Cygnet

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “I don’t know.”

  “I wish I did know more.” She brooded at the fire a moment, her elbows on her knees. “Her father was ensorcelled,” she added, stunning Meguet, for the Holder never answered questions about her daughters’ fathers.

  “A swan?” Meguet hazarded.

  “No. A wolf in Hunter Hold. In the night hours when he was human, he never spoke of any such knowledge. She didn’t get it from him. Or from me.” She glanced at Meguet, reading her mind. “I broke the spell over him. I don’t know how. We were both surprised.” She smiled a little, remembering. Then she looked at Meguet again, her eyes dark and fire, a long look that took in more, sometimes, than Meguet knew about herself. “But you have more to tell me.”

  Meguet, unsurprised, nodded. She took a sip of wine, held the cup in her linked fingers. “There is someone with Nyx.”

  “Who?”

  “A young man. I couldn’t tell at first what he was; he was dressed in rich, antique clothes. I learned later he is Wayfolk, with strange pale hair and a dark, harrowed face.”

  “From watching Nyx work, probably. An apprentice?”

  “Maybe.”

  “A lover?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Why not?”

  Meguet hesitated, received the Holder’s full attention. “I only looked at him once, and he never spoke. But something in him drew me back into the house after dark. I could not ride away and leave him there with Nyx, without knowing more. And yet there’s nothing to know but that he’s Wayfolk, with chaff from the fields of Withy Hold under his fingernails and a love named Tiel in his heart. On the surface.”

  “On the surface,” the Holder repeated. Her eyes were still now, expressionless, reminding Meguet of the ancient, equivocal night in a stone-tortoise’s eye. “And under the surface? What exactly is my daughter living with?”

  “I don’t know. Neither does she. A Wayfolk man with a secret…”

  “What secret?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Memory, to her surprise, seemed as accessible as the memory of the house she had wandered in; small details became clear, including the landscape in her mind that the young man’s piecemeal rambling had formed. She began with her unremarked entry into Nyx’s house, and ended with Corleu taking the light out of the mirror, leaving Meguet in darkness in a room full of dark mirrors.

  “I thought you might have sent me back anyway,” she finished. “But even returning there, and listening to them, I have no idea what they’re doing together.”

  The Holder, still through the long tale, got to her feet in a whirl and prickle of lights. She poked at a log meditatively; Meguet could not see her face. The fire flared; she kept up a gentle but relentless nudging until sparks flew thick as stars up the chimney and Meguet cast a watchful eye at the ancient, mysterious, gleaming secrets along the mantel. Lauro Ro put the poker down abruptly, turned. The expression in her eyes startled Meguet; it was something like the impersonal, bone-searching gaze she had favored Corleu with.

  “You followed the Cygnet into a room full of mirrors?”

  Of all details her memory had woven together, it seemed least significant. “I didn’t know which way to go,” she explained, surprised. “It was like throwing grass into the air and following. I moved in the direction the Cygnet flew in my mind. That’s all. It’s nothing but a trick I play on myself. Sometimes when I’m lost impulse will find a path where reason can’t.”

  Lauro Ro sat down again. She pulled the last pins from her hair, tossed them into her lap. Her hair, tumbling forward, hid her face again. But her voice sounded more familiar. “They were searching those old books for a web?”

  “So it seemed.”

  “Instead of waking the Dancer.”

  “It seemed.”

  “That’s a constellation.”

  “His tale was full of stars.”

  “Is Nyx in danger?”

  The question started Meguet. “From what? A Wayfolk man who grew up jumping stooks?”

  “Then why did you go back?”

  Meguet was silent, gazing back at the Holder. She pulled herself up restively. “I don’t know,” she said, scrutinizing memory to find the bone in Corleu’s face, the fleeting expression that had turned her in her path. “Impulse.”

  “Grass in the wind.”

  “He disturbed me.”

  “Before he even opened his mouth?”

  “Yes.”

  “So.” The Holder watched her pace. “If the man himself is not the danger, who is the danger?”

  Meguet halted mid-step, as if the shadow of a raven flying out of the stone had suddenly barred her way. She stared down at the shadow, whispered, “Is that what I saw? Why I went back?”

  The Holder shifted; a sapphire light flashed. She raised her head; her eyes had changed: They grew wide, luminous, vulnerable, like the eyes of a deer catching sight of a hunter’s arrow. She said nothing, left Meguet staring at her. Meguet took another step into the raven’s shadow, and stopped again.

  “Do you want me to go back there and talk to Nyx?”

  “Was Nyx settled there for the winter? Or will she move again before spring?”

  “She said she has work to busy her there until spring.”

  “I can imagine,” the Holder said, darkly. “I could call her home, I suppose. She could glare at me and pick bats apart in the middle of the night.” She stirred the fire with unnecessary force, scattering embers onto the floor. Meguet kicked them back in, leaning wearily against the stones. She felt bone-tired suddenly, ready to sleep where she stood, propped among the stone birds, beneath the Cygnet.

  “How did the Wayfolk man get his hair?” she heard, a riddle in the dark, and realized that her eyes were closed. She said:

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  She opened her eyes, saw her own hair milky in the firelight against her black gown. “There,” she said, “is the question.” She dragged her hand over her eyes, remembering. “I looked at him, he looked at me. He recognized me. That’s what I saw in him. Why I turned back. We recognized each other.”

  “From where?” the Holder asked. “Have you met him before on your travels?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Then how?”

  “That,” she said, “I will find out.”

  “Just be careful,” the Holder said somberly.

  “I am always. And he is only Wayfolk.”

  “He may be only Wayfolk, but he is with Nyx, and she is wandering in dangerous country. One of these days she may call up something she didn’t expect. She may have already, by the sound of it. Take Rush with you. You should not go alone.”

  “I would rather take the Gatekeeper,” she said, surprising both herself and the Holder. “Rush would only fight with Nyx.”

  The Holder looked at her silently, her expression unfathomable. “My Gatekeeper?”

  “He knows the swamps.” She kicked a cold ember back into, the hearth. “There are fewer travellers in winter, for him to open the gate to.”

  “He will not leave the gate. They never do.”

  “If he will?”

  The Holder was silent again, her eyes on the fire. “If he will go,” she said slowly, “take him.” She shivered suddenly, then gathered pins in her lap and stood. She put her hand on Meguet’s shoulder, kissed her lightly. “Watch over my spellbound child. But be careful of her.”

  “I will.”

  Asleep finally, Meguet dreamed a moon, and a strange pattern of stars beyond her window, in a windy, blue-black sky. A ragged edge of black cloud detached itself from the wind and sank earthward. As it neared her window, the winds stilled. Moonlight drenched the sky. The casement opened: A wild black swan lighted on the ledge, drew in its wings. It filled her window, huge, mysterious, darker than the night behind it. It watched her. Dreaming or awake by then—she hardly knew—she watched it.

  Three

  SHE was forced to wait before she went back upriver. Co
ld rain fell for days; the entire swamp, yellow-grey with mud, seemed to be sliding into the sea. She and Rush, both restive, took to the armory and threatened each other with antique weapons. Sons and daughters of the Delta lords, descendants of swamp dwellers and half-wild under their wealth and manners, joined them, looking for any sport in the drenched world. Meguet gave lessons to young men whose eyes constantly looked past her for a glimpse of Calyx, and then were suddenly on her, unbraiding her neat hair and studying her flowing, muscular movements. She treated them with a grave courtesy that was dampening, left them searching for Calyx, who was always elsewhere.

  She forded the rivers and pools in the outer yard one day near dusk, when the hard edge of the rain had dulled. She surprised the Gatekeeper as she came up the steps along the wall to his turret. With thick sheepskin on the stone seats, a three-legged brazier between them, and their own voluminous, bulky cloaks, there was hardly room under the peaked stone roof for both. But he seemed pleased, if mystified, by her company.

  “Lady Meguet,” he said. “It was brave of you to cross the yard. Some of the cottagers were fishing in it earlier.”

  “I don’t doubt.” She held her hands to the brazier, looking curiously around at the scalloped edgings of marble on the open ledges, and along the roof. “This place was enormous, when I came last.”

  “Before my time, then. Or I would have remembered you coming.”

  She smiled. “It was another Gatekeeper, yes. An old man with white hair and black brows. I have forgotten his name. Or maybe I never knew he had one beyond ‘Gatekeeper.’” She paused, saw the flicker of smile in his eyes, and surprised him. “Hew.”

  He blinked. “Yes. Most don’t know that, beyond the cottages.”

  “I asked the Holder.”

  “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “She remembered my name, did she? After ten years?”

  “She must have considered it important.”

  “And you,” he said mildly, “have found it suddenly important to know.”

  “I asked her,” Meguet said, “ten years ago, the first time you opened the gate for me alone.”

  He was silent; she watched a wave, storm-ridden, stumble wildly against the sand and fall a long, long way before it stopped. He reached for a little ebony pipe on the seat beside him, and found a taper. He met her eyes. “What can I do for you, Lady Meguet?”

  “The Holder said you may not do it.”

  “Ah.” He carried flame to the pipe with the taper; light flooded his hands, the lower part of his face. She realized then that he had been young, too, when she asked the Holder his name: a boy, straight out of the backwater, catching crayfish one day and guarding the Holder’s gate the next. “There is only one thing I would not do for you,” he said simply, and she sighed.

  “You won’t leave the gate.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But why? You leave it nights to sleep, don’t you? Do you? You do sleep.”

  “Sometimes here, other times I have a small cottage…” He studied her, his brows crooked. “I can’t,” he said again. “But tell me what I can do.”

  “Tell me what binds you here,” she demanded, frustrated. The rain pounded down again; he shifted the brazier from the open window, his eyes straying by habit to the massive closed gate. He puffed on his pipe a bit, then said apologetically at the smoke:

  “It keeps me warm, and awake when I’m up late, waiting… Nobody ever asked me that before. Not like that, anyway.”

  “Is it secret?”

  “Even so, I’d tell you. Because you know what you’re asking. The old man—the other Gatekeeper—came looking for me upriver. He had yellow eyes; with all that white hair he looked like an owl. I heard he was coming; word travelled faster than him, that some bird-haired old man wearing the Cygnet was stopping everyone, man and girl, and saying one thing to them. I was standing in my boat, hauling in a five-foot pike when he found me. He spoke. That’s the last I saw of the pike.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘I have left the gate.’ I remember rowing downriver in such a panic I nearly wrecked myself among the ships coming into the harbor. That’s the last I saw of swamp and the first I saw of the city and the Holder’s house. I didn’t stop moving until I had shut the open gate and climbed up here to watch.” He smiled a little. “Later that evening the most beautiful woman in the world came up the steps and brought me supper. She asked my name and welcomed me into her house.”

  Meguet leaned back against the stones. “What a strange tale. So you were born Gatekeeper.”

  “Seems so. One day, I’ll do the same, leave the gate wide and hobble around the Delta until someone drops crayfish net or butter churn or bill of lading and runs to close the gate.”

  “What happens if you leave?” she persisted. “For only a day or two. Three.”

  “Makes my heart pound, just the thought. But why? Why me, of all?” Then he answered himself. “The swamp.” And then, “The Lady Nyx.”

  This time his guesswork did not annoy her. She sighed soundlessly, sliding her hood back, for the brazier had heated the old stones well. “Nyx,” she said softly. He waited, pipe going out between his fingers, his odd, slanted, swamp-green eyes grave. “I think she may be in trouble. The Holder wants me to go and talk to her, but not to go alone. I thought of you. You know the swamp.”

  “So do you.”

  “You know the tales spread about her.”

  “So does everyone.”

  “But you would not spread others, if you saw her. You would be discreet, you would not be afraid of the swamp, and—I think—you would not be afraid of Nyx.”

  “I’ve seen swamp magic.” He relit his pipe, added, glancing across the yard, “It’s a bloody, ugly kind of thing, some. But I can’t believe you’d be in danger at all from Lady Nyx.”

  “She has someone with her.”

  He said, “Ah,” softly. Then: “The Lord Rush Yarr knows sorcery. He is not afraid of Lady Nyx.”

  “I’m afraid of his sorcery. And his temper. Nyx would toss us both out of her house and guard the door.” His eyes were on the yard again; she turned, saw some of their neighbors bundled faceless, splashing through puddles toward the gate. “If you can’t come, I will ask him, though. He doesn’t know enough to fear the swamp; he won’t be discreet with Nyx, but at least he cares for her.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you miss the swamp?” she asked suddenly. “Your freedom?”

  He smiled. “That’s why I like to see you come and go. Hear where you’ve been, travelling around Ro Holding like a tinker.” He flushed a little as she laughed. “Sorry. I had one on my mind.”

  “I never met a tinker who roamed as far as I do.”

  “This one might. Hunter Hold Sign on the back door of his house, and Withy Hold on the side. He could put Delta on the other side while he’s here.”

  “It’s easy enough to paint a sign.”

  “Or tell stories to the gullible.” He put his pipe down as the riders neared. “At least he did tell them. Mended pots and told tales, cottage imps in and out of his house. It caught their eyes, his little, black, rolling house. It caught mine.”

  “You said he had kin?” she said absently, pulling her hood forward.

  “No. He said.”

  “He didn’t? He lied to get in the gate?”

  “He claimed kin, I heard. But by the time he did his business and told his stories, kinship got confusing. Everyone knew he had kin, but no one claimed him. When they got that sorted out, he had disappeared.”

  “He left the house.”

  “No. I never opened the gate for him to leave. He’s hidden somewhere. Not even the cottage brats can find him.”

  She waited for him to rise, followed him out into the rain-spangled torchlight. His story irritated her: too silly to heed, too disturbing to ignore. “A tinker,” she repeated, “in hiding in Ro House. Tinkers don’t do such things. They mend and move on. He must be somewhere among
the cottages.”

  “You must be right.” He stepped to the gate as the riders came up, bid them good night courteously, not missing a name or a half-hidden face. “He could put that dark house in the shadow of a wall, and you’d miss it.” He swung the gate shut again, faced her, the rain sliding down his bare head, wet hair hugging the lean lines of his face. “Or I would.”

  She shivered suddenly, gathered her cloak close. “You wouldn’t,” she said. “You put him into my eye. Now I’ll be looking for him. A little black house in the shadow of Ro House.”

  The heavy rain turned to snow the next day, to everyone’s astonishment, for it rarely snowed along the coast. The Holder’s children gathered one by one in Chrysom’s tower to watch it fall. Even Iris, who thought Chrysom’s library gloomy and sorcery incomprehensible, joined them and was entranced by the pale sky falling endlessly into Wolfe Sea. Meguet, staring out at the weather, was not entranced. Her eye fell on the Gatekeeper, in his turret across the empty yard. Even in that cold he kept watch.

  She heard her name spoken; Rush was describing the sword-play lessons to Calyx.

  “They are all in love with Meguet,” he said, “at least while they are with her, and she scarcely sees them.” He smiled as Meguet turned; he was slightly drunk. “Meguet loves no one.”

  “So do I,” Calyx sighed. “They all have homes, don’t they? Why can’t they stay there?”

  “Really, Calyx,” Iris said. “You might like marriage.” Iris, the oldest of the Holder’s daughters, had deep chestnut hair and violet eyes, and a head for the myriad small details that fretted each Hold or kept them peaceful.

  “I will never marry,” Calyx said. “I am going to live in this tower and write a history of Ro House.” She sat leafing through an ancient, cracked book, looking like a winter rose, with her fine, silk-white hair, her skin flushed like dawn over hoarfrost on the top of the world. She had eyes the blue-grey of the northern sky, and bones so fine only the smallest of rings fit her fingers. Though the Holder had never told her, it seemed obvious where her father had come from. He was, Rush suggested, one of the ice-spirits of Berg Hold, who lured travellers to their deaths with their stunning beauty. Calyx agreed that, if nothing else, he had probably got the Hold right.