Lanval bowed and said, “I will await you in the next room.”
When he had gone through the doorway, Camille cast back the light satin cover and snatched up the robe. Quickly, she slipped it on and belted it closed, then stepped into her shoes and gathered up her undergarments, rolling all into a petticoat bundle, then turned to the bed to “Oh, my!” she gasped.
“My lady? Is aught amiss?”
“Oh, Lanval, I have ruined a sheet. I thought my courses ended a three-day past, yet…”
A smear of blood stained the bedding.
Camille looked up to see Lanval now at her side. A faint smile crossed his face. “My lady, I ween ’tis not your courses.”
“If not, Lanval, then what?”
Lanval reddened. “I’d rather not say, my lady. Ask Blanche instead.”
“Lanval!” said Camille sharply.
Lanval sighed and mumbled a few words, and to Camille it sounded as if he said, “ ’S rngrn blth.”
“What? I didn’t hear.”
Lanval took a deep breath. “ ’Tis virgin’s blood,” he said, clearly this time.
“Virgin’s blood?”
“Um, yes, my lady.” Lanval, who in other matters seemed so sure, shifted about uneasily. “Harrumph! Did not your mere speak of such?”
“Nay, she did not.”
For a moment Lanval seemed nonplused, but then he said, “Ask Blanche. She will explain.” He took a deep breath, then plunged on. “Yet hear me, for this I do know: the prince will be glad of the sheet, though I think he will not call it ruin, but a testament to virtue instead.”
Camille shook her head. “What do you mean, Lanval?”
Again the steward reddened, and he turned up his hands. “Ask Blanche,” was his only reply.
Exasperated, Camille snatched her pristine white dress from his arm and sailed out from the chamber and down the hallways toward her own distant quarters.
“Is that what it means?”
“Yes, my lady,” replied Blanche, scrubbing Camille’s back.
Camille frowned. “Well, then, I don’t understand how that can be a sign of virtue. It could be a sign of fear, or a lack of temptation or opportunity-I certainly had little opportunity, living as I did with a monk and a votary, and then isolated on Papa’s farm. Too, it could be lack of desire or lack of someone to love.-Tell me: is it a sign of virtue when a man who has never made love before comes to the bed of a willing partner?”
“No, my lady. It is considered a lack of experience.”
“Virtue for one, but inexperience for the other? — Fie! But this does seem somehow inequitable.”
“Let me ask you this, my lady: would you rather have had Prince Alain as inexperienced as you?”
“Oh, no, Blanche. I can’t imagine how awkward and fumbling such an encounter would have been.”
“Then there you have it, my lady.-Now, duck your hair under.”
When Camille came sputtering up from the water, Blanche asked, “My lady, did they not speak of this at the monastery? Of vices and virtues? Of men and women and love? Or did not your pere or mere tell you of such?”
Camille shook her head. “At the monastery? No, Blanche. Instead they spoke of devotions to Mithras, and of the Devil and the good that men do. As for such talk at home, Papa always seemed to withdraw, and Maman simply glared at Papa and gritted her teeth and said, ‘You’ll find out soon enough, you will,’ and, beyond that, she said no more.”
As Blanche took up one of the rose-scented bars of soap, she said, “Well, my lady, now you know,” and she began lathering Camille’s hair.
“Inequitable or no, again I say, fie.”
“Fie, my lady?”
“Yes. Fie.” Camille’s shoulders slumped and she sighed.
“You see, Blanche, now I suppose I will never know whether or not I am virtuous, for I never faced temptation or opportunity or even knew love ere I met Prince Alain. Besides, it just seemed to happen.. and I am glad that it did.”
“So am I,” said Blanche. “So are we all.”
“All?”
“The staff, my lady. The household staff.”
“Oh, my. Does everyone know? Lanval said all might.”
Blanche paused in her scrubbing. “It is plain to every man Jaques and woman Jille that you two were meant for one another. And the prince has so little joy in his life, it is good to see him laugh.”
“Little joy? What mean you by that?”
“That I leave up to him to say,” replied Blanche, taking up the pitcher from the washstand. “Now hold still while I rinse.”
“Tell me of your pere and mere, my love.”
Alain hesitated, a black king in hand, and, in spite of the fawn-colored mask he wore, Camille thought she detected a frown from the look in his grey eyes. He then stood and stepped to the mantel and gazed up at his father’s portrait, and turned and looked across the chamber at his mother’s. “I love them both, I do, as do Borel and Celeste and Liaze. Every year, my sire and dam and their court would ride from woodland manor to woodland manor: a king’s court rade.”
“Raid?” asked Camille. “As in a loot and pillage raid?”
Alain smiled. “No, love: r-a-d-e. In this case it means to ride in procession, and my sire and dam’s entire retinue would rade. To the Forests of the Seasons they would come, visiting each of us in turn.” Alain paused, his eyes brimming in the lanternlight, and he whispered, “Those were splendid days.”
Camille stood and stepped to Alain’s side. “Love, if it pains you
…”
Alain made a sign of negation. “I am saddened, Camille, yet I would speak on.”
Camille took up his hand and kissed it, then held it gently as Alain continued:
“Some fifteen years back, by mortal reckoning, they disappeared, gone in the dead of night. They had arrived here at the manor no more than a fortnight ere then, and had intended to stay a fortnight more ere the king’s rade would take them onward unto Liaze’s manor in the Autumnwood.
“Yet of a sudden they were missing, my sire and dam, but their horses were still in the stables, and all of their goods were yet here, and so where and how they had gone was a mystery.
“We turned the house and grounds upside down in a search for them, yet nought did we find, not even the most remote sign of either.
“Hunters and trackers could come across no hint of a trail, not even Borel’s Wolves. They had simply vanished into thin air. Not even Ardu, the mage Celeste brought from the Springwood, could detect what had gone amiss, though he did say that an arcane spell was at work, one which he could not overcome.”
Camille drew in a deep breath and whispered, “ ’Twas magic?”
Alain nodded. “I even visited the Lady of the Mere, but she remained absent.”
“Lady of the Mere?”
Alain vaguely gestured. “Not far from here. A seer. Yet she is wholly elusive. ’Tis said she only appears in circumstances dire. The disappearance of my sire and dam would not seem to be one of those events.”
“Had they any enemies-your sire and dam-enemies who could have done this thing?”
“There was that trace of a spell cast, but neither the mages nor the witches we brought to Summerwood Manor could determine aught of it. And though ’tis said all kings have many a foe, none we know of has spells at his beck.”
As Alain again mentioned magic, Camille shivered. Then she frowned. “And your sire is a king?”
“Aye.”
“Who rules in his absence?”
“Faure: my sire’s steward, Lanval’s brother. And just as is Lanval, Faure, too, is quite honorable, and I ween would not do nor cause such a thing. Certainly not for power, for he is reluctant to steer the kingdom, and he urges Borel to take the throne, for Borel is eldest. Yet Borel declines, for he believes someday my sire will be found, as do my sisters and as do I. And as long as Borel and Celeste and Liaze and I refuse the throne, Faure must stand in my sire’s stead.”
Again Camille kissed Alain’s hand. “Oh, love, surely they will be found someday.”
The gloom of speaking of his lost parents weighed on Alain’s spirit for a sevenday or so, but then he brightened, and once again Camille found joy in his eyes and a smile on his lips and laughter in his voice.