotion at the entry doors. Along with her sisters, she leaned across the table for a better view.

Cecilia snickered behind her napkin. Azelais frowned. “What mischief—” she said, but the comte's voice overrode hers.

“We'll see this sport.”

Dressed in a fool's red-and-black motley, Jaume was walking on his hands through the clear space between the tables. A leather strap held a set of shepherd's pipes to his lips. His legs danced in the air to the tune that he played.

Copper coins flashed across the tables as knights bet on how far the stranger could go before he fell over.

As he progressed down the hall, the tune quickened, as did the speed of the waving legs, one black, one red.

He has excellent balance, Doucette thought. She stole a glance at her sisters. Cecilia swayed to the music, and even Azelais's stern lips had relaxed into a smile. Na Patris stood at Doucette's elbow, watching her husband's cousin over a tray of dried apricots.

Jaume's particolored garb looked familiar. Since Doucette had last seen it in a castle storeroom, he must have persuaded a servant to outfit him according to her mocking suggestion. Judging from Na Patris's fond expression, Doucette could guess who might have helped.

By the time Jaume reached the dais where the high table stood, most of the courtiers were cheering his effort. Several ladies threw him tokens. He caught the colored ribbons and tucked them into his tight-fitting sleeves.

Jaume stopped in front of the comte and comtesse and blew a final flourish on the pipes. His legs flipped behind him; he bounded upright and then sank low again in a bow. The pipes vanished into the pouch at his waist.

“Who approaches?” Lord Pascau demanded.

“Jaume of Vent'roux, Sieur, begging your indulgence.”

“Indeed.” The comte tented his fingers over the table. “How so, friend fool?”

Courtiers murmured, trying to guess what the jester intended. Doucette's hands tightened on the napkin in her lap.

“Lord Pascau, Lady Sarpine, I've come to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage.”

The sound of Doucette's napkin ripping down the middle was loud in the sudden hush. Azelais choked on her wine. In the back of the feast hall, someone dropped a jug, which smashed into pieces on the stone floor. Below the high table, courtiers recovered their wits and exclaimed over the fool's boldness.

Lady Sarpine massaged her temples. “This jest is ill-conceived.”

“My daughter's hand?” Lord Pascau repeated. At his side, the dog growled.

Silently, Doucette agonized. Would her father play along with the fool's request or have him thrown from the hall?

“I have three daughters,” Lord Pascau said at last, scratching the dog's raised hackles. “Which one pleases you best? Our Dark Swan, Azelais?”

Jaume turned to Doucette's oldest sister.

Azelais glared at him. She pulled the wand from her hair and raised it in warning.

“She's a beauty,” Jaume said, “but too free with that wand. I've no wish to end my days as a turnip.”

A knight bellowed with laughter. Ladies tittered.

Visibly, Azelais judged it beneath her dignity to respond. She put away her wand and aimed her nose in the air, then had to straighten the gold circlet before it slid off her sleek head.

Lady Sarpine drew an incredulous breath.

The comte, however, had determined to be amused. He settled into his chair. “If not Azelais, then Cecilia?”

“A fool's bride?” Cecilia tossed her golden curls. “I think not.” Her wand slid out of her sleeve, and in the next instant, Doucette's sister had Transformed herself into a white doe. To the knights' shouts of acclaim, deer-Cecilia leaped over the table. Dainty black hoofs beat a tattoo on the stone floor as she pranced just out of Jaume's reach.

“Cecilia!” Lady Sarpine gasped in horror.

“A lively lass,” Jaume said as the white doe turned her back to him and trotted around the feast hall, flicking her ears, “but if she ran, I couldn't catch her.”

The comte pulled on his beard. “Which leaves the youngest.”

The courtiers all strained forward to hear the joke that would cap the fool's play.

Doucette clenched her hands so tightly she could feel her bones grind together. How brave Jaume was! She would never have dared to address her parents so publicly, risking ridicule before the entire court.

“Aye,” Jaume said. “It's Lady Doucette has conquered my heart. I'll do what you command, Lord Pascau, to win her.”

In the face of his sincerity, the courtiers fell so silent that a dog could be heard scratching in the straw under a table.

Doucette peeked through her lashes at her family. Her mother and Azelais wore their iciest expressions. Cecilia, who had circled the high table and reclaimed her own form, sat once more beside Doucette. She appeared to be stifling a laugh.

“No fool like a young fool, eh?” Lord Pascau maintained the appearance of good humor, though his voice sounded hard. “Doucette?”

“Yes, Father.”

“You would allow his suit?”

Doucette met Jaume's eyes and rejoiced in the message she read there. “Yes,” she said.

The outburst of held breaths made candle flames dance.

Lord Pascau surveyed the hall. A grim smile played within his black-and-white beard, as if he knew exactly how many courtiers expected to see the stranger, or the comte's daughter—or both—struck down for their audacity.

Lady Sarpine's expression made clear which course of action she favored.

Instead, Lord Pascau grunted. “Well, now. Tradition requires a low-born suitor to complete three impossible tasks if he would court a nobleman's daughter.”

Jaume stood quietly under the lash of scorn that edged the comte's words, though Doucette felt the sting on his behalf.

“As you will, Sieur,” the shepherd said.

“Present yourself in the lower courtyard at dawn tomorrow, and we shall measure a fool's mettle.”

“Thank you, Sieur.” Jaume put his fist to his heart and bowed.

Lord Pascau dismissed Jaume with a curt nod. “More wine,” he said, and servants leaped to attend him.

The spell that had fallen on the hall was broken. A buzz of excited talk filled the air as Jaume bowed to Doucette and her sisters. Although courtiers would have detained him in conversation, he looked neither to the right nor to the left as he walked out through the great doors.

Doucette's sisters pounced. “Who is that person?” Azelais demanded, her eyes bright with anger and curiosity. “Where did he come from?”

Cecilia's voice was a low, mocking purr. “Mm, mm. It seems our sister has been keeping secrets.”

Doucette pressed her lips together and shook her head. She couldn't explain the situation while their mother stared, speechless with rage.