Once Upon an Autumn Eve by Mckiernan Dennis L

Author:Mckiernan, Dennis L.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-02-26T05:00:00+00:00

“. . . And so you see, I yet have trials ahead. And Lady Skuld said I must go alone, but for the howling one.”

“But, Princess,” said Léon, “perhaps you have already ridden with fear when you came through the Forest of the Oaks.”

“Oui, I admit I was fearful in that place, yet I think had any been with me—a retinue of warriors—they would not have been slain by fear, as Lady Wyrd said would happen.”

Léon sighed in agreement. “There is that. Men have nothing to fear in the Forest of Oaks. Only women.”

Liaze nodded and neither one spoke for a while, and then the princess asked, “Have you seen any crows flying over?”

Léon shrugged. “If any did, I took no special note of them.—Still, if they were flying across sunwise borders, that’s the way the Blue Château lies.”

Liaze raised an eyebrow. “Ah, I see. Then perhaps that’s the way the witch lies as well. As such, it gives a bit of credence to the idea that Guillaume is behind Luc’s taking.”

They sat quietly a bit longer, and only the crackle of the fire broke the silence. After a moment Liaze stood and took up her mug and tin plate and knife and spoon and looked about the single room. “Where do we—?”

“There is a spring nearby where I clean them,” said Léon. “Runs all year, summer, winter, it matters not.” He got to his feet and took up his own tableware and a modest stewpot and ladle, as well as the lantern, and together they walked to the rock face of an upjut of land. Water poured out from a cleft in the stone to run in a clear stream and away, and together they knelt thereat to wash the utensils.

As Léon scoured away at the pot, he said, “What do you plan to do?”

Liaze stopped her own scrubbing and sighed. “I think the only thing left to me is to ride to wherever lies this Blue Château of yours on an isle in the Lake of the Rose and take on a task of some sort in the hold and see what I can discover.”

“Take on a task?”

“Oui, as a goose girl or some such.”

Léon shook his head. “You cannot ride in on Deadly Nightshade, towing your mare and four packhorses and claim to be a goose girl. You will need to leave them somewhere safe and go in on foot.—Ah, and perhaps I have just the place. There is a widow I used to visit when I was armsmaster of that keep, and . . .”

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