The Black Swan

by Mercedes Lackey

  She shook it off, and did her best imitation of a proud and pleased mother. "How wonderful! This will be a fine match for all of us, baron, I do feel certain. I must confess that I was growing concerned, for I had not heard from you directly, and my dear son showed no signs of interest in any of the young women I had brought here for the fete. I had so hoped for a love match for him; it is a hard thing for a young man to be bound to a bride in a marriage of expedience."

  "Believe me, if you had heard and seen him, you would have no doubt that his heart has been thoroughly captured," the baron replied with a brusque laugh. "Now, I would like to bring my daughter to your masquerade so that he can make his selection known with her at his side. I trust that there is room for two more at the fete?"

  "Of course, certainly!" the queen replied with enthusiasm. "I shall have a word with my servants before we leave this morning, and remind them to add your names to the list when we arrive at the palace. I shall make it my first order of business. Will you require masks, or—?"

  "We have costumes, Majesty, but thank you. I think even you will be charmed by them. And there is one other small, very small request that I have to make of you. Could you arrange for all mirrors in your ballroom to be draped?" As he made his request, the baron gave her the strangest, and most penetrating gaze she had ever encountered. So intense, it felt as if he reached inside her mind and backed her into a corner—she found herself pressing her back against the back of her chair, and wondered if she had completely misread the man.

  "Why, yes, we can do that," she heard herself saying, "Uwe, see to it, would you?"

  Then as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever occurred, the baron was his old, charming self again, with nothing more in his eyes than a gleam. Clothilde gave herself a mental shake; what on earth had so disturbed her about this gallant man? She must be suffering from lack of sleep. She vaguely recalled giving Uwe an order—

  Ah, I have given him so many orders I begin to lose track of them.

  "Thank you, Highness," the baron said suavely. "My daughter is shy, as I told you. She finds herself unable to look at her own reflection in a mirror without becoming intensely self-conscious I want her to be poised, confident, show herself to be the fine lady she truly is. Of all times, this would be the worst for her to feel as if she would like to retreat into the corner!" He rose, went to one knee, and kissed her hand. "I must go—for we, too, have much to do to prepare for your fete. Until tonight, then?"

  Clothilde smiled brightly. "Until tonight, Herr Baron."

  Von Rothbart rose and bowed himself out; Clothilde waited until she thought he was out of hearing distance before turning to Uwe.

  "Now I see why my son was so desperately eager to go swan hunting again last night," she said dryly. "And to think I was under the impression he was trying to indulge my fancies!"

  Uwe only smiled sardonically, and helped himself to a slice of apple cake liberally dusted with sugar. "It would seem that we have this much; the prince must be obsessed with this young woman to have declared his intention to wed in so short a time."

  "Obsession is a good thing, for us," the queen replied, making a mental inventory of the stillroom, and wondering if she had enough attar of roses to complete the love potion. She decided that she did, if she gave over her plans to make rose water for the cook and substituted violet instead, at least until she could purchase more. He was only going to make the winter's supply of rose pastiles anyway; violet was a perfectly good substitute for sweetening the breath.

  Uwe gave her an odd sideways glance, as if he wondered what she was thinking. "Yes," he replied, his voice betraying none of his thoughts. "Obsession would be very good for our plans.

  She laughed at him, laughed at his suspicions, even if he didn't voice them. "By all means, then, we must encourage these young lovers in their continuing devotion to each other. A swift wedding, I think, then a long honeymoon, free from responsibility—"

  "I should think that the king's hunting lodge would be remote enough for them to have privacy," Uwe said smoothly. Clothilde smiled. The hunting lodge was so remote that it might just as well have been in another kingdom, yet in her husband's day, it had been a gem of masculine luxury, and could be so again. Opened up, aired out, and refurbished, it could be ready in time for the wedding; staffed with her most trusted servants, neither Siegfried nor his bride would have anything to complain about. She would cheerfully sacrifice the best of her own furnishings to create a feminine bower in the midst of all that masculinity. She made a note to have it stocked with fine fabrics, embroidery materials, and so forth. An infatuated young woman often wished to create special garments to refurbish the wardrobe of her beloved; such work would occupy hands and mind and perhaps keep her from thinking that she should bear the title of queen. And if they found themselves snowbound from December to May, well, so much the better. If Siegfried grew at all restless, there was plenty of fine hunting, so odds were he would not mind the isolation.

  "Well! If we are to have all in readiness, we had best get on our way!" she exclaimed, and rose with alacrity. She pushed aside the flap and walked out into the chaos that was really as tightly organized as any of her endeavors. Already half the camp had been packed up onto wagons, and the rest was well on the way to that state. Her servants had only been waiting for her to leave before starting on her pavilion; the moment Uwe stepped through the door a dozen servants swarmed it like mice swarming a crust. He hadn't gone a dozen steps before the furniture was out and the pavilion itself was flat on the ground.

  Her horse and Uwe's stood ready in the hands of a groom everyone else in the court cavalcade was in the saddle and ready to be gone—including the six princesses. She almost felt sorry for the poor things; they were so eager to get back to the palace and don their costumes for the fete, each of them hoping, no doubt, that evening's end would see her as Siegfried's betrothed. Little did they dream—

  She stepped into the linked hands of a groom, and he boosted her into the sidesaddle. Arranging her leg over the horn and her skirts over the back of the saddle, she took up the reins and clucked to the palfrey, sending the little roan to the head of the procession.

  She took a quick glance at her head groom, who nodded to indicate that everyone was in position; with that, she urged the horse into a fast walk.

  Soon, soon, now—things were falling into place. It was almost happening too quickly—and yet, it could not happen quickly enough. Until Siegfried was firmly under control again, she would not feel completely easy.

  ODILE relaxed as soon as Odette was well away—and in a moment, she realized why she felt at ease, at long last. If her father had not wanted Odette to leave, he would have put spells in place to prevent it. Hence, either her father knew what was happening, or he had anticipated it would happen. Perhaps he had even done some scrying into the future to see Odette and Siegfried together.

  Whatever had happened, she was no longer responsible to anything other than the safety of the flock. It could not be long now, before she was free even of that. And then—

  And then, the world.

  She stretched, reveling in the feeling of new-won freedom, and tense muscles relaxed, knots caused by worry in her shoulders and neck released.

  Now, I suppose I should wait and see what Father has in mind.

  She settled in her favorite lakeside spot with her grimoire; it was too chilly to dangle her feet in the water, but she could move to another position among the gnarled roots, soak in the sunlight, and keep an eye on the swans from there. Their tension was visible from across the water; they would not trust in their release until the moment it happened.

  And then what will happen to them, I wonder? she thought, watching as they nibbled nervously at lake weeds. Where will they go? I have no idea where their homes are, if they still have homes. By now they've been given up for dead; their families might well consider them to be apparitions or evil spirits. Or else they'll think the girls ran off with men. Either way, they'll
never believe the real story, and never accept them back.

  There should be some room for them in Odette's court, shouldn't there? Siegfried would be able to find places for all of them as ladies-in-waiting to Odette—and even the little swans, peasants though they were in origin, acted and dressed as nobility now. If no one revealed their secret, they would be accepted as the way they appeared, provided they weren't so foolish as to reveal it themselves.

  Silly things; they just might give themselves away. Well, that was hardly her concern. Let Odette worry about it.

  She can always turn them into her handmaidens. I suppose they can learn enough about housekeeping and maid's duties to make themselves useful.

  Because she faced the island, for the first time since they had come here, Odile saw her father leave his secret lair and approach the shore.

  Movement caught her eye at first, as she mused in the sun, her book lying neglected in her lap. She glanced over her shoulder at the island she had suspected to be his roost, and spotted the wide-winged, dark shape rising from it, heading straight for her part of the shoreline.

  Although there undoubtedly were eagle-owls lurking in this forest, and although eagle-owls did hunt by day as well as by night, it was unlikely that there were any ordinary owls roosting on that island. True owls seldom used islands as their lairs, preferring the deep forest.

  The owl drew nearer, and she made out its huge eyes, glowing with a yellow gleam against the darker plumage. It stared right at her; without a doubt, it was von Rothbart. She got slowly to her feet, and waited for him, one hand on the trunk of the willow beside her, the other holding the grimoire. The owl was in no hurry to get to the shore; with slow, graceful wingbeats he moved powerfully through the air, giving her plenty of time to prepare herself. As he drew nearer, she was caught and mesmerized by his enormous eyes, eyes which somehow still held the enigmatic force and concentration of the man behind them.

  He wafted in above her head, near enough that the wind of his wings sent stray tendrils of her hair flying and drove her skirts against her legs. As with a true owl, there was no sound of wing- beats; he flew in an unsettling and ghostlike silence. He dropped down into the clearing behind her as she turned, and she averted her eyes from the blurring of his form as he transformed from bird to man.

  When she looked back, her father waited, settling his feather cloak more comfortably about his shoulders, watching her closely.

  "I trust you have a great deal to tell me," von Rothbart said, as she moved toward him, then dropped into a curtsy before him- She raised her eyes to his, but saw no censure there, only expectation.

  "I do, Father," she replied as she rose. Clasping both her hands on her book, she gave him her verbal report, watching his face for clues to his mood. Would he be pleased that Odette had exceeded his demands and still won her freedom? Would he be angry that she had escaped him?

  In the end, she couldn't tell; his mask never dropped, not even for a moment. She was left looking keenly into his face, no more certain of his feelings than she had been when she began.

  "I think—Odette has truly earned her prince and her freedom," she ventured at last. "Father—she has worked for this, she has proved herself repentant."

  Still, she could not read his expression as he pondered what she had told him. Finally, after a silence that reawakened her tension, he spoke.

  "It would be fitting for you to see the end of the story, as you have seen the beginning," he said at last, still with no hint that he intended to drop his mask, even to her. "I have in mind that we shall attend this fete, you and I."

  She did not trouble to ask if he had been invited; if von Rothbart wished to attend Prince Siegfried's fete, he would be permitted to do so. That was beyond doubt. Whatever von Rothbart was determined to have, he found means to get.

  It was also beyond doubt that if he intended her to be there, she would attend with him.

  She felt very uneasy from the moment he made the announcement, however. A strange, queasy feeling settled in her stomach, and all the tension that she had lost earlier returned, redoubled.

  There was something wrong, some secret he still retained for himself and had no intention of sharing with her. He gave her no chance to question him—with an enigmatic quirk of his lips, too inscrutable to be called a smile, he gestured. And with that gesture, she found herself dropping to the grass, feeling her body twist and change into the familiar form of the black swan.

  It happened too quickly for her to feel indignant. When she shook her head to clear her eyes, he was already back to the shape of an eagle-owl, fixing her with his enormous yellow eyes With a jerk of his head, he launched himself skyward.

  It was not so easy for her to take to the air; for all its apparent size, the eagle-owl's body was light for his wingspan. Her body was a much heavier load for her smaller, narrower wings. She plunged into the water, as he circled overhead, waiting for her. Spreading her wings, she plowed the air with them as she first paddled, then ran across the water, gaining enough speed and momentum that she was able to tuck up her feet and achieve true flight.

  At last, she soared into the sky to join her father. He waited only long enough to see that she was following him, then without a backward glance, he set his course.

  He also set a pace that required all of her effort to match as he drove his way through the sky. She was glad that she had been keeping up her flying exercises, or she never would have been able to follow him.

  There was no question in her mind why there was so much urgency in this journey; Odette had left much earlier, which implied that the palace was far enough away that if they meant to arrive in time for the fete, they had to move swiftly.

  She wondered where he was getting the strength for so swift and prolonged a flight. From the moment she had transformed, she'd been aware of a steady drain of energy; despite the exercise, despite that she was fit and rested, this was hard, grueling flying, and took more out of her than she had expected.

  We must be working against a headwind, she thought, when she had breath to think. She wished fervently that it was a tail- wind instead; every wingbeat was labored, and her wings felt as heavy as if her bones were lead.

  They passed over a patchwork of farms and villages, with intervening stretches of forest; this was, by far, the most populated section of country she had ever seen. There were farmers working in the fields, children at play in the yards of their homes. A few folks with donkeys or horse-drawn carts crawled along the roadways, their shadows stretching out before them in the light of the setting sun.

  This was already more people than she had ever seen. How many people are going to be at this celebration? she wondered, and felt a twinge of alarm penetrating her weariness. Until she'd met Siegfried and Benno, she had never seen men other than her father. Tonight there would be many people at the fete, at least half of them men. How many strange men and women would she be forced to confront?

  If she could have, she would have called to her father and begged him to let her go back to the lake. How could she possibly stand before all those strange faces, face all those alien eyes staring at her?

  It was too late at this point. Over her right shoulder the sun touched the horizon; in the distance, the gray-white walls of what could only be the palace rose above the trees like a marzipan subtlety at a feast, softly touched with rose by the last rays. Only now did Odile have some sense of how prominent Siegfried and his family must be; this was an enormous edifice, several times larger than her father's manor, with seven multi-storied towers rising far above the walls of the main building. Surrounded by a moat, enclosed with triple walls, this was the dwelling of a king of the first order.

  People swarmed the courtyards and gardens, tiny, brightly colored creatures, all very busy. Her initial thought was that she and her father would probably land and transform somewhere within the grounds, but the presence of all those people precluded any such thing.

  Once again, her father apparently had
something in mind; he swerved off a little to the side, and led her over the turrets of the palace itself. Their wings cast shadows on the palace walls, and the windows of the highest tower gleamed at her as they passed a few feet below her. On the other side of the palace, within the third wall, was a horse-pasture, but oh! it was a pasture for the horses of a king, and no less. With ponds and meadows, wood- lots and fine fences, any horse would consider it heaven-on- earth. On the palace side lay stables as extensive as her home manor. Beyond it, the pasture stretched rich and lush across an expanse that dazzled her. Some of those acres were out of sight of the palace altogether, and at the moment, the pasture and stables were devoid of any sign of people—who were, presumably, all very much involved in preparations for the fete.

  Von Rothbart led the way to the plot of trees nearest to the stables. They landed next to the woods in the last fading light of sunset; rather than landing in a tree as a real owl would have, von Rothbart landed on the ground and waddled into the shelter of the shadows. Odile followed, flaring her wings and dropping lightly down onto the grass. She walked slowly under the boughs, finding it easy going, for the horses had grazed and trampled away the underbrush. The owl waited for her, just far enough into the shadows that it was not immediately obvious where he was.

  He transformed as soon as he saw that she had landed safely; she made her own change, and stood beside him, a little dizzy with exertion. He looked her up and down, and shook his head, clucking in disapproval.

  "This will never do—so plain a gown, for such an important fete? You are an important personage, a lady of rank, not a simple knight's daughter. We will have to clothe you in something more festive."

  She hesitated, one hand on her throat, not certain what he meant for her to do. She had no idea of how to clothe herself for a grand court, much less for a great occasion at a grand court! Where should she begin?

  He laughed shortly at her expression; he evidently read it correctly and knew her confusion. "Never fear, daughter. I have experience enough in such things for both of us. I shall see to your festal garb."