The Black Swan (23 page)

It was easier with the men of his own generation, once he managed to convince himself that it was no stain on his own courage to lose occasionally, or refrain from making jests at the expense of those who lost to him. There was an immediate reward; the others became more companionable without trespassing over the boundary of the respect due to him as their prince. That alone was worth a great deal of the trouble he went to, and if he had to bite his tongue to keep from making clever remarks that would have irritated the others, perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing.

He still had scant respect for the Church in the person of the priest, so that much of his life hadn't changed. He still didn't bother with attending anything other than Sunday Mass. The priest said nothing to him concerning the abandonment of his vigil; perhaps the cleric reckoned it was to be expected, given his past behavior.

He made a point of watching people, rather than ignoring them as of no interest or importance, and tried to think before he acted or spoke. Because of that, he had noticed that the minstrel Uwe was acting rather oddly of late.

Uwe was watching him; well, he expected that, the minstrel was his mother's creature, after all. To a greater or lesser extent, Uwe had always watched him. The difference was that now Uwe seemed to be spending time flattering and courting
Siegfried,
and that was strange.

The prince pondered that as he watched his mother hold her Morning Court. He still didn't spend much time or attention on court or the affairs of running the kingdom; Queen Clothilde managed that very well and he saw no real reason to worry himself about it. What was the point? She was regent, and would rule until he came of age; until she stepped down, he had no real power that she did not give him. He was interested in Uwe, not in the workings of the court or the petitions before the queen this morning.

More precisely, he was interested in seeing if Uwe's influence with his mother had either grown or shrunk. It had occurred to him that Uwe might be working out some long-term plan with Siegfried in mind. Was it possible that the minstrel had a higher position in mind than that of mere minstrel—the position of royal consort? Was he courting Siegfried's favor in hopes of winning him over? Could it be that he actually hoped to marry the queen? Did he, in fact, plan to use Siegfried's influence on his mother to further that goal?

If he does, he's more of a fool than I thought,
Siegfried mused, watching the minstrel through narrowed eyes. However much he disliked Uwe, he had to admit that the minstrel was both a handsome man and a clever one. It was not only Clothilde who admired the chiseled features, the square jaw, the keen blue eyes and silver-streaked golden hair of the musician—but Clothilde was probably the only woman in her court who admired the minstrel's mind as much as his lean body.
I've next to no influence on Mother if she's already made up her mind about something. If she hasn't, she's not likely to ask my opinion on something so important, either. Not when she's made it clear how much she dislikes my habits with women. He knows that; he'd have to be blind, deaf, and three times as stupid as the gooseherd to think otherwise.

No, surely Uwe didn't expect him to do anything to further the minstrel's ambitions with the queen.

But if Mother decides she
does
want to wed this minstrel, her courtiers would certainly have something to say about it!
Uwe was a commoner without a single noble drop of blood in him, not even from the sinister side. Granted, he had some small fame for his talents, and minstrels did have a specious sort of rank, but when it came to marriage with even the lowest-born woman of rank in the court, although the women might think it romantic, the men would not. As for marriage with the queen, every nobly-born male in the court would be outraged, especially the single ones, who could reasonably expect to have the queen turn to one of them for a proper consort, if that was what she wanted.

He has to know that. So maybe what he wants is my support in the face of the disapproval of the rest of the court.
If the crown prince and heir was in favor of the union, it would be a great deal more difficult to oppose it. There would be no one to use as a focal point for factionalization, and no one to back as an alternative ruler in order to force Clothilde to give up the idea or face losing her rank.

That was far more likely, if the situation was that Uwe's influence with the queen had grown to the point that he would dare to press for marriage. Now, if Uwe's influence was
waning,
he might want Siegfried to plead his case with the queen for him, and that, too, made a certain amount of sense. Although Siegfried would have no influence on his mother if she had made up her mind to be rid of the minstrel, he might be able to remind her of Uwe's past services and loyalty, of his usefulness to her. If Uwe feared she was about to cast him off for a younger man, Siegfried could make some subtle jests about the one or two of the older widows of the court who persisted in making themselves ridiculous by setting their caps at bachelor knights who were younger than their own offspring. That would remind the queen that what was laughable behavior in a mere lady would give fodder for cruel gossip and crude jokes as far away as the Emperor's court if
she
indulged in it. Of all the things Clothilde feared, being thought ridiculous was probably one of the worst.

So Siegfried could have a part in turning her attention back to Uwe. Presuming, of course, that Siegfried wanted to do that.

He watched them for quite some time from the side of the Great Hall, wondering if either of his guesses was correct. He couldn't tell. Nothing in either the behavior of the queen or of the minstrel gave him any indication that anything had changed between them. Uwe stood in the ranks of her advisers, all of them positioned near the throne and ready to be called on at need. He was, however, just as clearly the
least
of her advisers, as always; farthest from the throne, and at least today, never called on for his opinion or even looked at for more than a moment.

Siegfried finally sighed and gave it up as a waste of time. Court was enormously boring, and he lacked the patience to sit through very much of it. He slipped out, being careful not to disturb anything or anyone, and retired to the library to join his tutor there.

Wolfgang had acquired a new prize for the palace library, a copy of one of the plays of Aristophanes—
The Wasps
—in the original Greek, rather than the more common Latin translation. He could never have afforded such a rarity on his own, of course, but he was empowered to use the Kingdom Treasury for such acquisitions, provided he kept them within reason. Clothilde enjoyed having scholars come to
her
library to examine or copy manuscripts; it gave her kingdom elevated status as a place of learning and culture. Siegfried was looking forward to many hours of arguing over the nuances of translation, as well as relishing the Greek's cynical brand of humor.
The Wasps
was a new work to him and, as such, added the enjoyment of novelty and the pleasures of discovery.

He found Wolfgang exactly where he expected, at the desk in front of the library's large glass window, frowning ferociously at the manuscript. In his old black gown and flat cap, bent over the manuscript stand on the desk, he could have modeled for an illuminated scholar in any
Book of Hours.
The older man looked up at the sound of the prince's footfall on the inlaid wooden floor, and beckoned Siegfried to his side.

“Hang it all, the monk that made this copy must have been under orders to save parchment, he wrote so small! I can hardly make out the letters!” the tutor complained querulously, his gray eyebrows wriggling in irritation. “What do you make of this phrase? All I can make out is,
Therefore, summon the cheeses,
and that
can't
be right!”

Siegfried looked over Wolfgang's shoulder to see what the old man was pointing to—and as he half thought, it was perfectly legible and nothing like
therefore, summon the cheeses.
The carefully inscribed words were beautifully written in the blackest of ink on snowy parchment, and no smaller than in any other manuscript, but Siegfried had suspected that Wolfgang's eyes had been failing for some time. This was just a confirmation of that suspicion.

He had no intention of saying anything about it, though. He just leaned over, as if he, too, found it difficult to read the manuscript, and finally ventured his opinion on the phrase in question.

I am going to have to get Wolfgang a pair of spectacles,
he decided, though such things were difficult to come by and might be ruinously expensive.
I can probably get him to wear them if I tell him that they make him look like a great University Doctor.
Wolfgang was very susceptible to flattery, and was absolutely certain that he was utterly immune to it.

The two of them wrangled happily over the manuscript for the rest of the morning, and only put it away when hunger drove both of them to join the rest of the household at the midday meal. As Siegfried strolled into the hall, a page ran to his side and whispered that his mother specifically wished him to attend her as soon as he had eaten.

Interesting. Since I haven't done anything she has any reason to be annoyed about—could it be that one of those notions about Uwe were right?
Curiosity heightened his appetite; he ate quickly, but well, and went straight to the queen's chambers, leaving Wolfgang to finish his dinner alone.

Uwe was nowhere in sight when he entered the room Clothilde used for private conversations. She was waiting for him, seated in the carved chair that was so like a throne that the palace servants often referred to it as such. Two of her ladies were with her—their hands full of embroidery work, as usual—and she did not move to dismiss them, so he assumed that whatever she wanted to speak to him about wasn't of a personal nature for either of them.

At her nod, he took a seat, a real chair, and not one of the stools the women used. She watched him for a time, her hands folded in her lap, without saying anything. In his turn, he studied her.

With her hair tucked carefully under a finely embroidered coif and veil, he suspected that there was too much gray in it to hide with herbal washes anymore. On first inspection, her narrow face appeared to be that of a woman no older than twenty, but Siegfried knew what to look for, and noted a few more fine, hair-thin wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and crossing her forehead. Clothilde tried very hard to hold off the ravages of Time, but she was only mortal, and was bound to have limited success.

But her neck was still long and graceful, without the wattles and jowls that some women developed; her skin remained a flawless cream, and she still had the figure of a woman a third of her age. She certainly didn't look old enough to be Siegfried's mother.

“Your birthday takes place in two weeks,” she said abruptly, startling him out of his thoughts. “You attain your majority.” There was an odd quality to her voice, a touch of uncertainty, he thought.

Now, just what am I supposed to say to that?
He settled for nodding, and replying respectfully, “Yes, Majesty.”

She gave him a sharp glance, but didn't seem dissatisfied with the reply. “Have you given any thought to your duty?” she asked him.

This may be the oddest conversation I've had with her in a long time.
“My duty?” he repeated. “Which duty would that be, Lady Mother? I have many duties—”

“The one to wed and produce a proper heir, of course,” she not-quite-snapped, and gave a brittle laugh. “You have certainly been doing enough
practicing
for the occasion, but you are more than of an age to take a proper, legal bride.”

He had a dozen replies he could have made, none of them respectful or sensible, and settled for a bland answer. “Truthfully, my Lady, I had not—”

“Given your father's example, you should,” she interrupted him. “You should do more than take thought about it, you should do something about it, and as quickly as it can be arranged. Two sons in two years are not too many—an heir and a spare, as the saying goes, and the first should come as near to nine months after the wedding as possible.” She'd lost that brittle edge and had fallen into the familiar tones of a lecture. “As it happens, I
have
given thought to the need. I have arranged for a celebration, and I have invited several suitable young women and their guardians to attend, all princesses equal to you, or at least not
greatly
inferior. All have been properly brought up, and I understand from Uwe that they all have at least youthful prettiness. Several are held to be beauties, none are older than twenty or younger than fourteen. I expect you to make a choice of one of them.”

Her tone of voice left no question but that her last sentence was to be taken as an order, but it was what had preceded that sentence that had his attention.

“You're giving me a choice?” he blurted, taken entirely by surprise. That was the very last thing he had ever anticipated; he had always assumed that the queen would choose someone that suited
her,
inform him when the choice had been made, and leave it to him to go through the paces. He didn't entirely expect to even
see
his bride before she showed up at the altar, and perhaps not even then—it was entirely possible he'd be wedded by proxy. He had simply hoped that whoever she chose wouldn't be too terribly impossible—not a breastless child, nor an old hag, not a creature with a face like a cow nor one so fat it took a horse and cart to move her about. “Mother! I—
thank
you!” he continued, amazed, and touched beyond words. “I don't know how to thank you enough!”

She softened, just a little, and her eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “You thought I was going to shackle you to a baby or a beldam, didn't you?” she asked with amusement. “No, child, our kingdom doesn't require that much of a sacrifice; there are enough suitable young women who are both attractive and well-dowered to allow you to choose one that will make a pleasure out of duty. It seemed to me that if you had that choice,
I
stood a reasonable chance of getting that grandson in nine months.” She actually unbent enough to smile slightly. “And if you and your chosen affianced happen to anticipate the wedding, and the grandson arrives in fewer than nine months, well, you are the prince, and no one will point fingers at you.”