Once Upon an Autumn Eve

14

Weeping 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.

A witch?

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

Wait! It is said witches are unable to weep ought but falsely, shedding no tears whatsoever.

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.

The guards. They’ll come running at the crone’s keening.

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:

I cry in alarm,

I cry in delight,

I speak of many things.

I cry for arms,

In the midst of a fight,

Or in joy for what the day brings.

I cry at the grave

While others weep,

And I cry when day is done.

I cry for the brave

Their vows to keep.

And I cry at the rise of the sun.

Name me.

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:

In the long search for your lost true love

You surely must ride with Fear,

With Dread, with Death, with many Torn Souls,

Yet ride with no one from here.

For should you take a few with you,

Most Fear would likely slay.

Instead ride with the howling one

To aid you on the way.

He you will find along your quest.

He is the one who loudly cried.

He will help you defeat dread Fear,

But will not face Fear at your side.

You must soothe as you would a babe,

And speak not a loud word;

Silence is golden in some high halls;

Tread softly to not be heard.

In the dark of the moon but two moons from now

A scheme will be complete,

For on a black mountain an ever-slowing heart

Will surely cease to beat.

“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.