Swiftly Camille stepped to the bed and she put her hand to Alain’s lips and then shook him by the shoulder. “Alain, Alain, it’s me,” she whispered. “Alain, wake up.”
But the prince lay slack, unresponsive, almost as if he’d been “What are you doing, oaf?” snarled Dre’ela, striding into the chamber.
Camille started, and then turned with a lackwitted grin and held up the Troll-gold nugget and said, “I–I was trying to see which is prettier, shiny gold or the groom.”
Dre’ela glanced at her own golden bangles and then at Alain, as if she, too, were trying to decide which was prettier. Then she grabbed Camille’s wrist in a painful grip and jerked her from the room, saying, “You’ve seen him, and that’s all you bargained for. I’m sending you back.”
In spite of Dre’ela’s clawlike clutch, “C-can I not stay in the castle?” asked Camille, hoping the chamumi’s answer would be yes, for surely Alain would waken, and if she could somehow divert the guards “No, you fool of a Human,” snarled Dre’ela. “You know treacherous slaves are not permitted in the castle at night.”
Camille hid her disappointment behind her lackwit face and said, “Th-then tomorrow night I–I will give you more true gold, and you will give me shiny gold, and I–I will see the groom again, eh?”
Dre’ela’s yellow eyes gleamed with the thought of more gold from this fool, and she said, “Oh, yes, Naif… Indeed.”
“I think he was drugged, Lanval,” said Camille, bitterness in her voice.
Lanval blew out a sigh of exasperation. “Drugged? I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Camille’s shoulders slumped in despair. “What will we do, Lanval, what will we do? I mean, there are only two days left, and I can’t talk to him if he’s drugged. And Dre’ela is there in the chambers as well. I need to be alone with him to see if he can tell us how the Fates or their gifts might be used to break the remaining curse.”
“I know not, my lady, yet there is this I do know: we must not let hopelessness or gloom o’erwhelm us, else we are fordone ere we begin.”
Camille took a deep breath and let it out. “You are right, Lanval. It is time to think and not lose heart.”
With effort, Camille set aside her emotions, and she fell into long thought. Finally she said, “Have you any cord, Lanval?” At the steward’s puzzled nod, Camille grinned and said, “I believe if I give Dre’ela a piece of cord along with the golden shuttle, she will step out from the chamber and back to the mirror to fix a new necklace. That will occupy her a short while. Yet it still leaves me with Alain being drugged.”
Lanval turned up his hands, but then Camille exclaimed, “A note!” She rushed to her rucksack, tossing aside the things Lanval had so carefully repacked. “I can leave a note in his food, mayhap in his porridge. Then, no matter how Dre’ela is drugging him, he can be on the alert for such and avoid it.”
A frown crossed Lanval’s face. “You must be careful in what you say, for should the guards or Dre’ela or Olot or Te’e-foon discover your note, it must not let them know aught.”
“Can they even read, Lanval?”
“I don’t know, my lady, but we must assume that they can.”
Camille nodded and sat awhile, then finally penned:
Every bird is wary in what it drinks and eats, especially a tiny brown sparrow sitting in a tree, scruffy little soul just like…?C?
Camille then frowned and said, “Ah, but I know how the Bear eats, and he is likely to gobble this note down should I place it in his food. We must find another way.”
She looked at Lanval, but he shrugged.
And then Camille said, “I know! I’ll scent it with something I am certain does not exist in that castle.”
“What is that, my lady?’
“Soap!” said Camille, and she rummaged through her rucksack and drew out the last of the Summerwood Manor soap she yet had, now nought but a chip. As she rubbed it across the vellum, she said, “We’ll slip it under the porridge bowl, where the Bear will surely scent it.” She paused and looked at Lanval. “Oh, my, but there is this: will Alain know of the note if the Bear does find it?”
“I believe so, Ma’amselle, for once he said that when he is a man he remembers all the Bear has done, though when he is the Bear at times he has trouble holding on to his Humanity. Or so the prince did say.”
“Good,” declared Camille, folding the vellum over and over, then dripping candle wax along the edges to seal the ink against liquid; “Just in case,” said Camille.
Then she rubbed more soap over the outside. “Surely the Bear will scent this.”
“But what if he does not?” asked Lanval. “What will you do if on morrow night you find the prince asleep?”
“If this fails, then when I return tomorrow night I will slip out and hide nigh the cove till day comes on the land, and then set a signal fire to call Kolor and the Dwarves and Big Jack. I had hoped to avoid combat, but we may have no other choice.”
Lanval shook his head and sighed.
“What?” asked Camille.
“My lady, I think it will take a miracle for any to invade that stronghold.”
A bolt of fear shot through Camille’s chest, but she said, “Then let us pray it does not come to that.”
As Camille followed Dre’ela up the stairs, she heard a peculiar chanting. Ere coming to the top, Dre’ela paused and pushed out a hand to hold Camille back, and they waited. When the chanting ceased, the chamumi went on, Camille following. At the landing, Camille saw down the corridor and just disappearing ’round a corner a blot of darkness streaming tatters and tendrils, like a ragged shadow moving away, and it seemed to Camille she heard muttering in the tattered shadow’s wake. It reminded Camille of something or someone, and just as they reached the Goblin-guarded door, she remembered the ragged silhouette that had flown across the face of the moon the night the Goblins had come to Summerwood Manor, the night Lord Kelmot and the Lynx Riders had slain them all. Too, it was the night the Goblins had slaughtered two of the black swans, and the rest had flown away. Yet what might that streaming black thing have been, or the one that had vanished ’round the corner, Camille could not say.
Dre’ela motioned the guards to open the door, and then she turned to Camille and held out a hand. “I’ll have my wedding gift now.”
Camille reached into her pocket and pulled out the cord and the shuttle. “Chamumi Dre’ela, have you my shiny?”
Dre’ela’s eyes widened with greed at the sight of the golden shuttle, and she hurriedly gave Camille another score of Troll-gold nuggets and snatched the shuttle and cord from Camille and rushed in to stand before the mirror. Camille slipped past her and into Alain’s bedchamber. The prince lay on the bed, one hand tightly clutched and held to his chest.
Rushing to his side, “Alain, Alain, my love,” whispered Camille, “ ’tis-” But there was no response, though the prince did breathe. Camille shook him, yet he lay slack. Then Camille opened his fist, and therein was the note Lanval had hidden under the porridge bowl that very morn. He found it and read it and knew I was here, and he was waiting for me. But then, somehow, he could not avoid being drugged.. or, wait! Bespelled! That was what the chanting was about. Someone bespelled my love with sleep. Oh, what am I going to-?
“See my pretty?” croaked Dre’ela.
Camille tucked the note into her pocket and then, hoping that Dre’ela would not see the tears running down her face, she turned and gape-mouth grinned and held up a nugget and said, “Shiny.”
Dre’ela stood in the doorway, her golden-shuttle necklace gleaming in the candlelight next to the golden spool.
“It wasn’t a drug,” said Camille weeping, “but a spell instead. He had the note. He had the note. Yet it will do us no good.”
“There, there,” murmured Lanval, as he held her and stroked her hair. “It will be all right. It will be all right.”
Camille pushed herself away. “How can you say that, Lanval? Tomorrow is the very last day, the very last day of all.” She snatched up the stave and shoved it toward Lanval. “See!” A hairline-thin crescent was all that was left on the dark disk.