The Swan Maiden (27 page)

She had never heard of Sieur Nicolau—a Donsatrelle lordling, apparently. His lands must lie within a day's journey of her castle, as his servant traveled lightly. “Indeed,” she said. At least this servant seemed well-spoken. Perhaps his conversation would prove more amusing than the trapper's. “Will you join me for dinner, Om Garmel?”

“With pleasure, Lady,” he said. Gesturing for her to precede him, Om Garmel picked up his gloves and bag and followed her into the castle.

*   *   *

By the time Om Garmel served the meal, Doucette was remembering why she lived alone.

Not that her guest acted surly or threatening, like her first visitor. No, Om Garmel's manners were perfectly respectful, and he had been eager to help.

Too eager.

The man had hovered at her elbow the entire afternoon, begging to finish every task she began. And however he served Sieur Nicolau, Doucette did not think the servant's duties included handling food before it was cooked, as his enthusiasm far outpaced his skill in the kitchen. She had assigned him simple tasks: picking the greens that grew wild by the pond's margins, sorting lentils, and chopping vegetables, while she stuffed a squash and rolled out pastries.

Alas, the dinner he served with such a courtly flourish was almost inedible.

Bitter weeds studded the field greens, the lentils tasted gritty, and the stew (which he never stirred) had cooked unevenly. One mouthful might hold scorched bits of meat, the next, chunks of undercooked turnip.

Doucette ate little, though she had to constantly decline Om Garmel's offers of the choicest morsels from his own plate. As rain pattered onto the roof, they talked about the changeable weather. When that topic flagged, Om Garmel described Sieur Nicolau's estate, situated on the eastern flank of the forest, in glowing terms. He seemed ignorant or uncaring of the world beyond, and never asked Doucette about her own history.

She didn't volunteer it.

Still, she was aware of his eyes following her every move while he ate, and ate, and ate. Doucette toyed with a pastry and listened to the wind whipping the branches of the trees and moaning around the windows. With relief, she noticed her guest scraping the last spoonful of lentils out of the pot.

The interminable dinner had drawn to a close.

Before Doucette could move, Om Garmel jumped up to clear the table. With fawning haste, he stacked the gold dishes so high that they tipped over and crashed to the floor.

“A thousand apologies!” he said, scrambling to collect the fallen plates and carry them off to the scullery.

Doucette picked up a bowl that had rolled to a stop beside her foot. A dent marred the bowl's rim. She scowled at it, then tossed the damaged thing onto the table, amused by her own pique at the man's incompetence. She had created the dishes out of fallen leaves and magic. She could make more of them easily.

Thank fortune. Judging by the clatter and smash Om Garmel was raising, all her dishes would need to be renewed on the morrow.

Doucette pushed away from the table, crossed to the window, and leaned out. The air smelled clean and soft, of wet leaves and earth. Raindrops spattered her face. She pulled one shutter toward her and reached for the other, then turned, her hand still on the latch.

Evidently, Om Garmel felt no need to ask her permission to spend the night. He was busy pulling cushions from benches and setting them by the hearth for a bed.

He was making very free with her hospitality. Who did he think was going to clean the ashes off those cushions? Doucette suspected she had been too gracious a host. If the man decided her home would make a good way station on his errands for his master, he would return again and again to vex her.

Except that a sorceress needn't tolerate any man's arrogance. Doucette murmured to the shutter.

Latch, good latch,

stick fast to his fingers,

then open and close

through the dark night

till daylight comes.

Om Garmel looked up at the sound of her voice. “Please, allow me, Lady,” he said, and hurried to pull the shutter closed. In his haste to reach her side, he kicked a cushion into the fire. It crackled and vanished in a shower of sparks.

Doucette released the shutter and moved to stamp on the sparks before the makeshift bed caught fire. “Good night,” she said.

“Good ni-eeeeooow!”

The window shutter swung wide, pulling the man halfway out the window before he succeeded in slamming it closed.

The shutter opened again.

Closed again.

Opened.

Ignoring the tiresome fellow's cries for help, Doucette retired to her bedchamber. From time to time in the night, a distant knocking sound roused her from evil dreams. The next morning, her head ached and her eyes felt full of sand. It seemed her visitor had spent an equally unpleasant time.

When she freed him from the window latch at dawn, Om Garmel cradled his arm to his chest. “Lady, how did I offend?”

“Men often sleep ill in a sorceress's house,” Doucette answered austerely. She handed him his gloves and bag and showed him to the door. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.” Head low, Om Garmel trudged away.

Doucette pulled up the drawbridge and secured its chain before returning inside to Transform the broken plates and soiled velvet cushions her uninvited guest had left behind.

Chapter Thirty

As the days lengthened, Doucette's garden flourished. Seeds sprouted and bright green leaves unfurled into the welcome banners of spring. She carefully tended the young plants, thinning the carrots, staking the peas and beans, watering and weeding and fussing over the seedlings.

Inside the castle, she prowled her silent rooms like a caged beast, picking up her needlework and dropping it again. She stroked a fur robe, turning it from winter white to summer brown. As always, the magic came easily, bubbling out of her like an inexhaustible spring. She changed her golden plates to blue-and-white porcelain, pictured different scenes for all her wall paintings. When she Transformed her bed hangings to summer silks, she remembered the fateful day of spring cleaning in her parents' bedchamber and how she had found her swan skin.

A year later, nobody kept her from flying where she willed.

On the thought, Doucette strode out to the courtyard and changed into a hawk. As so often when she took bird shape and flew over the woods, she turned west, as if pulled by an invisible string. Soon she glimpsed familiar tile rooftops and swept in a wide circle around Vent'roux.

She was done with Jaume, she reminded herself. That part of her life was finished.

Still, when she soared over pastureland flecked with sheep, her hawk's eyes tracked the shepherds, alike in their broad hats and simple clothes, watching their wooly charges. The flocks were gathering, it seemed, making ready for their annual journey to the mountain pastures.

As the breeze stirred the grass below, memories ruffled Doucette's serenity. Perhaps she had followed these same sheep in the exhilarating flight to Tante Mahalt's. Doucette thought of bathing in the hot pools, of Jaume walking toward her hiding place with his little dog capering beside him.

How innocent her younger self had been! Keenly eager to discover her sorcery, unaware of the treachery and triumph succeeding days would bring. She had been so frightened, then, and now … Doucette was mistress of her own domain, independent and powerful beyond her dreams.

So why did the memory tug at her? Why did she envy that foolish girl, succumbing to the promise in two merry brown eyes?

A group of men caught Doucette's attention. Their easy stances, their lanky bodies. The resemblance between them was so strong she didn't need to see the curly brown hair under their broad-brimmed hats to recognize Jaume and two of his brothers.

Curiosity sent hawk-Doucette a little lower. She circled lazily over their heads, until the brown-and-white dog sitting by Jaume jumped up and yipped with excitement. The men looked around, then up, shading their eyes with their hands. Doucette veered away, but not before Eri shouted and pointed. She glanced back and saw Jaume staring after her, hands at his sides while Fidele barked and pranced.

Stupid, Doucette scolded herself. What purpose was there in raising the ghost of a love she had left behind?

But Jaume was well,
her heart sang. A little thin, but healthy, his skin browned by the sun. Perhaps he, too, had forgotten what had passed between them, and was making a new life without her.

The thought brought no pleasure.

Doucette flew back to her castle and resumed her human form. Driven by an upwelling of restless energy, she kneaded dough for bread, chopped vegetables for stew, and baked a cake. In the garden, she picked the first tender lettuce leaves. Disdaining the Animated hoe, she sank to her knees and yanked weeds up by their roots, wishing her tumultuous emotions could be as easily subdued.

The sight of Jaume had reawakened an undeniable, seemingly unquenchable longing. Doucette was a little frightened by the strength of her desire to drop out of the sky and speak with him. More than speak, if she were honest with herself. She had wanted to taste his kisses again, to feel those strong arms close around her.

Given her stained skirts and the lank state of her hair, it was fortunate that she had resisted the temptation, Doucette told herself sternly. For a powerful sorceress, she was a rather dirty example. A bath and fresh clothing would restore her spirits. And if she chanced to see Jaume again, her appearance wouldn't disgust him.

Luxuriating in hot water, Doucette considered the gown she would make. She was in the mood for something special. Violet-colored, she decided, trimmed with lace as creamy as her pearl earrings. A stroke of her hand, a whispered word, and it was done. The purple silk rustled over her skin. She hummed as she braided her hair and clipped on the pearls.

Steaming with yeasty promise, the bread came out of the oven. Doucette put it aside to cool, then set the table with her new blue porcelain and floated water lilies in a silver bowl.

Before she could admire the effect, the gate bell rang.

Doucette laughed out loud. When she wanted company, it seemed, she had only to dress for it. And if she
had
conjured a gown to please one curly-haired, dark-eyed Vent'roux man in particular, why shouldn't her desire bring him to her door?

She had left the drawbridge down after picking the water lilies. On the far side of the moat, the bell-ringer waited courteously.

Her pulse quickened with expectation, but upon seeing the elegant person who stood there, Doucette was hard-pressed to hide her disappointment.

No lost servant or woodsman, this young man's black eyes and pointed features were attractive in a foxlike way, framed by shoulder-length red-brown hair. A wide embroidered band bordered the neck of his blue tunic, and his shoes curled up into fashionable points. A sword in a tooled leather scabbard hung from his belt.

Doucette's polite invitation sounded flat to her own ears. “Come in and be welcome, traveler.”

“Thank you, Lady.” The man walked across the drawbridge and bowed. “Sieur Nicolau de Valescure Saint-Senlis, yours to command.”

Om Garmel must have reported Doucette's presence to his employer. Doucette wondered whether the servant's story had included the hours he had spent banging to and fro with the Animated shutter.

Sieur Nicolau's serene expression showed little fear of suffering a similar fate. Unlike her previous two visitors, the nobleman surveyed Doucette's luxurious appointments with calm approval.

“Exquisite. A fit setting for your beauty, Lady—?” His voice rose on a note of inquiry.

“Doucette,” she said, and belatedly curtsied. “Doucette Aigleron, Sieur.”

“Of the Beloc Aiglerons? Why, I've had the honor of meeting your parents.” Sieur Nicolau kissed the tips of his fingers. “Lady Sarpine, what a treasure.”

Doucette thought of her last sight of her mother, shrieking threats at Jaume from a swollen, bee-stung face. She shrugged away the unpleasant memory. “We didn't part on cordial terms.”

“Ah,” Sieur Nicolau said. Tactfully, he changed the subject. “What a marvelous residence, and constructed in a season! I understand you're a practitioner of the High Arts?”

“Yes,” Doucette said.

Sieur Nicolau favored her with a warm smile. “Beloc's loss is Donsatrelle's gain, that such a great sorceress would make our humble county her home.”

Deciding to be amused by his flattery, Doucette invited the nobleman to share her meal.

Each dish was met with fulsome praise. He pronounced the stew “superb,” the bread “excellent,” the greens “delightful.”

After the cake had been sampled and likewise approved (“divine”), Doucette offered to show her guest the rest of the castle. With impeccable courtesy, the nobleman extended an arm.

For a moment Doucette had the strange sensation that she had been transported back to the Château de l'Aire, to a court she had never imagined. There she, not Azelais or Cecilia, was considered the fairest, and knights vied to serve her, and paid her compliments, and asked her opinion about their verses.

The only thing that tempered her enjoyment was the calculation in Sieur Nicolau's eyes as he praised her handiwork. But it was only natural, she thought, that he should be curious about an enchanted castle springing up in the forest where a ruined hermitage had been.

They strolled outside to admire the glow of sunset on the pond and returned to sit by the fire, where Sieur Nicolau recounted amusing stories about Donsatrelle's noble families. “Though none of our county's beauties,” he said suavely, “could hope to outshine a lady of your refinement.”

“You're very kind,” Doucette said.

“In truth, I am overcome.” Sieur Nicolau's expression turned serious as he took Doucette's hand. “I had meant to wait, to make your acquaintance properly, but my dear, dear Lady Doucette—if I may make so bold as to style you after a single delightful evening—I believe we might make a mutually advantageous alliance.”