Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Summer Day

Flic frowned. “I say, Lord Borel, you being the prince of a demesne-the Winterwood-where flowers do not bloom, how came you to know of the viburnum?”

Borel glanced at his bow and then at the Sprite and said, “The viburnum plant, with its long, straight stems, is also known as arrowwood, and I need arrows, else I might just starve out here in the wilderness.”

“Ah,” said Flic, “I see. Too bad you don’t live on pollen and nectar and honey as do Buzzer and I, though I must admit, it would take many, many blossoms to feed you, my lord, perhaps an entire field.”

“It would indeed,” said Borel, chipping away at the stone. He held up the flint knife and examined it. Grunting in satisfaction, he laid it aside and then began tapping away flakes from another shard of flint, fashioning an arrowhead. “Too, I might need a number of shafts to rescue the Lady Chelle.”

“Oh,” said Flic. “I had forgotten.” He glanced at the bee, now adrowse in the twilight. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to wait for the morrow ere we see if Buzzer has ever plundered Lord Roulan’s gardens. Yet this I ask: if Buzzer knows nought of those beds and blooms, which way shall we go then, my lord?”

“Would that the Fates smile down upon us,” said Borel, “but if not, then we follow the river, for streams are thoroughfares of commerce, and can we find a hamlet or town alongside, or even a croft, someone therein might know.” Borel glanced at the scrapes and darkening bruises over much of his body, especially his arms and legs, and he had a long, narrow discoloration running from his crotch ’round his thigh and up across his chest and down his back, there where the rope had snapped taut. “Yet travelling will be a bit slow, hammered as I was by rock and rope and river. But as sore as I am, worse yet I am stiffening, and I fear on the morrow I will be even more afflicted. Nevertheless, we must set out, for the moon does not halt in her journey, her face ever changing, and time diminishes for Lady Chelle.”

Borel continued to chip away at the shard of flint, Flic watching in silence, and moments passed. Of a sudden there came a whistling squeal in the near distance, and Borel grinned and took up his flint knife and grunted to his feet. He hobbled away to the snare, and took from it a coney, and shortly had it dressed out and spitted above his campfire. He rolled up the rabbit skin and set it aside.

As his meal cooked, Borel continued to knap flint, though occasionally he turned the makeshift spit. And by the time the coney was ready, the prince had managed to fashion three sharp points for arrows. “Now all I need are shafts from the arrowwood plant. As for fletching, I’ll cut a bit off the bottom of my shirt and make rag tails.”

He pulled the spit from the fire and tore off a haunch and offered some to Flic, but the Sprite looked on in dismay and refused. “I neither kill nor eat dead things, my lord. Hummingbirds, though, eat mosquitoes and gnats, and at times both butterflies and bees feast on meat. Even so they are all my friends: butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees.”

Borel frowned and glanced at Buzzer and paused in thought and then said, “Are all bees your friends?”

“Well, I do not know all bees, Prince, but those I’ve met are quite friendly.”

“Could you ask them to search for Roulan’s estate or even for Lady Chelle? I mean, could you ask the bees in concert to look for her? Send messengers out and have all bees search? Or the hummingbirds, for they are swift?”

Flic shook his head. “Were it like in some stories, where a mythical ruler of all bees-or one of all hummingbirds-is repaying some favor, perhaps then it could be done. Hummingbirds, my lord, they keep to their nests and fields, and are quite territorial, and squabble o’er certain stands of flowers. They do care for their mates and brood, yet I know of none who cooperate with any others. And I know of no sovereign they have. But they do migrate, and perhaps they will have seen a turret with daggers about in which a demoiselle is trapped. I will ask those we come across.

“And as to the bees, some are solitary but most live in individual swarms, each with its own queen, and queens are quite jealous of one another, and oft there are wars between colonies. Hence, for bees throughout Faery to go on a quest is but an amusing tale told to younglings, or so I do think. Besides, I remind you, my lord, bees are loath to cross the twilight borders, Buzzer being an exception. No, in this task, if we are to rely upon a bee, it has to be Buzzer who leads the way.”

“I see,” said Borel, returning to his meal. He took a bite and chewed awhile and swallowed, then said, “I suppose the same is true of ants, eh?”

Flic smiled. “Most likely. Oh, one might convince a queen of a single colony of ants or bees or the leader of a school of fish or a flock of birds or a pack of animals or the like to send the entire group on a search within their own territory, but for creatures of a single kind-or even creatures of different kinds-to go throughout all of Faery on a hunt to repay a favor, well… that would be quite extraordinary; it might even require the gods themselves to intervene.”

Borel nodded and sighed and finished the remainder of his meal in morose silence.

As the nighttide deepened, Borel hobbled down to the river and washed his face and hands, then returned to camp and donned his now-dry clothes. He refreshed the fire with two more logs and, as the moon, two days past full, climbed into the sky, he wrapped himself in his cloak and settled down upon a bed of grass.

“Remember, my lord,” said Flic, “should you see daggers afloat in the air, you are in a dream.”

Borel grunted in acknowledgement and swiftly fell into an exhausted sleep.

As Borel’s breathing deepened, Flic watched. Then he took to wing and began searching by moonlight for blossoms and mosses and herbs most rare.

The slender demoiselle stood across the chamber from him. She was dressed in a sapphire-blue gown with a white bodice. Her golden hair was twined with blue ribbons and white. Borel frowned, for there was a shadowy band across her eyes.

In the Old Tongue she said, “There is less than a moon remaining.”

Something tugged at Borel’s mind, something elusive, and then it was gone. “What do you mean, mademoiselle?” he asked, also in the Old Tongue. “Less than a moon till what?”

“I do not know, my lord. Yet something terrible looms, and you must help me, please.” She reached out toward him.

The prince crossed the floor and took her hands in his and felt the trembling of them. “I will aid you, my lady,” said Borel, and he raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

Even though frightened by whatever might threaten her, shyly she turned her face aside.

Thinking that he had embarrassed her, Borel released his grip and took a half step back, yet she reached out and caught one of his hands in hers and held tightly.

“I must escape,” she said.

“Escape?”

“From this tower, this turret.”

Again an ephemeral thought fled across Borel’s mind, yet ere he could catch it, it was gone.

“And it seems you must find me and help me get free,” she added.

“But I am here,” said Borel, frowning in puzzlement. “I have found you.”

“Indeed, you are here,” said the demoiselle, “yet you have not found me.”

“Why say you this?” asked Borel. “Can you not see I am here? Yet you tell me I have not found you?”

“I know not why it is true,” said the lady. “Nevertheless it is.”

Borel looked about the chamber. There were windows open to the air, and a stairwell going down, and there was a faint squeaking sound, though perhaps instead it was music. He moved toward one of the windows, and as he stepped away, she reluctantly released his hand, her fingers trailing against his.