Once upon a Summer Day

18

As the footsteps scrambled away, Borel bolted upright and gazed through the moonlight in the direction of the sound, but there was too much underbrush to see ought. Snatching up his bow, ready to string it, the prince jumped to his feet; still, he saw nothing. Then he whirled about and breathed a sigh of relief: Flic and Buzzer slept peacefully upon the broad leaf they had taken to as their bed. Borel knelt and added wood to the fire, and in the growing blaze, he examined his meager belongings to see if anything had been stolen: nothing had. But he found in addition to his goods a tiny rucksack, and within were several small bags, and these he cautiously examined: in one there was oatmeal; another contained strips of jerky; a third one held a loaf of black bread, the same as the Gnome had served; the fourth and final bag held several coins, silver and gold among the coppers. Furthermore, there was a small jar of honey, a coil of line, a tiny pot of glue, a packet of thread, a small tin pot with a bail, and a tinderbox with flint and steel and fine wood shavings.

Borel called out through the darkness in the direction the footsteps had fled: “My thanks to Hegwith!”

Jolted awake, Flic sat up and rubbed his eyes and said, “What’s all this shouting about?”

By firelight, Borel examined the ground. “We’ve had visitors in the night, by the look of the tracks perhaps three altogether. They left gifts.”

“Gifts?”

“A jar of honey for you and Buzzer. Some provisions and other needful things for me.”

“No good deed goes unrewarded,” said Flic, yawning. “Or is it instead no good deed goes unpunished?” He glanced at the moon, then lay back down and said to the sky, “It looks as if there is a goodly part of the night left, my prince. Me, I’m going back to sleep. You had better sleep as well; perhaps there is yet time to meet the demoiselle of your dreams.”

“I already did,” said Borel. “We danced.”

“Danced? In the turret?”

“No. In Summerwood Manor. You see, I stepped through a hidden door and into the ballroom.”

Flic did not reply.

Borel looked up to see the Sprite curled against Buzzer in his sleep.

“We had a merry time,” continued Borel, faintly smiling and speaking to himself. “And I called her ‘my love.’ ”

“You what?” said Flic, as he and Buzzer broke fast, lapping at a dribble of honey inside the upturned lid of the jar.

“I called her my love,” replied Borel.

“Well, do you love her?”

“In my dreams I do.”

“Ah, dreams are wild, and anything can happen therein,” said Flic, licking honey from his finger. “I mean, it seems as if there are no restraints on what one will say and do in a dream: give your heart to someone; engage in liaisons; in one moment be here and in the next instant there; conquer your worst enemy; flee from the most insignificant thing; grow to giant size; and other such. Oui, you might confess a desperate love to someone you know-or even a total stranger-when ensnared in a dream, but what matters is how you feel when awake.”

Borel frowned. “I don’t know how I feel. Oh, I think she is quite splendid, but as to love… Flic, she was a child when last I actually saw her, and that is hard for me to dismiss. But in my dreams, she is a lovely demoiselle.”

“Perhaps her dream image is misleading, Borel,” said Flic. “Perhaps it only shows what she would like to be, rather than what she is.”

Borel nodded and stirred the blossoms in the water in the tin pot hanging from the spit above the fire.

Flic said, “Let me see.”

Borel stopped stirring and lifted the pot free and set it before the Sprite, and Flic dipped in a finger and tasted. “It is ready.”

Taking a deep breath, with his gloved hands Borel raised the pot to his lips-“Ow! Too hot!”

“Let it cool a bit,” said Flic, licking more honey from his finger.

Borel stood and took the pot to the stream and set it within, letting chill water cool the metal. In moments he raised it to his lips and drank the full of the yet-warm tisane without pausing. This day it seemed bitter and sweet at one and the same time, and Borel sucked in air between clenched teeth and a tremor ran down his neck and back.

Then he half filled the small container with water, and returned to the fire and set the pot to boil.

He took up his pestle rock and began crushing the last of the moss, turning it to sludge. By the time he and Flic had slathered a thin film of the slime over his faintly discolored bruises, the water in the pot was bubbling. Borel tossed in a fistful of oatmeal, and as he crushed sap from the last of the herbs, he occasionally paused to stir the gruel.

They daubed the herbal juice onto Borel’s nearly healed cuts and scrapes, and then he dressed and broke his fast with oat porridge, using two fingers to scoop it into his mouth.

“Any need to keep the mortars and pestles?” he asked, tilting his head toward the rocks.

“No, Borel, we are finished with the treatments.”

“Good. No use in lugging extra weight.” He took another two fingers of oatmeal and chewed without gusto and swallowed and said, “I am sorely tempted to sweeten this with honey.”

“Feel free, my lord, for Buzzer and I can live long whiles on nectar alone.”

Borel shook his head. “No, tiny one. You and Buzzer need good sustenance. Besides, what I have is nourishing enough, even if it is not tasty.” He scooped another portion into his mouth and barely chewed before swallowing. He glanced at his bow and said, “Perhaps today I will bring down some game.”

As Borel used the Gnome-given rope to belt on the wee rucksack, Buzzer flew about and took a heading, then darted into the twilight border. Borel followed, Flic riding on the prow of the tricorn. They passed into a dimness growing darker and then lighter again, and they emerged into a downpour, a dismal swamp all about.

Nearby, Buzzer clung to the bottom of a limb, and when Borel emerged, the bee flew and alighted on the underside of the tricorn-hat brim.

“She can’t fly in this storm,” said Flic, the Sprite swinging down to land on Borel’s shoulder to take shelter ’neath the brim as well.

Borel turned and strode into the twilight to emerge back in the high mountain vale. “What can we do?”

“Wait for it to stop,” replied Flic.

“Can Buzzer take bearings in the rain?”

“Not in that downpour.”

“Can you ask Buzzer if it’s straight through we need to go?”

“Smooth out a patch of ground,” said Flic.

Moments later, Buzzer was doing her wriggle dance, with Flic paying close attention. Borel smiled, remembering the dance he and Chelle had performed. Finally the Sprite said, “If you can pass straight through the mire to the opposite side and the border beyond, she can take a new sighting. But listen, if you are too far off the line, we might end up someplace altogether different, and she might not be able to find the vale with the pink-petaled shamrock and blushing white roses and thorn-laden blackberry vines… that is, until she comes to a known place, in which case she can fly from there onward.”

Borel nodded, for the twilight borders of Faery are peculiar. A person might cross a given marge at one place and find a pleasant land, whereas crossing that same marge at another point could lead to a dreadful realm. And in some places, one can cross and lop days of travel from the journey, yet just a furlong or so away from that crossing another passage through could add leagues upon leagues to the trek. Hence, one had to be careful of one’s bearings when venturing athwart the twilight walls of Faery, else a planned destination might elude one altogether. Usually, when one found this to be, he crossed back over, moved along the border one way or another-from feet to furlongs to leagues-and then passed through again, hoping to arrive where he wished.

Borel sighed and shook his head. “ ’Tis a mire yon, where one can easily get deflected and off track. I’d rather not gamble. We’ll wait it out.”

And so they waited, impatient Borel repeatedly crossing through the twilight wall, each time discovering the downpour yet raged.

As he waited, he fetched from his quiver the grouse feathers and the thread and the glue provided by his visitors in the night; and he fletched arrows, plume trims replacing the cloth tails. Too, he knapped flint arrowheads, and fitted the rest of the arrowwood shafts. And in between knappings and fittings and fletchings, he crossed over, only to curse at the torrent and then return to the vale.

When night came on, the rain hadn’t stopped, and Buzzer fell dormant in the dark. A short while later, Flic curled up next to the bee.

“Ah, zut! ” said Borel. “There’s nothing for it but that we must wait for morn.”

And so he set his snare in a distant trace and added wood to the fire, and then settled down to sleep.