Dennis McKiernan: Once Upon a Winter's Night

Squealing, Camille fled back toward the shore on which lay her clothes, as Waterfolk swam over and under and about her thrashing legs and flailing arms and ’round her waist and across her bosom, brushing against her most private places and giggling.

Gaining the shore at last, Camille scrambled up the bank and to her clothes, flinging them on in spite of her wetness, while Waterfolk laughed joyously, and swam back to the opposite shore to shift their forms and resume their otter play.

“Bear! Where are you, Bear?” she called, looking about for her absent guardian, furious at the laughter behind.

A grunt came from higher up the embankment, and she saw the Bear sitting amid a patch of brambles eating dewberries, his muzzle stained purplish from the fare. Struggling with her boots, “You could have warned me,” cried Camille, cross with embarrassment.

“ Whuff. ”

With a foot half in, half out of her last boot, Camille stopped and glared at the Bear. “Does that mean you could have warned me?”

The Bear grunted and pulled over another thorny vine and began to rip off the dark berries.

“Oh, you!” Camille stamped her foot into the boot, and, fully dressed at last, she glanced across at the Waterfolk otters and then began to giggle.

That evening, another camp awaited the Bear and the girl, with a brace of marmots roasting above the flames, and large leaves laden with dewberries sitting off to one side. Camille ate a leaf or two of the sweet blackberries, as well as a hind leg and a fore, the Bear eating all the rest.

Unlike the Autumnwood, with its mild days and chill nights, in the Summerwood Camille needed neither cloak nor vest by day, and only a thin blanket at night, and that but near the break of light. Yet just after the dawntide of the third day in the wood, from a grey sky above a very light rain began to fall, more of a fine mist blowing than a drenching pour, and Camille wrapped her cloak about to ward away the mizzle. By the noontide, though, the sun broke through, and ghostly vapor seeped up from the earth and coiled among the trees, like streaming wraiths seeking to escape the sun.

Even as the insubstantial vapor swirled about, they topped a hill, and there the Bear paused and grunted. “What is it, Bear? Why do you-?” Camille’s words chopped short, and her heart suddenly sprang to her throat, for down below and shrouded in ethereal mist twining ’round, stood a great mansion midst widespread grounds. And Camille knew it could be nought but the manor of the Lord of Summerwood, the manor of her husband-to-be.

As the Bear started downslope toward the huge manor, Camille tried to still her racing heart by studying the great house and the immediate grounds, that which she could make out through the rising vapor curling ’round.

Vast was the mansion itself, four or five storeys in height, though here and there it rose above even that, and broad and deep with many wings, and even courtyards within. Chimneys it had in abundance, yet Camille wondered why here in the warmth of the Summerwood fireplaces were needed at all-other than those required for cooking and perhaps those needed to heat bathwater. The far-flung grounds about the great chateau were surrounded by a lengthy and high stone wall, with gates standing at the midpoints, at the moment all closed. Inside the wall, in spite of the mist, Camille could make out groves of trees and gardens with pathways through, a small lake, and Is that a hedge maze?

She had read of such in Fra Galanni’s library, but she had never thought to see one.

Several outbuildings ranged along part of one wall, presumably at the back of the house. What they contained, Camille could not say, though she speculated that perhaps one was a stable and another a carriage house and still another a smithy and Wait. If the Prince had horses, then why did he send a Bear to fetch me? Mayhap because of the dreadful passage through the Winterwood, where the Bear could protect me, and a horse could not. Regardless, I do not know how to ride… except Bearback, so to speak. Camille laughed at her bon mot, but then sobered quickly, for the Bear had come to the floor of the vale and now angled leftward toward one of the gates, and Camille’s heart beat all the faster.

The Bear trod toward the great barrier, with its long brass bars running up and down through heavy brass braces across, the gate itself decorated with a copper bas-relief in the likeness of a great oak tree, verdigris making the leaves and trunk green; it was the same emblem that had been impressed in the wax seal of Prince Alain’s letter, though that on the entrance was in low relief rather than intaglio. As they approached, the oak tree split in twain and the two halves of the gates swung inward and wide, yet Camille could not see aught of who might have opened them.

Onto the grounds of the vast estate they went, the Bear padding along a road of white stone wending within a gallery of oaks, their limbs arching overhead and intertwining to form a green leafy canopy above. As down this way they went, to the left and right through the spaces between the boles of the oaks Camille caught glimpses of the estate, with its gardens galore and white stone paths and long stretches of green sward. “Oh, Bear, how large this holding. Why, Papa’s entire farm could fit in one small corner yon.” On they went and across a stone bridge, with a wide lucid stream meandering under and flowing between high mossy banks; and black swans swam in the water, their long necks proudly arched. And still the road gracefully curved, the oaks standing honor guard, yet of a sudden the Bear emerged from the canopy and into the open beyond, and Camille’s heart leapt upward again, for straight ahead across a broad mead stood the great chateau.

“Oh, Bear, I am wholly apprehensive,” quavered Camille, burying her hands into fur and gripping tightly. “Remain my protector, please.”

“ Whuff, ” replied the Bear quietly, and pressed on ahead.

As they went on toward the manor, Camille now saw just how vast a place it truly was. Left and right the building stretched away, and loomed upward as well. Pale grey it was, and made of granite, with a huge, deep portico upheld by fluted columns, the pillars granite, too. Here and there along the front, from second-storey rooms and above, leaded-glass doorways opened onto white-marble balconies, while all across and abounding, leaded-glass windows in white wooden sashes stood in white wooden frames.

Great Mithras, there must be two hundred rooms or more. Much to dust and sweep and clean, endless windows to wash, chambers to air, linens to-Oh, my, but I do hope that I don’t have to Just then Camille heaved a quiet sigh of relief, for she could see that within the great portico the doors to the house stood wide, and flanking and extending outward from the portal stood servants arrayed in two long rows. Steadily trod the Bear, to come up the two steps and onto the wide porch. And servants silently bowed or curtseyed deeply as the Bear trod between, yet Camille knew not how to respond, and so she rode into the manse on the back of the Bear without saying a word.

Past the open, brass-studded, thick doors of oak and down a short corridor she rode, to pass beyond another set of open doors and across a broad landing, then down two steps into a vast front hall: its floor was of white marble, with an inlaid depiction of a great oak centered therein-the leaves of malachite, the bole and limbs a subtle mix of grey and red granite. A full four storeys above, the white plaster ceiling held a leaded-glass skylight depicting the same oak-a reflection of the one below. Two massive staircases-one left, one right-swept from a common landing outward and up, curving to a high balcony all ’round, and higher up still were individual balconies jutting out of the three facing walls, with recessed doors leading into chambers beyond. There were doors and archways ranged to left, right, and fore, both at the great hall floor level and the balcony level above; through the archways, Camille could see corridors leading away. Sconces for candles and lanterns were arrayed along on the walls around, but sunlight pouring in through high, front windows and the leaded-glass skylight above lighted the chamber brightly.