The Black Swan (5 page)

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, clean 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 Siegried'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.

“My father ordered my presence; heaven only knows what for,” Dorian grumbled. “I'll tell you what I'm afraid of—I think he's been bride hunting for me, and I'm about to be chained down to a homely sack of turnips with a face like a sow whose only virtue is a father with equally fat lands.”

“Oh, well—but if her dowry is rich enough, all you have to do is get her with child and then take your pleasure elsewhere,” Benno replied cheerfully, his bright blue eyes sparkling. “Plenty of girls about—fat lands means pretty serf girls, for one thing, and there's not a few lonely ladies need a generous fellow's company. As for the bride herself, put out the candle, have her women douse her with scent, and it won't matter what she looks like. Get her with child once a year, and she won't have anything to complain of.”

Siegfried frowned; that was no way to talk about a highborn maiden, even if she did have a face like a sow. He hoped the maids watching them hadn't overheard, and changed the subject back to the hunt. “We're looking for a new hunting ground; we've hunted so much around the palace that we need to let the game come back. Are you sure you can't get away to come with us?”

“Absolutely certain; Father was—insistent.” Dorian had lost his anger with Siegfried in his annoyance with his father. “But there will be tomorrow, I hope?”

“And the next day and the next, until we find someplace with decent game.” It was Siegfried's turn to slap Dorian companionably on the back; Dorian stood firm against a friendly blow that would have flattened a lesser man, and his stock rose a bit in Siegfried's estimation.

Dorian went off to disarm. Siegfried stripped his own armor off and left it to his squires to gather up. The maidens drifted off to the gardens when it became plain that the prince had no intention of seeking out their companionship or providing further amusement with another bout. Siegfried signaled to a servant in royal livery waiting against the wall for his orders.

“Fetch us some bread and cheese and a couple of wine flasks from the kitchen and bring them to the stable,” he told the man, and turned to his friend. Benno was a little shorter than Siegfried, darker, and considerably lighter; what cemented their friendship was a common interest in learning, not fighting. With Siegfried's tutor, they often discussed Greek philosophy or Latin literature far into the night. “I'm not of a mind to get pulled into my mother's toils this afternoon. What say you to going straight to the stable and riding off before anyone knows what we're about?”

“I'd say that's a good plan,” Benno agreed readily, as he would agree with almost anything Siegfried suggested by way of amusement. “Will you ride your black today or the bay?”

“The bay, I think; he's the better jumper.” Siegfried was looking forward to a good, challenging ride over rough ground; for some reason, he'd been suffering from a growing discontent since late spring, and he couldn't seem to shake the feeling except when he was doing something active. Music made him melancholy, he was dissatisfied with his own attempts at poetry, and the books he used to love left him feeling stale and flat. He wanted something, but he didn't know what it was.

A good war, maybe, is what I need; a fight worthy of a man. Not that I'm likely to get one. No evil sorcerers about, and no one threatening to lay siege to us.
Much as he loved his mother, there was no denying the fact that her court was that of a woman—slow, sleepy, and dull. Peace was all very well for old men and females, but a young man needed something to get his blood stirred up.

He and Benno strolled across the yard to the stable, leaving his squires still picking up his arms and armor for cleaning. His shirt stuck to his back, and he couldn't wait to be mounted and out of the still air within the castle grounds. There was no breeze to cool him here in the courtyard, and he ran his hand through his sweat-matted hair to get it out of his face as he entered the shadows of the stable. A groom hurried to meet them, but Siegfried passed him by, too eager to wait for his beast to be brought to him.

Benno ordered his dun hunter saddled; Siegfried himself saw to the harnessing of his bay, throwing blanket and saddle over the strong back, then tightening the girth as a stable boy got the bridle onto the beast's head and the bit into his teeth. Siegfried took over fastening the throat and cheek straps, then led the bay out into the sunlight. The horse was calm, but fresh and eager to be out of the stable; good omens for a fine ride. He mounted up and checked the stirrups and seat of the saddle as Benno's horse was brought, and as his friend took his own seat, the servant arrived with their provisions. They each took a flask and a packet of bread and cheese and stowed them in their saddlebags, and Benno's squire brought their bows and quivers. As he waited for Benno to arrange his weapons to his liking, he felt that stale, flat feeling come over him again.