Dennis McKiernan: Once Upon an Autumn Eve

“Zoe, Zoe, we know nothing of him.”

“My lady, recall: I said that this might be the day, and he is so handsome and tall and strong in spite of being slender, and-”

“Zoe, again I say, we know nothing of him.”

“Ah, Princess, I saw how he made you blush. And his words were so romantic: ‘My angel,’ he said. ‘My beautiful angel.’ What could be more fitting?” Zoe sighed, and her eyes lost focus, as if she were captured in a reve. But then she started and exclaimed, “Oh, my, I just had a thought. At the pool. He must have seen you naked. Did he? Did he?”

“He had already swooned,” said Liaze, taking up her glass and peering into the depths.

Zoe giggled and clasped her hands together. “Oh, I think not, my lady, for you are blushing again.”

Liaze swirled her wine and smiled unto herself, then said, “After he had fallen from his horse, when I went to him in the moonlight he opened his eyes long enough to look at me, but only my face. Then he swooned.”

“He said nothing?”

“Just one word,” said Liaze. “Ange.”

“Angel!” squealed Zoe, clapping her hands. “I knew it!”

“I repeat, he only saw my face.”

“Ah, but non, I think not, for men are sneaky in the way they look at us and manage to see more than they let on.”

Liaze sipped her wine. I think this one would look frankly and openly at anyone or anything that interested him. Liaze did not say so to Zoe, for that would attribute to the knight something that she knew not. Thrusting my own ways upon him.

Zoe smiled, and then, all handmaiden business, she held out a washcloth and a bar of lavender-scented soap. “Cook says the meal will be ready within a candlemark.”

The princess tossed down the last of her wine and traded her glass for the cloth and soap.

Just after dawn the next morn, Liaze, wearing her hunting leathers, saddled her horse, Stablemaster Eugene standing by.

An outer door opened, and Zacharie entered. “The falcons have flown with their messages, my lady.”

“Well and good,” said Liaze. “Let us hope when they return they do not bear ill tidings.” She glanced across at the chevalier’s black horse, the stallion’s attention on Liaze’s mare. “Zacharie, are you certain there was nought in our mysterious knight’s baggage to identify him?”

“Non, my lady,” replied the steward. He looked at Eugene. “And we searched most thoroughly.”

Eugene nodded in agreement and said, “Though his steed put up a ruckus last night, still he is a noble one, and the trappings are of worth. Perhaps the knight is highborn.”

Liaze cinched the girth and said, “Unless the blow to his head has removed his memory, when he wakens we shall know.” As she took up a saddle quiver filled with arrows and tied it to the forebow, Liaze frowned and glanced at the black and said, “Put up a ruckus, you say? Why so?”

Eugene shrugged. “Something disturbed him, I would say, though I cannot say what. Got the other horses in a rumpus, too. By the time I arrived, they’d begun calming down. Whatever it was, a badger or some such, it was gone.”

“When was this?” asked Liaze.

“Just before Zacharie and I went through the knight’s goods; searching for his identity, we were,” said the stable master.

“My lady, mayhap it was one of the Goblins,” said Zacharie.

“If so, it’s no longer about,” said Liaze, taking up her horn bow.

“Even so, my lady,” said the steward, fretting, “I would rather you let Remy and the men make certain that the woods are clear of-”

“Non, Zacharie,” said Liaze, stringing the weapon. “I would see for myself these raiders.” She tested the pull and said, “Besides, it will hearten the staff to see that I go unafraid.”

As she slipped the bow into the saddle scabbard Zacharie sighed and nodded in acceptance, for Liaze had always been headstrong, even as a child. Still, he had to admit, her instincts were true, and she was more than capable.

Liaze then mounted up and rode out from the stables and ’round the manor and across the lawn to where stood Remy and the warband.

“My lady, with you on a horse,” said Remy, the rangy man’s face twisted in alarm, “you are an obvious target. I suggest that you dismount and-”

“Non, Remy. Rather would I let the staff see me astride than down among a protecting ward.”

“As you will, Princess,” said Remy, though he shook his head. Then he gestured to the men, and, armed with crossbows and blades and armored in boiled-leather breastplates, they spread out to the fore and flank and aft, and toward the willows they all went, Liaze high in the saddle midst all.

And since all eyes were fixed on the Princess, none saw the crow winging away in the morn, going who knows where.

Slain Goblins-Redcaps all-lay strewn across the far reaches of the lawn, and at the edge of the grove lay a dead Troll, pierced through by a large crossbow bolt.

Within the willow grove and nigh the pool lay the Goblin Liaze had slain. On beyond, here and there they found a few more Goblins amid the forest trees. “These are the ones we slew as they fled,” said Remy.

Farther on still, they came upon a scene of slaughter-nine Goblins in all.

“As you said last night, Princess, this must be the work of our lone chevalier,” said Remy, “for there is but a single horse track.”

Liaze dismounted and studied the ground. “From the tracks, it seems he was surrounded.-Ah, look, there is the other half of his sword.” Liaze pointed at the fragment of blade embedded in the bark of an oak. At hand lay the beheaded corpse of a Goblin among the roots below. The head itself was not evident.

“Ah,” said Remy, looking at the hoof marks. “His horse was running, and he swung so hard that he sheared through the Redcap’s neck and struck the bole, and that’s what broke his blade.”

Liaze nodded, then said, “I would follow the tracks back along his trail, perhaps to see whence he came.”

“As you wish, my lady,” said Remy.

For much of the morning they followed the path of the knight’s steed, twisting and turning back along the way the knight had ridden. Now and again they found the hacked remains of a Redcap.

“He was pursued a goodly distance,” said Remy, “for with all the jinks this way and that and riding up and down streams, surely he was trying to lose them.”

Liaze nodded. “It does not look as if he rode in from either the Winterwood or Summerwood, for generally his trail comes from the sunward bound of the Autumnwood. Still, as you say, it appears he was trying to lose his pursuers, and so could have come from virtually anywhere.”

Liaze sighed and looked about, then said, “Enough, Remy. Let us return to the manor. Of those corpses deep in the woods leave them for the scavengers to find, though I would have a hierophant come and lay their spirits to rest, for I would not have my demesne haunted. As to the ones nigh the manor, burn them.”

“As you will, my lady,” said Remy. He turned to one of the men. “Gregorie, blaze a trail for the hierophant to follow.”

Gregorie nodded and took a hand axe from his belt and notched the bark of a nearby tree, and as they all headed back along the route they had come, he continued to mark the way.

Even as Liaze rode into the stables and attendants took hold of her steed, Zoe came rushing out, crying, “My lady! My lady! He’s awake, and oh my!”

“Oh my?” asked Liaze as she and Zoe strode toward the manor, the princess bearing her unstrung bow and the arrow-filled quiver. her

“What?” asked Zoe.

“You said, ‘He’s awake, and oh my.’ ”