Once Upon a Winter's Night

by Dennis L McKiernan

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 . . .”

  Camille sang verse upon verse, chorus after chorus, the song telling of a maiden who wished a different lot in life, yet who found comfort in familiar things, and she finally discovered love, which set her free to fly as the transformed sparrow she then was. And all throughout the aria, Camille’s voice soared to unrestrained heights and dropped to whispering depths, with tones so pure, so clear, so true, that tears ran down Alain’s face from the sheer perfection and joy of it.

  And as the song came toward an end, Alain’s clear tenor voice joined with hers, and he caroled in flawless harmony and in melodic counterpoint to her ascendant soprano tones, he singing of the sparrow, she singing of the girl.

  At last the song ended, and Alain sat long moments in silence, Camille not daring to say even a single word. Finally he looked up at her, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “My lady, you take my breath away.”

  All the tension fled from Camille, and she expelled a trembling sigh and said, “My lord, I am giddy with relief that you find my singing to your like. Even so, now it is your turn to sing unto me.”

  Alain wiped his eyes with his fingers and then said, “Giddy? You are giddy?” He grinned, then sobered and struck a chord and said, “ ‘The Giddy Sea.’ ” He then played an introductory phrase, and lifted his clear tenor in song, all the while looking at Camille:“What is this thunderbolt stop’d my heart

  And shook the breath from me

  And set my soul a-sailing

  ’Pon a giddy sea?

  “What is this pounding in my chest

  When you come into seeing,

  This wondrous surge from head to toe

  That floods my entire being?

  “What is this burning in my blood

  That spins my head around

  And stuns me trembling helplessly

  As in your eyes I drown?

  “Oh, should I ask the answer

  From all the gods above,

  When every eye can see

  That I’ve been whelmed by love?

  “ ’Tis you, my heart, my dearest heart,

  To me this thing hast done,

  And left me yearning for the days

  Our two hearts become but one.

  “Oh, leave me not alone, my love,

  Upon this giddy sea.

  Instead let’s make it giddier:

  Come sail away with me.

  “Leave me not alone, my love,

  Come sail away with me.

  Oh, my love, my sweet, sweet love,

  Let us sail the giddy sea.”

  As the notes faded into silence, Alain looked into Camille’s eyes and whispered, “Leave me not alone, my love, come sail away with me.”

  Camille slid onto the bench and said, “I think I shall go entirely mad if you do not kiss me now.”

  Alain took her in his arms and gently kissed her, and she answered with an urgency. Pent need broke free, his fire matching hers. Yet kissing, they stood, the bench toppling over, but they paid it no heed, so hot now the flames of desire. And then Alain swept her up and bore her through a doorway and into his bedchamber as Camille kissed his neck, his shoulder, his ear, as well as his cheek, silk caressing her lips.

  He set Camille to her feet, and then slowly undressed her, kissing her mouth, her shoulders, her hands, her breasts.

  He threw back the covers and lifted her up and laid her on silken sheets, and she watched as he undressed, all but the mask, and Camille’s breath shuddered with confusion and desire, for his slender body was beautiful, and his need was plain to see. At this last she was somewhat frightened, yet wanting.

  Then he blew out the candle, saying, “I’ll not make love wearing this.”

  In the darkness, he lay down beside her, his hands caressing as she clasped him to her, her lips clinging to his, their tongues exploring. And though she didn’t quite know what to do, she opened her legs when he gently moved between. There was but an instant of pain as he entered into her. And then for a moment he remained quite still, and she did not understand, but then he began slowly moving, slowly, slowly, gently. Joy, delight, desire, love: all thrilled through Camille, and she embraced Alain and began responding, her own tentative movements meeting his.

  And still he moved slowly, ever so.

  A joyous tension began to build, Camille’s breath coming in gasps, though Alain remained silent.

  And gradually, ever so gradually, the pace of his thrusts increased, hers matching, Camille completely lost in a closeness so total, a commitment absolute, in the wonder of two being one, and the joy of being complete.

  And then—“Oh, my. I never. Oh, Alain. Oh, Love. I . . . I . . .”

  Moaning, gasping, wild with desire, she wrapped her legs ’round and began kissing him frantically, finding no mask to interfere, her responses frenzied, urgent, needing, wanting, matching. “Oh, Mithras. . . . Oh, sweet Mithras. . . . Oh. . . . Oh. . . . Oh . . .”

  12

  Idyll

  Drenched in perspiration, at last they disentangled and fell away from one another, each lying back in the softness of the bed in the absolute darkness of the chamber. But then Alain rolled onto his side toward Camille and reached out and touched her shoulder and slid his finger down her arm to find her hand and enlace his fingers in hers. “Oh, my love, I had not meant for this to happen until we were wed, yet I am quite glad it did.” Camille squeezed his hand in silent agreement. Alain turned her hand over in his and kissed her palm, but then took a deep breath and expelled it. “Even so, at this time we cannot be formally married—the banns posted, the king notified, our union blessed by a heirophant. And the terrible thing is, I cannot tell you why, for to do so would bring disaster to all.”

  In the darkness, Camille frowned. “I do not understand, my lord.”

  “Please, Camille, when we are alone together, or within family, I am Alain, though I would rather you call me by that which you named me in the throes of our passion.”

  “My love,” whispered Camille.

  In the dark, Alain kissed her lips, a kiss she fervently returned. Then he captured her hand again and said, “Hear me, my sweet, I will not keep from you any secrets but this one, and only because I must, for this I do tell you, it would bring a calamity beyond reckoning were we to wed ere a terrible predicament is resolved. And I can but ask that you trust me till then, though given my silence I cannot say why you should. Yet this I do pledge: when the dilemma is banished, I will most ardently marry you, for then we can wed without bringing tragedy crashing down upon Faery, and you are my very heart.”

  Alain fell silent, and Camille drew his hand to her lips and kissed each one of his fingers. “My lord, my love, my prince, my heart, my own, would that I knew this quandary you face, for then I could share the burden. Yet if it is not to be, then I do so accept, for wedded or no, I do love you most dearly.”

  Alain drew her to him, flesh to flesh, and showered her with kisses, and he cupped each of her breasts and kissed curve and slope and aureole, and Camille could feel him quickening even as she responded, and passion flared anew, and they made love again, gentle at first, then afire.

  Dawn was in the sky when Camille drowsily wakened. Faint light seeped ’round the edges of the curtained skylight above, the only window in the room. She turned and reached for Alain, yet he was not there, his side of the bed quite empty, the warmth of his presence nearly gone, the silken sheets growing chill in his absence. Camille sat upright and looked about, yet in the dimness, her prince was not to be seen. Where he had gone, she knew not—Yet perchance he will soon return. Yawning and stretching catlike, Camille then settled back, and moments later she was asleep again.

  “Hruhmm!” A man cleared his throat.

  “Oh, Alain—” Camille turned to
face him, then bolted upright, barely catching the silken cover as it slid down. Clasping it to her bosom, “Lanval,” she said.

  “My lady,” replied the steward, a sparkle in his eye. A white silken robe was draped over his arm.

  “Oh, my, but where is the prince?”

  “About his business, I deem,” said Lanval. “He sent you this.” Lanval placed the snow-white, satin robe upon the foot of the bed. “Do you wish to be served your breakfast here?”

  “Well . . .—Oh, no! Blanche! She will have the hounds out after me, finding my own bed empty. My lor—um, Lanval, I believe I should hie there now.”

  A faint smile crossed Lanval’s face, as he took up her gown from the floor to shake out the wrinkles and then draped it across his arm. He pointedly did not even look at the undergarments, petticoats and all. “Fear not, Lady Camille, for she knows of your whereabouts. In fact, will it set your mind to ease, I deem the entire staff knows.”

  Camille reddened then said, “Nevertheless, ’tis to my quarters I will go.” She pointedly looked at the white robe at the foot of the bed. “If you will excuse me . . .”

  Lanval bowed and said, “I will await you in the next room.”

  When he had gone through the doorway, Camille cast back the light satin cover and snatched up the robe. Quickly, she slipped it on and belted it closed, then stepped into her shoes and gathered up her undergarments, rolling all into a petticoat bundle, then turned to the bed to—

  “Oh, my!” she gasped.

  “My lady? Is aught amiss?”

  “Oh, Lanval, I have ruined a sheet. I thought my courses ended a three-day past, yet . . .”

  A smear of blood stained the bedding.

  Camille looked up to see Lanval now at her side. A faint smile crossed his face. “My lady, I ween ’tis not your courses.”

  “If not, Lanval, then what?”

  Lanval reddened. “I’d rather not say, my lady. Ask Blanche instead.”

  “Lanval!” said Camille sharply.

  Lanval sighed and mumbled a few words, and to Camille it sounded as if he said, “ ’S rngrn blth.”

  “What? I didn’t hear.”

  Lanval took a deep breath. “ ’Tis virgin’s blood,” he said, clearly this time.

  “Virgin’s blood?”

  “Um, yes, my lady.” Lanval, who in other matters seemed so sure, shifted about uneasily. “Harrumph! Did not your mère speak of such?”

  “Nay, she did not.”

  For a moment Lanval seemed nonplused, but then he said, “Ask Blanche. She will explain.” He took a deep breath, then plunged on. “Yet hear me, for this I do know: the prince will be glad of the sheet, though I think he will not call it ruin, but a testament to virtue instead.”

  Camille shook her head. “What do you mean, Lanval?”

  Again the steward reddened, and he turned up his hands. “Ask Blanche,” was his only reply.

  Exasperated, Camille snatched her pristine white dress from his arm and sailed out from the chamber and down the hallways toward her own distant quarters.

  “Is that what it means?”

  “Yes, my lady,” replied Blanche, scrubbing Camille’s back.

  Camille frowned. “Well, then, I don’t understand how that can be a sign of virtue. It could be a sign of fear, or a lack of temptation or opportunity—I certainly had little opportunity, living as I did with a monk and a votary, and then isolated on Papa’s farm. Too, it could be lack of desire or lack of someone to love.—Tell me: is it a sign of virtue when a man who has never made love before comes to the bed of a willing partner?”

  “No, my lady. It is considered a lack of experience.”

  “Virtue for one, but inexperience for the other?—Fie! But this does seem somehow inequitable.”

  “Let me ask you this, my lady: would you rather have had Prince Alain as inexperienced as you?”

  “Oh, no, Blanche. I can’t imagine how awkward and fumbling such an encounter would have been.”

  “Then there you have it, my lady.—Now, duck your hair under.”

  When Camille came sputtering up from the water, Blanche asked, “My lady, did they not speak of this at the monastery? Of vices and virtues? Of men and women and love? Or did not your père or mère tell you of such?”

  Camille shook her head. “At the monastery? No, Blanche. Instead they spoke of devotions to Mithras, and of the Devil and the good that men do. As for such talk at home, Papa always seemed to withdraw, and Maman simply glared at Papa and gritted her teeth and said, ‘You’ll find out soon enough, you will,’ and, beyond that, she said no more.”

  As Blanche took up one of the rose-scented bars of soap, she said, “Well, my lady, now you know,” and she began lathering Camille’s hair.

  “Inequitable or no, again I say, fie.”

  “Fie, my lady?”

  “Yes. Fie.” Camille’s shoulders slumped and she sighed.

  “You see, Blanche, now I suppose I will never know whether or not I am virtuous, for I never faced temptation or opportunity or even knew love ere I met Prince Alain. Besides, it just seemed to happen . . . and I am glad that it did.”

  “So am I,” said Blanche. “So are we all.”

  “All?”

  “The staff, my lady. The household staff.”

  “Oh, my. Does everyone know? Lanval said all might.”

  Blanche paused in her scrubbing. “It is plain to every man Jaques and woman Jille that you two were meant for one another. And the prince has so little joy in his life, it is good to see him laugh.”

  “Little joy? What mean you by that?”

  “That I leave up to him to say,” replied Blanche, taking up the pitcher from the washstand. “Now hold still while I rinse.”

  “Tell me of your père and mère, my love.”

  Alain hesitated, a black king in hand, and, in spite of the fawn-colored mask he wore, Camille thought she detected a frown from the look in his grey eyes. He then stood and stepped to the mantel and gazed up at his father’s portrait, and turned and looked across the chamber at his mother’s. “I love them both, I do, as do Borel and Celeste and Liaze. Every year, my sire and dam and their court would ride from woodland manor to woodland manor: a king’s court rade.”

  “Raid?” asked Camille. “As in a loot and pillage raid?”

  Alain smiled. “No, love: r-a-d-e. In this case it means to ride in procession, and my sire and dam’s entire retinue would rade. To the Forests of the Seasons they would come, visiting each of us in turn.” Alain paused, his eyes brimming in the lanternlight, and he whispered, “Those were splendid days.”

  Camille stood and stepped to Alain’s side. “Love, if it pains you . . .”

  Alain made a sign of negation. “I am saddened, Camille, yet I would speak on.”

  Camille took up his hand and kissed it, then held it gently as Alain continued:

  “Some fifteen years back, by mortal reckoning, they disappeared, gone in the dead of night. They had arrived here at the manor no more than a fortnight ere then, and had intended to stay a fortnight more ere the king’s rade would take them onward unto Liaze’s manor in the Autumnwood.

  “Yet of a sudden they were missing, my sire and dam, but their horses were still in the stables, and all of their goods were yet here, and so where and how they had gone was a mystery.

  “We turned the house and grounds upside down in a search for them, yet nought did we find, not even the most remote sign of either.

  “Hunters and trackers could come across no hint of a trail, not even Borel’s Wolves. They had simply vanished into thin air. Not even Ardu, the mage Celeste brought from the Springwood, could detect what had gone amiss, though he did say that an arcane spell was at work, one which he could not overcome.”

  Camille drew in a deep breath and whispered, “ ’Twas magic?”

  Alain nodded. “I even visited the Lady of the Mere, but she remained absent.”

  “Lady of the Mere?”

  Alain vag
uely gestured. “Not far from here. A seer. Yet she is wholly elusive. ’Tis said she only appears in circumstances dire. The disappearance of my sire and dam would not seem to be one of those events.”

  “Had they any enemies—your sire and dam—enemies who could have done this thing?”

  “There was that trace of a spell cast, but neither the mages nor the witches we brought to Summerwood Manor could determine aught of it. And though ’tis said all kings have many a foe, none we know of has spells at his beck.”

  As Alain again mentioned magic, Camille shivered. Then she frowned. “And your sire is a king?”

  “Aye.”

  “Who rules in his absence?”

  “Faure: my sire’s steward, Lanval’s brother. And just as is Lanval, Faure, too, is quite honorable, and I ween would not do nor cause such a thing. Certainly not for power, for he is reluctant to steer the kingdom, and he urges Borel to take the throne, for Borel is eldest. Yet Borel declines, for he believes someday my sire will be found, as do my sisters and as do I. And as long as Borel and Celeste and Liaze and I refuse the throne, Faure must stand in my sire’s stead.”

  Again Camille kissed Alain’s hand. “Oh, love, surely they will be found someday.”

  The gloom of speaking of his lost parents weighed on Alain’s spirit for a sevenday or so, but then he brightened, and once again Camille found joy in his eyes and a smile on his lips and laughter in his voice.

  A moon passed, and then another, and Alain and Camille’s ardor grew eve by eve, and their lovemaking became even more passionate. And Camille spent her noon-times with the Bear, and her afternoons with Blanche or Andre or the seamstresses, who allowed Camille to join them in their glad circle, where mirth oft rang; or she spent time with other members of the household staff, learning of their duties and deeds.

  The evenings and nights she spent with Alain, and on a few of those, Alain conducted the business of the Summerwood Principality, and he had Camille sit at his side as he dealt with smallholders and merchants and hunters and the like, or a poacher or two, though within this part of Faery little changed, and so, much could be handled by Lanval without need of intervention by the prince. Hence, for the most part, much or all of their evenings were free, and they took elegant meals and played échecs and dames, or they read in quietness to one another from the books and scrolls and tomes and journals in the great library. Alain taught her more dances: the quadrille, the minuet, and a right vigorous caper named the reel, which Alain said came from a land across a wave-tossed channel of the sea. Too, they oft sang—arias, or duets—Camille in her clear and pure soprano, and Alain in his flawless tenor. While she did not move from her quarters into his, she slept with him every night—sometimes with him merely holding her close or she embracing him, other times in amorous clench. Even though they bedded together, every darktide just ere dawn he would leave her side.