Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

Her voice choked, yet she managed to say, “You need never tell me of this war you fought.” He nodded once, sharply, and whispered, “Let us ride on.”

She looked up at him for a moment more, and then kissed his fingers and released his hand and turned and mounted her mare.

The caravan continued to fare starwise across the grassy plains, and as Celeste and Roel drew closer, Celeste said, “It looks as if their road will join ours. See, it curves ’round and does not cross over; I think it becomes one with this way.” Roel nodded but said nothing, and on they went.

Ahead, the caravan followed the arc and soon it was plodding duskwise, ahead of Celeste and Roel. It moved at a more leisurely pace than they did, and slowly the horses atrot overtook the ambling camels.

“It is a merchant train,” said Roel, his first words in a while. “Not a military convoy. They have an escort of guards, though, so be wary.”

Celeste slipped the keeper from her long-knife, and she strung her bow, though she slipped it back into its saddle scabbard.

As they neared the tail end of the train, three camel-mounted guards-dusky-skinned and dressed in turbans and jodhpurs and boots and long riding coats under torso-covering bronze-plated armor, and armed with curved scimitars and lances and bows-slowed and waited for Celeste and Roel to reach them. One of the warders held out a hand palm forward and called out,

“Wakkif!”

His meaning clear, both Roel and Celeste reined to a halt, and their mounts snorted as if to blow their nostrils free of the somewhat rank odor of camels, and it took a firm hand to keep the horses from sidling away.

“Min inte? Mnain jayi? Intu kasdin ’ala fen?” demanded the guard.

“Do you speak the common tongue?” asked Celeste.

The warder frowned. “Kult e?”

Celeste sighed and said, “Parlez-vous la vieille langue?”

“Kult e?”

She turned to Roel. “It seems he speaks neither Common nor the Old Tongue.”

“I have heard such language as his in my travels, though I do not speak it,” said Roel. “It sounds as if he is from Arabia.”

The man looked at Roel and said, “Betif’ ham

’arabi?”

Roel shrugged and shook his head, saying, “I think he just asked if I speak Arabic.”

Another warder came riding back, this one with gold braid ’round his turban. He spoke to the guards, and they treated him with deference.

“It seems he’s the captain,” said Roel.

The man looked at Celeste and dismissed her with a gesture, at which she bristled but remained silent, but Roel he eyed with some respect. Yet he, too, did not understand either the Old Tongue or Common.

Roel clapped a hand to his own chest and said,

“Chevalier Roel.” He gestured toward Celeste and said,

“She is with me.”

Again Celeste bristled, but still she remained silent.

Once more Roel slapped his chest and then pointed duskward along the road and said, “We ride yon.” The captain slowly scanned the plain; the land was empty as far as the eye could see. He said something to the three other warders, and they reined their camels about, the animals turning at the tugs on their nose rings, and with the beasts groaning and hronk ing, and blue tassels swinging from saddle blankets, and the riders thumping the camels with switches and crying, “Hut, hut, hut, haijin. Yallah, yallah!” they rode to catch the caravan and resume their posts.

The captain once more scanned out to the horizon, and then said, “Kammil,” and he gestured for them to continue riding duskwise.

Quietly Roel said, “Cherie, if they are from Aegypt or Arabie, they do not consider women the equal of men.

It would be best if you rode slightly back and to my left.”

Celeste hissed, and then muttered, “As you will, my master. Yet be aware, love, you will someday pay for this.” Then she grinned at Roel’s gape.

Roel then laughed and heeled his mare and together they rode onward, did the knight and his lagging princess.

And slowly they passed alongside the camel train, the beasts laden with trade goods. Dark-skinned men walked alongside, while others rode, trailing the pack animals on tethers running to nose rings.

“That must be painful,” said Celeste, “yet fear not, my love, I’ll not leash you that way.”

Roel burst into laughter, and on they fared.

For the rest of the day they rode, and that evening as dusk was falling, and even as they espied in the distance to the fore the twilight bound looming up into the sky, they heard water running somewhere to the starwise side of the road, and there they found a spring bubbling out from the ground and running through the grass and down a gentle slope.

“That’s odd,” said Roel, looking about. “There are no hills or mountains nearby, yet here we have a fountainhead.”

“ ’Tis Faery, love,” said Celeste. She glanced at the darkening sky and added, “Perhaps we should camp here.”

“Oui,” said Roel. “It is a good place. And on the morrow we can cross through the twilight and mayhap find the gray arrow.”

The next dawn, as they were breaking camp, a turbaned rider came to the spring and stopped to let his camel drink its fill.

“A scout, I think,” said Roel, “from the caravan.” As the beast sucked water, Celeste stepped to the man and offered him a cup of tea. The scout took it and smiled and nodded his thanks.

Roel saddled the mares while Celeste removed the nose bags and stowed them away. As she tied the bundles, the turbaned man rinsed out the tin cup and stepped to her side, and smiling and nodding, he handed the vessel to her. Then he helped Roel lade the gear onto the geldings. Finally, all was ready, and Celeste and Roel mounted up, and the scout strode to his now-grazing camel and commanded the beast to kneel; then he, too, mounted and got the animal to its feet.

They rode together in a comfortable quietness for a ways, still going duskwise. The horses snorted and were somewhat nervous in the presence of the camel, yet

Roel and Celeste held them firmly, and after a while they settled.

But within a league they came to a juncture, where a trail continued on toward the twilight bound, but the road began a slow arc starwise. Roel reined to a halt, Celeste stopping as well. The scout stayed his camel alongside them, a puzzled look on his face.

“Which way, cherie?” asked Roel. “What says the map?”

Celeste unfolded the vellum and looked and sighed.

“This road is not on the chart, nor the fork and the path beyond. We are to look for three boulders at the crossing, though.” Roel nodded and said, “Then let us choose.” As Celeste refolded the map she said, “Perhaps ‘left is right, but right a mistake’ applies here.”

“Hmm. . do you think? If so, then we should take the straight-ahead path.”

“I agree,” said Celeste, nodding.

“Betif’ tikir bi~e?” asked the scout.

“I believe he wants to know where we plan to go,” said Roel, and he pointed to himself and Celeste and then down the trail toward the wall of twilight looming in the near distance.

Frantically the scout shook his head and waved his hand back and forth in a negative gesture, saying, “ La!

La! Abulhol! Abulhol!”

Roel shrugged and turned his palms up, clearly showing that he didn’t understand.

The man then patted up and down the length of his own body from shoulders to hips and then moved his hands as if he were turning his torso sideways. And then he stretched and stretched the envisioned form and held out his arms wide, indicating a gigantic body. He drew forth from the lower tip of his spine a make-believe tail and added it to the pretend body. Then he framed his face and lifted an imaginary head and placed it on the conjured creature. Lastly he clawed at the air and roared and then said, “Abulhol.”