Once Upon a Winter's Night

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “And you did nothing else at all whatsoever?”

  Camille turned up her hands.

  They sat without speaking awhile, placidly chewing before the small fire, Jotun savoring the tiny jot of spiced meat. At last they finished their meal, and Camille yawned sleepily. “I must rest, for I am weary, having walked uphill all day.” She rolled out her bedroll, but as she did so she said, “Oh, I remember, but I don’t see how it could mean aught.” She reached over and took up her garlanded walking staff. “When the Serpentman came at me, I thought I might fend off his whip with this.” In the light of the fire, Camille thrust the stave out before her, holding it like a quarterstaff.

  Tiny though they were, Camille saw Jotun’s eyes widen in revelation. “Where did you get that?”

  “It was a gift from the Seer by the Mere.”

  “Lady Sorcière?”

  “I do not know her name.”

  “That is who she is,” said Jotun, “or so I do believe. Ha! It is no wonder the Serpentman fled. It was the staff he ran from . . . perhaps believing you were the lady herself.” Jotun laughed. “Ah, but what a gift it is you bear, for many know of that staff, and some fear it. Certainly the Serpentman did.—How came you by it?”

  “It is a long tale, sieur. Perhaps I can tell it on the journey to come.” Camille yawned again.

  “Oh, pardon, Mam’selle. I did not think. On our journey will be most acceptable.” Jotun stood. “Sleep well. And worry not in your slumber, for if danger comes in the form of Serpentmen, or aught else for that matter, I will stomp them flat.”

  Camille laughed and took to her bed, and in the flickering light of the dying fire she was asleep in but moments, a smile yet lingering on her lips.

  “Shall I change now?” Jotun piped in his tiny voice. “But I warn you, you might find it quite fearsome.”

  “No, no,” said Camille, grinning. “I like you just as you are, my wee friend; that way you can ride on my shoulder, just as does Scruff—he on the left; you on the right. Or would you prefer a high vest pocket?”

  Jotun sighed. “As you wish, Mam’selle, and the vest pocket high on the right will do, for there I think it will be easier for me to listen to your tale.”

  “My tale?”

  “How you came to be on this strange quest of yours to find such an odd place as might lie east of the sun and west of the moon. Also, tell me how you came by Lady Sorcière’s stave.”

  “Ah,” said Camille, taking Jotun up in her palm and letting him scramble into the pocket. She slung her bedroll and rucksack over her left shoulder and set Scruff there as well, then began the trek through the high-walled pass. As she strode forth, she said to Jotun, “I am a mere farmer’s daughter, and I thought I would always be, yet one winter’s night as a blizzard was howling there came a loud knock on our door . . . .”

  “There it is,” said Jotun, pointing down the slope at the lights of the village in the near distance. “I will leave you here, for I do not wish to frighten the townsfolk with my presence. And, Camille, I have so enjoyed your company these last thirty days, coming across the mountains as we did, especially your singing. And I will always be your friend, and I cannot but wish you the best of fortune in finding your Alain. I do believe that Lord Kelmot was right: seek the advice of merchants and travellers and traders and mapmakers and such—especially the elders, for they are most likely to know where lies this strange place you seek. Let me down here, for I would say my au revoir now.”

  Camille smiled as she set the wee mite to the slope, though tears stood in her eyes. “Oh, Jotun, would that I could take you with me, but Lady Sorcière, if that is her name, said I must go alone, though unlooked-for help would come along the way, and it certainly did, else I would have wandered about in those mountains for who knows how many years? Merci, my little Twig Man, for guiding me through, else Scruff and I would not be here now.”

  “Go,” said Jotun. “Else I will be blubbering giant tears, and to see a Giant cry is a terrible thing. So go and go now; your destiny awaits.”

  With Scruff asleep in the high vest pocket he had claimed as his own, Camille turned and started down the slope. As she went she heard Jotun call down after, “Though I will always treasure the days we spent together, I only wish you had let me change, for we would have been here much the sooner.”

  From behind there came a great whooshing outpush of air, icy cold, as if all the heat, all the power, had been sucked from it. Camille turned and gasped, for looming up toward the stars themselves stood a giant of a man. Fully two hundred feet or more he towered upward in the night, and by light of the waning gibbous moon, Camille could see he was dressed all in green and had brown hair, and she knew his eyes were brown, as she had discovered Jotun’s eyes to be in the sunlight of thirty days past. The Giant waved down to her a sad good-bye and then turned and strode away over the mountains, heading back the way he had been borne.

  “Oh, Jotun, you really were, really are a Giant,” whispered Camille to herself. “Only in Faery,” she added, as she turned and made her way down the long slope and toward the village below.

  21

  Staff

  As Camille savored her first hot meal in more than a moon, she glanced about the common room of Le Sanglier, the only inn in the village of Ardon. Illuminated by lanterns set in sconces along the walls, the chamber, though modest, was rather large for such a small thorp, or so Camille judged. Perhaps that in itself held out the promise that travellers and traders oft came this way. The room had but one fireplace, unlit, on the far wall to the left. A handful of oaken tables, with chairs about, sat here and there—one of them occupied by four men drinking ale and playing cards. More or less in room center there were two long tables, common benches on either side, also made of oak. A modest bar sat nigh the back wall, three or four stools in front, two of them occupied by elderly men who spoke across to the innkeeper as he washed earthenware mugs. On the back wall stood two doors, and Camille knew they led into the kitchen, for it was from there the servingwoman—the innkeeper’s wife, it seems—had fetched Camille a trencher filled with slices of roast beef smothered in gravy, with bread and cabbage and beans. Camille herself sat at one of the smaller tables, there along the front wall, and to her right beyond the foyer stood an archway leading into a vestibule, where a set of stairs led to the rooms above. It was the first inn Camille had ever seen, and her gaze roamed here and there, taking all in.

  As she studied the wild boar’s head mounted over the fireplace, one of the doors to the kitchen swung open and out bustled the matronly innkeeper’s wife, bearing a tray laden with a teapot and cup and small pitcher of milk and a small pot of honey. “Here you are, mam’selle, freshly brewed.”

  “Merci, madam,” said Camille, smiling. “And madam, if you are not too busy, I would ask you to sit and tell me: do you have any travellers or traders staying at your inn? I am trying to find a place, and I know not where it lies.”

  “Oh, Mam’selle, just call me Jolie; everyone else does.”

  Camille took up a piece of bread. “And my name is Camille.” She took a bite and chewed.

  Jolie smiled and called to her husband to bring her a mug, then sat down in the chair across and poured Camille a cup of tea. When her own mug arrived, she waved her husband away, and then poured herself some tea, adding milk and a bit of honey. She took a sip then said, “This place you seek, Lady Camille, has it a name?”

  Camille shook her head; she swallowed her bite and said, “East of the sun and west of the moon is all I know it by.” Camille sliced off a bit of beef.

  Jolie frowned. “I have not heard of such, and—Oh, my, but is that a bird you have in your pocket?”

  Camille grinned and nodded and said around the chew of beef, “Scruff. A sparrow. Asleep for the nonce. He is my travelling companion.”

  Jolie shook her head. “A young fille like you, out on the roads alone with nought but a wee sparrow for company. It is quite dangerous, you know, what with villains
and thieves about, Spriggans and such, ghosts of Giants they once were—the Spriggans, I mean. Tell me, aren’t you afraid to go about without a strong guard at your side, a knight or some such?”

  “I have no choice. I must travel alone, though I can accept help along the way.”

  “Alone?”

  “Aye. Lady Sorcière so bade me.”

  Jolie’s eyes widened at the mention of that name; even so, she took it in stride. “A quest it is, then?”

  Camille nodded, chewing.

  “I take it you are bound for this place east of the sun and west of the moon, but where did you come from?”

  Camille vaguely gestured. “Through the grass and over the mountains, I came from the Summerwood.”

  “Oh, my. All the way across the land of the Serpentmen and then through the les Montagnes Sans Fin?”

  Camille frowned in puzzlement. “Why do you call them the Endless Mountains?”

  Jolie shrugged. “Although I’ve never entered the chain, it is said that the range is only one hundred miles or so across this side to that, yet I am told the ways within are so twisted that one could travel endlessly and never make it through. The merchants mostly go around.”

  “Around? But the chain seemed quite long to me; the way through quicker.”

  “Ah, but there is a twilight border somewhat down the road”—Jolie pointed . . . south, Camille thought—“and beyond that marge one can go ’round, for there are no mountains there. No Serpentmen plains either.”

  How can that be?—Ah, I know: ’tis Faery. Camille sighed. “Well, I went through, and endless they did seem. It took thirty days altogether; and even with careful rationing, I ran out of food on the last day, though Scruff had no difficulty in finding a meal.”

  Jolie tsked and shook her head, saying, “You were fortunate, for even with a guide who knows the way, they say one will travel three or four times the distance—days and days and days of travel, just as you did, simply to get from one side to another.”

  Camille nodded, saying, “Indeed, ’tis true.—And I was guided by one who knew the way.”

  “Who?”

  “Jotun.”

  “Jotun the Giant?”

  Camille nodded.

  “A fearsome sight, is Jotun. We all run a distance away when he comes nigh.”

  “But he is quite gentle,” protested Camille.

  “That he may be,” replied Jolie. “But he once stepped on a herd of sheep. Squashed them flat; killed them all dead, there in their wee little pen, when Jotun, unthinking, took a step backward, and his heel came down upon them. And now when he comes about, we all run to a safe distance.”

  “Ah, then, that’s why he did not come to the village,” said Camille. “He believes you are afraid, you know.”

  “That we are, indeed. That’s why we run somewhat away, just in case he loses his balance and takes an unplanned step, or even stumbles and falls. You are to be commended for your bravery.” Jolie frowned. “Even so, I do not understand. Jotun the Giant can cross over the mountains in but a day or so, and yet it took you thirty?”

  Camille sighed. “I did not realize he was a Giant.”

  “How could you not know he was a Giant, that big fearsome thing?”

  Suddenly Camille realized that the folk of Ardon might not know that Jotun could take on another form, and she did not know whether it was a secret he wanted her to keep.

  Before Camille could answer, “Jolie!” called one of the card players.

  “One moment, Camille,” said Jolie.

  As Jolie went to serve the man, Camille continued to eat, and she wondered how she would answer Jolie’s question without betraying Jotun’s secret, if indeed a secret it was. But when Jolie came and seated herself again and took up her tea—“Did you see the Serpentmen?”

  Camille nodded. “A band rode past me, and one saw where I lay hidden. He came back, his long whip in hand.” Camille pointed to the staff leaning against the table at her side. “My stave saved me. He recognized it as Lady Sorcière’s and fled away.”

  “Oh, my,” said Jolie. “You were most fortunate.” She looked at the staff. “May I?”

  Camille nodded and handed the stick to her.

  Jolie examined the stave. “How beautiful. And though I don’t recognize these blossoms, the garland is so lifelike.” Of a sudden Jolie’s brow furrowed. “But here down by the tip there are no carved flowers, and the vine itself looks a bit withered, and the very bottom flower seems withered as well. I wonder why the carver made it so?” She looked at Camille and shrugged, then peered at the stave again, adding, “I suppose we’ll never know. Ah, but the rest of the staff is quite beautiful.” After another moment or so, she handed it back to Camille.

  Camille frowned and peered at the bottom flower. Indeed it did look shrunken, as if it were dying. The vine curling on down to the tip did seem shrunken, too.

  Jolie took up the teapot and poured a bit into each cup, saying, “These need warming.—Now about your question, Camille ...”

  Camille set the stave aside.

  “. . . there is one traveller in the inn. He’s over there playing cards with some of the locals. Losing too, I might add. I asked him if he knew of such a place as you seek, but he said he did not, nor did the other players. And when I fetched ale, I asked my husband Bertrand and those two at the bar, and they did not know either.”

  Camille sighed in disappointment. “Jolie, are there any mapmakers in town?”

  Jolie shook her head.

  “Then what about folk who might know where a land or town or village or dwelling or aught whatsoever lies east of the sun and west of the moon; do you know of any? Former merchants, travellers, hunters, elders, anyone who might know?”

  “Well, I know everyone in Ardon, and I think none have travelled that much. Even so, it is a small hamlet, and you can easily ask each one. ’Twould only take a day or three to do so.”

  “Oh, my,” said Camille. “I do hope that every town I come to I don’t have to ask every dweller within.”

  Jolie smiled and laid a sympathetic hand atop one of Camille’s.

  In that moment, Bertrand called, “Jolie, th’ lady’s bathwater is hot out back, so as whenever she’s ready. And as to the laundry . . .”

  “Ah,” said Jolie, turning to Camille, “as to your laundry, just leave it for me.” Then she grinned and looked at sleeping Scruff. “I take it the little tyke rides on your shoulder, there where I see the white dripping on your cloak.”

  Camille blushed. “I usually clean it off each evening myself, but I was so hungry I didn’t stop and—”

  Jolie laughed. “Never you mind, fille, I can do it quite well.”

  Of a sudden, Camille remembered the coins and jewelry sewn into the lining of her all-weather cloak. “Oh, Jolie, I will clean my own cloak, if you will but show me to the tubs.”

  Jolie argued, but Camille insisted, and so to the bathing room they went, which also doubled for the laundry. When they were alone, Jolie said, “If it’s coins and such you have in the lining of your cloak, pish-tish, travellers come here all the time with such, and I’ve not broken a confidence yet.”

  Camille sighed, and handed Jolie the all-weather garment and then each of the others as she disrobed to bathe, not bothering to hide her money belt.

  That night in her room ere climbing into bed, again Camille examined the staff. My goodness, the bottommost blossom seems even more withered. Whatever can that mean?

  The next dawntide, Camille was awakened by Scruff gently pecking on her cheek and chirping, heralding the light of the new day. Camille stumbled out from the bed and fetched a bit of the remaining grass seed yet stored in her rucksack. She made a small mound on the floor and set Scruff down. Eagerly he took to the seed, and Camille flopped back into bed. In moments she was deep in slumber.

  In midmorning there came a tap on the door. Yet half-asleep, Camille groped her way to the panel. It was Jolie, the laundry fresh, the leather pants and vest
scraped and wiped down clean. “Break of fast awaits your pleasure, Camille, though the day is well on its way.” Jolie swept from the room.

  Camille groaned, and looked about for Scruff. He was pecking away at some kind of insect safely ensconced down between two floorboards. Camille poured water from an ewer into a basin and splashed some on her face, then she set the basin to the floor, where Scruff then took a full bath, fluttering and flouncing in the water, ere hopping out to shake himself off.

  In moments Camille was dressed. “Come along, Scruff, it’s time to eat. “She took up her stave, then paused, and once again looked at the bottommost—

  Goodness, it seems to have recovered. Now how can that be? Was it just a trick of the light?

  The bottom blossom no longer appeared withered, but fairly fresh instead, though the blossom above it seemed fresher still.

  Shaking her head in puzzlement, Camille set still-damp Scruff to her shoulder and headed for the common room. Jolie had Camille take her morning meal at a table in an arbor out back, where Scruff could scratch for grubs and insects and worms. Too, Jolie arranged for some millet seed to augment the little bird’s fare.

  After a breakfast of rashers and toast and eggs, Camille took Scruff up, and through the village she went, stopping at dwellings and businesses and barns and such and asking the folk she found if anyone knew of a place east of the sun and west of the moon.

  Long she spent at some of these stops, for folk there wanted to know of the news. Camille could only tell them of various happenings in the Summerwood, and of her Alain gone missing—though she avoided speaking of the curse. She spoke of her trip across the grassland and escaping the Serpentmen, then of her travel through Les Montagnes Sans Fin. Each and every one she met that day said she should have gone around—“ ’Tis much safer that way, you know.”

  As evening drew nigh, Camille had only talked to a portion of the villagers; she would have to resume the next day.

  Oh, I should have asked them who is the oldest person in the hamlet, for Lord Kelmot advised me that especially the elders might have the lore. I’ll do so on the morrow.