Nearby, small tents were being pegged to the ground, for the erratic weather of the Springwood could just as easily send a great lot of wet snow as send a balmy night. Two men of the warband came bearing a somewhat larger tent for the princess. Roel said, “Here, I’ll pitch it.” But the warriors protested, and when Roel glanced at Celeste, with a faint shake of her head she indicated to him that he should let the men do the task.
Swiftly ’twas done, and Celeste thanked them with a smile, and, beaming, the warriors moved on to other duties.
When they were out of earshot, “My love,” said Celeste, “they vie among themselves to be the ones to serve me. Take not that away from them.” Roel grinned and said, “As I would vie were I among their company.”
They walked down to the chill-running water and stood holding hands in the twilight, neither speaking.
Behind them, men set campfires, and some began brewing tea. As Roel and Celeste dwelled in the comfort of one another, a polite cough caught their attention, and Roel turned to see Gerard standing nearby, his eyes fixed steadily on a point somewhere in the gallery of woods beyond the stream. Roel frowned. “Gerard, did I not instruct you to remain at the manor?”
“Indeed you did, my lord,” replied Gerard, not shifting his gaze away from that distant point among the shadowed trees, “yet who would pitch your tent were I not about?”
“I’m of a mind to send you back even as we speak, Gerard.”
Still standing at formal attention, chin held high, eyes peering off yon, Gerard said, “My lord, would you send me through these deep and dark and perilous woods alone? I think you cannot spare a warrior to escort me.” Celeste giggled.
Roel sighed in exasperation. “I did not see you among the company. How came you in the first place?”
“Why, on a horse, my lord. I knew you would need your valet de chambre, though it seems you yourself did not. A candlemark or so after you rode away, I realized where my duty lay, and so I saddled a mount, and took another one in tow, one laden with needed supplies, and I followed. I just now reached the camp, or, let me say, I reached the camp a short while ago.”
Roel smiled and said, “You rode all the way completely alone through the deep and dark and perilous forest?”
“Indeed, my lord, though I believe it will be even deeper and darker and certainly much more perilous were I to have to ride back to the manor.” Roel burst into laughter; Celeste’s own giggles turned to laughter as well. Gerard didn’t blink an eye or shift his stance one hair as he let the mirth run its course. Finally, he made a slight gesture toward a newly pitched tent and said, “My lord, your shelter is ready. And would you and Princess Celeste like a good red wine to go with your evening meal?”
Once more Roel and Celeste fell into helpless laughter.
“I’ll take that as a ‘oui,’ my lord.” And with that, Gerard turned on his heel and strode away.
In the silver light of dawn, Celeste rose and walked past the sentry toward a wooded area designated as a place of privacy for her.
After she relieved herself, Celeste strode through the strip of woodland and toward the swift-running stream.
As she neared, she heard someone weeping, and at the edge of the flow she came upon a small lad, no more than four summers old. In tattered clothes he was, and sitting on a rock and holding a trimmed branch in one hand-more of a long switch than a pole-and a length of fishing line in the other. Celeste looked ’round, but no adult did she see.
“Child, what are you doing here so early in the morning and all alone?” Sobbing in snuck s and snub s, the small boy looked up with tear-filled eyes. “I came to catch a fish for breakfast.”
“Where are your pere and mere?”
“Elsewhere, my lady. Very far elsewhere.”
“They left you alone in the world?”
The child managed a whispered, “I have two sisters, and they will have nothing to eat,” and then he broke into wrenching sobs.
“Two sisters? No one else?”
“Non.”
“Then come with me, my lad,” said Celeste. “I will gather some food for you and your sisters.”
“Non, non,” cried the child, “I must catch a fish for them. But the string came loose from the pole, and a knot is needed.”
Celeste sighed. “Here, let me.” He held both out to her.
She took them and quickly she tied the twine to the end of the switch, and then cast the hook into the stream. She handed the branch back to the lad, and he looked up at her and said, “Merci, Princess.” And in that moment a shimmer came over the boy, and of a sudden before Celeste stood a slender maiden with silver hair and argent eyes, and from somewhere, nowhere, everywhere, there came the sound of battens and shuttles, as of looms weaving.
Celeste glanced at the dawn light growing in the sky and curtseyed and said, “Lady Skuld. Lady Wyrd. She Who Sees the Future.”
Skuld smiled and said, “We meet again.” Celeste nodded, for on the day before the wedding of Camille and Alain, Skuld and her sisters-Verdandi and Urd-suddenly appeared before her family-her pere and mere, her brothers and sister, and Camille and Michelle. Too, Hierophant Marceau had been there as well, though he had fainted dead away from shock when the three Fates abruptly materialized.
“My lady,” said Celeste, “when last I saw you, you warned that the acolytes would seek revenge. Is that who-?”
Skuld held up a hand palm out, stopping the flow of Celeste’s words. “Child, you know I cannot answer questions directly. I cannot e’en give you advice unless you first perform a service for me, and then answer a riddle. Because you tied my line to my pole when I was in the form of a small child, you have met the first requirement.” Celeste sighed. “I take it that you have something to tell me, and to hear it a riddle I must answer. Yet I have never been particularly good at riddles. May I at least fetch someone to help me? Roel perhaps?” Skuld laughed and shook her head. “They are all yet asleep and will not waken-not even your truelove-
until our business here is done.”
Celeste groaned and glanced back at the camp. In the growing light, no one stirred, not even the sentry, who seemed locked in his stance. She looked again at Skuld and said, “In all fairness I must confess that I know the riddle of the Sphinx and the riddles you posed to Camille and Borel.”
Skuld smiled. “I shall not ask you any of those, nor the one I posed to your sister.”
Celeste’s eyes flew wide in startlement. “You aided Liaze in her search for Luc?”
“Is that a question you would have me answer?” Celeste threw out a hand of negation. “Non. Non. If you posed a riddle to her, one she correctly answered, then you aided her.”
Again Skuld smiled.
Celeste took a deep breath and said, “As for a riddle you would have me answer, say away,” and then she braced herself as if for a blow.
Of a sudden the sound of looms weaving swelled, and Skuld said:
“Trees on my back, dwelling below, I fare when a wind does flow.
Name me. . ”
Even as the clack of shuttle and thud of batten diminished, Celeste’s heart sank and tears sprang into her eyes. I will never get the answer, never.
“Wipe away your tears,” said Skuld, “and think.”
With the heels of her hands, Celeste dried her cheeks, and she looked at Skuld and then away. In that moment a small piece of wood caught in the flow went racing downstream. Watching it, Celeste recalled a happier time long past in her childhood, when she and her brothers stood by a brook and-
“A ship!” she cried. “Lady Wyrd, ’tis a ship, for the trees on its back are the masts, the dwelling below houses the crew, and a ship does fare when a wind flows.” With hope in her eyes, she looked at Skuld.
Skuld now smiled and said, “Correct. And now I have something to tell you, and a gift for you as well.”
“This something you are going to tell me, is it in the form of a rede?”