The Swan Maiden (22 page)

Jerk—tap, tap.

“Buy my carrot seeds, Sieur. Don't ask for onion. Ma won't grow them, what she said.”

The comte's horse stamped. “Enough about the seeds, boy!” Lord Pascau snarled. “Have you seen the man and woman, or not?”

“Eyes on my work, Sieur, what Ma said.” The childish voice sounded sulky. “Fine carrots this year. Won't you buy our seed?”

The comte muttered a curse. “They could be anywhere!”

“Sieur?”

“None of your affair, boy.”

The horse squealed. Its hooves danced in place and then hit the ground hard and fast, returning the way they had come.

The gentle tapping sound continued. Grasshoppers rasped. Beetles crawled around garden-Doucette's roots, intent on beetle business. Leaves curled and dropped. A gourd's skin split with a sigh.

“Doucette,” Jaume said. “He's gone. Come back, love.”

Magic shuddered through the field as Doucette's garden self retreated, shedding roots and leaves and stalks like a snake discards its outgrown skin. The well closed with a grinding noise and the fence melted away, leaving their two packs on the ground.

Doucette sat in scratchy wheat stubble, feeling too confined within her own shape.

“That was well done.” Jaume knelt beside Doucette and scooped her into his arms. Lifting her clear of the prickly stalks, he cradled her to his chest. “Breathe, Doucette.” He wiped dirt from her face. “Sweetheart. Breathe.”

Doucette opened her mouth and sucked in air.

“Again.” Jaume's hand moved up and down her back. “Breathe, love.”

She coughed and choked until her lungs remembered how to push the air in and out. Magic ebbed through her veins with such force that she held out her hands, convinced they must be glowing with the power that had flowed through them.

Her fingers trembled and dirt smudged her skin. Otherwise, her hands appeared as usual: a chastelaine's hands, capable enough, but giving no hint of the uncanny work they could do. She rested them on her knees and breathed.

“My mistake,” she said, when she could speak again. She raised a frightened face to Jaume. “I wasn't thinking. What if Father had said my name? The spell would have come undone before his eyes.”

“But he didn't,” Jaume said.

“I was clumsy. Careless.”

“Shh. You saved us, but we have to move on,” Jaume said. “Hard to hide in the lowlands. We'll find better cover in the orchards and woodland ahead.”

“He'll keep after us.” Doucette knew it with a chill certainty. “Mother will insist.”

Jaume squeezed her hand. “Once we cross the river into Donsatrelle, we're out of their power. Can you stand?”

“I don't know.” Doucette lurched upright; her legs wobbled and she sat as quickly. “No.”

“Best eat, then,” Jaume said. “Build your strength.”

“I'm sorry,” she said.

Jaume shook his head. “Sorry? If I had my way, you'd sleep for a week after such a piece of sorcery.” He opened his pack. “Instead, we have smoked beef, fruit, and Na Patris's oat bread before we must be off again.”

Doucette's mouth was too dry to swallow, so Jaume dribbled water down her throat. He fed her, too, in little bites, as if she were a baby bird in the nest.

“It's odd,” she said. “I feel like—like a cask of fermenting apple cider. Fizzy inside, if you could see through the barrel.” She laughed, breathless. “All magic and hardly the strength to use it.”

“Think you can walk?”

“I'll try.” With Jaume's help, Doucette stood and took a tentative step. Her legs didn't crumple, so she took another.

“That's the spirit.” Jaume shouldered their packs and tucked her arm in his.

Doucette clasped him tightly. “Lead on,” she said.

All that day, they walked and rested, ate, walked, and rested. Though she and Jaume met few people going in either direction, Doucette couldn't ignore the itch that had settled between her shoulder blades, as if an archer's target had been painted there.

Hurry!
the feeling said, but her feeble legs kept them to a slow pace.

The sun was well along its downward journey when the road climbed out of the lowlands and into hills dressed with vineyards and orchards of apple, apricot, and pear trees.

Jaume caught Doucette when she fell. Her arms around his neck, Doucette watched over his shoulder for signs of pursuit.

She didn't mean to fall asleep.

Chapter Twenty-five

She woke to a confusion of movement and sound. Jaume was hoisting her over a stone wall, into a pear orchard. From down the road sounded the clatter of horses about to overtake them.

“Jaume!” Doucette whispered. “Who is it?”

“Don't know,” he said. “We'll hide, in case.”

Doucette didn't wait. As her feet found the ground, she reached for her magic. Squeezing Jaume's shoulder, she spread her hands over his sleeves and the two leather pack straps.

Be thou pear tree

and pear fruit,

alone unharvested,

until I release thee

from these unaccustomed shapes.

The two packs twined together and pushed upward. Jaume shouted as he was carried into the air.

“Don't worry!” Doucette called. Her betrothed disappeared into a tangle of bare branches. Good! The spell had performed exactly as she intended. At the top of the tree, dangling from a twig, hung a single unblemished fruit.

Doucette closed her eyes and hugged her elbows to her sides, relishing the power that slid under her skin. This was what she had been born to do. She spoke deliberately.

I'll be filthy,

diseased,

as ragged a crone

as ever breathed.

Her limbs twitched; her spine curved at an awkward angle. Pearly hair darkened and fell out in clumps, while smooth skin erupted in angry boils. When Doucette opened her eyes again, the world had changed to an indistinct place. She blinked, but her vision didn't clear, showing patches of dark and light for the rows of trees that divided the sky. Above her head the single pear glinted, a spark of gold against brown and gray.

Doucette took a step forward. Her hip twisted, and she fell, landing on her knees. Huffing painful breaths, Doucette scrabbled through the crackling leaf litter to find a dead branch. Next time she disguised herself as a crippled old woman, she'd remember to imagine a cane. And warmer underclothes. The wind's chilly fingers poked her, finding every hole in her threadbare tunic and rag of a skirt.

The group of riders swept up the hill and would have passed her in a twinkling if one of them hadn't pulled up her horse.

“Halloo!” Cecilia's voice called out.

Crone-Doucette's cloudy eyes couldn't distinguish the riders accompanying her sister. She could identify them, however, by the jingle of chain mail, the familiar rattle and clank of mounted armsmen. Still, Cecilia presented the greatest danger, though she carried no weapon but her keen blue eyes. And her wand.

Doucette pushed herself to her feet with the stick. She poked it gingerly at the tree.

“You, there! Have you seen a young couple on the road?” Cecilia said over the sound of horses blowing and stamping. “A reward's waiting for your help.”

Doucette's neck was canted stiffly. She braced herself on her stick and shuffled her feet sideways until she could look over her shoulder at the riders.

“What a loathsome creature!” Azelais's disgusted voice cut across Cecilia's gurgle of surprise.

Doucette blinked and felt the scabs crack on her skin. “Eh?” she said in a gruff voice. “Who's there?”

“She can't help us, Cecilia,” Azelais said. “The hag's blind, so you can stop waving your purse at her. Come—we'll ask in the town ahead.”

Reins slapped a horse's neck. Several sets of hooves pounded up the road.

“I was sure I smelled magic,” Cecilia said.

“Smelled it, my lady?” a man's voice asked respectfully.

Doucette realized that at least one of the armsmen had stayed with Cecilia.

“Or tasted.…” Cecilia said.

Muttering under her breath, Doucette swung back to take another stab at the tree. She felt her sister's stare boring into her deformed shoulders.

“We seek a young woman,” Cecilia said loudly. “Her family will pay for news of her.”

Doucette spat on the ground and shook her stick at the tree. “A rotten pear don't fall till winter.”

Cecilia made a sudden movement; her horse danced backward.

“Wait, Lady Cecilia, your sister forbid—”

Doucette didn't understand the man's protest until she heard the jingle of coin. A purse flew through the air and landed with a thump at her feet.

Doucette twisted her body toward her sister.

“Azelais is hard-hearted enough for the two of us,” Cecilia said to the armsman, her voice pitched to reach Doucette's ears. “This poor soul may as well have the reward as anyone. We're not going to find them, Renod.”

“But Lady Sarpine vowed—”

Cecilia's tinkling laugh hung in the air. “Mother can't enforce her will outside Beloc county. If my sister is wise, she'll make haste to cross the Turance into Donsatrelle.”

Doucette bent her knees and reached awkwardly for the purse. Velvet, her fingers told her, and heavy. She clutched it to her dirty tunic. “For me, Lady?”

“May it bring you good fortune,” Cecilia said. Without waiting for thanks, she challenged the armsman. “Race you, Renod. Best we catch up to Azelais and the others.”

“Yes, Lady Cecilia.”

The man didn't sound happy about leaving the purse, but Cecilia didn't give him a choice. “Go,
chère.
” She chirped to her mare and rode off, the armsman close behind her.

When the vibration of their horses' hooves had faded into the distance, Doucette returned herself, Jaume, and the packs to their own shapes.

As the tingling rush of magic subsided, she stretched her neck, turning it from side to side like an owl. “Oof, that's better,” she said, before her legs folded and she had to sit down. She poked at the velvet bag in her lap. “Did you see them, Jaume? Azelais and Cecilia and the rest?”

“No,” Jaume said curtly. “Pears don't have eyes.”

Doucette giggled, then wheezed, catching her breath. “My eyes didn't work very well either. I could hear them, though. Cecilia may have suspected. She threw me this bag, and—what is it, Jaume? What's wrong?”

Jaume shook his head. “You have to ask?”

Doucette bristled at the note in his voice. “About what?”

“You just—
changed
me!”

“So? You didn't mind before.”

“You consulted me the first time. I agreed to it.”

“They almost caught us!” Doucette said, stung. “I had to act.”

“If that were all, I wouldn't mind. But this magic you work. It's like a fever, burning you up.” Heavily, he dropped to sit beside her. “It frightens me.”

“But, Jaume, I'm getting stronger as we go. Didn't I walk quite far today before you had to carry me?”

“My heart.” He cupped her cheek in one callused hand. “There's no point escaping from your family only to die of exhaustion on the road.” His hand dropped, made a fist on his knee. “I won't be changed into a stupid pear with magic that wears you into a shadow!”

Doucette's lower lip quivered. “I protected us.”

“And I'm grateful,” Jaume said. “Truly. But won't you ask before you start enchanting things? Rather find a way that doesn't eat you from inside.”

Reluctantly, Doucette nodded. Why didn't he understand? She was a sorceress. Things could be so much easier if he let her cast a spell or two. Why, the night they left, she could have turned them both into birds. They could have crossed the Turance already! But something in Jaume's expression kept her from pointing out the obvious.

Again.

“I'm hungry,” she said instead.

“Aye,” Jaume agreed.

They leaned against the orchard wall and finished the oat bread. Silence stretched out between them while twilight darkened the sky. “It was kind of your sister to give you the purse,” Jaume said at last.

“How kind? I wonder.” Doucette untied the knot that was holding the bag closed. She poured the contents into her lap. “Ooh, very generous! Some silvers and coppers, but mostly gold.”

“
Aigleron
gold?”

“What do you mean?”

“Will it still be gold if you melt it?” Jaume asked mildly. “Or only twigs and leaves?”

“Cecilia wouldn't cheat me.”

“I hope not,” Jaume said.

Doucette didn't feel strong enough to argue with him, especially if he was right. Were her proud sisters counterfeiters in their father's service? Had the luxuries she grew up enjoying at the Château de l'Aire been bought with lies?

Jaume stirred the money with a finger and came up with a wrinkled nutshell. He held it out to Doucette. “And a walnut?”

Doucette pried the nutshell open. A pair of earrings had been wrapped in a scrap of cloth and hidden inside the walnut. “My pearls! Cecilia knew it was me.”

“So why the tears?”

Doucette wiped her eyes, laughing and crying at the same time. The exultation of magic-working was fading, leaving her empty as a husk. “They don't all hate me.”

“Sweetheart!” Jaume held her close and kissed her. “No one hates you. They hate me, if anyone, for stealing you away.”

Doucette put the money and nutshell back in the bag and tucked it into her pack. “Whoever I married would have taken me from home.”

“You don't think Lady Sarpine and Lord Pascau would have picked a shepherd?” Jaume waggled his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Afraid I'd drag you off to my hut and feed you millet porridge for every meal?”