The Swan King

by Nina Clare

  ‘No, she has outwardly minded me, but inwardly she despises me. Both your children do. I’m not a fool, I can see it in their spoilt little faces–’

  ‘I won’t hear this. I won’t hear my children abused. This trip will put our finances back on an even keel. We shall recover. I have let you have your way in everything, Sabine. You’ve had a free hand and an open purse for all you desired to do. I’ve worked hard to pay for the expense of it all, but whether I am a rich man or a poor one, I will not force my only daughter into a marriage she does not want. I promised her mother that very thing, I made her a solemn vow. Now oblige me by leaving me in peace. There is nothing further to discuss on this matter, and if there were, I should refuse to discuss it in this room.’

  Elisabeth heard the baronin’s heels clicking on the floor, so she turned and fled back upstairs.

  Chapter 5

  The Woodcarver

  ‘Fräulein Opel, can you tell us your relationship to the young baroness you speak of? The committee cannot yet see any connection to this investigation. Thus far you have stated that she was introduced to a Bayern count, whose name you will not supply. What is the connection with this young woman to the whereabouts of the king?’

  ‘Both the baroness and the count become involved with the king’s affairs. Their actions had great significance with regard to him.’

  ‘And what is your relationship to her? Why do you hesitate?’

  ‘I hesitate because I cannot tell you everything at once. I know of her story because I knew her very well. If you will allow me to continue, I will explain all.’

  For most of the night Elisabeth tossed and turned, with her stepmother’s words replaying in her mind and seeping into her dreams.

  Early next morning she dressed herself and went first to the kitchen, and then to her father’s study. He was already at work, as she knew he would be. His expression when she opened the door smote her; she hadn’t seen him look so unhappy since her mother had died.

  He managed half a smile, however, and she padded across the room to his desk to put his coffee down, then put her arms about him and clung tightly.

  ‘What’s all this?’ he murmured, patting her hands at his neck.

  ‘I just wanted to give you a hug, Papa. You look tired this morning.’

  ‘I’ve been up a long while going over accounts.’

  She withdrew her arms. ‘I wish you’d let me do more of your accounts and letters. I could do more than just general things, Papa.’

  ‘I’m sure you could. But sitting at a desk is no life for a young lady. Especially a young lady who likes to be out riding half the day.’

  ‘I’d like something more to do. The days seem so long sometimes. If you won’t let me help you, then let me take care of Alexis. He’s out of danger. For now. Please tell Nurse that I may take him out for some fresh air each day, it would do him good. We will only go in the grounds, I can push him in the bath chair.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with Nurse,’ her father promised. His seat creaked as he sat back and sipped his coffee.

  ‘Also, Papa…please say I can have Ziller back. She has done nothing wrong.’

  Papa shook his head over his cup. ‘I will not interfere with the household matters. It would cause all manner of resentment. If there is one thing I need at present, Elsa, it is harmony in my home.’

  He looked so sorrowful as he said this that she could not argue. She said nothing more for the time being but moved around the room, looking and touching all the familiar objects. She ruffled the dried orange peel in the big china bowl to release its fragrance. She bent over the old sofa and kissed Magni’s big, furry head. He thumped his tail against the cushions. She moved past the shelves of books. There was a gap in the shelf where the beautifully illustrated copy of Lohengrin once sat. Alexis had commandeered it long ago.

  She paused in front of the cabinet where the family documents were kept. The large, brass key was in the lock.

  ‘I’ve been going through my papers,’ her father said, seeing her touch the key. ‘Ensuring all is in order before I leave.’

  Those words alarmed her. People put things in order before they went away in case they didn’t come back again. But she forced the thought away. It was too horrible.

  There came a rap at the study door, it opened, and the baronin’s face appeared.

  ‘Ah, you are here, Elisabeth. I thought you might be. Brunn said you were not in your room when she went to dress you.’

  The baronin’s eyes slid around the room, from her husband to Elisabeth, as though she were gauging what had passed between them. All the harsh words of the night before sprang fresh into Elisabeth’s mind, and she could not bring herself to meet her stepmother’s eyes as they settled on her.

  ‘You have no corset,’ her stepmother said flatly. ‘Get dressed properly before you come down to breakfast.’ And she closed the door again behind her.

  ‘Best do as she says, Elsa,’ said Papa, pushing his empty cup away. ‘I have much work to do.’

  Elisabeth announced to Nurse that her father had given permission for her to take Alexis for a walk. The weather was dry, the bath chair was at the door, and she would brook no resistance.

  Nurse grumbled about pneumonia and pleurisy setting in for sure, but assisted with bundling Alexis beneath a mound of blankets. Elisabeth took charge of the chair and set off.

  ‘We’ll go around the shrubbery to the back of the house, and then I’ll show you where the workmen are,’ she told her brother. ‘One of them has set up a workshop next to the stables, and I want you to see what he’s doing.’

  She guessed correctly that Alexis would like to see the work of the carpenter, who sat at a bench with a long length of cherry wood before him; onto the wood he was chiselling out the most exquisite designs of flower garlands and cherubim. He looked up at the sound of the bath chair wheels, whistling and squeaking as they rolled over the paved path.

  ‘May we watch?’ Elisabeth asked. ‘We won’t distract you with talking.’

  ‘Talk all you please,’ the woodcarver replied, beckoning them to come and sit near him. ‘Been talking to the horse in the stall yonder, but she don’t talk back.’

  Alexis laughed. ‘She does to Elsa. May I touch them?’ he asked, stretching a pale, thin hand towards the carved shapes.

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ Elisabeth said. ‘Where did you learn to carve?’

  ‘Carpenter’s apprentice for seven years,’ said the man. ‘Showed a liking for the fancy work, so studied under a master for another five years. Been working out on my own since.’

  ‘You must have started your apprenticeship very young,’ Elisabeth said, gauging that the man was not much more than twenty-five.

  ‘Twelve. Worked on a farm to get money for an indenture. Went to München, asked at every carpenter’s workshop in the city till one took me on.’

  ‘Where did you live before you went to München?’ she asked.

  ‘Little mountain village. Füssen. Close to Swanstein.’

  ‘Where the castle is?’ said Alexis.

  The woodcarver nodded.

  ‘You travelled all the way from Füssen to München on your own at the age of twelve?’ Elisabeth marvelled.

  ‘And you worked every day when you were a boy?’ asked Alexis.

  ‘Been working since I can remember. Sister worked at a farm since she was six.’

  They sat with the woodcarver until another workman called that it was time to eat. It had been pleasant sitting with him, listening to him talk in his mountain-region accent. Elisabeth had not realised it was noon already.

  ‘May we come again tomorrow?’ Alexis begged.

  ‘Wish you would.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Alexis asked, as he was wheeled away.

  ‘Hans,’ called back the man. ‘Friends call me Hansi.’

  ‘See you tomorrow, Hansi.’ Alexis waved. ‘I like him. He’s clever. Do you think he’d let me try at carving?’

 
; ‘Perhaps. Though we mustn’t keep him from his work.’

  Hansi did not mind at all showing the siblings how to carve using the little chisels he kept rolled up in a leather wallet. Wood carving was more difficult than it looked. But those hours passed pleasantly with the three of them sat around the stove, feeding it the wood shavings that fell around their feet.

  Hansi liked to talk as he worked. He answered questions about his home in the mountains. He and his sister had been born in München. Their father had been a carpenter with a little shop, but he’d only made simple furniture, and they’d lived in the poorer part of the city. They lost both parents to the typhus that had swept through the neighbourhood. Two hundred people died, and the king ordered work carried out to improve the drains and sewerage. But the improvements had come too late for them. Their only living relative was their father’s sister, Tante Trudy, a midwife and herb woman, and a very skilled one, Hansi said. If she lived in the city, she could make a good living, but she hated the noise of the town, so she lived in a tiny cottage in the mountains.

  ‘Imagine living so near to Swanstein Castle,’ Elisabeth said dreamily. ‘I’d like to see it. Have you ever seen the king and queen, or the crown prince?’

  ‘Seen the queen and prince many times in my youth. They were fond of riding and hiking.’

  ‘What were they like?’ she asked.

  ‘Queen’s a tiny lady. Marched up the mountain faster than any of the young attendants.’ Hansi laughed. ‘Should see them, red faced and panting, while she flew up, like a mountain goat, ordering them to keep up.’

  ‘And the crown prince?’ she asked. ‘Is he as tall and handsome as he looks in his pictures?’

  ‘Folk do like to see him.’

  ‘I wish I could see him,’ she said. ‘Alexis has a book with pictures of Lohengrin. We think the prince looks like the Swan Knight.’

  ‘I’ll show you the picture,’ said Alexi.

  ‘Show me,’ said Hansi, resuming his work, ‘and I’ll tell you.’

  The baron left while it was still dark.

  ‘You should be in bed,’ he said when Elisabeth appeared in the entrance hall. The carriage was at the door, and Gerling was strapping the baron’s boxes to the roof. ‘We said our farewells last night.’

  ‘I wanted to see you off, Papa.’

  He opened his arms, and she moved into them, pressing her head against his shoulder, letting him envelop her within his greatcoat. She felt like a little girl again, held in such a way, and could not prevent a childlike tear from rising.

  ‘Now, none of that, Sisi,’ chided her father, seeing her tears when he released her. He had not called her Sisi for years. That had been her mother’s name for her. ‘You’re the strong one, remember? You’ll take care of Alexi.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll be home again in two months at most. What shall I bring you? New silks, like your stepmother, or books, like your brother?’

  ‘Just bring yourself, Papa. That’s all I want.’ The lump in her throat made her voice sound choked.

  ‘Bless you,’ said Papa, kissing the top of her head. ‘You’re a good girl. Now let me go. The trains won’t hold if I’m late.’

  She watched the carriage until it was long out of sight.

  Alexis carried his Lohengrin book carefully on his lap that morning as Elisabeth pushed him through the grounds. They were eager to see if the woodcarver thought the crown prince looked like the heroic Swan Knight.

  Hansi examined the pictures, carefully turning the pages with his work-rough fingers.

  ‘Prince is very like him,’ was his conclusion. ‘Same look about them, like they’re from another world. See here,’ and he turned the page to where the princess and Lohengrin were saying their anguished farewell. ‘Who’s that like?’

  Alexis and Elisabeth leaned forward to see.

  ‘She looks like you, Elsa,’ said Alexis. ‘I never saw it before.’ Then he sat back in the bath chair looking troubled.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  Alexis pointed at the picture. A boat, pulled by a great white swan, with a golden crown encircling its neck, lay by the waterside. The Swan Knight was stepping into the boat, and the princess was pleading with him not to leave. Her white gown fluttered in a breeze as she moved towards the boat. She was up to her knees in water, and her hair was blowing in a wild mass about her pale face.

  ‘My dream,’ said Alexis. ‘That’s how you looked. Except you were in the boat, and it was me shouting for you not to go.’

  She was feeling heavy-hearted at her father’s departure that morning, so Alexis’ melancholy images unsettled her more than they ought.

  ‘It was looking at these pictures that caused the dream, Alexis. That’s all.’ She plucked the book from Hansi and closed it with a snap. ‘Let’s talk about something cheerful. Hansi, tell us again about your life in the mountains. Tell us about the trolls.’ She knew the mention of trolls would rouse Alexis from his brooding, and she was right.

  ‘Did your aunt really see one?’ said Alexis eagerly.

  Hansi resumed his work. While he carved, he spoke in a low, rhythmic voice.

  ‘Would that be the time Tante Trudy came across a cave in the mountain, as she was coming home?’

  ‘She’d been to a house high up—higher than any house she’d been to before,’ said Alexis.

  ‘You know the story, young sir.’

  ‘What did it look like? Tell me again.’

  ‘Were a small thing, size of a child that’s found its feet. Maybe a child-troll, hard for Tante Trudy to tell, for it had such a wrinkled face.’

  ‘A brown, wrinkled face, like a sun-dried berry,’ added Alexis.

  ‘Hair the colour of mulch, in tufts, all over its body,’ said Hansi.

  ‘And no clothes!’ said Alexis gleefully. He dropped his voice. ‘Was it a boy troll? Did it have—?’

  ‘That will do, Alexis,’ Elisabeth said.

  ‘There it sat,’ continued Hansi, ‘upon a rock. Tante Trudy pulled out her bell and shook it. Trolls hate bells.’

  ‘Who would be scared of a little bell?’ said Alexis.

  ‘Some say it sounds as church bells, which they can’t abide. Others say it’s as the sound of the fair-folk king and queen, driving in their sleigh.’

  ‘And why don’t they like the fair-folk king and queen?’ asked Alexis. ‘Are trolls not fair folk?’

  ‘Trolls are darkling, not fair. The fair and the dark are often at war. The fair always win in the mountain of Swanstein that’s why it’s a good place to dwell. There’s more light than dark. That’s what Tante Trudy says, although there have been strange things happening these past years, and life has been hard.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ said Alexis.

  ‘Animals taken, sightings of darkling creatures. Poor crops. Food scarce. Even Tante Trudy’s found it hard to find herbs. The mountain is not happy. Something is amiss.’

  ‘Darkling creatures?’ Alexis’s eyes were wide with interest. ‘What things?’

  ‘Can’t say. Some kind of goblin or troll. They dig holes in the mountainside, like they’re looking for something. Wherever a hole appears folk take care to keep away, that’s when their animals disappear. One time a goat herder went into a hole in the mountain to see what was there.’

  ‘And what was there?’

  Hansi shrugged. ‘Can’t say. His fellow herder said he didn’t back out again, and he wasn’t going in after him.’

  ‘How dreadful,’ said Elisabeth.

  ‘Did he ever come back?’ Alexis said.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Don’t you wish you could see a troll or one of the fair-folk?’ asked Alexis. ‘I wish I could.’

  ‘Few people do. Tante Trudy has a special feeling for such things, and she sees more than most. Of late folks see more evidence of the darklings than the fair.’

  ‘I wonder why,’ said Alexis. ‘I wish I could meet her. I bet she can tell lots of stories abo
ut things she’s seen.’

  ‘Oh, she’s full of tales of Faerie.’

  ‘Did you say she was a midwife?’ Elisabeth asked. She was whittling away at a small block of wood, trying unsuccessfully to shape it into a bird.

  ‘Best midwife in all Bayern. The queen was at Swanstein to birth the prince so as to have Tante Trudy on hand.’

  Elisabeth ceased whittling to stare at Hansi. ‘Do you mean that your aunt was at the birth of the prince?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You mean your own aunt delivered the crown prince?’ She exchanged looks of wonder with Alexis. ‘She’s a royal midwife, and yet she lives in a tiny cottage in the mountains? Why, she could make a fortune in the towns and cities—all the noblewomen would want her at their births.’

  ‘Don’t doubt it,’ said Hansi. ‘But Tante Trudy can’t abide towns and cities. It’s not much talked of, her being at the birth. Folk in the city think it a whim of the queen’s having a local midwife present. They’re known to be fond of the villagers, respectful of their way of life. It’s said the prince hates the city, wants to live in the mountains always. City folk think that’s a strange fancy of his.’

  ‘Your aunt must talk of it all the time,’ Elisabeth said. ‘What an honour for her.’

  Hansi paused for a moment. ‘Never talks of it.’

  ‘Never talks of it?’

  Hansi did not answer, and she concluded, with puzzlement, that it was not a subject that he wanted to talk about either.

  ‘Elsa’s going to marry a prince one day,’ said Alexis. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Really?’ said Hansi. He blew wood dust from his work.

  ‘Yes, really. And live in a castle, and everything, aren’t you, Elsa?’

  ‘Who knows? Perhaps it’s just a fairy tale.’

  ‘Our mother said it was true.’ Alexis looked upset as though she had denied something important.

  ‘Mama always said it was so,’ she agreed. She felt embarrassed talking about it in front of Hansi. It was something only spoken of between Alexis and herself. ‘Our mother had a kind of gift for knowing things. But I don’t know if this was one of them, or just a story.’