Dennis McKiernan - Once Upon an Autumn Eve

Liaze yawned and stretched, Zoe suppressing a yawn in echo to Liaze.

“What mark is it, Zoe?”

“Midmorn, Princess,” said Zoe, holding out a robe. “You’ve slept quite late.”

“Oh, my,” said Liaze, scrambling from bed and slipping into the garment. “And here I thought I would never get to sleep.”

Zoe laughed and said, “Ah, visions of Luc kept you awake, eh?”

“Zoe!” exclaimed Liaze, and she headed for the bath, Zoe trailing behind and smiling unto herself, for the Princess had not denied Zoe’s claim.

“I wonder if he plays echecs? ” said Liaze as she slid into the warm water.

“Echecs?” asked Zoe.

“It is something amusing we can do and it will not tax his injuries.”

“Oh, my lady, isn’t there something else even more amusing that-”

“Zoe!” snapped Liaze, even as she reddened.

Zoe turned away from the princess, and grinning widely the handmaiden began fluffing a towel ere laying it across the fireguard.

“Why, yes, I do,” said Luc. “Pere Leon and I spent many an eve in the game.”

“My whole family plays echecs,” said Liaze. “It came to us through pere and mere. Of all of us, perhaps Borel is the best, but he met his match when Camille came into our lives.”

“Camille?”

“Alain’s new bride.”

“And Alain is your brother,” said Luc. “The one who was cursed.”

“Oui.”

Margaux came into the infirmary. “Princess, though this is but his second morn here, and though he is badly bruised, I believe Luc is fit enough to take other quarters.”

“Ah, splendid,” said Liaze. “We shall install him in the guest wing.”

“He will yet need treatment for his forehead and those awful knocks he took,” said Margaux. “Still, he can come here for the salves and the ointment and the drink.”

Luc groaned. “I will yet have to drink that evil concoction?”

“Certainement,” declared Margaux, smiling.

Luc sighed and turned up a hand and, grinning, said, “If I must, I must.” He turned to Liaze. “Healer’s orders, you know.”

“Come, Luc,” said Liaze. “I shall show you to your quarters.”

Standing nearby, Zoe said, “The azure suite, my lady?”

“Oui,” said Liaze.

Zoe turned away and smiled to herself, for the azure suite was as close to the princess’s own rooms as a guest could be and not have accommodations in the royal wing itself.

That afternoon the falcons returned, winging in one by one-first from the Summerwood, then the Winterwood, and lastly the Springwood, for it lay the farthest away-and they bore messages: no Redcaps or Trolls had attacked the other manors. When that last message had come, Liaze sighed in relief, for Alain and Celeste were safe, and Borel was away, visiting Lord Roulan, Lady Michelle’s father. But Arnot, the steward of Winterwood, reported all was well therein. Only the Autumnwood had suffered an incursion; perhaps they had been after Luc, but then again it could have been a raid on Autumnwood Manor itself.

“Check.”

“Ah, Princess,” said Luc, “perhaps you have fallen for what my foster pere calls… hmm, let me term it a gambit.”

“So you say,” said Liaze.

“Oui, so I say. Chevalier to red king’s three.”

They were sitting at a small cherrywood table in a chamber in the sunset wing. Other small tables and chairs of like wood sat here and there in the room, with damier boards for playing dames, or echiquiers for echecs. The playing sets were of varying colors, and some were carved of ivory or amber, or of onyx and jade and other semiprecious stone. In one corner sat a large round table, cherrywood as well, with chairs about, a deck of taroc cards thereon. Against one wall sat a long sideboard, and as with all the furniture, it was cherrywood, too. On the opposite wall heavy brown stones embraced a large fireplace, and logs blazed within.

The floor of the chamber was of pale brown marble, and the walls of a slightly darker hue, with the ceiling white.

On the walls themselves were sconces ’round, holding lanterns alight. Portraits of Borel and Liaze and Alain and Celeste, as well as their parents-Valeray and Saissa-looked out upon the players. As if fixing them in his mind, these Luc had studied over the past three days of gaming with the princess.

“So, you move the chevalier to block me,” said Liaze. “Well then, green hierophant takes that impudent red knight. Check.-Oh my, that was a mistake.”

Luc smiled. “Tower takes hierophant. Check and mate.”

Liaze stared at the board. “I could have seen that coming, had I not been too eager to capture your chevalier.”

“You have captured more than one chevalier, my lady.”

Liaze looked up to see Luc gazing at her, and her heart leapt.

Boldly, Liaze said, “And you, Luc, captured the queen right from the start.”

Luc reached across the table and took Liaze’s left hand in his right, and she did not withdraw from him. Luc whispered, “My lady, you are so beautiful. Why hasn’t someone come and carried you away: a king, a prince, a duke, an earl?”

Liaze put her right hand on top of his, there among the captured pieces. “Why not a knight, Sieur Luc?”

Luc shook his head. “Princess, you are worthy of a true noble and not a common chevalier.”

“You are no common chevalier, Luc.”

Luc withdrew his hand and pushed both out in a gesture of denial. “Me? But I am just a poor woodcutter’s son.”

“Luc,” said Liaze, taking his left hand-his heart hand-in both of hers. “You know not whose child you are, yet this I say: in these days you have been here, I have come to realize a nobler person I have never met. You are anything but common.”

“But princesses do not companion with commoners, my lady,” said Luc.

Liaze shook her head. “Then, by that rule, Camille, a so-called commoner from the mortal world, and Prince Alain should never have wed.” At mention of Alain, Luc glanced at the portrait of the Summerwood prince. “Ah, non, Luc,” continued Liaze, “Camille is a rare and uncommon person… just as are you.”

Luc sat without speaking, and after long moments Liaze said, “Whatever happens between us, let it be.”

Luc sighed and said, “Princess, you deserve someone much better than me, and that I truly believe. Even so, it will be difficult to keep a rein on my ardor.”

Liaze’s pulse quickened, still she said, “Keep a rein?”

Luc nodded. “My lady, some believe love at first sight is but a mad fancy, yet I tell you it is not, for at the first moment I saw you, you captured my heart.”

Liaze’s soul filled with joy, and her laugh came silvery, and she said, “Luc, you had been hit in the head and had fallen off your horse when you first saw me.”

Luc laughed along with her, but he quickly sobered and said, “Nevertheless, Princess…” His words died, and his eyes filled with an unfathomable expression. And then he said, “That was the very moment, though I didn’t know whether you were real or a dream.”

“To fall in love with a dream would indeed be a mad fancy, for dreams are not real,” said Liaze. “Yet heed me, Luc, I am no dream.”

“Non, my princess, you are not, and for that I give my most fervent thanks to almighty Mithras above.”

Over the next two weeks, in the evenings Luc and Liaze continued to play echecs, and on rainy nights they read before the fireplace in the manor’s library, oft quoting poems to one another, many of them concerning love-unrequited, consummated, lost, gained, and the like-as well as parts of sagas and bits of familiar tales. And during sunny days they flew arrows at targets, and in this Liaze proved the better. But in croquet, Luc had a keen eye and hand, and oft Liaze found her ball far from the next wicket, driven away by Luc. They dined together-breakfast, lunch, dinner-yet there were times Liaze had to attend to matters of the principality. During some of these, Luc sat high in the gallery that ran ’round three sides of the throne chamber, and he listened to judgments and arbitrations and settlements of quarrels. There were times of courtly functions, and these Luc did attend, such as when some of the Fey Folk came to pay respects: over three days Luc met five tattooed Lynx Riders, and a Gnome and three Kobolds who asked to have a mining dispute settled, and Brownies, Hobs, Pixies, Sprites, and one great shambling thing, and a Ghillie Dhu in his clothes made of leaves and moss.