The Swan Maiden

by Susan King

  She looked steadily at Gawain. He watched her without moving, though his heart slammed as if he had been running.

  Like a pale golden flower in a garden of white blossoms, she stood for a long moment, her hair shining in the sun, her body long and slender in a flax-colored gown. He knew those graceful, lithe curves so well that his own body reacted at the mere sight. His heart thundered harder.

  He took a step toward her. A tilt of her chin lengthened her fragile neck. Then she spun away from him deliberately, hair swinging, sleek gold. Aloof and silent, she walked away.

  He wanted to go after her and ask the question that burned in his mind—Will you love me, trust me, in spite of what you have heard of me?—but he already had his answer.

  Pride made it impossible for him to go after her now. He would wait until he had cooled, until she had cooled. He would find her here tomorrow.

  A moment later, he leaped into the saddle and turned his horse’s head. With Laurie following, he rode hard through the abbey gate.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sighting the centermost circle of the target—a painted cloth nailed to a tree—Juliana raised her bow with the arrow nocked. She adjusted her stance, squared her shoulders and hips, and grew still to sense the wind and the quiet. Drawing back the bowstring, she opened her fingers.

  The arrow whistled away to thwack into the center of the target, leaves spitting downward as the force jarred the tree.

  Applause sounded from above. Angus, Lucas, and Lucas’s three adolescent sons peered from the dense leafy canopy overhead. Seated on a log nearby, Mairead’s two daughters and two sons giggled and clapped. Juliana smiled, then chose another arrow from the quiver on the ground.

  “By Saint Fillan, the girl never misses!” Angus said from his perch on the branch of a huge oak. “Try the wands next, with that other target. Split them if you can.”

  “And step back farther,” Lucas advised. “You are too close. That last shot was no challenge for you!”

  “None of it challenges her,” one of Lucas’s sons said. “Someday we will learn her secret, and then we will have to win the Golden Arrow from her—for she will surely take it from the Sassenachs at the fair!” Laughter echoed among the trees.

  “Hush, you,” she said, looking up, “or the Sassenachs will take you instead.”

  Walking toward another target, she stepped back farther to please her critics. She adjusted her leather wrist guard, then turned her toes inward for better balance. Narrowing her eyes, she studied the new target the men had set up for her.

  Four stripped saplings were stuck upright in the ground in front of a tall mound of raw earth. The difficult challenge, she knew, was to nick a wand as the arrow went past into the target.

  For a moment, she considered the shot. When she felt ready, she chose a steel-tipped, pointed war arrow, a type she rarely used. Neither the wedged hunting arrows nor the blunted practice arrows that she preferred, with their pear-shaped ends and short points, would do for this.

  Nocking the arrow, she lifted the bow and tilted it, drawing back the string in one fluid movement. The arrow balanced lightly between the bow shelf and her drawing fingers. She sensed the tension, the spring, her own readiness.

  Each step came so easily to her, after years of practice, that she gave little thought to the individual elements. Like swimming—or like making love, she thought with a sigh—archery was a physical pleasure that felt natural and exhilarating. She was fortunate to be able to bring innate grace and strength to it, and she preferred to let instinct and intuition guide her.

  That was the only secret she knew. When a shot hit the center mark, she had given herself over to instinct; when a shot missed, she had applied too much logic and disrupted the essence of the act. No one had taught her that aspect, and it was not something she knew how to teach in turn.

  Although she did not bow hunt, and had never fought in a skirmish, she shot often at targets, and rarely missed. Most of the men she knew, kinsmen and friends, admitted that she was the most accurate shot they had ever seen. She had simply been born to the ability, and accepted that, and was grateful for the gift.

  Gazing at one wand, she lifted the bow, tilted it, and pulled the string to her jaw. She sighted along the arrow to its deadly point, and beyond to the sapling. When she felt the tension peak, she let go. The arrow struck the wand in passing, biting into it, and embedded in the turf mound.

  Loading another war arrow, she shot again, splitting the next wand in half. Whistles filtered through the treetops. She missed the third, heard her audience’s dismay, and began again.

  She gave the sequence of movements a dancelike flow and rhythm. Stretch, balance, tense, release: she poured body, heart, and mind into each shot.

  “Well done,” Lucas called, high praise from him. “Now practice those overhead shots again, straight up into the trees.”

  “Not while I am up here,” one of his sons said. Mairead’s children laughed. One of Lucas’s sons dropped down, and another followed, while the others stayed up in the branches, well away from where she stood.

  She walked to the edge of the clearing and loaded her bow again, leaning back to make the difficult upward shot. As she pulled the string, she heard an owl’s call, a hiss of warning, a rustling. She straightened and glanced around.

  Lucas’s sons were gone. The trees, above, were silent. Mairead’s children sat on their log, looking at her with wide, uncertain gazes. They were not alone.

  Gawain stepped out of the green light of the forest and into the sunny clearing. She stared, propping the bow upright.

  Days had passed since she had watched Gawain and Laurie ride away from the abbey. She had not gone to Elladoune since then. Although Gawain returned to the abbey asking for her, she had refused to see him. She was angry, afraid, and devastated, even though James, before he left, urged her to talk to her husband. Not yet, she answered, not feeling ready.

  Now she sucked in a quick breath. He was breathtakingly handsome, all her dreams realized. Her first sense was joy and sweet relief. But she tried to look aloof as he came closer.

  The lush summer light glossed his raven-dark hair, and added a golden warmth to his brown eyes. A tunic of moss green draped over his broad shoulders and lean body, with a belt and dagger slung low on his hips. He moved toward her with masculine assurance and restrained power. She simply stared at him.

  “My lady,” he said. “I have been looking for you.”

  Gathering her wits, she turned away to nock a blunted arrow. Love rushed in to drown reason, and she fought that power.

  “Silent again, Swan Maiden?” he murmured. He leaned a shoulder against a tree and tipped his head, watching her.

  All she truly wanted was to drop the bow and run into his arms. She wanted to kiss his face, where dark whiskers met a pink rinse in his cheek; she wanted to kiss those firm, bow-curved lips; most of all, she wanted to forgive, and be happy again with him.

  Even though she loved him, she could not trust him. She had spent the last few days feeling furious and hurt, yet missing him dreadfully. Each night, she had cried in her narrow bed in the abbot’s house, a bed she had not occupied for months.

  Silently, she raised the bow and spread her feet wide. Pointing the arrow straight up, she paused.

  “An unusual shot,” he said, stepping forward deliberately, so that he was a handspan away, and she could not release. “What are you after? Birds? Squirrels?” He peered upward. “Rebels?”

  She glared at him and aimed again.

  “If you truly want to hit something up there,” he said, “I suggest you get down on one knee. You will be more stable that way, and less likely to waver in your aim.”

  Juliana frowned and turned away, deciding not to shoot. He went with her, so close that she stepped on his booted toe. She whirled. “What is it you want?” she demanded.

  “She speaks,” he said, showing a flash of temper. “Eonan said you might be here.” His tone softened. “
We must talk.”

  “Have you time for that? You have a castle to empty, and Scots to harry,” she snapped. “And land to explore for the Sassenachs, so they can use it against us, and take it away from us. Be sure to tell them about the mountain, since you were so curious about that.”

  “God save us,” he growled, “you have a sharp way about you.”

  She jammed her arrow into the quiver in answer. Setting the tip of the bow on the ground, she stepped through the arc and pushed on the bow to remove the string. With the stave upright in her hand, she lifted the quiver and walked away.

  “Children,” she said to Mairead’s brood, “come ahead.”

  The tense quiet that had descended in the forest when Gawain had appeared lingered. She did not glance at the trees, where the others still hid, but motioned the children to follow her along the forest path.

  Gawain went with them. “You left your arrows behind,” he soon observed.

  “Oh,” she said, flustered. “Gilchrist,” she looked at Mairead’s oldest son, who was Iain’s age, “will you fetch the arrows? We will wait down the path.” She spoke in Gaelic. The boy ran off, and she led the children toward another clearing.

  Birch trees edged a wide overhang, and the loch spread below, sparkling in the sun. She set bow and quiver against a boulder and sat, inviting the two girls and the smallest, a boy, to sit with her. When the little one scrambled up, Gawain lifted him to her lap. Then he perched a booted foot on another rock.

  “You can go,” she told him. “I dinna need a guard. Ah, pray pardon, I am still a prisoner of your king. Have you been ordered to find me?” She slid him a glare. “Chain me?”

  “Juliana—” he began, and shook his head, looking away.

  She drew a breath, and fought tears. Circling her arms around the children, she sat silent, trying to calm herself.

  Far below, swans looped in lazy paths on the water, or slipped through reed beds to enter a stream that fed into the loch, or explored the water meadow near the abbey and the mill.

  “They cannot fly,” she said after a moment. “Their wing feathers have molted now. They are helpless. Earthbound.”

  “And you feel like one of them,” Gawain murmured, his back turned to her, the wind lifting the raven silk of his hair.

  “I do,” she said, “sometimes.”

  Gilchrist came running back then, and Gawain took the arrows from him, sliding them into the quiver while Gilchrist climbed up on the rock with his siblings.

  Juliana watched Gawain as he looked out over the loch. Her heartstrings felt taut, for she wanted to be in his arms. The sadness and loneliness she sensed in him hurt her in turn.

  Somehow, part of her had become part of him, caught in a constant weaving. Her anger lessened with that realization. If only they could be together and shut out the world, she thought. Perhaps then they could both be happy again.

  “Look at the swans, Juliana!” Gilchrist said. She smiled. He reminded her of Alec and Iain, whom she missed fiercely.

  “Tell us again how the swans came to Loch nan Eala,” Ailis, the oldest girl, said. Seona, her little sister, nodded.

  Juliana resettled the little boy in her lap. “Long ago in the misty time,” she began, “a beautiful maiden, lovely as a white swan, lived in a fortress on an island in the loch. She loved a warrior who was as dark as a raven, handsome, and strong …”

  In simple Gaelic, she told them of the lovers, and the plans for their wedding; of the Druid who summoned magic to destroy them; of the faery bolt he shot into the clouds to raise a storm. She described the shattering and sinking of the island fortress, and how everyone inside had drowned in the deep waters.

  The four children listened intently, the little one staring at her in fascination, his blue eyes wide.

  Gawain listened too, his back to her, his hands folded, the wind pushing against him as he stood overlooking the loch.

  “The Druid discovered that his magic had failed,” she went on. “He had not destroyed the two lovers, for they were transformed into swans. The warrior and his maiden would be together always, in that form.”

  “Sometimes the maiden swan comes out of the water, and leaves her swan skin on the shore,” Ailis added. “She meets her warrior, who leaves his swan skin there as well.”

  “Sometimes,” Juliana agreed. “Most of the time she stays with him on the loch. There, they are protected. There, they are happy, in a world of their own—”

  She caught her breath, thinking of the similar haven that she and Gawain had found in their bed, behind a curtain of protection.

  “Can the swan spell over the loch ever be broken?” Ailis asked. “Will they ever be free?”

  “There is a way,” Juliana said. “But I have forgotten. It has been a long while since I told this story—”

  “Only a warrior whose heart is true, and who feels a love like theirs, can free them,” Gawain said softly, in English.

  She stared at him. He glanced at her over his shoulder.

  “Tell them,” he said. “A warrior who knows true love can free them. He must catch a faery bolt and fling it into the loch. ’Tis the only way to break the spell that holds the fortress, the warrior, the lady, and the swans.”

  “How—how do you know that?” she murmured.

  He turned away. “I have heard the tale before. Tell them.”

  She told the children, her thoughts tumbling. Ailis sighed, loving the ending, but Gilchrist rolled his eyes.

  “No one can catch a faery bolt,” he insisted.

  “Some have tried, their whole lives, to do it.” Gawain looked at her, his eyes penetrating. “Just to prove it can be done. Just in case the spell could be broken someday.”

  Juliana repeated what he said, though it astonished her. She lifted the smallest child into Gilchrist’s arms and ushered them toward the forest path, instructing them to wait for her. Then she walked toward Gawain.

  “Tell me how you knew that,” she said. “ ’Tis a local legend. Few people outside this glen know of it.”

  “Someone told me the tale, long ago.”

  “ ’Twasna your nurse,” she said.

  “Nay,” he said. “Someone else.”

  She watched his profile, elegant and spare against the sky. “You have some secrets—and I want to know what they are.”

  “What of your secrets?” He slid her a glance. “I came here to ask if you will listen to me—and talk to me.”

  “I will tell you all,” she said. “But first I must know what you have been keeping from me. If we are ever to be together again, we must have total honesty between us.”

  He hesitated, wind whipping at both of them. Then he turned and took her face in his hands. His eyes were deep and steady and warm. And yet she was sure something troubled him deeply.

  He lowered his black-lashed lids, still hiding his secrets. He kissed her, soft and slow, then pulled back.

  “My God,” he whispered, “do you know how much I love you? How much I love your honest nature?”

  Her tears welled then, and her lip quivered. He kissed it, his mouth gentle. Her defenses crumbled, and she whimpered a little in relief. Tears slid freely down her cheeks, and he kissed them away before finding her mouth again.

  Like water for deep thirst, after so long without him. She circled her arms around him and accepted his strong, hungry kiss, pressing her body against him.

  “Juliana! Juliana!” The children’s voices sliced anxiously through the trees. She broke away from Gawain, and he stepped away quickly, grabbing her bow and quiver and following.

  “What is it?” she called, alarmed.

  “The swans! The swans!” Seona and Ailis cried out.

  “They are hurting the swans!” Gilchrist said, pointing.

  Juliana ran along the path to another vantage point, where the loch, and Elladoune, could be seen clearly.

  Soldiers were on the bank near the castle, with nets and long hooks. Some of them were knee-deep in the water. All a
round them was a froth of white as the swans struggled. On the shore, a man in black armor watched.

  “What is it?” Gawain said, coming up behind her.

  “The sheriff’s men,” she said, turning. “They are upping the swans.” She whirled and began to run down the path.

  Hurrying with the children in their wake, Gawain followed Juliana toward the loch, carrying the smallest boy. He set the child down once they reached the meadow that edged the loch near Elladoune.

  Several knights, the sheriff among them, thundered across the meadow just as Gawain and the others emerged from the forest. They headed in the direction of Dalbrae. Secured in baskets on three packhorses, several white swans struggled, netted and tied.

  Juliana ran toward the loch and stopped. The summer wind dragged her pale tunic against her legs, whipped out her hair. Gawain strode quickly to stand beside her.

  From Elladoune’s entrance, he heard shouts. The MacDuffs came through the gate, waving and running. The children crossed the meadow to meet their kinfolk.

  Juliana bent to retrieve a few white feathers that lay on the pebbles at her feet, close to the waterline. She cupped them in one hand and stood again to look at the loch.

  Out on the water, several swans circled, still agitated, their necks extended, their wings busked in white arcs. A pair of females curved their heads to nudge at their offspring, while Fionn, one of the larger males, patrolled the outer cluster, gliding in a wide circle.

  Cùchulainn was in a fury, driving across the water, wings out, broad chest lifted. He charged a group of hapless geese, who swam out of his way, then turned and approached a flock of mallards, who skimmed away as well. Then he streamed in an orbit around the other swans, neck curved, head erect, wings slightly lifted, a proud, angry guardian.

  “They took Eimhir àlainn,” Juliana said. “She is gone. Cùchulainn is in a rage. And his territory has been invaded.”

  “Who else is gone, can you tell?” Gawain asked.

  She shaded her eyes, her fingers trembling. He wanted to put an arm around her, but hesitated. She stood strong and firm beside him, her voice calm, head lifted, back straight. She would not welcome sympathy now.