The Flight of Swans

by Sarah McGuire

  Finn didn’t take his eyes off them. “The Ri’s guest attacked you?”

  The men muttered among themselves.

  Finn whistled two short shrills, and several men joined him.

  “What happened?” asked Finn.

  Moyle tried to talk despite his bloody nose and bruised throat. “We had a few questions for her.”

  “I don’t like your way of asking questions. Seems she didn’t, either.”

  Moyle flinched.

  Finn turned to the men beside him. “Take them to separate cells. I don’t want them to talk to each other before the Ri sees them.”

  He sheathed his sword, then walked to me. “No,” he muttered, “she won’t be any trouble at all, Corbin. Not a bit. Never mind that your rival’s son wanted to beat her.”

  But he didn’t show a breath of anger when he knelt beside me, holding up his hands to show he meant no harm.

  Finn didn’t like me, but he was fair. When he held a hand out to me, I tossed aside the nettles and took it. He pulled me to my feet.

  Ionwyn joined us a moment later. “What happened?”

  “Moyle and his friends found her by the ruins. You see what happened next.”

  Ionwyn held her lantern aloft, and I blinked in its glare. “Wyn,” she whispered. Her gaze dropped to my torn sleeve. “Did they . . . ?”

  I shook my head. No, they hadn’t.

  Ionwyn’s eyes widened, and I realized my mistake: I’d answered a spoken question.

  I looked away, wagging my head from side to side, hoping she’d think the gesture had been one of pain and terror—not a response to her question.

  Ionwyn tried to speak to me again, but I ignored her and stood.

  “Wyn—” she sighed. She took my arm, but I shrugged away.

  I couldn’t go back to the castle yet. I couldn’t just sit and be still.

  I held up a single finger. One thing. I prayed Ionwyn understood. Let me do one thing.

  Ionwyn nodded. “I think she wants me to follow her, Finn.”

  I left them, determined to find the blanket of nettles I’d harvested. Lantern light danced behind me as Ionwyn ran to catch up.

  Finn joined us. “Is she mad?”

  “I don’t think so. Did you see them, Finn? Three against one, and she still escaped—and bloodied Moyle! I like her.”

  “What is she doing now?” muttered Finn.

  I found the blanket of nettles where I had left it and started dragging it to the gate. I’d take the nettles to water tonight if it killed me.

  “Let her pass!” called Ionwyn to the warriors guarding the gate in the wall.

  They opened the small wooden door beside the huge gates and let us pass. Once, Finn tried to help me by picking up a corner of the blanket.

  Just as quickly, he cursed and dropped it. “Nettles! What’s the crazy lass doing with them?” But he picked up the corner once more and helped carry the blanket the rest of the way.

  The three of us walked down the curve of the great hill. There was only the castle with its one round tower, standing like a guardian above us—and the sounds of the small bells Ionwyn tied to her braids, and Finn’s muttered curses.

  Finally, I found a small section of the river where the water circled slowly, separate from the rush of the rest of the water. I upended the blanket, sending the nettles into the water. A few long branches I scavenged pinned the nettles underwater so they wouldn’t float away.

  “I think she’s retting them,” said Ionwyn, holding the lantern high to see. “Though we use a different technique with flax.”

  “Why nettles?” asked Finn.

  “I don’t know,” said Ionwyn.

  And I couldn’t tell them.

  Chapter 42

  I dreamed of blood that night, perhaps because I fell asleep tasting the blood from my swollen lip.

  In my dream there was blood on my clothes and hands, but I hardly noticed because I watched my brothers fall mid-flight. Black wings faltered against the blue sky, my swan-brothers tumbling as they plummeted to the ground. My attackers were there too, somehow responsible for my brothers’ fall.

  I wrapped my bruised hands around my cudgel and attacked—

  “Wyn . . . Wyn!”

  I flailed out.

  Ionwyn bent over me. “I know you can hear and understand me! For the sake of all you hold dear, don’t ignore me now.”

  I sat up, wincing at the soreness in my shoulders—they’d wrenched my arms behind me. I looked up at her and held her gaze.

  “Corbin brought a claim against your attackers today for harming someone under his hospitality. Moyle’s father, Connach, claims his son caught you in some evil last night and that you attacked him. We must answer him.”

  Every time I’d flinched at some sound in the darkness last night, I’d told myself that I was safe, that the men who’d beaten me were captive. I’d reminded myself that I was under the protection of the Ri’s house.

  It seemed that even that might not be enough. But Ionwyn did not see my dismay.

  “I’ve been appointed your advocate,” she continued. “I’ll speak for you.”

  I touched my throat and nodded.

  “I’ll speak for you because you are mute, yes. But Corbin has asked me to speak in your defense. You won’t stand alone, do you hear me?”

  * * *

  Ionwyn brought me a pale blue linen gown that hung straight from my shoulders to the ground. It was embroidered around the cuffs and hem with bright purple and crimson thread—the colors of royalty, and of those sheltered by it. Then she fastened a belt embroidered in the same pattern around my waist, arranging the folds of the full tunic so that it looked like water cascading around me.

  We walked to the hearing, every sense so sharpened that I would have sworn I heard the wind sweep each blade of grass.

  The hearing was held in the base of the round tower, “the oldest part of the fortress,” Ionwyn whispered to me as a warrior opened a thick wooden door for us with a respectful nod.

  I couldn’t see anything of the dim room at first. There were slashes of white in the gloom, where daylight leaked through arrowslit windows.

  As my eyes adjusted, I saw a ring of the Ri’s chiefs standing along the walls. The three men who had attacked me stood between two chiefs. There were others there, too: youths with their fathers, and even an old man sitting on a stool.

  Ionwyn led me to the center of the tower, near a gristled chieftain with a face set like stone. I felt his fury when he looked at me, like heat rolling off coals.

  “Connach,” murmured Ionwyn to me. “The father of Moyle, whose nose you bloodied.”

  The tower reminded me too much of the hollowed-out turret where the Queen had imprisoned my brothers. Every awful memory of the night rushed over me until I could hardly catch my breath.

  The Ri stood at the far side of the tower and motioned that Ionwyn and I should come farther into the circle. As we neared, I witnessed something I hadn’t seen in him, even when I attacked him with the cudgel: ferocity. When he saw my swollen mouth, his own thinned. His hands clenched, and I could almost see him rooting his feet into the floor of the hall. He would not be moved.

  And somehow, his fury gave me strength.

  My fear dissolved as anger threaded my spine. I remembered the dream Ionwyn had pulled me from, how I charged the men who watched the swans fall: the men who stood across the room.

  “Will you speak for her?” the Ri asked Ionwyn. It was spoken as a formality, the beginning of the hearing.

  “I will.”

  The chiefs nodded solemnly.

  I glanced around the room, amazed. Women never spoke in Lacharran court, except to testify. Even then her husband or father had to vouch for her, as if she couldn’t find the truth on her own. Yet no one here doubted Ionwyn could speak the truth—certainly not Connach, who fingered his tunic nervously.

  I’d thought they were barbarians.

  “The woman Wyn and her son are my guest
s, guarded by my house,” began the Ri. “Finn, the captain of my men, discovered her, a woman who couldn’t cry out for help, running from these men last night. She’d been attacked. I demand the restitution due a member of my household. I have brought Wyn to stand before you so that the details of her attack may be made plain. She remains under the protection of my house”—he glanced at Connach—“and she will not suffer another grievance.”

  When he finished, the king nodded to the old man beside him.

  “An elder,” whispered Ionwyn. “The Advocate who will judge our claims.”

  Advocate for whom? And then I realized: this judge was viewed as the advocate for the laws of Eyre’s seven kingdoms.

  Another surprise.

  In Lacharra, Father’s word was law. Here, even the Ri stood beside a judge.

  My fate lay in the judgment of a man with short, curling gray hair and a clean-shaven face.

  The Advocate bowed his head in acknowledgment, then turned to Connach. “Tell us once more what happened. Take care that the story matches what your son told earlier. It seems particularly changeable.”

  “When my son Moyle and his friends saw her working in the dark, they asked her what she was doing. When they asked again, she struck out with stinging plants. She broke Moyle’s nose and used her arts to wound the rest. The Ri claims that she is under his protection, and we respect that. As he learned years ago, though, the law doesn’t allow him to protect a menace.”

  “And how did she break the law?” pressed Ionwyn. “You have yet to explain that, Connach.”

  The Advocate turned to Ionwyn. “Tell us what you know.”

  “She was harvesting nettles and preparing them for retting, Honor.”

  The Advocate raised an eyebrow. “At night?”

  Ionwyn nodded. “It was important to her. She wouldn’t allow me to tend her wounds until she’d taken the remaining nettles to be retted.”

  The Advocate nodded. “No one has worked with nettles for generations. It is an ancient craft.”

  Connach nodded. “But why was she there at night? If it was so innocent an activity, why wait till dark?”

  “Only those who are scared of the dark distrust it: children and fools,” shot back Ionwyn. “Would your son have been frightened to see a woman harvesting nettles in the daylight?”

  A ripple of laughter moved across the room.

  The Advocate raised his hand for silence. “Continue.”

  “How do you know she was the one who was mistreated?” Connach asked. “You have a good but weak heart, Ri. She bloodied my son! Those who stalk their prey are silent. She acts more like the hunter than the hunted.”

  “She can’t speak!” thundered the Ri.

  Connach raised an eyebrow. “We don’t know that. She has a tongue. Her child can speak. Who else but her would have taught him?”

  Silence fell over the room.

  “Until today, we thought she was deaf, yet your cousin Ionwyn whispers in her ear this morning! Why do you doubt that she might also be able to speak?”

  He spread his arms in appeal to the assembled chiefs.

  “It is my son’s honor that is assailed, Ri! You claim he attacked the woman Wyn, but none heard the cries which would be evidence of that attack. I cannot believe she is silent. Even a man with his tongue cut out can scream. I fear, my Ri, that you have chosen to protect the wrong person once again.”

  Once again? Who had he protected the first time?

  I saw the Advocate’s guarded expression, and all hope of justice fell from me.

  Connach pushed harder. “Indeed, I could ask for payment from you, Ri. Your guest attacked my son and his companions! And I hear they are not the first she has attacked.” He bowed to the Advocate. “I request, Honor, that you question him about this.”

  The Advocate nodded. “Ri, have you witnessed any violence?”

  The Ri looked at me, his shoulders square but his eyes full of defeat. “I have.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was holding the boy, Carrick. We’d found him alone in the forest. She attacked me with a cudgel—trying to protect him.”

  The crowd began to murmur. I couldn’t hear the words at first, but then snatches became clear: “Sorceress. Enchantress.”

  I looked at the chiefs around me. They believed I might have attacked all three men. I wasn’t a mute victim—I was the assailant.

  “She has a tongue. She could have screamed for help,” said one.

  “Why was she working with nettles?”

  “Her hands aren’t stung. More enchantment!”

  The Ri raised his hand for silence, his face like fire and thunder.

  The chiefs grew silent.

  He turned to the Advocate. “What do you rule, Honor?”

  The old man raked Connach with his gaze. “It has become the word of one against another. And the witness we have”—he nodded to Finn—“did not see the actual attack.”

  “I saw her fear, Honor,” insisted Finn.

  The Advocate nodded. “Powerful, indeed. But not enough. This I know: the truth will manifest. We will reconvene in a week’s time and trust that lies will be exposed.”

  We couldn’t afford to wait so long! I might be attacked again. I might be imprisoned. Or kept from the nettles. Or from Carrick. If anything happened to me, my brothers would bear the consequences.

  Fear pressed in, a certainty that I’d lose everything. These people would not let the mad girl from the forest go unpunished.

  And then I remembered who I was. I was Andaryn of the House of Cynwrig, who’d stolen the Kingstone fragment from a usurping enchantress. I was the Swan-Keeper, protector of my brothers until they were freed from their enchantment.

  I saw my dream once more: black swans falling from the sky. I felt the cudgel in my hands as I charged my attackers.

  The answer came in a flash: not a cudgel, but a cane.

  I broke away from Ionwyn and snatched the cane of the old man sitting on the stool.

  He shouted a protest, but I was already approaching Connach.

  Several chiefs stepped forward, but when the Ri held up a hand, they let me pass.

  For once, the people around me were as quiet as me.

  I stopped in front of Connach, heart thundering so I could barely breathe. Please, let this work. Please let me be strong enough.

  I held the cane out to him. He didn’t respond, so I offered the cane again.

  After a moment, he took it.

  Before he could say anything, I held up five fingers. Then I knelt with my back to him and pulled my braid over my shoulder.

  I didn’t want anything between me and the beating to come.

  I think the Ri understood my challenge before Connach did. He looked down at me, eyes wide. Something in his face reminded me of Aiden on that first full moon, when he realized the black swans had bruised me.

  He walked to me and knelt on one knee so that his face was level with mine. For the first time since I’d begged hospitality, I met his gaze.

  He didn’t say anything, just studied me as if he needed to be sure of something. Of me.

  “I know you understand me.” He spoke too low for those gathered around to hear. “Hear me now: He’ll not pity you because you’re a lass, nor gentle his blows because you’re under my hospitality. If you challenge him to this, I cannot shelter you.”

  I knew it. Connach would refuse me altogether or throw all his strength behind the beating.

  And either way, I would win.

  I tried to let the Ri see that I could do this. That I must.

  The moment drew itself out, and in the space between heartbeats, I remembered the last time royalty had knelt before me: the Queen in Fortress Roden. I remembered my fear and horror as she turned her full attention on me. Her gaze had stripped my soul.

  But the Ri’s gaze gave me armor. He believed I could do this—more than that, he would let me.

  Finally, he nodded. “As you wish. I will support yo
u, even in this.”

  Then he rejoined the Advocate.

  Connach, who had watched us, smiled.

  When the Ri pinned him with a glance, his smile faltered, then died altogether.

  “Beat her,” the Ri commanded. “Five blows.”

  “Ri . . . ,” breathed Connach.

  The Advocate spoke, triumph in his eyes. “It is a proper challenge, Connach. You have argued that her silence is a deceit, that she used it to accuse your sons. She has given you a chance to prove your argument.”

  I rested my hands on my knees, fingers digging into skin, preparing myself for the blows.

  The king’s voice filled the room. “I would not wish this for Wyn, but if she demands it . . .” He turned to me, and I nodded, one last time. “You have a choice before you: pay the fines due an attack on someone under my hospitality or give her five blows, as she has demanded. If she cries out, you will prove she attacked your son and that the beating is deserved.”

  He paused and used the silence like a weapon. “But hear me: if she remains silent, if you beat an innocent, then Moyle will pay the fine and his standing among the men of Fianna will be reduced to a servant’s.”

  Connach sighed. “My Ri, perhaps I spoke in anger.”

  I sensed the release in his body, heard the scuff of leather against stone as he stepped away. I looked over at Ionwyn, who was smiling.

  And saw Moyle, the one who had hit me, break away from the guard near him. Two long strides, and he reached me, wrenching the cane from his father.

  I had a heartbeat to prepare before the blow landed across my shoulders.

  Pain has a color: this was blinding, noon-white light. The curved walls of the tower room disappeared in the fire, and I fell over my knees, mouth open in a cry I would not voice.

  After a moment, the light pulled back, and I could see again: see the Ri holding up a hand, telling Ionwyn to stand back. I heard the roar of the people around me as the Advocate held up one finger.

  Four more blows.

  Moyle was vicious. He let me wait for the next one. Finally, I heard the whistle of the cane cutting through the air. The blow caught me low on the ribs, when I’d been expecting it across my shoulders like the last one.

  More light. More fire wrapped around my side till I thought I’d lose myself or go blind in it. I dug my fingers into my legs, concentrating on that small pain to pull me out of the mist.