The Swan Maiden (23 page)

Doucette flushed at how close Jaume had come to her father's prediction. “Father named the tests,” she said. “He could have chosen different ones.”

“Proof of a noble lineage, grant to a castle, and a treasury full of gold and jewels?”

“If that's what he wanted,” Doucette replied.

“He meant to mock me,” Jaume said. “It was only through your grace that the tasks were accomplished.”

“And then Father cheated by adding the extra one at the end, telling you to choose me from my sisters.” Doucette brushed the crumbs from her lap. “It's not your fault my mother's too angry to let us go. She already punished my disobedience once, by burning my wand and swan skin. If she catches us, I'm afraid she'll have you killed.”

“Your family won't find us. They've tried and failed twice, already.”

Doucette stood up. “How far are we from Donsatrelle county?”

“A few days.” Jaume shouldered the packs and glanced around. “We can go a little farther. I'd be away from this place before we seek out shelter.” He lifted her over the orchard wall and Doucette took his arm.

“What of your family, Jaume? What do your parents think about you asking for my hand?”

Jaume watched the road. “They don't know,” he said.

“What?”

“Doucette—it sounded so foolish. What was I to tell them? ‘Farewell, all. I'm off to Beloc, see if Lady Doucette will have me, now she's a swan maiden.'” Jaume winced. “If you'd refused, do you think my brothers would have let me forget it?”

“You mean you left home without any explanation?”

“Fall is the quiet season in Vent'roux. We've sold all but the beasts we can afford to overwinter, the breeding ewes, and a ram or two, the old ones who lead the rest. Once the flocks are snug in winter quarters, my brothers and I take turns hiring out to help farmers with the harvest. We pick apples, walnuts, field crops.”

“So your parents think you're earning some extra coin, and instead you'll ask them to host your wedding?”

“Oh, aye.”

“To an evil sorceress, a disinherited noblewoman who doesn't know the first thing about tending sheep?”

Jaume stopped in surprise.

Doucette, too, was shocked to hear her father's vicious words spill from her own mouth. They burned her tongue as she spit them out, and she averted her eyes in shame.

“Doucette. Love.” Jaume tugged teasingly on a loose strand of her hair. “Have I asked you to do anything you wouldn't or couldn't manage?”

“No.”

“Why would I start, once we were married?”

“Husbands do,” Doucette said. “Tante Mahalt warned us.”

Jaume snorted. “Do noblemen and sorceresses live in such different worlds? Where I'm from, folk try to treat each other decently, married or no.”

“Your family won't mind me being a sorceress?” Doucette persisted.

Jaume scratched his neck. “They'll get used to it.”

“Like you are?” she said, acidly.

“I'm trying,” Jaume said. “Harder than I thought, seeing how it wastes you.”

“It doesn't,” Doucette began, but she could see he wasn't convinced. “Never mind.”

From nowhere, her aunt's voice echoed in Doucette's mind.

“Beware of men,” Tante Mahalt had said. “Their promises are not to be trusted.”

Chapter Twenty-six

After several days of travel, they had left behind the lowland fields and hill villages near the Château de l'Aire. The road narrowed as it wound toward the river Turance, which divided Beloc from Donsatrelle. This was a wilder and less settled country, with stands of pine, cedar, and juniper bushes dotting a rocky plateau.

Jaume helped Doucette step over a fallen tree. Intent on her recitation, she hardly noticed the obstacle. “Your house in Vent'roux has a blue door and stands on rue Droite, three fountains from the market square, where your mother, Na Eleno, sells wool from a stand. Your father is called Om Bernat, and your family owns one of the county's larger flocks. All your brothers live at home.”

“Oh, aye. You've met them,” Jaume said. “Two years apart, like stair steps. Tinou after me—he's eighteen—then Vitor and Eri.”

“Yes.” Doucette tugged on her pack straps, proud that she had regained strength enough to carry it herself. “Eri's only interested in music, but Vitor's sweetheart is Suriette, the blacksmith's daughter, and Tinou's sweetheart is Mireyo, the miller's daughter.”

A shadow crossed Jaume's face.

“Did I mix them up again?” Doucette asked. She had spent much of the past few days peppering Jaume with questions about his home and family. She wanted to know, and it kept the two of them from arguing about magic.

“Well,” he said, after a long pause. “Tinou loves Mireyo, sure enough, but Widow Jonselet doesn't favor her only child marrying a second son.” He shifted under his pack and eyed the sky. “Our families' grazing lands adjoin, see. Our parents have talked about bringing them together.”

The reserve in his manner alerted her. “You're the oldest; you'll inherit the property,” Doucette said, working it out. “The mother wants Mireyo to marry you, doesn't she?”

“Aye. But I never agreed,” Jaume said quickly. “Since we were children, Mireyo and Tinou have only had eyes for each other.”

The anticipation Doucette had been cultivating soured a little. If Jaume's parents were anything like her own, they wouldn't welcome a stranger meddling in the future they had planned for him.

“They'll love you like I do,” Jaume said, as if he could read her thoughts.

Doucette wished her answering smile held more confidence, but she had lost the urge to ask Jaume any more questions about his family. She concentrated instead on keeping up with his easy stride, and they walked on without speaking.

Though they had passed few dwellings, the countryside was hardly empty. Rabbits startled from cover, and birds twittered in the bushes. Doucette listened to the distant cries of hawks wheeling overhead, the closer buzzing of bees that foraged among blue stars of late-blooming gentian. As autumn advanced, each dawn seemed colder and wetter than the one before. But every morning, Doucette warmed up with walking, and at night she slept soundly in the circle of Jaume's arms. During two days of heavy rain, they had taken shelter in a cave and waited for the weather to improve.

The weakness that plagued Doucette after she cast a spell still troubled Jaume greatly. Over and over, Doucette had assured him that it soon left her. Finally, out of respect for her betrothed's sensibilities, Doucette had taken to practicing sorcery in the early evening, when Jaume left their camp to gather firewood. The resulting fatigue was nothing more than he seemed to expect of her after their long days of walking.

Even had she wanted to, Doucette couldn't have kept from using the magic that pulsed inside her, demanding to be expressed. As Tante Mahalt had said, it was delicious. Even small Transformations delighted her. Mostly, Doucette contented herself with turning rocks to twigs, and weeds to pinecones—nothing that didn't belong in their humble campsites.

Within days, Doucette could summon the magic to her fingertips and loose it with a breath. She disliked deceiving Jaume by casting spells in secret, but she knew she must hold herself ready in case they were surprised.

Her family's pursuit had not been dropped.

She hadn't seen them since Cecilia and Azelais's party met the “old woman” by the pear tree, but the invisible thread that bound Doucette to her home wasn't slackening with distance as she had expected. She tried to cast her thoughts forward, toward her new family and her new life. Yet at times, a noose of worry looped so tightly around her throat that she strained to breathe.

“There!” Jaume stopped and pointed. “The bell tower ahead? That's Saint-Trophime. From the abbey garden you can see the bridge into Donsatrelle. We could cross the Turance tonight.”

Doucette nodded and saved her breath for climbing, as the road had taken a steep upward slant. Ahead, tall stone walls loomed over the road.

Apprehension wound its coils around her. By the time they reached the shelter of the abbey walls, she was gasping. Jaume looked at her with concern.

“Thirsty,” she said.

Jaume lifted the pack off Doucette's shoulders and sat her down on a stone bench while he went to fill their water skins at the abbey well. He returned with a brown-robed woman, who offered Doucette a hot infusion flavored with herbs and honey.

“Drink, child.”

“Thank you, Sister.” Doucette sipped it slowly. “Juniper honey?” she asked, and was rewarded with a grave smile. The tea slipped down her throat and warmed her stomach, but she couldn't sit still. Unease prickled her skin, as if eyes watched her from the undergrowth.

“Can you go on?” Jaume asked. “We're a few hours, no more, from the crossing place.”

Doucette swallowed. “Where's the bridge?”

“It's visible from the bell tower.” The woman pointed to a narrow door in the wall.

Jaume and Doucette left their packs by the bench and climbed the stairs. They eased around the large iron bell and peered through the slits in the wall.

The sun hung like a pale gold fruit in the western sky. Below the tower, a tree-covered hillside dropped steeply to the water. Doucette searched for a break in the cliffs that contained the river.

By his indrawn breath, Doucette knew that Jaume saw what she did. The river, a narrow thread. Beyond tall, jagged rocks, the stone arches of the bridge. And before them, a white square, harmless at this distance.

Doucette squinted to make out more detail. It was a travel pavilion, flying the blue and gold flag of Beloc.

“Mother.” Doucette knew it with a dread that snapped the noose tight again. She rubbed her throat. “She must have circled around us. She's at the bridge, waiting.”

Jaume put his arm around Doucette's waist. “Then we'll out-wait her,” he said. “Or cross farther up.”

“You don't understand,” Doucette said into his chest. “She won't give up. If we delay, the others may join her. The longer we stay on this side of the river, the worse our chances of escaping. We have to cross, soon. And we can't go undisguised.”

Jaume rubbed the base of her spine, smoothing the tight muscles. “You want to Transform us again.”

“Yes. I know you don't like it.” Doucette tipped her head against Jaume's shoulder. In the pit of her stomach, tendrils of fear seethed like a mass of serpents, but excitement pushed them back. He'd learn what her power could do. They all would.

“We must change,” Doucette insisted. “No pears, I promise.”

Jaume kissed her, and Doucette felt herself melting into a soft lump of girl. Or widow, she warned herself, if she let him distract her. Reluctantly, she ended the kiss. “Trust me,” she whispered.

“Oh, aye.” His answering smile went crooked. “I'll be a pear again if it gets us over the river. But let's walk a little farther. No need to offend the good sisters with sorcery on the abbey grounds.”

Silently, they collected their packs and bowed their heads for a blessing. The woman laid soft hands on their shoulders and bent her head. “Walk safe in the light to your journey's end.”

Doucette heard both benediction and warning in the words.

Once the road curved and the trees hid them from sight, Doucette turned eagerly to Jaume. “Shall we?”

“I trust you,” Jaume said, as if he needed to remind himself. He set down his pack and stood motionless.

Doucette dropped her pack beside his and twined the straps together. “Combine to make a bee skep,” she commanded, before resting her hands against Jaume's chest.

And, thou, be old man,

sturdy-legged,

blue-eyed,

gray-haired,

gap-toothed.

Wear thy years lightly,

until the Turance is crossed

and a place of safety gained.

As the magic flowed over him, Jaume's body changed, becoming thicker and more compact. Wrinkles carved deep lines in his face. His brown curls turned light and wispy; his dark eyes faded to a pale blue. Most of his teeth disappeared, leaving a gummy grin on his old-man face.

The packs at his feet melded into a tall, domed basket with a wooden base. A leather strap looped across the sides of it. Jaume studied his wrinkled hands, then lifted the basket. “Empty,” he said. “What's—oh. It's a beehive.”

“Yes.” Doucette closed her eyes, crossed her arms across her chest, and surrendered to enchantment.

Bees.

I will be

bees,

until my love, Jaume,

summons me.

The magic washed through her, and she exploded into a swarm of tiny flying bodies. Like drops from a windblown fountain, bees danced in the air.

As in the garden Transformation, Doucette's attention splintered. Through faceted bee eyes, she saw a hundred old-man Jaumes, the concern in his eyes multiplied with every glance. She might have stopped to reassure him, but caught between the delirium of flight and the power that flooded her many selves, she forgot.

Jaume held out the basket. The queen bee flew inside the hive. The rest followed her, a cone of purposefully moving bodies that funneled through the small opening.

Jaume stood calmly as the bees buzzed around him. When they were all inside the hive, he lifted the humming basket against his back. He put the strap over his forehead and settled his burden, then walked down to the river on sturdy, if bowed, legs. A handful of Doucette's bee selves crept through the opening and happily circled his head, then landed on his sleeves and clung there, elegant as gold-and-black buttons, to stand sentinel for the rest.