The Six Swan Brothers (2 page)

And as she slept, she dreamed. In her dream, six swans flew in through the window and stood around the bed.

Cora cried out: ‘Why are you not the brothers that I love? Where, where are they?'

‘We are here,' said a voice, and Cora thought the voice was speaking in her head, and opened her eyes at once, for surely that was her dear brother speaking? It was then that she saw them all, standing around her in their glorious human shape, gazing down and smiling.

‘There is no time for joy,' said one. ‘We are allowed to return to our human forms for a few minutes only, every evening, and after that we are swans again.'

‘Is there nothing I can do?' Cora wept. ‘I would do anything … anything in the world to break the spell.'

‘What you would have to do,' said her youngest brother, ‘is too much.'

‘Nothing is too much,' she said. ‘Tell me.'

‘You must weave six shirts from starwort and river reeds,' he said. ‘One for each of us.'

‘I will do it,' Cora said. ‘I will walk beside the rivers and the lakes and I will do it. It will take time, but in the end you will be men again.

‘But,' said her eldest brother, ‘you must not speak a single word nor make a single sound until the starwort shirts are on our backs, or the spell will never be broken in this lifetime.'

‘Not a sound?' Cora felt her heart like a knot of hard wood in her breast.

‘Not the smallest sound in the world,' he answered, ‘or we will be swans for ever.'

‘It will be hard,' she said, ‘but I can do it.'

They nodded and went to the door of the hut. The sun's last rays slanted in through the window and then there was a storm of snowy feathers and Cora saw the swans rising into the mauve twilight and growing smaller and smaller as
their
wide wings bore them away.

She started her work the very next day, and for many weeks all she did was wander beside rivers and streams and little brooks, picking starwort and the stoutest reeds that she could find, preparing herself for the weaving she would have to do. She took shelter under trees and in caves and hollows, and the rain fell on her and the sun burned her, and all the words she was forbidden to speak buzzed in her head and fixed themselves into rhymes which she said over silently to herself without the smallest breath of sound passing her lips. This is the song that Cora sang in her heart as she worked:

‘River reed and starwort stem

cut and dry and weave and hem

twist and stitch and pull and bind

let white silence fill my mind

gather plant and gather stalk

stifle laughter stifle talk

sew and fold by candlelight

all the hours of every night

like a statue let me be

till my brothers are set free

freeze my words before they're spoken

let the evil spell be broken

river reed and starwort stem

cut and dry and weave and hem
.'

The weeks passed and the months and the making was slow and hard. At first, Cora's fingers bled from working the sharp grasses but, after a while, she grew used to the weaving and at the end of the year, when the snow began to
fall
, she had finished one shirt, and she folded it carefully and put it into her basket.

One day, when Cora was sitting in the lowest branches of a tree, a Prince came riding by on a fine white horse, and his courtiers came with him.

‘Look, Your Highness,' one said. ‘There's a young woman in this tree. Shall we pull her down?'

‘Leave her,' the Prince said. ‘I will speak to her and ask her kindly to step down.'

Cora did step down when he spoke to her, but not one single word did she utter in answer to his questions.

‘She cannot speak,' the Prince said to his men.
‘She
is mute.'

To Cora he said: ‘I will take you back to my castle and you shall be dressed in the finest gowns and I will hang necklaces of silver round your white throat, for you are the bride I have been seeking.'

And so she went with him. She married him and lived in a castle and her days were easier. Still, she did not make a sound, and still she had to wander the country round about, searching for river reeds and starwort stems.

By day, Cora worked at her loom, and by night she slept in a soft bed next to the husband she had grown to love. She would have been happy, but for the Old Queen, her mother-in-law. Always, she felt her presence, as if she were a black spider hanging in its web in a shadowy corner of the room. The Old Queen's hatred touched Cora like a breath of cold air. She spoke openly to the Prince, saying: ‘You are a fool, my son.
Cora
is no mute, but an evil enchantress. See how her eyes widen! She knows I can smell secrets all over her. Oh, she is not what she appears!'

‘Hush, Mother,' the Prince would answer. ‘One more wicked word and I will banish you for ever.'

The Old Queen smiled, and soon her dark words were for Cora's ears only, and she was careful, very careful, to say nothing when her son was nearby.

The months passed. Cora continued to weave, and soon two shirts were finished. She put them into a cedar-wood chest, folding them carefully so that the prickly stems did not break, and then she set to work on the next garment. And after a time, her first child was born. During the birth,
she
could not cry out when the pains gripped her, but she was glad to be suffering, for soon, she knew, her own baby would be there, nestled close to her breast.

As soon as the child was born, the Old Queen appeared at the side of the bed. She picked up the baby.

‘I will wash him,' she said to Cora, ‘and return him to you.'

So Cora slept, and when she woke, her arms were empty. She looked into the cradle and that was empty, too. The Prince and his mother stood by the bed, and the Prince was weeping bitterly.

‘She has devoured her own baby!' the Old Queen shrieked. ‘Look at her mouth! Her mouth is full of blood! Throw her to the wolves in the forest!'

Cora shook her head from side to side, and threw herself from the bed, and clung to the Prince's knees, but she did not speak.

‘No,' said the Prince, and he lifted her up. ‘I will not believe that you have done such a thing. I know you are innocent. And you, Mother, will never speak such poisoned words ever again, on pain of banishment.'

Cora wept and wept. She wandered through the long corridors of the castle like a madwoman, peering behind every curtain, and listening for the faintest sound of a crying child. The Old Queen watched her. She was the one who had smeared Cora's mouth with lamb's blood. She had stolen the baby and sent it far away to be cared for by one of her own maids in a cottage beyond the mountain, but no one in the palace knew this secret.

Two years went by. Cora continued to weave the stiff stems of the starwort plants into a garment, and there were three finished shirts folded into the cedar-wood chest in her bedchamber. Then, in the spring of her third year of marriage, she was once more expecting the birth of a baby. Cora felt the Old Queen watching her as she grew large; felt an icy wickedness reaching out to her, wherever she went.

When Cora's second child was born, the Old Queen stayed far away, and instead allowed the servants to attend her daughter-in-law. One of them came to her after the child was born, and gave her a glass of cool water to drink, but this woman was the Old Queen's creature, and did her bidding at all times. She had put a sleeping draught into the cup and before long, Cora's eyes closed and she slept.

When she woke up, the baby had disappeared, and the blood was caked and dry in the corners
of
her mouth. Once again, the Old Queen shrieked terrible accusations at her son, and once again his wife lay silent and turned her face to the wall. The weeping Prince stood at the foot of the bed and refused to believe his mother. And Cora once again became like a madwoman, fretting and weeping and roaming the dark corridors in absolute silence.

After five years, five shirts were ready, and lay carefully folded in the cedar-wood chest. Cora began to dream of the day when the spell that bound her brothers would be broken for ever. Then she found that she was pregnant again and her heart was full of fear. Still, she did not stop weaving the dry stems of river reeds and the
green
starwort stalks, either by day or by night.

On the day that her third child was born, the sixth shirt was complete but for the left sleeve. When my baby is here, Cora told herself, I will finish it and all will be well for ever.