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Authors: Mercedes Lackey

The Black Swan

BOOK: The Black Swan
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Table of Contents
 
NOVELS BY
MERCEDES LACKEY
available from DAW Books:
THE HERALDS OF
VALDEMAR
ARROWS OF THE QUEEN
ARROW'S FLIGHT
ARROW'S FALL
 
THE LAST HERALD-MAGE
MAGIC'S PAWN
MAGIC'S PROMISE
MAGIC'S PRICE
 
THE MAGE WINDS
WINDS OF FATE
WINDS OF CHANGE
WINDS OF FURY
 
THE MAGE STORMS
STORM WARNING
STORM RISING
STORM BREAKING
 
KEROWYN'S TALE
BY THE SWORD
 
VOWS AND HONOR
THE OATHBOUND
OATHBREAKERS
OATHBLOOD
 
BRIGHTLY BURNING
 
THE BLACK SWAN
 
PHOENIX AND ASHES*
THE GATES OF SLEEP*
THE SERPENT'S SHADOW*
 
DARKOVER NOVEL
(with Marion Zimmer
Bradley)
REDISCOVERY
 
Written with
LARRY
DIXON:
 
THE MAGE WARS
THE BLACK GRYPHON
THE WHITE GRYPHON
THE SILVER GRYPHON
 
OWLFLIGHT
OWLSIGHT
OWLKNIGHT
 
 
 
*Forthcoming in hardcover from DAW Books
Copyright © 1999 by Mercedes R. Lackey.
All rights reserved.
 
eISBN : 978-1-101-11906-8
 
For color prints of Jody Lee's paintings, please contact:
The Cerridwen Enterprise
P.O. Box 10161
Kansas City, MO 64111
1-800-825-1281
 
Frontispiece by Larry Dixon
 
DAW Book Collectors No. 1120
 
 
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
 
 
 
 
First Printing, May 2000
 
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S PAT. OFF AND FOREIN COUNTRIES
–MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.
 
S.A.

http://us.penguingroup.com

Dedicated to all those who have ever dreamed of becoming a swan
CHAPTER ONE
T
HE newest girl had finally cried herself into ex haustion at last and slept, her tear-streaked face half hidden in her disordered hair, head cradled in the silken folds of Jeanette's midnight-colored skirt. Moonlight flattered her; if it had been the pitiless light of the sun that bathed her features, they would have been blotched red and altogether unattractive with three nights of hysterical weeping. The silvery light of the moon was more forgiving; it hid the red in her swollen eyes and cheeks, and turned the tears lingering on her lashes into drops of crystal. She looked pitiable, with a tragic, frail beauty that would have softened the heart of anyone but her captor, von Rothbart. His will was proof against any mere woman.
It had certainly taken this wench long enough to reconcile herself to her situation. Odile would have liked to sigh with vexed impatience, but her father's training held firm, and she schooled her features into marble impassivity, keeping her gaze fixed at a vague point somewhere out on the moonlit lake. A cool zephyr touched the water, dissolving the reflected moon into dancing ripples.
From the water's verge, a close-clipped lawn rose in a gentle incline toward her, punctuated with mathematically designed flower beds, perfectly shaped trees, and topiary bushes. Despite the beauty and tranquillity of the manicured park land surrounding von Rothbart's dwelling, Odile would rather have been inside the manor, but her father's orders kept her here, watching carefully over the new one, to make certain she did herself no harm. One never knew; suicide was a mortal sin, but the fear of sin might not stop her.
Three nights of steady weeping, three days of disconsolate drooping in the shadows of the great willow, ignoring food, company, comfort—I can't ever recall anyone but Odette taking that long to resign herself to her situation. After all, her position is hardly a tragedy—and she has only herself to blame for her captivity.
The soft twitter of very young voices reminded her that some of the maids probably
preferred
their new life to their old. Odile couldn't see the youngest members of her father's flock, but she knew where they were; off in the shelter of the rose arbor to her left, weaving moonflowers into crowns or making dolls out of blossoms. Elke, Ilse, Lisbet, and Sofie were very happy as they were, and why shouldn't they be? They'd been grubby little peasant girls before they'd come into von Rothbart's flock.
Here
, instead of coarse shifts of linen and rough-woven skirts of wool, they had soft silk gowns that never grew shabby or dirty. Instead of toiling from dawn to dark in the hard labor of a peasant hut, mucking about in pigsties and cow byres, they were waited upon by Eric von Rothbart's invisible servants, their own duties only to wait in their turn upon Odette and Odile. Such service was a light burden; Odette required little of her handmaidens but company, and as often as not, she didn't even require that. As for Odile, she much preferred to do without their service and company altogether; their company was deathly boring, and the invisibles were far more satisfactory servants.
Tonight, for instance, distressed by the new one's ceaseless caterwauling, Odette had retreated to the island in the middle of the lake before the change came upon them all. There she was, still as a white marble statue, as still as Odile herself, seated with folded hands in the shelter of the tiny “temple” in Greek mode that von Rothbart's fancy had placed there. The pitched white roof and white columns glimmered in the moonlight; in her misty gown of pale silk, Odette could easily have been a statue or a spirit perched there, mourning the past glory of lost kingdoms, and not a living woman, mourning her own sins and losses.
Her handmaidens, separated from her by the waters of the lake, conducted themselves much as they would have had she been among them. Some drifted through von Rothbart's gardens, some trailed bare feet in the cool water, some spoke in slow, sad voices, relating the same tales of their past they'd told twenty times before. A dozen, including Jeanette, hovered over the new one, inarticulately trying to comfort her, or at least bring her quiet resignation to her fate. In the soft, diffused moonlight, they all looked alike, all clothed in maidenly white, all differences of hair color and complexion silvered over into the same tones of ethereal white-blue, all movements in the same slow, graceful gestures, as if they all dwelt underwater. Like Odette, they could have been spirits—well, all but nine of them. Nine, including Jeanette and Odile, wore black instead of maidenly white. Eight of the nine wore their sober gowns in ceaseless mourning for what they had lost, in a vain attempt to wrest forgiveness from an unforgiving and inplacable master. Odile wore black, because her father wished her to, to signify symbolically that she was no creature of Odette's retinue.
Von Rothbart placed a great deal of importance in symbols; as a sorcerer, he knew the power they contained. As his daughter and only student, Odile had instinctively felt that same power before she had the words to articulate it.
As his daughter, she would much rather have been inside the manor, watching him work or studying on her own. How could these women bear to spend so much time doing
nothing
?
If I were to be charitable, I could assume that Father's enchantments fog their minds, or despair makes them too lethargic to care,
she thought, scornfully, mimicking her father's attitude.
But I think it likelier that they are unaccustomed to using their minds very much at all
.
A burst of muffled giggling came from the rose arbor, and the four little ones emerged to dance a solemn pavane on the grassy lawn as sourceless music wafted through the garden, matching their steps to the soft notes. A few of the others joined them after a time, but Jeanette made no move to do the same, and Odette in her aloof isolation did not even change her position, though she certainly heard the music.
Odile determined that the new acquisition was so exhausted by grief that she would likely sleep until dawn, and slipped away from the garden full of girls. With nothing to keep her among the idle maidens, she wanted only to get back to her studies, which at least had the value of novelty. The Great Hall drew her as a lodestone drew a needle, and she glided silently up the sharply carved stone steps, past the granite guardian owls perched on plinths to either side of the door, and eased the heavy oaken door open so that it did not creak and disturb her father at his own work.
BOOK: The Black Swan
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