Once Upon an Autumn Eve (10 page)

A door ward thumped the floor three times with a long staff, and the music stopped and everyone turned toward the grand ballroom entrance, and a great cheer rose up, led by Zacharie:
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Amid the following applause, the musicians again began to play—harpsichord, and a bass viol and a cello, a viola and a violin, as well as a flute and a harp. And they sounded some notes of a minuet, then the music segued into an interlude and one by one the instruments fell to silence, until only the harp remained. The crowd grew quiet and looked at the princess and her consort in expectation.

“Sieur Luc,” said Liaze, “may I have this dance?”

“Indeed, my lady,” he said, and bowed and took her hand.

A great, wide circle formed, and Luc led Liaze to the center, and when they stopped and took their positions, the flute and violin, viol, cello, bass viol, and harpsichord took up the play, and slid into a minuet.

Luc bowed low, and Liaze deeply curtseyed, and then Luc held out his hand to the princess, and they moved in time to the moderate tempo, the stately court dance one of small steps and erect posture and curtseys and bows and hand holdings and pacings side by side while facing one another. And they turned and drew close and then stepped apart, and struck the requisite poses, all having an air of restrained flirtation.

“It is called the kissing dance, Luc,” said Liaze, with an impish grin.

“I know, my lady,” said Luc, smiling back. “My teachers taught me so.”

“Fear not, Sieur Luc, I will not attack you in front of these guests.”

Luc laughed but said nought in return.

They continued the dance, effecting the various steps and postures and carriage, and Liaze said, “You are doing quite splendidly. Your
tuteur
taught you well.”

Gracefully, lithely, the pair glided through the dance, while those about occasionally applauded at some nimble step or turn, Liaze willowy, Luc agile, a perfectly matched pair.

As the minuet came to an end, Luc leaned as if to kiss Liaze, and she raised her face to meet him, and their lips did touch, to the delight of all, and in that moment the music slipped into the interlude, and all the spectators suddenly broke out in applause.

Liaze called above the ovation, “Now all take part,” and the crowd broke up into several rings, and couples took center, and the music segued into the minuet and the kissing dance went on.

That evening Liaze and Luc stepped out the cotillion, with its varied and intricate patterns, and they danced the
countredanses,
and lively they were with much gaiety, four or eight couples in a square, crossing over, changing partners, pacing lightly in pairs ’round and ’round.

And they danced many vigorous reels—the men in a line on one side, the women in a line opposite—couples tripping out to meet one another, or romping down the center in various steps and poses, to the laughter and joy of the other dancers, while the exuberant music played on.

And Liaze taught Luc and the gathering another reel: the Dance of the Bees it was called, something that her brother Borel and his intended Michelle had taught the attendees during Alain and Camille’s wedding; Borel had seen the dance of Buzzer the bee during the trials the Prince of the Winterwood had undergone, and when he could he turned Buzzer’s gyrations and wriggles into a dance. And so Luc and Liaze wiggled and buzzed and raced to and fro and ’round the lines of dancers, while the violin played a frenetic air, and everyone laughed.

And between dances and during refreshments, some sang, and some recited poetry, and some told tall tales. And then several called upon Luc to perform, and grinning he took center stage. He put his fingers to his lips and shushed, and the crowd fell silent. And in a melodramatic voice and with histrionic gestures Luc began:

Luc laughed and bowed, and the crowd roared, and the musicians struck up an air, and applause sounded heartily. Luc stepped from the stage, where, delighted, Liaze waited, and she kissed him on the cheek.

“That was splendid, my love,” she said. “Humorous while at the same time speaking of things unregretted until it is too late.”

Smiling, Luc nodded, and then sobered and said, “And yet when more time is given, undone they continue to be.”

“
Saisez le jour,
eh?” said Liaze.

“Oui,” replied Luc. “Seize the day, and leave nothing to regret, nothing undone.”

Liaze leaned closer to him and whispered, “Then why did you resist me so long?” She laughed a silvery laugh, and drew him onto the dance floor, and they joined another reel, and romped through the line of arched hands.

 

“Oh, my, what a wonderful evening,” declared Liaze, falling backwards onto her bed.

“Indeed,” said Luc. “That I remembered the dances amazes me.”

“Did I not say it was like riding a horse: once learned, ever remembered?”

“You did, chérie,” said Luc, pouring two glasses of dark wine. “Even so, I was a bit anxious. I have never been with so many people, and all of them having fun.”

“The poem, Luc, the one you recited, whence?” asked Liaze, sitting up.

“It came to me all at once on a foggy morn,” said Luc as he handed a glass to Liaze. “I believe it is my own creation, though mayhap it is only remembered from something I once read.”

“Well, it was quite splendid,” said Liaze, “and quite splendidly told.”

She raised her glass in a salute, but before sipping she said, “Here’s to many more nights such as this, the happiest of my life.”

Luc raised his glass in response. “And in my life, too,” he said, and they sipped the wine and smiled at one another, and both began shedding clothes. Nude, Liaze threw back the covers and leapt upon the bed, Luc an instant after.

They made precious and gentle love, and lay together awhile in murmured converse. But at last Luc stepped ’round the room and capped the lanterns and blew out the candles and crawled into bed. They kissed one another sweetly, and quickly fell into slumber.

12

I
t was well after the mark of midnight when Liaze awakened trembling, not from the cold but from a feeling of dread. She looked at Luc lying asleep, but the darkness obscured his face, and so she slipped from the bed and went to a nearby window and drew aside the drapes. She lowered the sash and opened the shutters, and once again she shivered in the chill autumn air. This night was the dark of the moon, and only starlight shone in.

Liaze looked out upon the lawn, and she saw a small dark form scuttling across the sward and pointing up at her open window. Yet that wasn’t what affrighted her so; instead it was a huge dark shadow following, the shadow slithering back and forth, like a giant serpent, or perhaps more as if it were a questing hound, seeking, seeking, flowing upon the grass like some dreadful—

Of a sudden Liaze saw what it resembled:
A shadow of a great hand, creeping this way, with clawed fingers and—

Liaze spun and cried out, “Luc! Luc, waken!” And even as Luc started up from the bed, Liaze shouted to the unseen ward below, “A foe comes!”

Luc bolted up and into his chamber, and by the starlight shining in through his open-shuttered, open-draped windows, he snatched his sword from its scabbard lying upon a bedside table. And he grabbed his silver horn and chain shirt and silks and leathers and boots from their rack-stand.

Back into Liaze’s chamber he ran and to the window, and he said to Liaze, “Step away, they might fly arrows.”

He sounded his horn, and it was answered from below by the houseguard.

Luc looked out and down. “What—?”

He flung on his silks and then his leathers, saying, “I know not what that black thing is, but you need to stay back and safe.”

As he slipped into his chain shirt, ignoring the warning Liaze stepped again to the window. “Oh, Luc, it’s creeping up the side of the house.” She hauled up the sash and slammed the window shut.

“My bow, I need to get my bow.” Liaze ran through an archway to an adjoining room.

A darkness blotted out the starlight, and the house creaked and groaned, as if its timbers were shifting, as if someone or something were trying to crush it.

Luc stomped his last boot onto his foot, and grabbed up his sword and stepped to the window.

Just as Liaze came running back in, her strung bow in hand and a quiver at her side, Luc lowered—

“Luc, don’t!”

—the sash.

Her cry came too late, for the huge shadow rushed in and snatched Luc up and jerked him out the window, his sword spinning down toward the ground to land on the flagstones with a
clang!

Even as she ran toward the gape, Liaze nocked an arrow to bowstring.

The shaft was already half drawn as Liaze reached the window. She stared into the night, and saw something small and dark shoot up from the distant trees, dragging the great shadow after, with Luc caught in its grasp. Up and across the sky they flew, and Liaze drew to the full and took aim at the blot resembling an arm and loosed her missile, the arrow to sail through the umbrous wrist and beyond to no effect whatsoever. And there came through the moonless dark a distant laughter of sinister glee as the shadow and Luc and something flying ahead of them disappeared into the night.

13

L
iaze collapsed to the floor, sobbing. She took up the silver horn and pressed it to her cheek. She did not note the ache in her left breast nor in her left forearm, the bowstring having struck both.

“Princess! Princess!” With a lantern in hand, Zoé came running in. “I heard the trump. What—?” Zoé dropped to her knees beside Liaze.

Liaze looked at the handmaiden through tear-laden eyes. “He’s gone, Zoé, snatched away from me by a dreadful dark thing.”

“Gone? Luc? Oh, Princess, I—”

The door slammed open. Zacharie and men of the houseguard came crashing in, weapons in hand. “Princess, are you—”

As men spread out and searched the chambers, Zoé leapt to her feet and ran to the bed to grab up a blanket.

“—hurt?” asked the steward, dropping down on one knee at Liaze’s side and looking everywhere but directly at her naked form.

“He’s gone, Zacharie,” said Liaze, raising her face to him, indescribable pain in her eyes. “The shadow took him.”

Zoé rushed back and enwrapped the princess in the cover.

“But you are safe? Nothing herein?” asked Zacharie, gesturing about.

“If there were,” snapped Zoé, “don’t you think she would be fighting them? And as far as being hurt, it is her heart and soul in pain, not her body.” Exasperated, Zoé added, “Men!” She turned to Liaze and knelt down and embraced her and held her close.

Members of the houseguard came from the adjoining chambers. “Nothing, Zacharie,” said one of them. “No Goblins anywhere.”

Zacharie rose to his feet. “Two stand ward at the princess’s door. The rest of you, help with the search of the manor.”

Gaining control of her emotions, Liaze said, “I’m all right, Zoé,” and the handmaiden released her embrace. Liaze then looked up at Zacharie. “Goblins?”

“Oui, Princess,” said the steward, vaguely gesturing toward the open window. “Louis spitted with a crossbow bolt the only Goblin we saw as it climbed the wall toward your rooms.”

Liaze set the silver horn aside and wiped an eye with her fist and said, “Why would a lone Goblin climb the wall?”

Zacharie shrugged.

Liaze frowned and then took in a breath. “Did it have a cudgel or other weapon?”

“Oui, Princess, a cudgel.”

“It must have been sent to break the pane and let the shadow in, but Luc—” Liaze’s voice choked, and she took a shuddering breath. “Luc opened the window himself, and—”

“Princess,” called Rémy as he came striding in, an unsheathed falchion in his grip. “It was a witch.”

“What?” asked Zacharie. “Did you say ‘witch’?”

“Oui, Zacharie. Anton saw her silhouette against the stars as she flew up from the woods.”

“
That’s
what that was,” said Liaze, more to herself than the others. She got to her feet and said, “A witch . . . and she dragged the shadow and Luc after, as she flew away.”

“Four of you and four of them,” said Zacharie, sighing. “Did I not say?”

“Rhensibé, Hradian, Iniquí, and Nefasí,” agreed Rémy, nodding. “Since Rhensibé is dead, perhaps it is one of the three who are left.”

“But why take Luc?” asked Liaze. “Why not me instead?”

Zacharie and Rémy looked at one another, and neither had an answer, but Zoé said, “Through Lady Michelle, Rhensibé struck at Borel.”

“That’s right,” said Zacharie. “It was indirect revenge. Perhaps the same is at work here. Whichever witch it is, mayhap she simply wanted to reave true love from you.”

Liaze stooped and took up her bow, her blanket gaping wide. “Which way did she fly, Rémy? I lost sight of her and the shadow and Luc in the darkness.”

“So, too, did Anton,” said Rémy, looking away.

Liaze sighed and shook her head. But then she looked at Zacharie. “Did we take any casualties?”