Dennis McKiernan: Once upon a Summer Day

“Oh, Gerard,” said Borel, “Madame Chef will have my hide.” As he snatched up the washcloth and soap he looked at his hand and broke out laughing. “My wrinkled hide, that is.”

Within a quarter candlemark, with his straight, silvery, shoulder-length hair still damp, he was scrubbed and dressed, and downstairs sitting at the head of a long, highly polished, blackwood table. Quickly, he finished the last of his aperitif — sliced mushrooms lightly sauteed in creamery butter. At a signal from Borel, one server whisked away the modest dish while still another server removed the small glass holding a trace of a pale red wine, one that Albert, the voluble sommelier, had called “a refreshing, rose-colored wine fortified with a hint of fruit and a crisp touch of sweet aftertaste-perfect for clearing the palate of any vestige of a previous drink.” A third server set a bowl and a silver soup spoon before the prince, and a fourth waiter came in from the kitchen, a great tureen in hand. He ladled out soupe a la creme de legumes assaisonnee avec des herbes. When that was done, a fifth server set down a small loaf of bread on a modest cutting board, with a knife in a groove for slicing, and he put a porcelain bread plate to the prince’s left, while yet a sixth server placed at hand a dish of pale yellow butter pats embossed with the form of a snowflake. The loquacious sommelier set a new goblet to Borel’s right and said, “My lord, I have selected a special blanc to stand up to the heartiness of the soup: a full-flavored, substantial white wine with grape and apple aromas mixing well with the mustiness of barrel-aging and culminating in a robust aftertaste.”

At a nod from Borel, the sommelier poured a tot into the goblet and then waited as Borel swirled and inhaled the aroma and took a sip and said, “A fine choice, Albert.”

Albert smiled and filled the goblet half full.

The meal continued, the soup followed by venison in a light splash of a white cream sauce, with a sauteed medley of green beans and small onions and peas, all accompanied by a hearty red wine poured from a dusty bottle laid down for many years in a cool cellar. As the effusive sommelier put it, “I have selected a red that will enhance Madame Mille’s splendid dish, a wine almost delicate in its complex bouquet holding a suggestion of aged cedar, a trace of pipeweed, and a hint of sweet, fragrant leaves of a kalyptos tree. Its rich flavor should spread evenly across the tongue, exciting senses of sweet and bitter equally, followed by a pleasant, drying sensation upon swallowing.”

Borel smiled to himself at the sommelier’s abundant description, but tasted the wine and said, “Again, Albert, a fine, fine selection,” and then he ravenously tore into the meal.

After two full helpings, at last Borel leaned back in satisfaction, the plate empty before him, scoured clean, the last of the sauce sopped up with small chunks of bread.

And then the eclairs were served, and Borel groaned but faced them heroically.

Albert stepped forward with yet another fresh goblet and a bottle of wine. “A sparkling, bit-off-dry white, my lord. It will enhance the sweetness of Madame Mille’s splendid pastry.”

Once again Borel nodded his appreciation and managed not one but two of the eclairs.

When that was cleared away, Albert served a snifter of cherry brandy, this from a very dusty bottle Albert held back for special occasions, “… a refreshing tartness to clear the palate, my lord. Would you care for some cheese as well?”

Satiated, Borel waved off the cheese, but he took up the brandy and groaned to his feet and headed for the kitchen, Albert trailing after. When the prince entered, all work stopped, and stepping to the fore of the kitchen- and wait-staff came a white-haired man in somber black, and a small woman wearing a chef’s hat and a full, white apron over a dove-grey dress. The man in black bowed, as did all the men, Albert now among them, and the woman doffed her hat, revealing red curls, and she curtseyed, as did all the women.

Borel raised his glass on high and called out, “I salute you, Monsieur Paul, Madame Mille, and Monsieur Albert, as well as all who had a hand in the preparation and serving. Never has a finer meal graced Winterwood Manor.” Borel then tossed down the drink, much to Albert’s dismay, for this brandy was meant to be savored-slowly, and in small sips-else one might just as well guzzle straight from the bottle.

The rest of the staff, however, looked at one another and beamed in pleasure, and then bowed and curtseyed again.

Albert stepped forward, the dusty bottle of cherry brandy gripped tightly, but Borel smiled and shook his head, then set down the snifter on a nearby counter and turned on his heel and headed for his quarters, while behind voices were raised as the staff returned to whatever they’d been doing ere the prince had come: Madame Mille snapping out commands; Monsieur Paul’s words less intense; men and women scurrying about.

“Nightshirt, Sieur?”

“No, Gerard.”

The valet looked at the bed curtains and shook his head and sighed. Lord Borel never wanted them drawn good and proper, but instead required them left open-“the better to hear the household” he said, as if at any moment something wicked might come crashing in.

“Good night, then, my lord,” said Gerard. “Sleep well.”

“So I hope,” said Borel, crawling into bed.

Candle in hand, Gerard slipped out the door, taking the light with him, even as Borel eased under the down covers.

It seems somewhat strange, sleeping in my own manor again.

Ah, but it is good to be home.

Two or three days hence, I will head for Hradian’s cote and see if there she yet dwells, but for now…

Borel fell aslumber ere he could finish that thought.

Long did he sleep, dreaming not at all… not at all, that is, until a candlemark or two beyond mid of night…

With stone walls all ’round, beyond the windows Borel could see daggers floating in the air, threatening, ever threatening. A young, golden-haired lady stood across the chamber, her head bowed.

I’ve been here before, but when?

From somewhere nearby there came a persistent squeaking, though perhaps it was music instead.

“Oh, s’il-te-plait aidez-moi, mon seigneur,” whispered the demoiselle, a band of black across her eyes. “Il ne reste qu’une lune.”

“What do you mean, my lady, when you say there is but a moon left?”

“Il reste peu de temps, mon seigneur. Il ne reste qu’une lune.”

“Time grows short?”

“S’il-te-plait aidez-moi. Aidez-moi.”

“Do I know you, mademoiselle?”

Before she could answer there came a long, low, sustained cry, as of pain or grief or displeasure, and it slowly rose to a shriek, and the stone walls faded, and she was gone, and Borel startled awake in the night, a wind wailing about the mansion, and then it fell to a groan. He threw off the covers and stepped into a thin, silvery beam shining through the narrow crack between the two leaves of the shutters on one of the windows. Unclothed and crossing to that window, he lowered the sash and flung wide the hinged planks. A frigid wind moaned inward, bringing him entirely awake, and a bright full moon angling through the sky shone onto the far slope of the wide vale across the frozen river, casting long shadows down the slant.

Help me, she said, and she called me her lord.

Borel gazed up at the argent orb overhead. And she said time grows short, there is but a moon left.

Oh, what a stupid question I asked-Do I know you, mademoiselle? — when instead I should have asked where she was.

With the wind whirling up over the lip of the bluff and across the flat and courtyard, and groaning ’round the timbers and eaves, and blustering about the chamber, Borel stood in the aerie that was his mansion and gazed out across the Winterwood, his silvery hair whipping in the blow.