The Swan Maiden (15 page)

“Lady Doucette.” He took off his wide-brimmed hat and saluted her. Brown hair curled damply at his ears.

She offered the cup, wishing she could soothe the angry red scratches that covered his muscular arms.

“Thank you.”

Doucette surveyed the expanse of hillside as he drank. Town children straggled home for their own midday meals. Insects buzzed undisturbed among the brambles. “You can't do this.”

“No?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “It's impossible.”

“Maybe.”

Worry—mixed with shame that he was suffering on her behalf—spilled out into words. “Why didn't you take my swan skin that night? You could have married me without my parents' blessing or a hillside of thorns to clear. Those leggings will be rags, and your arms are scratched bloody!”

“I told you already.” Jaume sounded insulted. “I won't live in fear that my wife finds her coat and flies away, leaving me worse off than before. Sorceress or not, you deserve to be wooed properly.” A callused finger stroked one of the gray-tipped feathers that curled over her neck.

Doucette shivered, feeling the caress the length of her body. “Why don't I Transform us both into birds? I don't care whether Father's tests are finished. They're not fair.”

“I asked for your hand like an honest man. I'll face the consequences.” Jaume studied her over the cup's rim. “Unless you think a shepherd's honor of no account?”

Caught by that dark gaze, Doucette couldn't speak.

He smiled, as if her silence were answer enough. “Besides, winning a woman like you should be impossible.”

“Me?” The word came out in a squeak. “Why?”

“You know why. We're for each other.” Jaume drained the cup and closed her fingers around it.

Doucette's hands tightened on his. “Yes,” she said urgently. “But if your honor won't let you marry me without clearing this field, you'll have to use that mattock. And it's cursed.”

Chapter Eighteen

“True,” Jaume said.

Doucette blinked. “You knew?”

“Oh, aye. Besides herb lore, my countrymen don't hold much with sorcery. More honor in a job done by your own hand than by waving a little stick, that's our feeling.” He dusted his hat on his thighs and settled it on his head. “Plenty in Vent'roux town live happy without magic of any kind, but we can recognize it, if need be.”

“Wish I had,” Doucette said. “Azelais made the thing and Animated it years ago. Promised it would finish weeding the herb garden.”

“And?”

“It did. She just neglected to mention that it would drag me along like a cat shakes a rat. The courtiers thought it hugely funny.” Doucette kicked a knot of brambles. “Azelais and Cecilia were always giving me toys that wouldn't stop playing.”

“And you wonder why Donsatrelle folk don't meddle with sorceresses?”

“Jaume.” Doucette seized his arm, though she could as easily have shaken sense into an oak. “Listen to me! There's no other way to complete Father's task. But if that mattock drags you over the whole hillside as it dragged me through the garden, it will kill you!”

“Your father shares your sisters' sense of humor, I take it.” Jaume dropped a kiss on her head. “Let's see the thing.”

They left the cup by Na Claro, who was dozing in the oak's circle of shade. The mattock lay on the rock where Jaume had set it long hours ago.

Doucette pulled her swan skin close to keep the trailing feathers from touching the nasty thing. “Once you swing it, the mattock won't stop until the task is done.”

Jaume squatted by the rock. “Will it work without you hanging on?”

“By changing the Animation spell, you mean?” Doucette thought hard. “We can try. Pick up the mattock, but don't swing it.”

Jaume took the tool.

Doucette laced her fingers through his, aware of each bit of skin where their hands touched, his, scratched and work-roughened; hers, sticky with lavender. With an effort, she cleared her mind of distraction and, as Tante Mahalt had taught her, pictured what she wanted the mattock to do.

Mattock, good mattock,

touch not the useful plants,

but clear weeds and thorns and brambles:

root and branch

spine and seed

from wall to cliff-top.

And when the task is done,

return

with our thanks.

The painted tool quivered, then leaped from their hands.

Doucette muffled a shriek of surprise as the mattock took flight. Jaume jumped in front of her, his hands spread protectively. Startled birds whirred away. Doucette craned her neck. “Look at it go!”

The mattock flashed through the air, diving and swooping like a demented dragonfly.

No match for the tool's relentless attack, bramble bushes were torn by their roots from the ground and rolled into heaps. Flurries of loose leaves and thorns drifted over them. Without warning, the piled vegetation sparked into flame, burned with a fierce, smokeless heat, and dissolved into gray ash.

Doucette danced behind Jaume. “It's working!”

He mustered a smile for her. “Without you to command it, yon mattock would have led me a deadly ride indeed.”

“Your idea,” she said.

Jaume spat in the dirt. “I'm no sorcerer.”

“Maybe not to Animate the tool in the first place.” Doucette remembered what Tante Mahalt had said about magic. “But to change the spell required an observant eye, a clear mind, and a strong will.”

“If you say so.”

The mattock raced up and down the hillside. Avoiding the wild herbs, flowers, and oak trees, it ranged back and forth until the last prickly bush and bramble root had been scoured from the ground and consumed by flame. Then it flew straight to the rock where it had started and landed with a satisfied little wriggle.

Doucette let out a deep breath of relief. Jaume knelt and sifted a handful of dirt through his fingers. “Soft as sand,” he marveled.

“Not a thorn left,” Doucette agreed.

They grinned at each other.

“Well done,” Jaume said. Doucette favored him with her deepest curtsy. Arm in arm, they returned to Na Claro, still napping under the oak tree.

The servant rubbed her eyes and yawned. With a start of surprise, she beheld the altered landscape. “Good job, lad. Expect you've worked up an appetite, eh? How about some roast chicken?” She rummaged in the sack Anfos had brought. “There's Patris's excellent bread, and pears, and cheese. Then perhaps you'd give us a tune?” She winked at Doucette. “Never yet met a shepherd without a flute or a drum by him.”

“My pleasure,” Jaume said.

“Yes, please.” Doucette unfolded a napkin's careful wrapping. “Ooh, honey cakes!”

*   *   *

They heard the children's excited shrieks over the music dancing through Jaume's pipes, then the low tones of knights and their ladies' silvery laughter. But even when the exclaiming crowd enveloped them, Doucette kept her mouth closed and her eyes on the wool she was combing for Na Claro.

Her sisters pushed the courtiers aside. Azelais gripped Doucette's shoulder. “You did this.” She shook Doucette, hard. “I should have stayed and watched you myself, you devious—” Abruptly, she let go.

“What?” Doucette said.

Azelais was backing away. Whatever she had glimpsed in Jaume's eyes had caused her to think better of the scolding. She fluffed her black swan skin and vented her displeasure on Cecilia. “Stop laughing!”

“Your face, Azelais!” Cecilia chortled. “And little Doucette, demure as pudding. We mistook the shepherd, evidently. Wait until Father sees!”

Doucette's stomach tightened.

The sun's disk descended to the rim of the western hills. As if they had awaited its signal, her parents walked around the castle wall.

Lady Sarpine must have heard that the thorns had been cleared. She had put aside the torn riding skirts and dressed in queenly splendor, from the gold net edging her headdress to her silk gown and soft leather dancing slippers. Lord Pascau, too, looked very fine in a velvet robe trimmed with fur.

As they made their regal way to the oak tree, Doucette stood and ordered her lavender-sticky skirts. As usual, her hair had escaped from its braids. It probably resembled the hanks of Na Claro's matted wool, but there was no help for it.

Jaume, too, stood. He put away his pipes and collected the enchanted mattock. Despite his dirty face and thorn-shredded clothing, he waited next to Doucette as calmly as a man at home by his own fireside.

“Well, Jaume of Vent'roux?” Lord Pascau said.

Jaume handed the mattock to the comte. “As you commanded, Sieur, the ground is clear.”

“Let us put your work to the test.” The comte raised an eyebrow. “Doucette?”

“Yes, Father.” She stepped forward and curtsied.

“Take off your shoes, my dear, and walk to the cliff's edge. Barefoot, that's it.”

It seemed a long, long walk.

Doucette hiked her skirts above her ankles and paced slowly. The ground was pleasantly warm under her bare feet, the rock outcroppings solid, the earth powdery in places with ash from the burned brambles. Wild herbs tickled her toes; she felt the furry softness of lavender, the gentle prick of rosemary twigs.

No thorns, she reminded herself. That was the key thing.

When she returned, her father's expression was inscrutable; her mother and Azelais looked sour. Engaged in flirting with an attentive knight, Cecilia paid her no attention. The other courtiers seemed curious, the castle servants and townsfolk plainly glad that one of their own had done so well.

Doucette met Jaume's eyes last, and his expression enabled her to curtsy gracefully to her parents. “I felt no thorns.” Dipping one foot, then the other, into the pail of water that had appeared in front of Lord Pascau, she displayed each sole. The clean skin showed pink and unbroken.

“The first task is successfully completed,” Lord Pascau pronounced.

Servants and townsfolk cheered. Some of the courtiers applauded; others looked stunned.

Doucette assumed the latter included those who had lost their dawn wagers against Jaume. She was pleased to note cod-faced Lord Luquet among their number.

“Meet us here at dawn tomorrow for your second task.” The comte dismissed Jaume with a twitch of his fingers.

“Thank you, Sieur.” Jaume bowed to the assembled company and walked in the direction of the town.

Without giving Doucette a chance to put on her shoes, her sisters pushed her after the departing comte and comtesse. When they reached the castle, Lady Sarpine accompanied her daughters to their bedchamber and sent away the servant who had brought warm water for washing.

“Your father will speak to you before dinner,” Doucette's mother told her. “Change that dirty gown immediately. Cecilia and Azelais, you girls attend me.” The three of them swept from the room.

Doucette stripped off the offending garment and sank into the waiting tub. She washed, combed her hair, and hurried into the clean clothing laid out for her. Then she sat.

Not long.

When she heard the heavy step outside the door, Doucette clasped her hands in her lap to still their trembling.

The bedchamber door opened and the comte entered. “Little Doucette. How did you get to be such a clever girl?”

His fond smile unsettled her. “What do you mean, Father?” she asked cautiously.

“Tch, tch. No need for false modesty between us, child.” He closed the door and stood in front of the fire, arms cocked behind his back and hands spread to its warmth, the picture of lordly ease. “Your magic helped that boy.”

“Was the task completed to your satisfaction?”

A shadow crossed her father's face in the instant before a hearty laugh dispelled it. “Certainly. The Château de l'Aire now boasts the finest parkland in the realm. Offered the man a reward, in fact.”

“Did he take it?” Doucette asked.

“No. The fool turned down a minor title and a good income, in return for the smallest consideration!”

“What consideration, Father? That he forfeit the other trials? Mother's idea, I imagine, to buy him off before he could succeed.” Doucette was guessing, but she knew she had hit the mark when her father coughed into his hand.

“Ahem. Too keen for these old wits, my girl.”

“Whatever I know of subtlety, I must have learned from you,” Doucette returned, rather surprised at her own daring. Although the saints knew she needed to be bold. And vigilant.

Jaume hadn't taken their bribe, but Lady Sarpine was used to getting her way. What she couldn't buy or wheedle, she might secure by force.

“My child, the jest has been amusing, but it must end.” Lord Pascau stroked his beard, then sat down beside Doucette. “I know you're unhappy we hid your swan skin. Unfair, you thought, to be denied the privileges your sisters enjoy. Though your mother had her reasons.” His arm curled around her shoulders and squeezed. “You haven't helped this shepherd just to spite her?”

“The tasks are Jaume's to complete,” Doucette said evenly.

Her father chuckled, a strained sound. “And whose aid allowed him to get this far? Peasants don't work magic.”

Doucette clamped her lips together.

“Don't purse that pretty mouth at me,” the comte said sharply. “You're no longer a child, whose misdeeds affect only yourself. I'll give you three reasons, Daughter, to rethink this disastrous course of action.”

He held up one ringed finger. “First, such a misalliance stains your noble name. An Aigleron, married to a nobody? How would your mother, your sisters, face the court?”

“Their affair,” Doucette said curtly.

The heavy arm tightened around her shoulders. “If you care not for honor, think of your comfort. Dwelling in a barren country hut, eating gruel for day upon day—what a wretched future for a gently bred girl!”