The Black Swan (4 page)

Clothilde stopped herself from clenching her jaw out of habit, and from frowning only by reminding herself of the recent application of egg white. “I will take thought for all of these things, Heinrich,” she said smoothly, schooling her voice to dulcet sweetness. “You may trust me to arrange everything for the celebration; I would hardly care to put such important arrangements for my beloved son in the hands of anyone but myself. Is there anything else?”

“Only your signature here, Madame,” said the Minister of Supply, presenting his list of household expenses to her. She freed a hand long enough to inscribe her name and press her signet ring into the hot wax of the seal, and the men retreated, leaving her alone with her women.

She allowed them to fuss over her a little longer, then dismissed them with a wave of her hand. They gathered up their combs and brushes and bowed themselves out, leaving her alone with her thoughts. After a moment, she rose from her dressing table and retreated to her private sitting room, taking a seat on the thronelike chair nearest the window and picking up her embroidery. But she set no stitches, for it was her thoughts that held her full attention.

They were not pleasant thoughts, for although she had taken pains not to show it, the Household Minister's words had come as a violent shock to her system.

Can it really have been eighteen years already?
Her throat tightened with dismay.
How could the time have passed so quickly?

For eighteen years she had held supreme power in this kingdom, answerable only to the Emperor himself—and the Emperor rarely bestirred himself to take interest in anything outside of his own court. For eighteen years, since the death of Siegfried's unlamented father, hers had been the strong hand on the reins. King Ulrich had been a foolish man, a poor ruler, and no one had been particularly dismayed by his death shortly before the birth of his son—least of all his widow Clothilde.

Though the ministers were quite taken aback when they attempted to rule me as they had ruled him.
She permitted herself as much of a smile as would leave the egg white undisturbed. She had foreseen that something might happen to make her a widow, for Ulrich was a heedless sportsman, reckless in the hunt and the joust, throwing himself into all manner of hazards and trusting to his luck to save him. Sooner or later, she had expected that luck to run out, and eventually it had. By that time, with charm, tact, and her considerable beauty, she had already taken pains to win the loyalty of Ulrich's knights; when the ministers and nobles attempted to put her in her place, there had been a brief scuffle and an execution or two, but on the whole, she had assumed the throne without a great deal of difficulty as Siegfried's regent.

But the throne was mine only as Queen Regent, in trust for my son. . . .
She repressed another frown.

That was the rub; she had always known, somewhere deep inside, that she would not be the reigning monarch forever, unless a similar accident occurred to her son. She had been
very
careful of his health in the earliest years, for she knew that several of the defeated nobles were watching her sharply at that point, but once he was of an age to be turned over to tutors, she had encouraged the same reckless behavior in him as his father had shown. Sadly, he had never been quite reckless enough; meanwhile his eighteenth birthday had seemed unthinkably far in the future, and there had always been plenty of time to consider what to do when the time to turn over the throne neared. Now it was here, and somehow she had been caught unawares; no accidents had occurred, and he was healthy and fit.

Nevertheless, she
had
laid enough carefully prepared groundwork to have a number of options. A contrived accident, however, she dismissed out of hand. This close to the fatal day, it would be very suspicious.
Siegfried is not as foolish as his father, but at least I have seen to it that he is ill-prepared to rule.

It had been simple enough to beguile the intelligent child with scholarly tutors, to distract him with books and learning, to immerse him in Greek and Latin to the exclusion of those skills a ruler required. Romances and minstrelsy proved another distraction; he was an indifferent poet, but she had encouraged that pursuit to the exclusion of more practical matters. In fact, she had so petted and praised his scholastic efforts that he was inclined to trot them out like prize horses whenever the occasion warranted, and often when it didn't. That offended the sensibilities of her plain and illiterate nobles, who considered learning to be a foolish waste of time at best, and effete at worst.

When his physical energy demanded an outlet, hoping for heedless risks to life and limb, she encouraged him in the same pursuits that had put his father's life at hazard, then heaped fond praise on him to inflate his pride. Horse, hawk, and hound were his passions, shared with his best friends; he played at jousting and bested even hardened warriors. His love of lore might be considered effete, but no one could accuse his mother of coddling him and shielding him from manly pursuits. And none of this was of the least practical use.

He was an outstanding horseman, a fearless rider willing to take any jump and ride any beast—but he knew nothing of strategy or war tactics beyond the little he had learned from his books. He was a masterly scholar, and had managed to annoy every unschooled noble in his service at one point or another by trotting out his superior intellect and knowledge on every possible occasion. An outstanding jouster, he offended seasoned warriors by considering their experience to be the self-aggrandizing bluster of men whose time had come and gone. He could defeat almost anyone in single combat, but if he ever had to fight in a real pitched battle, he would probably be pulled from his horse and killed by a swarm of peasants with pikes before he knew what had happened—and he was so utterly self-confident that he dismissed any advice as the pessimism of old men. He knew how to command, but not how to rule; how to flatter a woman, but not his knights and ministers; how to bend a horse to his will, but not a man. The maidens of the court adored him, as did the heedless young men, but the older men, the ones who held the power, were not so blinded by his personality and overall good nature. Only tradition would make them insist on crowning Prince Siegfried as their king—but they held so stubbornly to tradition that it would be easier to persuade the trees of the forest to walk than it would be to persuade them to pass him over in favor of his mother.

She had hoped, after all these years of successful rule, they
might
have been willing to retain the status quo—but Heinrich's words today had made it clear that the old men
would
follow tradition over common sense. Women could and would only be regents, keeping thrones faithfully in trust for their sons, and handing them over without a murmur the moment the little fools reached the magic age of eighteen.

Indeed
.

Well, if they would insist on tradition over good sense, she would have to take another path—and something the minister had said suggested the tactics she might take.

Siegfried was romantic, susceptible to women, and had no sense at all where a lovely face was concerned. His tutor had encouraged him in his fantasies, filling him with tales of knights and their chaste ladies, of love from afar, of endless quests undertaken for the sake of a pair of enchanting eyes. He was a ripe fruit ready to fall into the white hands of the first maiden who was clever enough to appeal to his notions of romance and chivalry.

Or into the hands of the first maiden who is coached to appeal to those notions. Yes! Yes, this is what I have been searching for!
She nodded, lowering her lids over her eyes in satisfaction.
That
was the way of handling this situation; she needed to find an empty-headed beauty of sufficient rank to qualify as his bride, one she could manipulate into keeping him busy and distracted as he tried to live up to the image of all those ballads—

A possible goal, but not one she could count on. No, better to simply provide him with a foolish little toy to occupy his attention, while his mother took the burdens and difficulties of rule into her own conscientious hands. Even the old traditionalists would be content with the situation, so long as they had a king in name again.

I can call myself the First Minister, or some such thing. And whenever he shows any interest in ruling, I shall present him with all the tedious mundane matters—then coach his wife into some crisis or other to distract him.
Her right hand closed unconsciously over her left, covering the signet ring as if to keep it from being wrested from her.
Or—if she is delicate, her first pregnancy may well kill her, and he will be plunged into inconsolable mourning for as long as I need to keep him there.
There were many possibilities branching from this path—enough to satisfy even her ambition.

Her success would depend on finding the right girl, though. Her plans would fall apart if Siegfried's bride could not be properly manipulated. She could not go hunting such girls herself; for this, she needed help. Fortunately, that help was close at hand.

She summoned one of her ladies from the outer room where they sat over their embroidery and sewing. “Bring me Uwe, the minstrel,” she ordered. “I have a headache.”

The lady bowed and silently left the room. In a reasonable time, Uwe appeared, bearing his lute, with an expression as calculatedly bland as Clothilde's own.

Uwe owed everything to Clothilde: prosperity, fame, and above all, security in his position. That, for a minstrel, was above price, for he knew that even if he became ill or old and useless, he would retain all he had now. He was, gratifyingly enough, one of those who knew how to gracefully acknowledge his debts without being disgustingly servile. In public, he showed the same face as every other minstrel—a sort of poetic arrogance, a barely veiled scorn for all those who could be made or broken by a carefully worded song. In private, he was wholly and completely Clothilde's creature.

He sat down on a stool conveniently near Clothilde's chair and began to play, but not to sing. That was for the benefit of her ladies in the outer chamber, for the sound of his playing would cover their quiet conversation.

“I have a task for you, one that will entail some traveling,” she said softly, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes, in order to better feign the headache she had claimed.

“That presents no problem,” he replied, just as softly. “Command me.”

She saw no reason to hedge her words. “Siegfried should be wed as soon as possible. I need you to find suitable candidates—of proper rank, with beauty enough to dazzle him, fragile and charming, utterly brainless, and possessing wills of butter. But above all, they must be maidens who will be more than happy to be advised and counseled—ruled, in fact—on all things by their so-considerate mother-in-law.”

He chuckled, a sound that he covered with a particularly intricate fingering passage. “To be presented at the prince's coming-of-age celebration? An excellent and most thoughtful plan; surely he will fall helplessly in romantic love with at least one. Siegfried should be proud to have a mother so considerate of his welfare. How many?”

“Four, I think. I will provide you with invitations to present to the parents, once you make your selection.” She curved her lips into a faint smile; it was so gratifying to have
one
person clever enough to understand what she required without having to be given every little detail. “I leave the rest in your hands.”

“I live to do your will,” he responded, as she had known he would. “Is your headache better?”

“Entirely cured.” She extended her hand to him. He kissed it, then rose and took his leave.

She watched him go with detached admiration. In her younger days, when he had first appeared at her court and caught her attention, she had enjoyed a brief affair with him. She had done so in order to have yet another hold over him, but had found it remarkably pleasurable on many levels. Pillow talk with Uwe had been instructive, and had contributed to her early success in winning over her nobles.

She had been quick to notice when he tired of her, as she had known he would—and perhaps it had cemented his loyalty when she had let him go, indeed, had directed his attention to one of her ladies, and arranged for that lady's husband to be elsewhere at opportune times for Uwe. That had been only the first of many such arrangements on her part, showing him that although she was a woman, she was not prey to the weaknesses of women; she had even presented him with an attractive and obedient servant—female, of course—so that he was relieved of the need to charm before he satisfied himself. From time to time after their initial affair had concluded, she had welcomed him again into her bed, secretly of course, and he had been as satisfactory there as elsewhere.

She roused herself from her reverie; there were things to be done. With great care for the drape of her gown, she rose from her chair and entered the outer chamber. With a gesture, she summoned her ladies from their own handiwork, gathered them around her and left her chambers, descending from the Royal Tower by the worn stone staircase to the Great Hall.

As she entered, the assembled courtiers bowed and curtsied, and she paused on the threshold, hand cupped once again over her ring.

The Great Hall's lofty ceiling, lost in the shadows, boasted no captured battle banners hanging from the crossbeams. That was an innovation on Clothilde's part; displayed bravely above the heads of her courtiers were banners portraying the arms of everyone of any note in the Court. The most important hung closest to the throne, of course, but
everyone
who boasted a title and arms, even if it was no higher than esquire, could look up and see his arms on display there.