Once Upon a Summer Day (15 page)

“No,” said Borel. “I assure you, I will only cut your beard if nought else will set you free.”

“Oh, no,” moaned the Gnome, great tears forming and running down his cheeks and nose and splashily dropping onto the bark.

Borel knelt down and examined the log, the crack, and the beard. “Give me the axe,” he said.

“Oh, no, you’re going to chop my beard off,” whined the Gnome, and he tried to hide the axe behind his back.

Sighing, Borel reached across and took the axe from the wee man. “Have you a hammer, a mallet?”

“Y-yes. In my cottage.”

Borel frowned and looked at the oak-hafted axe, more of a hatchet in size, being just slightly longer than a foot in all. “Never mind,” he said and took up a billet nearby. He set the cutting edge of the small axe into one end of the split well away from the Gnome’s beard, and then with the billet he hammered the bronze blade into the crack, widening it. In moments the Gnome was free.

“Oh, thank you. Thank you,” said the wee man, standing up to his two-foot height and stretching, while at the same time keeping a wary eye upon the bee. He tucked the end of his foot-long beard into his belt and said, “I’ve little to pay you with.”

“I ask for no pay,” said Borel, “though a meal would be splendid.”

“As you wish, my lord,” said the Gnome, “though it will take me awhile,” and he rushed away toward the back door of his cabin.

“It would also suit my friends,” Borel called after, “if you have a bit of honey as well.”

“Yes, yes,” called the wee man over his shoulder, and into the cabin he went.

Borel looked about, and then wrenched the axe from the log and, in spite of his lingering aches, he began splitting the wood in twain.

Borel had laid aside nearly a half cord of wood by the time the Gnome returned, the small man staggering under a steaming tray piled high with honey-baked beans, several wee slabs of black bread slathered with butter, a number of small rashers of well-cooked bacon, and a tiny bowl holding perhaps a spoonful of honey.

 

“Just as I was trying to wrench my axe out of that log,” said the Gnome, now sitting on the ground before Borel, “a gust of wind blew me down on it at the very same time my axe came free and the crack snapped shut on my beard.”

Also sitting on the ground,
“Mmm . . .”
said Borel, his mouth full of beans and bread.

“By the bye,” said the Gnome, “my name is Hegwith. And you would be . . . ?”

“He is Prince Borel of the Winterwood,” said Flic, licking sweetness from the tip of one finger, while beside him Buzzer lapped at the small dish of honey. “And this is Buzzer, my guardian”—Flic shot a glare at the Gnome—“and not a bee to be swatted nor trifled with. And I am Flic, Sprite of the Fields.”

“Prince Borel?” said the Gnome, looking up at the man.

Still chewing,
“Mmm . . .”
replied Borel, sketching a seated bow, then scooping up another mouthful of beans, using the Gnome’s soup ladle as a spoon.

Hegwith stood and bowed to the prince, and then seated himself on the ground again.

“How came you to believe we were girls coming to cut off your beard?” asked Flic, dipping his finger into the honey again and then licking it clean.

“Well, this isn’t the first time my beard has been caught in a crack, and for that I think some evil witch or the like has cursed me. You see, awhile back and at a place far from here, I got my beard caught in another split in a log. Two young girls came along, and to get me free they snipped off the very tip of my beard. I’m afraid I was rather ungracious, seeing as how my marvelous beard had been virtually destroyed. I’m rather vain about it, you know.

“In any event, not a week went by when again my beard got caught in a crack, and as fate would have it, again came along these same two girls. And they cut off even more of my beard. This time I cursed at them, for now it was even worse than before.

“Finally, when my beard got caught the third time around, and this same pair of girls came by, I promised them treasure if they would set me free without snipping off more of my beard. They readily agreed, and, well, wouldn’t you know, they took the treasure and ran away, leaving me with nought but a small pair of scissors.” Tears filled the Gnome’s eyes. “I had to cut my own beard. My very own beard.”

Borel shook his head in commiseration, but Flic laughed in glee. “Clever girls. I say they well earned that treasure.”

“What do you mean?” sobbed the Gnome. He took out a red kerchief and noisily blew his nose, but continued to weep over the loss of part of his beard.

“Why, they kept their promise, Hegwith,” said Flic. “By leaving the scissors, they gave you the means for you to get free without they themselves cutting your beard.” Again Flic broke into gleeful laughter.

“Yes, but I had to cut it myself,” wailed Hegwith above the Sprite’s giggles. “At least if they had snipped it off, I would have them to blame and not myself.”

Borel sopped up the last of the honey-baked beans and popped the bread into his mouth.

Drawing in a shaky breath and stifling his tears and blowing his overlarge nose once more, Hegwith looked up at the prince and said, “At least you, my lord, didn’t chop off my beautiful beard. And for that I am grateful.”

“Had I had to cut it off,” said Borel, “it would have been at your chin.”

“Oh, my,” said Hegwith, clutching his beard, and he burst into tears again.

 

“My lord, I see you travel light,” said Hegwith. “Do you live nearby?”

“No, Hegwith. I have not much gear, for I lost nearly all of my goods when I was captured by Trolls, and then again during my escape.”

Startled, Hegwith blurted, “Trolls? Where?” The Gnome looked about in panic.

Borel pointed back up the vale. “Past the twilight marge, and over hills and through woods to a distant river and then upstream past rapids; altogether some fifteen or twenty miles hence.”

A look of relief passed across Hegwith’s face. “For a moment I thought they might be nearby. Yet you escaped them, you say?”

Borel nodded.

“What did you lose?”

“Lose?”

“Your goods. When you were captured and then escaped.”

“Oh, it’s not important. Just a rucksack and a tinderbox and provisions, as well as a small kit for fletching arrows and other such things. Yet that is neither here nor there. Instead let me ask you this: do you know of Lord Roulan? Where his estates might be? We are on a desperate mission, and it is vital we get to his lands.”

Hegwith shook his head. “I’m sorry, my lord, but I do not know of him. Would that I did, but I don’t.”

Borel sighed and then pointed ahead and said, “What lies along the vales we follow?”

“Meadows. Flowers. Streams. Coppices. All the way to the next border, some twenty-five miles hence. But there are no estates along that path.”

“What lies beyond the next twilight marge?” asked Flic.

“Oh, you don’t want to go there,” said Hegwith, pushing out both hands, as if to stop any movement in that direction. “ ’Tis a terrible mire—hideous bogs and quags; why, I nearly drowned when I passed through, back when I fled from the hag who wanted to steal my—um, er, harrumph, and those horrible girls who cut my beard. Regardless, there is muck without bottom and quicksand and leeches and snakes and other dreadful things, things that slither and plop and wriggle and . . .” Hegwith’s voice trailed off, his face squinched, his gaze lost in ill memories.

“Blossoms?” asked Flic.

“What?”

“Are there blossoms, flowers, within the swamp?”

“Why, I suppose so. Yes, I remember. Many flowers hanging from trees, altogether quite beautiful. Others were growing up out of the muck. And some of those filled the air with the odor of carrion, as if some animal had crawled within and had become trapped and died, the stench of putrefying meat rather dreadful.”

Flic looked at Borel. “Then, my lord, I think that is where Buzzer is headed, for the flowers of a mire are rich in nectar.”

Borel shrugged and hitched to his feet, for sitting had stiffened him up. “If it lies along Buzzer’s route, then there’s nothing for it but that we must follow.”

The prince slung his bow by its carrying thong and said, “I thank you for the tasty meal, Hegwith. It filled up the empty spots in my hollow stomach. But now we must go, for our mission is dire and the moon sails on and stays her course for no one.” He turned to the Sprite and the bee. “Flic, Buzzer, ’tis time to fly.”

At a signal from Flic, Buzzer took to wing and flew up and ’round, sighting on the sun, and then she arrowed away. Flic flew up to the prow of Borel’s tricorn and settled down. Borel sketched a bow to the Gnome, then turned and strode off through the evergreens, and Hegwith watched them go. Just ere they disappeared from sight, the Gnome called out, “Thank you for setting me free without cutting my beard.”

Hegwith stood a moment in thought, muttering, “What has the moon to do with ought?” Then he looked at the axe and the crack in the log and at the cord of wood Borel had split and laid for him. His eyes widened and he glanced once more in the direction that Borel, Flic, and Buzzer had gone, then turned and rushed into his tiny dwelling, where he opened a trapdoor and climbed down into the mine below. There he took up a maul and began pounding on the bedrock, his rhythmic hammerings sounding very much like signals.

 

“Nought but liaisons, eh?” said Flic.

Borel frowned and then brightened and said, “Ah. With the fair sex, you mean?”

Now Flic frowned. “Fair sex?”

“Women,” said Borel. “Females. Ladies. Mademoiselles and demoiselles.
Femmes fatales
.”

“Oh, I see,” said Flic. “Yes, they are who I meant.”

“Oui, liaisons is all I have had with members of the fair sex,” said Borel.

Flic sighed. “Me, too. Ah, but as I said before, I wish I had someone to love and someone who loves me.”

“A lady Sprite, eh? Someone from the fields?”

“That would be my choice,” said Flic, “though I suppose a Woodland Sprite would do.”

Borel frowned. “There’s a difference?”

“Oh, indeed. A great difference. They live in the woods, you see, whereas I and my kind live in the fields.”

Borel strode forward several steps before asking, “Are you of a size: Field Sprites and those of the woods? Do you more or less resemble one another?”

“Um, yes,” said Flic.

“Then why would there be any problem in such a union?”

Flic pondered a moment. “Well, I, uh . . . Hmm. I suppose we could live in the woods some of the time and in the fields at others. That or live in a field on the edge of a woodland.”

Borel smiled. “What of living in a woodland on the edge of a field?”

“Hmm . . .” Flic mused. “I suppose that would work as well, though surely the other way ’round is better.”

Borel laughed. “It never occurred to me that where one lives might keep lovers apart. I would think that the important thing is whether or no one has found his truelove and she has found him. Then from that moment on, they would seek to overcome whatever obstacles lay in their way so that they could be together.”

Flic fell silent, and Borel strode on, following the path that Buzzer flew, the bee keeping to the vales rather than flying up over any of the mountains hemming them in.

At times Borel waded streams and rivulets and deep flows. At other times he trudged up long slopes, or down. Through laurel hells he went, and groves of aspen and birch. Whin oft stood in his way, and this he passed ’round when he could, or pushed through when he could not. Stony ways he sometimes followed, or whisked among tall grasses springing forth from rich loam. Yet no matter the terrain, always there were flowers along the way: Buzzer’s larder.

And as Borel strode and Flic rode and Buzzer flew, the prince and the Sprite talked of the mysteries of amour and ardor and passion and affairs of the heart, and they both bemoaned the fact that each had yet to find his very own truelove.

They were yet in the high mountain valleys when they came to the wall of twilight marking the border into the next realm of Faery. And as the sun set, hearkening to the words of Hegwith the Gnome, they set camp in a coppice this side of that marge and planned on passing through and into the mire the next morn.

Altogether, they had gone some twenty-seven miles that day, for with the ministrations of Flic’s medicines, Borel’s hurts had considerably eased.

Once again Borel knapped flint arrowheads as he sat beside the fire. He had seen no game that day, and so he would be without meat for his meal.
Had I my loyal Wolves, I would set them on a hunt. I do hope they escaped Hradian’s wrath.
Though he had not felled game, he had managed to dig up a tuber—something akin to a parsnip—from one of the meadows, and Flic had assured him that certain grass grains were nutritious, at least to grazing animals, that is, and so whenever they had passed through thigh-high grass, Borel had plucked and chewed the heads. And so he roasted the tuber and knapped flint, while he and Flic spoke of liaisons and love and lovers.

That eve, when Borel settled down to sleep, Flic reminded the prince that he needed some way to change the setting of the turret, should he happen to find Chelle in his dreams again.

Yet Borel did not know how to do such a thing, and even as he concentrated upon remembering that daggers meant that he was dreaming, still the quandary of how to escape the stone chamber lurked on the edge of his thoughts.