Once Upon an Autumn Eve Read online

They loved one another, these siblings, and seldom did trouble come their way. Oh, there was that strangeness with Borel and his dagger-filled dreams, yet he had managed to successfully deal with that perilous episode. And earlier, there was that difficulty with the disappearance of King Valeray and Queen Saissa, and the two curses leveled upon Prince Alain, but Camille had come along to resolve those trials.

  After Borel’s harrowing ordeal, everything seemed quite well, though the Fates would have it that there yet loomed a portent of darker days to come. But at that time joy lay upon the land, for Camille and Alain were newlyweds, and Borel and his truelove Michelle had gone off immediately after those nuptials to see Chelle’s sire and dam, after which the banns would be posted and preparations for another wedding would get underway.

  Yes, at that time all was well in these Forests of the Seasons, or so it seemed.

  But then . . .

  ... Once upon an autumn eve . . .

  Sss . . . the arrow sped true to—thock!—strike the silhouette, fair spitting the heart of the Goblin. Again and again Liaze winged shafts into the ebon shape, while off to one side Handmaiden Zoé marveled at the skill of her tall and lithe auburn-haired mistress. And even though the sun was nigh gone, still in the long shadows lying across the sward the princess did not miss.

  Finally all the arrows were spent, and as Liaze stepped to the standing haycock and retrieved her shafts, Zoé glanced at the disappearing limb of the setting sun and then at Autumnwood Manor and said, “My lady, the dinner mark approaches. Would you have me draw a bath and lay out a gown?”

  Liaze sighed and stood a moment, then peered up at the waxing half-moon and said, “I think this eve I will bathe in the pool.”

  “The pool?”

  “Oui. I feel the need for solitude.”

  “Oh, my lady, that place is”—her brown eyes filled with trepidation, Zoé looked toward the cluster of great willows among which the pool lay, hidden by the drooping branches reaching all the way down to the ground, their autumn gold leaves ablaze in the last rays of sunlight—“is, well, I don’t know, dark in some manner, I would say.”

  “Dark?” said Liaze. “But Zoé, how can you think of it being dark among all those bright leaves?”

  “I don’t know,” said Zoé. “Perhaps instead of ‘dark’ I mean it feels, umm, ‘closed in,’ as if . . . as if—Oh, it’s just that you can’t see out or in, and things can come creeping through the branches unseen. Regardless, my lady, instead of seeking solitude, I think you need cheerful company about.”

  “Company?” Liaze frowned, puzzlement in her amber—some would say “golden-brown”—eyes. “Why so?”

  Zoé turned up a noncommittal hand. “Well, for these past three weeks, ever since the wedding—on the journey from Summerwood Manor all the way here and in the days since—you seem . . . um, how shall I say . . . morose? Oui, morose.”

  Liaze slipped the last of the arrows into the quiver. “Morose?”

  “Saddened, somehow,” said Zoé, brushing away a stray lock of her own brown hair.

  Liaze shook her head. “No, Zoé. Not saddened. Reflective instead.”

  “Reflective?”

  Liaze took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Yes, reflective. I have been pondering the ways of love and the way I would have things be. My brothers, you see, have found their heart mates, whereas Celeste and I . . .” Her words fell to silence.

  “Ah, pishposh,” said Zoé. “You are so beautiful, my lady, and one day the right man will come along and—”

  Liaze held up a hand to stop the flow of Zoé’s words. “One day, you say? Well, Zoé, for all of my life these one days have flown by and still he hasn’t appeared.”

  “Oh, Princess, do not be dejected. Perhaps this is the very day, or tomorrow, or the next—”

  “Hush, Zoé, and leave me to my reflections. I shall bathe at the pool and treasure my solitude.”

  “As you wish, my lady. Shall I ready a change of clothes? One of your splendid gowns should cheer you up.”

  Liaze looked down at her hunting leathers and sighed and then turned to Zoé and forced a smile and said, “The pale green one. I’ll come in a candlemark or so.”

  As Zoé walked toward Autumnwood Manor, Liaze unstrung her bow and then set out for the stand of willows, where she pushed aside the dangling branches and made her way inward, the gold of the leaves fading to bronze in the deepening twilight. As she passed through curtains of foliage and among the great boles, behind her the swaying branches of her passage swept the ground, as if to eliminate her track. Finally she came to the very center of the grove, where the trees gave way to a small open glade, and there, among great, flat white stones, lay a broad, deep pool, limpid and welling with spring-fed water, a rill flowing out from one end to dance and sing between mossy banks on its journey to a distant sea.

  Liaze strode past a small stand of cattails and to one of the horizontal slabs, where she set down her bow and unslung her quiver, and then quickly doffed her boots and hunting leathers and the silken undergarments ’neath.

  And in the silvery light of the half-moon above, she stepped to the edge of the pool and stood a moment, her reflection in the slow-welling water that of an athletic woman, trim and tall with auburn hair and firm, high breasts, her roseate nipples erect in the crisp autumn air, her narrow waist flaring into slim hips and down into long, sleek legs, a reddish triangle captured between.

  And then she dived into the pool, her entry smooth with little splash, and she swam down and through the crystalline water and across, the moonlight from above illumining the lucid depths below, where more large, flat white stones scattered upon the bottom with white sand between brightened the whole of the basin.

  To the other end she swam and up, and surfaced, blowing, the chill water bracing, invigorating. She stroked to a large rock at the verge, the pool deep at its edge, and with her arms and a kick or two, she levered herself up onto the brink of the slab, and twisted about to sit with her feet in the water.

  And that’s when she heard the sound of pounding hooves, and the nearby call of a silver clarion, answered by distant blares of horns less precious.

  And even as she stood and turned, an ebon horse bearing a rider came pounding through the golden willow branches and up the rill, water splatting aside. And it hammered to the rim of the pool, where it skidded to a halt, the horse squatting on its haunches to stop, spray flying.

  And the rider, a broken sword in hand, blood streaming down his face, fell from his horse as if slain.

  And the raucous blats of following horns drew nearer.

  2

  Conflict

  With the blare of horns drawing closer, Liaze glanced across the pool to where lay her bow, and then at the fallen rider and the dark horse at his side, the steed blowing and snorting, its eyes rolling, whites flaring in the moonlight. Making up her mind, she stepped toward the downed man, but the ears of the black flattened, and it bared its teeth.

  It has been trained.

  “Doucement, mon beau! Du calme!” Liaze demanded in the old tongue, trying to find a command the horse would obey. When she struck upon “Recules!” the black horse’s ears flicked forward and then back. “Recules-toi!” she said, and the horse backed away, still blowing.

  Swiftly, Liaze stepped to the collapsed rider where he lay on the mossy bank and knelt at his side and rolled him over. At the movement, his eyes opened, and he looked up at her, his gaze momentarily widening. “Ange?” he said, and then he swooned.

  Liaze only had time to note that he had dark hair and his forehead bore a brutal wound, and he wore a light chain shirt—A chevalier—when horns blatted just outside the grove, and someone nigh at hand barked guttural commands as running feet thudded past.

  Liaze again glanced at her bow lying too far away. Then she looked at the horse and back at the wounded chevalier.

  She sat the man up, and in that moment a dark form—swart and some four foot tall, skinny-armed and band
y-legged—came crashing through the willow branches. And even as it yelled in triumph at the sight of easy prey—a downed man and a naked woman—it charged toward her, cudgel raised. Liaze snatched up the damaged sword, nought but a jagged half-blade, and spitted the onrushing creature through and through, the Goblin to shriek and collapse, its ruddy hat falling from its head.

  Redcaps! Here in the Autumnwood! And he called out!

  Once more horns blatted, and from the direction of the manor clarion cries answered.

  And as nearby feet now pounded toward the willow grove, again she sat the man up, and, struggling, got him to his feet, and somehow she managed to lift him onto the horse’s withers in spite of the black’s skitting and shying.

  Harsh shouts and raucous blares sounded in the willow grove, and Redcaps poured forth from the dangling branches. And among the Goblins a massive form moved. A Troll!

  Jerking the broken sword from the dead Goblin, unclothed Liaze leapt into the saddle, and, crying out “Yah! Yah!” she heeled the horse in the flanks, and, blade in hand and swinging low and wide, she charged through the recoiling Goblins and past the oncoming Troll, and then galloped in among the willow branches, the limbs lashing her naked form as would whips.

  Out from the grove she raced, her still-damp red hair flying, the wounded man bellydown before her across the steed. Toward Autumnwood Manor she hammered, crouching low in the saddle in case the Redcaps had bows. And toward her came running a warband from the mansion, weapons in hand, horns sounding. And from behind charged the Redcaps and the Troll.

  As Liaze galloped by she called out, “Rémy, ’ware, they have a Troll among them!”

  “Oui, madam,” cried Rémy in return, the rangy, rawboned armsmaster grinning in relief to see his princess alive and well, no matter that she was naked, “and we have a large crossbow.”

  Across the sward and toward the forecourt raced Liaze, where she could see in the moonlight armed men gathered on the lawn and the walkway before the mansion door.

  “Healers, healers!” cried Liaze, dropping the grume-slathered sword in the grass as she haled the horse up short among the assembly. “I have a wounded warrior.”

  As she sprang from the steed and began to pull the man from the withers, two of the men leapt forward to help her; “Here, Princess,” said one, “we’ll take care of him.”

  The doors flew open and a ginger-haired woman—Margaux, a healer—bearing a shielded candle rushed out. Zoé, unable to contain herself, came running out as well.

  “Lay him down,” Margaux barked to the men, even as Zoé wrung her hands and hovered about Liaze and asked if she were all right.

  From the doorway a scandalized matron called out in the old tongue, “Princesse, vous ne portez pas de vêtements!”

  Even as Zacharie, steward of Autumnwood Manor—a tall thin man in black—cast a cape ’round her shoulders, and she pulled it tight about, Liaze replied in kind: “Tutrice Martine, c’est pas comme si j’avais le temps de revêtir mes vêtements quand des lutins me soufflaient sur le goulot!”

  The men lowered the chevalier to the lawn. Margaux took a moment by candlelight to examine the man, and then turned toward the door and cried “Litter!”

  Several more women came rushing out, a stretcher among them, even as the matron in the doorway called for Zoé to come back in.

  “Take care,” commanded Margaux, as the men placed the chevalier on the litter, and then took him up to bear into the house. As they stepped away, Margaux, leading, called out, “We’ll need unguents, needle and gut, and bandages.”

  Horns sounded in the near distance, along with the cries of battle and death.

  At the sound of combat: “A bow,” said Liaze, stepping toward the circle of men. “I need a bow and full quiver. There are Goblins and a Troll out there.”

  “Princess,” said Zacharie, wrapping an arm about her to halt her movement, “Rémy and the warband will take care of them.”

  Wild-eyed, Liaze started to push away, but then she looked into Zacharie’s face and the fire left her gaze. She sighed and nodded and said, “The warband, yes.” She glanced at the black and said, “Someone should care for the horse.”

  A lad—a stable boy—stepped forward to take the skittish steed, only to be met with flattened ears and bared teeth.

  “ ’Ware, son,” called out the stable master. “ ’Tis trained for war.” He stepped toward the animal and frowned in thought, then commanded “Calmes-toi!” and the horse settled and permitted himself to be led away by the man.

  “Rub him down well and feed him an extra ration of oats,” called Liaze after. “He performed with merit.”

  Without turning about, the stable master raised a hand of acknowledgement and continued on ’round the mansion.

  Zoé and the matron Martine, portly, a white streak through her black hair, came bustling out, Zoé bearing a blue dressing gown.

  Liaze shook her head and clutched her wrap tighter. “This cloak will do until the men return.”

  Martine huffed in exasperation and shook her head and tch-tched, while Zoé sighed, and together they headed toward the mansion, taking the garment with them.

  In the distance the sounds of battle faded, as if the warband pursued the encroaching Goblins and the Troll farther into the woods.

  Time passed, and still there came sporadic sounds of combat.

  As the distant and intermittent engagements continued, Margaux stepped back through the door and to the princess. “He looks to be quite battered, my lady, as if beaten with clubs. He was certainly struck across his forehead—knocked him clear out I would think. Right bloody it was, the skin torn, but we stitched what we could—nine altogether—and salved and bandaged it. Withal he should recover nicely.”

  Liaze frowned. “Margaux, he was not, as you say, ‘knocked clear out,’ at least not immediately, for after the blow he managed to ride his horse into the willows, and he looked straight at me when I rolled him over.”

  “Then he must have a very thick skull . . . or great strength of will to remain aware after that strike,” said the healer.

  “Did he say anything?” asked Zacharie.

  Liaze shook her head, for though he had asked if she were an “ange”—in the old tongue the word meant “angel”—surely it was but the product of an addled mind.

  In the distance, silver clarions—horns of the manor—sounded the recall.

  “It seems the battle is over, my lady,” said Zacharie. “I will send some of the guard to fetch your garments.”

  “My bow and quiver are there, too,” said Liaze, pulling the cloak closer ’round. “Tell those who go to be alert, for there might be more foe lurking about.”

  A short while later, Rémy and the warband returned, along with the men who had gone to fetch Liaze’s apparel, a lad among them bearing the leathers and silks, another with the boots and the bow and quiver and linens, both of them somewhat red-faced and shy at carrying Her Highness’s gear, especially the intimate garments. And women rushed out to greet the men of the warband as well as those on houseguard, concern on their faces, Martine and Zoé among them.

  “We skewered the Troll, my lady,” called Rémy, grinning, running a hand through his red hair, “and a number of the Goblins, too. And we only took a scrape or three.” Rémy nodded toward one of the men cradling his left arm, a bone obviously broken, and another man bleeding from the nose. As they were tended, Rémy said, “They ran and we pursued, but some got away.—Oh, and we found more dead out in the forest, slain by someone else’s hand.”

  “The chevalier,” said Liaze, glancing at the blood-slathered, jagged half-blade yet lying on the sward. “Surely he is the one who did so. Broke his sword in twain.”

  As the stable boy sprang forward and took up the damaged weapon and wiped it in the grass to clean away the grume, Rémy said, “You deem the chevalier came alone?”

  Liaze shrugged. “If others were with him, where are they now?”

  “Mayhap lying d
ead in the forest, or perhaps fled away.”

  “Regardless,” said the princess, “as soon as he awakens and tells his tale, then we shall know.”

  Liaze turned to the men and called out, “Well done! Indeed, well done!” Then with a sweeping gesture she took in everyone there on the forecourt lawn. “Well done, all!

  “Huzzah!” she cried, “and huzzah!”

  Her shout was echoed tenfold and more, when all the gathering called out a Huzzah! in reply.

  Liaze then turned to the pair of red-faced but smiling lads carrying her gear. “Zacharie, will you see to my bow and quiver?” And as the steward stepped forward and took the weapons from the one lad, Liaze said to Martine, “And, madam, would you please relieve these young men of their, um, embarrassing burdens, and see that my garments get to my quarters?”

  Grinding her teeth at being asked to act as nought but a common maid, Martine snatched the leathers and silks and linens and boots from the two boys and stalked off toward the manor.

  The other women began drifting toward the mansion, and among them there came a giggle, and someone pointed at the retreating matron and said sotto voce, “Did you hear what Martine said when Princess Liaze came agallop with the man?”

  “Oui,” came the reply, and the voice took on a portentous tone, somewhat like that of Martine: “ ‘Princess, you are not wearing clothes!’ As if that were the only important thing, the princess having just saved the man from the Goblins and the Troll, and him wounded and all.”

  “ ‘Tutor Martine, it’s not like I had time to don my clothing when Goblins were breathing on my neck!’ That’s what she said, the princess.”

  The two laughed, accompanied by titters from the others, and then one said, “This brave chevalier, I wonder where he is from, and how he came to be in the Autumnwood, and why was he fighting Goblins, and where did they come from and . . .” Their voices faded away as they moved onward, guards going at their sides.

  Encircled by the warband, Liaze turned to Rémy. “Set a double ward this night, Armsmaster, and tomorrow I would have you and your men search the surround and get an accurate count of the fallen foe. See if you can tell whence they came . . . as well as what you can discover of the path of the chevalier, too.”