“Oh, Jack, you’d stick out like a sore thumb, big as you are, towering over everyone else. No, you’ll need to stay. Besides, I’d rather not have combat if there is a way to set my love free without blood being shed.”
“My lady,” growled Kolor, “I caution you: Trolls and Goblins or no, this may not be the place where your Alain doth be.” Kolor gestured at the lowering sun. “There sinks the sun, and the horns of the moon punctured the sea nearly three candlemarks past. Hence, this is not a place lying east of the sun and west of the moon. As I’ve said before, Faery or no, such a place cannot be.”
Tears brimming, Camille glanced at her stave then took a deep breath and said, “Nevertheless, I am going.”
“And you should take me with you,” said Big Jack.
Angrily, Camille brushed her tears aside and snapped, “No!”
Big Jack’s face crumpled, and Camille reached out a hand, but then let it fall to her side. “Jack, hear me: I will go alone and discover for myself whether or no this is the place where Alain is kept prisoner. Then and only then might I need you and the Dwarves to aid, but only if there is no other way.” Camille glanced at the Dwarven crew-sixty-seven in all counting Kolor, thirteen lost to the monster of the sea. “I have seen all the death I can stand, and I would have no more.”
“Wishes or no, my lady,” gritted Kolor, “if it becomes necessary, then death there will be.”
Camille glumly nodded, yet added, “But only if unavoidable.” She turned and looked at Big Jack and then Kolor, and was satisfied by a reluctant nod from each.
“All right, then,” said Kolor, “as we have discussed, just after darkness, we will set you ashore a bit away from the town. Then to avoid accidental discovery, we’ll shove off and stand out to sea. With our masts unstepped and our blue sails draped over the wales, from a distance we’ll look just like the waters; only someone seeking such should be able to sight us. There we’ll await your signaclass="underline" lantern or fire. Have you the oil?”
Camille nodded and pointed to her rucksack. “The three flasks you gave.”
“But list, Camille,” said Kolor, now glancing at Big Jack. “Should we not hear from you in a timely manner, we’ll not stay hidden long.”
Big Jack clenched a fist and nodded.
Camille sighed and said, “Agreed.”
Kolor then glanced at Scruff on her shoulder and said, “Keep an eye on that wee bird, for he is a wonder to have. Nought else I know of can tell when hidden peril is nigh.”
“Indeed, Captain, a better sentry I could not have.” Except at night, she silently added, wee little sleepy bird.
Twilight fell upon the ocean, and the Nordavind glided silently toward the isle. Soon they lowered sail, and rowed the last sea-league or so, to finally slip into a cove. Big Jack jumped over the side and waited.
Attired in a threadbare dress-the only thing of hers that she yet owned that had come from her pere’s poor cottage-and with Scruff asleep in the high pocket above her left breast she had sewn thereon, Camille shouldered her rucksack and bedroll and waterskin and took up her stave and turned to Kolor and said, “Lady Sorciere said unlooked-for help would come along the way, and it most certainly has, but none more so than you, Captain.” She kissed Kolor on the cheek, then waved au revoir to the Dwarves at the oars, then turned to waiting Big Jack. With tears in his eyes he reached up and lifted her across the top wale and sloshed to the beach and set her to dry land. Camille gently placed a hand to his wet cheek and, with a bravado she did not feel, she said, “Fear not, Jack. I’ll be all right. After all, what could possibly go wrong?” And she gripped his collar and pulled him down and kissed him where tears ran.
Then she turned and started up a low dune and inland.
When Camille reached the crest she looked hindward. The Dragonship was backing water, pulling away, and in spite of Lady Sorciere’s admonition, she almost cried out, “Wait! I would have you come along!” But she did not, for well did she know, but for one of the gifts-Scruff-she must go alone.
And so she went over the dune and down, then turned leftward and headed for the ramshackle town, where ’twas said Human slaves did dwell.
Her face smeared with dirt, her golden hair tied in a worn scarf, a small bundle of branch-wood on her shoulder as would a slave bear, Camille entered the streets of the town only to find them vacant. By starlight alone she made her way along the cobblestones. Of a sudden a voice hissed, “Here now, do you want to get yourself killed, out after curfew as you are?” Startled nearly out of her wits, Camille jerked about to see a dark figure in a doorway. Frantically, the figure motioned, “Quick, in here you stupid girl, before the patrol comes.”
Now Camille could hear a tramp of feet nearing, and before she could react, the figure-a man, she thought-jumped out and clutched her by the arm and jerked her toward the opening, her bundle of sticks flying from her shoulder to clatter to the cobbles. “Har!” came a cry, and the sound of running, even as the man, wrenching her about, darted back and snatched up the bound branch-wood. He then yanked her ’round opposite and dragged her through the doorway and shut it behind, darkness plunging down, alleviated only by a faint ruddy glow of a few coals on the hearth. As Camille and her rescuer stood holding their breath in the dimness, the clatter of arms and armor and the slap of running feet hammered past.
Soon all fell quiet…
… But for the pounding of my heart.
After a moment, by the dull glow of the dying coals Camille saw the dark shape of the man move across the room, and she heard the scratch of a match, and in the wavering light he lit a tallow candle and turned and held it high, the better to see just who this fool was who had been out after curfew.
And Camille leapt forward and embraced him, crying, “Lanval! Oh, Lanval! It’s you!”
34
“Chp! — chp! — chp! — chp!..” “Oh, Scruff,” exclaimed Camille, pushing away from Lanval and looking into the high pocket. “I’m so sorry.”
In the candlelight, Scruff looked up at Camille and cocked his head and chattered away, scolding her for mashing him between her and some man.
With wide eyes, Lanval, shabbily dressed, looked on this dirt-smeared girl, a girl bearing a rucksack and waterskin and bedroll, a girl with an angry little bird in a pocket on her thin-worn dress. “Mademoiselle, do I know you?”
“Lanval, it’s me, Camille.”
The steward of Summerwood Manor gasped, now seeing that the person under the dirt, this demoiselle, was indeed Lady Camille. He set the candle to the table, the tallow sending up a thin strand of smoke to add to the soot on the ceiling above. Then he took her by the hands and said, “Oh, my lady, what are you doing here in this terrible place?”
“Is my love Alain on this isle?”
“Aye, mademoiselle, the prince is here, a prisoner in the citadel.”
Camille’s knees nearly gave way, her relief so great in finding at last the place where her love was bound.
“My lady,” said Lanval, reaching out to brace her, and he aided her to a chair at a table.
Camille took several deep breaths then said, “I have come to set him free.”
As Lanval stepped to the fireplace and pulled two bricks away, he said, “I am afraid that cannot be done. Not only does a fortress hold him, but so do the Troll curses.”
“One by Olot and the other by his daughter?”
“Aye. Yet how know you this?”
“From something the Troll said in the Winterwood.”
“Ah, I remember: you did meet Olot there,” said Lanval, reaching in the hole behind the bricks. “-Here it is.” He removed a small canister. “Until that encounter, ’twas but one curse, and that by the daughter.”
“One or two, it matters not,” said Camille bitterly, “if only I had known the content of the curses, then mayhap none of this would have happened. Oh, Lanval, it is all my fault disaster whelmed the manor.”