“You are engaged, then,” said Roel.
Celeste placed a cup of tea on the bed tray and then stepped to the sideboard for her own. She turned and took a slow sip, her green eyes fixed on him. She set the cup back in the saucer and said, “Non, I’m not engaged.
Nor am I currently involved.”
“Magnifique!” exclaimed Roel, a great smile lighting his face, but then he flushed. “Er, that is, not that I have, um, aspirations, oh, my, I meant. .” Roel’s words dribbled away, and he studiously peered into his broth.
Celeste’s mouth twitched in a brief grin, and then she took a deep breath and asked, “And you, Roel, have you someone waiting for you?”
Roel looked up at the princess, a tentative smile on his face. “Non.”
Celeste’s own features broke into a glorious smile.
“Bon!”
Her green eyes looked into his grey, his grey into her green, and, as if the aethyr itself tingled in anticipation, there came between them an unspoken understanding: he would woo her.
Yet grinning and ignoring the spoon, Roel took up the broth and downed it in one long gulp. He held the bowl out to Celeste and said, “More, please.” As she replenished the vessel, he popped croutons into his mouth and happily crunched away.
4
Quest
For his second bowl of broth, Roel used a spoon, but he had taken only a taste or two when he frowned and set it aside.
“What is it, my handsome?” asked Celeste, a faint smile warring with concern on her face. “Why the grim look?”
“Oh, Princess, I just realized, the moment I am fit enough, I will have to leave you.”
“Leave me?”
“Oui. My quest. I must find Avelaine and Laurent and Blaise. -Rescue them, I think.”
Celeste sighed, now recalling what he had said-
When was that? Just three days past? It seems much longer. “Tell me of this mission, Roel.” Roel took a deep breath and slowly released it, and he gazed out the window as if seeking an answer somewhere in the glitter of distant stars beyond. Then he turned to Celeste and said, “I am the youngest son of Sir Emile and Lady Simone. I have two brothers and a sister. Laurent is the eldest, Blaise follows him, our sister, Avelaine, comes next in birth order, and, of course, I am last. And ever since I can remember, Avelaine and I have been as dear to one another as a brother and sister can be.”
Roel paused, his gaze lost in memory. Finally he shrugged and said, “Regardless, nearly seven years past, Avelaine was given to long restless rides, for she was sore beset by our parents. They had arranged a marriage for her to someone she did not wish to wed, and she had wanted to flee ere that day, but she knew it was her duty to follow our parents’ pact with the parents of the groom. And so instead of running away, she rode off from the manor to escape the words of our pere and mere and to struggle with her feelings. Always I accompanied her, for I thought she might need, not only the mostly silent companionship of someone who sympathized with her, but also someone to protect her from brigands, should any be lurking about.” Roel faintly smiled. “Not that there were ever any on our estate, but you see, I was a squire at the time-no longer a boy but not yet a man-and in training to become a knight, for I would follow in the steps of Laurent and Blaise, both of whom had won their spurs apast. And so, I went along as her guardian, though I did not tell her that.
“We rode to the outskirts of my sire’s estate, where deep in the forest there lie the ruins of an ancient temple. Perhaps once it had been mighty, but these days it is nought but a tumble of rock, a place our vassals shunned; even the woodcutters didn’t go near. Nevertheless, Avelaine and I were out there, and at that time neither of us knew just who or what might have been worshipped therein. . ”
Roel slashed and thrust at the air with his rapier to deal with an imaginary foe. Only half-watching, Avelaine sat on a block of stone. “Oh, Roel, why did they have to choose Maslin? It’s not that he isn’t a fine fellow, but for me he has no, um, no spark.”
Roel paused in his duel with the air and cocked an eyebrow at his raven-haired sister. “No spark?”
“He does not move me,” said Avelaine.
“Move you?”
A look of exasperation filled Avelaine’s blue eyes.
“He does not stir my heart.”
“Ah, I see,” said Roel, returning to his battle with the invisible foe.
Avelaine sat in glum thought, gazing at, but not seeing, their two horses placidly cropping grass nearby. Finally, she heaved a great sigh and said, “Oh, I wish I were anywhere but in this time and place.”
“Take care, sister of mine,” said Roel as he continued to slash at the air, “for you know not what magic these old ruins might hold.”
“Oh, would that they did,” said Avelaine, “for then I would be gone from here.” She hopped down from the stone block and turned to look at the tumble, nought but a vine-covered wrack with thistles growing among the remains. As if seeing them for the first time, Avelaine strolled around the remnants, circling widdershins in the light of the early-spring midmorning sun.
Roel paused and watched her walk away; then he resumed his cut and thrust at the air. He had just dispatched the unseen foeman when as from a distance he heard Avelaine faintly call, “Roel.”
He turned to see her standing there, now nearly all the way ’round the ruins. Pale, she was, almost ghostly, and she reached a hand out toward Roel as if pleading.
Just behind and to the left stood a tall, black-haired, black-eyed man in an ebon cloak limned in scarlet. Over his left arm something draped, as of wispy dark cloth featherlight. A sneer of triumph filled his dark aquiline features as he gazed at Avelaine.
Roel shouted and raised his sword and rushed forward, but in that instant the man embraced Avelaine and whirled ’round and ’round and ’round and vanished, taking Avelaine with him, and when Roel came to the place where they had been, he found nought but empty air.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” demanded Laurent.
“She and the man both vanished,” said Roel.
“Did you not engage him in battle?” asked Blaise.
“Even as I went for him, he spun like a dervish and disappeared and took Avelaine with him,” said Roel, on the verge of tears. “I searched and searched, but they were truly gone.”
“Well, if I’d been there,” said Laurent, “I would have-”
“Oh, leave the boy alone,” cried Lady Simone, again bursting into tears, even as she stepped to Roel and embraced him.
But Roel would have none of that, and he disengaged his mother’s arms and defiantly faced Laurent. “You would have done no better than I.”
“Pah! You little-”
“Laurent!” snapped Sir Emile. “Enough! We are here to deal with the problem and not to dole out blame.”
“But what can we possibly do?” cried Simone, wiping her eyes with her kerchief and then using it to blow her nose.
Emile knitted his brow, pondering, and then said, “I do not know, my lady. Mayhap Avelaine is lost forever, for it is clear that a powerful being has abducted her, most likely the Elf King, for ’tis said he captures mortals by stealing their shadows from them. No doubt he has taken her to Faery.”
“Faery!” exclaimed Simone. “Oh, what a horrible place!” Once more she broke into tears, and Emile embraced her.
Roel took a deep breath and said, “Sire, we can consult with Geron the Sage. Perhaps he will know what to do and where to go.”
Emile nodded. “Ah, you have hit upon it, my boy. One of us must seek him out.”
“I will go, Father,” said Roel.
“Pah! You?” sneered Laurent. “You are nought but a child, a mere squire. I will go instead.”
“No,” said Blaise. “I will go.”
“I am the eldest,” said Laurent.“Hence it is mine to do.”
“I will not accept this blame,” said Roel. “I am the one to find him.”