A Lady Under Siege

27

Sylvanne was combing Daphne’s hair. She picked up the young girl’s long tresses and piled them atop her head. “I prefer my hair down, not up,” Daphne told her. “I have a neck like a stork, so I like to keep it cloaked.”

“But this is the neck of a swan,” Sylvanne disagreed. “How gracefully it curves from your bodice to your chin. Any handsome knight would fall off his horse at the sight of you.”

“You really think so?” asked the girl, blushing.

“Have you seen yourself in a looking glass lately? The little stork is growing into a lovely swan, for certain,” Sylvanne insisted.

“You’re thinking of that fable about a duckling who’s ugly.”

“I’m thinking of a pretty girl named Daphne.”

Sylvanne planted a sweet peck of a kiss on Daphne’s neck. Just at that moment Thomas entered, and saw it, and saw his daughter, dressed in day clothes, rise from her chair and come to him, radiant and beaming.

“Daddy, do you like my hair this way?” she asked, doing a little pirouette to show it off from all angles.

“I can honestly say I do,” he replied. “You’re looking quite the lady.”

“I wish I had some fancy soirees to attend,” she mused. “I wish I lived in the capital. I wish a prince would see me like this.”

“That’s three wishes,” Thomas said tenderly. “Don’t spend them so freely. Save one for getting well.”

“I am well,” Daphne insisted. “Sylvanne says I’m well enough to go riding, and I think we should all three go out on horseback together, this very day. This very minute! She’s been telling me all about the horses she kept when she was my age. Her father’s farm had two sturdy draught horses she brushed and fed, and rode them bareback in the summers. She had two, and I’ve never yet had one.”

Thomas glanced at Sylvanne. She smiled back at him discreetly. Her hair had been fashioned into one long braid, and pinned up, displaying her lovely neck to fine effect.

“If wishes were horses…” Thomas said dreamily. “Well, I suppose a horse is a reasonable wish for a girl. We’ll find you one.”

“Today?” Daphne cried.

“No, not today, but tomorrow I’ll put out word. There may even be something appropriate in my own stable, although offhand I can’t think of one. They’ve all been bred for warfare, I’m afraid. Very spirited bunch. You’ll need something gentler, a sweet old mare with a motherly streak.”

“But I want a spirited one,” Daphne demanded. “And it should be chestnut in colour, and bigger than a pony. Sylvanne says ponies are for girls, and I’m a young lady now.”

“Suddenly it’s Sylvanne, Sylvanne, Sylvanne,” Thomas said good-humouredly. “Has she convinced you to regard the perfectly apt word girl as pejorative?”

“She recognizes what’s there for all to see,” Daphne replied. “You said yourself that I’m looking quite the lady.”

“And does Sylvanne herself have anything to add on this subject?”

Sylvanne smiled slyly. “Nothing needs adding,” she told him. “The young lady is so articulate and polished in her language, I fear that by comparison my own voice sounds as waves slapping an empty boat.”

“Hardly,” Thomas replied. “Your voice is the wind that fills the sails.”

Sylvanne made a little show of whispering to Daphne like a girlish conspirator, “I think your father just called me a windbag.”

Daphne giggled, and gleefully scolded him, “Daddy, did you call Sylvanne a windbag?”

“My my, how women like to twist men’s words,” Thomas replied. “No wonder we have such trouble speaking from the heart.”

“Say something from the heart,” Sylvanne urged him. “And I promise this time, we won’t make fun.”

Thomas hesitated. “Yes. Well.” A distant look came to his eyes. Sylvanne and Daphne waited. He put his hand to his chest, and said, “I’ll beg off, if I may, for I’m afraid my heart’s a little tender, just at the moment.” His voice trembled slightly. “My dear Daphne. With your hair up like that, you look so much like your mother.”

“Daddy. I’m sorry,” Daphne said softly.

“Don’t be. I’ll leave you two now to your fun.”

Sylvanne stood quickly and took hold of his wrist to stop him from going. “No, no. It’s really time for her to take a rest. I’ll leave you two.”

Thomas looked down at where her hand touched his skin, and felt a tingle surge through him. Her eyes were two pools of sparkling, radiant light. “Your demeanour is so altered these past days that I can scarce believe you’re the same person, Lady Sylvanne,” he said. “You’ve captivated my impressionable young daughter, and caused this room to ring with girlish laughter for the first time in many a moon. I thank you.”

“She’s good company,” Sylvanne said modestly, letting her hand fall from his wrist. “She brightens my days, as well.”

“I do wonder at this sudden change in your deportment, however,” Thomas continued. “It seems to signal a change of heart, and the abandonment of your husband’s wishes. Or could it be playacting, a ruse, an emotional Trojan horse by which you hope to penetrate my defences?”

Sylvanne didn’t flinch. She met his eyes squarely. “The only person in the world I trust at the moment, my maid Mabel, has advised me to look for trust in others, by granting trust to others. So I’m giving myself up to you—in hope that your actions in bringing me here were for an honourable end, and that I might in some way help you achieve them.”

Thomas studied her. “Nothing would please me more than to return that trust,” he said. “Customarily, in listening to the words of others, I can only guess at their true feelings. But in this case, I expect I’ll discover the truth or falseness of what you say, in my dreams. For I have an ally, a spy in your mind, fair Meghan, your twin.”

“Then I pray this Meghan is not a liar,” Sylvanne said.

“No. She has nothing to gain by that,” said Thomas. “She’s a truth-teller, and a mind-reader, inside you even as we speak.” He looked directly into her eyes again. “Just now I think I see her in there with you. It’s as if your eyes are the windows to not one soul, but two. Can that be true? Or is it because when I dream, her eyes are as beautiful as yours?”

“You frighten me.”

“Don’t be frightened. There’s nothing you can do to change the truth.”

“Pray, let her read my mind, and make her report. Call for the guard, for I’ve grown suddenly weary, and wish to retire to my room.”

Thomas walked her to the door and watched as the guard led her away. He was still tingling from the radiance of her eyes, so powerful he’d put it down to the presence of two souls. He asked himself again, Could it really be that I saw Meghan in those eyes?

“Daddy, will we go riding tomorrow?” His daughter’s voice returned him to the moment.

“First we need a horse, before we make plans about riding one.”

Daphne picked up a comb and ran it through her long hair. “Do you like Lady Sylvanne?” she asked.

“I do like her,” Thomas replied. “I’m not sure I trust her.”

“I wish you would,” the girl said.

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re in need of a wife.”

“A few days ago you were terrified of her,” Thomas reminded her.

“She’s different now. And you’re in need of a wife.”

“You’re in need of rest. And you’re awfully young to be a matchmaker.”

“Mother told me something, before she died. She said she hoped you would marry another, to give me sisters, or a brother.”

“Did she? That sounds like something she would wish for. Thinking of others, even at the end.”

“Can we go riding tomorrow?”

“You’ve asked me that. Don’t mount the saddle until there’s a horse underneath.”