A moon passed, and then another, and Alain and Camille’s ardor grew eve by eve, and their lovemaking became even more passionate. And Camille spent her noon-times with the Bear, and her afternoons with Blanche or Andre or the seamstresses, who allowed Camille to join them in their glad circle, where mirth oft rang; or she spent time with other members of the household staff, learning of their duties and deeds.
The evenings and nights she spent with Alain, and on a few of those, Alain conducted the business of the Summerwood Principality, and he had Camille sit at his side as he dealt with smallholders and merchants and hunters and the like, or a poacher or two, though within this part of Faery little changed, and so, much could be handled by Lanval without need of intervention by the prince. Hence, for the most part, much or all of their evenings were free, and they took elegant meals and played echecs and dames, or they read in quietness to one another from the books and scrolls and tomes and journals in the great library. Alain taught her more dances: the quadrille, the minuet, and a right vigorous caper named the reel, which Alain said came from a land across a wave-tossed channel of the sea. Too, they oft sang-arias, or duets-Camille in her clear and pure soprano, and Alain in his flawless tenor. While she did not move from her quarters into his, she slept with him every night-sometimes with him merely holding her close or she embracing him, other times in amorous clench. Even though they bedded together, every darktide just ere dawn he would leave her side.
On one of those nights as Camille lay beside her sleeping love in the darkness complete and listened to him softly breathe, cautiously and with but a single finger she lightly traced his features, for she had never seen beyond the masks he wore, her touch tracing the line of his jaw, his lips, his brow, his cheeks, his nose…
They do not seem monstrous, disfigured. And regardless of any mark he might have, I would think him quite beautiful could I but see. She withdrew her touch. Why does-?
“Camille,” his voice came softly through the dark, “please do not do that again.”
“Oh!” Camille gasped. “I thought you asleep, my love.”
“I was.” Alain swung his feet out from under the cover and sat a moment on the edge of the bed. “Dawn is coming.”
Camille kicked the satin aside and scrambled to her knees and embraced him from behind, her bare breasts pressing against his naked back. “Why, love, do I never see you in the day?”
Alain sighed. “What I do in the day is unavoidable. It’s all part of the terrible problem with which I and others do grapple.”
“Others?”
“My kith.”
Camille rested her chin on his shoulder. “Borel, Celeste, and Liaze?”
“Aye. Even now they search their demesnes for those who might help. Should they find those with promise, they will bring them here.”
“If they can help, then why can’t I?”
“Oh, love, I can only say that one day you will know.” Alain twisted about and took her face in his hands and kissed and then released her. He stood and moved away, and she could hear him donning his clothes in the dark. Moments later there came the shkk of a striker, and lanternlight filled the chamber, revealing Alain now fully clothed, his face concealed behind a pale yellow mask. He kissed her again, then said, “I must go, love,” and then he was gone.
With a sigh, Camille settled back in the bed, his bed, but questions without answers tumbled through her thoughts, and she could not sleep. Finally, she arose and donned her own clothes, then made her way to her chambers. As usual, Blanche lay sleeping on a couch, but awoke at the opening of the door. Camille took a long, hot bath, Blanche yawning bleary-eyed as Camille soaked. Finally, Camille took to her own bed and fell asleep at last, as Blanche slipped away in the morn.
A sevenday passed with no resolution to Camille’s manifold questions, and yet she loved Alain no less for his secrecy and silence. And still their adoration grew.
It was as Camille knelt next to Andre and dropped seeds into the soil and covered them over, that there sounded trumpets on the high hills above. Camille stood and shaded her eyes and peered afar even as the horns sounded again, and down the distant slope a procession came, riders ahorse.
“My lady,” said Andre, now standing at her side, “methinks y’d better make ready to receive guests.”
“Who is it, Andre? Do you know?”
“One of the siblings, I shouldn’t wonder.”
In that moment-“My lady!” came a cry. “My lady!” Camille turned to see Blanche running across the sward, her skirt held up to do so. “My lady, we must make you presentable; a rade, a rade has come!”
Reaching Camille’s side and gasping for breath, Blanche said, “If I’m not mistaken, ’tis Celeste and Liaze, come to visit the prince. Oh, Lady, we can’t have them see you like this, all grimed with dirt.” The handmaid cast an accusing eye at the gardener, but he merely shrugged.
In that moment, topping the hill came another rider, only this one had a pack of Wolves padding alongside. Blanche drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, goodness, it’s all three come.”
“Aye,” agreed Andre, “and there look to be strangers in their train.”
Blanche tugged on Camille’s arm. “My lady, now listen to me! We must go this instant, else they’ll be here before you are presentable.”
As Camille was drawn into the mansion by Blanche, footmen raced across the sward toward the distant gates. And inside the manor, servants and maids, all directed by Lanval, rushed to and fro, for there were rooms to be aired and beds to be made and banquets to be prepared, for indeed ’twas true: a splendid rade had come.
13
“No, no, my lady,” said Lanval. “You must stand here on the symbol of Summerwood Manor.”
Freshly scrubbed and most hurriedly dressed in a pale jade-green gown with pale cream petticoats under, and in green shoes with pale cream silk stockings, and with pale jade-green ribbons wound in her golden hair, and a necklace of square-cut, pale yellow jargoons about her throat and a matching ring on her left hand, Camille had come rushing down the stairs and into the entry hall, where Lanval awaited her on the oak-tree inlay. She would have run right past him, but he stepped into her path.
Camille looked beyond him and said, “Oh, but I cannot stay here, for I wish to see them come. Please, Lanval, I have not before ever seen a rade.”
Lanval sighed, though a hint of a smile crossed his lips. “Lady Camille, you need not my permission, for you are mistress here. Yet ere they reach the manor, I strongly advise that you return unto the oak and stand in the very center, for they, too, must learn you are the mistress here.”
“Oh, merci, Lanval.” Camille rushed from the grand entry hall and through the corridor and to the great front door. Once again lines of servants and maids and footmen stood aflank the open portal, awaiting the arrival of the visitors.
Camille stopped just within the shadow of the doorway, her eyes seeking the rade.
Lanval stepped to her side.
Endless moments passed, or so it seemed to Camille, yet of a sudden, emerging from the lane of oaks, two riders appeared, two ladies, followed by a small retinue and then a gap, where none came.
“Where are the others?” whispered Camille.
“Many stopped just inside the gate,” said Lanval, “there to pitch camp and tend the horses, which will be stabled outside.”
“Outside?”
“Outside the walls.”
“Because…?”
“The Bear, my lady. The horses will not abide.”
“Oh. I remember. Renaud said such. But what about these steeds that come?”
“They will be stabled without as well.”
In that moment, grey shapes loped out from the shadows of the oaks, and another rider came, two or three more in his wake.