The Swan Kingdom (21 page)

As we sat, the sound of the gong rang out again. “Oh dear, we have kept them waiting,” Rose said. “They’re impatient.”

Sure enough, within moments, a horde of servants bubbled out of a door to our left, bringing with them delicious smells. They bore giant black cauldrons and silver platters, spreading through the hall to serve the evening meal. One of the cauldrons was brought to the centre of our table, where its lid was lifted to reveal a savoury mixture of potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms and cheese, mashed together and fried. The smell made my mouth water. It was followed by thick, lavishly buttered slabs of bread, baked potatoes filled with cheese and meat or fruit, and by giant trenchers of roasted meat. There were a dozen different vegetables, all dripping with butter. Even for one who ate no meat, there was a surplus of choice. It took all my discipline to stop myself diving on my plate, and I knew even then that I was eating too quickly for politeness. I had not eaten so well since I left the Hall.

I saw Rose eyeing me as my plate emptied; before I could sit back in embarrassment, she slipped two more fried potato cakes onto my plate, added some buttery mashed swede, and passed me the bread. “You could do with a little more fat, dear,” she said matter-of-factly, returning to her own meal.

After we had all eaten our fill, the servants came back and cleared away the debris. Then a minstrel played a lap harp and pipes for us with skill and enthusiasm. Several of his tunes were obviously Midland ones, for I had never heard them before, and I enjoyed the novelty. But his final song was, by some coincidence, my favourite: “The Tears of Mairid Westfield”. I found my throat working, though no noise escaped my lips, as the hall filled with voices.

At last, replete and sleepy, the people began to trickle from the hall. Rose yawned delicately and excused herself, waving away Gabriel’s polite offer to escort her to her rooms. “You’re both young enough to enjoy a lazy autumn evening. If Alexandra feels well, why don’t you take her for a walk in the gardens? Show her my flowers.”

I felt my face burning again at her tone. Gabriel grinned at me and said pointedly, “Goodnight, Mother.”

“Goodnight.” She winked at both of us. I wanted to cover my face with my hands, but contented myself with giving her another stern look, which she avoided by leaving.

Gabriel claimed my hand, tugging me to my feet. “Would you like to walk in the gardens? They’re lovely at this time of year.” He added invitingly, “Mother has imported flowers from all over the continent.”

I hesitated, tempted, then nodded. I was surprised when, instead of leading me towards one of the doors, he went to the far wall, gripped a handle hidden in the fretwork and folded back a section of the stone screen on invisible hinges. The opening led onto a stone-paved terrace, where miniature trees, trained into cone and sphere shapes, grew in brass pots. Their tiny white flowers perfumed the air with a sweet musky scent, rather like night-blooming jasmine. My eyes adjusted quickly to the shadows as Gabriel turned back to close the screen door behind him, and I let my gaze travel upwards to the towering white heights of the palace, smudgy now in the shadows. A black vine rioted over the side of the building, even making it so far as the battlements from which the great tower sprouted. I thought of the damage such a voracious plant would do to a wattle and daub Kingdom house, and shuddered. Why did no one check its unrestrained growth? I touched Gabriel’s arm and pointed to the nearest snarl of black thorns, raising my eyebrows questioningly.

“You want to know about the prince’s rose?” he asked.

I felt my eyebrows shoot up still further. Rose? I reached out to touch one of the withered-looking, blackish-purple leaves. It looked like no rose I’d ever seen.

He took my arm and together we began to walk along the terrace. Dimly in the twilight, I could see the rest of the gardens spreading away beneath us in a series of stacked terraces. They looked like the gently curving inner layers of a shell. As I glanced up at the night sky, I saw three white shapes flitting across the clouds, and was comforted. My brothers were here.

“The prince’s rose is probably the most interesting plant in the gardens,” he began. “The story says that it was planted by Prince Aelred – the first true prince of Midland, who was granted the lands here after the Long War – when he built this palace nearly eight hundred years ago. Anyway, the rose was supposed to be incredibly beautiful. Golden, with an intoxicating scent. Apparently it bloomed almost constantly during his reign and continued to do so during our times of peace; half the palace was covered with it, and the books say that it looked as if the building were gilded.”

He looked at me. “Do you know much of the history of the civil wars in Midland?” he asked.

I tilted my head from side to side and waved a hand.
A little.

He understood, and continued. “The wars started more than a hundred years ago, when Prince Anders died without a direct heir. He chose one of his nephews to succeed him, but unfortunately, just after the prince died, the heir was murdered by poison. There’s a legend that a woman started the fighting – a beautiful woman, naturally – by bewitching the brother of the chosen heir and getting it into his head that he should be Prince instead. So he killed his brother with a potion this woman gave him, and then his other brothers turned on him, and their cousins joined in, and everything went mad for a good long while. History calls the woman a witch but, whoever she was, things didn’t go her way, because the man she’d enchanted was unexpectedly killed in battle and his own men turned on her and drove her away. It’s said she turned into a wolf or a grey fox as she fled, and that the blood of the battlefield stained her pelt red. A nice story.”

A strange shiver went down my spine. A beautiful woman, adept with poisons, who turned into a wolf-like creature with bloody red fur?

“What is it?” Gabriel asked, concerned. I’d stopped walking. I gestured that I was fine. He looked unconvinced. “Is your head paining you? We could go back in.”

I shook my head and managed a smile, motioning for him to continue. With reluctance, he began walking again, and took up the tale.

“Well, it’s said that as soon as the first drop of blood was spilled, the prince’s rose stopped blooming; the flowers withered away. They’ve never bloomed since. But we leave the vine to grow out of respect for our ancestor who planted it.”

I was barely listening to him now. Instead I saw a wolf-like creature, stained red with blood, crawling away into the forests of the Kingdom to lick its wounds. I knew Zella was older than she looked. Was she over a hundred years old?

“Alexandra?” Gabriel’s voice interrupted my confusion.

I’d stopped walking again. I realized I really didn’t feel well. My bruised temple was pounding, and I remembered that I had been up since dawn, picking nettles. So much had happened since then; I just wanted to sit quietly somewhere and think. Or better yet, sleep. I pulled a face in apology and shrugged.

“No,
I’m
sorry,” he said remorsefully. “I should have known better. Shall I take you back to your room?”

I nodded gratefully, leaning on his arm as we went back along the terrace and through the hall. In my sudden weakness it was all I could do to make it up the grand sweep of stairs, and eventually, with a muffled exclamation he picked me up and carried me. I was too thankful to be off my feet to manage more than a token protest, which he quashed easily.

“Stop it,” He said severely. “You’re unwell and you weigh nothing anyway. You’ve not been eating properly. You weighed almost the same when I first met you, and you were a foot shorter then.” He reached the top of the stairs and walked along the passage to the room where I had woken earlier. “You shouldn’t have let me drag out you out into the gardens. I can be an idiot sometimes – but you’re a bigger idiot if you don’t point it out to me.”

I laughed silently, my face hidden in his shoulder. He could not know how much comfort I drew from being looked after like this. I was very glad that no one was about to witness his display of caring, though. Judging from the reaction earlier when he had only held my hand, the tale would have been all over the palace by morning. Gabriel pushed open the door of my room without anyone seeing us.

The room was dark, but enough moonlight came through the window screen to illuminate the furniture, allowing him to place me carefully on the edge of the bed. I sat up, clasping my hands in my lap as he looked down at me.

“Shall I get a maid to come and unlace you?” he asked, his eyes going to the front of my dress.

The bodice of the dress laced along the front, where it could be easily undone and pulled off. Shamefully I remembered the last time I had dreamed of him, and felt my skin tighten and heat. I crossed my arms over my chest hurriedly so that my treacherous body could not give me away, and shook my head.

“Ahem.” He cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “Well, I’ll wish you goodnight then.” With an unfamiliar clumsiness, he ducked down and pressed a swift kiss on my lips. Before I could kiss him back he had turned away, framed in the doorway just as he had been when I had my first sight of him earlier that day. Then the door closed behind him, and I was left alone in the quiet.

I pressed my fingers to my lips, as if I could somehow capture the fading sensation of his kiss. Then, with a noiseless sigh, I got up and unlaced the dress, folding it and the muslin shift over a chair, smoothed my hair with one of the brushes thoughtfully laid out for me, and climbed under the crisp, fine sheets of the luxurious bed. As I lay there, I realized with a stab of guilt that I had barely spared a thought for my poor brothers all evening. Tomorrow I must make the best of my good fortune here and get to work on the nettle tunics again. If that good fortune held, it would not be long before I finished them. And then…

My thoughts faded away, and I slept.

In my dreams, I was back in the Kingdom, in the wild fields where I had played with my brothers as a child. I lay in the golden grasses by the hawthorn hedge, and watched the clouds drift overhead. But the clouds were swans, their great wings spread so that their shadows chilled me; and when the sky darkened, it was not snow that fell down to brush my face and hands and blanket the ground, but pale feathers.

A maid woke me the next morning, bringing with her a generous pitcher of hot water for washing, and an armful of dresses – hastily altered, I gathered – for me to try on. The bustling, plump woman left me when I managed to convey that I could dress alone, and came back shortly with a tray of breakfast. I feasted on thick slabs of freshly baked – still warm! – bread with butter and honey and sweet fragrant tea.

“If you please, Miss,” the woman said as she cleared away the crumbs. “The Princess asked if you’d attend her in the solar.”

I nodded, picking up my leather sack with its precious nettles inside. I hoped Rose didn’t have any plans for me today; I wanted to finish the square I was working on and get at least part of the way through another. Not having to search for my own food and maintain the cottage would save me a great deal of time and I intended to make the most of it.

The solar was a large, round room situated near the top of the great tower, with recessed windows in the walls and cushioned window seats. Rose was seated at one of the windows with her feet up and a book in her lap. Coloured pictures of herbs and plants filled the pages.

“Hello, my dear,” she said. “I thought you might like to get some work done on your nettle clothes, and this is the most pleasant room for it.”

I smiled in thanks.

“Come and sit by me.” She pointed to the other end of the window seat, and I settled happily there, leaning my back against the wall. I opened my pack and pulled out the square I was working on.

My fingers busy with their accustomed task, it was a few minutes before I glanced up. Rose was not attending to her book, but looking out of the window. There was a fine view from where we sat, down into the front courtyard of the palace; I could see the glitter of a moat below, and the busy comings and goings of various carts and tradespeople across the lowered drawbridge.

I caught her eye and tilted my head in question.
What are you looking for?

“Caught.” She smiled. “My husband has been away for more than a month on a matter of state. We are expecting him back any day now. This is the best place for watching, as well as working.”

Her eyes strayed back to the view, and I reached out to touch her arm in a tentative gesture of comfort.

She patted my hand. “It’s only that he’s been away longer than normal. If I’d known how long his trip would take, I might have chosen to go with him. But I should have felt a hypocrite showing respect at the old fool’s burning. I never liked the man much, and his recent exploits beggared belief. Marrying a slip of a girl, exiling his own children at her behest, emptying Farland’s coffers to build some ridiculous pleasure palace for her, and then being pushed into an early grave by trying to keep up with the little drab, no doubt. I can’t think of any man
less
deserving of respect. I only hope his children can sort out the mess he’s created.”

I felt the blood draining from my face as her meaning sank in. My skin turned clammy and cold and I hurriedly bent my head so that she could not see my expression. Rose’s friendly chatter washed over me as I stared at the greeny-grey square pooled in my lap. I realized, with a sense of numb shame, that I was not even shocked. Some part of me had been expecting this since I had seen Zella at Olday Hill. Why would she keep the besotted king around when she was ruler in all but name? When she had managed to dominate all those who should have given him their loyalty? He could never have been more than a nuisance to her.