Once Upon a Winter's Night (28 page)

Camille nodded, saying, “Indeed, ’tis true.—And I was guided by one who knew the way.”

“Who?”

“Jotun.”

“Jotun the Giant?”

Camille nodded.

“A fearsome sight, is Jotun. We all run a distance away when he comes nigh.”

“But he is quite gentle,” protested Camille.

“That he may be,” replied Jolie. “But he once stepped on a herd of sheep. Squashed them flat; killed them all dead, there in their wee little pen, when Jotun, unthinking, took a step backward, and his heel came down upon them. And now when he comes about, we all run to a safe distance.”

“Ah, then,
that’s
why he did not come to the village,” said Camille. “He believes you are afraid, you know.”

“That we are, indeed. That’s why we run somewhat away, just in case he loses his balance and takes an unplanned step, or even stumbles and falls. You are to be commended for your bravery.” Jolie frowned. “Even so, I do not understand. Jotun the Giant can cross over the mountains in but a day or so, and yet it took you thirty?”

Camille sighed. “I did not realize he was a Giant.”

“How could you not know he was a Giant, that big fearsome thing?”

Suddenly Camille realized that the folk of Ardon might not know that Jotun could take on another form, and she did not know whether it was a secret he wanted her to keep.

Before Camille could answer, “Jolie!” called one of the card players.

“One moment, Camille,” said Jolie.

As Jolie went to serve the man, Camille continued to eat, and she wondered how she would answer Jolie’s question without betraying Jotun’s secret, if indeed a secret it was. But when Jolie came and seated herself again and took up her tea—“Did you see the Serpentmen?”

Camille nodded. “A band rode past me, and one saw where I lay hidden. He came back, his long whip in hand.” Camille pointed to the staff leaning against the table at her side. “My stave saved me. He recognized it as Lady Sorcière’s and fled away.”

“Oh, my,” said Jolie. “You were most fortunate.” She looked at the staff. “May I?”

Camille nodded and handed the stick to her.

Jolie examined the stave. “How beautiful. And though I don’t recognize these blossoms, the garland is so lifelike.” Of a sudden Jolie’s brow furrowed. “But here down by the tip there are no carved flowers, and the vine itself looks a bit withered, and the very bottom flower seems withered as well. I wonder why the carver made it so?” She looked at Camille and shrugged, then peered at the stave again, adding, “I suppose we’ll never know. Ah, but the rest of the staff is quite beautiful.” After another moment or so, she handed it back to Camille.

Camille frowned and peered at the bottom flower. Indeed it did look shrunken, as if it were dying. The vine curling on down to the tip did seem shrunken, too.

Jolie took up the teapot and poured a bit into each cup, saying, “These need warming.—Now about your question, Camille ...”

Camille set the stave aside.

“. . . there is one traveller in the inn. He’s over there playing cards with some of the locals. Losing too, I might add. I asked him if he knew of such a place as you seek, but he said he did not, nor did the other players. And when I fetched ale, I asked my husband Bertrand and those two at the bar, and they did not know either.”

Camille sighed in disappointment. “Jolie, are there any mapmakers in town?”

Jolie shook her head.

“Then what about folk who might know where a land or town or village or dwelling or aught whatsoever lies east of the sun and west of the moon; do you know of any? Former merchants, travellers, hunters, elders, anyone who might know?”

“Well, I know everyone in Ardon, and I think none have travelled that much. Even so, it is a small hamlet, and you can easily ask each one. ’Twould only take a day or three to do so.”

“Oh, my,” said Camille. “I do hope that every town I come to I don’t have to ask every dweller within.”

Jolie smiled and laid a sympathetic hand atop one of Camille’s.

In that moment, Bertrand called, “Jolie, th’ lady’s bathwater is hot out back, so as whenever she’s ready. And as to the laundry . . .”

“Ah,” said Jolie, turning to Camille, “as to your laundry, just leave it for me.” Then she grinned and looked at sleeping Scruff. “I take it the little tyke rides on your shoulder, there where I see the white dripping on your cloak.”

Camille blushed. “I usually clean it off each evening myself, but I was so hungry I didn’t stop and—”

Jolie laughed. “Never you mind, fille, I can do it quite well.”

Of a sudden, Camille remembered the coins and jewelry sewn into the lining of her all-weather cloak. “Oh, Jolie, I will clean my own cloak, if you will but show me to the tubs.”

Jolie argued, but Camille insisted, and so to the bathing room they went, which also doubled for the laundry. When they were alone, Jolie said, “If it’s coins and such you have in the lining of your cloak,
pish-tish
, travellers come here all the time with such, and I’ve not broken a confidence yet.”

Camille sighed, and handed Jolie the all-weather garment and then each of the others as she disrobed to bathe, not bothering to hide her money belt.

 

That night in her room ere climbing into bed, again Camille examined the staff.
My goodness, the bottommost blossom seems even more withered. Whatever can that mean?

 

The next dawntide, Camille was awakened by Scruff gently pecking on her cheek and chirping, heralding the light of the new day. Camille stumbled out from the bed and fetched a bit of the remaining grass seed yet stored in her rucksack. She made a small mound on the floor and set Scruff down. Eagerly he took to the seed, and Camille flopped back into bed. In moments she was deep in slumber.

In midmorning there came a tap on the door. Yet half-asleep, Camille groped her way to the panel. It was Jolie, the laundry fresh, the leather pants and vest scraped and wiped down clean. “Break of fast awaits your pleasure, Camille, though the day is well on its way.” Jolie swept from the room.

Camille groaned, and looked about for Scruff. He was pecking away at some kind of insect safely ensconced down between two floorboards. Camille poured water from an ewer into a basin and splashed some on her face, then she set the basin to the floor, where Scruff then took a full bath, fluttering and flouncing in the water, ere hopping out to shake himself off.

In moments Camille was dressed. “Come along, Scruff, it’s time to eat. “She took up her stave, then paused, and once again looked at the bottommost—

The bottom blossom no longer appeared withered, but fairly fresh instead, though the blossom above it seemed fresher still.

Shaking her head in puzzlement, Camille set still-damp Scruff to her shoulder and headed for the common room. Jolie had Camille take her morning meal at a table in an arbor out back, where Scruff could scratch for grubs and insects and worms. Too, Jolie arranged for some millet seed to augment the little bird’s fare.

After a breakfast of rashers and toast and eggs, Camille took Scruff up, and through the village she went, stopping at dwellings and businesses and barns and such and asking the folk she found if anyone knew of a place east of the sun and west of the moon.

Long she spent at some of these stops, for folk there wanted to know of the news. Camille could only tell them of various happenings in the Summerwood, and of her Alain gone missing—though she avoided speaking of the curse. She spoke of her trip across the grassland and escaping the Serpentmen, then of her travel through Les Montagnes Sans Fin. Each and every one she met that day said she should have gone around—“ ’Tis much safer that way, you know.”

As evening drew nigh, Camille had only talked to a portion of the villagers; she would have to resume the next day.

Camille returned to Le Sanglier.

After she took her supper that eve and had gone up to her room, Camille sat in the bed and by lanternlight examined the walking staff. Again the bottommost blossom was withered. Frowning in puzzlement, Camille set the stave aside and blew out the lamp and pulled the covers about her chin. Moments later she fumbled for the striker and lit the lantern once more. She rummaged through her rucksack and pulled out a spool of thread. Breaking off a piece, she wrapped it around the cane, tying it tightly just below the withered flower. Again she blew out the lamp; it was awhile ere she slept.

 

Dawn came, and Scruff chirped and pecked lightly on Camille’s cheek, waking her. It was only after she washed her face that Camille remembered the stave. She took it up and where a flower should have been, there was nought, though the thread was yet tightly affixed. She closely examined the place where the flower had been.
Oh, what’s this? A tiny indention on the carved vine itself, as if it marks the place from which the blossom fell . . . But these are
wooden
flowers.

She looked on the floor for a tiny chip of wood or a grain of sawdust, something to be the blossom fallen from the stave. Yet she found nought.

Then she took up the stick again and looked down the length of the vine carefully. She found more tiny indentions along the part that appeared to be withered. Scruff chirped insistently to go out for his early feast, and Camille murmured, “In a moment, Scruff.” She counted the tiny dimples.
Sixty-one. There are sixty-one wee dints.
Still Scruff chattered. Camille sighed and said, “All right, my wee hungry friend, it’s to a meal we go.”

Swiftly she dressed, and down the stairs and out into the arbor she took Scruff. As he scrabbled about after his morning meal, Camille puzzled over the staff.

 

Again that day, Camille spoke with villagers, and none knew where lay a place east of the sun and west of the moon. They did tell her that the oldest person in the hamlet was probably Vivette, or mayhap Romy: they were sisters, perhaps twins, and it seems they had built the first house in this place, and anchored by their dwelling, the hamlet of Ardon slowly came to be as others settled in as neighbors.

Gradually, stopping at each door, Camille worked her way toward the cottage of the sisters, but none of the villagers on the way could answer her question as to where the place she looked for might be. As to the sisters, they lived in the last dwelling along the outbound lane, and there did Camille finally come.

Her knock on the door was answered by a beautiful maiden, a jot taller than Camille and a deal more buxom, and she had dark blue eyes and black hair twined with flowers down to the middle of her back.

“Yes? . . . Oh, you must be Camille. The whole village is talking of you, my dear, and of your quest. Come in. Come in. We’ve been expecting you.—Romy! Romy! Camille has finally come.”

As Camille stepped across the threshold and into a parlor, she said, “You are . . .?”

“Vivette,” said the damsel, just as another beautiful, dark-haired, and buxom maiden entered, her eyes blue as well.

“Oh, but I was expecting someone, er . . .”

The sisters looked at one another, somewhat bewildered. “Someone . . .?” said Vivette, pausing, waiting on Camille.

“Well, older,” blurted Camille.

Again the sisters looked questioningly at one another, and Romy said, “Well, there isn’t anyone older in Ardon than us.”

“But you’re not, um . . .”

Enlightenment filled Vivette’s eyes. “Ah, I see. Wrinkled, you mean. Age-bent.”

Camille shrugged and grinned apologetically.

“Oh, la!” said Romy. “It’s just that we’ve never been in the mortal lands, where I understand time does terrible things.”

Only in Faery
, thought Camille, and smiled as Vivette said, “Sit. I’ll put on a kettle. Romy has some wonderful petit fours. And perhaps we can fetch up something for that cute little sparrow of yours.”

On Camille’s shoulder, Scruff emitted a
chp!
as if to say, Cute?

Camille spent an afternoon at tea with them, and though the sisters did have much lore, neither did know of a land or district or town or building or aught else that fit what Camille sought. They did, however, bid her to seek the aid of the Lady of the Bower. “She lives somewhere across the twilight boundary down the road,” said Vivette. “Just where, I cannot say.”

Camille looked at Romy, but she shook her head and shrugged.

“This Lady of the Bower . . .” said Camille.

“A wisewoman,” said Vivette.

“With knowledge arcane,” added Romy.

“And you know not where she lives?”

The sisters looked at one another and then to Camille and shook their heads. “But she’s somewhere beyond the marge,” said Vivette.

“It’s just that we don’t go there,” said Romy. “The Spriggans, you know.”

“I do not care for ghosts,” said Camille. “Especially the ghosts of Redcaps, but any ghost of anyone or thing, I would rather avoid.”

Vivette frowned. “Ghosts?”

“The Spriggans,” replied Camille. “Jolie at the inn said that Spriggans are the ghosts of Giants.”

“Oh, la, Camille, that is but an old wives’ tale,” said Vivette. “They are not ghosts at all, but rather ugly little things who can inflate themselves to enormous size to make you think they are Giants; yet instead they are quite cowardly.”

“Thieves, they are,” added Romy. “They’ll steal you blind and flee to hidden caves, where they ward their ill-gotten gains.”

“Though cowards all, some say they are quite dangerous,” said Vivette, “able to call up great winds and storms.”

“If you have any valuables,” said Romy, “I would advise avoiding their realm. Either that, or you could wait for a knight-errant to escort you through.”