The Swan Kingdom (8 page)

“They don’t use a bit of wood and daub, this lot,” John said knowledgeably. “Nor thatching neither. Not even for cattle sheds. I call it unnatural, though this city were thought very pretty in its day. They called it the City of Flowers once. But our road don’t lay down there. We’re heading east now – for the coast.”

He turned the trap from the wide paved path onto a smaller track of beaten dirt. My eyes stayed on the city until it disappeared from sight.

We followed the winding path onto the moors, moving slowly downhill now. On our fourth day in Midland, the air changed, slowly becoming sharp with a strange salty tang. I inhaled deeply, trying to think why it smelled so familiar.

“That be the sea, Lady,” John said, noticing my intent expression.

I took another deep breath. I
had
smelled it before, I realized – in the darkness of my drugged sleep. But why had that scent come to me then?

Our path began to ascend again, the wild sharp smell growing stronger; and as we topped a rise, the sea came into view on the horizon. Its great grey-green waves roiled and crashed against the rocks below. I leaned as far as I could over the side of the trap, my hair blowing violently in the wind as I watched water fling itself up and turn silver on the cliffs.

“Careful there!” shouted John above the boom and roar. The trap lurched on the uneven path. “You could fall!”

Reluctantly I eased back, but the savage gales still whipped my cheeks and hair. Too soon the path veered away again, and the sea sank out of view. I sighed. I had never seen anything that looked so much like the currents of enaid that ebbed through the land.

As the sun began to fall down behind the horizon, we rounded a bluff; and there, like a rocky fist thrust out of the land, was my aunt’s house.

It was a hulking three-storey structure, hewn from dark stone, its windows shining in the dying sunlight. The iron-braced door stood several feet taller than a man. At the house’s side an enormous dead tree, twisted by the sea winds into a tortured S, tangled its bony white branches with the sky. Not a bird sang; not an animal stirred. The only noise was the susurration of the hidden sea.

John drew the trap to a halt and climbed down, coming round to help me out. My feet touched the ground, but I clutched his hand when he tried to withdraw it. “John – you will stay a little, won’t you?” I asked. “You won’t just leave?”

“You won’t miss me, Lady, once you’ve settled. You have family here. They’ll look after you.”

I stared at the house, unhappily aware that I
would
miss him. I was a stranger in this land, with its wild beauty and sad, tired enaid. He was my last link to my old life, and I did not want to be alone. Then I reminded myself that my brothers were searching for me and they would surely come for me soon. I wasn’t alone. I released John’s hand and straightened my shoulders.

He smiled reassuringly at me, then went to the door and knocked smartly. After a long moment it swung open to reveal a girl – a few years older than I – dressed in a severe black gown.

“Yes?” she said, face blank.

“Lady Eirian’s niece, the Lady Alexandra, has arrived,” he said grandly.

The girl cast a doubtful look at me, then looked back at John. “Wait here, please.” She shut the door gently in John’s face.

I blinked. This was not hospitality as I knew it.

After a few minutes the door reopened.

“Her ladyship will see her niece in the small parlour,” the maid said tonelessly. “Please take your … conveyance to the rear of the building. The footmen will help you unload it.”

She stepped back, gesturing for me to precede her. John gave me a nod and an encouraging look. I straightened my back once again and stepped through the door.

The vestibule beyond was dark and narrow, the walls lined with polished wood tables and chests that held dozens of ornaments. Little pottery figurines, vases, glass balls, candlesticks – what light there was gleamed dully on these trinkets as if their purpose was to capture and soak it up. My steps were muffled by a thick, dark red carpet. I moved tentatively, my greatest impression that of stillness. If I screamed or jumped up and down and stamped my feet, would the stillness absorb the noise, so that all anyone would hear would be a faint whirring, like a trapped butterfly’s wings?

The corridor ahead branched into three. The maid stepped past me with a quick bob and went to the left-hand branch, opening the first door we came to. I walked into the room she had revealed.

I noticed first the tall thin windows, reaching up to the ceiling. They were swathed with dark curtains so the only light that could penetrate was an eye-smarting hard white line which seemed to go no further than the well of the window itself. The rest of the room was draped in cobwebby shadow that lay over the dim shapes of massive furniture like a physical thing. It was a moment before I even saw the woman in the throne-like chair at the centre of the room. I could make out no more than the hint of finely worked lace at her throat.

I stepped forward hesitantly. The woman lifted her head and I saw her face for the first time. It was all I could do to contain a gasp.

I knew from my mother’s rare mentions of her sister that Eirian had been only two years older. The woman staring at me looked at least two decades older than my mother. Her face was gaunt, marked with deep lines at her eyes and mouth; her lips were a thin, pale line. Her hair was the same red-gold that I knew, softly pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck, but it was streaked with great bands of white at the temples. Most startling of all to me were her eyes. Instead of the compelling leaf green I had unconsciously expected, they were a pale icy blue – the same colour, I realized with a jolt, as Hugh’s. The woman had a startling beauty, but it was like that of the dead tree outside, bleached white and tinged with sorrow.

She looked at me silently; the only change in her expression was the quirk of one fine, beautifully arched brow. Plucked, I thought. Mother’s had been straight like mine.

Then she spoke, and it was my mother’s voice, exactly as I had last heard it. “So … you are my sister’s daughter.” She squinted at me, sending deep lines arrowing up to her forehead. “Disappointing. I expected more. Your features lack fineness. Your figure has no elegance. And your hair… You obviously take after your father.”

My teeth snapped together at her rudeness.

“Come closer,” she commanded.

I ground my teeth as I obeyed, shocked and angry. How could this woman be my mother’s sister? Yet she was. It was undeniable.

She reached out one hand – an ugly, stubby-fingered hand – and grasped my chin. The skin of her fingers was soft and well cared for against my face as she ran her gaze over me. Perhaps she meant to cow me with her disparaging look, but I was too angry to moderate my stare. I met her eyes with the full force of my outrage. She flinched, a tiny sound escaping her. Her hand fell away from me and she covered her face with it, shrinking back into the depths of the seat. Suddenly she seemed small and frail. I was stunned by the strength of her reaction and just starting to feel ashamed of myself, when she spoke again.

“You certainly have her eyes.” Her voice was steady, though she continued to hide behind her hand. “More importantly, you have her wildness. I can see it in you. If you try to follow her path, you will have the same end as her – an unfortunate one.”

There was a short silence, broken only by the sound of my rapid, angry breaths. How dare this withered, dried-up old woman talk about my mother so? I dared not speak. I was frightened of what I might say.

“While you are in my home,” she continued, “you will behave properly, as a young lady should. If I see any signs of your mother’s temperament, I will know how to act. You may go now; Anne will take you to your room.”

I turned and stalked out. Anne quickly closed the door behind me, and then waited in silence as I stood, shaking with anger and trying to gather my calm again. After a moment, I nodded at her, and she led me back along the corridor to another door, which she opened for me. I went past her into the room. It was small but scrupulously clean, and filled with dark, looming furniture. The mantel and fireplace were tiny and unlit. The bed I did recognize, but it was strange to me – carved of wood and perched on legs, rather than sunken into the floor like the ones at the Hall. Surely you would fall off in the night?

As these thoughts trickled through my mind, the larger part of my attention was fixed on the small glassed window opposite me. It looked out over a large square of closely trimmed yellowing grass, edged with sad rose bushes that were all thorn and no flower. Beyond was a pale, tussocky hump of land with what looked like a deer trail leading over it. The way to the sea? I fumbled with the unfamiliar latch, trying to open the window and let the air in.

“’Tis no use, Lady,” Anne said quietly from behind me. “The mistress had it nailed up.”

I turned to stare at her. “Why?”

Her gaze did not lift from her toes. “I couldn’t say, Lady.” She wrung her hands. Suddenly I heard what she could not say. It had been shut up to keep me in. That realization was the final straw. Overwhelmed by weariness, I sat down on the strange bed with a bump and put my head in my hands. What was I doing here?

I had forgotten that Anne was in the room until a hand came to rest tentatively on my shoulder. “There now, Lady,” she whispered. “Don’t take on so.”

I raised my head to look at her, and saw kindness – perhaps even pity – in her eyes.

“She doesn’t even know me,”

I whispered back. “Why should she hate me so?”

“She doesn’t. Don’t think that, Lady. The mistress is, well … difficult.”

The moment the words left her mouth I could tell she regretted them. Looking shocked at herself, she straightened and removed her hand.

“I … Mistress said you should have your supper in here, Lady. I’ll bring it to you in a few minutes, then I’ll draw your bath and unpack for you.” She bobbed a quick curtsy, and hurried out of the room.

I put my head back in my hands. As I sat there in the faded bluish light, I realized that I had said not a word during my interview with my aunt. I’d let her silence me, just as my father always had. Why could I never speak up for myself?

Please come for me soon, I begged my brothers silently. Robin, David, Hugh…please come soon.

Supper was a plain affair. I was offered something called tea – bitter brown liquid that I could not stomach. I drank milk instead, but found it watery. There was a flan, a round pastry base filled with egg, onion, tomatoes and mushrooms, and there were boiled potatoes with butter. I refused the cooked chicken and ate instead the mashed-up mixture of carrot and swede with more butter. I finished with a strange pudding, which mostly consisted of bread soaked in milk, though there seemed to be some fruit in it too. I was puzzled by the lack of flavour in everything I ate. Even the tomatoes, usually a favourite of mine, were almost tasteless. I was offered salt – a rare delicacy at home – but I found that once I sprinkled it on the food, it was all I could taste.

The bath, at least, was a comfort. My mother had made Father purchase copper bathing tubs from Midland when I was very young, so the gleaming metal bath that was placed before the now blazing fire was familiar and welcome.

By the time I emerged, pink with scrubbing and the heat, I was so sleepy that it was all I could do to keep my eyes open as the maid towelled my hair dry. Before the footmen came to take the bath away from the hearth, I had fallen into bed and into sleep.

As far back as I could remember, the tides of enaid had filled my dreams. I felt them wash and ebb in a way that was more than hearing or seeing; they rippled through my own veins, or perhaps carried me with them like a leaf swept along with the rush of a river. They had lulled me to sleep from the cradle.

During that first night at my aunt’s house, they were not enough. The weak whispering of magic in this country was too fraint to drown out the unfamiliar noises of the house settling around me. I woke in the darkness, and could not find sleep again. I had dreamed of those pale things that had flown through my tortured mind the night my brothers and I crept into Zella’s room. They were the rare great white swans, I realized, mute swans. Their shadows had passed over me in my dream, and I had looked up to see them, their wings rippling and spreading across the sky like clouds, their wing beats like thunder.

Gradually, as sleep faded, I became aware that the thundering noise was not all in my dream. It was the sound of the sea. It seemed to roar against the closed window. Surely it had not been so loud before. Maybe the tide of water was coming in, just as the tides of magic had done at home. The thought of home made me clench my eyes shut. I would see my home again. I just had to wait.

I flung the sheets back and climbed out of the detestable bed to go to the window. I laid my hands on the wooden sill and felt through it with my mind for the metal nails. They would have to come out.

I had harboured a secret fear that in this magic-starved land my skills might not work, but it was as easy as ever to call on them. I let my awareness trickle down through my feet into the earth and out through my hands into the air. There was a surprisingly strong surge of power in response, and I used it to ask the wood to expel the intrusion of metal from its body. The sill contracted and wriggled slightly under my touch, like a sleeping cat woken with a stroke to its back, and then the nails fell to the floor with a quiet plink. I pushed the window open.

Clean, tangy air rushed in as though it had been clamouring to enter. I looked out. The darkness was no problem to me – I had always had cat’s eyes – and I looked at the hump of land with its intriguing path, and the thin golden moon embedded in the sky above. I hitched up the trailing skirt of my nightgown and sat on the sill, then slipped over it and down to the ground.

Beneath my feet the grass was so short that it felt like moss, cool and soft. My toes curled into it as I turned to look up at the shadowy house towering behind me, and thanked the Ancestors that I had been given a room on the ground floor. Above, the sky was dotted with frosty points of light – the same stars I had always known. I was not so far from home.