Camille set the stave aside.
“… there is one traveller in the inn. He’s over there playing cards with some of the locals. Losing too, I might add. I asked him if he knew of such a place as you seek, but he said he did not, nor did the other players. And when I fetched ale, I asked my husband Bertrand and those two at the bar, and they did not know either.”
Camille sighed in disappointment. “Jolie, are there any mapmakers in town?”
Jolie shook her head.
“Then what about folk who might know where a land or town or village or dwelling or aught whatsoever lies east of the sun and west of the moon; do you know of any? Former merchants, travellers, hunters, elders, anyone who might know?”
“Well, I know everyone in Ardon, and I think none have travelled that much. Even so, it is a small hamlet, and you can easily ask each one. ’Twould only take a day or three to do so.”
“Oh, my,” said Camille. “I do hope that every town I come to I don’t have to ask every dweller within.”
Jolie smiled and laid a sympathetic hand atop one of Camille’s.
In that moment, Bertrand called, “Jolie, th’ lady’s bathwater is hot out back, so as whenever she’s ready. And as to the laundry…”
“Ah,” said Jolie, turning to Camille, “as to your laundry, just leave it for me.” Then she grinned and looked at sleeping Scruff. “I take it the little tyke rides on your shoulder, there where I see the white dripping on your cloak.”
Camille blushed. “I usually clean it off each evening myself, but I was so hungry I didn’t stop and-”
Jolie laughed. “Never you mind, fille, I can do it quite well.”
Of a sudden, Camille remembered the coins and jewelry sewn into the lining of her all-weather cloak. “Oh, Jolie, I will clean my own cloak, if you will but show me to the tubs.”
Jolie argued, but Camille insisted, and so to the bathing room they went, which also doubled for the laundry. When they were alone, Jolie said, “If it’s coins and such you have in the lining of your cloak, pish-tish, travellers come here all the time with such, and I’ve not broken a confidence yet.”
Camille sighed, and handed Jolie the all-weather garment and then each of the others as she disrobed to bathe, not bothering to hide her money belt.
That night in her room ere climbing into bed, again Camille examined the staff. My goodness, the bottommost blossom seems even more withered. Whatever can that mean?
The next dawntide, Camille was awakened by Scruff gently pecking on her cheek and chirping, heralding the light of the new day. Camille stumbled out from the bed and fetched a bit of the remaining grass seed yet stored in her rucksack. She made a small mound on the floor and set Scruff down. Eagerly he took to the seed, and Camille flopped back into bed. In moments she was deep in slumber.
In midmorning there came a tap on the door. Yet half-asleep, Camille groped her way to the panel. It was Jolie, the laundry fresh, the leather pants and vest scraped and wiped down clean. “Break of fast awaits your pleasure, Camille, though the day is well on its way.” Jolie swept from the room.
Camille groaned, and looked about for Scruff. He was pecking away at some kind of insect safely ensconced down between two floorboards. Camille poured water from an ewer into a basin and splashed some on her face, then she set the basin to the floor, where Scruff then took a full bath, fluttering and flouncing in the water, ere hopping out to shake himself off.
In moments Camille was dressed. “Come along, Scruff, it’s time to eat. “She took up her stave, then paused, and once again looked at the bottommost Goodness, it seems to have recovered. Now how can that be? Was it just a trick of the light?
The bottom blossom no longer appeared withered, but fairly fresh instead, though the blossom above it seemed fresher still.
Shaking her head in puzzlement, Camille set still-damp Scruff to her shoulder and headed for the common room. Jolie had Camille take her morning meal at a table in an arbor out back, where Scruff could scratch for grubs and insects and worms. Too, Jolie arranged for some millet seed to augment the little bird’s fare.
After a breakfast of rashers and toast and eggs, Camille took Scruff up, and through the village she went, stopping at dwellings and businesses and barns and such and asking the folk she found if anyone knew of a place east of the sun and west of the moon.
Long she spent at some of these stops, for folk there wanted to know of the news. Camille could only tell them of various happenings in the Summerwood, and of her Alain gone missing-though she avoided speaking of the curse. She spoke of her trip across the grassland and escaping the Serpentmen, then of her travel through Les Montagnes Sans Fin. Each and every one she met that day said she should have gone around-“ ’Tis much safer that way, you know.”
As evening drew nigh, Camille had only talked to a portion of the villagers; she would have to resume the next day.
Oh, I should have asked them who is the oldest person in the hamlet, for Lord Kelmot advised me that especially the elders might have the lore. I’ll do so on the morrow.
Camille returned to Le Sanglier.
After she took her supper that eve and had gone up to her room, Camille sat in the bed and by lanternlight examined the walking staff. Again the bottommost blossom was withered. Frowning in puzzlement, Camille set the stave aside and blew out the lamp and pulled the covers about her chin. Moments later she fumbled for the striker and lit the lantern once more. She rummaged through her rucksack and pulled out a spool of thread. Breaking off a piece, she wrapped it around the cane, tying it tightly just below the withered flower. Again she blew out the lamp; it was awhile ere she slept.
Dawn came, and Scruff chirped and pecked lightly on Camille’s cheek, waking her. It was only after she washed her face that Camille remembered the stave. She took it up and where a flower should have been, there was nought, though the thread was yet tightly affixed. She closely examined the place where the flower had been. Oh, what’s this? A tiny indention on the carved vine itself, as if it marks the place from which the blossom fell… But these are wooden flowers.
She looked on the floor for a tiny chip of wood or a grain of sawdust, something to be the blossom fallen from the stave. Yet she found nought.
Then she took up the stick again and looked down the length of the vine carefully. She found more tiny indentions along the part that appeared to be withered. Scruff chirped insistently to go out for his early feast, and Camille murmured, “In a moment, Scruff.” She counted the tiny dimples. Sixty-one. There are sixty-one wee dints. Still Scruff chattered. Camille sighed and said, “All right, my wee hungry friend, it’s to a meal we go.”
Swiftly she dressed, and down the stairs and out into the arbor she took Scruff. As he scrabbled about after his morning meal, Camille puzzled over the staff.
Again that day, Camille spoke with villagers, and none knew where lay a place east of the sun and west of the moon. They did tell her that the oldest person in the hamlet was probably Vivette, or mayhap Romy: they were sisters, perhaps twins, and it seems they had built the first house in this place, and anchored by their dwelling, the hamlet of Ardon slowly came to be as others settled in as neighbors.
Gradually, stopping at each door, Camille worked her way toward the cottage of the sisters, but none of the villagers on the way could answer her question as to where the place she looked for might be. As to the sisters, they lived in the last dwelling along the outbound lane, and there did Camille finally come.
Her knock on the door was answered by a beautiful maiden, a jot taller than Camille and a deal more buxom, and she had dark blue eyes and black hair twined with flowers down to the middle of her back.
“Yes?… Oh, you must be Camille. The whole village is talking of you, my dear, and of your quest. Come in. Come in. We’ve been expecting you.-Romy! Romy! Camille has finally come.”