Once upon a Summer Day

23

Stunned, Borel stood long moments staring into the stone valley. Finally, he said, “Perhaps there is a glamour on this vale to fool any would-be rescuers.” With arrow set to string, the prince walked into the barren dell, its surface hard and rough, solid, uneven. Down the center he walked, on a line along which he remembered Roulan’s manse to be, and if this place were enspelled, then soon or late he should collide with the mansion. Deep into the vale he strode, all the way to the end, and no unseen manor, gardens, trees, or blackberry briars did he come upon.

Yet he was convinced that this was the place wherein such things should be, for this was Lord Roulan’s dale, of that he was certain.

But now it was nought but bare stone, nought but bedrock, the entire valley stripped.

Despairing of ever finding Chelle, he stood long moments in dejection, his head bowed, his heart in despair. But then he straightened his shoulders and turned on his heel and strode back toward the mouth of the dell.

When he came to Flic and Buzzer he said, “There is yet a fortnight, a sevenday, and part of one ere the moon rises full. We will find her yet. Let us go to the nearest farmstead and speak with the crofter. Perhaps it is common knowledge what has happened herein.”

Flic dried his eyes and silently spoke to Buzzer, and they took station on Borel’s tricorn.

Down from the stone vale Borel strode, following the trace of a road, now overgrown with weeds and grass, as if no cart, no wagon, no horse had traversed it for years, and by the time they came upon the farm and its dwelling, the sun lay low in the sky and cast long shadows o’er the land.

Out to one side and slightly back of a thatch-roofed cottage stood a coop for chickens. Beyond the coop sat a small byre, a single cow within. Fields of crops stretched away left and right and aft. Even as Borel passed through the gate and stepped toward the doorstone of the house, he heard the ringing of a bell-likely a dinner bell-and off to the right he saw a man carrying a hoe walking through a bean field toward the humble abode, a brown dog racing ahead and barking.

As the man got closer, Borel called out a greeting, and in the cote a window curtain was pulled aside and a ginger-haired woman peered out and then withdrew. Moments later the door opened, and the woman stepped onto the stoop at the same time the dog arrived, its hackles up. Snarling, it stood between Borel and the woman. “Brun, se taire!” she commanded the dog, but the animal continued to gnarl. Then Borel growled a word, and the dog whined and promptly sat down just as the man came and stood beside the woman, and they both sized up this stranger. When their gazes fell upon Flic, their eyes flew wide in amaze, and the woman managed to say, “Oh, my, a Sprite. A Field Sprite. Have you come to bless our farm?”

“I would be pleased to do so,” said Flic, “though I’ve not done such before.”

“Well, don’t just stand there, Maurice,” said the woman, elbowing the man. “Invite them in. Invite them in. They’ve come to bless our farm.” And then without waiting for him to do so, the woman stepped past the dog-“One side, Brun”-and said to Borel, “We’ve supper on the table, all but the biscuits, and I can easily set two more places.” She took him by the arm and pulled him in through the door, Maurice following.

They came into what appeared to be a well-kept, three-room cottage-the main room taking up perhaps half the interior, the kitchen to the right along one wall, and a single bedroom to the front on the left, a workroom adjacent to the rear, these two chambers with a loft above.

“And who might you be, Sieur?” asked the woman as she drew Borel inward, then stepped away toward a cupboard.

Ere Borel could respond, “He is Prince Borel of the Winterwood,” said Flic. “And I am named Flic, and this is Buzzer, my friend and guardian.”

As Borel gave a slight bow, the woman’s mouth fell agape. But she quickly rallied and called out to her husband, who was standing just behind Borel, “Take off your hat, Maurice, for a prince has brought a Field Sprite with his bee to bless our farm.”

“Monsieur Maurice,” said Borel, turning to the man and acknowledging him.

The man doffed his hat, revealing a bald head, which he bobbed, and managed to say, “My lord.”

Borel turned to the woman. “And your name, Madame?”

The woman giggled and blushed and awkwardly curtseyed. “Charite, my lord.”

“Well, Madame Charite, it has been some time since I’ve had a good hot meal, and I thank you for it.”

“Lord Prince Borel,” said Charite, “it is nought but biscuits and sausage gravy and onions and string beans.”

“Ah, Madame Charite, biscuits avec de la sauce aux saucisses, avec des oignons et des haricots verts, c’est magnifique! ” said Borel.

Charite beamed, and then turned to Flic and said, “Sieur Flic, I’m not familiar with Field Sprite fare; what will you have, you and your bumblebee?”

“Buzzer will take honey,” said Flic. “As for me, I think I’ll try a biscuit, if you please.”

“Slathered with butter and honey, they’re right good,” said Maurice. He walked away and set the hoe in the workroom, his hat atop the handle, then turned to the prince and said, “And you, Sieur, I have a bit of wine cooling in the well. Would you have some?”

“Indeed,” said Borel, grinning.

Maurice pulled out the chair at the head of the table and said, “Have a seat, my lord, while I go fetch the bottle.”

Borel shook his head, and drew a chair along one side of the board and sat and said, “I’ll not take your place as the master of the house. The side of the table will do.”

A smile swept over the face of the crofter, and he flushed with pride. “As you wish, Sieur. As you wish.” He stepped through the back door and out.

“Brun,” said Borel, and the dog came meekly, its tail low but wagging. Borel spoke a few gutturals to the dog, and lifted the tricorn from his head and said to Flic, “He now knows you and Buzzer are friends.”

“Good, I was wondering,” said the Sprite, and he stepped off the hat and onto the table, Buzzer following.

“My lord,” said Charite, her eyes wide in startlement, “you speak the language of dogs? Are you a magicien?”

“Non, Madame, no magicien am I, though I do speak a bit of Wolf, and dogs seem to know what I mean. My sire tells me that long past all dogs were Wolves.”

“My, my,” said Charite, “who would have known?” She peered into the brick oven and said, “Ah, good, the biscuits are ready.”

“I speak Bee,” said Flic.

Maurice came back in with the wine.

Maurice frowned. “Thirteen, fourteen years past, I can’t say exactly. Reckoning time in terms of the mortal world, well, it escapes me.” He spoke in a near whisper, for Flic was asleep on the table next to a biscuit slathered with honey and butter, the whole of it entirely too much for him to consume but for a small portion. At his side Buzzer dozed.

“Maurice was never very good at it,” said Charite, her own voice low. “Now, me, I think it was perhaps closer to twelve years agone, or just under. It was the day of the big doings up at the manor, for it was when the duke’s daughter, Michelle was her name, came into her majority.”

“Michelle?” said Borel.

“Indeed, my lord prince,” said Charite, “though everyone I know, from castle to town to farm, has called her Chelle since she was but a wee babe.”

“Michelle… my Chelle. I see.-But tell me, what came about? How came the vale to be nought but stone? What would cause such?”

Both Maurice and Charite made warding gestures, and Charite looked about to see if ought were lurking in the shadows and, finding nothing, said in a whisper, “Something wicked, that’s what.” And husband and wife looked at one another and nodded.

“We don’t go up there,” said Maurice, and again he made a warding gesture.

“As mortals would reckon it, not for nigh these twelve years,” added Charite, her own warding gesture joining his.

Borel frowned, and counted on his fingers, then said, “Could it have been eleven years and ten moons past?”

Maurice shrugged, but Charite nodded and said, “Could be.”

“Ah, that’s when the Winterwood was cursed, and on that same day..” His words fell to silence, and then he said, “It was some twenty years ago when I and my pere were here visiting Lord Roulan; I know it was then, for within a year he and my mere vanished.”

“Vanished?” said Maurice.

“Oui. They were enchanted and gone for nearly nineteen years altogether, but now they are back, discovered by my soon-to-be-sister-in-law Camille, who found the way to break the enchantment.”

“There’s a story here for the telling,” said Maurice, replenishing Borel’s cup of wine.

“Perhaps someday I will,” said Borel, nodding his thanks, “but let me see if I am right.

“Chelle would have been about ten at the time Pere and I were at Duke Roulan’s manor twenty years back. And so, when another eight years passed, then she would have reached her majority. I believe that would have been nearly twelve years ago-eleven years, ten moons, and a handful of days to be exact.”

Maurice turned up a hand, but Borel said, “It all seems right, if I have correctly reckoned the mortal years.”

Borel looked to Charite for confirmation, and she nodded, then stood and stepped to her bedchamber and came back to the table, bearing a kerchief, which she used to cover Flic. Next to him, Buzzer shifted, but didn’t waken, the bee dormant for the night.

“Tell me,” said Borel, “what happened that day?”

“Well,” said Maurice, “Charite and I, we took two of these very chairs to the yard and sat and watched as the lords and ladies and their attendants all rode past on their fine horses or in their splendid carriages, all heading up the road toward the manor. Brun was a pup at the time, and he was quite excited by all the doings going by.”

“Tell him about the Fey ladies on the horses with silver bells,” said Charite.

“I was just getting to it,” replied Maurice. He turned to Borel and said, “As Charite says, there were a number of Fey ladies on horses bedecked with silver bells that rode past, the ladies laughing together as if sharing a great secret.”

“They were magical, I think,” said Charite. “Fairies or some such, I would guess, what with their silky gowns flowing in the wind and such, the silver bells all achime. I believe they were the same ones who attended the birth, though we didn’t see them at that time.”

“The birth?” said Borel.

“Oui, of the duke’s daughter,” replied Charite. “It is said that Fey women came then.”

“Regardless,” said Maurice, “there was many a rich lord and lady went past, as well as the Fey Folk with their tilted eyes and golden hair and delicate ways.”

There came a lowing from without, and Maurice said, “Oh, my, what with all the talk, I forgot to milk Madame Vache. I will go do it now.” Maurice stood and added, “Much like that day, I was milking when it happened.”

“When what happened?” asked Borel.

“Why, Charite called me to come and see,” said Maurice. “When I stepped out from the byre, Charite screamed and pointed up toward the duke’s vale, and I turned and looked.” Maurice’s eyes widened in memory, and he thumped the table and said, “And that’s when the great black wind came, and the valley turned to stone; either that, or the entire dell just up and flew away, dirt, plants, manor and all.”

Jolted awake by the thump, “Hradian?” asked Flic, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, the Sprite hearking back to the story Borel had told him. “I mean, with a black wind and all, it seems the same sort of thing to me.”

“No, not Hradian,” said Borel, grimly, “but her sister instead. I deem this is her curse, the one I read of in Hradian’s journal.”

“Could Hradian’s sister be this Rhensibe?” asked Flic.

“Mayhap,” said Borel.

“Rhensibe?” hoarsely whispered the crofter, and both he and his wife made warding signs.