Liaze did not stop to camp that night, but continued to fare onward instead, sometimes astride the stallion, sometimes walking, at other times riding the mare, though the black yet led the way.
As Liaze dozed off and on in the saddle, it was nigh noon of the following day while mounted on Nightshade that she came to the sunwise twilight bound. She clucked her tongue and urged the stallion forward, and in that moment, trailing, Pied Agile reared, and someone or something landed behind Liaze and grabbed her by the hair and jerked her hindward and threw an arm about her neck. Liaze managed to stay in the saddle, and she smelled a musky reek and glimpsed a goatlike leg alongside her own. Satyr! She kicked Nightshade in the flanks and wrenched her long-knife from the thigh scabbard even as the stallion sprang forward into the twilight, the other horses nearly stumbling, but following. But the Satyr yet had its fingers tangled in her hair, and with his bristly forearm he began choking her into submission. Reversing her grip and praying to not hit the black, Liaze blindly stabbed down at the leg of the being, and in the shadowlight she felt the blade strike home.
In the darkness of the border, the creature fell away, yet his fingers were still entangled in her tresses, and she was nearly dragged from the saddle, and she felt as if her hair was being yanked out by the roots. Of a sudden she was free, the Satyr gone, and Nightshade hammered on through the blackness and beyond, out into sunlight and an open field.
Panting, her heart racing, Liaze kept the stallion running, the mare and geldings galloping in tow. The princess looked behind, and nothing, no one, no Satyr, came charging after.
She was free of the Oak Forest and its perils, and she burst into tears and wept uncontrollably, to her own dismay.
23
Liaze reined back on Nightshade and slowed him and the mare and geldings to a walk. She loosed the reins and gave the stallion his head and let him choose the trail.
As the black wended between sparse thickets and a few stands of timber, with low rolling hills to the fore, Liaze gained control of her emotions and berated herself for weeping like a silly goose. She cleaned her long-knife of Satyr blood and slid it into its sheath. She removed the beeswax from her ears and reveled in the trilling of birds, of the humming of insects, of the clop and breathing of her horses and the creak of leather, and the soft wafting song of the gentle breeze. As she listened to the surround, Nightshade came upon a trace of a road. Wagon ruts marked the way; it was a two-track farm lane used to reach the field they had left behind, though whatever crop it had held-most likely hay-had been harvested.
They followed this route and soon came in among other fields: grain mostly-rye, barley, wheat-though here and there grew turnips and squash and other vegetable crops. By the reach of the fields, it has to be an extensive croft. Soon Liaze’s suspicions were confirmed, for she came unto a large farmhouse- With numerous rooms, no doubt; a considerable family must live here; prosperous, too. Behind the dwelling sat a great byre; abundant cords of firewood lay under a wide, sloped roof held up by tall poles; on beyond, several round grain storage sheds squatted next to a silo; a number of other croft structures were scattered here and there.
Liaze reined Nightshade into the yard, and a yellow-haired, matronly woman in a fine-woven linen dress the color of a clear sky at noon stepped onto the porch and shaded her eyes and watched as the princess rode nigh.
“Might I have some water for me and my horses?” Liaze asked.
“Indeed you might,” said the woman, gesturing toward the side of the house. And as Liaze rode past: “Oh, my, you’re a fille,” declared the woman, stepping down from the porch and walking alongside. “I thought you a warrior, dressed as you are and riding that big black horse.”
“Would that I were,” said Liaze, glancing back in the direction she had come. “It would have made things easier.”
“Oh, you didn’t pass through the Forest of Oaks, now, did you?”
“Indeed I did,” said Liaze.
The woman’s brown, golden-hued eyes flew wide. “Oh, you poor child, did they keep you long?”
“They did not keep me at all,” said Liaze, reining Nightshade to a halt at a watering trough, an axle-driven, bucket-chain pump at one end atop the stone rim of a well.
“Then you are certainly warrior enough, or very skillful, or extremely fortunate,” said the woman.
“I think the Fates themselves were watching over me,” said Liaze, dismounting, a faint smile on her face.
As Liaze turned the wheel-crank ’round and ’round to spill water into the trough, the horses crowded forward, though on their long tethers the geldings gave Nightshade considerable leeway.
With the vessel three-quarters full, Liaze stopped turning the wheel and ducked her head under the surface next to Pied Agile and, after a moment, came up sputtering.
“Oh, dear,” said the woman. “Let me get you a towel.” She rushed to a side door and into the house and quickly returned with a soft cotton cloth.
Liaze patted her face dry and then briskly rubbed her hair, wincing occasionally, for her yanked-upon scalp was yet tender, especially where strands had been torn loose.
The woman said, “Would you like a cup of hot tea and perhaps a bite to eat?”
“Oh, I would treasure it,” said Liaze.
The woman eyed the packhorse goods and said, “Well then, why don’t you give your animals a bit of grain while I prepare, and then you can tell me what in Faery you were doing coming through that most dreadful Forest of the Oaks.-Oh, and I am Madame Divenard, but at times my sisters-one on each side-call me Midi, as can you.”
“And I am Liaze of the Autumnwood,” replied the princess.
“Well and good,” said Midi, smiling. She turned and hastened toward the house, calling back over her shoulder, “Now hurry, for I shan’t be long.”
“… And that’s why I had to come through the oaks,” said Liaze. She took the last bite of buttered and honeyed biscuit, and washed it down with bracing hot tea.
“Well, my dear, that’s quite a tale. And, oh, from what you’ve told me, you’ve crossed the four twilight borders that your Sir Luc rode going the opposite way.”
“Did Luc come past your croft?”
“If he did, Liaze, then it was when my sisters and I were busy elsewhere.”
Liaze’s face fell, and she sighed. “Always before, I had confirmation that Luc rode this way, what with Caillou and Matthieu’s corroboration. But now it seems…” Liaze’s words fell to silence.
Madame Divenard reached across the table and patted the princess on the hand. “Fear not, Liaze, from what you tell me, the black follows the way.”
Heartened somewhat, Liaze asked, “Do you know of any witch living nearby, or of a woodcutter-an armsmaster-named Leon?”
“Non, but someone in the village might know,” said Midi.
“Village?”
“Oui,” said Midi, gesturing in the direction Liaze had been faring. “Ruisseau Miel is but an afternoon’s ride hence. You go down my lane until you reach the main road, and then follow it onward till you come to the town. A sign will point the way.”
Liaze stood. “Then I’ll be going now, for if someone there might know of a witch or a woodcutter, I-”
“But Liaze,” protested Midi, looking up at her, “you have had little rest and a terrible experience in the Forest of Oaks. Surely you can stay here one night and catch up on your missing sleep.”
“Non, Madame Divenard. My horses and I can last long enough to reach this town you speak of; it is there we will rest.”
Midi sighed and stood, and then brightened. “It has but one inn, L’Abeille Occupee, with quite a good stable. Its kitchens are, um.. adequate, and the wine, eh… tolerable. L’Abeille is where the honey buyers stay when they come in the honey season.”