Once Upon an Autumn Eve fs-3

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Leon gritted his teeth and said, “And so, I am a murderer and fugitive in my own realm.”

  The armsmaster fell silent and stared bitterly into his tea, but after a moment he sighed and said, “Regardless, I raised the lad as my own, making certain to teach him all I knew of arms and armor and combat and other such things. And the comtesse secretly sent funds for me to hire tutors, and to set up a bookstore in the village so that the child could broaden his knowledge. She wanted him raised as a proper gentleman, knowing all the noble arts of a man of his station, and I did my best. Why, I even hired etiquette advisors and dance instructors so that he would be completely at home in any court in Faery.”

  As Leon paused to take a long draught of tea, Liaze said, “You did very well, Sieur Leon. Luc is truly a noble gentleman.”

  Leon turned a hand, palm up, and a fleeting smile showed he was pleased by her remark. Even so, it was immediately replaced by a worried frown. After a moment he said, “Throughout the years, by Jacquot-who took on the guise of a bookstore owner in Honey Creek-I sent secret reports to the comtesse of Luc’s progress.”

  “Ah,” said Liaze, refreshing her own tea and Leon’s.

  Nodding his thanks, the armsmaster continued: “When Luc came into his majority, the comtesse sent Deadly Nightshade with arms and armor as a gift, for both she and I would have him become as was his true sire: a worthy chevalier and a comte, as Luc was meant to be.

  “I sent him on errantry, to gain experience, for before he can face that man who would be a comte and more, Luc must needs win his spurs in single combat or in the battle of war and become a true knight, and then would I tell him of his rightful heritage.”

  Liaze raised a hand to stop his words and said, “But he is a true knight, Armsmaster Leon. He accounted for more than twenty Redcap Goblins in battle and slew a Troll as well, and he alerted my manor to the oncoming threat. I knighted him myself.”

  Leon frowned. “And just who are you to have done so?”

  Her voice taking on imperious authority, Liaze declared, “Je suis Princesse Liaze de la Foret d’Automne, la fille du Roi Valeray et la Reine Saissa. And in my demesne I am the sovereign, the absolute ruler, and knighting someone who has proved himself in battle is mine to do.”

  Leon rose from the table and went down on one knee. “Princess Liaze, I beg your-”

  Seeing the man humble himself before her, of a sudden Liaze relented and softly said, “Kneel not to me, Armsmaster, for we are not in my court, but in yours instead.”

  Leon resumed his seat and took a long drink of tea. Then he looked at Liaze, his eyes glimmering with unshed tears, and he whispered, “My Luc, a knight.”

  Liaze smiled and nodded. “Indeed, he is. You trained him well, Armsmaster.”

  Leon shyly bobbed his head, and then took a long sip of his tea.

  “My friend,” said Liaze when he set his cup down, “you started this tale by saying you might know why a witch snatched up Luc and flew away with him.”

  “ ’Tis a guess on my part, yet perhaps it is Guillaume who hired her to find the blue gem, and he chose a witch to seek it out, for Guillaume needs it to claim the rank of comte in that demesne.”

  “I see,” said Liaze. “And when the witch scried out the jewel, she found Luc wearing it.”

  “Perhaps,” said Leon. “Perhaps.”

  “It is a worthy guess, Armsmaster, one most likely to be.-Ah, then, that’s why the Redcap Goblins and Trolls were after him. They were the witch’s minions sent for the silver-set stone.”

  Leon faintly smiled. “Even should she recover it, little does Guillaume know that only the true heir can wear the amulet. It will not benefit a usurper. Comte Amaury told me this in confidence, for there is some deadly secret concering the amulet that he would not reveal.-Once I tried to remove the talisman for safekeeping, and it nearly did me in.”

  Liaze nodded and said, “As we discovered in Autumnwood Manor when we were tending to Luc’s wounds.”

  Leon got to his feet, the man seeming somehow relieved now that the secret he had kept so many years had finally been told. “Well, Princess, let me tend to the horses, and then we’ll have a meal and talk about how Luc came to you, and why you are riding alone rather than in a retinue, and how you and I are going to rescue Luc.”

  “I’ll help with the horses, Armsmaster,” said Liaze, “and tell you what you want to know, as well as why you cannot go on with me, though you can help me plan what next to do.”

  “… And so you see, I yet have trials ahead. And Lady Skuld said I must go alone, but for the howling one.”

  “But, Princess,” said Leon, “perhaps you have already ridden with fear when you came through the Forest of the Oaks.”

  “Oui, I admit I was fearful in that place, yet I think had any been with me-a retinue of warriors-they would not have been slain by fear, as Lady Wyrd said would happen.”

  Leon sighed in agreement. “There is that. Men have nothing to fear in the Forest of Oaks. Only women.”

  Liaze nodded and neither one spoke for a while, and then the princess asked, “Have you seen any crows flying over?”

  Leon shrugged. “If any did, I took no special note of them.-Still, if they were flying across sunwise borders, that’s the way the Blue Chateau lies.”

  Liaze raised an eyebrow. “Ah, I see. Then perhaps that’s the way the witch lies as well. As such, it gives a bit of credence to the idea that Guillaume is behind Luc’s taking.”

  They sat quietly a bit longer, and only the crackle of the fire broke the silence. After a moment Liaze stood and took up her mug and tin plate and knife and spoon and looked about the single room. “Where do we-?”

  “There is a spring nearby where I clean them,” said Leon. “Runs all year, summer, winter, it matters not.” He got to his feet and took up his own tableware and a modest stewpot and ladle, as well as the lantern, and together they walked to the rock face of an upjut of land. Water poured out from a cleft in the stone to run in a clear stream and away, and together they knelt thereat to wash the utensils.

  As Leon scoured away at the pot, he said, “What do you plan to do?”

  Liaze stopped her own scrubbing and sighed. “I think the only thing left to me is to ride to wherever lies this Blue Chateau of yours on an isle in the Lake of the Rose and take on a task of some sort in the hold and see what I can discover.”

  “Take on a task?”

  “Oui, as a goose girl or some such.”

  Leon shook his head. “You cannot ride in on Deadly Nightshade, towing your mare and four packhorses and claim to be a goose girl. You will need to leave them somewhere safe and go in on foot.-Ah, and perhaps I have just the place. There is a widow I used to visit when I was armsmaster of that keep, and…”

  Liaze stayed with Leon another day, but neither the princess nor the armsmaster could come up with a better plan. And so, the next morn, seventeen days after setting out from Autumwood Manor, eighteen days after Luc was taken, and forty-one days ere a heart would cease to beat in the dark of the moon, Liaze rode away from the woodcutter’s cote, heading in the direction of the sunwise marge, for that’s the way the Blue Chateau lay, though seven borders beyond. Liaze had in her possession a note written in code to deliver to the comtesse, in the hopes Lady Adele could aid in the finding of Luc.

  And so, astride Pied Agile and towing Nightshade and the four geldings after, Liaze fared into the woods.

  Leon stood looking after her as she rode away, his hands clenching and unclenching, as if seeking weapons but finding none. And he despaired, for he would go at her side, yet he could find no way to get around Lady Wyrd’s rede. And though he had said he would ride with the princess even if it meant yielding up his life, Liaze had refused to let him accompany her. “Trust to the Fates,” she had said, and he had no recourse but to do so. And so he watched her ride away into the forest, and, when she was gone beyond sight, he turned and took up an axe and furiously began hewing cordwood.

&nbs
p; Three days later, Leon saddled his grey and laded on supplies, and then dressed in his armor and took up his arms and rode away from the woodcutter’s cote and toward the sunwise border.

  25

  Musings

  As Liaze rode deeper into the woods she could hear the distant sound of Leon’s axe hewing. Ah, but I would have loved his company, just as I would have liked Remy and his warband at my side. Yet Lady Skuld said, “For should you take a few with you, / Most Fear would likely slay.” Ah, me, but I cannot have the blood of others on my hands can I help it. And if that means riding alone, then let it be so. Au revoir, Leon, mon ami, foster pere of my Luc.

  On she fared, and the sound of hewing faded. Finally, she could hear the axe no more, and it was as if she had lost a friend.

  All morning she rode, as the sun rose up the sky, and occasionally she stopped at rills and streams to give the horses a drink and to take water herself. And at the noontide she found a lea with red clover growing, and there she stopped and let the horses graze, while she ate a bit of jerky along with biscuits slathered with honey.

  As she sat watching the animals crop sweet blossoms amid bees gathering nectar and pollen, she mused on what Leon had told her, and at one point she laughed. Ah, my Luc, you are a comte. I cannot wait to see the look on Tutrice Martine’s face when I tell her. Hedge knight, she called you, when you are anything but. Not that it matters one whit, for I love you for what you truly are and not for the title you bear. But Martine, now, she is caught up in status, for did she not say that instead of you, a mere chevalier, I should marry a duc or a comte at least? I am certain, though, she would prefer that I wed a prince or a king. Hedge knight, indeed. Ha! When I introduce you to her as Comte Luc du Chateau Blu dans le Lac de la Rose et Guardien de la Cle, ah, but she will be shocked.

  A snort from Nightshade brought Liaze out from her reflections, and she leapt to her feet and drew her long-knife and looked about. Yet she saw nought of a threat, and Nightshade and the other horses yet grazed placidly.

  Again the black snorted, and Liaze laughed at the cause. “Eating bees, are we, my lad? Or did they sting your tender nose?” She stepped to the stallion and when he raised his head to her, she lifted his chin and looked at his muzzle. No bee stingers did she see embedded. “Ah, then, it was the eating of bees, eh? Regardless, ’tis time we were on our way.”

  Liaze rearranged the tethers for the mare to follow with the geldings in tow and for the stallion to lead, and she mounted Nightshade and rode away from the red-clover meadow.

  Down sank the sun through the sky as Liaze continued riding in the direction Leon had said the Blue Chateau lay. Leon had fled far with the child, and seven shadowlight borders stood between her and that goal. She fretted that she might fail to see the landmarks the armsmaster had told her to follow, and if she drifted too far off line and simply rode ahead, then she might altogether miss the realm wherein she would find the Lake of the Rose. To avoid going elsewhere, when she reached each sunwise border, if she found herself off course, she planned to roam along the near side of the given twilight wall until she came upon the marker described by Leon denoting the place to cross.

  As dusk drew its lavender cape o’er the land, with the black of night to follow swiftly after, Liaze made camp in a small hollow through which a stream ran. After taking care of the horses and laying a fire, she sat on her blankets and took a bite to eat. As she savored the last of the boiled eggs Leon had given her, she reflected on what the armsmaster had said. Chateau Blu occupies the whole of a small isle in the center of the lake. There is a manmade causeway running from the shore to the manse. The manor itself is really a walled castle, and it is made of a grey-blue stone, hence the name “Blue Chateau.” The Lake of the Rose is so named because of the reflections of the red-hued rock cliffs along one shore, giving the water a rosy appearance. Too, Luc’s ancestors planted roses along the banks, and the briers spread, and some now follow the outlet stream that flowed forth from the sundown end of the lake. Together with the mirrored color of the cliffs and growth of the roses themselves, that’s where the name came from, as well as the title of the comtes and comtesses who ruled there. And as soon as I find Luc and free him, he will take the title: Count Luc of the Blue Chateau in the Lake of the Rose and the Keeper of the Key.

  Liaze frowned. Keeper of the Key? What key? Why is a key part of the title? What might that mean? And why should it be guarded? Oh, I should have asked Leon. Shall I ride back? She sighed. Non, that would just waste two days-one going and then one returning. No doubt I will find the meaning when I reach the chateau itself. Surely the Widow Dorothee will know. I wonder, were she and Leon lovers? There was a certain fondness in Leon’s voice when he spoke of her as someone I could trust, as a person who would keep the horses while I go to the chateau as a goose girl and deliver his coded note to Comtesse Adele.

  Even so, I would like to know what this “Guardian,” this “Keeper of the Key” means in Comte Luc’s full title.

  Liaze spent a moment washing herself in the nearby stream, and she rubbed her teeth with a chew-stick and took a mint leaf and munched it to sweeten her breath, all the time wondering about the “Key.”

  The puzzle was yet flitting at the edge of her mind when she fell asleep.

  Just ere dawn, Liaze startled awake. “Caillou!” she said aloud. By the light of the embers of the fire and of the waning gibbous moon, Pied Agile looked at her, and then about, as if seeking a threat. Nightshade remained adoze. Liaze got to her feet and stepped to the mare and stroked her muzzle and along her neck to calm her.

  “Perhaps Caillou knew the answer,” murmured Liaze to her horse. “But then again, perhaps not.” And scratching Pied Agile’s forehead, Liaze recalled that day on the stone creature’s flank when he said he had seen a man with a black horse:

  Liaze’s heart jumped. “Did he wear a metal shirt and a metal cap and carry a metal horn like this one?” She held up Luc’s silver trump.

  Slowly, grinding, the eyes turned toward Liaze, the flinty gaze to at last come to rest upon her. “Yes… It was but a short pebble cascade ago when he came across.”

  “Oh, Lord Montagne, it was my Luc,” said Liaze. “It must have been when he was on his way to my realm… back whence I came. Did he recently return this way? Oh, I must find him, and I could use your help, Lord Montagne, if you have any to give.”

  As she waited for the answer, she returned her arrow to its quiver and her bow to its saddle sheath.

  At length, the being said, “Many things spill out of you all at once, as if in avalanche… Indeed… avalanche…”

  Liaze waited, and just as she feared there would be no answer to her questions, the stone being said, “Yes, he went down the way you came… No, he has not yet come back this way.”

  At these words, Liaze’s heart fell. Even so, she knew only by wild chance would the witch in her flight have flown through this pass, dragging the shadowy hand after, Luc in its grip.

  Again there came a rumble, and she realized that the mountain was yet responding to her questions. “Rrr… I have seen him but once, and though I tried, I could not stop him, for he bore the stone… He passed through without giving me my due.”

  “He bore what stone?”

  As if thought moved slowly through a being who seemed to be made of the mountain itself, again there was a long pause ere the creature answered. “A tiny bit of keystone.” The eyes, grinding, slowly looked upward and then back down at Liaze. “It was the color of the sky.”

  Liaze frowned, then brightened and said, “The gem on a chain about his neck?”

  “I asked if he was going to open the way, but he did not know what I was… speaking of, and I did not enlighten him.”

  “Open what way?” asked Liaze.

  After long moments, the creature did not respond, and Liaze decided that he would not speak of it again, not tell her what he meant, just as he had not told Luc.

  “Pied Agile,” said Liaze, speaking softly t
o her horse, “Caillou said a piece of keystone was about Luc’s neck; it was a gift given to him by his pere, or so Leon said. Could this be the key of the comte’s title? If so, what door does it open? — No, wait, perhaps it is not a door, for Caillou instead said it opened a ‘way.’ A way to where, I wonder? Or is it a way from somewhere instead?”

  With Pied Agile now soothed, Liaze returned to her bedroll and lay down. Yet, unable to answer her own questions, she could not fall asleep. After a while she gave up her chase of elusive slumber and arose and started breaking camp-drenching the fire, feeding the animals, feeding herself and taking care of her needs. She led the horses to the stream and let them take water, and then she laded the geldings and saddled the stallion and mare. Dawn was just breaking on the sunup bound as she rode on toward her goal.

  All day she fared toward the sunwise border, riding, walking, and riding again, pausing to feed the horses and herself, stopping for water, and then moving on. She passed by hunters’ shacks and woodcutters’ cotes and through hamlets and by farmsteads, and whenever she fared by or through those places some people would ask her for the news, but she had none to give, while others stood and watched in curious silence.

  As the day sank into the sundown bound, Liaze came to a small town, where she engaged a room for one night at a tiny inn, with a village stable across the way.

  “We don’t get too many travelers along this road,” said the proprietress. “ ’Cept in the honey season, and then it’s mostly buyers going up to Honey Creek, but surely you aren’t one of them.”

  “Umn,” said Liaze, shaking her head but offering nothing more.

  “Regardless,” said the innkeeper, “I’ve stew in the pot for tonight, and I’ll cook you breakfast afore y’leave in the morn.”

  “Speaking of leaving, how far is the sunwise border from here?” asked Liaze.