When she let go of the table, the iron pfenning rolled from her sweaty fingers. The gaunt man captured it with a dropped thimble.
“Now which one, magpie? You want the shiny one, true? Left or right or middle or none at all?”
Elster watched his hands. She could not be sure and so closed her eyes and reached out. She clamped her hand over the gaunt man’s grip. His skin felt slick and hard like polished horn. “This one,” she said. When she looked, his palm held an empty thimble.
“Maybe later you’ll find the prize.” When he smiled she saw that his front teeth were metal: the left a dull iron, the right gleamed gold.
A strong arm pulled her away from the table. “Stupid child.” Her grandmother cuffed her face. “From now on, a thimble will be your keep.”
•
The Message
Down in the cellar, the stones seeped with moisture. Odile sneezed from the stink of mould. She could see how her papa trembled at the chill.
The floor was fresh-turned earth. Crates filled niches in the walls. In the tower’s other cage, a weeping man sat on a stool. The king’s livery, stained, bunched about his shoulders.
“The prince’s latest messenger.” Papa gestured at a bejeweled necklace glittering at the man’s feet. “Bearing a bribe to end the engagement.”
Papa followed this with a grunt as he stooped down and began digging in the dirt with his fingers. Odile helped him brush away what covered a dull, gray egg. “Papa, he’s innocent.”
He gently pulled the egg loose of the earth. “Dear, there’s a tradition of blame. Sophocles wrote that ‘No man loves the messenger of ill.’ ”
He took a pin from his cloak and punched a hole into the ends of the egg while intoning rara lingua. Then he approached the captive man, who collapsed, shaking, to his knees. Papa blew into one hole and a vapor reeking of sulfur drifted out to surround the messenger. Screams turned into the frantic call of a songbird.
“We’ll send him back to the prince in a gilded cage with a message. ‘We delightfully accept your offer of an engagement ball.’ Perhaps I should have turned him into a parrot and he could have spoken that.”
“Papa,” Odile chided.
“I’ll return his form after the wedding. I promise.” He carried the egg to one shelf and pulled out the crate of curse eggs nestled in soil. “What king more wisely cares for his subjects?”
•
The Prince
The prince would have rather mucked out every filthy stall in every stable of the kingdom than announce his engagement to the sorcerer’s daughter at the ball. His father must have schemed his downfall; why else condemn him to marry a harpy?
“Father, be reasonable. Why not the Duke of Bremen’s daughter?” The prince glanced up at the fake sky the guildsmen were painting on the ballroom’s ceiling. A cloud appeared with a brushstroke.
“The one so lovely that her parents keep her at a cloister?” asked the king. “Boy, your wife should be faithful only to you. Should she look higher to God, she’ll never pay you any respect.”
“Then that Countess from Schaumberg—”
The king sighed. “Son, there are many fine lands with many fine daughters but none of them have magic.”
“Parlor tricks!”
“Being turned into a turkey is not a trick. Besides, von Rothbart is the most learned man I have ever met. If his daughter has half the mind, half the talent….”
“Speaking dead languages and reciting dusty verse won’t keep a kingdom.”
The king laughed. “Don’t tell that to Cardinal Passerine.”
•
The Fledgling
In the silence, Odile looked up from yellowed pages that told how a pelican’s brood are stillborn until the mother pecks its chest and resurrects them with her own blood. Odile had no memory of her own mother. Papa would never answer any question she asked about her.
She pinched the flame out in the sconce’s candle and opened the shutters. The outside night had so many intriguing sounds. Even if she only listened to the breeze it would be enough to entice her from her room.
She went to her dresser, opened the last drawer, and found underneath old mohair sweaters the last of the golden wappentier eggs she had taken. She could break it now, turn herself into a night bird and fly free. The thought tempted her as she stared at her own weak reflection on the shell. She polished it for a moment against her dressing gown.
But the need to see Elster’s face overpowered her.
So, as she had done so many nights, Odile gathered and tied bed sheets and old clothes together as a makeshift rope to climb down the outer walls of her papa’s tower.
As she descended, guided only by moonlight, something large flew near her head. Odile became still, with the egg safe in a makeshift sling around her chest, her toes squeezing past crumbling mortar. A fledermaus? Her papa called them vermin; he hunted them as the pother owl. If he should spot her…. But no, she did not hear his voice demand she return to her room. Perhaps it was the wappentier. Still clinging to the wall, she waited for the world to end, as her papa had said would happen if the great bird ever escaped from its cage. But her heartbeat slowly calmed and she became embarrassed by all her fears. The elder von Rothbart would have fallen asleep at his desk, cheek smearing ink on the page. The sad wappentier would be huddled behind strong bars. Perhaps it also dreamed of freedom.
Once on the ground, Odile walked towards the moat. Sleeping swans rested on the bank. Their long necks twisted back and their bills tucked into pristine feathers.
She held up the wappentier egg. Words of rara lingua altered her fingernail, making it sharp as a knife. She punctured the two holes, and as she blew into the first, her thoughts were full of incantations and her love’s name. She had trouble holding the words in her head; as if alive and caged, they wanted release on the tongue. Maybe Papa could not stop from turning men into birds, though Odile suspected he truly enjoyed doing so.
She never tired of watching the albumen sputter out of the shell and drift over the quiet swans like marsh fire before falling like gold rain onto one in their midst.
Elster stretched pale limbs. Odile thought the maid looked like some unearthly flower slipping through the damp bank, unfurling slender arms and long blonde hair. Then she stumbled until Odile took her by the hand and offered calm words while the shock of the transformation diminished.
They fled into the woods. Elster laughed to run again. She stopped to reach for fallen leaves, touch bark, then pull at a loose thread of Odile’s dressing gown and smile.
Elster had been brought to the tower to fashion Odile a dress for court. Odile could remember that first afternoon, when she had been standing on a chair while the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen stretched and knelt below her measuring. Odile had never felt so awkward, sure that she’d topple at any moment, yet so ethereal, confidant that had she slipped, she would glide to the floor.
Papa instructed Elster that Odile’s gown was to be fashioned from sticks and string, like a proper bird’s nest. But, alone together, Elster showed Odile bolts of silk and linen, guiding her hand along the cloth to feel its softness. She would reveal strands of chocolate-colored ribbon and thread them through Odile’s hair while whispering how pretty she could be. Her lips had lightly brushed Odile’s ears.
When Papa barged into Odile’s room and found the rushes and leaves abandoned at their feet and a luxurious gown in Elster’s lap, he dragged Elster down to the cellar. A tearful Odile followed, but she could not find the voice to beg him not to use a rotten wappentier egg.
In the woods, they stopped, breathless, against a tree trunk. “I brought you a present,” Odile said.
“A coach that will carry us far away from your father?”
Odile shook her head. She unlaced the high top of her dressing gown and allowed the neckline to slip down inches. She wore the prince’s bribe but now lifted it off her neck. The thick gold links, the amethysts like frozen drops of wine, seem
ed to catch the moon’s fancy as much as their own.
“This must be worth a fortune.” Elster stroked the necklace Odile draped over her long, smooth neck.
“Perhaps. Come morning, I would like to know which swan is you by this.”
Elster took a step away from Odile. Then another until the tree was between them. “Another day trapped. And another. And when you marry the prince, what of me? No one will come for me then.”
“Papa says he will release all of you. Besides, I don’t want to marry the prince.”
“No. I see every morning as a swan. You can’t—won’t—refuse your father.”
Odile sighed. Lately, she found herself daydreaming that Papa had found her as a chick, fallen from the nest, and turned her into a child. “I’ve never seen the prince,” Odile said as she began climbing the tree.
“He’ll be handsome. An expensive uniform with shining medals and epaulets. That will make him handsome.”
“I heard his father and mother are siblings. He probably has six fingers on a hand.” Odile reached down from the fat branch she sat upon to pull Elster up beside her.
“Better to hold you with.”
“The ball is tomorrow night.”
“What did he do with the gown I made you?”
“He told me to burn it. I showed him the ashes of an apron. It’s hidden beneath my bed.”
“Let me wear it. Let me come along to the ball with you.”
“You would want to see me dance with him?”
Elster threaded her fingers through Odile’s hair, sweeping a twig from the ends. “Wouldn’t you rather I be there than your father?”
Odile leaned close to Elster and marveled at how soft her skin felt. Her pale cheeks. Her arms, her thighs. Odile wanted music then, for them to dance together dangerously on the branches. Balls and courts and gowns seemed destined for other girls.
•
The Coach
On the night of the ball, von Rothbart surprised Odile with a coach and driver. “I returned some lost sons and daughters we had around the tower for the reward.” He patted the rosewood sides of the coach. “I imagine you’ll be traveling to and from the palace in the days to come. A princess shouldn’t be flying.”
Odile opened the door and looked inside. The seats were plush and satin.
“You wear the same expression as the last man I put in the cellar cage.” He kissed her cheek. “Would a life of means and comfort be so horrible?”
The words in her head failed Odile. They wouldn’t arrange themselves in an explanation, in the right order to convey to Papa her worries about leaving the tower, her disgust at having to marry a man she didn’t know and could never care for. Instead she pressed herself against him. The bound twigs at her bosom stabbed her chest. The only thing that kept her from crying was the golden egg she secreted in the nest gown she wore.
When the coach reached the woods, Odile shouted for the driver to top. He looked nervous when she opened the door and stepped out on to the road.
“Fraulein, your father insisted you arrive tonight. He said I’d be eatin’ worms for the rest of my days.”
“A moment.” She had difficulty running, because of the rigid gown. She knew her knees would be scratched raw by the time she reached the swans. Odile guided a transformed Elster to the road. The sight of the magnificent coach roused her from the change’s fugue.
“Finally I ride with style.” Elster waited for the driver to help her climb the small steps into the coach. “But I have no dress to wear tonight.”
Odile sat down beside her and stroked the curtains and the cushions. “There is fabric wasted here to make ten gowns.”
When Odile transformed her fingernails to sharp points to rip free satin and gauze, she noticed Elster inch away. The magic frightened her. Odile offered a smile and her hand to use as needles. Elster took hold of her wrist with an almost cautious touch.
The bodice took shape in Elster’s lap. “We could stay on the road. Not even go to the ball. You could turn the driver into a red-breasted robin and we could go wherever we want.”
“I’ve never been this far away from home.” Odile wondered why she hadn’t considered such an escape. But all her thoughts had been filled with the dreaded ball, as if she had no choice but to accept the prince’s hand. She glanced out the tiny window at the world rushing past. But Papa would be waiting for her tonight. There would be studies tomorrow and feeding the wappentier, and she couldn’t abandon Papa.
It was a relief that she had no black egg with her, that she had no means to turn a man into fowl. She had never done so, could not imagine the need. So she shook her head.
Elster frowned. “Always your father’s girl.” She reached down and bit free the thread linking Odile’s fingers and her gown. “Remember that I offered you a choice.”
•
The Ball
The palace ballroom had been transformed into an enchanting wood. The rugs from distant Persia rolled up to allow space for hundreds of fallen leaves fashioned from silk. The noble attendees slipped on the leaves often. A white-bearded ambassador from Lombardy fell and broke his hip; when carried off he claimed it was no accident but an atto di guerra.
Trees, fashioned by carpenters and blacksmiths, spread along the walls. The head cook had sculpted dough songbirds encrusted with dyed sugars and marzipan beaks.
The orchestra was instructed not to play any tune not found in nature. This left them perplexed and often silent.
“Fraulein Odile von Rothbart and her guest Fraulein Elster Schwanensee.” The herald standing on the landing had an oiled, thick mustache.
Odile cringed beneath the layers of twigs and parchment that covered her torso and trailed off to sweep the floor. How they all stared at her. She wanted to squeeze Elster’s hand for strength but found nothing in her grasp; she paused halfway down the staircase, perplexed by her empty hand. She turned back to the crowd of courtiers but saw no sign of her swan maid.
The courtiers flocked around her. They chattered, so many voices that she had trouble understanding anything they said.
“That frock is so…unusual.” The elderly man who spoke wore a cardinal’s red robes. “How very bold to be so…indigenous.”
A sharp-nosed matron held a silken pomander beneath her nostrils. “I hope that is imported mud binding those sticks,” she muttered.
•
The Lovebirds
Elster picked up a crystal glass of chilled Silvaner from a servant’s platter. She held the dry wine long in her mouth, wanting to remember its taste when she had to plunge a beak into moatwater.
“Fraulein von Rothbart. Our fathers would have us dance.”
Elster turned around. She had been right about the uniform. Her heart ached to touch the dark blue-like-evening wool, the gilded buttons, the medals at the chest, and the thick gold braid on the shoulders. A uniform like that would only be at home in a wardrobe filled with fur-lined coats, jodhpurs for riding with leather boots, silken smoking jackets that smelled of Turkish tobacco. The man who owned such clothes would only be satisfied if his darling matched him in taste.
She lowered her gaze with much flutter and curtsied low.
“I am pleased you wore my gift.” The prince had trimmed fingernails that looked so pink as to possibly be polished. He lifted up one section of the necklace she wore. The tip of his pinky slid into the crease between her breasts. “How else would I know you?”
She offered a promissory smile.
He led her near where the musicians sought to emulate the chirp of crickets at dusk.
“So, I must remember to commend your father on his most successful enchantment.”
“Your Imperial and Royal Highness is too kind.”
Three other couples, lavish in expensive fabric and pearls and silver, joined them in a quadrille. As the pairs moved, their feet kicked up plumes of silk leaves. Despite the gold she wore around her neck, Elster felt as if she were a tarnished coin thimblerigged alon
g the dance floor.
“I have an admission to make,” she whispered in the prince’s ear when next she passed him. “I’m not the sorcerer’s daughter.”
The prince took hold of her arm, not in a rough grasp, but as if afraid she would vanish. “If this is a trick—”
“Once I shared your life of comfort. Sheets as soft as a sigh. Banquet halls filled with drink and laughter. Never the need for a seamstress as I never wore a dress twice.
“My parents were vassals in Saxony. Long dead now.” She slipped free of his hold and went to the nearest window. She waited for his footsteps, waited to feel him press against her. “Am I looking East? To a lost home?”
She turned around. Her eyes lingered a moment on the plum-colored ribbon sewn to one medal on his chest. “So many years ago—I have lost count—a demonic bird flew into my bedchamber.”
“Von Rothbart.”
Elster nodded at his disgust. “He stole me away, back to his lonely tower. Every morning I woke to find myself trapped as a swan. Every night he demands I become his bride. I have always refused.”
“I have never stood before such virtue.” The prince began to tear as he stepped back and then fell to one knee. “Though I can see why even the Devil would promise himself to you.”
His eyes looked too shiny, as if he might start crying or raving like a madman. Elster had seen the same sheen in Odile’s eyes. Elster squeezed the prince’s hand but looked over her shoulder at where she had parted with the sorcerer’s daughter. The art of turning someone into a bird would never dress her in cashmere or damask. Feathers were only so soft and comforting.
•
The Lost
When Odile was a young girl, her father told her terrible tales every Abend vor Allerheiligen. One had been about an insane cook who had trapped over twenty blackbirds and half-cooked them as part of a pie. All for the delight of a royal court. Odile had nightmares about being trapped with screeching chicks, all cramped in the dark, the stink of dough, the rising heat. She would not eat any pastry for years.
Heiresses of Russ 2011 Page 10