Once Upon a Winter's Night

12

Drenched in perspiration, at last they disentangled and fell away from one another, each lying back in the softness of the bed in the absolute darkness of the chamber. But then Alain rolled onto his side toward Camille and reached out and touched her shoulder and slid his finger down her arm to find her hand and enlace his fingers in hers. “Oh, my love, I had not meant for this to happen until we were wed, yet I am quite glad it did.” Camille squeezed his hand in silent agreement. Alain turned her hand over in his and kissed her palm, but then took a deep breath and expelled it. “Even so, at this time we cannot be formally married-the banns posted, the king notified, our union blessed by a heirophant. And the terrible thing is, I cannot tell you why, for to do so would bring disaster to all.”

In the darkness, Camille frowned. “I do not understand, my lord.”

“Please, Camille, when we are alone together, or within family, I am Alain, though I would rather you call me by that which you named me in the throes of our passion.”

“My love,” whispered Camille.

In the dark, Alain kissed her lips, a kiss she fervently returned. Then he captured her hand again and said, “Hear me, my sweet, I will not keep from you any secrets but this one, and only because I must, for this I do tell you, it would bring a calamity beyond reckoning were we to wed ere a terrible predicament is resolved. And I can but ask that you trust me till then, though given my silence I cannot say why you should. Yet this I do pledge: when the dilemma is banished, I will most ardently marry you, for then we can wed without bringing tragedy crashing down upon Faery, and you are my very heart.”

Alain fell silent, and Camille drew his hand to her lips and kissed each one of his fingers. “My lord, my love, my prince, my heart, my own, would that I knew this quandary you face, for then I could share the burden. Yet if it is not to be, then I do so accept, for wedded or no, I do love you most dearly.”

Alain drew her to him, flesh to flesh, and showered her with kisses, and he cupped each of her breasts and kissed curve and slope and aureole, and Camille could feel him quickening even as she responded, and passion flared anew, and they made love again, gentle at first, then afire.

Dawn was in the sky when Camille drowsily wakened. Faint light seeped ’round the edges of the curtained skylight above, the only window in the room. She turned and reached for Alain, yet he was not there, his side of the bed quite empty, the warmth of his presence nearly gone, the silken sheets growing chill in his absence. Camille sat upright and looked about, yet in the dimness, her prince was not to be seen. Where he had gone, she knew not- Yet perchance he will soon return. Yawning and stretching catlike, Camille then settled back, and moments later she was asleep again.

“Hruhmm!” A man cleared his throat.

“Oh, Alain-” Camille turned to face him, then bolted upright, barely catching the silken cover as it slid down. Clasping it to her bosom, “Lanval,” she said.

“My lady,” replied the steward, a sparkle in his eye. A white silken robe was draped over his arm.

“Oh, my, but where is the prince?”

“About his business, I deem,” said Lanval. “He sent you this.” Lanval placed the snow-white, satin robe upon the foot of the bed. “Do you wish to be served your breakfast here?”

“Well… — Oh, no! Blanche! She will have the hounds out after me, finding my own bed empty. My lor-um, Lanval, I believe I should hie there now.”

A faint smile crossed Lanval’s face, as he took up her gown from the floor to shake out the wrinkles and then draped it across his arm. He pointedly did not even look at the undergarments, petticoats and all. “Fear not, Lady Camille, for she knows of your whereabouts. In fact, will it set your mind to ease, I deem the entire staff knows.”

Camille reddened then said, “Nevertheless, ’tis to my quarters I will go.” She pointedly looked at the white robe at the foot of the bed. “If you will excuse me…”

Lanval bowed and said, “I will await you in the next room.”

When he had gone through the doorway, Camille cast back the light satin cover and snatched up the robe. Quickly, she slipped it on and belted it closed, then stepped into her shoes and gathered up her undergarments, rolling all into a petticoat bundle, then turned to the bed to “Oh, my!” she gasped.

“My lady? Is aught amiss?”

“Oh, Lanval, I have ruined a sheet. I thought my courses ended a three-day past, yet…”

A smear of blood stained the bedding.

Camille looked up to see Lanval now at her side. A faint smile crossed his face. “My lady, I ween ’tis not your courses.”

“If not, Lanval, then what?”

Lanval reddened. “I’d rather not say, my lady. Ask Blanche instead.”

“Lanval!” said Camille sharply.

Lanval sighed and mumbled a few words, and to Camille it sounded as if he said, “ ’S rngrn blth.”

“What? I didn’t hear.”

Lanval took a deep breath. “ ’Tis virgin’s blood,” he said, clearly this time.

“Virgin’s blood?”

“Um, yes, my lady.” Lanval, who in other matters seemed so sure, shifted about uneasily. “Harrumph! Did not your mere speak of such?”

“Nay, she did not.”

For a moment Lanval seemed nonplused, but then he said, “Ask Blanche. She will explain.” He took a deep breath, then plunged on. “Yet hear me, for this I do know: the prince will be glad of the sheet, though I think he will not call it ruin, but a testament to virtue instead.”

Camille shook her head. “What do you mean, Lanval?”

Again the steward reddened, and he turned up his hands. “Ask Blanche,” was his only reply.

Exasperated, Camille snatched her pristine white dress from his arm and sailed out from the chamber and down the hallways toward her own distant quarters.

“Is that what it means?”

“Yes, my lady,” replied Blanche, scrubbing Camille’s back.

Camille frowned. “Well, then, I don’t understand how that can be a sign of virtue. It could be a sign of fear, or a lack of temptation or opportunity-I certainly had little opportunity, living as I did with a monk and a votary, and then isolated on Papa’s farm. Too, it could be lack of desire or lack of someone to love.-Tell me: is it a sign of virtue when a man who has never made love before comes to the bed of a willing partner?”

“No, my lady. It is considered a lack of experience.”

“Virtue for one, but inexperience for the other? — Fie! But this does seem somehow inequitable.”

“Let me ask you this, my lady: would you rather have had Prince Alain as inexperienced as you?”

“Oh, no, Blanche. I can’t imagine how awkward and fumbling such an encounter would have been.”

“Then there you have it, my lady.-Now, duck your hair under.”

When Camille came sputtering up from the water, Blanche asked, “My lady, did they not speak of this at the monastery? Of vices and virtues? Of men and women and love? Or did not your pere or mere tell you of such?”

Camille shook her head. “At the monastery? No, Blanche. Instead they spoke of devotions to Mithras, and of the Devil and the good that men do. As for such talk at home, Papa always seemed to withdraw, and Maman simply glared at Papa and gritted her teeth and said, ‘You’ll find out soon enough, you will,’ and, beyond that, she said no more.”

As Blanche took up one of the rose-scented bars of soap, she said, “Well, my lady, now you know,” and she began lathering Camille’s hair.

“Inequitable or no, again I say, fie.”

“Fie, my lady?”

“Yes. Fie.” Camille’s shoulders slumped and she sighed.

“You see, Blanche, now I suppose I will never know whether or not I am virtuous, for I never faced temptation or opportunity or even knew love ere I met Prince Alain. Besides, it just seemed to happen.. and I am glad that it did.”

“So am I,” said Blanche. “So are we all.”

“All?”

“The staff, my lady. The household staff.”

“Oh, my. Does everyone know? Lanval said all might.”

Blanche paused in her scrubbing. “It is plain to every man Jaques and woman Jille that you two were meant for one another. And the prince has so little joy in his life, it is good to see him laugh.”

“Little joy? What mean you by that?”

“That I leave up to him to say,” replied Blanche, taking up the pitcher from the washstand. “Now hold still while I rinse.”

“Tell me of your pere and mere, my love.”

Alain hesitated, a black king in hand, and, in spite of the fawn-colored mask he wore, Camille thought she detected a frown from the look in his grey eyes. He then stood and stepped to the mantel and gazed up at his father’s portrait, and turned and looked across the chamber at his mother’s. “I love them both, I do, as do Borel and Celeste and Liaze. Every year, my sire and dam and their court would ride from woodland manor to woodland manor: a king’s court rade.”

“Raid?” asked Camille. “As in a loot and pillage raid?”

Alain smiled. “No, love: r-a-d-e. In this case it means to ride in procession, and my sire and dam’s entire retinue would rade. To the Forests of the Seasons they would come, visiting each of us in turn.” Alain paused, his eyes brimming in the lanternlight, and he whispered, “Those were splendid days.”

Camille stood and stepped to Alain’s side. “Love, if it pains you

…”

Alain made a sign of negation. “I am saddened, Camille, yet I would speak on.”

Camille took up his hand and kissed it, then held it gently as Alain continued:

“Some fifteen years back, by mortal reckoning, they disappeared, gone in the dead of night. They had arrived here at the manor no more than a fortnight ere then, and had intended to stay a fortnight more ere the king’s rade would take them onward unto Liaze’s manor in the Autumnwood.

“Yet of a sudden they were missing, my sire and dam, but their horses were still in the stables, and all of their goods were yet here, and so where and how they had gone was a mystery.

“We turned the house and grounds upside down in a search for them, yet nought did we find, not even the most remote sign of either.

“Hunters and trackers could come across no hint of a trail, not even Borel’s Wolves. They had simply vanished into thin air. Not even Ardu, the mage Celeste brought from the Springwood, could detect what had gone amiss, though he did say that an arcane spell was at work, one which he could not overcome.”

Camille drew in a deep breath and whispered, “ ’Twas magic?”

Alain nodded. “I even visited the Lady of the Mere, but she remained absent.”

“Lady of the Mere?”

Alain vaguely gestured. “Not far from here. A seer. Yet she is wholly elusive. ’Tis said she only appears in circumstances dire. The disappearance of my sire and dam would not seem to be one of those events.”

“Had they any enemies-your sire and dam-enemies who could have done this thing?”

“There was that trace of a spell cast, but neither the mages nor the witches we brought to Summerwood Manor could determine aught of it. And though ’tis said all kings have many a foe, none we know of has spells at his beck.”

As Alain again mentioned magic, Camille shivered. Then she frowned. “And your sire is a king?”

“Aye.”

“Who rules in his absence?”

“Faure: my sire’s steward, Lanval’s brother. And just as is Lanval, Faure, too, is quite honorable, and I ween would not do nor cause such a thing. Certainly not for power, for he is reluctant to steer the kingdom, and he urges Borel to take the throne, for Borel is eldest. Yet Borel declines, for he believes someday my sire will be found, as do my sisters and as do I. And as long as Borel and Celeste and Liaze and I refuse the throne, Faure must stand in my sire’s stead.”

Again Camille kissed Alain’s hand. “Oh, love, surely they will be found someday.”

The gloom of speaking of his lost parents weighed on Alain’s spirit for a sevenday or so, but then he brightened, and once again Camille found joy in his eyes and a smile on his lips and laughter in his voice.

A moon passed, and then another, and Alain and Camille’s ardor grew eve by eve, and their lovemaking became even more passionate. And Camille spent her noon-times with the Bear, and her afternoons with Blanche or Andre or the seamstresses, who allowed Camille to join them in their glad circle, where mirth oft rang; or she spent time with other members of the household staff, learning of their duties and deeds.

The evenings and nights she spent with Alain, and on a few of those, Alain conducted the business of the Summerwood Principality, and he had Camille sit at his side as he dealt with smallholders and merchants and hunters and the like, or a poacher or two, though within this part of Faery little changed, and so, much could be handled by Lanval without need of intervention by the prince. Hence, for the most part, much or all of their evenings were free, and they took elegant meals and played echecs and dames, or they read in quietness to one another from the books and scrolls and tomes and journals in the great library. Alain taught her more dances: the quadrille, the minuet, and a right vigorous caper named the reel, which Alain said came from a land across a wave-tossed channel of the sea. Too, they oft sang-arias, or duets-Camille in her clear and pure soprano, and Alain in his flawless tenor. While she did not move from her quarters into his, she slept with him every night-sometimes with him merely holding her close or she embracing him, other times in amorous clench. Even though they bedded together, every darktide just ere dawn he would leave her side.

On one of those nights as Camille lay beside her sleeping love in the darkness complete and listened to him softly breathe, cautiously and with but a single finger she lightly traced his features, for she had never seen beyond the masks he wore, her touch tracing the line of his jaw, his lips, his brow, his cheeks, his nose…

They do not seem monstrous, disfigured. And regardless of any mark he might have, I would think him quite beautiful could I but see. She withdrew her touch. Why does-?

“Camille,” his voice came softly through the dark, “please do not do that again.”

“Oh!” Camille gasped. “I thought you asleep, my love.”

“I was.” Alain swung his feet out from under the cover and sat a moment on the edge of the bed. “Dawn is coming.”

Camille kicked the satin aside and scrambled to her knees and embraced him from behind, her bare breasts pressing against his naked back. “Why, love, do I never see you in the day?”

Alain sighed. “What I do in the day is unavoidable. It’s all part of the terrible problem with which I and others do grapple.”

“Others?”

“My kith.”

Camille rested her chin on his shoulder. “Borel, Celeste, and Liaze?”

“Aye. Even now they search their demesnes for those who might help. Should they find those with promise, they will bring them here.”

“If they can help, then why can’t I?”

“Oh, love, I can only say that one day you will know.” Alain twisted about and took her face in his hands and kissed and then released her. He stood and moved away, and she could hear him donning his clothes in the dark. Moments later there came the shkk of a striker, and lanternlight filled the chamber, revealing Alain now fully clothed, his face concealed behind a pale yellow mask. He kissed her again, then said, “I must go, love,” and then he was gone.

With a sigh, Camille settled back in the bed, his bed, but questions without answers tumbled through her thoughts, and she could not sleep. Finally, she arose and donned her own clothes, then made her way to her chambers. As usual, Blanche lay sleeping on a couch, but awoke at the opening of the door. Camille took a long, hot bath, Blanche yawning bleary-eyed as Camille soaked. Finally, Camille took to her own bed and fell asleep at last, as Blanche slipped away in the morn.

A sevenday passed with no resolution to Camille’s manifold questions, and yet she loved Alain no less for his secrecy and silence. And still their adoration grew.

It was as Camille knelt next to Andre and dropped seeds into the soil and covered them over, that there sounded trumpets on the high hills above. Camille stood and shaded her eyes and peered afar even as the horns sounded again, and down the distant slope a procession came, riders ahorse.

“My lady,” said Andre, now standing at her side, “methinks y’d better make ready to receive guests.”

“Who is it, Andre? Do you know?”

“One of the siblings, I shouldn’t wonder.”

In that moment-“My lady!” came a cry. “My lady!” Camille turned to see Blanche running across the sward, her skirt held up to do so. “My lady, we must make you presentable; a rade, a rade has come!”

Reaching Camille’s side and gasping for breath, Blanche said, “If I’m not mistaken, ’tis Celeste and Liaze, come to visit the prince. Oh, Lady, we can’t have them see you like this, all grimed with dirt.” The handmaid cast an accusing eye at the gardener, but he merely shrugged.

In that moment, topping the hill came another rider, only this one had a pack of Wolves padding alongside. Blanche drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, goodness, it’s all three come.”

“Aye,” agreed Andre, “and there look to be strangers in their train.”

Blanche tugged on Camille’s arm. “My lady, now listen to me! We must go this instant, else they’ll be here before you are presentable.”

As Camille was drawn into the mansion by Blanche, footmen raced across the sward toward the distant gates. And inside the manor, servants and maids, all directed by Lanval, rushed to and fro, for there were rooms to be aired and beds to be made and banquets to be prepared, for indeed ’twas true: a splendid rade had come.