The Swan Maiden (26 page)

At first she caught herself wishing she could show Jaume her achievements or imagined she heard a shepherd's pipes playing on the wind. But the instant a wistful thought intruded, Doucette pushed herself harder. Magic, she found, cleansed her mind of useless memories, her heart of unwanted emotion.

Once Doucette had made the building's structure sound, she played with its form, sculpting the stone as a potter sculpts clay until the previous long, low shape stretched into towers and walls. When she finished, a small, elegant castle perched at the edge of the pond, its two wings curving out from the center hall like a swan protecting her nest.

Next, Doucette paced around the outside, dragging her feet through the leaf litter. Behind her, the ground sank into a steep-sided moat. A stroke of her hand made a drawbridge from a downed tree; a length of twisted cord changed into an iron chain so perfectly balanced on its wheel that a child could have raised and lowered the bridge.

Finally, she turned her attention to the garden and orchard. Over years of neglect, carrots and turnips, bean and onion and garlic plants had escaped from their rows and wandered as they pleased, multiplying within the crumbling walls. Several trees were heavy with walnuts. On others, the last apples clung stubbornly to their twigs, though plum and cherry trees were long bare, their dropped fruit eaten by forest creatures.

At Doucette's command, spade, mattock, and rake worked the earth. The wild-grown vegetables rolled into tubs and casks while nuts pattered down into waiting baskets. Stones leaped into place on the garden and orchard walls. The ground shook as rocks and roots and twigs tumbled out of the soil and into the forest, leaving the earth seamed with furrows and ready to be planted in the spring.

When the winter rains arrived in earnest, Doucette went inside. She pulled up the drawbridge, took stock of the bare rooms, and summoned her power. In the great hall, the roof arched its back like a cat; tiles clattered back into place as if a soothing hand had petted them down. Columns sprouted like lilies, nodded gracefully, and wove their tips together over her head. Gray-veined marble replaced mossy paving stones. Painted scenes livened the bare walls.

From a few chests of moth-eaten linens and ragged furs, Doucette furnished her castle with every luxury her mind and magic could conjure up: warm fur robes, sumptuous table coverings and cushions, soft linen sheets for her canopied bed, hangings like carpets of spring flowers.

She couldn't conjure food, of course, so she flew into town and bought supplies with the gold Cecilia had given her, then enchanted a cartload into a nutshell and carried it home.

As winter storms broke harmlessly over the roof, Doucette let a sense of whimsy guide her work. She made a fire-bellows shaped like a dragon, with wings to pump air from its wide-open mouth. A bent iron poker took on the head of a crane and a three-toed foot. Doucette fashioned mirrors with jeweled frames, copper lamps shaped like flowers, crystal goblets, silver utensils, and plates of hammered gold.

And then came the morning Doucette woke up inside her grand bed with her throat raw from screaming. She clawed the sweat-plastered hair from her face and pushed aside the smothering curtains, breathing in gulps as she remembered the nightmare.

Falling.

As in her dreams at the Château de l'Île, Doucette had been falling. But in those dreams, Jaume had caught her. This time she had screamed and plunged into an endless void. Moonless, starless, dark, and cold, the air was too thin to hold her, the night empty of all but her cry of despair.

Doucette scrubbed her face with her hands and jumped out of bed. Barefoot, she ran up cold stone stairs and pushed open the door to the flight court.

In the next breath, she beat a pair of white wings and slapped two webbed feet over the frosted stone of the tower balcony. As Doucette had hoped, magic dispelled the strange fear that had possessed her. With a defiant honk, she leaped into the gray sky.

Beat after steady wing beat reassured her; the night's terror ebbed with her mastery of wind and sky. Below spread the silent forest, above, heavy clouds, and yet she passed between them, unharmed. A spiteful wet snow irritated but did not stop her. When it thickened to heavy flakes, she turned homeward once more to wait out the storm.

She was a sorceress and a swan maiden. She flew where she willed. She would not fall. The certainty sustained Doucette through the next day and into the evening, when the bell across the moat surprised her by ringing.

A visitor?

Curiosity ruffled the peace she had achieved. Doucette pushed her soup pot back over the fire and went up to the flight court. Deep snow had altered the landscape. White drifts coated the base of the castle walls and twisted low walls and trees into sinister shapes. A trail of pocked snow led from the woods to the drawbridge and gate.

As tall as Jaume, but older and broader, almost bearlike, the fur-clad figure standing on the far side of the moat gave a last convulsive tug on the rope. As the bell's clamor subsided into a murmur, then died on the quiet air, her visitor stared at Doucette with his mouth open so wide that she could have counted the blackened stumps of his teeth. He must have been out in the elements for some time. Ice edged his fur garments, and his face was red and chapped-looking over a bristle of black beard.

“Yes?” Doucette called.

“My lady!” The man thumped his chest with his fist. “Shelter, I beg.” His teeth chattered, breaking up the words so that Doucette could hardly understand him. But it was clear enough what he wanted, and she felt a sudden urge to hear news of the wider world.

She went down to lower the bridge and open the door for him, though she stepped back a pace at the rank smell of his garments. A trapper, judging by the bundle of bloody pelts he left in the courtyard.

The man headed straight for the fire in a small chamber off the vaulted hall. For a while, there was nothing but the sound of his rough breathing, the crackling logs, and the hiss of ice sliding from his clothes and hitting the hot stone.

Doucette stirred the soup and ladled the man a bowl, then picked up her needlework and sat on a bench. She kept her eyes demurely on her work, enjoying the trapper's amazed expression as he turned in a slow circle, taking in his surroundings.

Well he might stare, she thought with satisfaction. It would be hard to imagine a warmer, more luxurious room than the one she had created. Copper lamps cast a ruddy glow over cushions and tapestries woven in the rich hues of autumn leaves. It even smelled good. In addition to the bubbling soup, dried herbs strewn on the stone floor gave off a pleasantly spicy aroma.

When the awe in his eyes changed to fear, the sight unsettled her, but only for a moment. Though Donsatrelle folk might be ignorant of magic, this rough-looking fellow must understand that a castle's sudden appearance in the wilderness smacked of sorcery.

Her guest didn't say much as he plowed through three bowls of soup. Doucette was pleased at her guest's appreciation of her cooking, even if he didn't offer much conversation.

The quality of the silence changed as the fire died down. Noticing the man peering furtively in her direction, Doucette's skin prickled with warning. She sidled to the fire and picked up the crane poker, then whispered to it, just in case.

Poker, fine poker,

stick fast to his hand.

Cover and uncover

ashes with coals,

till I bid thee loose.

When the trapper lunged, Doucette was ready. She shoved the poker into his hand and slipped neatly out of his reach. “Cover the fire,” she said, stern as Tante Mahalt.

Reflexively, the man obeyed her command. Once the coals were blanketed with ashes, he spun to face her. A growl of surprise turned to alarm as the poker forced him back to the fire. He tried to drop the fire tool, but the enchanted poker held him tightly. It darted back and forth over the fire, pulling his unwilling body with it.

Doucette watched him struggle against the poker as it covered and uncovered the glowing embers.

“Witch!” He cursed her, viciously at first, then in a weakened voice as the poker beat the fight out of him.

When he fell silent at last, lunging helplessly with the poker, Doucette spoke. “It's time for you to go.”

Red-faced and sweating, the man grunted agreement.

“Release, good poker,” Doucette whispered.

It fell from his hand and the crane beak pecked the floor. Eyes averted, the trapper seized his coat, retrieved his bundle of furs, and ran from the castle. As if Saint Hubert's hounds nipped at his heels, the man galloped through the drifts of snow and vanished into the forest.

Glad to be rid of him, Doucette raised the drawbridge and closed the door. If this was how men usually treated a woman they found alone, it was no wonder sorceresses preferred their own company.

Spring

Chapter Twenty-nine

Perhaps the trapper spread word of the forest's dangerous new resident; perhaps later snowstorms discouraged travelers. Whatever the reason, Doucette's solitude remained undisturbed for many weeks.

Snug in her refuge, she entertained herself with needlework, baking, spellcraft. And when indoor pursuits palled or nightmares troubled her, she took wing and flew from them.

As crow or swan by day, owl by night, Doucette discovered the secrets of the winter forest. She learned where bears denned and mice foraged, heard the slow, sighing song of ice-covered pines, read the signs of cruel death from blood spots in the snow. After a time, it seemed that wildness had penetrated her bones. Restless and impatient in her girl form, which persisted in wondering how Jaume fared, Doucette wore it less and less.

And if her flights took her over Vent'roux town, over the house with the blue door or the wool stand in the market square, she told herself those places had little meaning to a sorceress.

The wheel of seasons turned.

One soft spring morning, Doucette woke and stretched. Before her eyes were quite open, she craved the crisp green taste of peas.

Turning the idea over in her mind, she remembered a cloth roll of seeds, given to a girl long ago at her betrothal feast. Dressing hurriedly, Doucette found the cloth roll still tucked in her pack. She carried it outside in triumph.

From the air, she had watched farmers working their fields. It was time she planted her own garden. The furrows had been prepared after the previous autumn's harvest and been waiting under the snow for the sun to warm the ground.

Humming to herself, Doucette moved along the rows, planting peas and beans, gourds and carrots and lettuce as the gardeners did in Beloc.

The sun played “hide the princess” with a scattering of clouds; the breeze toyed with Doucette's unbound hair. She savored the smell of moist earth crumbled between her fingers. Birds darted overhead, caroling the joys of spring. Beetles and ants trundled over the ground, and once she spied a fox trotting past before his russet shadow faded into the trees.

The whole world seemed alive. As though she, too, were waking from a long sleep, Doucette savored it all. She patted soil over her seeds, then squinted up at the thickening clouds. Standing and stretching, Doucette scratched at the dirt under her fingernails, then took an empty pail down to the pond.

The man came up behind her so quietly that Doucette squawked in surprise when he twitched the pail out of her hand.

“Allow me, Lady.” He dipped the pail in the water and carried it to the garden.

“If you like.” The words tasted odd in her mouth. She had grown unused to speaking.

Without asking, her visitor splashed water over a newly planted row of peas. After emptying the pail, he followed the path from the garden back to the pond, stepping politely around Doucette.

Her visitor acted so pleased with himself that she decided against telling him his labor was unnecessary. It would rain within hours, from the look of the clouds. The water had been meant for washing, not to water her garden. Silently, she waded into the pond and scrubbed her hands while he labored.

The man must have been observing her from behind the trees for some time. He watered every row she had planted.

Like a farmer, he handled the pail with ease, but he was dressed too well for a common laborer, in a knee-length tunic and cape, woolen hose, and good leather shoes. He wore his fair hair long, like a courtier, but he couldn't be a noble—he didn't carry a sword. The big leather gloves and bag he had dropped by the garden wall made Doucette suspect a falconer hunting for nesting pairs, or perhaps a nobleman's servant, traveling between estates on his master's business.

As if he had heard her unvoiced question, the man set the empty pail at Doucette's feet and struck his chest with his fist. “Messenger Garmel, Lady. Bound for Vent'roux with a commission for my patron.”

“Your patron?” Doucette asked at his expectant pause.

“Sieur Nicolau,” he said, with such a self-important air that Doucette bit back a smile.