‘But how?’ Merry asked, feeling his weariness and pain pressing down upon him. ‘We have taken nearly seven weeks to find the first five feathers, how are we meant to find two in a night?’
‘We have to find a way,’ Zed said. ‘I don’t want her to feel frightened or alone anymore . . .’
‘Sixteen years she’s been locked in that tower, and yet one look at her and Zed decides she cannot be confined a second longer,’ Liliana mocked.
Colour rushed up at Zed’s face. He said angrily, ‘You were the one who wanted our help, Liliana Vendavala, so don’t you start dragging your feet now. Think about what we are to do!’
‘I could try and catch us a nightingale in the forest tonight,’ Liliana said. ‘If I limed a twig, or set up a trap with a net and some corn . . .’
‘It’s early for nightingales. We’ll be lucky if we can find one,’ Merry said.
Zed looked down towards the banqueting hall, bright light and music spilling out through the open doors. ‘I need to stay here. I cannot miss my uncle’s memorial dinner. I’ll need one of you to serve me. I shouldn’t be seen to be without a retinue.’
‘I could not stomach watching all those starkin eat,’ Liliana said. ‘I’ll go in search of the Spear of Thunder. There must be a servant here who’ll gossip with me in return for a jug of wine. I’ve been asking and asking for the past three days but have never met such a close-mouthed lot!’
‘Be careful,’ Merry said anxiously. ‘If we draw attention to ourselves, if anyone suspects what we mean to do . . .’
‘I need to find out what happened to the spear!’ she cried. ‘Shoshanna’s prophecy . . .’
‘I know, I know. Spear of Thunder, smiting the throne of stars asunder. Maybe Rozalina will know. Maybe I could ask her,’ Zed said, staring towards the banqueting hall.
‘Could you?’ Liliana asked, her face lighting up.
‘And I’ll ask the other squires,’ Merry said. ‘Then I’ll sneak away from the feast around midnight, and Lili and I will go down to the forest and look for nightingales. All right, Lili? All right, Zed?’
‘Mmm-mmm.’ Hardly hearing, Zed nodded and strode away towards the bright doorway.
Merry and Liliana were left alone in the gathering twilight. Overhead a few stars glimmered. The swans were pale, serene shapes, floating in darkness, neck curving down, head pressed to their soft breasts.
‘Do you think she is the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen?’ Liliana challenged him.
Merry hesitated. A quick lie sprang to his lips, and yet he knew Liliana valued truthfulness over almost everything. He answered quietly, ‘She is indeed very beautiful. But beauty comes in many different forms, and for all of us it’s different.’
There was a long silence. She stood still, her shoulder turned against him, her eyes on the swans. Merry, struggling to find the words, said diffidently, ‘I hope you don’t mind too much . . .’
‘What?’ she snapped, spinning to face him.
‘Zed . . .’
‘You are such a fool sometimes. Go on, go! Go and wait hand and foot on your precious starkin lord. I’ll meet you at the postern gate when the feast is over.’ And she strode off into the darkness, leaving Merry floundering and bewildered behind her.
CHAPTER 22
The Swan Wife
ZED SAT AT THE HIGH TABLE, TRYING NOT TO STARE TOO much at Rozalina, who sat on a footstool by the king’s throne, her hands folded quietly in her lap. She seemed even more beautiful to him than before, a still, quiet centre in the hot, gaudy, perfumed room, where everyone whispered and laughed and sneered and mocked in their priceless, ridiculous clothes. The old woman who was her warden sat back in the shadows, eyes downcast, hands folded.
The king huddled in his enormous gilded chair, the canopy of state above his head, the huge diamond in his crown reflecting darts of candlelight. A procession of pageboys brought him titbits to eat, all of which were first presented to the king’s taster, a surprisingly skinny and scared-looking boy with pimples all over his cheeks. The taster ate one small portion from each plate, and then, when he did not die, the plate was presented to the king, who ate even less.
Next to the king sat Lady Vernisha, her pug dog on her lap, both eating as fast as they could from the same plate. Lord Ambrozius sat next to her, his simple white robe making him look like a maggot amidst a mass of gaudy roses. His white panther rested at his feet, occasionally accepting a hunk of meat from the astronomer’s fingers.
Adora sat beside Zed, picking listlessly at her plate. She had put back her mourning veil, and so he saw her face for the first time. Although thinner and paler than he remembered, she was still very beautiful, with a straight, fine nose above a full-lipped red mouth. Her eyes were as blue as the sky.
‘So you find the little princess intriguing?’ she said.
Zed turned to her in surprise, feeling his face grow hot. ‘Well, yes,’ he admitted. ‘She seems so calm, even though she is chained like a dog and everyone stares at her and talks about her behind their fans.’
‘She is always very composed,’ Adora agreed. ‘Even when she curses people.’
‘Does she curse people very often?’
‘For a while she did,’ Adora answered. ‘It all began a few months ago, when she turned sixteen. People who were spiteful to her would find themselves drinking a wasp in their brandywine and being stung on the tongue, or something like that.’
She swirled the wine in her cup and drank deeply, then continued, ‘At first no-one paid much mind, but then Zander decided her nursemaid was growing too old to keep charge of her. He sent her away and replaced her with a big brute of a woman. The little princess told her that the tower was haunted, and that she would not sleep a wink the whole time she was there. A week later, the woman packed her bags and left, as haggard as a woman twice her age, declaring to all that would listen that the tower was indeed haunted.’
‘And do you think it is?’ Zed asked curiously. The starkin did not believe in ghosts and spirits like the hearthkin did, but Zed was half-hearthkin and had been raised by his father to at least wonder if such visitations were possible.
‘Of course not. Only hearthkin believe such superstitious rubbish,’ Adora declared coldly. Her red lips had left a bright smudge on the rim of her glass, and she carefully wiped it away with her napkin. She was quiet for a moment, then shrugged her slim, white shoulders. ‘Though, perhaps it is true that a girl who can curse can wish her mother out of her grave.’
Zed looked again at Rozalina and met her steady gaze. He could not look away. He felt an odd falling sensation, as if he had just stepped off a ledge and there was no ground below him. She smiled at him, and involuntarily he smiled back.
‘She is very beautiful,’ Adora said, turning her glass in her hands and studying the flash of light through the crystal. ‘Will you try to win her hand?’
Zed choked on his mouthful. He put down his fork and took a gulp of wine, feeling hot and flustered. ‘I have no desire to be king,’ he answered at last.
‘Really? Why not? You’re young, you’re strong, you could give the king the great-grandchildren he wants so badly.’
Zed stared at her in amazement. She looked at him sideways, and smiled briefly. ‘Do I shock you, speaking so frankly? I thought we were friends, Zed. Why do you not accept the challenge, hunt down the Hag, and present her head to the king on a platter? You’d be married within the week.’
Zed shook his head. ‘No, I couldn’t!’
‘Why not? I know you’ve killed before. You fought off a whole troupe of attackers. Is it because the Hag is a woman . . . or is it something else that sticks in your gullet?’
Zed flushed even redder. How could he explain that the leader of the rebels was his best friend’s mother? It was impossible. He glanced at Merry, who at once stepped forward and filled his glass, his face rather white. Zed drank a mouthful, then said, ‘I didn’t want to kill anyone. I had to fight them off else they’d have killed me.’
She regarded him curiously. ‘La, I do believe the boy has got a conscience.’
‘Don’t you?’ he challenged.
‘Oh, maybe I did, once, a long time ago. But losing six children in seven years hardens you. You stop feeling anything at all, because feeling just hurts too much.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly.
She laughed and shrugged. ‘What for? It’s not your fault.’ For a moment she was silent, and Zed saw she was slowly and systematically tearing apart a piece of bread, her eyes fixed on Rozalina.
‘My life is over,’ she whispered. ‘Last week I was crown princess. Now that girl, that child of a concubine, is called crown princess, and I’m nothing but a widow who failed to give her husband an heir. Who will want to marry me now? I’m twenty-two years old, and have no future ahead of me. Unless . . .’
‘Unless what?’
She flashed Zed a quick look, and then laughed. ‘Unless some kind lord realises that it was not my fault all my babies died. She cursed me, you know.’ Adora jerked her sharp chin in Rozalina’s direction, and Zed was conscious that the wildkin princess turned to gaze at them.
‘She cursed you?’ Zed instinctively shook his head.
Adora put one hand on his wrist, leaning so close to his ear he could feel her soft breath on his skin. ‘She wants to be queen. She knows her grandfather would never name her his heir as long as he had legitimate grandchildren. So she made sure none of my children lived. You should keep away from her, Zed. She’s dangerous, like a spider in a web, weaving spells to trap and ensnare us all.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘Is it? Yet she told me I’d have no living children to sit the throne, and that came true, and she told Zander he’d die by his own hand, and that came true.’
‘Yes, but . . . but she can foretell the future.’
‘Foretell the future . . . or change the future according to her wish?’ Adora said bitterly.
Zed did not know how to reply. The Gift of Telling is more than mere prophecy, Liliana had said. The words of the Teller of Tales have power beyond simple divination. It is a curse, a wish, an invocation. What the Teller says will happen, must happen, for they have spoken the word and given it weight.
He glanced at Rozalina, and their eyes met in a long, charged look. Please trust me, the look said. Please free me . . .
‘How did your children die?’ Zed asked, wrenching his gaze away.
‘Any little bump or bruise would not heal, but just got darker and darker . . .’ Adora spoke so softly that Zed had to lean closer to hear her. ‘Or they’d cut their first little tooth and their mouths would fill with blood, and nothing we could do could stop them bleeding . . . or else they’d get a little cold, like all babies get, and begin coughing up blood . . . the only one not to bleed to death was my little daughter, and she died of the pox, which is almost worse.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Zed said inadequately.
She shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘It broke my heart, Zed, and now I’m afraid my heart has grown back together all crooked. Do you think it’s possible for a heart to heal?’
She was very close to him, her fingers against his wrist, her perfume in his nostrils.
‘I’m sure it can,’ he said, feeling shy and hot and uncomfortable.
She turned her face away and said very sadly, ‘Maybe if I was to find love . . . true love . . . but it’s too late. No-one could want me now, a barren, ugly old widow.’
‘You’re not old,’ he said stoutly.
‘Just barren and ugly?’
‘No, of course not . . . I just meant . . .’
She laughed at him. ‘I’m just teasing, Zed. Look at you, all hot under the collar. People will think you’re trying to flirt with me, and my husband not even dead a week.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean —’
‘No, it’s much too soon,’ she said and glanced at him from under long, dark lashes. ‘Do you know that I must spend the next year in seclusion, only appearing at official functions? Thank heavens I was only a princess and not an actual queen. Then I’d be locked in my room for a year, not allowed to see anyone at all. It’s so stupid. The dead are dead, and no amount of wailing will bring them back.’
‘Yet the ghost of Shoshanna still walks the palace,’ Zed said softly, as a kind of revenge upon her for making him blush and squirm. To his surprise, the shaft went home. Adora’s face went white, and she shot him a quick, sharp glance.
‘No! Don’t say that! The dead are dead!’ She bit her lip, looked away and then smiled again and rapped him with her fan. ‘Now you’re teasing me. Horrid boy! But look what is being brought to the king now. You know he believes that if he eats the heart and brains and entrails of various beasts, he will absorb their qualities? He has them all cooked up in an umble-pie—bulls’ testicles and lion’s heart and pike livers, larks’ tongues and wild boars’ brains, cocks’ combs, and eagles’ gizzards . . .’
‘No, really?’ Zed was revolted.
She gave him a sparkling smile. ‘Oh, yes, my dear. And trust me, if the king offers you a serve, you eat it. You must never refuse the king, I warn you. Nothing enrages him more. Don’t look! He’s gesturing towards you. Yes, here it comes. Better sharpen your knife.’
Zed risked a look. Sure enough, the king’s page was coming to kneel beside him, offering a wedge of pallid pastry from which tumbled an assortment of offal in a brown, reeking gravy—kidneys and livers and hearts and a grey sludge which Zed thought with a shudder might be brains.
The king was watching him very closely. Zed forced a smile and bowed his head in acknowledgement, then began, very gingerly, to eat his umble-pie. It sickened him to the very pit of his stomach.
At last he managed to choke the last morsel down, and Merry quickly poured him another glass of wine, which Zed gulped to wash away the foul taste. The king nodded his turtle-head in approval, and went back to picking at his own meal. Looking around, Zed saw Zakary had pulled his chair very close to Priscilla’s and was regaling her with stories that made her giggle. Zed frowned, and was aware that Adora beside him had followed his gaze and was frowning too.
‘I would not encourage that liaison,’ she said abruptly. ‘Zakary is a self-indulgent fool, and completely dissolute to boot.’
‘No fear of that, Priscilla can’t stand him,’ Zed answered sharply.
‘Is that so? She seems to be enjoying his company tonight.’
Zed scowled at his sister as she tossed her head and laughed, rapping Zakary playfully across the cheek with her fan. Zakary must have felt their eyes, for he glanced up and at once made his excuses to Priscilla and sauntered over to kiss Adora’s hand.
‘My darling Lady Adora, I am desolate! Such dreadful news. Our dear Prince Zander! How are you holding up, my sweet? You look radiant, as always, of course. May I squeeze in with you? La, such a ghastly few weeks I’ve had, you simply could not imagine. The mud! The flies! The people!’
Zed turned his attention back to Rozalina. She looked up at once and met his gaze gravely, then her cheeks coloured rose-pink and she glanced away. He was delighted at this sign that he was affecting her composure as much as she was affecting his, and wondered how he was going to manage to speak with her.
The king waved away another morsel of food irritably, and then made some vague gesture towards Rozalina. The court astronomer rose to his feet and said, ‘The king is bored. He commands the crown princess to tell the court a tale.’
Rozalina nodded and replied in a clear, musical voice, ‘What tale does the king wish to hear tonight?’
Again the king gestured irritably, and the astronomer replied, ‘Let it be a tale of your choice. But be warned, a word out of place and you shall be muzzled again.’
‘You would dare muzzle the crown princess?’ Rozalina said in a clear, contemptuous voice. ‘Are these new laws only a sham, or am I not the king’s heir? Treat me with respect, Lord Ambrozius. I should hate for you to bring another plagu
e of rats upon the palace.’
His mouth thinned, and the panther snarled. ‘I feel nothing but the deepest respect for you, Your Highness. Please, will you not honour us with a story?’
She considered, her dark head titled to one side, then gave a brief, decisive nod. ‘I shall tell the story of the peacock and the swan.’
‘The king’s favourite,’ the astronomer said in a sour tone. ‘He shall be pleased.’
It seemed to Zed that there was a faint mocking gleam in Rozalina’s eyes as she rose to her feet, her gaze sweeping from the king’s face, to Zed’s face, and then to Adora and Zakary, sitting together on the bench, fair heads bent together.
‘There was once a peacock that lived with his wives on a fair river. He thought he was the king of the birds, and proudly spread his beautiful tail and strutted back and forth, and commanded his hens to stay small and meek and plain and dull, and to scurry to do his bidding. Ah, I am fine, I must be the king of the birds! the peacock thought as he jumped to the top of a dunghill, spread out his tail and screeched his name to the world.’
Rozalina spread out her hands in an imitation of a peacock’s tail, and gave a realistic screech that caused many in the crowd to jump and fan themselves more vigorously.
‘Gliding past the peacock was a graceful swan with his beautiful white mate, and a bevy of lovely little cygnets. The swans heard the peacock screeching out that he was king of the birds, glanced at each other and shrugged their elegant white wings. They saw no need to shout their superiority to the world.’ As she spoke, Rozalina bent her long, elegant neck and shrugged her slim, white shoulders, looking cool and remote and impossibly beautiful. Zed glanced at the king. He was watching his granddaughter, utterly entranced.
‘One day a storm blew up. Thunder crashed, the sky was lit up with sheets of lightning, and rain thundered down. On the riverbank, the peahens scurried back and forth, cheeping anxiously, while the peacock hid and shivered, trying to keep his magnificent tail from being torn to pieces by the wind. The swans sheltered their cygnets under their wings, and watched the level of the water rise higher and higher and higher.’ Rozalina’s voice deepened dramatically, and her body hunched over with one graceful white arm curved as if she was sheltering a cygnet.