The Black Swan (20 page)

Siegfried descended to the Great Hall to take the noontime meal, feeling better for his sleep—and better for the absence of the angel and the gypsy from his dreams. He took that as an omen that the course he had begun with his note to his mother was the right one.

He didn't quite make it into the hall itself; Sir Hans intercepted him before he passed the door. Evidently the man had been waiting for him to appear.

Siegfried braced himself for the man's anger; only now did it occur to him that Sir Hans might not care for having the young and pretty Adelaide mewed up with the queen's household. After all, even if Siegfried might not be captivated by her looks, there were other men with deep pockets who might be. . . .

But as soon as he got a good look at Sir Hans' expression, he relaxed.

“Prince Siegfried!” the knight called as he hurried forward, his rough, coarse features suffused with relief and good will. “Please, sire, allow me to thank you for your interest in my sister-in-law, and your care for her disposition!”

“The queen has taken the lady into her household, then?” Siegfried asked, glad to learn of the success of his letter, and even more pleased that Sir Hans was happy with the outcome.

“Yes, thanks be to God—and to you, of course, sire.” The older knight clasped Siegfried's hand fervently, then went down on one knee to kiss it. “I am not a landed knight; it was a sore burden to me to have the care of her, and I cannot thank you enough for seeing that burden lifted from my shoulders!”

“Ah, no thanks are needed,” Siegfried managed, pulling the man to his feet. “It is a good thing to see a young and helpless woman placed in a position where she is safe. I but did my duty to a member of my court, that is all. Now—if you will pardon me—I fear my hunger makes me impatient—”

He gestured at the tables within the hall, and Sir Hans released him, still protesting his gratitude. Siegfried took his seat and waited for a page to serve him with a feeling of bemusement. He hadn't expected an outpouring of feeling from the stoic knight—from the lady, perhaps, but not her brother-in-law. Evidently Sir Hans' resources were even more slender than he had supposed, for the feeding and housing of a single young woman to worry him so.

He ate quickly, for his next task would take him down into the village to see Trinka, and he wanted to have plenty of time to make certain he arranged for her as well as he had for Lady Adelaide. While he was eating, his mother and her ladies entered the hall, and the queen took the High Seat beside him. He stood quickly, leaving his meal half-finished, and handed her into her place with all due ceremony before resuming his own meal.

“Siegfried, my son, I wish to thank you for recommending that young woman to my household,” were the first words out of Clothilde's mouth. Siegfried put down his laden spoon and looked at her in mild surprise, a bit startled by the approving tone in her voice. She smiled warmly at him.

“I'm glad she is going to be useful to you, Mother,” he replied. “It occurred to me that unless she was carefully placed, there could be some trouble over her, trouble I wished to avoid by placing her in protection. I judged by her gentle birth and appearance that she had talents you could use in your train. Putting both those factors together, I hoped to do all of us a good turn.”

“That was well thought, my son,” Clothilde approved, and glanced to the side, where Lady Adelaide sat at the end of the table, as the newest of the ladies. “The lady would thank you herself, but she is too well-aware of her place to approach you, so I do it in her stead. She is an excellent addition to my train, and if you are moved to recommend another such in the future, I will pay careful heed to your words.”

Siegfried bowed wordlessly, his hand to his chest, and resumed his meal.
Another omen? It could be—and now, if Mother hears any tales from the priest, she'll be pleased enough with me to dispense with her usual lecture.
How strange it felt, though, to have done something that thoroughly pleased
all
of the people affected by his action! Usually the reaction was the very opposite of pleasure on the part of at least some of the parties.

He had sent an order to have his palfrey saddled and waiting as he began his meal; when he had finished it, he went straight to the stables to find her standing patiently, tied to a ring at the stable door. With a knot of nervousness in his stomach, he took to the saddle and sent her out of the gates, down the road to the village, knowing that if he hesitated, he would never be able to nerve himself to this next task but would find a hundred reasons why it should be avoided, or at least, delegated to Arno.

Trinka was serving a last table of farmers as he rode up to the inn, but quickly left them to another of the wenches when she saw him. “I was beginning to think you'd already tired of my company,” she said flirtatiously as he dismounted. But when he didn't respond, she quickly sobered. “Perhaps I was right—”

He shook his head. “I haven't tired of your company, but I must tell you that I have not succeeded in obtaining a position at the palace for you.”

The warmth of her initial welcome came as a relief; if she had felt forced into her current position, she might have pretended to warmth, but there would have been wariness beneath it. He thought that now he would be able to see such wariness, though he might have been fooled before.

She was disappointed in his news, but turned her real dismay into a mock-pout. “Ah, well. Is that why you have avoided us? Because you had bad news?” She set down his tankard of beer, and he noted that now she said “us” and not “me.” Already she was prepared to distance herself, and go back to the proper behavior of a simple tavern wench to the prince of the realm. That was another good sign, that she had no illusions about her position, and was prepared to be dropped at any time without warning.
So her heart isn't involved with me, thank God.

“Not entirely—but I am a terrible coward, Trinka,” he replied sheepishly. “I cannot bear to disappoint a woman.”

Instantly, she softened. “How could a loyal subject ever be disappointed in so noble a Prince?” she purred, and Siegfried fancied he saw a glint of avidity in her eyes. “Your generosity is unfailing.”

“Why don't we retire,” she continued, leaning over him, so that he got a good eyeful of bosom while her warmth and musky fragrance enveloped him. “Perhaps we can talk about this.”

If he'd still had any doubts about her, that would have dissolved them completely. He was only too happy to follow her up to the room she used for his visits. This was not
her
room; there wasn't a sign of personal belongings, no clothing stored away, and he had a shrewd notion that the furnishings were far better than the ones she had been allotted for her own use. This was just the inn's best guest chamber, and the wide, soft bed they presently tumbled into probably had very little in common with the narrow pallet she slept on.

Despite her words, she didn't waste any time in conversation.

She had his tunic and shirt off as soon as the door was closed, and slithered out of her clothing before he'd gotten his boots pulled off. As he struggled, off-balance, tugging at his second boot, she growled and tackled him, tumbling with him into the feather bed. He was enveloped in her sweet, musky scent as she shoved him down into the yielding surface. She imprisoned his legs by sitting on them, pulling off his hose and the boot; he lunged for her and grabbed her around the waist, tickling her in her most sensitive parts. She retaliated, but not by tickling; her clever hands closed around his privates, she thrust her magnificent breasts into his face, and within moments he was acutely aware that it had been quite a few days since he'd last had a woman.

He got her on her back with one hand caressing an erect nipple, his teeth gently nibbling her neck, her legs wrapped around him. With a convulsive thrust, he sank into a sea of sensation in which all coherent thoughts drowned until the moment of climax. Then, in the aftermath, it was simply impossible to think for a while.

Only when he had revived enough to be able to converse in anything but grunts, did she reach for the wine waiting next to the bed. She handed a pewter goblet full of cool, fragrant drink to him, and propped herself up on her elbow (carefully arranging herself to display a generous amount of breast) with an expectant look on her face.

She looked as if she intended to make the first move. But he surprised her, both by beginning the conversation, and by the way he began it. “Trinka, I've been thinking a lot about you, you surely can't expect to be doing this—” he waved his hand vaguely, indicating the inn, the wine, and the bed, and left it to her to choose which applied, “—forever. If you could do whatever you chose to make your fortune, what would it be? Your own inn? A shop?”

What he half expected her to say, once she got over her surprise, was that she'd never thought about it. If she had any ideas, he expected that she would aspire to own a brothel. The position of brothelkeeper could actually hover around the edges of respectability, especially in those towns that licensed and taxed such establishments, but a pious ruler or a plague could plunge such an establishment back into disrepute in a heartbeat. In misfortune, people were always looking for something to scapegoat, and ladies of love always made easy targets.

She nibbled that enticing, pouty lower lip as she thought, eyes narrowed, and yes, surprised by the fact that he had asked such a question. “That rather depends,” she finally said, “on whether I could do what I wanted to all at once, or in bits.”

“At once,” Siegfried said decisively.
Well, she does have a plan—and since I can't think of how you could establish a brothel “in bits,” perhaps it will be something sensible!

“Then I'd go 'round to all the lace-making villages now,
before
the Harvest Fairs, and I'd go to all the old grannies; I'd buy up their old laces, heirlooms they're willing to sell, as well as new lace made for sale, and I'd find two or three of the young ones that were as good as the grannies but were mad to leave their village. I'd take lace and girls to one of the
big
cities—Nuremberg, Vienna, Hamburg—and I'd set up a lace stall in the market selling the lace I had while the girls made new. Once I had the money for a shop, I'd buy a good one, with quarters above for all of us. They'd make lace and each have an apprentice, while I sold it. We'd all go shares in the profits, which would make
them
work harder than if I just paid them so much a piece, and pretty soon we'd have everyone coming to us for lace.” She let out a held-in-breath, and looked at him with just a touch of defiance. “I could do it, too!”

“I don't doubt you.” He was actually rather impressed; he hadn't expected that much careful planning from any woman, much less one like Trinka. “In the big cities, they don't see good lace like ours unless it's brought in from outside, and then it costs a fortune. If you went to Vienna, you'd have all the ladies of the Court buying from you.”

“I've
been
buying lace all along,” she confessed, blushing, and looking a little confused, as if she hadn't expected him to accept her dream without an argument. “With every spare coin I had, I've been buying lace for years—it's a safe way to keep money, nobody thinks about trying to steal it. Especially when I see a really special piece, the kind you don't come across very often, I'll do without to buy lace. I know where all the good lacemakers in these parts live. I thought— I thought I'd take lace into a city, sell it out of a tray at first, then out of a stall, then work my way up until I had enough for a shop and a girl, but what I really wanted to do was to have the shop and a couple of girls all at once. I just couldn't think of a way to get that much money at once.”

Siegfried had come prepared to satisfy a much less practical dream than that, and had worried that she didn't have the practical sense to have any sort of plan for her future. In that case, he'd have given her more than enough to convince one of the local peasants to wed her regardless of her past. That had always been a good solution in the past, but now he found he couldn't close his mind to what might happen next. What would become of her when her beauty was faded and her peasant husband had drunk up the dowry?

This, though—this was good. In the closed world of merchants and Guilds, the making and selling of lace was one of the few trades open to women. Not that men also weren't lacemakers, and usually held the position of shopkeeper, but it wasn't unheard of for a woman to do so as well, and get just as much respect as a man.

“Well,
I
think you ought to have your dream now, while you can enjoy prosperity. What's the use of being prosperous if you're so old you're spending all your wealth on physicians, firewood, and gruel?” he said, with a teasing grin. She looked at him suspiciously, and he quickly sobered. “No, I'm serious. You are wasted on my little village, Trinka.” Now was a good time for a bit of judicious flattery. “You're too pretty and much too clever for this place.”

She still looked suspicious. “I'm not certain I understand you.”

With a sigh, he got out of bed and began pulling on his clothing. When he'd gotten as far as his hose and shirt, he reached for his belt and took out a pouch of coins. “Here,” he said, putting it into her hand. “Surely you understand this; it's all for you, every bit of it.”

With a quizzical glance, she opened the pouch and poured the coins out on the bed—and gasped, turning pale, for they were all gold, and there were twenty of them. “Twenty crowns! Siegfried, are you mad? You can't give me twenty crowns!”