Once Upon a Summer Day (6 page)

“For my Wolves a fair bit of cooked meat will do, not overdone, mind you, along with a few bones to gnaw,” replied the prince. “As for me, I would have a warm bath and a good hot meal and then a pleasant bed, for I have come far these last four days and need a good long sleep.”

At these words, and with a gesture from Arnot, the staff bustled off—some to the kitchen, others to Lord Borel’s quarters, and still more to the sculleries and other chambers—for there was work to be done.

The prince and his Wolves were home at last.

G
ingerly, Borel eased into the hot water. Nearby, Gerard, laying out the towels, paused long enough to pour dark red wine into a crystal goblet, and when the prince was well immersed and had leaned back with a sigh, “My lord,” said the small redheaded man, and he held out the drink to Borel.

“Thank you, Gerard,” said Borel, accepting the glass and swirling the contents about. He took a sip. “Ah, some of Liaze’s finest.” He set the crystal on the flange of the bronze tub and glanced up at the valet. “I just realized: I’m famished. What does Madame Chef have in mind as tonight’s creation?”

“I believe, Sieur, when the Sprites came and said you were on the way, Madame Millé began marinating venison.”

“Ah. The dish with the white cream sauce?”

“She said it was your favorite.”

“Your mother knows me well, Gerard.” Borel took up the goblet again and in one long gulp downed the drink. “Tell her I will be ready in a candlemark or so.”

“Yes, my prince,” said the manservant. “Will you have more wine?”

“At dinner, I think. But now I just want to soak away the toil of travel.”

“As you wish, Sieur.” Over a rod on the fireguard Gerard draped a towel to warm it for the prince to use, and placed a washcloth on the edge of the tub and said, “Along with your linens, I have laid out a white silk shirt with pearl buttons and a grey doublet with black trim, black trews with a silver-buckled black belt, and black stockings and black boots. I have also included a crimson sleeve-kerchief. Will they do?”

“Ah, Gerard, you would make me into a dandy. Even so, it will be nice to wear something other than my leathers. Indeed, they will do.”

“Very good, Sieur.” Gerard took up the empty goblet and the bottle of wine. “I will inform Madame Millé as to when you will be down, and then I shall return to dress you.”

As Gerard left the bathing room, Borel smiled and shook his head.
Dress me. Though I always don my own clothes, he insists he must “dress” me.

Borel settled lower into the hot water, and relaxation slowly eased into his muscles. It was only after long moments that he realized just how tense he had been.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the metal slope of the tub. . . .

. . . And in but moments, it seemed, he awoke in water gone tepid to see Gerard standing silently and patiently by.

“Oh, Gerard,” said Borel, “Madame Chef will have my hide.” As he snatched up the washcloth and soap he looked at his hand and broke out laughing. “My wrinkled hide, that is.”

Within a quarter candlemark, with his straight, silvery, shoulder-length hair still damp, he was scrubbed and dressed, and downstairs sitting at the head of a long, highly polished, blackwood table. Quickly, he finished the last of his
apéritif
—sliced mushrooms lightly sautéed in creamery butter. At a signal from Borel, one server whisked away the modest dish while still another server removed the small glass holding a trace of a pale red wine, one that Albert, the voluble sommelier, had called “a refreshing, rose-colored wine fortified with a hint of fruit and a crisp touch of sweet aftertaste—perfect for clearing the palate of any vestige of a previous drink.” A third server set a bowl and a silver soup spoon before the prince, and a fourth waiter came in from the kitchen, a great tureen in hand. He ladled out
soupe à la crême de légumes assaisonnée avec des herbes.
When that was done, a fifth server set down a small loaf of bread on a modest cutting board, with a knife in a groove for slicing, and he put a porcelain bread plate to the prince’s left, while yet a sixth server placed at hand a dish of pale yellow butter pats embossed with the form of a snowflake. The loquacious sommelier set a new goblet to Borel’s right and said, “My lord, I have selected a special
blanc
to stand up to the heartiness of the soup: a full-flavored, substantial white wine with grape and apple aromas mixing well with the mustiness of barrel-aging and culminating in a robust aftertaste.”

At a nod from Borel, the sommelier poured a tot into the goblet and then waited as Borel swirled and inhaled the aroma and took a sip and said, “A fine choice, Albert.”

Albert smiled and filled the goblet half full.

The meal continued, the soup followed by venison in a light splash of a white cream sauce, with a sautéed medley of green beans and small onions and peas, all accompanied by a hearty red wine poured from a dusty bottle laid down for many years in a cool cellar. As the effusive sommelier put it, “I have selected a red that will enhance Madame Millé’s splendid dish, a wine almost delicate in its complex bouquet holding a suggestion of aged cedar, a trace of pipeweed, and a hint of sweet, fragrant leaves of a kalyptos tree. Its rich flavor should spread evenly across the tongue, exciting senses of sweet and bitter equally, followed by a pleasant, drying sensation upon swallowing.”

Borel smiled to himself at the sommelier’s abundant description, but tasted the wine and said, “Again, Albert, a fine, fine selection,” and then he ravenously tore into the meal.

After two full helpings, at last Borel leaned back in satisfaction, the plate empty before him, scoured clean, the last of the sauce sopped up with small chunks of bread.

And then the éclairs were served, and Borel groaned but faced them heroically.

Albert stepped forward with yet another fresh goblet and a bottle of wine. “A sparkling, bit-off-dry white, my lord. It will enhance the sweetness of Madame Millé’s splendid pastry.”

Once again Borel nodded his appreciation and managed not one but two of the éclairs.

When that was cleared away, Albert served a snifter of cherry brandy, this from a very dusty bottle Albert held back for special occasions, “. . . a refreshing tartness to clear the palate, my lord. Would you care for some cheese as well?”

Satiated, Borel waved off the cheese, but he took up the brandy and groaned to his feet and headed for the kitchen, Albert trailing after. When the prince entered, all work stopped, and stepping to the fore of the kitchen- and wait-staff came a white-haired man in somber black, and a small woman wearing a chef’s hat and a full, white apron over a dove-grey dress. The man in black bowed, as did all the men, Albert now among them, and the woman doffed her hat, revealing red curls, and she curtseyed, as did all the women.

Borel raised his glass on high and called out, “I salute you, Monsieur Paul, Madame Millé, and Monsieur Albert, as well as all who had a hand in the preparation and serving. Never has a finer meal graced Winterwood Manor.” Borel then tossed down the drink, much to Albert’s dismay, for this brandy was meant to be savored—slowly, and in small sips—else one might just as well guzzle straight from the bottle.

The rest of the staff, however, looked at one another and beamed in pleasure, and then bowed and curtseyed again.

Albert stepped forward, the dusty bottle of cherry brandy gripped tightly, but Borel smiled and shook his head, then set down the snifter on a nearby counter and turned on his heel and headed for his quarters, while behind voices were raised as the staff returned to whatever they’d been doing ere the prince had come: Madame Millé snapping out commands; Monsieur Paul’s words less intense; men and women scurrying about.

 

“Nightshirt, Sieur?”

“No, Gerard.”

The valet looked at the bed curtains and shook his head and sighed. Lord Borel never wanted them drawn good and proper, but instead required them left open—“the better to hear the household” he said, as if at any moment something wicked might come crashing in.

“Good night, then, my lord,” said Gerard. “Sleep well.”

“So I hope,” said Borel, crawling into bed.

Candle in hand, Gerard slipped out the door, taking the light with him, even as Borel eased under the down covers.

Borel fell aslumber ere he could finish that thought.

Long did he sleep, dreaming not at all . . . not at all, that is, until a candlemark or two beyond mid of night. . . .

 

With stone walls all ’round, beyond the windows Borel could see daggers floating in the air, threatening, ever threatening. A young, golden-haired lady stood across the chamber, her head bowed.

From somewhere nearby there came a persistent squeaking, though perhaps it was music instead.

“Oh, s’il-te-plaît aidez-moi, mon seigneur,”
whispered the demoiselle, a band of black across her eyes.
“Il ne reste qu’une lune.”

“What do you mean, my lady, when you say there is but a moon left?”

“Time grows short?”

“Do I know you, mademoiselle?”

Before she could answer there came a long, low, sustained cry, as of pain or grief or displeasure, and it slowly rose to a shriek, and the stone walls faded, and she was gone, and—

Borel startled awake in the night, a wind wailing about the mansion, and then it fell to a groan. He threw off the covers and stepped into a thin, silvery beam shining through the narrow crack between the two leaves of the shutters on one of the windows. Unclothed and crossing to that window, he lowered the sash and flung wide the hinged planks. A frigid wind moaned inward, bringing him entirely awake, and a bright full moon angling through the sky shone onto the far slope of the wide vale across the frozen river, casting long shadows down the slant.

Borel gazed up at the argent orb overhead.
And she said time grows short, there is but a moon left.

With the wind whirling up over the lip of the bluff and across the flat and courtyard, and groaning ’round the timbers and eaves, and blustering about the chamber, Borel stood in the aerie that was his mansion and gazed out across the Winterwood, his silvery hair whipping in the blow.

She is real. I know it. Not just a dream but real. How I know this I cannot say, but nevertheless I do. And she is in peril, and there is but a moon left ere something dire comes afoot or awing or aslither or however else it might arrive. I must do something. I must! But what?—Ah, the reaper had it right. A seer. I must consult a seer, a dream seer—a
voyant de rêves.
No, wait. Better yet a diviner of dreams—a
devin de rêves
—and the nearest diviner is Vadun, a day beyond the cursed part of my demesne. I will pass by Hradian’s cote on the way. Two birds with one stone, or so I hope.

Of a sudden the wind gusted and banged one of the shutters to and then flung it wide only to slam the other about. Snatched from his musings, Borel grabbed the boards and closed and locked them and drew the window sash. He stood for a moment in the thin beam of moonlight shining inward through the small gap, and then went back to his bed. Yet he did not sleep again that night, his mind atumble with inchoate thoughts, imperfectly formed and vague . . . and in the end quite pointless, for he did not know who she was, nor where she was, nor what hazard she faced. He only knew she was in danger, and time grew perilously short.

Tossing, turning, unable to sleep, at last Borel left his bed just as the moon set and pale dawn graced the sky.

 

“But, my lord, so soon?” asked the steward. “You are not yet rested from your journey here.”

“I must, Arnot. She is in peril, and time is of the essence.”

They stood in the armory, Borel buckling on his leather-armor vest, Gerard fussing about, slipping things into the rucksack, while Jules, the armsmaster, handed Borel his gear.

Arnot, however, off to one side, eyed the weaponry all ’round the chamber: swords, halberds, axes, bows, long-knives, shields, bucklers, war hammers, chain, breastplates, and other such arms and armor, all marked with a silvery snowflake. Would that his lord would take up better weapons and protection—a good war hammer, a bronze breastplate, a helm, rerebraces, vambraces, cuissarts, greaves, and knee and elbow guards, as well as a shield—but Borel seemed to prefer to go lightly.