The Swan Maiden (6 page)

“Not my place to speak for her.”

“She's hinted I'd be chastelaine of a great domain. I assumed she meant me to marry some Mardèche lord or one of Beloc's nobles. As long as it wasn't that pompous Lord Luquet.” Doucette frowned. “But Father's so proud of Azelais and Cecilia's magic. Why did he allow Mother to hide mine?”

“Lady Sarpine gets her way,” Na Claro said dryly. “Though Lord Pascau didn't let her destroy your swan coat outright. He said they could as well give it to your husband. What man wouldn't want such a hold on his wife?”

“Without it, she couldn't ever leave him.” Doucette clutched her swan skin. “No matter what he did.”

“Aye,” Na Claro agreed.

The idea filled Doucette with horror. After holding her own coat of feathers, the long-hidden part of herself, she couldn't bear the thought of losing it. With sudden decision, she marched over to the tapestry bag that held the comtesse's embroidery. Doucette upended the bag and shook it, spilling colored woolen balls and skeins onto the floor.

“Lady Doucette—”

“I'm sorry, Na Claro.” Doucette rolled up her swan skin and stuffed it into the empty bag. A calm certainty had wrapped itself around her. “But I'm not giving up mine ever again. Not for Mother, and not for a man I've never met, prince or no.”

“But—”

“First, we're going to make up this bed.” Doucette shoved the mattress back onto its frame and picked up clean linens. Sheets snapped as she shook them out.

“No good can come of disobeying your mother's wishes, little lady,” Na Claro warned.

“Tuck in that side, please, Na Claro, then carry the dirty linens down to the laundry. If you're not here, you can't know that I spilled the yarn.” With the toe of her shoe, Doucette nudged several of the woolen balls under the bed. “Or that in going after them, I discovered my swan skin.” She fixed the older woman with a commanding look. “Come back with a few other women and Mother, too, if you can manage it. Best if she sees for herself how blameless you are.”

“Lady Doucette!” Na Claro sounded caught between consternation and understanding. “I'd have expected such sly counsel from Lady Azelais or Lady Cecilia, but I never thought you'd deal in schemes.”

“No?” Doucette smoothed summer-weight blankets over the sheets, plumped the bolster, and twitched the coverlet into place. “The saints only know, Na Claro, what else I'll discover before this day is done.”

The servant's lined face puckered with worry. “Do take care. Magic's no substitute for good sense.”

“So they say.” Doucette's lips twisted. “I wouldn't know, never having had the chance to make the trade.” She slung the tapestry bag over her shoulder and opened the door for the older woman. “Go ahead. I'll follow in a moment.”

The door closed behind her with a soft click.

Instead of walking down the tower stairs after Na Claro, Doucette went up. At every step, the emotion rising inside her threatened to erupt in a storm of tears, or shrieking, or wild laughter. She didn't know which would be worse, so she bit her lips to keep them all back.

A maid descending with a full hamper bobbed her head as she passed. “Good afternoon, little lady.”

Doucette averted her eyes and nodded, hurrying to the chamber she shared with her sisters. Once safe inside, she fell across the bed, her arms wrapped around the tapestry bag. Ragged sobs tore out of her throat.

Her life had been built on a lie.

For so long, she had envied her sisters their freedom and their powers, feeling she had little in common with them. Younger than Azelais by four years and Cecilia by two, Doucette had always felt set apart, so much less mysterious and graceful and clever and powerful and beautiful than they. Yet all along, had she known it, they shared a stronger bond even than blood: the bond of magic.

What if her parents had allowed Doucette, like her sisters, to spend the summers with Tante Mahalt? She might have flown with them over their aunt's domain. If she had mastered the High Arts, Doucette, too, might have stood a chance at inheriting the sorceress's great estate.

All the years wasted, and for what?

So her sisters could belittle her, while she trained as a chastelaine. Doucette stared at the tapestry bag through tear-blurred eyes and wiped her streaming nose on her sleeve. So her parents could marry her off to a nobleman who only prized magic that he controlled.

As Na Claro had said, few brave souls ordered Azelais and Cecilia around. But Doucette was subject to instruction by all the castle servants, many of whom had performed their appointed tasks since before her birth. Doucette hadn't realized how tired she was of doing everyone else's bidding until the moment she had seen her swan skin and known she had a choice.

She could stay home, be judged by the prince her mother had invited, behave exactly as her parents expected.

Or she could go and decide her own fate.

Doucette's hands shook as she opened the tapestry bag and unfurled her swan skin. Gray-tipped white feathers spilled over the coverlet. The breeze played over them, stirring the plumage into the semblance of life.

Doucette clenched her fists.
Sixteen years, you've waited,
her mind's voice whispered.
No longer.

Her fingers plunged into the feathers. Soft and warm, the swan skin offered a silent promise.

Change.

Did she dare?

Doucette crossed to the window, pushed aside the embroidered curtains, and stared out of the luxurious room that suddenly seemed a prison.

Over the years, Doucette had heard her father instruct her sisters' escort. Like them, she could follow the sheep flocks to a lake in the mountains, then seek the lake's eastern shore. The river Immeluse would lead her the rest of the way to her aunt's castle, to a season of studying magic with Azelais and Cecilia. If she dared.

The wind kissed her cheek.

Doucette sat and took off her shoes. Her hose. Her gown and the soft chemise underneath. Folding each item, she set it on the bed. The breeze gusted, stirring dried rose petals in a wooden bowl and raising tiny bumps along Doucette's skin.

She took a deep breath and drew on the coat of feathers. Magic tingled the length of her body and down her spine. Her neck stretched, her legs shrank. Her skin exploded in feathers. The world spun around her as her vision took on a crystalline sharpness. The floor rose to meet her, then stopped with a jolt.

She was a swan.

Doucette slapped her webbed feet on the floor. Dappled wings opened, flexed, and closed. She honked in triumph, then curled her impossibly long neck and preened a tail feather.

She looked like a swan. Could she fly like one? There was only one way to know. If she succeeded, the pile of discarded clothing, the open window, and the missing swan skin would tell her parents what she had done. If she failed, she would die.

Azelais and Cecilia had managed it, she reminded herself. She would too. Swan-Doucette waddled to the window seat, hopped up onto the broad sill, and stepped off the edge. Flapping furiously, she fell.

Down,

    down,

        down.

Doucette dropped until the ragged rhythm of her wings smoothed into a steady thrum. The almond trees' reaching arms fell away; the earth receded.

She flew.

Chapter Seven

Doucette pumped her wings and soared higher, delighting in the wind that bore her up. She didn't feel sick at all, as she had when Cecilia's Animated handkerchief had carried her to the sheep pens. No wonder her sisters absented themselves so often from their father's court!

If flying was even more marvelous than she had imagined, how much better might sorcery be?

The decision was easily made.

Swan-Doucette pointed her beak northward, toward Luzerna county and her aunt's castle. At her back, the Château de l'Aire dwindled until it was the size of a villager's thatched hut, a child's mud fort, a clump of dirt. And then it was gone.

Below her, the countryside unrolled like an illustrated parchment. Threaded with streams and dotted with small villages, lowland fields alternated brown and palest green. Cypress trees poked sharp fingers into the sky; fruit trees wore frothy crowns of pink and white blossoms.

On a whim, Doucette flew straight up, leaving the ground so far behind that its contours blurred into a hazy patchwork. Then she swooped low, skimming over Beloc's fields, orchards, and vineyards. When she found the tan ribbon of the northern road, she settled into a steady pace above it.

As the day wore on, the land dimpled, then pushed up into low hills below her. Careful cultivation gave way to wilder country. Rocky, brush-covered slopes sprouted solitary oak trees. The air changed also. Doucette breathed in a sharp incense that made her feel light-headed.

Unless that was hunger.

As the setting sun gilded the left side of Doucette's airborne body with fire, she realized how many hours she had spent aloft. Her elation dissolved, and suddenly she felt weary to the burnished tips of her wings. She had better rest, and eat, before she fell out of the sky.

Some distance from the road, Doucette spied a chain of small ponds. Milky white in the twilight, they appeared from the air like a necklace of moonstones strung across the rocks. As Doucette descended toward the largest one, she noticed steam rising from its surface. Hot springs must feed the pools.

She splashed down awkwardly and paddled to the pond's edge, where the reeds grew thick. A naked girl would have trouble finding food and shelter on her journey, but neither should prove difficult for a swan.

After a few trials, Doucette found fresh vegetation that satisfied her swan body's desperate hunger. That need met, she waddled over to investigate the smaller, hotter pools. Surrounded by twisted shapes of rock, each pool nestled in its own grotto. The water felt unpleasantly warm on her webbed feet, though Doucette knew that her girl shape would find it soothing to sink up to her chin in one of the steaming baths. Jaume had mentioned these pools, or ones like them. He had talked about how delightful they were.

During her flight, Doucette had shied away from wondering how she would change back from swan to girl. The hot pools tempted her to try.

Although she hadn't heard another soul, Doucette sidled behind a tall juniper bush and into a vertical cleft in the rock where she would be hidden from view. Peering at herself first with one eye, then the other, she looked for a seam in her swan skin.

She didn't find one. Worse, she realized, she no longer had hands to pull it apart.

Panic beat in her breast. She stifled it with an effort of will. Azelais and Cecilia had changed back and forth with ease. There must be some trick to it.

Doucette closed her eyes and thought about what happened when her sisters returned to the Château de l'Aire. They would spread their wings wide for balance, then arch their necks and run their beaks down their chests.

She tried it, pressing hard. In her mind, she pictured the two sides of her swan skin separating along the center of her body, allowing her human form to slip out as neatly as it must have done when she was born.

Magic rippled over her. With a whisper of sound, her swan skin parted.

Gasping, Doucette fell out of it and sprawled on the ground. Juniper needles pricked her skin. Her arms and legs felt strange, her head too heavy, her skin too thin. She breathed hard, and the sensations passed. When she could stand, Doucette tucked her swan skin high on a ledge to keep it safe. She coiled her hair into a knot at the back of her neck and spent another long moment in hiding, listening to be sure she was alone. Then she eased out from behind the evergreen shrub, ran to the nearest warm pool, and submerged herself in its depths.

Heaven.

Big enough to measure Doucette's length twice, the pool was fringed with tendrils of a mint-smelling herb. Doucette rested her head against the fragrant carpet and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, the sky had darkened to violet. Bats flitted through the twilight, squeaking in their high-pitched voices and snapping at insects. Doucette decided she had best change back to swan and find a sheltered place to sleep.

As she rose from the water, her hair fell out of its knot and streamed down her body. Laughing out loud at the sight of her skin, pink and steaming as baked fish, Doucette hurried to retrieve her hidden swan skin from its ledge.

Too close, a dog barked. A man's low voice answered.

Doucette pushed her way through the prickly juniper and squeezed into the rock cleft.

Had someone seen her?

In the troubadours' tales, men married swan maidens they caught unawares. Would Doucette, too, spend the rest of her days in a peasant's hut, pining for her home? Or would her family find out and ransom her? How would they know where to look?

Doucette started to reach for her swan skin, then pulled her arms down, wary of revealing her location. Perhaps if she were very quiet, she wouldn't be noticed in the fading light.

She heard footsteps, then the
click-click
of a dog's nails on rock.

“Who's there?” a low voice said.

Trapped!

Chapter Eight

She had missed her chance to change. If she tried now, he would catch her.

Doucette peered between the juniper branches at the tall man walking toward her. She was relieved to see his hooked staff. Shepherds were superstitious folk; perhaps he would avert his eyes and continue on his way, thinking her no mortal maid, but a wood nymph or rock sprite.

To Doucette's frightened, all-too-human eyes, the shepherd appeared rather spectral himself, with his face hidden by the broad-brimmed hat they all wore. A herding dog capered beside him, lively as a jester in brown-and-white motley.

The shepherd stopped several paces from Doucette's hiding place, close enough for her to smell sheep, wood smoke, and the mint-herb that grew over the rocks. His dog bounded forward, yapping. A cold nose poked through the juniper, and the dog licked Doucette's bare toes.