Once Upon a Summer Day (12 page)

“Well, I do not know all bees, Prince, but those I’ve met are quite friendly.”

“Could you ask them to search for Roulan’s estate or even for Lady Chelle? I mean, could you ask the bees in concert to look for her? Send messengers out and have all bees search? Or the hummingbirds, for they are swift?”

Flic shook his head. “Were it like in some stories, where a mythical ruler of all bees—or one of all hummingbirds—is repaying some favor, perhaps then it could be done. Hummingbirds, my lord, they keep to their nests and fields, and are quite territorial, and squabble o’er certain stands of flowers. They do care for their mates and brood, yet I know of none who cooperate with any others. And I know of no sovereign they have. But they do migrate, and perhaps they will have seen a turret with daggers about in which a demoiselle is trapped. I will ask those we come across.

“And as to the bees, some are solitary but most live in individual swarms, each with its own queen, and queens are quite jealous of one another, and oft there are wars between colonies. Hence, for bees throughout Faery to go on a quest is but an amusing tale told to younglings, or so I do think. Besides, I remind you, my lord, bees are loath to cross the twilight borders, Buzzer being an exception. No, in this task, if we are to rely upon a bee, it has to be Buzzer who leads the way.”

“I see,” said Borel, returning to his meal. He took a bite and chewed awhile and swallowed, then said, “I suppose the same is true of ants, eh?”

Flic smiled. “Most likely. Oh, one might convince a queen of a single colony of ants or bees or the leader of a school of fish or a flock of birds or a pack of animals or the like to send the entire group on a search within their own territory, but for creatures of a single kind—or even creatures of different kinds—to go throughout all of Faery on a hunt to repay a favor, well . . . that would be quite extraordinary; it might even require the gods themselves to intervene.”

Borel nodded and sighed and finished the remainder of his meal in morose silence.

As the nighttide deepened, Borel hobbled down to the river and washed his face and hands, then returned to camp and donned his now-dry clothes. He refreshed the fire with two more logs and, as the moon, two days past full, climbed into the sky, he wrapped himself in his cloak and settled down upon a bed of grass.

“Remember, my lord,” said Flic, “should you see daggers afloat in the air, you are in a dream.”

Borel grunted in acknowledgement and swiftly fell into an exhausted sleep.

As Borel’s breathing deepened, Flic watched. Then he took to wing and began searching by moonlight for blossoms and mosses and herbs most rare.

T
he slender demoiselle stood across the chamber from him. She was dressed in a sapphire-blue gown with a white bodice. Her golden hair was twined with blue ribbons and white. Borel frowned, for there was a shadowy band across her eyes.

In the Old Tongue she said, “There is less than a moon remaining.”

Something tugged at Borel’s mind, something elusive, and then it was gone. “What do you mean, mademoiselle?” he asked, also in the Old Tongue. “Less than a moon till what?”

“I do not know, my lord. Yet something terrible looms, and you must help me, please.” She reached out toward him.

The prince crossed the floor and took her hands in his and felt the trembling of them. “I will aid you, my lady,” said Borel, and he raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

Even though frightened by whatever might threaten her, shyly she turned her face aside.

Thinking that he had embarrassed her, Borel released his grip and took a half step back, yet she reached out and caught one of his hands in hers and held tightly.

“I must escape,” she said.

“Escape?”

“From this tower, this turret.”

Again an ephemeral thought fled across Borel’s mind, yet ere he could catch it, it was gone.

“And it seems you must find me and help me get free,” she added.

“But I am here,” said Borel, frowning in puzzlement. “I
have
found you.”

“Indeed, you are here,” said the demoiselle, “yet you have not found me.”

“Why say you this?” asked Borel. “Can you not see I am here? Yet you tell me I have not found you?”

“I know not why it is true,” said the lady. “Nevertheless it is.”

Borel looked about the chamber. There were windows open to the air, and a stairwell going down, and there was a faint squeaking sound, though perhaps instead it was music. He moved toward one of the windows, and as he stepped away, she reluctantly released his hand, her fingers trailing against his.

The loss of her touch overwhelmed Borel, and he turned back and reached out and took her hand in his. “Come.”

“We cannot get out that way,” she replied.

Borel looked. Things hovered beyond the sill; things solid and dangerous and in shadows. What they might be, he had no idea, for they were too deep in the dark. Once more a critical thought skittered on the edge of revelation, yet again whatever it was escaped his grasp. “Then, my lady, if we cannot get out that way, we will go down the steps.” He started toward the stairwell, her hand firmly in his.

“No!” The demoiselle gasped and pulled back, and she tried to drag him hindward.

Borel turned and looked at her. “My lady?”

“Oh, my lord, not down the steps. Something dreadful lies below.”

“Something dreadful? What?” Borel reached for his long-knife. It was gone, his scabbard empty.

Of a sudden he was covered with bruises, and he felt as if he had been battered by all the hammers of the Gnomes.

Nevertheless, weaponless, he released her hand and hobbled toward the stairwell.

“No!” cried the demoiselle. “I will not let you go!”

In that moment the chamber vanished, and Borel awakened with a start to find himself lying on a grassy bed, a whisper of distant rapids wafting through the moonlit woodland upon a gentle breeze.

“Z
ut! Zut! Zut!”
cursed Borel, hammering his fist into the ground. “How could I have been so stupid?” “Stupid, my lord?” The Sprite sat nearby sorting through plucked blossoms and buds. Beside him were several small piles of mosses and herbs.

“Ah, Flic, you told me to concentrate on seeing daggers so that I would know that I was in a dream, and I simply fell asleep without doing so.”

“Do not chastise yourself overly, Prince Borel. I understand it takes several tries . . . or so I was told.”

Borel growled a response and then groaned to his feet and stumped away to relieve himself. Then he hobbled to the river and drank deeply. Upon returning to the camp, as he placed more wood on the fire he said, “What are you doing, Flic, this sorting of flowers by moonlight?”

“My lord, you need to treat your injuries, else the going will be slow. The herbs are for a paste to rub into your bruises, the juice of the moss for your scrapes, and can we think of a way, the blossoms to make a tisane to treat your soreness. We should make the tisane first.”

“A tisane? A drink for my aches and pains?”

“Aye,” said the Sprite.

“Then we’ll brew it in my hat,” said Borel, pointing to the tricorn.

“Your hat, my lord?”

“Indeed,” said Borel, groaning back down onto his grassy bed. “On morrow morn. But for now, I need rest.”

“As you wish,” said Flic.

In moments, the prince fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 

When Borel awoke in the early light of dawn, he had stiffened up in the night, and he was slow to rise. Once on his feet, he looked to see Flic asleep and curled on the leaf next to Buzzer. The bee, however, was awake, yet she remained still by her ward.

Moving with difficulty, Borel added more branches to the yet-glowing coals of the fire, and blew up a blaze, and when the flames were well caught, he took up his tricorn and hobbled to the river and scooped up a hatful of water and drank his fill. He then selected a number of rounded river rocks, all nigh the size of a chicken egg. These he took back to the fire and placed them among the burning branches. Back to the river he stumped and again filled the tricorn with water, and back to the camp he limped.

Then he groaned down with his back to a tree and ate leftover rabbit, while with his flint knife he scraped away at the coney skin and waited for Flic to awaken.

As the sun rose, so did the Sprite. “We’ll need two washed-clean, fairly flat rocks,” said Flic, “though if you can find two slightly hollowed, that would be even better. One on which to crush the moss to paste; the other to squeeze the juice from the herbs. We’ll also need a couple of rounded river rocks to do the crushing. But as to making the tisane, we’ll need water and a way to heat it.”

“The water is in my hat,” said Borel, “and the way to heat it is in the fire.”

Flic glanced at the fire. “Ah, I see. But how will you fetch them out from the flames?”

Borel hefted his flint knife and pointed at a nearby young tree. “I’ll cut a forked branch.”

“Then, my lord, while Buzzer and I break fast, you gather what we need.”

 

After cutting the branch from the limb and trimming it to suit his purpose, Borel took up his quiver and the scraped rabbit skin and hobbled down to the river, where he thoroughly wetted down the hide and rolled it tightly and dropped it into the quiver. Then he found two flat rocks slightly hollowed to act as mortars and two round ones to act as pestles. As he limped back to the camp, Flic flew alongside and pointed and said, “Buzzer has found a stand of viburnum at the base of that steep hillside just across the field.”

“Splendid,” said Borel and, gritting his teeth, he hobbled on, while Flic sped back to the blossoming field to continue his breakfast.

When Flic and Buzzer returned to camp, Borel donned one of his gloves and slid the fork of the cut branch under a hot rock and dropped it into the water in his hat. Shortly, with his gloved hand he fished that rock out and put it back into the fire, and scooped another one in. In less than a quarter candlemark the water was bubbling, and Flic said, “There is too much. Pour a bit out . . . say, half.”

After Borel had done so, the Sprite dropped a selection of different blossoms into the liquid.

“Stir it, my lord.”

Borel used his forked stick to stir the blossoms ’round and ’round and under. After long moments of doing so, Flic said, “Let me see.”

Borel stopped, and the Sprite stuck in a finger and tasted. “A bit more stirring, Prince.”

Twice more Borel stirred and twice did Flic taste, and at last he said, “Drink it all, Lord Borel, in one gulp if you can.”

The tisane was quite bitter, the heat of the liquid making it even more so, but Borel squinched up his face and swallowed the whole of it.

Borel shuddered with the aftertaste and set the tricorn aside, and Flic grinned at him and said, “Now for the moss and herbs.”

 

With Flic working on the places Borel could not see or easily reach, they washed his scrapes with the juice of the herbs and smeared a thin film of moss pulp over his bruises. As Borel eased back into his silks and leathers, Flic said, “We’ll do this every morning for a threeday, and then you should be quite well.”

“Three days, that’s all? After the beating I took?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I need your recipes, Flic. There are many who can benefit from this.”

“I’m afraid, Prince Borel, they are not my recipes to give. You will have to ask my queen.”

“You have a queen?”

“Indeed.”

“Hmm. I never knew. Regardless, when the time comes, I will ask her. But for now we have a demoiselle to find.” He glanced at the bumblebee. “Does Buzzer know of Lord Roulan’s gardens?”

“Please, if you would, smooth out a patch of ground, my lord, a place not too close to the fire. One the size of your hand will do.”