Once Upon an Autumn Eve Page 13

  All looked at one another in puzzlement, for they didn’t understand.

  “I mean,” added Liaze, “you look like demoiselles, but you can become half fish.”

  “Ah,” said the yellow-haired one, sinking to the grass beside Liaze. “Nixies. We are Nixies.”

  “Oh, my,” said Liaze. “I have heard of your Kind, but never before encountered any.”

  Yet standing, Eausiné glanced at Liaze’s bow and arrows and said, “We, on the other hand, have dealt with your Kind before. Are you certain you are not a hunter?”

  “Oh, I am a hunter, all right,” said Liaze, and collectively the Nixies gasped. “B-but of a different sort,” the princess hurriedly assured them.

  “There is only one kind of hunter,” said the dark-haired demoiselle, at least for now the nominal leader of the Nixies. “The kind who seeks to kill.”

  “Oh, I would not kill the one I hunt, for he is my true love,” replied Liaze.

  True love? True love? A murmur ran among the Nixies.

  “What is this true love?” one in the water asked.

  How can they know not true love? Liaze sighed and said, “A true love is a person you would wish to have forever at your side. One who is a companion, a lover, a friend. Someone who gives you joy, makes you laugh, and who consoles you when you cry. Someone you need and someone who needs you. Someone with whom you can face the trials of life and share its delights as well. Someone who was meant to be . . .”

  Liaze’s words fell into hesitance, for the demoiselles yet looked at her with puzzlement in their eyes.

  “. . . a mate,” finished Liaze, feeling as if she had ended lamely.

  But the Nixies giggled, and one said, “Ah, mating we understand.” And they broke into giggles once more.

  “And who is this mate of yours?” asked Eausiné.

  “A man, a knight: his name is Luc,” said Liaze.

  “Luc? Luc? You know Luc?” cried one.

  “You have mated with him?” gasped another.

  “Would that it were I,” said a third.

  “What?” cried Liaze. “You know of Luc?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Eausiné, plopping to the ground beside Liaze and then gesturing about. “He camped right here.”

  “My Luc? Metal shirt? Black horse? Silver horn?”

  The dark-haired damsel nodded. “We swam in the moonlight with him,” said one of the Nixies yet in the water, now transforming to come ashore.

  Liaze said, “Did he . . . ? I mean, did you . . . did any of you, um, er . . . ?” But then she thrust out her hands and shook her head, saying, “—No, no! I don’t want to know.”

  Eausiné looked at her in puzzlement.

  Oh, Liaze, it’s not as if you were without experience when you first made love to Luc. Nevertheless . . .

  Of a sudden, Eausiné’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, no, we did not mate with him, though it’s not as if we did not try. It was clear he was ready”—Nixies giggled—“but he was too shy.” Eausiné pointed at the golden-haired Nixie. “Jasiné was the first to see him cross the river on his great black horse.”

  “Yes,” said Jasiné. “I called the others, and we watched, fearing that he was a hunter, too. But he merely made camp, and then, in the evening, he dove into our pool, and, of course, we went to meet him. When he discovered we were swimming with him, he cried out that he was sans vêtements.”

  “As if that mattered,” said one of the Nixies yet in the water.

  “It was one of the things that attracted us to him,” said another. “—Being without clothes, I mean.”

  “That among other attributes,” said a third, giggling.

  “Yes,” said Eausiné, sighing in remembrance, “other attributes. But it was as I said: we wanted to mate with him—every one of us—but he was too shy. Not only that, but he said something about waiting—oh, now I remember—waiting for true love. I knew I had heard that somewhere before. I didn’t understand it then either.”

  “We even sang to him,” said one of the part-fish demoiselles, her dorsal fin now folded down against her spine, “but he resisted our songs.”

  Liaze momentarily glowed with satisfaction, for she had been his first love, his one and only, yet, even as it came on, the warm feeling was quenched under a pang of guilt, for, unlike Luc, she had not waited for true love. Liaze sighed. Still, there is some consolation: because one of us had some experience, we avoided all of that awkward fumbling. With this minor bit of self-justification, the guilt receded but did not vanish.

  “We would have sung to him the next night and perhaps swayed him,” said Eausiné, “but that very morn he said adieu and rode on into the woods.”

  “Whence came he?” asked Liaze. “—I am following his track opposite the path he rode.”

  “But why?” asked Eausiné. She pointed into the forest back in the direction of Liaze’s camp. “That’s the way he went.”

  “Yes, but you see,” said Liaze, “someone—a witch, I believe—snatched him up and flew off with him. I despaired of ever finding him, but then we discovered the witch had left behind a messenger crow—”

  “Ssss . . .” hissed several of the Nixies. “Crows,” said Eausiné, “murderers of stranded minnows and larger fish when we do not get there in time.”

  “Have you seen crows flying above?” asked Liaze.

  Nixies nodded, and the yellow-haired one pointed upstream. “Over the ford they sail, dipping low to see if any gasping fish has drowned in the sea of air. Pick at their flesh, they do, and then fly on.”

  “Ford?”

  “Yes, a bit that way,” said Jasiné, again pointing upstream. “It’s where Luc crossed just before he made camp here.”

  “Then that’s the way I intend to go, for I follow the crows, and if Lady Fortune smiles down on me, I will find Luc at the end of their flight.”

  “Oh, but that means you will pass through the Forest of Oaks,” said Eausiné.

  “Forest of Oaks? You make it sound somewhat dire.”

  “It is if the Fauns enspell you.”

  “Fauns? But I thought them quite benign.”

  “They are, my lady, but their pipes are enchanting, and they might enspell you as they do the Nymphs.”

  “Nymphs,” said Liaze. “Still—”

  “Oh, it’s not the Nymphs nor the Fauns you need fear, but the Satyrs.”

  “Satyrs,” said Liaze.

  “The always-rutting Satyrs,” said Jasiné. “When they hear the pipes, they come running, just on the chance that Nymphs are enspelled.”

  “And . . . ?” said Liaze.

  “And,” said Eausiné, “should you be entranced and a Satyr capture you, he will keep you for long whiles and pass you about to other Satyrs until all weary of you.”

  “Ugh,” said Liaze. “Still, I must follow the line of flight of the crows, else I might never find Luc, certainly not in the time given.”

  “Time given?”

  “I must find him before the dark of the moon—not the next, but the one after”—Liaze paused and counted on her fingers—“a moon and twenty days from now.” Tears welled in Liaze’s eyes. “If I fail, I believe he will die.”

  “Oh, no,” gasped Jasiné, her face falling, “not Luc.”

  Eausiné said, “Then among the Fauns you must pass, but you must ward off the sound of their pipes and completely avoid hearing them. That is their enchantment, and the lure that brings the Satyrs.”

  “Yet if Luc rode through,” said Liaze, “he must have heard them.”

  “He is male and you are not,” said Jasiné, as if that explained all.

  “You must not hear their pipes,” stressed Eausiné.

  Liaze frowned. Then I need go deaf. But how—? Ah yes, there is honey among my goods.

  Liaze smiled and said, “Fear not for me, my friends. Yet tell me: where does this Forest of Oaks lie?”

  “Beyond our realm,” said Eausiné, “past the very next sunwise twilight border.”
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  Again Liaze smiled and her gaze swept o’er the Nixies all. “Lady Skuld told me I would find help along the way, and—”

  The Nixies all drew in sharp breaths, and Jasiné said, “Lady Skuld? Oh, my, dire events must be aswim.”

  Liaze nodded and said, “Indeed, and so I must not tarry, for the moon itself tarries not.” Liaze stood and looked upstream, but she could not see the ford.

  The three Nixies stood ashore as well and stepped back into the water, and Eausiné said, “You must be careful, Princess Liaze.”

  “That I will be,” replied Liaze. “And thank you for the warning as well as confirming to me that Luc did ride this way, and opposite flew the crows.” She glanced once more upstream, and then with a farewell salute, she spun on her heel and strode into the forest.

  A candlemark later, Liaze rode Nightshade across the ford, Pied Agile and the packhorses in tow, and downstream in waist-deep water stood the Nixies, all waving and calling out their Au revoirs! and Bon voyages!

  Liaze held a hand, palm out, to them, and rode on across, and when she reached the other side of the wide ford, she turned to look one last time, but the Nixies were gone.

  21

  Croft

  Up and out from the ford rode Liaze, Nightshade yet choosing the path. “Well, my good steed, it seems you truly do know the course, for Caillou and the Nixies both confirm Luc went opposite this way. But even more importantly, the crows flew this line bearing their messages to the witch, and so perhaps we can rescue Luc if the witch’s dwelling lies between here and your stall. But if her place lies beyond your own home, then we’ll need to seek more help. Regardless . . . fare on, black horse, fare on.”

  Nightshade made no comment, but continued his pace, the gait a trot for the nonce, the mare and four geldings coming after as the steed followed a trace of a trail among the trees and headed for the sunwise bound.

  All day they followed the hint of a path, stopping now and then for the horses to take food or to drink from running streams, or for Liaze to take sustenance or relieve herself. At times the princess heeled Nightshade into a faster gait, or lightly pulled on the reins to change into one slower, Liaze varying the pace to preserve the endurance of the animals; at other times she dismounted and walked the horses and stretched her own legs. But always she let the black choose the way.

  In midafternoon the sky overhead began to darken as brooding clouds crept thwartwise o’er the forest. “Well, my lad, it looks as if we’re in for a storm, not now, but ere the night is done. We’ll need to find shelter by the coming of dark.”

  Just before dusk drew down, and as the wind kicked up, she rode out from the forest and onto a fall-away slope overlooking a land of low, rolling hills. In the near distance to the fore she saw a farmstead, where a handful of workers in a field hurriedly laded forkfuls of cut hay into an ox-drawn wain. And down that way Nightshade went.

  Even as Liaze neared the meadow, a few spatters of rain blew down, and one of the men afoot began driving the oxen toward a near byre, the others running ahead.

  Liaze hailed the drover and he glanced back at her but kept moving forward. Moments later she rode alongside the wain and the man afoot, even as more rain came on the forerunning wind. “Have you shelter for me and my steeds?”

  “Aye,” replied the drover, a rather grizzled and sun-baked man, his faded blue eyes appraising her and the horses, especially eyeing Deadly Nightshade. His gaze dwelt a moment on the silver horn slung across Liaze’s shoulder, but then he looked forward and lowed at the oxen, flicking a long flexible switch against their hindquarters, seemingly with no effect whatsoever.

  “I am Liaze of the Autumnwood,” said the princess.

  “Matthieu,” said the man. He gestured ahead, where the four other workers stood waiting just inside the doors of the now-open barn. “Vincent, Thierry, Noël, and Susanne,” said Matthieu, his words laconic.

  Into the byre rolled the wain, Liaze following. And as she passed the youths and the maid, they all looked up at her, their eyes filled with curiosity, especially those of the girl Susanne, a fille of no more than thirteen summers.

  Outside, rain began pouring.

  “We really needed the sun one more day,” said Vincent, the young man the eldest of Matthieu and Madeleine’s brood, raising his voice slightly to be heard above the water hammering against the shake-shingle roof of the modest house.

  They all sat about a plank-board table and dined on a supper of fresh-baked bread and gravy and beans and rashers of bacon, and Liaze was reveling in the food, for it was the first hot meal she’d had in the seven days she’d been on the trail.

  Vincent gestured toward the outside. “But the storm was coming and we could not leave this cutting lying afield to be ruined. Still, it is a bit green, yet we spread it out in the loft atop the other hay. Soon it will be dry enough.”

  “Well, my horses certainly appreciate the taste of it just the way it is,” said Liaze, smiling.

  “Your horses, you say?” said Matthieu.

  “All but the black,” replied Liaze. “It belongs to Luc, my betrothed.”

  “Your betrothed?” cried Susanne, her face falling.

  But Matthieu and Madeleine looked at one another and nodded, as did the boys. And Matthieu said, “As we thought.—Oh, I mean about the black being Luc’s horse.”

  “You knew it was his?” asked Liaze.

  “He stayed with us two days,” said Thierry, “then rode onward.”

  “Bon!” exclaimed Liaze.

  “Bon?” asked Noël.

  “It means I am yet on the right track,” said Liaze.

  “Right track?”

  “Oui. You see, a witch has flown away with Luc, and I am out to find him.”

  The entire family gasped, and Susanne cried, “Witch? Oh, my poor Luc!”

  “You must tell us of this witch,” said Madeleine.

  Liaze nodded and said, “I know not overmuch of her, but I can tell you of Luc’s taking.” Liaze paused and took a drink of water, and then spoke on: “It was some weeks past at Autumnwood Manor when I heard a silver horn sounding an alert, and—”

  “Autumnwood Manor!” exclaimed Vincent. “Oh, we’ve heard of that. Tell me, is the princess as beautiful as they say?”

  The corner of Liaze’s mouth turned up slightly and she said, “I hardly think so.”

  “But they say she has auburn hair like yours and amber eyes and—Oh! Oh!” Vincent’s eyes widened in revelation as did those of the other members of the family, and Madeleine said, “Oh, my lady, forgive me my humble fare, for we knew not who you truly were.” She turned to Matthieu and said, “Quick, the wine. We must have wine.”

  As Matthieu leapt to his feet and headed for the back door, Liaze called, “Matthieu, you do not need to—” but the man was already out and into the storm. The princess turned to the mother. “Lady Madeleine, as to your so-called humble fare, it is as ambrosia to me, for I have been long on the ride.”

  Susanne sighed, her face glum, and she muttered, “A princess. A princess. I might have known.”

  Madeleine leaned over to Liaze and whispered, “She was enamored of Luc.”

  “Still is,” said Thierry, overhearing.

  Liaze reached out and laid a hand atop one of Suzanne’s. “I don’t fault you, my lady, for I, too, was instantly enamored of him, even as he fell off his horse.”

  Suzanne’s eyes widened. “He fell?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Was he hurt?”

  “Let us wait for your père, and then I will tell all.”

  Even as she said this last, Matthieu came hurrying back in, dripping wet, with a jug of wine in hand. “ ’Tis good I went to fetch this; the brook is running high; a bit more of this downpour, and it would have been swept away.”

  While Madeleine served wine ’round to all, Matthieu dried off and, still a bit damp, resumed his place at the table.

  Suzanne said, “He fell from his horse, Papa.”

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bsp; As Matthieu frowned, Liaze said, “ ’Twas Luc who fell, wounded as he was.” All eyes widened, and Suzanne cried out, but Liaze went on: “You see, I was at a pool among some willows when I heard Luc’s horn crying out the alarm, and . . .”

  “But that will mean you need go through the Forest of Oaks,” protested Madeleine.

  “Full of Fauns, it is,” said Matthieu, “and they bring the Satyrs.”

  “I have no choice,” said Liaze.

  “We can go with you and protect you,” said Vincent, glancing at his father.

  Liaze shook her head. “Nay. Recall: Lady Skuld said I must go alone, but for the howling one.”

  “I think it’s a Wolf,” said Thierry.

  “Or someone quite mad,” said Noël.

  “Regardless of who or what it is,” said Madeleine,

  “the pipes of the Fauns stand between you and your goal.”

  “Perhaps,” said Liaze. “Perhaps not. For Nightshade might turn aside ere reaching the oaks. Besides, I am told I simply must avoid the sound of their music, and that I will do.”

  “Stuff your ears, I’ve heard say,” said Matthieu,

  “though I know of no one who’s done so.”

  “Then mayhap I will be the first one of your acquaintance to try it,” said Liaze.

  Matthieu nodded, an uncertain smile upon his face. “True.”

  With dinner done and the dishes washed, Liaze said to Madeleine, “Could I beg of you some hot water? I need a bath desperately, and all I’ve had were the cold streams along the way to—”

  “Oh, yes, yes, my lady,” said Madeleine.

  Sometime later, as Susanne poured the contents of a steaming kettle into a round copper tub, she looked at Liaze and sighed and said, “If I had to lose Luc to anyone, I am glad it was you, Princess.”