The Swan King

by Nina Clare

  ‘That is so,’ replied Tante Trudy. ‘I was bound by promise not to speak of what I had seen that night. I kept my promise. Only a fool would not keep their word to the Fair Folk.’

  ‘What did you see?’ This was most intriguing.

  ‘Let me eat, then I will tell you.’

  Chapter 38

  Changeling Child

  ‘He was a changeling child,’ Tante Trudy said, as we sat about the cottage fire. ‘The queen’s own son was born on the stroke of midnight after a long and difficult birth. The queen was so small, she was not well fit for childbirth. The baby never cried. It was too weak. Its little heart so faint. I did what I could, but there is a destiny to mortal lives that no power of healing can stop.

  ‘I watched over his failing life, while the physicians attended to the queen. I was alone in the ante chamber where the cradle stood. They say it was carved from the last of the ancient mountain firs, I believe it was, for I could feel a faint hum of life in its polished knots and grain.

  ‘I opened the window when the child had given his last whisper. I wanted to sigh my sorrow into the wind and not add to the grief that would soon come. I thought it must the Queen of Faerie herself who slipped through the opened window. She was so bright and beautiful I fell to the floor, knowing what power was visited upon me. She bore a child in her arms. A new prince.

  “He must dwell apart from his people for a time,” the faery said. She took the body of the mortal prince and laid the faery prince in his place.

  “But the mortal child has no life left in him,” I said.

  “You are wrong. He has but one breath left. He shall grow strong in purer air.”

  “Will he return?”

  “None can return and remain whole.”

  “Why leave your prince in this world of trouble? What life will he know here?”

  “He must awaken the mountain one last time, and recover the treasure hidden there, stolen of old. He must restore the balance that has been disrupted.”

  ‘The faery wrapped the mortal prince in a gown that filled the room with the scent of lilies. “You shall not speak of this until the time has passed. Only because the gift of wisdom rests upon you have you been permitted to see and speak with me.”

  ‘I bowed to the ground again before her.

  ‘She was gone, and I wondered if I had dreamt it all. Perhaps I had dozed off, having been up since the evening before, as the queen laboured. But the features of the changeling prince were not the frail features of the human prince. Before my eyes the light about him faded. His skin, pure as a white petal, coarsened, though still far finer than that of an ordinary child. His hair, shiny and rainbow-coloured as a starling’s wing, faded into finer, less uncommon blackness. The point of his ears rounded almost to a human shape, but not perfectly so. And his eyes, they opened once and flashed as deep green jewels, then faded, to the blue of a new-born’s, though a blue as bright as meadow gentians.’

  Tante Trudy finished her tale.

  ‘To the king,’ said Hansi solemnly, reaching for the jug of herb-flavoured beer and topping up our cups. ‘And to the prince that lives, but not with us.’

  We all raised our cups and drank.

  Tante Trudy sealed the bottle of elixir with wax. I was sad to leave the mountain, but I desperately wanted to see Alexi. I didn’t know what I’d do when I reached home; I just knew I had to get there. I had given up trying to dissuade Christian from coming with me, he would not let me go alone.

  ‘Will you come with us, Hansi?’ I asked. ‘The servants know you; you could find out how things lie. You could get the elixir to Ziller. She can get it to Alexis if I can’t see him. Once he’s well he can come away with me.’

  ‘Where will you stay in the meantime?’ Hansi asked. ‘Have you money?’

  ‘The crown gave me some money to cover my travelling expenses home.’

  We left as a party of three, acquiring mules from the closest town to Füssen. We rented rooms in inns; Christian and I posing as man and wife, and Hansi as our groom. If anyone noticed that Christian took a pallet above the stables with the servants instead of sharing his wife’s room, no one commented.

  All was well, if cold and tiring, until we reached the town of Vogt, late in the evening, only eight miles from home. We would have completed our journey next morning, but one of the mules was showing wear on its front hooves, so we waited in town to get it shod. I’d taken care to conceal my face with scarf and hood, eating in the bedroom of the inns and not in the public dining room. Although my name had not been publicly revealed as part of the drama and scandal of the king’s apparent murder—yet, there were still posters of my face pasted to notice boards in the towns and villages as we neared home, offering a reward for my discovery; presumably posters the count had put up after I had fled that night, though they looked puzzlingly fresh.

  But I made an error, on leaving my room that day; my bag with the precious elixir had not been brought up from the saddlebags, and in fear for its safety I had rushed out of the room, with my head bare, to find it.

  As I reached the entrance room of the inn I noted, with little thought, that a bearded man in a shabby coat and hat was staring at me. I peered into the dining room, then the smoking room, but could not see either Christian or Hansi. Perhaps they were still in the stables. I would run up and get my cloak and see.

  I re-emerged from my room, too busy with the fastening of my cloak to realise there were three men before me in the hall.

  ‘Pardon me,’ I exclaimed as I walked into one of them. It was the bearded man in the shabby cloak.

  ‘It’s her all right,’ he said to the others, holding out a torn-down poster. ‘Image of her, right down to that mole, look!’ My head reeled to see the drawing of my face upon the poster, and the words: Reward Offered for Information Leading to Recovery of Missing Person in large, black letters.

  ‘Come along with us, Fräulein,’ said one of the men. Only now did I notice he and his companion were in the uniforms of the constabulary.

  ‘Wait! No—let me go!’ I protested in vain, for they took me by both arms, one constable each side of me, and propelled me through the inn and out of the door into a waiting carriage.

  ‘Where do I collect my reward from?’ the man in the shabby hat called after us as the horses were urged on and they bore me away.

  ‘You’re making a mistake! You have to let me go!’

  ‘Calm yourself, Fräulein. If we’ve made a mistake, we’ll take you back. But you’re the image of that missing baron’s daughter. Once you’ve been identified, or dis-identified if it’s just an uncanny likeness, then all will be well.’

  ‘You don’t understand!’ I protested, ‘Haven’t you heard of the trial and all that has happened. The Chief Inspector of Bayern spoke with me not more than ten days ago! I am not missing!’

  The constable laughed. ‘Chief Inspector of Bayern himself. A likely tale.’

  ‘We’d sooner you’re identified,’ added the second constable. ‘There’s a grand reward on your head. There’s been a fair few scoundrels making up stories about having sighted you in unlikely places, but none of them have led to finding you yet.’

  ‘One fellow claimed the baron’s daughter was a goat herder in the mountains, didn’t he, Clodwig?’

  ‘Geese actually, ‘replied Clodwig.

  ‘No, it was goats.’

  ‘I heard it was geese.’

  ‘And then there was that lad who said he’d heard from some duchess’s maid that the king’s new mistress was the image of the missing girl, didn’t she?’

  ‘The last king,’ added Clodwig. ‘Rest his poor, young soul. Not the new one.’

  ‘Every time someone gets sent out to investigate the claims, they come back no wiser than when they went out, don’t they?’

  ‘Got attacked by a vicious goose, the last fellow,’ said Clodwig.

  ‘I thought he got butted by a goat.’

  Clodwig shrugged. ‘Well, it put the rew
ard up, anyhow.’

  ‘I hope you’re her,’ said the constable wistfully. ‘Wages are poor these days. Got another nipper on the way.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Are you her?’

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy racking my mind for ways to escape. The curtains were drawn at the small windows, so I could not see where we were. Perhaps when the carriage slowed, I could dart out and run. But that idea was put paid to, for when the carriage did draw to a halt, the nameless constable held on tightly to my arm. ‘I do so hope you’re her,’ he said again. ‘Be a shame for the old baron to lose both his nippers.’

  ‘Wait, what did you say?’ I asked sharply. ‘The baron is dead. And what do you mean lose both his children?’

  ‘His son’s dying, and his daughter’s missing,’ said Clodwig. ‘Are you sure you’re not her? Perhaps we ought to let the servants have a look at her first,’ he said to his colleague. ‘The baron might get angry if we’ve brought another mistake and got his hopes up.’

  ‘The baron?’ I clutched my pendant at my neck as my heart beat rapidly. ‘What are you speaking of? And Alexi is dying?’

  The carriage door opened, and a rush of cold air came as a slap on my bewildered face.

  ‘Upon my soul if it isn’t the mistress!’ shrieked a voice from the carriage door.

  A large, furry muzzle thrust itself in and gave a deep bark of greeting.

  Over Magni’s furry head I met the amazed look of Zillah.

  ‘Oh, my lady! Heaven be praised you’ve come home too!’

  Chapter 39

  The Third Wish

  ‘Papa, am I dreaming?’ But the arms that held me were solid and not a dream. The smell of cinnamon and orange peel in his study where I had run to find him, was aching in its familiarity.

  ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ Papa’s voice was muffled against my head. ‘They told me you’d left München, but no one knew where you had gone. I hurried home, I thought you must be here, but you were not. That idiotic inspector! How could he let you go without an escort—and after everything you have been through!’

  I pulled away to look at Papa. ‘But how…?’

  There was a bustle of noise and a voice that caused me to start back, looking with alarm at the doorway.

  ‘What is she doing here?’ I said, my voice shaking.

  The baronin could be heard, saying loudly, ‘What? How is it she is here?’ Quick footsteps followed and there she was, in the doorway staring back at me.

  ‘Returned to us, and safe, as you see,’ exclaimed Papa. ‘Is this not wonderful?’

  ‘What has she been saying?’ the baronin demanded. Her face had drained of colour, leaving two spots of rouge standing out as smudges on her cheeks. ‘Whatever she says is a lie!’

  ‘Elisabeth never lies,’ said Papa, his hand tightening on my shoulder.

  The baronin was not listening to him; she was staring at me as though she could not believe what she was seeing. Her eyes raked me up and down, the corner of her mouth curling in disgust as she took in my dishevelled hair and travel-stained gown. She took a step forward.

  ‘Have you come back to watch your brother die? It’s you who has killed him. He began to fade the day you left him.’

  ‘Sabine, enough,’ ordered Papa.

  ‘You cannot hurt me anymore,’ I said. I met her glare. ‘Whatever lies you have spun about me will all unravel. The truth will come out now.’

  ‘There is no evidence against me,’ hissed the baronin. ‘You have ruined everything.’

  ‘It is you have ruined our lives,’ I retorted.

  Once and for all you must choose between us, Gilbert,’ said the baronin, turning her eyes to Papa. I will not remain here with her. Choose. Choose now, Gilbert!’

  Papa’s hand on my shoulder drew me closer to him. ‘I will not take your part against my only daughter, Sabine,’ he said, his voice low and full of pain.

  ‘You never did,’ the baronin said. A look of anger and hatred now twisted her face. The same look I had seen on Count von Wuelffen’s face before he threw himself after the king, and before they had marched him away under arrest for attempted regicide.

  She made a growl and lunged to strike me, but I stepped away, she only caught my face by the tips of her fingers.

  ‘Sabine, I won’t have violence in my house!’ cried Papa, pushing me behind him, out of her reach. ‘Cease this instant! Have you lost your senses?’

  Gerling and Griffin appeared at the door, drawn by the sound of shouting. Brunn was ordering them away again, but they would not heed.

  ‘Take her away,’ Papa called to the footmen. ‘Before she becomes violent—don’t hurt her—bring the carriage—she is leaving.’

  ‘Murderess!’ the baronin shrieked as she was wrenched away. ‘Liar! Do not listen to one word she says!’

  ‘She has gone mad,’ Papa said, looking after the baronin in distress. ‘It is the only explanation for all that she has done. But I will hold her to her word, she shall not spend one night under the same roof as you.’

  Papa looked ashen. He staggered to the faded couch, and sat down.

  I waited with him, listening to the sounds in the household, until the baronin’s voice could be heard no more. ‘Papa, tell me everything that has happened to you.’

  ‘I soon shall. But let me rest a minute more. All this trouble has worn me thin, though your return is the only comfort I wished for.’

  Papa’s story was as strange as my own. He had been thrown from the wreckage of the train, had been tossed down a hillside, falling into the lake, where he certainly would have drowned as other passengers had, had he not fallen only at the shallow edge.

  He had only the vaguest recollections of being found by two passing workmen; foreigners who spoke no German, but helped him to their little hut and sought help.

  ‘I awoke in hospital,’ Papa said. ‘I was disorientated; I could not even say who I was at first, and I had nothing about me to identify me. But someone recognised me. Count von Wuelffen was searching through the wards of the survivors, and when he saw me, he arranged to have me sent to Dr Mensdorff’s sanatorium where I had all the privilege of an isolated room.’

  I was so shocked at these words that they took my breath away for a moment. ‘The count knew you were alive, and he concealed it and shut you up where no one could see you?’

  Was there no end to that man’s depravity?

  ‘He wanted you kept out of the way,’ I said, putting the pieces together. ‘If you had returned home, you would have stopped their plan, you would not have let me be married off.’

  ‘My poor child,’ said Papa, looking broken.

  ‘You have suffered too, Papa. I wonder if she knew.’ I meant my stepmother.

  ‘She said she did not,’ said Papa. ‘But how can I believe any word she says anymore.’

  ‘And how did you gain release? Why did they let you go?’

  ‘I thought I would be killed. I heard the count telling Dr Mensdorff that it was all up, that someone called Fleischman was sure to talk and it would all be up. He sounded like a crazed man, and he wanted to do away with me, that is what I heard him say.’

  ‘He wanted to kill you! Oh, Papa!’

  ‘The doctor would not let him. They had a furious row. And then… and then the strangest thing happened.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You will hardly believe it.’

  ‘I don’t think there is anything I would find hard to believe after all I have seen these past months, Papa.’

  ‘There was a darkening of the rooms, a strange unnatural darkening. The count cried out that it was him come to get him. I don’t know who he meant. The doctor was telling him to be rational, but as the air darkened the doors of the ward swung open—and this is the part you will hardly believe—though the doors were opened, there was no one there. And stranger still, the count was so paralysed with fear, rambling and calling out that they were coming for him, and the doctor was so busy in trying to restra
in him, that I walked right past them, Elisabeth, imagine that, I just walked right out of the doors, it was as though they did not even see me. I gained my freedom, I expected someone to run after me and take hold of me, I expected the count to come after me, but no one did. I found a constable, I said I had been held hostage, and from there I was helped.’

  ‘I wonder they did not arrest the count immediately, as they did the doctor,’ I said.

  ‘The inspector said he was putting the count under close surveillance. His supervisor, the regional chief, had already tried to investigate the count, but his high connections kept him immune from interrogation. The count was too clever and influential to successfully convict without irrefutable evidence. He wanted to let him make his way to the testimony rooms, for he was sure he would betray himself publicly when he heard the evidence given. The count did not realise he was closely followed by officers from that moment. If I had only known that you would be there, Elisabeth, at those very rooms, I would have found you.’

  ‘Why didn’t the Chief Inspector tell you of me sooner, Papa?’

  ‘I did not see him until after the government enquiry was finished. He was out of the city gathering evidence until the last day of the enquiry. I only dealt with the local inspector who did not know of your true identity. The Chief Inspector had been conducting the investigation secretly, rather than officially, it seems. When everything came to light the Chief Inspector was to bring us together, but you were gone.’

  I thought over all this for some minutes. And then my thoughts returned to the most pressing thing—Alexis.

  ‘I must send Gerling to Vogt, Papa,’ I urged. ‘You have to believe me when I say it’s a matter of life and death. He must find my friends, and bring them here.’

  Alexis was so pale and thin I sank to my knees at his bedside at the sight of him.