The Swan Maiden (16 page)

“A sorceress chooses her life,” Doucette challenged him. “Didn't Tante Mahalt leave this place with only her swan skin?”

“Bold words, young miss. But what of the young man who professes to love you? How kind is it to encourage his unseemly ambition?” Lord Pascau shook his head sadly. “Mismatched as fish and fowl. The common folk won't trust you; the nobility won't accept him. Over time, the two of you can only wear into misery. Unless, of course, you breed. To what kind of future would you condemn your unfortunate children? Expectations beyond their station and no means to satisfy them, nothing but failed hopes and bitterness—”

“Stop.” Doucette wrenched herself away from the vise that circled her shoulders, the persuasive voice that dripped poison into her ears. “What do you want, Father?”

“Why, only that the young man win by his own merit,” the comte said smoothly. “That's just, isn't it?”

Before Doucette could respond, Lord Pascau stood. “It's settled. I have your word that you'll remain in your chamber from dawn to dusk tomorrow, while the lad proves himself?”

Doucette bit her lip. The tests weren't fair! Without her help, Jaume might fail and be sent away in disgrace. And if she followed after him, would the shepherd's precious honor let them marry after all?

The thought of losing him pierced her heart. She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. Her father's expression forbade further argument. Though perhaps a humble request …

Doucette forced herself to speak meekly. “Please, Father, couldn't I watch from a distance?”

“No,” her father said. “After you've reflected on the matter, you'll understand.” As if he had not just crushed her hopes, he crooked his arm in invitation. “Come, Daughter. Let us go down to dinner in charity with one another.”

Though she could hardly bring herself to do it, Doucette bowed to the inevitable. Her cold fingers brushed his velvet sleeve as she allowed her father to escort her from the room.

Chapter Nineteen

“Hurry, Cecilia. We're late.” Azelais lit a candle from one already burning on a table and shielded the flame with her hand. Under the hood of her cloak, dark brows knit with annoyance. “It's your fault, Doucette, that we must rise before dawn and tramp out into the wet.”

“Father, not I, set the time for the trial.” Doucette abandoned the pretense of sleeping. She sat up in bed and draped her swan skin over her shift for warmth. “Besides, I don't hear rain.”

“You will,” Azelais insisted. “The clouds came in last night.”

“I can't find my cloak,” Cecilia said.

“Make one,” Azelais snapped. “Your wardrobe is a shambles.”

Cecilia laughed. “Good advice, if sourly given.” She tapped her swan skin with her wand and swirled the resulting hooded garment over her shoulders before pushing past Azelais. “Goodbye, Doucette.”

Azelais's candle flickered. “Clumsy featherhead,” she muttered.

“Don't tempt me, Sister.”

The door swung shut. The quarreling voices receded down the stairs.

Doucette slumped against the bolster. Everyone would be gathering without her. Jaume would wonder where she was and worry. She got out of bed and stood at the window overlooking the upper courtyard's dim expanse of wet stone.

Around her, the castle felt quieter than usual. Even the roosters in the lower courtyard seemed unwilling to disturb the expectant hush. Doucette pulled her coat of feathers close.

The previous day's hazy warmth had vanished. In the gray sky, clouds hung low, trailing ghostly pennants that blurred the outline of wall and tower.

By slow, sullen degrees, the light brightened. Doucette knew when her father had finished announcing Jaume's second task. Headed by Lord Pascau and Lady Sarpine, a stream of people entered the courtyard from the direction of the new parkland. As servants returned to their tasks, they talked in low voices, carefully avoiding the vicinity of Doucette's window.

Her absence must have been noted. News of her disgrace would spread, and everyone know that the comte had forbidden his daughter to see or speak to the shepherd, lest she help him as she must have done the day before.

But they didn't have to tell her what the second task was.

Azelais had said it pleased their father to cast them all in his little entertainment. Since Azelais's mattock hadn't thrashed Jaume to pieces, Cecilia's Animated spade would be next.

With it, Jaume might be asked to trench a new channel for the river, or terrace the entire hillside he had cleared the day before. Whatever the task, Jaume would have to use the tool to finish the task in the allotted time. Like the mattock, the enchanted spade was dangerous.

And Vent'roux folk didn't care for magic.

Doucette tucked her chin into the swan skin's dappled feathers and brooded. She couldn't even warn Jaume about the spade. There'd be more eyes than old Na Claro's on him today.

Though not, perhaps, as many as she would have supposed, Doucette decided, as courtiers straggled back to the castle in ones and twos. Wet weather and boredom would drive the watchers back inside, unless Jaume actually touched the spade to earth and awoke the Animation spell laid on it.

The chamber door banged open, and Cecilia danced into the bedchamber, her face alight with amusement. Her cloak hood was thrown back; droplets beaded her fair hair like diamonds. With a tap of her wand, she turned the wet cloak back into a swan skin and shook it smartly before resettling its white perfection over her shoulders. “Someone missed you-you-you,” she caroled.

Doucette turned to the window to hide the flare of pleasure. “What was the test?”

“Spade, dear spade.” Cecilia chuckled. “You guessed, eh? More wits than we thought, under that mare's nest.” She sidled up to Doucette and tweaked her tangled hair. “Father told your charming suitor to dig a pond in the middle of the hillside by sundown and fill it with water.”

“Then what happened?”

Cecilia considered her. “What price the news?”

“I'll give you my pearl earrings,” Doucette said impulsively. “Tell me.”

“Done!” Cecilia clapped her hands. “Father was wise indeed to keep his little lamb penned inside. You're besotted with that young shepherd, aren't you? Oh, it's too delicious! Makes all my unsuitable men seem positively respectable.”

“Cecilia, please.” Doucette went to the box where she kept her treasures and pulled out the earrings. “Take them. Only tell me what Jaume did.”

“Thank you, I will.” Cecilia fastened the pearls to her ears and winked at Doucette. “But I would have done so for nothing, because that is the answer.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes.” Cecilia giggled. “It's the cream of the jest. He wandered over the hillside, mournful as a lost pup. No idea where to begin, without you to tell him. I was yawning at once. Azelais and the rest won't last much longer. Why stand in the fog, when we can sip warmed wine and amuse ourselves in perfect comfort indoors?” Cecilia picked up a mirror and admired the pearl earrings. “None of Father's new knights are quite as good looking as your shepherd, but they're sure to be better armed.”

“You'd know,” Doucette said rudely.

“Someone should.” Cecilia smirked at her reflection. “Time I inspected their blades for myself.” With an airy wave, she flitted out of the room.

Doucette sat on the window seat and leaned her head against the frame. The mist had gotten thicker. Cold drops condensed out of the clouds and ran down the castle's stone walls.

Jaume didn't act aimlessly. He must be searching for something. What could it be?

Water.
Doucette heard the word as clearly as if he had spoken it in her ear.

Of course. Springs arose in the caverns under the castle's foundation, supplying its inexhaustible wells. Tante Mahalt had explained to Doucette that long ago, each county's noble family had built a fortress to protect the source of its power. For the Aiglerons, that stronghold was the Château de l'Aire, and the power twofold: enough fresh water to outlast any siege and a magical source as well. Lavena's Cauldron.

Doucette closed her eyes. With a spring and an enchanted spade, Jaume could make a pond in the hillside. She curled her legs underneath her and hugged her knees, trying to contain her rising excitement.

Wouldn't they be surprised! Azelais and Cecilia, especially, would see that Jaume was braver, stronger, smarter than a hundred knights. If he remembered how they had commanded the mattock, and his will proved strong enough to alter Cecilia's Animating spell, Jaume could complete the second task!

Unless he tried to dig in the usual way. Doucette groaned out loud and buried her head in her arms. If Jaume touched the blade to the earth, the spade would cleave to his hands until it had finished its task. By then, he might have been shaken to his death!

She hoped Jaume wasn't so stubborn that he would try to do the task without magic. She had to trust him to remember that the trial would require sorcery, because Doucette's father didn't believe a shepherd—a peasant—capable of mastering an enchanted tool by himself.

It was torture, not knowing, but none of the bedchamber windows overlooked the hillside. The day stretched endlessly ahead of her, and she had nothing to do with it but wait and worry.

Her parents' displeasure with Jaume's first success had been clear enough. What would they do if the shepherd triumphed again? And, while Jaume's quest for her hand had overshadowed all else, Doucette had still to face the consequences of her flight to Tante Mahalt's.

How long would Lady Sarpine make her disobedient daughter wait?

*   *   *

When Na Patris came up the stairs in the late afternoon, she found Doucette huddled on the window seat, heedless of the raindrops that dripped from the window frame and into her hair.

The baker set her tray down on a table and closed the shutters firmly. “A hot drink, little lady, to counter the weather? You don't want to catch a chill. That'll do your young man no good.”

“My young man?” Doucette said warily. She knew her parents didn't approve, but she hadn't considered what the servants might think about Jaume's proposal.

“Isn't he?” the woman said. “Not a noble, our Jaume. No title, no riches compared with the courtiers' estates. Not saying I'm impartial, but he's a fine man, little lady. If you don't want him, it wasn't kind to put him through this.”

“I didn't!” Doucette said, indignant at the woman's insinuation. “Asking Father was his idea.”

Na Patris's surprise was almost comical. “Oh?”

“Yes. He said I deserved a proper wooing, went on about his honor. Men,” Doucette said.

“Hm.” The woman handed Doucette a mug of mint tea, then bustled around the room, collecting dirty dishes onto her tray and tidying the bedclothes.

The clay mug warmed Doucette's cold hands. She blew on the steaming tea, then gulped it down.

Na Patris found a drying cloth and passed it over Doucette's damp head. “So you do favor the lad.”

“Why else would I help him?”

“To prove you've a swan maiden's powers?”

“No!” Doucette said.

Na Patris gave her a shrewd look.

“Well, partly,” Doucette confessed. “But I wouldn't have encouraged Jaume if I hated him.”

“You don't hate him. Do you love him?”

In her own way, Na Patris could be as relentless as Lady Sarpine.

“Yes,” Doucette blurted. To hide her confusion, she picked up the drying cloth and rubbed her head, but the truth could not be wiped away.

She did love Jaume. When he had asked her in the orchard, she had thought so. Now, chafing at the order that barred her from her rightful place beside him, she was sure of it. As patiently as he would track a lost sheep, Jaume had called Doucette's lonely heart to him. She couldn't imagine living without the light in his eyes, the tenderness in his voice. Whether he finished the three tasks or not, she would follow him.

“That's all right, then,” Na Patris said comfortably. “He's already built a wall clear across the hillside to hold in the pond, had you heard?”

“Jaume?”

“Who else?” Na Patris chuckled. “Rock on rock with his bare hands, not a chink of mortar between the stones. Lovely dry-stone work they do in Donsatrelle county. It'll hold strong.”

“I suppose.” Doucette tilted the cup and found it empty.

“Don't you worry, little lady.” Na Patris took the cup and stacked it with the other dishes on her tray. “After he finishes the wall, Jaume'll figure how to dig the pond deep.”

“You think so?” Doucette said.

“Aye. Trust the lad.”

At the door, Na Patris propped the tray on her hip. “Hope I'm not speaking too far out of turn, but comes a time a body has to make her own decisions. I was a lass, my ma wanted me to join the holy sisters.”

“At Saint-Trophime?” Doucette tried to imagine the lively baker swathed in a cleric's gray robe and sitting for hours in quiet contemplation.

“Unlikely, eh?” Na Patris chuckled. “Instead, I married a Donsatrelle man, hired on with the ungodly Aiglerons, and wouldn't change for the world. Without love, marriage can be a hard sentence. You think on that.”

Doucette cleared her throat. “I will, Na Patris,” she said.

“There's a good girl.” The door closed behind the baker.

Doucette jumped to her feet. The day was swiftly ending, and she wasn't dressed for dinner.

She combed out her hair with her fingers until it crackled into a wiry cloud, then plaited it into two braids. She washed her face and dressed in her best gown and dancing slippers. Defiantly, she arrayed the dappled swan skin over her shoulders.

Strangely, wonderfully, she and Jaume belonged to one another. Whatever her parents did, she must believe her beloved could master the spade and finish the second of the tasks that would bring them together.