Leon rose from the table and went down on one knee. “Princess Liaze, I beg your-”
Seeing the man humble himself before her, of a sudden Liaze relented and softly said, “Kneel not to me, Armsmaster, for we are not in my court, but in yours instead.”
Leon resumed his seat and took a long drink of tea. Then he looked at Liaze, his eyes glimmering with unshed tears, and he whispered, “My Luc, a knight.”
Liaze smiled and nodded. “Indeed, he is. You trained him well, Armsmaster.”
Leon shyly bobbed his head, and then took a long sip of his tea.
“My friend,” said Liaze when he set his cup down, “you started this tale by saying you might know why a witch snatched up Luc and flew away with him.”
“ ’Tis a guess on my part, yet perhaps it is Guillaume who hired her to find the blue gem, and he chose a witch to seek it out, for Guillaume needs it to claim the rank of comte in that demesne.”
“I see,” said Liaze. “And when the witch scried out the jewel, she found Luc wearing it.”
“Perhaps,” said Leon. “Perhaps.”
“It is a worthy guess, Armsmaster, one most likely to be.-Ah, then, that’s why the Redcap Goblins and Trolls were after him. They were the witch’s minions sent for the silver-set stone.”
Leon faintly smiled. “Even should she recover it, little does Guillaume know that only the true heir can wear the amulet. It will not benefit a usurper. Comte Amaury told me this in confidence, for there is some deadly secret concering the amulet that he would not reveal.-Once I tried to remove the talisman for safekeeping, and it nearly did me in.”
Liaze nodded and said, “As we discovered in Autumnwood Manor when we were tending to Luc’s wounds.”
Leon got to his feet, the man seeming somehow relieved now that the secret he had kept so many years had finally been told. “Well, Princess, let me tend to the horses, and then we’ll have a meal and talk about how Luc came to you, and why you are riding alone rather than in a retinue, and how you and I are going to rescue Luc.”
“I’ll help with the horses, Armsmaster,” said Liaze, “and tell you what you want to know, as well as why you cannot go on with me, though you can help me plan what next to do.”
“… And so you see, I yet have trials ahead. And Lady Skuld said I must go alone, but for the howling one.”
“But, Princess,” said Leon, “perhaps you have already ridden with fear when you came through the Forest of the Oaks.”
“Oui, I admit I was fearful in that place, yet I think had any been with me-a retinue of warriors-they would not have been slain by fear, as Lady Wyrd said would happen.”
Leon sighed in agreement. “There is that. Men have nothing to fear in the Forest of Oaks. Only women.”
Liaze nodded and neither one spoke for a while, and then the princess asked, “Have you seen any crows flying over?”
Leon shrugged. “If any did, I took no special note of them.-Still, if they were flying across sunwise borders, that’s the way the Blue Chateau lies.”
Liaze raised an eyebrow. “Ah, I see. Then perhaps that’s the way the witch lies as well. As such, it gives a bit of credence to the idea that Guillaume is behind Luc’s taking.”
They sat quietly a bit longer, and only the crackle of the fire broke the silence. After a moment Liaze stood and took up her mug and tin plate and knife and spoon and looked about the single room. “Where do we-?”
“There is a spring nearby where I clean them,” said Leon. “Runs all year, summer, winter, it matters not.” He got to his feet and took up his own tableware and a modest stewpot and ladle, as well as the lantern, and together they walked to the rock face of an upjut of land. Water poured out from a cleft in the stone to run in a clear stream and away, and together they knelt thereat to wash the utensils.
As Leon scoured away at the pot, he said, “What do you plan to do?”
Liaze stopped her own scrubbing and sighed. “I think the only thing left to me is to ride to wherever lies this Blue Chateau of yours on an isle in the Lake of the Rose and take on a task of some sort in the hold and see what I can discover.”
“Take on a task?”
“Oui, as a goose girl or some such.”
Leon shook his head. “You cannot ride in on Deadly Nightshade, towing your mare and four packhorses and claim to be a goose girl. You will need to leave them somewhere safe and go in on foot.-Ah, and perhaps I have just the place. There is a widow I used to visit when I was armsmaster of that keep, and…”
Liaze stayed with Leon another day, but neither the princess nor the armsmaster could come up with a better plan. And so, the next morn, seventeen days after setting out from Autumwood Manor, eighteen days after Luc was taken, and forty-one days ere a heart would cease to beat in the dark of the moon, Liaze rode away from the woodcutter’s cote, heading in the direction of the sunwise marge, for that’s the way the Blue Chateau lay, though seven borders beyond. Liaze had in her possession a note written in code to deliver to the comtesse, in the hopes Lady Adele could aid in the finding of Luc.
And so, astride Pied Agile and towing Nightshade and the four geldings after, Liaze fared into the woods.
Leon stood looking after her as she rode away, his hands clenching and unclenching, as if seeking weapons but finding none. And he despaired, for he would go at her side, yet he could find no way to get around Lady Wyrd’s rede. And though he had said he would ride with the princess even if it meant yielding up his life, Liaze had refused to let him accompany her. “Trust to the Fates,” she had said, and he had no recourse but to do so. And so he watched her ride away into the forest, and, when she was gone beyond sight, he turned and took up an axe and furiously began hewing cordwood.
Three days later, Leon saddled his grey and laded on supplies, and then dressed in his armor and took up his arms and rode away from the woodcutter’s cote and toward the sunwise border.
25
As Liaze rode deeper into the woods she could hear the distant sound of Leon’s axe hewing. Ah, but I would have loved his company, just as I would have liked Remy and his warband at my side. Yet Lady Skuld said, “For should you take a few with you, / Most Fear would likely slay.” Ah, me, but I cannot have the blood of others on my hands can I help it. And if that means riding alone, then let it be so. Au revoir, Leon, mon ami, foster pere of my Luc.
On she fared, and the sound of hewing faded. Finally, she could hear the axe no more, and it was as if she had lost a friend.
All morning she rode, as the sun rose up the sky, and occasionally she stopped at rills and streams to give the horses a drink and to take water herself. And at the noontide she found a lea with red clover growing, and there she stopped and let the horses graze, while she ate a bit of jerky along with biscuits slathered with honey.
As she sat watching the animals crop sweet blossoms amid bees gathering nectar and pollen, she mused on what Leon had told her, and at one point she laughed. Ah, my Luc, you are a comte. I cannot wait to see the look on Tutrice Martine’s face when I tell her. Hedge knight, she called you, when you are anything but. Not that it matters one whit, for I love you for what you truly are and not for the title you bear. But Martine, now, she is caught up in status, for did she not say that instead of you, a mere chevalier, I should marry a duc or a comte at least? I am certain, though, she would prefer that I wed a prince or a king. Hedge knight, indeed. Ha! When I introduce you to her as Comte Luc du Chateau Blu dans le Lac de la Rose et Guardien de la Cle, ah, but she will be shocked.
A snort from Nightshade brought Liaze out from her reflections, and she leapt to her feet and drew her long-knife and looked about. Yet she saw nought of a threat, and Nightshade and the other horses yet grazed placidly.