The Flight of Swans

by Sarah McGuire

  What if . . . ?

  I held the base of one of the stalks firmly in one hand. Before I could think better of it, I pinched the stalk with my other hand, between finger and thumb. Then I ran my pinched fingers up the stalk, following the direction of the fine hairs, stripping all the leaves off in one sweeping motion.

  Not a sting.

  I leaped up and tilted my face toward the sun.

  I didn’t trust myself to confront the Queen. Every attempt had led to someone getting hurt: my father, my brothers. The kingdom of Lacharra itself.

  I wouldn’t be the one to challenge her again. But I would be the one who set my brothers free. And when she saw them as men, when they returned to take back all she’d stolen, she would know that I was behind it.

  This was how I’d wage war. And I would win.

  * * *

  I harvested and stripped piles of nettles that fall—all without my brothers’ knowledge. I dried the leaves for tea and soup for the coming winter, but I lost nearly all the fiber hidden in the stalks.

  Nettles were greedy with their fiber. You couldn’t just pull it from the stalk. I vaguely remembered flax being retted—the long, slender stalks left out in the fields under the sun until the plant rotted away, leaving the fiber behind.

  But the nettles I left out rotted entirely.

  I took another portion of nettles and set them in still water, weighted down with branches to hold them under the surface. But the stalks rotted there too. And the smell! The little pond smelled like a chamber pot left in the sun.

  In the end, I learned how to ret entirely by accident. I was so furious with the water retting that I rinsed some of the stalks after only a day in the water. Bits of the plant were already falling away, and I could just see pale strands of fiber beneath.

  So I rinsed all the stalks and then left them in water for one more day. Then I carried the pulpy mass to one of the streams and let the running water wash away the excess. I was left with a dirty pile of fiber strands, full of bits of plant, but I’d done it! I’d finally collected the fiber. That was it, then: ret them one day, rinse them, then ret them just one day longer.

  I couldn’t have been happier if I’d found gold itself. I’d learned how to harvest nettles. I’d learned to ret them. This winter, I’d teach myself how to spin them.

  Chapter 23

  Five months later, I still didn’t know what to do with the fiber I’d retted. I felt like I’d discovered a sword but still couldn’t swing it.

  All through that first winter, I tried to turn the sticky clumps of nettle fiber into a yarn that could be knitted. I couldn’t finger-comb it, and the clumps of fiber were as thick as a baby’s fist—too big to twist by hand.

  I didn’t ask my brothers for help. They’d have no patience for what they considered an unhealthy fascination. So every full moon, I hid the spindle and nettle fiber in Owain-the-hen’s burlap bag and tucked it under my bedding.

  By midwinter, I decided to travel to Etten. I’d seen so many women with drop spindles when I’d traveled through it. Someone there must know what to do with nettle fiber. I had only to decide when it would be safest to travel.

  I’d teased some meaning from the old woman’s ramblings and Declan’s story: the woman claimed the Queen pulled Hunters from the Otherworldly Great Hunt, and Declan said fall and winter storms hid the Great Hunt as it swept across the land.

  Which meant I was safe during late fall and winter—when storms made it impossible to travel.

  I settled for the next best thing: I left for Etten as soon as the snow melted, despite the freezing nights. It had been two weeks since the last storm, so even if the Hunters had already joined the Queen at the castle, they probably wouldn’t have traveled as far as Etten.

  And yet I still worried I was too late.

  * * *

  I huddled over the fire I’d kindled near a small outcropping, only one night from Etten. I used a stick to poke one of Owain-the-hen’s eggs. She’d begun laying just before the weather turned cold. Those eggs and the nettle stew had kept me from starving. I dug the egg from the coals and dropped it in my lap, holding my rag-wrapped hands over it. It would cool enough to eat soon, but before it did, I’d soak up what warmth I could.

  My tin mug rested on a flat stone on the coals, the water inside it steaming. I pulled a bag of dried nettle leaves from my satchel and dropped a handful into the mug. I sipped the tea as I ate the roasted egg.

  Finally, as darkness spread around me, I sprinkled nettle leaves around where I’d spread my blanket. I feared the Queen’s Hunters even more now that I knew who they were. The old woman had sworn they hadn’t been able to walk through the nettles around her cottage. I was defenseless here without the walls of my hut—or the crazy hen who thought I was her chick. I hoped the dried leaves would provide some protection.

  I lay down, my hand over the shard of Kingstone beneath my tunic.

  After a long while, I slept.

  The next morning, I walked the final leagues to Etten.

  * * *

  It didn’t take long to find the part of Etten devoted to wool-craft. Three streets from the square, I discovered a broad, sunny shop with great swaths of yarn and thread wrapped around things that looked like upright pitchforks.

  I gathered my courage and walked in. It was full of light, shadows gathering only in the corners. One side of the room was devoted to a large loom, with a heavy wooden frame that held threads fine as spider silk.

  “My brother is at the fair today,” said a low voice from a corner.

  A woman stood next to an opening to a side room, a distaff in her hand. Her dress was covered in fine wool fluff the way a cook would be covered in flour. There were even a few stray bits of wool in her black hair, which had a single streak of gray. Her hair was pulled back in a tight knot at the base of her neck, but she didn’t wear a wife’s cap.

  “I’m in no mood for pranks today, boy,” she said as she sat at a spinning wheel, setting the distaff in its holder. “You’re new to Etten, or you’d know that already.”

  There was something in her low voice that would have quenched even Cadan.

  I stepped closer.

  She began pedaling the treadle, and the spinning wheel sprang to life. She knew its motion so well that her hands guided the fiber while she glared at me, eyes narrowed. “I told you to leave.”

  She had such authority that I almost turned and walked out the door.

  Instead, I gritted my teeth and stepped closer, pulling the nettle fiber from my satchel.

  That caught her attention, and she tilted her head as she studied it. “So you’ve come to ask something of the spinster of Etten? Ask it, then!”

  I’d have given a year’s worth of eggs to have words in that moment! I felt sure she’d chase me out of the shop if she thought I was making fun of her.

  So I touched my throat as I shook my head, hoping she’d understand that I couldn’t speak.

  She nodded tersely. “Bring the fiber closer so I can see it.”

  I stepped so close I could touch the spinning wheel.

  She glared at the fiber while she worked the treadle and fed a thin stream of wool into the whirring wheel.

  “It’s not wool, of course. But it’s not flax, either.” She glanced up at me. “What is it?”

  I motioned harvesting a plant, then winced as I touched my hands and wrists.

  She watched me, silent.

  After a few moments: “Nettles?”

  I nodded.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  I held a dry, sticky wad of fiber up and tried unsuccessfully to tease it apart. Then I pointed to the spinning wheel and moved the nettle fiber closer to it.

  “You march into my shop and demand that I spin nettle fiber for you?” The words were cutting, but there was laughter deep in her hazel eyes.

  I shook my head and dug into my satchel again, pulling out the old woman’s drop spindle and a link of Mother’s gold belt. I held the dro
p spindle up and pointed to her and then to myself: I want you to teach me.

  Then I held the gold link out to her. And I will pay you.

  She half-smiled. “And here I was thinking the commission from our new Queen wasn’t enough and wouldn’t a little bit of gold be just what I needed?”

  I thought I’d lost some of my fear of the Queen, but hearing someone else mention her made it hard to breathe.

  The spinster studied me as fiercely as she’d examined the nettle fiber. “Now why would mentioning our Queen make a boy like you turn white?”

  I ignored the question. I had to learn how to spin the nettles. So I pushed the fear down so far I could almost ignore it and straightened my shoulders. Then I held the gold out one more time. Will you or won’t you?

  “My grandmother told us of how her family spun yarn from nettles. How the nettles had strength and warmth for those brave enough to grasp them.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “She’d lost her mind by then, of course.”

  I took a chance and tossed the fiber to her. She caught it with one hand and stilled the spinning wheel with the other. “I suppose that’s my answer, clever lad. I’ll give you three hours—till mid-afternoon. That’s all.”

  I nodded.

  “Why isn’t your sister here?”

  I shook my head, confused.

  “This is woman’s work, spinning. Why isn’t she here?”

  I showed her the gold link again in reminder that I was paying her.

  She laughed, a full-throated sound that made me feel safe, somehow.

  “Any spinner who lives in Etten learns wool first. We’d be fools not to. But I have tools for flax somewhere, and they should work for nettles as well.” She pointed to a low, three-legged stool before disappearing into a back room. “Sit there while I fetch them.”

  So I sat.

  A moment later, she returned with the most villainous tool I’d ever seen. It reminded me of the spiked maces knights of old used—except this was a block of wood, with one side covered in wicked-looking iron spikes. I bolted to my feet. She pushed me back to sitting.

  “You’re the oddest boy I’ve had the misfortune to meet. Your sister . . .” She lingered over the word as if she doubted it. “. . . harvests stinging nettles, but you’ve never seen a hackle before.”

  She dropped it onto a nearby worktable, spike-side up. “Nettles and flax produce strong fibers that don’t lie straight easily.” She held up half of the nettle fibers and, working from the end of the hank, began to yank them across the bed of spikes.

  I thought the nettles would tear over such a ferocious comb, but they began to lie straight as she worked them farther up the hank. It reminded me of the way the ladies-in-waiting would brush my hair starting at the ends first.

  “There.” She handed the fiber to me. “You do it.”

  So I did.

  She made me comb the fibers again and again, till the flecks of stalk and leaves that had clung to the fibers fell away. After a while, the fibers lay straight and long.

  “Now, again.” She handed me the second half of the nettle fiber.

  I worked that entire hank. Seeing the fiber lie smooth and straight was nearly as exhilarating as the first fire I kindled for myself.

  Then she showed me how to wrap the fibers around a stick to create a distaff I could rest against my shoulder. “Now let me see your spindle.”

  It took the spinster a full half-hour to get me to just hold the distaff and spindle properly and another to show me how to join the new fibers on the distaff to the old yarn left by the old woman. She taught me to lick my fingers to moisten the yarn and hasten the joining, something I’d never have thought of on my own.

  Still, I never felt so stupid as when I looped the yarn over the hook at the end of the spindle and let it hang before me. I couldn’t keep it spinning to save my soul. When I could finally keep it spinning, I couldn’t feed it fiber fast enough: the yarn thinned till it broke and I had to start over again. Or I’d feed too much fiber into the twist and end up with thick, clumpy yarn right after a length that was nearly as fine as thread.

  Still, the spinster seemed pleased—though she didn’t smile—as she watched me labor. “It’s a matter of work, now. The yarn will become more even the longer you practice.”

  I looked up, heartened.

  She glanced outside, then pushed the spiked hackle across the table to me. “And now you should go.”

  I shook my head, confused. Had I offended her?

  “I think that a boy who pales at the mention of the Queen would not like to meet her soldiers when they come to ask about my progress on the Queen’s commission.”

  I leaped to my feet, tumbling hackle, spindle, and fiber into my satchel. I felt in my pocket for the link of Mother’s belt I’d promised as payment and pushed two links into the woman’s palm.

  “Two?” she asked.

  I pointed to the hackle, its spiked outline visible even in my satchel. Then I pointed to myself and held a finger to my lips.

  She handed me back the second link. “If I intended to mention you, a little gold wouldn’t stop me.”

  I stiffened.

  “But I won’t, and so you may keep your money.”

  I drew myself up—the way I used to when I was a princess—and pressed the link back into her hand. I pointed to the hackle and bowed my head just a little. It was the closest I could come to a thank you.

  She raised an eyebrow but accepted my gratitude with a nod. “Now go.”

  I darted out the door, expecting to see Hunters any minute.

  Don’t be silly, I scolded myself as I hurried up the street.

  And yet it hadn’t stormed in weeks. I could feel the change in the air—the new strength in the sunlight, despite the cold nights. The Queen could have called her Hunters across the Veil by now.

  And sent them to Etten?

  I turned a corner and ran into the answer.

  I was face to face with a Hunter’s leather breastplate.

  I ducked my head in apology and backed away, scanning the street for any others.

  I didn’t see any, but there were several knots of people—and an entire gathering around a vendor selling rolls. I turned on my heel and darted into the crowd. When I was a street over, I began to run.

  Even then, I could hear the Hunter when he finally scented me. “Princessssss!”

  The voice was more howl than speech. My legs trembled just to hear it, but I pressed on, threading narrow alleyways. I tried to imagine what my brothers would say, but I couldn’t hear anything.

  Think. Think!

  I couldn’t outrun him. And I suspected he had ways of tracking me that no human could thwart.

  Hide.

  I almost moaned at the stupidity of the thought. How was I supposed to hide from an Otherworlder?

  And then I knew.

  At least, I hoped. It was my best chance. I dug into my satchel, feeling for the nettle leaves, nettle fiber . . . anything.

  Too late. I heard footsteps behind me.

  I swung to face the Hunter.

  He tilted his head to one side, grinning so that his teeth showed. “Princess!”

  I ran, still desperately digging through the satchel.

  He caught me within two strides, grabbing a handful of my cowl and wrenching me around.

  My fingers closed around a tangle of fiber. I yanked it free and threw it in his face.

  He collapsed, clawing at it and howling when his hands closed around it.

  I backed away. His whole body seemed to be shaking, rippling—

  Don’t let him get up! Cadan’s voice was clear.

  I threw a second handful on the Hunter . . . heard his howl in my bones . . . and dashed out of the alley. His howls were the last thing I heard as I ran from Etten.

  Chapter 24

  Sixteenth full moon

  When I returned to the hut, I feared the Hunters would follow me. Find me.

  But they didn’t. The nettles hi
d me more than I’d dared imagine. So when my brothers changed two weeks later, I didn’t tell them what had happened. I didn’t want them to insist on finding another place to live.

  I didn’t want to be distractd from finally spinning the nettles.

  I never signed a hint of either Hunters or nettles to my brothers during the warm nights when we gathered around a bonfire, grateful to be free of the cramped hut.

  I spent the days harvesting and retting nettles, and the nights combing the retted fiber and practicing with the spindle. By the time autumn arrived, I had a bag full of nettle fiber and several lengths of yarn.

  My future at Cairwyn Lake stretched before me: summers and autumns gathering and retting the nettles. I’d spend the winter months safe from the Hunters, spinning the fiber and knitting it into tunics.

  * * *

  On the morning of the sixteenth moon, I learned we couldn’t hide forever.

  High clouds raced across the sky, promising rain later. My breath fogged in the air as I walked to the weir. My brothers were always hungry after they changed, and I wanted to gather fish for them before the sky opened.

  Then I saw the black swan—far from where my swan-brothers normally fed.

  Something was wrong—the angle of its head, perhaps. I couldn’t even tell which of my brothers it was.

  Was it sick?

  I took a step toward it, but the swan didn’t move—not a flick of wing or tail.

  And I realized it wasn’t a swan at all.

  It was a decoy, like what duck hunters near the castle used. They’d fold and bind river reeds together into the shape of a duck. Then they covered the reed-form with feathers.

  I watched the swan decoy bob in the water. Someone was hunting swans.

  Black swans.

  I dropped to a crouch, right there in the reeds, and tried to reason the panic away.

  But I knew better.

  The Hunters had found us at last. The Queen’s promise guarded me against harm, but my swan-brothers were defenseless.

  I pushed back images of Hunters and black feathers and blood. Think, Ryn!

  If I left Cairwyn Lake, my swan-brothers would follow. They’d finished molting months ago and would be able to fly to wherever I settled—if I could somehow escape.