Weird Tales - Summer 1990

by Vol. 51 No. 4

  Finally, the boats came in to shore. The thirteen swans who floated there in a silent cortege parted, as if to escort the fishermen to the docks. Wolfgang was waiting at the landing, flushed but otherwise far, far too sober. Benno, who had been the Prince's closest friend, stumbled as he disembarked. The fish­ermen steadied him. Wolfgang wrapped his own marten-lined cloak about the younger man, who was trembling, and hugged him for a moment. Then, he pulled out the inevitable flask of brandy.

  Benno tried a weak grin; Wolfgang's fondness for the grape was an old joke among . . . there were just two of them left now to mourn. Abruptly, both men looked at the flask and winced at the coat of arms stamped into the heavy silver. The flask was a new one, Prince Siegfried's last gift to his old tutor only a day ago. It had been the anniversary of his birth — his twenty-first birthday and his last.

  "We dragged the entire lake, Wolf­gang," muttered Benno. "And do you know what we found? One odd white rock, shaped like an owl, some branches, and an odd boot or two. Sweet suffering Christ, how shall I tell the Queen her son is drowned?"

  Wolfgang shut his eyes in grief, wish­ing that it were merely the pain of a hangover. Benno was just Prince Sieg­fried's age. He had tutored them both, birched the one and scolded the other when both were boys. They were the only sons he was likely to have, and he had entertained bright hopes for the men they might become.

  Last night had been Prince Sieg­fried's twenty-first birthday. As al­ways, the royal Birthday was celebrated with a ball. At this year's Ball, how­ever, he had been formally invested as Heir. That was — or was supposed to be — his moment to choose a bride. At supper, with trumpets before and fire­works thereafter, the betrothal should have been announced.

  Six lovely princesses, all young, all dancers, had been invited so that he might make his choice. They had been half in love with him already, had waited, hoping wistfully that he might hand one of them the bouquet that Queen Hedwig Elisabeth had laid in his hand. But the Prince had wanted no part of them. Even after Her Majesty had risen from the throne and rebuked him sharply, the Prince had drawn apart.

  God knows, it had not been that the Prince didn't know what his duty was. Wolfgang had spent hours dinning the customs and proprieties of the Birthday into the Prince's hard head, but the boy had not wanted to settle into life as Heir, husband, and — inexorably — father quite so quickly. He had wanted time to dance, to hunt, and to laugh. Had any of those six dreaming, dancing princesses wanted a friend, a brother, a dance partner, she might have twined him about her delicate fingers, but no, they had had to dream about him . . .

  And then they had entered the room in a flash of splendor. The dark, glit­tering princess in her gown black as night and sewn with stars and her tall, avian father strode into the ballroom, accompanied by a retinue of magnifi­cent strangers from the warm southern lands, outshining the somber Northern court. They looked more regal than even the Queen.

  The man had gestured. The Princess had danced; and their retinue, from golden baskets, had flung apricots, dates, amber pears, and glowing Valencia or­anges to an astonished court, greedy as children for that one evening. For all the good, though, that the court had had of them, they might as well have hurled poison.

  The black-clad Princess had dazzled Prince Siegfried. He had needed no re­minders of duty to declare his eternal love and homage. No sooner were the words out than her father extracted the Prince's solemn vow to wed his daugh­ter. But it had all been a trick. Once the promise was out, they taunted Sieg­fried with a vision of a maid he had betrayed — he who had never willingly harmed man, woman, or child in all his life. Even then, the girl had tried to warn him. Her white hands fluttered like tired wings, but, intent on his be­trothed, he did not see.

  Finally he noticed — or was permitted to notice. When he saw the maid who had trusted him weeping in de­spair, he too despaired. Then those two regal sorcerers had laughed at him, scoffed at his pleas, and disappeared in a crack of thunder as sharp as heart­break. The white flowers of what should have been a bridal bouquet lay on the parquet of the dance floor, petals bruised and scattered.

  Wolfgang shook himself like an old dog. Faithful hound, worn out in my Prince's service, he thought. I'd hoped to spend these last years at his fireside, with children tugging at my ears and heartstrings.

  He sighed and took Benno's arm. The surviving lad hadn't yet learned that what could not be cured must be en­dured; and God knows, there was no cure for this sorrow, short of the grave. Wolfgang could feel Benno's bone and muscle under the heavy cloth of his cloak. The man was young, taut, fit; yet Wolfgang knew that during the long climb up the clifflike rocky stair to the Castle, he was the stronger man.

  "These same miserable rocks . . ." Benno muttered. Wolfgang tightened his grasp. This very dawn, the Prince had hurled himself from these very rocks, following the maid who refused to live loveless and enslaved.

  "You dare not think of that, lad," he said.

  Behind them came the tread of heavy fishermen's boots that all but drowned out their scandalized whispers and hisses to one another not to bother the gentry with the clack of their gossip. For all Wolfgang cared, they could go straight to Father Bertwald and let him deluge their little boats with holy water. There was no comfort for any of them either in faith or in reason right now, as Wolf­gang knew.

  Well, he had spent many pleasant, tipsy years as the mildest of Epicu­reans, preaching pleasure and joy — always in moderation, though; he would not be the first philosopher who turned Stoic in his old age.

  "Lord Benno, Master Wolfgang!" a voice trained to halloo out over wind and rain hailed them. "Look over there!"

  Young Jurgen knelt beside a boulder the size of a turret. He reached forward, raising by her slender wrists a girl who would have been lovely had she not been so terrified. Her hands bled from grubbing up pebbles to cast at the fish­ermen. Her lips were pulled back in a silent shriek. Her dark eyes were full of anguish, but no tears. Though a cloak trimmed with ashen feathers lay crum­pled beneath her, she was clad only in her long hair. It too was the color of cold ashes on the hearth; but when the pale sun struck it, it gleamed.

  Benno's head shot up. Angry recog­nition began to smolder in his amber eyes, and Wolfgang could follow his thoughts. Change that maid's hair from ashen to ebony, stitch a proud crimson smile on that pallid face, garb her in black satin and lace, not the pathetic grace of her own skin, and she would resemble the sorceress who had de­stroyed their Prince.

  Wolfgang jabbed the younger man with his elbow. "Not now, fool!" he hissed. Not when they were both worn out and heartsore; they could imagine anything. But as Wolfgang gazed at Jurgen, the young fisherman who held his surprising new catch, he didn't think that he imagined how much the man resembled the last Prince. Both men had dark hair that flowed over tanned brows, brown eyes more apt to flash with friendship than with anger or scorn, and wide, generous mouths.

  For that matter, both men resembled Prince Siegfried's father, who had al­ways loved his people well . . . far too well, muttered Queen Hedwig Elisa­beth, who had reasons of her own for that sour, pinched-lip look she too often wore.

  Benno too stared at the sailor and the girl whom he struggled to enfold in the strange feathered cloak. So like the Prince and that dark Princess; and yet, where Siegfried had been all fire and dreams, this Jurgen was sober and kind. Where the dark Princess had been sure and brilliant and cruel, this maid was terrified past anguish. She flailed her arms in a feeble attempt to ward off the cloak's soft embrace.

  "Little lostling, see, it's warm and fine. I can give you nothing else that is so fine," he coaxed.

  "Stop trying to shoulder me aside," Benno hissed at his former tutor. "I swear, that girl is . . ."

  As if sensing the rage in the grieving man, the girl flung herself onto the ground. Her white naked back turned in as graceful a line as the neck of a swan. Jurgen reached down and gath­ered her in to rest against his rough jacket. His weathered hands smoothe
d down her long, silver-gray hair, which tangled and clung to his fingers. He glanced up reproachfully at Benno.

  "What's thy name, lostling?" he asked.

  Her lips moved, but no sound came.

  "A mute!" Benno exclaimed under his breath, his fingers moving in an old sign. "The other one could laugh, at least."

  The girl's lips parted again. Jurgen, bent closer to listen. He was half in love with the chit already, thought Wolf­gang. Though he himself could hear nothing, Jurgen nodded. "Dillie," said Jurgen. "Is that your name?"

  The maid shook her head:

  Dillie? Too close by far to Odile, the name of the dark princess. Yet, Jurgen had not been to the ball, had not seen her . . . would not know. And how could Wolfgang be so sure?

  "Shall I call you that till you tell me your true name?" Jurgen asked. "Yes? Here now, then, Dillie, just let me wrap this . . ." Again, the girl writhed away from the feathered cloak. Her back and bare legs were very white. Some of the fishermen crossed themselves or reached for charms. Others simply looked away.

  Jurgen fumbled at his jacket, and Wolfgang winced at the thought of the coarse wool and leather against that white, white skin.

  "Give him your cloak for her," he hissed at Benno. After all, it had be­longed to him first. He would go colder this winter so that this foundling would be warm, but the Prince would have expected nothing less of him. (The Queen, however, would bite her lip at the tutor's extravagance.)

  Slowly, Benno took off the cloak and offered it, though with little of his usual courtliness. With a nod of thanks, Jur­gen accepted the garment and laid it tenderly over the girl's slender shoul­ders. Then he swung her up into his irms.

  "My mother has lacked a daughter. And see, Dillie trusts me," he ex­plained. "Besides, you will not need me up at the Castle."

  That one had a head on his shoulders, Wolfgang thought. It would be savage cruelty for Queen Hedwig Elisabeth to have to face a man as like her only son as his brother.

  A murmur arose from Jurgen's com­panions, and he glared at them. "Will it satisfy you if I fetch Father Bertwald and the Sacraments to her?" he asked them, his chin lifted defiantly. It could have been the Prince himself speaking. Wolfgang had been proud that His Highness had grown up without super­stitions; he himself had never shared the local beliefs in woodwoses or sha-pechangers, creatures who shuddered away from the touch of cold iron or garlic (so fine in venison or a stew!) or who recoiled at the peal of church bells. These villagers and the fishermen gave more heed to herbs and berries, mark­ings on old stones, than to the Creed.

  Dillie's slender white feet dangled as Jurgen carried her down the track to­ward the village. She glanced out once, saw the white rock like an owl's skull in the center of the lake and hid her face in Jurgen's shoulder. Benno stirred at Wolfgang's side, ready to follow.

  "The Queen needs us more," Wolf­gang reminded her son's friend.

  They climbed the last rough stairs, and still Wolfgang could hear Jurgen's voice. "Now then, no need for this fear. Who would hate a pretty thing like you?"

  Many, feared the tutor. One of them walked at his side.

  Above them pealed out the chapel bells: nine strokes of the passing bell for a man, followed by twenty-one more — one ring for each year of the Prince's life.

  Night was her friend. At night, the hearthfire died into embers so comfort­ing to her eyes after the glare of day­light. At night, her new friends, the old woman with the warm eyes and gentle hands, the young man who had carried her down from the rocks she feared, would fall asleep. Now they even left their door unlatched. Now they trusted her enough to believe that she would not wander up the cliffs or down to the shore.

  She feared the cliffs, of course. As for the lake, the one time she had gone there, the water had been brackish . . . like the sea, a stranger's voice whis­pered in her mind. Dead fish littered the shore. She had heard Jurgen and the suspicious men who stared at her too much talking that over. She had eluded them and run to the water's edge, but the white swans had been there, and had left the ruined water to hiss at her and dart forward, stabbing at her bare feet with their strong bills, flapping their wings in her face until she recoiled and, amazingly, found her­self caught up and cradled in Jurgen's arms.

  But the swans had reminded her of what remained for her to do. For a week, she had waited, regaining her old friends' trust. Then, silently, she slipped from her pallet, flung the fur-trimmed cloak, gift of the young man with the angry eyes, about her, and let herself out the door. The hearthcat stirred at her going, then laid its head with its black and white mask back down and slept again, white paws twitching as it hunted in its dreams.

  She ran to the cemetery. Already, she had been this way twice before: once when the man in black, whom they called Father Bertwald, splashed sweet water on her face and chanted strange words over her; a second time when more people than she ever dreamed could exist in one place crowded into the banner-hung chapel. The weight of grief would have made her faint if Jur-gen had not taken her away. How they had muttered at that!

  It was time, and past time, for her to act, and then to be free. No need, now, for her to have to enter the chapel again. What she sought lay outside, tenderly clustering by the old, leaning stones that the villagers tended with such care. Fragile blue asters, cold, per­fect asphodels. Rue, yes, and fragrant rosemary. She broke them from their stalks, breathed upon them, and began to weave them into garlands. Though she realized that she had never done such work before in her life, her fingers were very nimble. Always before, she had had servants, maids . . . had she, indeed? Only that day, she had scrubbed the hearth; impossible to think that la­dies waited on her as if they had been serving girls themselves; yet that was what the fragments of her memory as­sured her was true.

  The moon soared high in the night sky, giving her light for her work, and she wove faster. As she worked, she moved her lips in silent song. The pain that had waked her in the night, that had forced her to creep onto the ledges below the castle to watch swans and stones and sorrowful men, seemed to ease somewhat.

  Night after night, urgent compulsion woke her. She stole to the graveyard to pray her silent prayers over her weav­ing: aster, asphodel, rosemary, and rue, each bound into a chaplet tied with three strands of her silvery hair. Sil­very hair? She remembered rising once in the middle of the night, and catching sight of herself in well-polished brass. How odd: she had remembered her hair as being dark. It was always dark in the terrible nightmares that mention of a tainted lake, a Prince who had hurled himself into its depth, brought on. The grief of such events seemed to heal her somewhat too. Each chaplet eased her burden further. Now she found herself able to murmur, not just to move her lips.

  "I knew you could speak. Try again, Dillie! Try to speak to me! Say my name!"

  She started violently. Lilies scattered from her skirts over her feet. Before her stood Jurgen, her rescuer and her friend. His face was set and pale. Her lips formed his name, her shattered mem­ories all but reminded her of charms and artifices, but no sound came from her.

  "What is this rubbish?" he asked her, his voice as angry as the eyes of some of the villagers, yes, and even some of the castle-folk when they looked through her, or when they spoke of the ruin of their livings or of their dreams. "Is this witchery that you do here?" He held but a hand to her. Despite its strength, it shook.

  She shrank back. Jurgen was so strong. In an instant, he could tear up the garlands that she had already woven; and already, it was nearly autumn. A week, two weeks more; and no flowers would bloom until spring. And by then, it would be too late. The white stone in the center of the lake, the one shaped like an owl — by spring, it would have poisoned the lake past all remedy.

  By spring, then, the swans, too weak to fly south, would have frozen or starved, assuming that no bowman shot them first. The girl felt an urge to flee with the garlands that she had woven, but forced herself to remain crouched beside a leaning gravestone, watching Jurgen as h
e forced one callused hand out to touch a wreath.

  She nodded and held it out to him while, with her free hand, she stroked his cheek. He laughed hoarsely and gathered her up into a bearlike hug. She rubbed her face against his rough garments.

  "Maybe you swept up your footprints, Dillie, but this morning, the hem of your cloak was wet. So I watched you . . . and followed you here when you slipped out."

  She had no words yet to plead with him, so she followed him with her eyes.

  "You want me to let you finish what­ever this is, don't you?" he asked, and she nodded vehemently.

  "Can you tell me why it is so impor­tant to you? Do you not know what peo­ple might say if you are seen here?"

  This is life, freedom, atonement! she thought, but had not the words to say so.

  "You wish I could understand too? Dillie, this is dangerous. People might fear. . . some think you're half a wood-sprite now. Can you promise. . .would you swear before Father Bertwald — that what you do holds no harm?"

  She nodded. Then she felt Jurgen sigh. He leaned down and kissed her hair. "Then that's good enough for me. Just try not to be seen, love. If people saw you in the graveyard by night, I don't know how I could explain it."

  As if sealing a bargain between them, he handed her back the chaplet. Sol­emnly, she took it and laid it in its hid­ing place with the other ten. Each was as fresh now as the one that she had most recently woven.

  Now she realized that there were other ways than words to tell him what she did here. Hesitantly at first, fearful of her feet on the rough ground, she began to dance. Her toes ached at first with the unfamiliar, lovely motions; but as she danced, she gained strength and passion. Memory of dancing flowed back into her, dancing before another man with Jurgen's face. She smiled, but her smile lacked the craft of the last time she had thus danced.