mother.
And this ring had belonged to her father. Why hadn’t she known him, or her mother? Could the answer be in this book? He indicated that Alasdair should continue.
“The witch, too, delivered of a daughter, much to the displeasure of the brigand king. The child was dark, her features twisted in a scowl, and he feared the future when he looked upon his spawn. It could be no good portent that such a disfigured child was of his seed, but he had ensured that the witch laid with no other man. It was in his moment of doubt that he heard a second babe cry.
The sound came, against all reason, from his wife’s chamber.
The brigand king strode to the queen’s room and unlocked the door, fury upon his brow. He found the queen with a new babe at her breast and ripped the child from her, casting it aside as he bent his anger upon her. Trymman, forgotten for the moment by his father, caught his infant sister and hid in the shadows, holding her close and keeping her quiet. The brigand king shouted, calling his wife a whore and a slattern, and vowed he would ensure her chastity forevermore.
He drew his dagger and he killed her in her own bed, before the horrified gaze of their youngest son.
Trymman fled his father’s rage, knowing that his sister might share their mother’s fate. He took advantage of the open door and the brigand king’s inattention. He used the forgotten stairs that the stranger had shown him and slipped through the palace unseen. He heard his brothers mustering and feared of their intentions. They ran up the main stairs to their mother’s chamber, boots pounding on the stone, the sound of their rage filling the castle. Little did Trymman know that they, too, had come to hate their father: four of them were of age but their father surrendered nothing to them. He kept all in thrall and that created bitterness in the hearts of those who should have loved him best.
Trymman fled into the village, holding his sister close, uncertain where he might find help. From the celebration in the streets and the tavern, he learned that his father had a new daughter by the witch. He followed the revelers to the witch’s hut, in time to see her hurry into the street.
There was a hue and cry from the castle above, then the voice of Trymman’s oldest brother, Edred, rang out. “The brigand, our father and king, is dead for his crime of murdering our mother! I declare myself king in his stead!”
“Long live King Edred!” cried the other ten brothers in triumph and Trymman saw the flash of their swords at the high window.
“He will not prosper from this deed,” the witch muttered. “No son kills his own father and lives to celebrate as much.” She raced toward the castle, her own child abandoned in her dismay. She raised her hands, summoning a curse as she hastened to the queen’s chambers.
Trymman wanted only to save his sister. On impulse, he exchanged her with the wizened and dark infant sleeping in the witch’s hut. He wrapped the witch’s daughter in the robe from the queen’s chamber, tucking it over her face, and left his sister in the rough furs of the cradle in the witch’s hut, her father’s ring on that fine chain around her neck. He saw the light in the stone die and feared the portent of that.
When the witch saw her lover dead in the queen’s chamber and knew her influence was gone forever, she invoked a curse of ferocious power. She bestowed it on the eleven brothers, for they were responsible for her loss, and they were powerless to escape her wrath.
Far below, Trymman heard the trumpeting of one swan and then that of another. He watched in wonder as eleven swans flew out of the window of the highest tower of the castle, soaring high in the sky. They called as they flew and he understood that they were his brothers, enchanted forever. The witch had cursed them to become swans, to live as wild birds instead of the sons of kings, as the price of their offense against their father.
The sight was Trymman’s undoing, for as he stared in disbelief, the witch returned home and spied him. She guessed his identity and his burden, mostly from the once-rich robe wrapped around the baby, and snatched the infant from him. She cursed this twelfth son