Once Upon a Winter's Night

38

They sat in the game room, playing echecs. It was Alain’s move. As he studied the board, Camille studied him, for though she had lived with Alain for a moon and a fortnight on L’Ile de Camille, and another seventy-two days with him on the North Wind, and then even more days in Atterrage and on the journey to Summerwood Manor, she yet marvelled at the fact that she could see his beautiful face and see him in the daytime, to stroll the grounds of the manse or to take meals in the gazebo or to wander the hedge maze or to do whatever they would, all with the sun above.

Finally Alain exhaled, and turned his king on its side. “You take this one, my love, yet I’ll take the next.”

“Ha!” said Camille, grinning as she set the board again, with its spearmen and warriors and heirophants and such.

A discreet knock came at the door, and Lanval entered. Alain looked up. “Yes?”

“My prince, ’tis a trivial thing, but someone has stolen the small lockbox.”

Camille laughed. “ ’Twas I, Lanval. I am the miscreant. I had forgotten all about it. You’ll find it buried in Andre’s compost pile by the stables. I hid it after I took some coins to see me through my quest, though little good it did, me being robbed in Les Iles. Dig in the center, and there it will be.-And, oh, by the bye, you’ll find it damaged; I had to break in with a hammer and chisel… Renaud’s.”

Alain laughed. “Quite the burglar are you, my dear? Tools and all?”

Camille fluttered her eyes at Alain and said, “Why, whatever do you mean, sieur? Would I even know how to handle such devices? I am sure I would be all thumbs.”

They both broke out laughing.

Lanval smiled and shook his head and left them to their games.

Alain sobered and said, “Burying the box in compost, that was clever, my dear. But even more clever was presenting to Olot those double-answer posers, and challenging him to remove the wax, and solving the riddles of the Fates Themselves.”

Without comment, Camille smiled at Alain, then gestured at the board. She would play white this time.

He nodded, and she unconventionally opened the game by stepping forward the spearman who stood just to the right of the white queen’s heirophant.

As Alain pondered his response, Camille’s eyes wandered to the echecs board on the central table, the one reserved for Alain’s sire and dam should they ever be found. Then she stared up at the portrait of Lady Saissa, she with her black hair and black eyes. Then she turned and looked at Lord Valeray’s portrait, grey eyes and dark hair, though not as black as the lady’s. And as she looked, a thought eased at the edge of her mind, something that Alain had said, yet she could not quite recall what it “Your move, Ma’amselle Burglar.”

Camille grinned, and studied the board. Alain had sprung his black king’s warrior across “I have it!” she shrieked, Alain starting back. Camille leapt up from the table and darted to peer at Lady Saissa’s portrait, then whirled and dashed across to Lord Valeray’s. “Alain, I might know where your parents are.”

“What?” Alain, scrambled to his feet. “Where?”

“Oh, love, I might be wrong, but you said that I had solved the riddles of the Fates Themselves, but there is one I had not, for I knew not then what it meant. I still might not know what it means, but I do hope I am right.”

“Which riddle is that, Camille?”

“Urd’s last.”

“ ’Tis done,” said Alain. “The ribbon is laid.”

“Good,” said Camille, “for they know not the path, and we can but hope the ribbon will guide them, for neither of us nor anyone else must lead; ’tis my belief they need do this voluntarily, else it might have no effect.”

Alain nodded.

Camille hugged him. “And be prepared for disappointment, for I am not certain I am right. But if I am, then something wonderful will happen.”

At Alain’s second nod, Camille said, “You go on in; I’ll be at the gazebo. And remember, when I ring the bell-”

“I remember,” said Alain, his voice tight with tension.

With Scruff on her shoulder, Camille turned and headed for the gazebo, while Alain entered the hedge maze.

A quarter candlemark later, just as the sun reached the zenith, Blanche stepped from the manor and started for the gazebo, a tray of food in her hands. And at nearly the same time, Renaud rounded the corner of the manse and headed for the gazebo as well.

When they arrived, as Blanche laid out the lunch on the table-bread and cheese and petit fours and tea, and a small bit of millet seed for Scruff, who hopped down and began pecking away-Camille craned her neck about as if looking for someone and said, “Renaud, the prince would like to know how goes the crafting of shoes for the horses to come, now that the Bear is gone. But I don’t see Alain at the moment. Hmm… ” Her eyes lighted on a small bell on the table. In spite of her tension, she laughed gaily and said, “I know, why don’t I just ring for him?”

“Oh, Camille,” said Blanche, “the prince isn’t someone you just-”

But Camille took up the bell and jingled it quite hard, the tinkle ringing across the sward.

As Camille set the bell back to the table “Help! Help!” came a cry.

Scruff lifted up his head.

“Oh, help me!” came another cry.

Scruff took to wing, flying for the maze, even as Camille cried out, “Alain, Alain!”

“ ’Tis the prince,” gasped Blanche, but Renaud was already running toward the hedge.

Camille scrambled to her feet and followed Blanche, the handmaiden running swiftly after Renaud.

Now others ran toward the maze, one of these Lanval, though he and they were yet a distance away.

Renaud was first to the entry, where he hesitated, for he did fear this place: “I think if I ever went in there, I would lose myself forever,” once he did say to Camille.

Then Blanche reached the entry, and she hesitated too, for she shared Renaud’s fear.

But then Alain called out again, “Oh, help me! Help me!”

Gritting his teeth, Renaud, with Blanche right behind, darted inward, both casting their fears aside. Without realizing it, Renaud followed a long ribbon lying on the ground and twisting into the labyrinth.

Camille stopped at the entrance, and even as Scruff flew back over the hedges and landed on her shoulder, chirping an irritated “ chp! ” Lanval arrived. “Keep the others out, Lanval,” Camille said, then she darted within.

Twisting and turning, Renaud and Blanche ran through the high hedgerows, the ribbon guiding their feet. Winding and weaving, jinking left and right, at last they came to the very center of the maze, and there they found Alain waiting, standing beside the statues of his parents.

And even as they gaped at the completely unhurt prince, and then looked full at the effigies, a great burning came over the smith and handmaiden; Alain cried out and leaped forward to aid, but the furious flames cast no heat, and the two within were not harmed. And so he stepped back, as Camille, now at the center as well, chanted Urd’s final allusion:

“Nearly dual,

It is the key;

That which two fear

Shall set four free.”

And Blanche and Renaud disappeared in the flames as the glamour burned away, and when the fire dwindled and vanished, where they had been now stood Lady Saissa and Lord Valeray, each of them somewhat dazed.

In the faraway town of Lis, there where Camille had first boarded the red coach, in the stable across the street from the Golden Trough, two people who but for the hue of their eyes were twins of Camille’s Blanche and Renaud, two people who had had no memory of who they had been, two people who, some eighteen years past, had titled themselves Clarisse and Georges, those two people suddenly knew their identities: they were the true Blanche and Renaud. How they had lost their memories, how they had been whisked from Summerwood Manor to the town of Lis those eighteen years agone, they had not the vaguest idea, though each of them knew that magic was somehow involved.

But in the maze at Summerwood Manor: “Mother! Father!” cried Alain with tears in his eyes, and he embraced them both.

Great was the rejoicing there in the labyrinth, and great the joy as well when the King and Queen of the Forests of the Seasons emerged arm and arm with Alain and Camille.

Lanval bowed low and glanced at Camille and then said, “My lord Valeray, my lady Saissa, your quarters are ready and raiment has been laid out, for we were expecting you.”

Valeray raised an eyebrow. “Expecting us?”

Lanval canted his head toward Camille and said, “The Lady Camille told us you would come… or rather that you might.”

“It was someone we trusted,” said Lord Valeray, “one of magekind who had been here before and has come since, and who cast the curse that transformed us, and in evil glee made us fear the very thing which would set us free.”

“The sight of our likenesses in the heart of the maze,” said Lady Saissa.

“Was this done using a clay amulet?” asked Camille.

At Valeray’s nod, Alain growled, “A Seal of Orbane.” Then he looked at sire and dam and asked, “And who was this trusted mage who came and did this to you?”

Rage filled Lady Saissa’s eyes, and she said, “It was-”

“Hradian!” exclaimed Camille. “The witch Hradian.”

Saissa looked at Camille in surprise. “Yes, but how did you know?”

Camille turned up a hand. “When you said it was someone you trusted, then did I remember how Hradian was dressed: the crone accoutered in black, with black lace frills and trim and danglers. She looked as if she were streaming tatters and tendrils of shadow, just as was the silhouette that flew across the moon, just as was the glimpse of the figure I saw there in Orbane’s citadel. And when she came to Summerwood Manor, ostensibly to remove a curse, she was sly-eyed and leering. Oh, how she must have gloated, knowing that she was at the root of all.”

Saissa and Valeray both nodded, for even though they had been restored, they yet remembered all that had occurred when they were Blanche and Renaud. But Alain frowned and said, “At the root of all?”

Camille turned to Alain. “Oh, don’t you see, my love, this is the mage who must have traded her services to Olot in exchange for some of the seals he had found there in Orbane’s stronghold; she told him and Dre’ela how the seals did work; she transported Olot and his Goblins to the Winterwood the night they attacked the Bear; and when Borel and his Wolves came, she whisked Olot away to safety; she transported as well the Goblins to Summerwood Manor to fetch me after you were gone. She is the one who bespelled you with sleep, there in the citadel. All of this I do believe. Too, she must be the one the Fates said stood athwart our-” Camille’s eyes widened in remembrance. “Oh, my… I just recalled: Lisane-the Lady of the Bower-when she read the cards for me she said I was greatly opposed by two beings unrevealed: by the Magician, and by the Priestess who appeared to be but an acolyte of the Mage. She also said the Mage was somewhat off center of her reading, which meant he was not directly engaged in my immediate quest for you; even so, she believed he was somehow responsible, though the acolyte seemed more involved, but from behind the scenes. The mage must be Orbane, and the priestess, the acolyte, that must be Hradian.”

Alain gritted his teeth and said, “If Orbane is behind all, he is the one the Fates Themselves fear, for if he is set free from the Castle of Shadows, he will indeed pollute the River of Time beyond all redemption.”

Saissa and Valeray both looked from Alain to Camille in puzzlement, and Valeray said, “You must tell us the full of your tale, Camille, for as Blanche and Renaud we know only parts thereof. When we know all, we need to gather Borel and Liaze and Celeste and decide what to do. For if Orbane is involved, then all of Faery and the mortal world as well are in dire danger.”

That night as they lay in bed, Alain said, “Back when my parents first vanished, the reason the trackers failed to find a trace of their leaving the manse is because my sire and dam never left at all. And the glamour made everyone who knew Blanche and Renaud believe that he had grey eyes and she had black. Yet as you know by what you saw as you waited for the red coach, the true Blanche and Renaud have eyes of dark blue and brown. ’Tis only now, after the curse is gone, we do remember it so.”

Camille took Alain’s hand and said, “Even as I boarded the red coach, I told them I would resolve just who they were, perhaps long-lost kindred or such. Yet now we know the truth, and with the curse lifted, they should know as well, for they were cursed, too, or so Urd’s riddle would seem to say. We need send someone to the village of Lis to bring them here, that is if they wish to come back to Summerwood Manor, where they would be welcome, and we do need a smith.-Oh, and this I remember as well: when I boarded the coach, I was told by a repugnant little man that the eyes are windows to the soul, and it seems he was right after all.”

Alain laughed and drew Camille close and kissed her and said, “Ah, Camille, who else but you would think to look within a person to find another hiding inside.”

A fortnight later, Giles arrived, riding with the courier who had gone to fetch him, the lad nearly thirteen now. Camille rushed out to welcome him, and though he was glad to see Camille, he seemed quite somber. He momentarily brightened when a sparrow came flying to alight on Camille’s shoulder, but then he fell glum again.

“What is it, Giles, what has happened?”

“Oh, Camille, Maman is dead.”

“What?”

Giles sighed. “When no gold came from the prince that third year.. well, you know that some of the young men courting our sisters did pitch coins down the garden well and make various romantic wishes-wishing for a kiss or to touch a breast or something even more daring, and I believe Joie and Gai complied, to what extent I don’t know. Regardless, while fishing up the wide, fine-mesh net she had hidden down in the water of the well to catch the coins ere they reached bottom, Maman fell in and got tangled in the net and drowned.”

Tears welled in Camille’s eyes. “Oh, poor Maman.” Yet Camille’s sorrow was mingled with relief: sorrow, for Maman was dead; relief, for Maman was dead. Even so, it was her mere who had drowned, and silent tears ran down Camille’s face. She embraced Giles and held him a bit, but then disengaged and wiped her eyes. Then sighing, she took Giles by the hand. “Come, we will have a meal in the gazebo, and you can tell me all else.”

As they strolled across the sward, Giles looked about. “Where is your Prince Alain?”

“At the moment I believe he is with his sire and dam inspecting the new horses, yet he will come soon. And we have something to ask you, something which I believe you’ll find quite remarkable.”

They walked on in silence, a silence finally broken by Giles as they reached the steps of the gazebo: “Your mansion is more grand than ever ours was.”

Camille nodded distractedly, then said, “Tell me, Giles, how is Papa holding up, now that Maman is gone?”

“Papa ran away with a femme du cirque; he took the place of a clown who had died of a bladder infection after being struck in the face by one.”

“What?” said Camille, shocked. “Papa ran away with a-”

“With a femme du cirque,” said Giles. “And he seems blissful, living on the road as he does and being a clown and cuddling with his circus girl.”

They mounted the steps and sat down, and Celine brought them lunch, the girl handmaiden to Camille, taking the place of she-who-was-Blanche but who now was Queen Saissa.

As Scruff hopped to the table to peck away at a portion of barley, “What of our sisters?” said Camille.

“All are married.”

“All? Married? Even Lisette?”

“Oh, yes.-Er, well, she was. You see, after our mansion burned down-”

“The mansion burned down?”

Giles nodded as he bit into a peach.

“Perhaps, Little Frere, you ought to tell me all.”

Giles sighed and said, “After the gold did not come from the prince, and Maman was discovered drowned-clutching a coin, a glare on her face-we found enough gold and silver and bronze in the net to keep us going for a while. Then Joie and Gai got married in a double ceremony and-”

“Married to whom?”

Giles looked at Camille as if wondering just why that was important, but he said, “Javert and Philippe. Anyway-”

Camille held out a hand. “Which one married which?”

Giles sighed heavily and said, “Joie married Javert and Gai married Philippe.” Giles paused, as if waiting for another of these unimportant questions, but Camille gestured for him to go on.

“When Colette got married”-Giles glanced at Camille-“to Luc, Lord Jaufre invited us all to his estate near Rulon, and that’s when Papa ran away with the circus. I hardly recognized him in those bloomers and that high, pointed hat, his face all white but for his big red nose and those shoes and-”

“Enough,” said Camille. “Go on with the rest.”

“Well, Papa left Lisette in charge, for she was the last but for me, and she said the money was running out. And so she married Lord Jaufre and-”

“She married that fat old roue?”

Giles nodded. “For his money, I think, for she did say she would send funds to me, and she moved to his estate and left me in charge of ours.

“For a while, things seemed all right, but, increasingly, Pons wouldn’t-”

“Pons, the majordomo?”

Giles nodded. “Pons wouldn’t follow my orders, and so I told him to pack his bags and be out by the morrow. I never did like him and his ways.

“In any event, that night the mansion caught fire, and all was lost. You see, living out where we did, there weren’t enough of us to quench it.

“Pons was missing, along with what little money I had left. Some think he died in the fire, but I don’t believe it is true. Regardless, now that the mansion was gone, I then went to live with Lisette and Lord Jaufre, him being the closest and all.”

Camille sighed and said, “And that’s where our courier found you?”

Giles shook his head and said, “No, he found me at Felise’s.”

Camille frowned. “Felise? What happened to Lisette?”

“She ran away with the apothecary.”

Camille’s eyes flew wide. “What? But what about Lord Jaufre?”

“He wasn’t a nice man, Camille.”

“Not nice? What do you mean?”

“Well, every night when he and Lisette went to bed, he would take those dogs with him.”

“Dogs?”

“Hounds,” said Giles. “Big ones.”

Camille turned up a hand. “And…?”

“Night after night I could hear Lisette crying, and Lord Jaufre laughing, and the dogs panting.”

“Oh, my,” said Camille, shuddering, imagining the worst, then shying away from that thought. “Then that’s why she ran away.”

“Non,” said Giles. “She ran away with the apothecary after Lord Jaufre died of acute indigestion, or so the apothecary who was also the coroner ruled. We buried Jaufre the next day, along with his six dogs, who, strangely, died that very same night as well.”

Camille drew in a sharp breath, but otherwise remained silent, her imagination running wild in another direction.

“Lisette became a very wealthy widow,” said Giles, “and that’s when she ran away, and I moved to Felise and Allard’s.”

Camille shook her head. “What’s the apothecary’s name? — The one Lisette lives with.”

“I don’t know,” said Giles. “Besides, she doesn’t live with him.”

“Doesn’t live with-”

“Non, Camille. Within a week or two, news came that the apothecary had vanished, run away said Lisette. But she is all right, quite happy, I think, for Felise told me Lisette is often seen gadding about with a young man on each arm.”

Camille fell back into her chair and gazed wide-eyed at Giles. “And here I thought I had had an adventure, but it seems to me that you-”

“Camille!” came a cry, and she turned to see Prince Alain riding toward her on a handsome bay.

Overwhelmed with the wonder of it all, nevertheless Giles accepted the regency of L’Ile de Camille; he would spend some time under the tutelage of Lanval, learning to read and write and to keep the books, as well as beginning to understand all that being a prince regent entailed. He would continue this way until it came time to leave for the port of Atterrage, there to meet with Captain Kolor and take the North Wind to the isle. Once on the isle, it would be Andre who would take up Giles’s education, and Giles would train alongside his steward-to-be Jules. In the interim at the manor, Giles attended all matters concerning Alain’s principality of Summerwood, for he needed to be tutored in affairs of state as well as those of estate… one event of which came just nine days after Giles’s arrival.

“Oh, Giles, come quick,” said Camille. “ ’Tis a rade, a rade, a magnificent rade, for Alain’s sisters and brother have come.”

“Raid?” blurted Giles. “Do I need a weapon? I don’t know how to use one. Perhaps I could wield a club or throw rocks.”

Camille laughed. “No, no, Little Frere. Not an r-a-i-d, but an r-a-d-e. Now quickly, dress in your finest, for Celeste and Liaze and Borel are here, and Borel has brought his Wolves.”

As Giles hurriedly dressed, Camille ran to her own closet and called for Celine. With the handmaiden’s aid, she slipped into an elegant indigo gown, a sprinkle of white pearls across the bodice and tiny white insets in the sleeves. Celine shod Camille in indigo slippers and gave her a white fan for her wrist, and the handmaiden wove indigo ribbons throughout Camille’s golden hair.

Then down the staircase Camille dashed, Scruff flying after, Giles coming behind, and they stood in the portico door and ooh ed and ahh ed as they watched the cavalcade come, with Borel’s Wolves loping into view first. Then came a splendid procession of high-prancing horses, with decorative tack and high-cantle saddles and riders accoutered in silks and satins. Up the white-stone way they came to curve ’round before the manor in great panoply and then to stop. As attendants stepped forward and took the reins of the horses, Camille grabbed Giles by the hand and hurried to stand on the granite-and-malachite, oak-tree inlay in the great welcoming hall, Scruff now on her shoulder.

Alain came to stand beside them, as did Lord Valeray and Lady Saissa.

And then Lanval at the entry called out, “The Ladies Celeste and Liaze and the Lord Borel.”

But as Celeste and Liaze and Borel saw their sire and dam whole and hale before them, and saw Alain standing in daylight uncursed, all formality dissolved into laughter and tears and hugging and questions flying and answers lost and Scruff’s agitated chirping.

“… and with the resolution of that final riddle, thus were your parents restored.”

Silence fell ’round the great dining table as Camille’s recounting came to the end, and each one there pondered what they had been told, some for the second time. Finally Borel said, “What would you have done Alain, without this girl?”

“Married a Troll, I expect,” said Giles.

Borel looked at the lad in surprise, but then burst into guffaws of laughter, all others joining in.

Yet when it died down, Valeray said, “Thanks to ‘this girl,’ as you called her, Borel, he was spared that hideous fate, as were we all. Nevertheless the question remains, now what are we to do? Stop Hradian, I would say, ere she finds a way to release Orbane.”

Murmurs of agreement circled the dining table, and Celeste said, “Borel, when you last located the witch, it was in the Winterwood, correct?”

Borel nodded. “Aye. There in the cursed part.”

Saissa sighed. “I was so sad when I first heard that a part of your most lovely demesne had fallen under bane.”

Borel nodded and glanced at Camille and said, “Probably cursed by Hradian herself to keep curious eyes away.”

“And on the most direct route unto the mortal world,” said Liaze. Then she added, “Not that anyone ever goes there but our dear brother Alain, and whatever for, I wonder?” Then she grinned at Camille.

“Are you two married yet?” asked Celeste.

“The banns are posted,” said Alain-he glanced at his father-“and a king notified.”

Borel looked from sire to brother, and said, “What say somewhile after the wedding, we three get a warband together and run down the witch?”

“Done!” said Alain

“Done!” said Valeray.

“Done!” said Camille.

All at the table looked at her in startlement, all but Alain that is. Lord Valeray frowned and said, “One moment there, my daughter-to-be, we will be opposing magic, and that’s no place for a girl.”

“Father,” said Alain, a bit sharply, “ne’er were there a braver girl with a truer heart nor a more clever wit, and without her, you and mother and I would all be captives of Olot and his Redcaps on Troll Island, and I would still be cursed as a Bear and be married to Dre’ela, and you would yet know yourselves to be Blanche and Renaud and be slaves to Goblins and Trolls. And as for opposing magic, she has done so, though perhaps not directly. Too, she faced down a Dragon, and battled a monster in the sea, and which of us can say we’ve done the same? Nay, sire, no matter the peril, she is welcome to come, along with her little Scruff too, for did not the Fates so say? Surely, sire, you would not challenge the Ladies Wyrd, Lot, and Doom.”

Lord Valeray took a deep breath and let it out, then shook his head and said, “I would not be so foolish. Welcome to the warband, daughter-to-be. We set out after the wedding.”