The Black Swan Read online

  Nevertheless, she had laid enough carefully prepared groundwork to have a number of options. A contrived accident, however, she dismissed out of hand. This close to the fatal day, it would be very suspicious. Siegfried is not as foolish as his father, but at least I have seen to it that he is ill-prepared to rule.

  It had been simple enough to beguile the intelligent child with scholarly tutors, to distract him with books and learning, to immerse him in Greek and Latin to the exclusion of those skills a ruler required. Romances and minstrelsy proved another distraction; he was an indifferent poet, but she had encouraged that pursuit to the exclusion of more practical matters. In fact, she had so petted and praised his scholastic efforts that he was inclined to trot them out like prize horses whenever the occasion warranted, and often when it didn't. That offended the sensibilities of her plain and illiterate nobles, who considered learning to be a foolish waste of time at best, and effete at worst.

  When his physical energy demanded an outlet, hoping for heedless risks to life and limb, she encouraged him in the same pursuits that had put his father's life at hazard, then heaped fond praise on him to inflate his pride. Horse, hawk, and hound were his passions, shared with his best friends; he played at jousting and bested even hardened warriors. His love of lore might be considered effete, but no one could accuse his mother of coddling him and shielding him from manly pursuits. And none of this was of the least practical use.

  He was an outstanding horseman, a fearless rider willing to take any jump and ride any beast—but he knew nothing of strategy or war tactics beyond the little he had learned from his books. He was a masterly scholar, and had managed to annoy every unschooled noble in his service at one point or another by trotting out his superior intellect and knowledge on every possible occasion. An outstanding jouster, he offended seasoned warriors by considering their experience to be the self-aggrandizing bluster of men whose time had come and gone. He could defeat almost anyone in single combat, but if he ever had to fight in a real pitched battle, he would probably be pulled from his horse and killed by a swarm of peasants with pikes before he knew what had happened—and he was so utterly self-confident that he dismissed any advice as the pessimism of old men. He knew how to command, but not how to rule; how to flatter a woman, but not his knights and ministers; how to bend a horse to his will, but not a man. The maidens of the court adored him, as did the heedless young men, but the older men, the ones who held the power, were not so blinded by his personality and overall good nature. Only tradition would make them insist on crowning Prince Siegfried as their king—but they held so stubbornly to tradition that it would be easier to persuade the trees of the forest to walk than it would be to persuade them to pass him over in favor of his mother.

  Why must men be such utter idiots?

  She had hoped, after all these years of successful rule, they might have been willing to retain the status quo—but Heinrich's words today had made it clear that the old men would follow tradition over common sense. Women could and would only be regents, keeping thrones faithfully in trust for their sons, and handing them over without a murmur the moment the little fools reached the magic age of eighteen.

  Indeed.

  Well, if they would insist on tradition over good sense, she would have to take another path—and something the minister had said suggested the tactics she might take.

  Siegfried was romantic, susceptible to women, and had no sense at all where a lovely face was concerned. His tutor had encouraged him in his fantasies, filling him with tales of knights and their chaste ladies, of love from afar, of endless quests undertaken for the sake of a pair of enchanting eyes. He was a ripe fruit ready to fall into the white hands of the first maiden who was clever enough to appeal to his notions of romance and chivalry.

  Or into the hands of the first maiden who is coached to appeal to those notions. Yes! Yes, this is what I have been searching for! She nodded, lowering her lids over her eyes in satisfaction. That was the way of handling this situation; she needed to find an empty-headed beauty of sufficient rank to qualify as his bride, one she could manipulate into keeping him busy and distracted as he tried to live up to the image of all those ballads-

  Owe who can persuade him into some impossible quest, perhaps, to prove his love for her? One who will encourage him to enter every tournament possible to honor her?

  A possible goal, but not one she could count on. No, better to simply provide him with a foolish little toy to occupy his attention, while his mother took the burdens and difficulties of rule into her own conscientious hands. Even the old traditionalists would be content with the situation, so long as they had a king in name again.

  I can call myself the First Minister, or some such thing. And whenever he shows any interest in ruling, I shall present him with all the tedious mundane matters—then coach his wife into some crisis or other to distract him. Her right hand closed unconsciously over her left, covering the signet ring as if to keep it from being wrested from her. Or—if she is delicate, her first pregnancy may well kill her, and he will be plunged into inconsolable mourning for as long as I need to keep him there. There were many possibilities branching from this path—enough to satisfy even her ambition.

  Her success would depend on finding the right girl, though. Her plans would fall apart if Siegfried's bride could not be properly manipulated. She could not go hunting such girls herself; for this, she needed help. Fortunately, that help was close at hand.

  She summoned one of her ladies from the outer room where they sat over their embroidery and sewing. "Bring me Uwe, the minstrel," she ordered. "I have a headache."

  The lady bowed and silently left the room. In a reasonable time, Uwe appeared, bearing his lute, with an expression as calculatedly bland as Clothilde's own.

  Uwe owed everything to Clothilde: prosperity, fame, and above all, security in his position. That, for a minstrel, was above price, for he knew that even if he became ill or old and useless, he would retain all he had now. He was, gratifyingly enough, one of those who knew how to gracefully acknowledge his debts without being disgustingly servile. In public, he showed the same face as every other minstrel—a sort of poetic arrogance, a barely veiled scorn for all those who could be made or broken by a carefully worded song. In private, he was wholly and completely Clothilde's creature.

  He sat down on a stool conveniently near Clothilde's chair and began to play, but not to sing. That was for the benefit of her ladies in the outer chamber, for the sound of his playing would cover their quiet conversation.

  "I have a task for you, one that will entail some traveling," she said softly, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes, in order to better feign the headache she had claimed.

  "That presents no problem," he replied, just as softly. "Command me."

  She saw no reason to hedge her words. "Siegfried should be wed as soon as possible. I need you to find suitable candidates—of proper rank, with beauty enough to dazzle him, fragile and charming, utterly brainless, and possessing wills of butter. But above all, they must be maidens who will be more than happy to be advised and counseled—ruled, in fact—on all things by their so-considerate mother-in-law."

  He chuckled, a sound that he covered with a particularly intricate fingering passage. "To be presented at the prince's coming- of-age celebration? An excellent and most thoughtful plan; surely he will fall helplessly in romantic love with at least one. Siegfried should be proud to have a mother so considerate of his welfare. How many?"

  "Four, I think. I will provide you with invitations to present to the parents, once you make your selection." She curved her lips into a faint smile; it was so gratifying to have one person clever enough to understand what she required without having to be given every little detail. "I leave the rest in your hands."

  "I live to do your will," he responded, as she had known he would. "Is your headache better?"

  "Entirely cured." She extended her hand to him. He kissed it, then rose and took his leav
e.

  She watched him go with detached admiration. In her younger days, when he had first appeared at her court and caught her attention, she had enjoyed a brief affair with him. She had done so in order to have yet another hold over him, but had found it remarkably pleasurable on many levels. Pillow talk with Uwe had been instructive, and had contributed to her early success in winning over her nobles.

  She had been quick to notice when he tired of her, as she had known he would—and perhaps it had cemented his loyalty when she had let him go, indeed, had directed his attention to one of her ladies, and arranged for that lady's husband to be elsewhere at opportune times for Uwe. That had been only the first of many such arrangements on her part, showing him that although she was a woman, she was not prey to the weaknesses of women; she had even presented him with an attractive and obedient servant—female, of course—so that he was relieved of the need to charm before he satisfied himself. From time to time after their initial affair had concluded, she had welcomed him again into her bed, secretly of course, and he had been as satisfactory there as elsewhere.

  She roused herself from her reverie; there were things to be done. With great care for the drape of her gown, she rose from her chair and entered the outer chamber. With a gesture, she summoned her ladies from their own handiwork, gathered them around her and left her chambers, descending from the Royal Tower by the worn stone staircase to the Great Hall.

  As she entered, the assembled courtiers bowed and curtsied, and she paused on the threshold, hand cupped once again over her ring.

  The Great Hall's lofty ceiling, lost in the shadows, boasted no captured battle banners hanging from the crossbeams. That was an innovation on Clothilde's part; displayed bravely above the heads of her courtiers were banners portraying the arms of everyone of any note in the Court. The most important hung closest to the throne, of course, but everyone who boasted a title and arms, even if it was no higher than esquire, could look up and see his arms on display there.

  It flattered everyone without obviously being flattery, and everyone who looked up remembered that it was Clothilde who had put their arms in the Great Hall, replacing the trophies of past kings.

  The battle flags now decked the formerly bare walls of the garrison hall. This also flattered Clothilde's soldiers, because she had told them that the battle flags should be in the custody of those who were truly responsible for capturing them in the first place.

  Whitewashed plaster coated the stone walls of the Great Hall, keeping out drafts and insulating the room from the damp that came with walls of stone. False columns painted on the plaster, with false walls and statuary painted between, made the room look larger than it was, and a gallery painted above the columns held the likenesses of the knights and ladies of Arthur's fabled Round Table looking down on the courtiers of Clothilde's court. In her husband's time, there had been no gallery above the painted columns, and the columns themselves barely stood out against the cracked plaster, stained with decades of smoke and soot.

  Like the Great Hall, Clothilde's male courtiers had changed since her husband's time; no longer did they appear in garments worn, shabby, or stained. Even the oldest and most recalcitrant had been coerced into well-made, cleanly court-garb by wives, sisters, and mothers.

  Perhaps they did not care before because the Hall was too dark for anyone to see what disgraceful state their men appeared in. A good proportion of men, as she well knew, did not care what they wore, nor how stained and disreputable it was, so long as they did not freeze or bake.

  She paced gravely up the middle of the Great Hall, as her courtiers moved respectfully aside for her. Reaching the dais, she took the three steps in the same grave manner, then turned, bowed her head in acknowledgment, and took her seat on the throne.

  Her herald stepped up to the front of the dais, knocked his staff three times on the floor to signify that court was in session, and the first of the day's audience seekers presented himself as his name was called.

  Clothilde clasped her hands together in her lap and sat with the perfect stillness of one of the painted figures above, listening with an expression containing equal parts of gravity, attention, and concern.

  Siegfried was nowhere to be seen, of course. Court bored him, for Clothilde had seen to it that he only knew the most tedious aspects.

  As she sent one petitioner away satisfied, and prepared to welcome a wealthy trader, she considered her court, her court, the court that she had made out of the dribs and drabs her husband had ruled. Her resolve hardened.

  She would never tamely hand what was hers by right over to her fool of a son. Never.

  Her hand covered that emblem of her power, her signet ring, and it warmed until it felt alive. Siegfried would not have that power; she vowed it more fervently and with more feeling than she had made her wedding pledge.

  And if all her plans failed, if there was no other way to keep the power of the throne in her hands—it was still possible for deliverance to come in the form of a so-tragic accident.

  "HAH, Dorian, you'll never disarm me that way!" Siegfried taunted his opponent as he countered a clumsy attempt to knock his sword from his hand. Sweat poured down his back and neck, and he had a bit of a headache from squinting through the slit in his helm, but he wasn't even breathing hard. This little exercise was just enough to get him warmed up, and he was enjoying himself to the hilt. He replied to the move Dorian had attempted with an expert version of the same blow. As his sword hit solidly, the vibration of the strike ran up his arm until he felt it in his shoulder, calling up a momentary ache—but at that point, it was no matter. Dorian's blade went flying, and the young man swore, shaking numb fingers as he backed out of the way of Siegfried's blade.

  "Dammit, Siegfried, can't you disarm a fellow without taking the use of his hand?" Dorian shoved up the visor of his helm with his uninjured left, and glared at the victor. Siegfried laughed and doffed his helm altogether, casting it carelessly into the hands of his squire who caught it expertly and set it aside for cleaning.

  "I warned you that you were no match for me," Siegfried responded, still laughing, as he handed his sword to his second squire. He walked toward Dorian, pulling off his gauntlets as he did. "I warned you, but you insisted on trying my paces. Just because you've gone off to the Emperor's court and learned a trick or two doesn't mean you can come back and give me a drubbing."

  "Yes, well, now I am well and truly defeated, and won't be able to close my fingers for the next hour, and I hope you're satisfied," Dorian said sourly, a scowl turning his handsome, fair face into a mask of irritation. His own squire hurried to his side and pulled off the gauntlet on the injured hand.

  "Don't sulk, Dorian, you look like a thundercloud," admonished Siegfried's best friend Benno, slapping the defeated knight on the back as the maidens who'd gathered to watch the contest giggled behind their hands. "Here we've got the prettiest ladies of the court come to welcome you back and cheer you on, and you're going to frighten them away with your black looks!"

  Dorian cast an involuntary glance at the colorful little knot of girls in their delicate linen gowns and embroidered surcoats, braided hair coiled neatly under light veils, and managed to smooth his expression into something more acceptable. "All the same, Siegfried, it's damned hard, coming back after all this time to have you trounce me first thing without even having to catch your breath!" the knight complained, with less heat. "Don't you think you could at least have let me win just this once, as a courtesy to somebody you hadn't seen in three years?"

  "Siegfried doesn't hold back for anyone, not even me," Benno broke in playfully, before Siegfried could say the same thing. Siegfried raised an eyebrow at him, but added nothing to that; after all, it was true. "Once his blood gets stirred up, he just forgets everything but fighting. If you ask me, there's a bit of the berserker in our Prince."

  "Er, well, you're probably right," Dorian grumbled, but he seemed mollified. Siegfried snorted, but kept his thoughts to himself. He hasn't
changed, not in three years. Still can't admit it when he's beaten, and expects a man to hold back for him. Holding back doesn't serve any purpose even in practice, and doing less than your best isn't honorable. Just because Dorian had some high-placed relative in the Emperor's Court he seemed to think he had the right to special privileges here. Hah! If that relative is all that close and highly placed, what's he doing back here, then? He's nothing more than another hanger-on, that's clear, or Dorian would be in the Emperor's personal train of knights by now.

  Siegfried did feel a twinge of envy, though; Dorian had all the luck! Three years at the greatest court in Europe, and the mere thought of all the opportunities for adventure that must have been given him made Siegfried want to gnash his teeth. If I’d been allowed to go—I surely wouldn't have come back here! By now I'd have won a hundred tournaments, and I'd have all that ransom and armor to prove it. I'd be the Emperor's Champion, or else I'd have gone on a quest to rescue a kidnapped lady, or maybe I'd have killed a dragon. The fact that Dorian had accomplished nothing of the sort only made Siegfried more certain that he would have covered himself in glory.

  There was no reason to tell Dorian that, however; he must feel badly enough, going home without anything more than his knighthood to his name, not even a single tournament laurel to decorate the crest of his helm.

  "Why don't you come on the hunt this afternoon with Benno and me?" Siegfried asked instead, as the squires unlaced his mail shirt. Dorian shook his head.