The Golden Swan Read Free Page A

always understood.
    â€œI know,” he said. “Or I can imagine.… Perhaps I cannot. Try to rest as we ride.”
    He got me onto his horse, carrying me sideways in the saddle before him. We cantered southward along the shore toward the port city of Nemeton with the men taking turns carrying Frain. I settled into a time of numb endurance measured out in the rhythm of the horses’ hooves. A memory floated up from deep mind. Trevyn had carried me like this before, but I had been very young then, still in my first fur.
    It was dusk before we made the castle. Frain was taken to a sickchamber amid a tumult of excitement caused by our arrival. Trevyn sat me down in front of a blazing fire and saw to it himself that I ate. Then he put me into the royal bed that the lord of that place had meant for him, and he rubbed my strange, stiff limbs with his warm hands until I was able to sleep. It was the first time I had slept between sheets.
    He was sitting by my side when I awoke in the morning.
    That one I found? I asked.
    â€œMuch the same.” Trevyn reached out to touch me, awkwardly, for no reason. “Dair, why did you go away?”
    I had to. The call was on me .
    â€œAnd I did not understand or see what was happening to you. So there you were all alone when you needed me most.”
    You came when I needed you most , I said. He did not reply, and I lay thinking.
    The change , I added— I had to face it alone .
    So here I was in human form. But I was not likely to make a very satisfactory human, I sensed. And my bond brother, what of him? All of life seemed in confusion.
    I do not want to leave you again , I said to Trevyn. But we both knew I must.

Chapter Two
    Being on two legs was a nuisance. It took me several days just to learn to stand and walk without help. The height made me dizzy and made everything look strange. And there were matters of modesty to be dealt with, where to relieve myself and clothing, which was a constant bother. I wore as little as possible. And eating. Luckily I had been accustomed to cooked meats, so it was only the manner of eating that was strange to me. I could no longer put my face down to a plate on the floor. I had to sit and use a cup and convey the food to my mouth with my hands. No mention was made of knife and fork, for which I was grateful. The hands were clumsy enough. So was the mouth.
    â€œMove your lips,” Trevyn would say to me gently from time to time. “They are shaped like mine now. Make speech.”
    â€œAwaaa,” I would say, or perhaps “Rawawarrr.” I could manage nothing more. Trevyn would repeat a simple word to me, “meat” or “water,” trying to help me. But I could not be helped. I had missed learning something that human young learn while I was a wolf.
    For that first week, while I was struggling with human form, the stranger I had found lay abed and did not fully come to himself. He could be roused and given wine and bread and broth, so he grew no weaker. He talked. But he talked only to himself, his dreams or shadows on the wall, and in a language no one could understand. He did not know where he was, the doctors said.
    As soon as I could walk the distance I went with Trevyn to see him.
    He sat propped up on pillows, his hair bright and fine as feathers against the white linen, his crippled left arm beside him and the other folded across his chest. A doctor and servants stood by his bedside shaking their heads. The stranger youth was talking steadily to no one at all. His voice ran like a river between walls, behind weirs, calm, forceful, controlled. He might have been addressing a council. Trevyn sat beside him and listened, frowning.
    â€œI thought I knew every language of the overseas lands,” he said, “but this one is new to me.”
    The youth talked through the afternoon and into the night. The doctor could neither soothe him into slumber nor rouse him to sense. Trevyn kept his seat,