The Golden Swan by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page A

terrified of you.”
    I rose, stepped back and cupped my hands, a sign of peace. Why? I asked him. It was only an inquiring whine, but for once he understood me.
    â€œI wish I knew. I never thought I was such a coward. Dair, I know you mean me all good and no harm, and yet I shake at the sight of you, and I hate myself for it.”
    Would it help if I wore clothes? I asked, but it was only a senseless muttering to him.
    â€œI swear, I am going as mad as Tirell,” he said wildly to the air and the walls. “He was afraid of the beast and the brown man, but he found courage to embrace them—and I have none.” He edged away from me as if he were going to bolt, but then Trevyn happened in. Frain strode to his side in three steps, and Trevyn looked at him in mild surprise.
    â€œYou don’t need my protection,” he said.
    â€œI know! It is ridiculous. What am I going to do with this fear?” Frain appealed to him.
    â€œSee it through.”
    â€œIt looks as if I am going to have to.” Frain stood still, trying to calm himself. Trevyn sat heavily on the bed.
    â€œI have your ship manned and provisioned. You can go with the tide.”
    Frain stared at him, sensing pain in the calm words. “Lord,” he said, “I have no desire to take him from you, believe me.”
    â€œI believe it,” said Trevyn wryly. He turned to me. “Dair, you had better get some clothes on. Salt spray is hard on the skin.”
    â€œI need no companion,” Frain protested. “For seven years I have walked alone—”
    â€œYou need him worse than you know,” Trevyn said. I went out, and what they said after that I do not know.
    Trevyn walked us down to the harbor when the tide came in. He gave Frain good wishes and the handclasp of an equal. Then he gathered me into a long embrace. Both our faces were wet. Frain stood by, looking abashed.
    â€œI wish you were coming with us,” he said at last to Trevyn.
    â€œSo do I. But I am a king now, wed, with a child, and as soon as you are gone I will be on my way back to Laueroc. My voyaging days are over.” He stood back as we boarded ship. “Farewell, you two!”
    Laifrita thae, Dounamir , I called to him. Sweet peace to thee, my father . The elfin greeting served for parting as well. I had never spoken to him so formally, but I knew I would not be coming back.
    â€œFarewell,” said Frain.
    With a creaking of spars and planks the ship took us down the harbor mouth with the tide. Trevyn stood watching us go. He looked very small, standing on the wharf by the gray water’s edge.
    Within a few hours after we left port I was dismally seasick. It was no wonder—my own human height still made me queasy sometimes, and the slight rolling of the ship on the calm sea undid me. I could scarcely bear to move. I kept to my bed in the dark hold, lay there and retched and groaned. Though I hardly thought so at the time, it was probably the best thing I could have done. Frain could not very well be afraid of me when I was lying so sick and helpless.
    At first he let me alone. But as he saw I was not going to get over my illness in a day or two he began bringing me gruels and things, at first out of duty and later, I think, with real concern. “Try to keep it down,” he would say, offering me a plate of some kind of awful mush. No matter what it was, it looked vile to me. I would try to eat it even so, to please him, and then I would give it back the wrong way. He would sigh, clean up the mess and depart. He tried me on wine and all sorts of things, and none of them did any good. This went on for several days, until I felt weak enough to die.
    I can’t bear this , I said, though I knew he would not understand me. Three more weeks yet —
    â€œIt can’t last much longer,” he said, as if he had understood after all. “It will soon run its course.”
    He brought a basin of water and