But then came one night…
Camille took up Scruff and reached high to set him on the branch of a potted tree there upon the brightly lit stage. She stood silent for a moment, and a hush fell over the audience, and then came a run of tweeting notes from the fife, and Camille turned as if just discovering the wee brown bird, and she began to sing:
“Tiny brown sparrow, sitting in the tree,
Scruffy little soul, just like me,
Would you be an eagle, would you be a hawk,
Or would you wish instead to sing like a lark?
Or would you have plumage bright and gay,
Or would you wish…”
As Camille came to the second verse, the drum softly took up the rhythm, adding its beat to the chirping fife. At the third verse, the flute joined in, and at the fourth, the harp, and still Camille sang verse upon verse, chorus after chorus, her song telling the well-known tale of the maiden who found comfort in the familiar, yet who wished somehow to experience something new and unpredictable, a maiden who would finally discover love, which would set her free to fly as the transformed sparrow she then was. And in singing this song, Camille’s voice soared to heights that caused the audience to gasp, and it dropped to depths but a whisper, her tones pure and clear and true.
And as the song came toward an end, a clear tenor voice from the audience joined with hers, and Camille nearly faltered- Alain? — and she looked to see who caroled in flawless harmony in melodic counterpoint to her soaring soprano. In the shadows beyond the footlights she could just make out a tall, fair-haired stranger standing midway up the right-hand aisle, someone she had never before seen, yet someone somehow familiar. The audience broke into spontaneous applause, quickly quelled, for they would not miss even a single note or word, as the stranger sang of the sparrow, and the golden-haired maiden sang of the girl.
And the harp and fife, and flute and drum fell silent, for here was perfection needing no accompaniment.
And as he caroled, the stranger walked forward to sing up to Camille, and she to sing down to him.
At last the song came to an end, and both Camille and the stranger fell silent, as did the entire hall, some in the audience weeping quietly in joy, others sitting wholly stunned.
But then Scruff emitted a loud “ Chp! ” and as if that were a signal, the hall erupted in great glad shouts and thunderous applause and calls of “ Bravo! Bis! Plus! ” and “ Camille!”
The stranger leapt onto the stage, and he took Camille’s hand and bowed to the audience as she curtseyed. As they stepped back from the footlights he smiled at her, the sapphire gaze of his tilted eyes sparkling within his narrow but handsome face, his alabaster skin somehow glowing as of a hint of gold. Tall and lean, he stepped forward with her again, and bowed as she curtseyed, and as he did so he glanced sideways at her and said, “My Lady Camille, I am Rondalo, and I hear you have been looking for me.”
26
Hand in hand, they fled the music hall, escaping wellwishers and ardent admirers alike, Rondalo whisking her away into the shadows cast by a waxing gibbous moon above. He hied her down side streets, Scruff asleep in the special shoulder-pocket of her new-made gown. Finally, well clear of the devotees, Rondalo slowed to a stroll and reluctantly released his grip.
Catching his breath, he said, “My lady, I did not know any other than Elvenkind could sing as do you.”
Somewhat breathlessly, Camille replied, “And I thought none but Alain could sing as well as you.”
“Alain?”
“He is my love,” said Camille, not noting how Rondalo’s face fell at such news.
“The one I seek,” added Camille.
“Lost, run away, kidnapped, vanished?”
“ ’Tis a long tale, sieur,” said Camille. “One I pray you can help me resolve.”
“We have all night, my lady,” said Rondalo, “and I know just the place where your tale shall trip gently from your treasured lips unto my unworthy ear.”
Rondalo swirled the wine in his glass and peered within. “ ’Tis quite a tale, that… one worthy of a saga or song, did we but know the end.”
They sat in soft-glowing candlelight in a small, out-of-the-way restaurant on the downstream rim of the great isle. Faint dawn glimmered through windows. In a distant booth, the restaurateur slept.
“Regardless, Lady Camille, I know not where lies this place you seek-”
“Oh,” said Camille, despairing.
“-but I know someone who might help.”
Hope bloomed.
“Who? Where?”
“Nearby,” said Rondalo, gesturing outward. “As to whom, mayhap you know her as the Lady of the River, though her true name is Chemine. She is my dam.”
“Your mere? But I thought you were one of the Fir-Oh, my, now I know who you remind me of: Lisane, the Lady of the Bower.”
Rondalo laughed. “A distant cousin, Lisane. Yet how do I remind you of her?”
Camille turned up a hand. “The same tilt of eyes, the same slender face, the same tipped ears, the same alabaster skin with an aura of gold.”
Rondalo grinned and looked into his wineglass and shook his head. “My dear, those are but Elven traits.”
“Lisane is an Elf?”
Rondalo looked up at her. “Indeed.”
Camille dropped her gaze. “I did not know, for she said nought.”
“Undeniably, you are newly come unto Faery.”
Camille nodded. “There is much in this realm of which I have not the faintest inkling. Still, if your mere, Chemine, the Lady of the River, can aid, I would be most grateful.”
Rondalo looked downstream toward the distant small isle. “We will go thither this eve, for first light comes, and I deem you need rest.”
Rondalo cast coin on the table, and they slipped out without waking the restaurateur.
They strolled in silence along the bluff toward the Crown and Scepter, while the river below slipped gently through the waning night, and just as they reached the riverside door, full dawn finally came, and, with small, sleepy peeps followed by insistent chirps, Scruff awakened and scrambled to Camille’s shoulder and demanded they break fast.
Rondalo was yet laughing when he bade au revoir, and that he would see her in the eve.
It was late afternoon as Rondalo and Camille, with Scruff on her shoulder, stepped from the bridge and onto the high riverside bluff.
“I thought we would be taking a boat to the isle,” said Camille.
“Non, Camille, there are no docks, no cliffside stairs, no scaling ladders to my dam’s abode.”
“Then how-?”
“You will see,” said Rondalo, smiling.
They followed the road a distance, past a large paddock and a busy set of stables, where, since no horse was allowed in the city of Les Iles, those of the red coach as well as those of other travellers were looked after. The road went onward a way, but then turned and ran down the face of the bluff through a series of heavily buttressed switchbacks to the ferry slips below. Rondalo and Camille did not follow this way, but instead at the high turn they did leave the road and entered into the galleries of the woodland beyond; therein they made their way among the trees overlooking the river far under.
“Tell me, Rondalo, are you one of the Firsts? I mean, Lisane said you were, yet it would seem that your mere had to precede you herein. Would that not make you instead one of, say, the Seconds?”
Rondalo smiled. “She was in labor the moment she stepped into Faery, and swiftly was I born… or so it is she tells me.”
“What came before?” asked Camille. “That is, where did your mere live ere then? Whence came she?”
Rondalo shrugged. “ ’Tis said that long past there was no Faery, until shaped in the tales of the Keltoi, a wandering race of true bards, every man a king, and they finally came to settle on an emerald isle somewhere elsewhen. How they did so-created Faery, that is-it is not at all certain. Some claim that as they told their glorious tales to one another, they spoke with such silver tongues, with such subtle mastery, that the gods themselves listened intently, and what the Keltoi told, the gods made manifest. Thus was Faery fashioned, twilight borders and all, and the moment my dam stepped into Faery was the moment I was born.”