A Wild Swan by Michael Cunningham Read Free Book Online Page B

who passed the law about putting trousers on cats and dogs, who made too-loud laughter a punishable crime. According to rumor, he was abused by his father, the last king. But that’s the story people always tell, isn’t it, when they want to explain inexplicable behavior?
    *   *   *
    You do it again that night. The spinning is effortless by now. As you spin, you perform little comic flourishes for the girl. You spin for a while one-handed. You spin with your back to the wheel. You spin with your eyes closed.
    She laughs and claps her hands. Her laughter is low and sonorous, like the sound of a clarinet.
    This time, when you’ve finished, she gives you a ring. It, too, is cheap—silver, with a speck of diamond sunk into it.
    She says, “This was my mother’s.”
    She slips it onto your pinkie. It fits, just barely. You stand for a moment, staring at your own hand, which is not by any standards a pretty sight, with its knobbed knuckles and thick, yellowed nails. But here it is, your hand, with her ring on one of its fingers.
    You slip away without speaking. You’re afraid that anything you might say would be embarrassingly earnest.
    *   *   *
    The next day …
    Right. One last roomful of straw, twice the size again. The king promises that this is the last, but insists on this third and final act of alchemy. He believes, it seems, that value resides in threes, which would explain the three garish and unnecessary towers he’s had plunked onto the castle walls, the three advisers to whom he never listens, the three annual parades in commemoration of nothing in particular beyond the celebration of the king himself.
    And …
    If the girl pulls it off one more time, the king has announced he’ll marry her, make her his queen.
    That’s the reward? Marriage to a man who’d have had you decapitated if you’d failed to produce not just one but three miracles?
    Surely the girl will refuse.
    You go to the castle one more time and do it again. It seems that it should be routine by now, the sight of the golden straw piling up, the fiery gleam of it, but somehow repetition hasn’t rendered it commonplace. It is (or so you imagine) a little like being in love; like wondering anew, every morning, over the outwardly unremarkable fact that your lover is there, in bed beside you, about to open her eyes, and that, every morning, your face will be the first thing she sees.
    When you’ve finished, she says, “I’m afraid I have nothing more to give you.”
    You pause. You’re shocked to realize that you want something more from her. You’ve told yourself, the past two nights, that the necklace and the ring are marvels, but extraneous acts of gratitude; that you’d have done what you’ve done for nothing more than the sight of her thankful face.
    It’s surprising, then, that on this final night, you don’t want to leave unrewarded. That you desire, with upsetting urgency, another token, a talisman, a further piece of evidence. Maybe it’s because you know you won’t see her again.
    You say, “You aren’t going to marry him, are you?”
    She looks down at the floor, which is littered with stray strands of golden straw.
    She says, “I’d be queen.”
    â€œBut you’d be married to him. That would be the man who was going to kill you if you didn’t produce the goods.”
    She lifts her head and looks at you.
    â€œMy father could live in the palace with me.”
    â€œAnd yet. You can’t marry a monster.”
    â€œMy father would live in the castle. The king’s physicians would attend to him. He’s ill, grain dust gets into your lungs.”
    You’re as surprised as she is when you hear yourself say, “Promise me your firstborn child, then.”
    She merely blinks in astonishment, by way of an answer.
    You’ve said it, though. You might as well