The Black Swan Read Online Free Page A

expense from the Holy Land. Charcoal powder in sweet oil, made into a paste, darkened her lashes and brows, and a touch of belladonna in the eyes themselves gave her a wide and doelike innocence. Alabaster held the alum, and she mixed the egg-white concoction fresh each morning on a matching alabaster palette. Talc ground to powder she dusted over her face with a hare’s foot, softening the effect of cosmetics so that only the most experienced eye could tell that she used them at all. When she was satisfied with the effect, she beckoned to the door without turning her head, and an augmented group crowded into the room.
    While her ladies combed and arranged her hair, then put on her jewels, headdress, and coronet, her ministers stood at a respectful distance, presenting her with some of the less-urgent questions of the kingdom. Items of a truly pressing nature and great importance were saved for the Council Chamber, but there was no point in taking up the time of the Council with the trivialities of household matters.
    In fact, these matters were so very trivial, that had she not insisted on having final approval of everything, she need not have troubled herself with more than half of them. More often than not she didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the droning of her ministers in the morning, once she had the gist of what they were droning about.
    This morning, however, was different. “Repeat that,” she ordered sharply, losing her usually tranquil tone as something she thought she’d heard actually struck her with palpable shock. Her Minister of the Household started with surprise at the snap in her voice.
    He recovered his aplomb immediately. “I said, Madame, that as Prince Siegfried’s eighteenth birthday is but six months away and fast approaching, Your Highness should take thought to an appropriate celebration. He will, of course, be assuming the crown once his majority is achieved, and the subject of his coronation will be handled by the full Council rather than your Privy Council, but the celebration is a Household concern. It would be advisable, for instance, to invite eligible young women to present themselves with a view to a swift engagement, and a marriage following the coronation. The young women of your court are amiable enough but—” he hesitated, “—hardly suitable in rank, much less in dower.”
    Clothilde stopped herself from clenching her jaw out of habit, and from frowning only by reminding herself of the recent application of egg white. “I will take thought for all of these things, Heinrich,” she said smoothly, schooling her voice to dulcet sweetness. “You may trust me to arrange everything for the celebration; I would hardly care to put such important arrangements for my beloved son in the hands of anyone but myself. Is there anything else?”
    â€œOnly your signature here, Madame,” said the Minister of Supply, presenting his list of household expenses to her. She freed a hand long enough to inscribe her name and press her signet ring into the hot wax of the seal, and the men retreated, leaving her alone with her women.
    She allowed them to fuss over her a little longer, then dismissed them with a wave of her hand. They gathered up their combs and brushes and bowed themselves out, leaving her alone with her thoughts. After a moment, she rose from her dressing table and retreated to her private sitting room, taking a seat on the thronelike chair nearest the window and picking up her embroidery. But she set no stitches, for it was her thoughts that held her full attention.
    They were not pleasant thoughts, for although she had taken pains not to show it, the Household Minister’s words had come as a violent shock to her system.
    Can it really have been eighteen years already? Her throat tightened with dismay. How could the time have passed so quickly?
    For eighteen years she had held supreme power in this kingdom,