Once Upon a Winter's Night (46 page)

Jordain was waiting. “Welcome to the
West Wind,
” he said. Then he escorted her up the gangway, Big Jack following in their wake. Elves paused in their activities to watch this golden-haired maiden with a sparrow on her shoulder pass by, many smiling, some essaying courtly bows.

Jordain led her aft, then down a short ladder to a passageway below—Big Jack bending down to keep from bumping his head—and into a captain’s lounge. At a chart table centermost, a flaxen-haired Elf pored over scattered maps, and he looked up as they entered.

“Cabhlaigh Andolin, I present Lady Camille; my lady, Captain Andolin.” Jordain glanced at the sparrow and added, “And ere he objects, on her shoulder is her companion Scruff.”

Andolin made a courtly bow, murmuring, “My lady,” and Camille curtseyed and replied, “Captain.”

Andolin looked at Scruff and smiled, then turned to Big Jack, who thrust out a hand and said, “My name’s John, but all call me Big Jack.” Andolin’s clasp was swallowed in Big Jack’s grip, and the Elf seemed glad to get back his hand whole.

Andolin then turned to Camille. “My lady, Harbormaster Jordain has told me of your riddle and of the place you seek.” He gestured at the scatter of charts on the table. “Yet I find nought to satisfy your quest, for I think no place can exist that lies east of the sun and west of the moon, not even in Faery.”

Camille burst into tears.

 

The blossoms withered one by one, until all were gone but one. And there was but one great ship left whose captain might know. Camille no longer had the heart to sing, though she felt she must. Yet night after night none in her audience could tell her where was the place she sought. And every day she had haunted the docks, watching the harbor entrance, watching for her last hope. Yet the
Nordavind
did not come and did not come, as the blossoms withered away until there was left but one.

And now in the gloom Camille sat on the dock, her songs at the Red Lantern done, and she waited, her hopes all crashed down, but still she sat waiting, waiting for a ship, waiting for the
Nordavind,
waiting for the
North Wind
to come.

Camille’s spirits were as black as the night, for it was the dark of the moon. Yet the docks themselves were lit by lanterns scattered here and there and by the stars shining down from above. Off to one side and lurking in the shadows stood a large man: Big Jack yet on guard.

“Oh, Scruff,” said Camille to the sparrow asleep in her pocket, “do you remember what the old woman said back in the very last village on our way to Raseri’s lair? When we asked if any knew where lay a place east of the sun and west of the moon, she said, ‘Only the North Wind would know.’ I do pray that she is right. And I pray to Mithras that the
North Wind
will come. Yet I have little hope, for the last blossom even now—”

“Make ready to tow!” came a distant call.

Camille stood to see whence came the cry.

At a dock afar she could see the Elvenship alight with lanterns, and a bustle of activity aboard.

She walked down to see what was afoot.

Captain Andolin stood on the stern, issuing orders, Elves haling on halyards and climbing ratlines. Towing ropes had been affixed to bow and stern, and rowing gigs awater and manned stood ready to haul the ship away from the slip.

When Andolin fell silent, Camille called, “Are you and the
West Wind
leaving, Captain?”

He looked down at her. “Aye, my lady, we are.” He glanced over his shoulder out toward the night sea. Then he turned back and asked, “Can you not feel it?”

“Feel what, Captain?”

“The ever-worsening twist in the aethyr, the growing warp and bend.” He pressed a hand to his forehead as if in distress.

“No, Captain, I cannot. I don’t even know what you mean when you say ‘aethyr,’ and I certainly do not feel any twisting or warping or bending.—Are you in pain?”

“I would not name it pain, my lady, though it is much like an ache.”

“What is amiss, Captain, and is there aught I can do to aid?”

“Only distance will help, Lady Camille, and we are making ready to put such distance ’tween us and Leport as swiftly as we can.” Andolin then called down to two Human dockworkers, “Cast off fore! Cast off aft!” Hawsers were uncoiled from ’round mooring posts and thrown into the water. Even as Elves drew the hawsers in, Andolin called out, “Rowers, row!”

Slowly the great Elvenship
Aniar Gaoth
drew away from the dock, the men in the towing gigs rowing to pull her away.

“But, Captain, I still do not know what is the matter,” called Camille.

Andolin looked down at her and grimly said, “Iron is coming.”

Then to her he said no more, instead turning and calling out to his Elven crew, the captain totally consumed in swiftly getting his ship under way.

Camille watched a bit longer, then she sighed and walked back toward her place of vigil, a large shadow following.

 

Nigh mid of night, even as the
Aniar Gaoth,
silhouetted against the stars as she was, slid beyond the harbor mouth to vanish from view, Camille heard the dip and pull of many oars, and a guttural voice calling out:
“Roers, gjøre i stand!”

In the starlight and the light from the lanterns adock, Camille could make out a long, low craft gliding across the water, many oars stroking, and it appeared the ship was heading for a nearby slip. Camille stood and watched, and oars dipped and dipped, and the voice called out,
“Mindre! . . . Mindre! . . .”

The craft slowed, and slid toward the slip.

“Åres på!”
came the cry, and all the oars were shipped aboard. Then the long boat slid into the slip and broad-shouldered, short men leapt out to—Nay! Not men. But Dwarves instead, like those she had seen in Les Îles.

And in the lanternlight on the dock, Camille could make out runes on the bow of the ship, runes she could read, and they named the ship
Nordavind.

The
North Wind
had come at last!

And even as the Dwarven crew moored the vessel to the dock, the very last blossom disappeared from Camille’s split and splintered stave.

E
ven as Camille approached, she recognized the craft for what it was: a raider ship . . . or so Fra Galanni had said in response to Camille’s inquiry about a picture in one of his books. “A terrible raider ship from the North, bearing tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed men, and you would think them sent from Mithras Himself, they with their proud ways. Yet they are not from Mithras, girl, but instead from one they call Woden, and a grim god is He. For His followers come in their longboats, their Dragonships, girl, with their axes and their shields and murderous ways to pillage and rape and despoil. You’d best never see one, Camille, yet if you do, run away as fast as you can.” Or so Fra Galanni had said.

Yet now Camille was hastening toward the craft, rather than running away, for this was the
Nordavind
—the
North Wind
—and she would speak with the captain of the Dragonship.

As to the ship itself, it was long and low and open-hulled, and Dwarven war shields were arranged along her sides. Her hull was klinker-built—long overlapping oaken strakes running fore to aft—and even though she had ribs and crossbeams thwartwise for bracing, still her hull had a serpentine flexibility that caused the craft to cleave sharply through the water, yielding a nimbleness beyond that which her narrow keelboard alone would bestow. And she was swift, for her length was a full fifty paces, yet her width was but barely five. She could mount as many as four masts, each with a square-rigged sail angled by a beitass pole to make the most of the wind. She also carried thirty-five pairs of narrow-bladed, spruce oars, trimmed to length so that all could strike the water simultaneously in short, choppy strokes, the oars now resting amidships on three pairs of trestles. A steerboard rudder was mounted at the starboard rear to guide her on her journeys.

As the Dwarves unladed the craft, Camille stopped one bearing a keg on one of his broad shoulders and said, “Your captain, sieur. I would have a word with your captain.” Yet even as she spoke she noted that not only was this Dwarf wearing an iron or steel chain mail shirt, so were they all.

The dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-bearded Dwarf, a half a head shorter than Camille, said, “Captain Kolor is the one you want, lass.” He turned and called out,
“Kolor, en pike til se du!”

“En pike?”
The response came from a Dwarf standing at the far end of the ship.

The keg bearer pointed at Camille and called back,
“Pike, ja!”

Kolor gestured for Camille to come to him, and she said to the keg bearer, “Merci, sieur,” then began wending her way through the bustle of iron-clad Dwarves as they unladed their cargo.

And as she walked toward Kolor, Camille noted that the Dwarves’ axes and war hammers and maces and dirks and crossbows and quarrels and shields were all of iron and steel.

Finally, Camille reached the captain, a Dwarf who could have stood no more than four-foot-one. He had honey-blond hair and a honey-blond beard and his eyes were pale blue.

He cocked an eyebrow as she stopped before him.

“Captain Kolor, I am on an urgent mission, and I need your help.”

“And you, my lady, are . . . ?”

“My name is Camille, and of late consort to Prince Alain of the Summerwood. Yet he is missing, and I believe you know of the place where he could be.”

“Lady Camille, if I know of it, you need but ask. Has it a name?”

“Sieur, I only know it lies east of the sun and west of the moon.”

Kolor frowned and said, “My lady, I do not think such a place can even be.”

Camille drew in a sharp breath. “Captain, are you saying—?”

“What I am saying, Lady Camille, is that I know of no such place in either Faery or the mortal world.”

Of a sudden Camille’s knees gave way, and she collapsed to the dock, her stave clattering down at her side, and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Kolor stepped forward to aid her, but from nowhere it seemed, Big Jack was kneeling beside her, and he glared up at the Dwarf and gritted, “What did you say to her?”

In spite of the difference in their relative sizes, a steely look came into Kolor’s eyes, and he said, “I but told her I did not know where lies the place she seeks.”

Big Jack ground his teeth, and for a moment it seemed he was caught on a cusp, trying to decide whether to comfort Camille or to lay this Dwarf by. Unflinching, Kolor stood ready for either. But finally Big Jack softly said, “Lady Camille?”

“Oh, Jack,” she sobbed, “I was hoping Urd was right.”

“Urd!” cried Kolor, reeling back. “Did you say Urd?” Yet weeping, Camille looked up at the Dwarf. “Lady Urd, yes. She told me of the winds that are not winds. She and her sisters Verdandi and Skuld aided me.”

“Maiden, Mother, and Crone, girl, didn’t you know who they were? The Fates, that’s who. The Fates! Am I to be cursed by the Fates themselves?”

They sat in the Bald Pelican, the night nearly faded away, the tavern empty of all but Camille and sleeping Scruff and Kolor and Big Jack, as well as a drowsy barkeep and a drunken old man lying under one of the tables, mayhap the same old man to whom Camille had given a bronze days past. Camille was just coming to the end of her tale, Big Jack’s eyes wide in wonderment, for this was the first of it he had heard.

“. . . and then Lady Urd said,

“And so, by happenstance, I came unto Leport and found the four winds—
East-, South-, West-,
and last of all, your ship, Captain, the
North Wind
—but none of the masters of any of the four seem to know where lies the place I seek, in spite of Lady Urd’s words.”

Kolor slowly shook his head. “ ’Twas not by ‘happenstance’ you came to Leport, Camille, for the Fates—Maiden, Mother, and Crone—all had a hand in your coming. And heed, though the Fates control Destiny, ’tis said they must not interfere, must remain aloof, and can only give gifts for services rendered. Still, at times, at dire times, they do take a hand, and I can only conclude that times are dire, for they did take a hand with you. Yet we do not know what portends, but for their words that one might come who will pollute the River of Time beyond redemption. Yet even though dire times are in the offing, even then the Sisters cannot give gifts unless a riddle is answered properly. ’Tis then and only then they can bestow such gifts upon the one they would aid. Then the one given the gift can ask a question, and even then it may or may not be answered, and if answered, the reply comes in the form of a riddle. In your case, Camille, all such did happen: three favors, three riddles, three answers, three gifts, three questions, three replies couched in riddles.”