Once Upon an Autumn Eve (11 page)

“Oui,” said Zacharie. “Two members of the houseguard—Adrien and Paul—were crushed, as if by a giant hand.”

Liaze’s face fell. “The witch’s dark clutch, the shadow,” she said, now stepping toward the window. Rémy tried to get between her and the opening, but she waved him away. Liaze looked out upon the starlit lawn, the faint light now augmented by the lanterns of searching men. “It tried to rupture the manor with its terrible grip.”

“I heard the timbers groan,” said Zoé, her eyes flying wide.

“I will have the carpenters and masons and roofers inspect every inch,” said Zacharie.

“My lady,” said Rémy. “We can take part of the warband and go searching for Sieur Luc.”

“Which way would you ride?” asked Liaze.

“I . . . I don’t know,” said Rémy.

“Precisely,” said Liaze, tears welling unseen, for she stood at the window looking out.

“A seer might know,” suggested Zoé. “We could ask Malgan. He lives in the Autumnwood.”

An image of the seer sprang to Liaze’s mind: a reed-thin, sallow-faced man with lank, straw-colored hair, his hands tucked across and within the sleeves of his buttoned red satin gown.

Rémy snorted. “This Malgan: he’s the one who continually whispers to himself and looks about and flinches as if seeing invisible things. Princess, I think him perhaps untrustworthy, mad as he is.”

“I would not disagree with you, Rémy,” said Liaze. “Alain calls him a charlatan, and Camille says Lord Kelmot—the Lynx Rider—calls him a mountebank.”

“But he’s all we have,” said Zoé.

“I would rather travel to the Summerwood and ask the Lady of the Mere, or on beyond to the Lady of the Bower,” said Liaze.

Zoé nodded and said, “They helped Camille.”

“Ere we make any rash decisions,” said Zacharie, “let us see what the daylight brings. There might be something we find that points us the right way.”

Liaze took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “You are right, Zacharie. Let us wait until daylight.”

Zacharie bowed, as did Rémy, and they withdrew. Zoé lingered and asked, “Would you like me to stay with you, Princess?”

“Non, Zoé. I’d rather be alone.”

“Then I’ll just close this,” said Zoé. She stepped to the window and latched the shutters, then drew up the sash and locked the frame into place. She pulled the drapes to, then curtseyed and said good-night and slipped from the room.

When she was gone, Liaze threw herself onto the bed and released her pent-up grief.

14

W
eeping off and on, Liaze did not sleep the remainder of that night, and just ere first light she arose and donned her leathers, wincing a bit from the darkening bruise on her breast. She strapped on a long-knife. She took up her bow and quiver of arrows and started for the door, but turned and stepped back and retrieved Luc’s silver horn. Then she went into the hallway beyond.

“My lady,” said Didier, one of the wards at the door. Patrice, the other guard, bobbed his head. “Zacharie says we are to accompany you, wherever you go.”

“Non,” said the princess. “I need to be alone to think.”

“We can stand off a good distance,” said Patrice.

Liaze sighed. “Very well, but at a good distance: I want no distractions.”

“How far, my lady?” said Didier.

“A hundred paces or more.”

“A hundred paces? But, my lady—”

Liaze lifted the silver horn. “At need I will call.”

The warders looked at one another, and reluctantly agreed, and Patrice said, “As you wish, Princess.”

Down the stairs they went, and the manor was silent, and those whose duties began this early were creeping about, despair on their faces, as if they were in mourning. And as the princess went by, some opened their mouths as if to speak, but they knew not what to say, while others simply curtseyed and lowered their gazes and hurried away on their errands.

Out from the manor Liaze went with her two guards, and she strode across the lawn toward the willow grove, the early light of dawn just barely in the skies.

As they reached the golden leaves and drooping branches, Liaze said, “Wait here.”

Didier raised his hands in protest. “But my lady, we will not be able to see—”

“I will be within a hundred paces, or thereabout, and I have the horn,” said Liaze, cutting off his objection. “I need to be alone, and the pool with its welling water is soothing unto me.”

Again the guards looked at one another, and Patrice said, “As you will, Princess.”

“But please, my lady,” said Didier, “keep the horn at hand, always within reach.”

“I will,” said Liaze, then she turned on her heel and walked in among the golden leaves, soon to be lost to sight.

With willow branches swaying behind her, Liaze came to the glade, and in the light of dawn she saw a crone at the water’s edge, weeping.

Liaze raised the horn, preparing to blow, but then she hesitated.

She scanned the crone’s face, and real tears flowed down.

Loosening the keeper on her long-knife and nocking an arrow to string, Liaze stepped toward the side of the pool across from the crone.

As she took station on the flat rock opposite, the hag looked up and uttered a wail. “My shoe, my shoe,” she cried, and pointed at the wooden sabot floating in the welling water. “Will you fetch my shoe?” And she wailed and buried her face in her hands.

Liaze looked over her shoulder and listened for racing footsteps.

But they did not.

The ugly, withered old woman looked up and again wailed. “My shoe, my shoe; please, oh please, fetch it.”

Liaze frowned.
A hag who has lost her shoe: where have I heard that be—?—Borel!

Her heart pounding with hope, Liaze slipped the arrow back into the quiver and stepped ’round to the rill flowing outward and waited. Soon the shoe came drifting toward the outlet and into the stream. She stooped and took up the sabot, its straps tattered, and part of the wooden sole missing. With her long-knife yet unfettered—just in case—she stepped across the rill and walked about the remainder of the pool to the crone and held out the wooden shoe.

“Why, thank you my dear,” said the hag, smiling a single-toothed grin. “Would you slip it on my foot? I am old, and bending to do it myself causes a pain in my weary bones.”

Liaze set aside her bow and knelt and slid the shoe onto the crone’s knobby, dirty, and hammertoed foot.

And in the pale dawn light shining silver above and down into the glade, the hag transformed into a slender and beautiful woman, her eyes argent as was her hair. And from somewhere nearby there came the sound of an unseen loom.

“Lady Skuld,” cried Liaze, and she threw herself into the woman’s arms and wept as if her heart would break.

“There, there,” said Skuld, holding Liaze close, and rubbing her back, and rocking her ever so gently.

“Luc, he’s gone, snatched away by a witch,” sobbed Liaze.

“I know. I know,” said Skuld. “And on the happiest night of your life, until she and her shadow came.”

Snuffling, Liaze drew back and looked with amber eyes into those of silver. “You know?”

“Indeed, child, I know.”

Liaze got control of her breathing and wiped her nose on a sleeve of her leathers. “Of course you know, Lady Wyrd. You are the weaver of the future. Oh, Lady Skuld, I have always believed that I was strong, but here I am”—Liaze wiped her cheeks with both hands—“weeping like a lost child.”

Skuld nodded and said, “It is good for one to know there are times one can lose all strength. It signifies one is only Human . . . or Elf . . . or of another race. Yet, heed, the force of your will must surely return if you do not give in to despair.”

Liaze disengaged and said, “Lady Skuld, I throw myself upon your mercy.”

“You threw yourself upon Fate, as well,” said Skuld, smoothing out her dress.

A wan smile flickered at the corners of Liaze’s mouth but then vanished. And she said, “Oh, Lady Wyrd, will you help me?”

“Perhaps, for I am bound by the Law: it requires a favor from you—which you have done. Then there comes a riddle from me, a riddle to be answered by you. If you accomplish that, then, lastly, I am permitted to give you a bit of guidance, perhaps obscure to you, but quite clear to me. It is the Way of the Three Sisters.”

“I know the Law,” said Liaze. “You helped Camille and then Borel, and all I ask is that you help me.”

“Very well,” said Skuld. “This then I pose.”

Before Skuld could speak her riddle, Liaze said, “My Lady Skuld, ere you ask, I must warn you I know of the riddles you and your sisters put to Camille, as well as those put to Borel. I also know the riddle of the Sphinx.”

Skuld canted her head in assent and said, “Indeed you do, Liaze. Yet the one I will put to you is none of those.”

Liaze nodded, and then she scrambled to her knees and braced herself as if for a physical challenge. “I am ready.”

Skuld took a deep breath and said:

At first Liaze’s heart sank, but then her eyes opened in revelation. “You are a trumpet, a bugle, a clarion,” she said, and she raised Luc’s silver horn.

“Quite right,” said Skuld, smiling.

“Then, Lady Wyrd, obscure or plain, I would have guidance, please, for I would find my heart mate.”

Skuld nodded and said:

“Oh,” cried Liaze at this last verse as Lady Skuld fell silent. “The dark of the moon two moons from now is all the time I have?” Liaze’s eyes filled with tears.

Skuld sighed, then added, “I now remind you of something you already know: you will meet both perils and help along your trek, but beware and make certain you know which is which.

“And this I will add as well: take Deadly Nightshade with you; a bird shall point the way.”

In that very moment beyond the willow grove the rim of the sun rose above the edge of the world, and Lady Skuld vanished along with the sound of the loom, leaving behind the song of the brook singing in the glade.

15

L
iaze stepped from the willow grove, emerging at the point where Didier and Patrice waited.

“My lady,” said Patrice, bowing, “we heard you coming, and—Oh, my, have you been weeping? —Ow!” He leaned down and rubbed his leg where Didier had kicked him.

“Yes, Patrice,” said Liaze, “I wept some, but I did not wail as loudly as did the crone.”

“Crone?” said Didier, jerking about to stare at the grove while reaching for the hilt of his sword.

“Did you not hear her?” asked Liaze.

Both Didier and Patrice shook their heads, and Patrice said, “All was silent, my lady.”

Liaze looked down at the trump hanging at her side, and she wondered if it, too, would not have been heard had she sounded it while Lady Skuld was present in the glade.

“About this crone . . .” said Didier.

“It was Lady Skuld in disguise,” said Liaze, now starting for the manor.

“Lady Wyrd?” blurted Patrice alongside. “Oh, but I am glad I didn’t see her, for I would rather not know my fate.”

“Patrice, you fool,” said Didier, “she only comes at great need and not for just any piddling thing.”

“Wull, how do you know I am not in great need?”

“It takes more than personal tragedy,” said Didier. “Something greater has to hang in the balance.”

At these words, Liaze stopped in her tracks. Didier and Patrice stuttered on a number of steps before stopping as well. Then they turned and started back, just as the princess strode onward. Reversing course again, they marched at her side.

Liaze said, “Exactly right, Didier. She would not have come unless something greater hung in the balance. Losing Luc, though an extreme blow to me, is but a personal tragedy. There is more to this than we know. Something critical in the scheme of things.”

She picked up the pace and headed toward the forecourt lawn where a large group of men were gathered. “Come, I have to confer with my armsmaster and steward.”

As the princess drew nigh she could hear Rémy call out, “All right, men, pair up. And remember, the slightest thing, no matter how insignificant it might seem, if it has even a remote chance of pointing toward the witch or the Goblin or ought else, send for Claude, for he is our best tracker. He will look at what you espied, and say whether or no it was of unnatural origin.”