Once Upon a Winter's Night (49 page)

Of a sudden the monster was gone, leaving stunned Dwarves behind.

Camille stumbled forward another step or two, then fell to her knees, weeping hysterically.

“Quick,” shouted Kolor, even as he leapt to the steerboard. “To the strokes! Let us leave this bedamned sea behind.”

Dwarves leapt to obey the command—some oars broken, some gone, some yet in the strakes—and in moments the craft was under way, Kolor calling the cadence, for Brekki was among the missing.

Wincing a bit from bruised ribs, Big Jack lifted Camille up in his massive arms and carried her to the bow. And he sat with her in his lap and stroked her hair as she clung to him and sobbed uncontrollably.

And even as Scruff scrambled free of the vest pocket, they came to the twilight border and through and into the slanting sunlight beyond. And a strong wind blew off the starboard stern, filling the four square sails, and across the waters fled the
Nordavind,
leaving the Sea of Mist behind.

 

Steadily the
Nordavind
hove across the deeps, days passing one by one, the disk on Lady Sorcière’s staff waning from full, to gibbous, to half, and then crescent, time rapidly running out. And when there were but four days left ere the whole of the moon would be gone, in late afternoon, a broad, mountainous island came into view. Camille stood in the bow of the Dragonship, her heart thudding in her breast. Delirium or no, the dying man had been right, for not only was an island where he said it would be, but Camille could see a great citadel sitting on a high hill, the mighty fortress looking down upon a small, seashore town. As to the rest, much was covered with trees, though a great spread of cultivated fields surrounded the citadel itself. It had to be Troll Island.

“This ain’t right,” said Big Jack behind her. “You going alone onto th’ isle just ain’t right.”

Camille shook her head. “We’ve argued this out for a whole week, Jack, and my mind is firm: Lady Sorcière said I must go alone, and alone I will go.”

At Camille’s side, Kolor said, “It’s no use, Big Jack. Besides, she’s right. If Lady Sorcière said to go alone, then you, me, my crew, we’ll just have to let be.”

“Still, it just ain’t—”

“Jack, I am the only one who can easily pass for a Human slave, not the Dwarves, and certainly not—”

“But I’m Human,” protested Big Jack.

“Oh, Jack, you’d stick out like a sore thumb, big as you are, towering over everyone else. No, you’ll need to stay. Besides, I’d rather not have combat if there is a way to set my love free without blood being shed.”

“My lady,” growled Kolor, “I caution you: Trolls and Goblins or no, this may not be the place where your Alain doth be.” Kolor gestured at the lowering sun. “There sinks the sun, and the horns of the moon punctured the sea nearly three candlemarks past. Hence, this is not a place lying east of the sun and west of the moon. As I’ve said before, Faery or no, such a place cannot be.”

Tears brimming, Camille glanced at her stave then took a deep breath and said, “Nevertheless, I am going.”

“And you should take me with you,” said Big Jack.

Angrily, Camille brushed her tears aside and snapped, “No!”

Big Jack’s face crumpled, and Camille reached out a hand, but then let it fall to her side. “Jack, hear me: I will go alone and discover for myself whether or no this is the place where Alain is kept prisoner. Then and only then might I need you and the Dwarves to aid, but only if there is no other way.” Camille glanced at the Dwarven crew—sixty-seven in all counting Kolor, thirteen lost to the monster of the sea. “I have seen all the death I can stand, and I would have no more.”

“Wishes or no, my lady,” gritted Kolor, “if it becomes necessary, then death there will be.”

Camille glumly nodded, yet added, “But only if unavoidable.” She turned and looked at Big Jack and then Kolor, and was satisfied by a reluctant nod from each.

“All right, then,” said Kolor, “as we have discussed, just after darkness, we will set you ashore a bit away from the town. Then to avoid accidental discovery, we’ll shove off and stand out to sea. With our masts unstepped and our blue sails draped over the wales, from a distance we’ll look just like the waters; only someone seeking such should be able to sight us. There we’ll await your signal: lantern or fire. Have you the oil?”

Camille nodded and pointed to her rucksack. “The three flasks you gave.”

“But list, Camille,” said Kolor, now glancing at Big Jack. “Should we not hear from you in a timely manner, we’ll not stay hidden long.”

Big Jack clenched a fist and nodded.

Camille sighed and said, “Agreed.”

Kolor then glanced at Scruff on her shoulder and said, “Keep an eye on that wee bird, for he is a wonder to have. Nought else I know of can tell when hidden peril is nigh.”

“Indeed, Captain, a better sentry I could not have.”
Except at night,
she silently added,
wee little sleepy bird.

Twilight fell upon the ocean, and the
Nordavind
glided silently toward the isle. Soon they lowered sail, and rowed the last sea-league or so, to finally slip into a cove. Big Jack jumped over the side and waited.

Attired in a threadbare dress—the only thing of hers that she yet owned that had come from her père’s poor cottage—and with Scruff asleep in the high pocket above her left breast she had sewn thereon, Camille shouldered her rucksack and bedroll and waterskin and took up her stave and turned to Kolor and said, “Lady Sorcière said unlooked-for help would come along the way, and it most certainly has, but none more so than you, Captain.” She kissed Kolor on the cheek, then waved au revoir to the Dwarves at the oars, then turned to waiting Big Jack. With tears in his eyes he reached up and lifted her across the top wale and sloshed to the beach and set her to dry land. Camille gently placed a hand to his wet cheek and, with a bravado she did not feel, she said, “Fear not, Jack. I’ll be all right. After all, what could possibly go wrong?” And she gripped his collar and pulled him down and kissed him where tears ran.

Then she turned and started up a low dune and inland.

When Camille reached the crest she looked hindward. The Dragonship was backing water, pulling away, and in spite of Lady Sorcière’s admonition, she almost cried out, “Wait! I would have you come along!” But she did not, for well did she know, but for one of the gifts—Scruff—she must go alone.

And so she went over the dune and down, then turned leftward and headed for the ramshackle town, where ’twas said Human slaves did dwell.

 

Her face smeared with dirt, her golden hair tied in a worn scarf, a small bundle of branch-wood on her shoulder as would a slave bear, Camille entered the streets of the town only to find them vacant. By starlight alone she made her way along the cobblestones. Of a sudden a voice hissed, “Here now, do you want to get yourself killed, out after curfew as you are?” Startled nearly out of her wits, Camille jerked about to see a dark figure in a doorway. Frantically, the figure motioned, “Quick, in here you stupid girl, before the patrol comes.”

Now Camille could hear a tramp of feet nearing, and before she could react, the figure—a man, she thought—jumped out and clutched her by the arm and jerked her toward the opening, her bundle of sticks flying from her shoulder to clatter to the cobbles.
“Har!”
came a cry, and the sound of running, even as the man, wrenching her about, darted back and snatched up the bound branch-wood. He then yanked her ’round opposite and dragged her through the doorway and shut it behind, darkness plunging down, alleviated only by a faint ruddy glow of a few coals on the hearth. As Camille and her rescuer stood holding their breath in the dimness, the clatter of arms and armor and the slap of running feet hammered past.

Soon all fell quiet . . .

After a moment, by the dull glow of the dying coals Camille saw the dark shape of the man move across the room, and she heard the scratch of a match, and in the wavering light he lit a tallow candle and turned and held it high, the better to see just who this fool was who had been out after curfew.

And Camille leapt forward and embraced him, crying, “Lanval! Oh, Lanval! It’s you!”

“C
hp!-chp!-chp!-chp! . . .”
“Oh, Scruff,” exclaimed Camille, pushing away from Lanval and looking into the high pocket. “I’m so sorry.”

In the candlelight, Scruff looked up at Camille and cocked his head and chattered away, scolding her for mashing him between her and some man.

With wide eyes, Lanval, shabbily dressed, looked on this dirt-smeared girl, a girl bearing a rucksack and waterskin and bedroll, a girl with an angry little bird in a pocket on her thin-worn dress. “Mademoiselle, do I know you?”

“Lanval, it’s me, Camille.”

The steward of Summerwood Manor gasped, now seeing that the person under the dirt, this demoiselle, was indeed Lady Camille. He set the candle to the table, the tallow sending up a thin strand of smoke to add to the soot on the ceiling above. Then he took her by the hands and said, “Oh, my lady, what are you doing here in this terrible place?”

“Is my love Alain on this isle?”

“Aye, mademoiselle, the prince is here, a prisoner in the citadel.”

Camille’s knees nearly gave way, her relief so great in finding at last the place where her love was bound.

“My lady,” said Lanval, reaching out to brace her, and he aided her to a chair at a table.

Camille took several deep breaths then said, “I have come to set him free.”

As Lanval stepped to the fireplace and pulled two bricks away, he said, “I am afraid that cannot be done. Not only does a fortress hold him, but so do the Troll curses.”

“One by Olot and the other by his daughter?”

“Aye. Yet how know you this?”

“From something the Troll said in the Winterwood.”

“Ah, I remember: you did meet Olot there,” said Lanval, reaching in the hole behind the bricks. “—Here it is.” He removed a small canister. “Until that encounter, ’twas but one curse, and that by the daughter.”

“One or two, it matters not,” said Camille bitterly, “if only I had known the content of the curses, then mayhap none of this would have happened. Oh, Lanval, it is all my fault disaster whelmed the manor.”

“Nay, Lady Camille, not your fault, but that of the Troll-cast magic.” Lanval popped the lid from the canister. “We’ll have a spot of tea, and you can say how you came.”

“But how did you get here, Lanval? Was it the wind?”

Lanval added a bit of branch-wood from Camille’s bundle of sticks to the dying coals in the hearth, and hung a kettle on a fire iron and swung it over the blaze. Then he turned to Camille and said, “Aye, it was the wind; we whirled across the sky in that terrible howl, the Prince and the entire household of Summerwood Manor—all, that is, but you—to plunge down on this appalling isle to join the slaves already here as thralls to the Goblins and Trolls.”

Tears welled in Camille’s eyes and ran down her cheeks, and she said, “Oh, Lanval, I was stupid and foolish, and thus the calamity fell. A year and a day and nearly a whole moon agone, I contrived by candlelight to see Alain’s unmasked face; that’s when the curse struck and that awful wind did come.”

Lanval sat down at the table across from Camille and said, “Nay, my lady, again I say, ’twas the fault of the Trolls, the cham and the chamumi and the ancient dread magic that somehow did come into their hands.”

“Cham? Chamumi?”

“Troll words,” replied Lanval. “Cham means king; chamum, queen; and chamumi, princess. Regardless, Chamumi Dre’ela, the Troll princess, set a curse upon the prince long past: Alain spurned her advances, and so she cursed him—broke a terrible amulet of clay she wore about her neck, one of Orbane’s devices, we think.”

Camille said, “One of the Seals of Orbane, or so Lord Kelmot thought.”

“Lord Kelmot?”

Camille nodded. “He aided me after the terrible wind took you all away. I told him of the clay amulet Olot wore, and Kelmot spoke of the seals.”

Lanval said, “Seals of Orbane: Olot had one, and Dre’ela another. Regardless, when Dre’ela broke hers, Alain was cursed to take the form of a bear in the day, though he could be either man or bear at night, whichever he chose. Further, Dre’ela’s bane was such that he could never marry anyone but her. To this she added that if Prince Alain ever fell in love, and if his true love ever did discover that he was both man and bear, then he would have to marry Dre’ela in a year and a day and a whole moon beyond.”

“Marry a Troll princess?”

“Aye. The wedding is three days from now.”

Camille’s face fell, and she glanced at the split and splintered stave. “Then
that
is the reason for the time I was given.”

An eyebrow raised, Lanval looked at her, but she explained not. Instead she said, “Oh, Lanval, we must do something ere then.”

The kettle above the fire began steaming. Lanval got up to attend it, and Camille glanced at Scruff, the sparrow again asleep in her dress pocket. While Lanval prepared the tea and once more hid the canister, Camille carefully set Scruff to a shelf above the table, where he ruffled a bit and then settled as she sat back down.

While they waited for the tea to steep, Camille said, “The second curse then, it was the cause of the wind.” Her words were a statement, not a question.

“Aye, the cham, the Troll king, Olot, set a terrible curse on Prince Alain there in the Winterwood that night he and his Goblins assailed you and the Bear.”

Camille nodded and sighed.

As Lanval poured two cups of tea, he said, “When you and the Bear first arrived at Summerwood Manor, the Prince told us that if you ever saw his face, then he and the entire household staff would be transported to this isle, and we would all become Olot’s slaves. Hence, the seamstresses immediately set to making the masks he would wear, and that’s how you first saw Prince Alain—his features hidden. Yet masks or no, the prince said that Olot had further added that none could tell you the reason for concealment else the curse would come due regardless.”