Swan Star Read online

  Behind him came three young pages in a silent procession. They carried trays filled with stuffed quail, honeyed meats, sweet wine, spiced fish livers and whole tiny pigs’ heads. After placing the trays on a sideboard, the three left.

  The sight made Arrah’s queasy stomach a churning inferno. By the goddess! She could eat none of it, and without reserve turned the tray of beady-eyed pigs’ heads to face the wall.

  “Joints and bones!” chuckled Carne the Aged. “I knew you’d never eat them.”

  She turned to him quizzically. “And how did you know?”

  “Because I could not eat them myself,” he replied, looking about, his eyes settling upon a carved wooden chair.

  “Aye,” returned Arrah, her guard down. She sniffed the air. “’Tis true. A man who does not eat flesh smells different from one who eats flesh.”

  “And what else does your nose tell you, my lady swan?”

  “You’ve a red pear in your pocket.”

  He laughed, then fetched it out and gave it to her. She licked her lower lip and bit into the juicy flesh.

  Chewing and speaking with her mouth full, she said, “You also carry on your person vervain. Do not think you can slip it into my drink without me knowing.”

  “Hah! You are a canny one. ’Tis for my own use. I am beset with restlessness these summer nights.”

  “How so?”

  “Dreams. Dark, foreboding dreams. I have no wish to see what I see.”

  “So you take the herb to stop your dreaming.”

  “Aye. But I am prophetic and many rely upon my dreams to foretell good and ill. So I cannot cease my dreaming altogether. ’Tis bad for my livelihood.”

  “So you have the ‘sight.’”

  “And more.” He winked at her mischievously.

  Her spirits lifting, she asked, “Will we be friends, you and I?”

  “Oh, indeed,” he assured her. “A fortnight past I dreamed your coming.”

  “You did…” Surprise marked her voice.

  “I did.” He seated himself in a chair beside the hearth and rested his hands on the dragon-head arms.

  The dragons appeared everywhere in the chamber—snarling, smirking, grinning and grimacing on door latches, chair backs, hearthside and even woven into the scarlet tapestry drapes which hung on the great four-poster bed. Arrah wanted to ask Carne the Aged about this and many other puzzling mysteries surrounding the Fianna and this castle, and most certainly about the Mage of the Dragon’s Mouth.

  But right now she would settle for first things first, and so she asked, “And what did you dream?”

  Having devoured the pear down to the thread of its stem, she pulled up a tuft-topped stool and sat at his feet.

  “At the time my dream was a riddle.” He clasped his hands together in front of his chest mindfully.

  He paused. When at last his lips opened to speak, Arrah nearly fell off the stool with anticipation.

  “I saw a wondrous creature, a radiant air vessel, a traveling spirit. Silent was its garment when it tread the earth or inhabited dwellings or stirred the waters. The wind raised it above the abodes of men, and the power of clouds then carried it far and wide and even higher, to light deep heaven.”

  “So…how does that pertain to me?”

  “My child, ’twas you, a swan maiden, I saw.”

  “What else?” she asked curiously.

  “What else?” His tone held offense. “That is enough.” Arrah drew back, not much impressed. Of course, she reminded herself, she had to realize she was in the realm of men, where dreams had not the clarity of message they did in Myr.

  Making amends, she said, “Truly, you have the sight. I’d only hoped you might have seen more—”

  “More!” he broke in with impatience. “More!” he slapped his thigh. “’Tis always more. Everyone wants more. Beway”—he pointed a long bony finger at her nose—“you must live your own life as it comes. I’ll not foretell it all. What purpose does that serve? If I told all, where is the adventure in it? No one can know the end at the beginning.”

  Not intimidated, Arrah returned, “But in the knowing one can be saved from folly.”

  He began to laugh. “Beway, a man’s folly is the very gift of life. Folly is life’s reward. And be sure, if I were to save you from one folly you’d find another to take its place.”

  “You are a skeptic.”

  “I have lived too long and seen too much. My child, you seem innocence itself. Where is it you come from?”

  “The realm of Myr.”

  “Ah, Myr…I should have known it.” His eyes widened. “The ancient heart of Earth herself. ’Twill not be easy for you here, and the Mage of the Dragon’s Mouth will not readily release you.”

  Arrah’s eyes riveted to the great chest. “My feather skin is sealed within that chest; the mage has the key. Could you not help me regain it?”

  He nodded and winked at her. “Nay, for I did not help you lose it.”

  She dropped her chin into her hands, awash with self-recrimination. Aye, it was her own fault. She’d been careless in leaving her feather skin unattended.

  She felt Carne the Aged’s consoling touch on her shoulder. “I will speak to the mage on your behalf. He will listen, but in the end he always does as he chooses. He bows to no man. He was conceived from old magic.”

  Arrah looked up. “Och…I sensed it. Tell me of his origins.”

  “I know little enough to tell. His mother was a Tuatha woman who, in the guise of a white doe, appeared one day when his father, Bran, was hunting. She followed him to his fortress, where I served as counselor. When she was within the safety of its walls, she showed herself in her true shape—that of a beautiful woman. Bran loved her at once and kept her by him. In time she got with child, and then just before its birth, a sudden she disappeared.”

  “Did she return to her people?”

  “No, she came here to the loch where she gave birth to Traeth. After many years of searching, Bran, who was still under the faerie woman’s enchantment, died of grief and longing. ’Twas the love madness he had. In the end I found the child, Traeth. He was a wild boy who had grown up beside the loch in the deserted fortress of this castle. From the beginning, I saw he had special vision and special powers. Though he was human and trod the earth like other children, in his veins flowed magic. He was destined to live in the spell-haunted borderlands of the two realms.”

  “When you found him was he alone?”

  “Aye, and naked with the heart of wildness itself. I cared for him a time, and then when he became more man than youth we traveled to the far country of the Morrigan. The Morrigan are women warriors, experienced, hardy, fierce and peerless in educating and teaching feats of arms. He learned all his lessons well and became a hero of the Fianna.”

  “Humph!” she sighed doubtfully. “I do not see much valor in him, a hero who must hold hostage one such as myself.”

  “There is no knowing all the tricks of a man…or woman’s mind.” He gave her a narrowed gaze. “Except for the time spent with the Morrigan, he has held himself apart from women.”

  “Does he not like women?”

  “During our stay with the Morrigan he had a few minor flirtations, but nothing lasting. The Morrigan are independent women, not much liking home or hearth.”

  “I see no error in that,” replied Arrah. She knew that things were different for women in the world of men—why else had so many of her swan sisters returned to Myr after their sojourns here? Aye, she realized now that men thought of women as their chattel, something to possess. Mayhap that was why Traeth’s mother fled his father.

  Carne the Aged smiled. “You have such a nature yourself.”

  “In truth I cherish my freedom—who does not?”

  “But you are a woman. Unlike in your land of Myr, here in the wilds of the borderlands, a woman needs a protector.”

  “And who is to protect her from her protector?”

  He chuckled. “I think ’tis more like who will protect her protector from her!”

  Arrah frowned. “Do not expect me to join in your mirth. It is clear to me that the reason there are no women at Rhune Castle is that none are so daft as to enter.”

  “Mayhap,” he deigned. “In my memory, you are the first to come.”

  “Not by my free choice, mind you.”

  “But you are here, nonetheless. Do not forget I saw your coming.”

  “And,” Arrah said emphatically, “you will see my going.”

  “’Tis female,” announced Camlan the Unsmiling, posturing before all, as was his custom.

  Traeth walked a few paces around the shivering little urchin who crouched and clung to the gold-threaded hem of Camlan’s blue cloak. He paused with a head shake. “How could you decipher it? I’ve never seen such a waif…she’s wood rat ugly.”

  “I found her balancing on the parapet of the tower of the dragon’s fang. She’d not a stitch on her bones,” said Camlan.

  Traeth bent down and peered at her. She covered her face with the cloak.

  “Let loose!” commanded Camlan, pulling his cloak away. “She’s not released me since I found her.” Glaring down his high, arrogant nose, he said, “I’ll not be her nanny.”

  Traeth watched as she crouched into a fetal ball at Camlan’s feet. “This midsummer’s night has brought the wild things out of their boroughs, to be sure.”

  “It could be an omen,” joined in Fergus Dry Lips from his seat before the supper table.

  “An omen of ill,” said Traeth flatly.

  “What shall I do with her?” asked Camlan.

  “You found her, so do whatever you wish. She’s yours, if you can keep her from running off,” Traeth said.

  “I don’t want her,” declared Camlan.


  “You not want a woman?” exclaimed Traeth. “May the gods drown me where I stand!” He’d been a companion with Camlan many years, and no man in the five kingdoms drew the eyes and hearts of women like Camlan the Unsmiling. It was said he had a love spot on the center of his forehead, and that no woman who looked upon him could resist him, unsmiling as he was.

  “I don’t want this one,” he said emphatically.

  “Does she speak or understand us?” asked Fergus Dry Lips, ripping in two a rack of roasted lamb with his hands.

  Traeth looked down and repeated the question directly to her. “Do you understand us?”

  No words came from her lips, but she nodded her head affirmatively.

  “Good,” said Traeth in a kindly voice. “No one wants you here. So you can leave. Go back to wherever. Be off!” He made the motion of two fingers walking.

  She did not move, but instead looked up beseechingly to Camlan. He sniffed, turned his back and strode over to the fire. She leaped up and followed.

  “It appears you’ve won her affections, Camlan,” smirked Fergus Dry Lips, still eating.

  Traeth studied her a moment longer and then went to sit down beside Fergus at the feast table. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, aware that the urchin’s appearance was not an accident. He believed that in the workings of the universe nothing was an accident. On this night of midsummer, two females entering within the walls of Rhune Castle was a portent…for ill or good, he could not be sure.

  Beside him Fergus Dry Lips supped away. He did not necessarily chew, but broke, crunched and gulped his food. Oddly, Traeth had never noticed his uncouthness before, but now he did and it irritated him. He noticed more: the hounds scratching their flea-bitten skins by the fire, the dankness of the hall, the sour smell of his companions…and of himself.

  When Carne the Aged entered the hall, Traeth was in a low mood. He gave no greeting as the man seated himself across the table. Unspeaking, Carne reached for bread and cheese and between sips of ale took his repast.

  “So?” said Carne, finally breaking the silence between them.

  “So what?” returned Traeth with false disinterest.

  “I have visited the lady swan.”

  “Did she speak to you?”

  “Aye, she did,” said Carne, still chewing.

  Traeth waited, but Carne did not elaborate. The old man was teasing him, he knew, but he was in no mood for it. “Aye, then?” he prodded, not hiding his interest now.

  Carne put aside his cup and met Traeth’s eyes with a penetrating stare. “I’ll tell you out that it may cost you dearly to keep this woman. ’Tis always a mistake to trifle with a faerie woman. It cost your father his life. ’Tis a sad tale, one I’ve told you before and of which now I remind you again. Because of the ‘love madness,’ your father drove away the very woman he loved. She could not abide his jealous outbursts or his possessive tyranny. She’d no choice but to escape from him.”

  Traeth clenched his jaw. Were Carne any other man he might have lifted his fist to him. “True, she did escape my father, but to her own greater sorrow. She fell victim to the magicks of another sorcerer and changed into a white doe that wanders that place of the in-between. She’d have been better off to remain with my father.”

  “He had the love madness, she could not,” Carne said harshly. “Like your mother gave your father, the swan maiden will give love for love, but she is a wild creature and out of her element. Like your mother, she will always pine for her freedom. I say release her now, before the magicks begin.”

  “’Tis too late,” muttered Traeth.

  “What do you mean?”

  Traeth nodded toward the fire and Camlan the Unsmiling. The urchin still sat crouched at his feet, the firelight dancing over her ugly features. “There is another denizen of Faerie come our way this night. She’s not so comely and has set her heart upon Camlan.”

  Carne looked at her and then turned back. Traeth saw a hint of amusement dancing about his wrinkled eyes. “And you…where is your heart?”

  Traeth frowned, “Where it’s always been—secure in the cage of bones within my chest. My sage, if you are worried, I’ll assure you that I’ve not succumbed to any enchantments. The swan maiden holds no power over me, unless I give it.”

  “And will you?” Carne asked with innate persistence.

  Traeth drew back with offense. “You know me better than to ask. I’m Mage of the Dragon’s Mouth, master of magicks.”

  A slow smile crept over Carne’s mouth, and then he chuckled.

  “Why do you laugh?” Traeth demanded.

  “Aye, I’m only agreeing,” he declared, still grinning.

  “Nay, I know you well enough to see you’ve a private mirth and I’m the brunt. Speak!”

  “Nay, it cannot be told.” And with that the old mystic took his leave…and Traeth’s mood turned even darker.

  Chapter 3

  Time seemed suspended in this longest night of midsummer. Though Arrah lay on the great bed of her chamber, she could not sleep. In Myr her bed was soft moss beneath a starry sky. Rhune Castle was all too strange for her. With dismay she wondered how anyone could fall asleep in a castle.

  She climbed off the bed and walked over to the door. Admiringly, she touched the blackthorn surface, and in the grain she saw the wispy image of the tree spirit. It frowned. Whoever crafted this door had not bothered to ask consent from the tree spirit to chop it down. She sighed, not understanding the separation from earth spirit in this realm of men. In Myr everything was blessed and received with reverence.

  She fiddled with the metal latching and after a moment opened the door. As it swung open, she saw that the lock was two-way, serving not only to keep people out but also to keep them in. Since she saw no key, she assumed that she would have no choice. The mage could lock her in as he had locked away her feather skin. The realization did not sit well with her.

  Even so, she thought, he has no need to lock me in because he is wholly confident that I will not leave…at least not without my feather skin.

  Endeavoring to make the best of a bad situation, she decided to find a place in the open air to sleep…high on the wall walk. She peeked side to side and down the corridor. The flickering light of the dragon wall sconces illuminated one way, while the other yawned like a dark mouth. Her bare feet padding along the cold stone flooring, she first chose the well-lit path. Then, pausing before an archway at the top of the stairs, she saw that the passage led down to a great hall.

  She heard voices filtering up.

  She had no desire to encounter the Fianna. Turning abruptly around, she took a beeswax candle from a wall sconce and set off down the shadowy corridor.

  At the first cross-path, she passed beneath an archway of twining dragons and followed an upward, narrow, winding stairway cut inside the walls of a tower. It was a queer feeling to look about and see the unseen. Though stone, the dragons seemed to watch her from gleaming eyes.

  She climbed until her calves ached and she thought of turning back, but the hope of finding her way to the wall walk and open air kept her going. A cold draft soughed past and the candle in her hand flickered weakly. A chill of uneasiness crept down her spine.

  As a child in Myr she’d been told tales of the wanderers of the dark that dwelled in the borderlands. Aye, not all dark wanderers remained outside. Many, restless and grasping, took up residence between cracks of stones, in dusky corners and in eaves. Then, when darkness came, they began to stir. She could still hear Terwen’s slow, whispering voice saying, “Silent as shadows, they steal among their human prey, now touching with bony fingers, now breathing pestilence, now chanting spells that bring foul dreams.”

  Just thinking about it, she was scaring herself. Her steps hastened. Did she hear something behind her? Nay, she thought, ’tis only my own footsteps.

  Then, to her great relief, the circle of her candlelight encompassed the level of a landing and a wooden door. She paused for breath and reached for the door latch. It was locked.

  “Let me open it for you. You’ve climbed all this way.”

  Her heart leaping, she spun around to face the Mage of the Dragon’s Mouth, standing scarcely more than a few inches from her.

  “By the goddess! You booka! A weaker soul might faint away.”

  “I’m sorry to have frightened you, but ’tis yourself who is the snoop.”