Once Upon a Winter's Night (51 page)

And as Lanval took up a great bowl of porridge, and Cecile bore several cooked rats, Dre’ela turned on her heel and led them all outward and across the chamber and up the long staircase.

And as they came to a hallway above, Camille softly canted a singsong chant:

As they neared a Goblin-warded door, again Camille softly chanted her singsong cant, and Dre’ela whirled about and snarled, “What is that you are caterwauling, you piece of Human filth?”

Only then did Camille remember Chemine’s warning: “Let not this girl sing to Goblins and Trolls.”

Keeping the dull-witted look on her face, Camille then simply spoke the cant:

A calculating look came into Dre’ela’s yellow eyes, and she gazed at Camille’s hands and wrists and neck, and upon seeing no gold there, the chamumi said, “Have you gold? True gold? I’ll give you bright Troll gold for such.”

“Oh, oh, would you, ma’amselle?” said Camille, digging in her pocket for the spool, a gaping smile on her face. “I-I love bright shiny Troll gold.” Yet then she paused. “Bu-but, I-I’d also like to see your groom. Not as the Bear. No, not as the Bear. Not the Bear.” Camille frowned, as if trying to dredge up a concept beyond what her slack-jawed look implied. And then she vacantly smiled and said, “Not Bear, but when he is Human. I-I hear from the others who once worked where he lived that he is pretty, too.” Again Camille furrowed her brow, as if slow thoughts moved through her mind. Then she grinned again and said, “Maybe even as pretty as Troll gold, but not as shiny. Not as shiny.”

“See my groom? I should think not, for only I can—”

In that moment Camille took the golden spool out from her pocket and held it up for the chamumi to see. Dre’ela’s eyes widened, and she reached out and snatched the spool from Camille. “A wedding present,” said Dre’ela.

“C-can I-I see the groom tonight?” asked Camille, smiling a gape-jawed smile.

“Certainly not,” snapped Dre’ela. “None are to see him until after the ceremony, when I become the Princess of Summerwood.”

“I-I will bring you another golden wedding present tomorrow if you let me see him tonight.”

Dre’ela’s eyes flew wide. “You have more true gold?”

“I-I know where to find some.”

Dre’ela’s eyes narrowed and she looked at Lanval. “Does this dull-wit have more gold?”

Lanval, holding the great bowl of porridge, shrugged and said, “Chamumi Dre’ela, I know not. Yet what harm would come of letting my daughter Naïf see the prince?”

Dre’ela glanced at the golden spool and then at Camille and said, “Very well, Naïf, you may come to see my groom tonight, but you must bring more gold on the morrow.”

Lanval cleared his throat and, when Dre’ela looked at him, he said, “What of the curfew, Chamumi Dre’ela? If my simple daughter is to be out after dark, she will need a permit.”

Dre’ela turned to Camille. “I will send an escort to your hovel this night. Set a lit candle in your window.”

As Camille bobbed her head in understanding, she hid both glee and disappointment behind her half-wit countenance: glee for she would see Alain at last; disappointment for she would not be free to come and go on her own.

Dre’ela turned and signed to the guard. The door was opened, and, following the chamumi, Camille and Lanval and Cecile entered one chamber of a suite, where they set down the water and porridge and cooked rats and then took up the previous day’s bucket and pot and left. Camille had been hoping to see the Bear, yet, as Lanval had said, he was not in the rooms they entered.
Mayhap he will detect my scent, if Dre’ela’s stench doesn’t cover all.

 

That night, when Redcaps pounded on the door, Lanval looked at Camille and held up a cautionary hand; he glanced at the bricks behind which were hidden his cache of tea and the shuttle and carding comb, and now even sleeping Scruff, then he answered the summons. Goblins bulled inward, shoving the steward aside. And they began pulling the bedding apart and overturning tables and chairs and opening drawers and such. They searched through Camille’s rucksack, tossing clothing and vellum and pen and ink aside and all else they found of no worth to them, though, after sniffing to see what it was, they kept the flasks of oil; they found the pocket sewn within, yet nought of value was there, for Camille had left all coinage hidden nigh the sandy cove where the
Nordavind
had landed. Thoroughly they searched all—room, bed, furniture, drawers—even stirring through the ashes within the fireplace. Lastly they pawed Camille and Lanval, searching for whatever might be hidden upon them, yet they found nought. At last they snarled at Camille and escorted her out, leaving Lanval to clean up the mess left behind.

As the steward closed the door, he smiled to himself and glanced at the untouched bricks, for well had he anticipated what Dre’ela’s Redcaps would do. Then he stepped across the room to retrieve Scruff from the hollow behind the bricks, fully expecting to be scolded by the little bird.

 

As the chamumi poured a score of Troll-gold nuggets into Camille’s waiting hands, Dre’ela said, “Remember, stupid girl, you must bring me a gift of true gold on the morrow, and I will give you even more of this much brighter gold.”

Camille grinned foolishly and crowed:

Camille laughed and shoved the nuggets into her pocket and then gaped up at Dre’ela and said, “I-I would like to see the groom now.”

Dre’ela signed to the Redcap guards, and the door was opened.

With her heart hammering in her breast, Camille followed the chamumi into the entry chamber, where Dre’ela paused before a mirror to admire her new bangle of true gold, the spool now on its own hemp cord about her neck. Finally, she turned and led Camille past the day’s porridge pot and water bucket and into a room beyond, and there in a great, canopied bed lay Prince Alain asleep.

Camille nearly burst into tears, but whether they were to have been tears of joy at seeing his beautiful face or of distress that he was unaware, she did not know. Yet she could not let Dre’ela suspect that aught was afoot other than a simpleton desiring to see the groom. And so she held her emotions to herself, and reached into her pocket and drew out a nugget and managed to gape a grin and say, “Oh, he is quite pretty, almost as pretty as shiny gold. Can I-I stay awhile and try to see which is prettier?”

No answer came and Camille turned and saw that Dre’ela was back before the mirror and turning the bobbin this way and that, watching the candlelight gleam on the spool.

Swiftly Camille stepped to the bed and she put her hand to Alain’s lips and then shook him by the shoulder. “Alain, Alain, it’s me,” she whispered. “Alain, wake up.”

But the prince lay slack, unresponsive, almost as if he’d been—

“What are you doing, oaf?” snarled Dre’ela, striding into the chamber.

Camille started, and then turned with a lackwitted grin and held up the Troll-gold nugget and said, “I-I was trying to see which is prettier, shiny gold or the groom.”

Dre’ela glanced at her own golden bangles and then at Alain, as if she, too, were trying to decide which was prettier. Then she grabbed Camille’s wrist in a painful grip and jerked her from the room, saying, “You’ve seen him, and that’s all you bargained for. I’m sending you back.”

In spite of Dre’ela’s clawlike clutch, “C-can I not stay in the castle?” asked Camille, hoping the chamumi’s answer would be yes, for surely Alain would waken, and if she could somehow divert the guards—

“No, you fool of a Human,” snarled Dre’ela. “You know treacherous slaves are not permitted in the castle at night.”

Camille hid her disappointment behind her lackwit face and said, “Th—then tomorrow night I-I will give you more true gold, and you will give me shiny gold, and I-I will see the groom again, eh?”

Dre’ela’s yellow eyes gleamed with the thought of more gold from this fool, and she said, “Oh, yes, Naïf. . . . Indeed.”

 

“I think he was drugged, Lanval,” said Camille, bitterness in her voice.

Lanval blew out a sigh of exasperation. “Drugged? I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Camille’s shoulders slumped in despair. “What will we do, Lanval, what will we do? I mean, there are only two days left, and I can’t talk to him if he’s drugged. And Dre’ela is there in the chambers as well. I need to be alone with him to see if he can tell us how the Fates or their gifts might be used to break the remaining curse.”

“I know not, my lady, yet there is this I
do
know: we must not let hopelessness or gloom o’erwhelm us, else we are fordone ere we begin.”

Camille took a deep breath and let it out. “You are right, Lanval. It is time to think and not lose heart.”

With effort, Camille set aside her emotions, and she fell into long thought. Finally she said, “Have you any cord, Lanval?” At the steward’s puzzled nod, Camille grinned and said, “I believe if I give Dre’ela a piece of cord along with the golden shuttle, she will step out from the chamber and back to the mirror to fix a new necklace. That will occupy her a short while. Yet it still leaves me with Alain being drugged.”

Lanval turned up his hands, but then Camille exclaimed, “A note!” She rushed to her rucksack, tossing aside the things Lanval had so carefully repacked. “I can leave a note in his food, mayhap in his porridge. Then, no matter how Dre’ela is drugging him, he can be on the alert for such and avoid it.”

A frown crossed Lanval’s face. “You must be careful in what you say, for should the guards or Dre’ela or Olot or Te’e-foon discover your note, it must not let them know aught.”

“Can they even read, Lanval?”

“I don’t know, my lady, but we must assume that they can.”

Camille nodded and sat awhile, then finally penned:

Camille then frowned and said, “Ah, but I know how the Bear eats, and he is likely to gobble this note down should I place it in his food. We must find another way.”

She looked at Lanval, but he shrugged.

And then Camille said, “I know! I’ll scent it with something I am certain does not exist in that castle.”

“What is that, my lady?’

“Soap!” said Camille, and she rummaged through her rucksack and drew out the last of the Summerwood Manor soap she yet had, now nought but a chip. As she rubbed it across the vellum, she said, “We’ll slip it under the porridge bowl, where the Bear will surely scent it.” She paused and looked at Lanval. “Oh, my, but there is this: will Alain know of the note if the Bear does find it?”

“I believe so, Ma’amselle, for once he said that when he is a man he remembers all the Bear has done, though when he is the Bear at times he has trouble holding on to his Humanity. Or so the prince did say.”

“Good,” declared Camille, folding the vellum over and over, then dripping candle wax along the edges to seal the ink against liquid; “Just in case,” said Camille.

Then she rubbed more soap over the outside. “Surely the Bear will scent this.”

“But what if he does not?” asked Lanval. “What will you do if on morrow night you find the prince asleep?”

“If this fails, then when I return tomorrow night I will slip out and hide nigh the cove till day comes on the land, and then set a signal fire to call Kolor and the Dwarves and Big Jack. I had hoped to avoid combat, but we may have no other choice.”

Lanval shook his head and sighed.

“What?” asked Camille.

“My lady, I think it will take a miracle for any to invade that stronghold.”

A bolt of fear shot through Camille’s chest, but she said, “Then let us pray it does not come to that.”

 

As Camille followed Dre’ela up the stairs, she heard a peculiar chanting. Ere coming to the top, Dre’ela paused and pushed out a hand to hold Camille back, and they waited. When the chanting ceased, the chamumi went on, Camille following. At the landing, Camille saw down the corridor and just disappearing ’round a corner a blot of darkness streaming tatters and tendrils, like a ragged shadow moving away, and it seemed to Camille she heard muttering in the tattered shadow’s wake. It reminded Camille of something or someone, and just as they reached the Goblin-guarded door, she remembered the ragged silhouette that had flown across the face of the moon the night the Goblins had come to Summerwood Manor, the night Lord Kelmot and the Lynx Riders had slain them all. Too, it was the night the Goblins had slaughtered two of the black swans, and the rest had flown away. Yet what might that streaming black thing have been, or the one that had vanished ’round the corner, Camille could not say.

Dre’ela motioned the guards to open the door, and then she turned to Camille and held out a hand. “I’ll have my wedding gift now.”

Camille reached into her pocket and pulled out the cord and the shuttle. “Chamumi Dre’ela, have you my shiny?”

Dre’ela’s eyes widened with greed at the sight of the golden shuttle, and she hurriedly gave Camille another score of Troll-gold nuggets and snatched the shuttle and cord from Camille and rushed in to stand before the mirror. Camille slipped past her and into Alain’s bedchamber. The prince lay on the bed, one hand tightly clutched and held to his chest.