Once Upon a Winter's Night

by Dennis L McKiernan

  With wide eyes, Lanval, shabbily dressed, looked on this dirt-smeared girl, a girl bearing a rucksack and waterskin and bedroll, a girl with an angry little bird in a pocket on her thin-worn dress. “Mademoiselle, do I know you?”

  “Lanval, it’s me, Camille.”

  The steward of Summerwood Manor gasped, now seeing that the person under the dirt, this demoiselle, was indeed Lady Camille. He set the candle to the table, the tallow sending up a thin strand of smoke to add to the soot on the ceiling above. Then he took her by the hands and said, “Oh, my lady, what are you doing here in this terrible place?”

  “Is my love Alain on this isle?”

  “Aye, mademoiselle, the prince is here, a prisoner in the citadel.”

  Camille’s knees nearly gave way, her relief so great in finding at last the place where her love was bound.

  “My lady,” said Lanval, reaching out to brace her, and he aided her to a chair at a table.

  Camille took several deep breaths then said, “I have come to set him free.”

  As Lanval stepped to the fireplace and pulled two bricks away, he said, “I am afraid that cannot be done. Not only does a fortress hold him, but so do the Troll curses.”

  “One by Olot and the other by his daughter?”

  “Aye. Yet how know you this?”

  “From something the Troll said in the Winterwood.”

  “Ah, I remember: you did meet Olot there,” said Lanval, reaching in the hole behind the bricks. “—Here it is.” He removed a small canister. “Until that encounter, ’twas but one curse, and that by the daughter.”

  “One or two, it matters not,” said Camille bitterly, “if only I had known the content of the curses, then mayhap none of this would have happened. Oh, Lanval, it is all my fault disaster whelmed the manor.”

  “Nay, Lady Camille, not your fault, but that of the Troll-cast magic.” Lanval popped the lid from the canister. “We’ll have a spot of tea, and you can say how you came.”

  “But how did you get here, Lanval? Was it the wind?”

  Lanval added a bit of branch-wood from Camille’s bundle of sticks to the dying coals in the hearth, and hung a kettle on a fire iron and swung it over the blaze. Then he turned to Camille and said, “Aye, it was the wind; we whirled across the sky in that terrible howl, the Prince and the entire household of Summerwood Manor—all, that is, but you—to plunge down on this appalling isle to join the slaves already here as thralls to the Goblins and Trolls.”

  Tears welled in Camille’s eyes and ran down her cheeks, and she said, “Oh, Lanval, I was stupid and foolish, and thus the calamity fell. A year and a day and nearly a whole moon agone, I contrived by candlelight to see Alain’s unmasked face; that’s when the curse struck and that awful wind did come.”

  Lanval sat down at the table across from Camille and said, “Nay, my lady, again I say, ’twas the fault of the Trolls, the cham and the chamumi and the ancient dread magic that somehow did come into their hands.”

  “Cham? Chamumi?”

  “Troll words,” replied Lanval. “Cham means king; chamum, queen; and chamumi, princess. Regardless, Chamumi Dre’ela, the Troll princess, set a curse upon the prince long past: Alain spurned her advances, and so she cursed him—broke a terrible amulet of clay she wore about her neck, one of Orbane’s devices, we think.”

  Camille said, “One of the Seals of Orbane, or so Lord Kelmot thought.”

  “Lord Kelmot?”

  Camille nodded. “He aided me after the terrible wind took you all away. I told him of the clay amulet Olot wore, and Kelmot spoke of the seals.”

  Lanval said, “Seals of Orbane: Olot had one, and Dre’ela another. Regardless, when Dre’ela broke hers, Alain was cursed to take the form of a bear in the day, though he could be either man or bear at night, whichever he chose. Further, Dre’ela’s bane was such that he could never marry anyone but her. To this she added that if Prince Alain ever fell in love, and if his true love ever did discover that he was both man and bear, then he would have to marry Dre’ela in a year and a day and a whole moon beyond.”

  “Marry a Troll princess?”

  “Aye. The wedding is three days from now.”

  Camille’s face fell, and she glanced at the split and splintered stave. “Then that is the reason for the time I was given.”

  An eyebrow raised, Lanval looked at her, but she explained not. Instead she said, “Oh, Lanval, we must do something ere then.”

  The kettle above the fire began steaming. Lanval got up to attend it, and Camille glanced at Scruff, the sparrow again asleep in her dress pocket. While Lanval prepared the tea and once more hid the canister, Camille carefully set Scruff to a shelf above the table, where he ruffled a bit and then settled as she sat back down.

  While they waited for the tea to steep, Camille said, “The second curse then, it was the cause of the wind.” Her words were a statement, not a question.

  “Aye, the cham, the Troll king, Olot, set a terrible curse on Prince Alain there in the Winterwood that night he and his Goblins assailed you and the Bear.”

  Camille nodded and sighed.

  As Lanval poured two cups of tea, he said, “When you and the Bear first arrived at Summerwood Manor, the Prince told us that if you ever saw his face, then he and the entire household staff would be transported to this isle, and we would all become Olot’s slaves. Hence, the seamstresses immediately set to making the masks he would wear, and that’s how you first saw Prince Alain—his features hidden. Yet masks or no, the prince said that Olot had further added that none could tell you the reason for concealment else the curse would come due regardless.”

  “Yes,” said Camille as she watched tea leaves swirl and settle in her cup, “the secrecy: all could know but me.”

  “Aye, my lady—not only of Olot’s curse regarding seeing Prince Alain’s face, but also of Dre’ela’s curse were you to learn Alain and the Bear were one and the same. We simply could not tell you, though all else but you could know.”

  “Can we not break these curses?”

  “Many mages tried, my lady—you saw numbers of them there at Summerwood Manor—yet none succeeded. Orbane’s cursed clay amulets are simply too strong.”

  “There must be a way. There must.”

  Lanval shook his head. “I’m afraid only the Fates could defeat such great and powerf—”

  Camille’s eyes widened. “The Fates!” she blurted.

  Lanval looked at her curiously.

  “Lanval, we might just have a chance, though at the moment I know not how.” An elusive thought skittered along the edge of Camille’s mind, yet it was gone ere she could capture it.

  “My lady?”

  “Lanval, I have a tale to tell you, a story to unfold.” Camille blew on her tea and took a sip and then began:

  “After I committed my stupid mistake and the terrible wind came and hurled you all away, Lord Kelmot aided me in finding the Lady of the Mere. She was there that dawntime, sitting in the hollow of the oak, and both Alain and Kelmot had told me that she does not appear unless something dire is in the offing. Even so . . .”

  When Camille’s tale came to an end, the golden carding comb and shuttle and spool lay on the table along with Lady Sorcière’s staff. One at a time Lanval picked up the gifts and examined them and then set them back. Then he sighed and looked at Camille. “Fates or no, I know not how these might be used to break the curse. Have you any thoughts?”

  Camille turned up a hand. “None.” Again Camille felt that there was something she should know lying on the edge of her mind, yet once more the wisp of a thought vanished.

  Lanval frowned. “Would that the prince could advise us, for he is quite well-read and perhaps would know how to use these to the good.”

  “Is there any way I can see Alain?”

  Lanval shook his head. “He has been kept prisoner in a suite of windowless, Goblin-guarded rooms in the citadel. None are permitted to see him but Olot, Dre’ela, and Te’e-foon.” />
  “Te’efoon?”

  “She is the chamum, the queen.”

  Camille frowned. “No one else is permitted therein but Trolls?”

  Lanval nodded. “Just those three.”

  “What about those who clean the chambers, change the bedding, and—”

  “My lady, it is clear you have never seen how Trolls and Goblins live. There is no cleaning of rooms, changing of bedding, or the like. However, you do remind me that there are those who take drinking water and food to the prince’s quarters, but they only enter when Alain is the Bear, and even then, the Bear is not present, but in a separate chamber in those same quarters, and so—Bear or prince—none ever sees him but the Trolls. They isolate him, for they have some vile plan they would not have upset, and the prince is at the center of all.”

  Camille looked at the three Fate-given gifts. “If I could be one of those who serve the prince, mayhap I can use the opportunity to bribe the guards.”

  Lanval’s eyes widened. “Better yet, mayhap you can bribe the chamumi.”

  “Dre’ela?”

  “Aye. She oversees those who bring the food and water, and I know she is quite fond of true gold; when we first came, every gold thing we had, be it ring or brooch or coin or aught else, she stripped and kept as her own, fashioning necklaces and bracelets and bangles from it all.”

  “Oh, Lanval, if she does love gold that much, then perhaps I do have a chance.” Camille gestured at the gifts. “Surely these are true gold.”

  “Aye, they are,” said Lanval. “Rare on this isle, for here only glittering Troll gold is found.”

  “Kolor spoke of it,” said Camille. “—Troll gold, I mean. Quite worthless, he said.”

  “Indeed it is,” said Lanval. “But list, Lady Camille: in your recounting did you not say the Fates warned you to keep these gifts. If so, then giving them to Dre’ela would be a mistake.”

  Camille shook her head. “Non, non. What the Sisters said was to hold on to them until near the end, for then they might do me some good.” Camille glanced at the dwindling arc of light yet remaining on the dark disk of Lady Sorcière’s stave. “Three days is all we have, Lanval, and so we are near the end; now is the time for their use.”

  Lanval frowned and said, “Lady Camille, I beg of you, try to remember the exact words of the Sisters, for if you relinquish the gifts when you should not, then even the Fates will fail.”

  Lanval’s admonition struck Camille pale, and she somberly nodded and said, “I will, Lanval. I will.”

  The next dawning, Redcap Goblins came pounding on the doors. Camille and Lanval were rousted out and, along with two-score of others, were marched through the cool morn up toward the citadel, while the bulk of slaves—poorly dressed, as were all—were herded to work in the fields. Camille thought she caught a glimpse of Blanche, but she could not be certain. Even so, she did not cry out, for Lanval had told her the Goblins would lay about with whips should anyone speak. Camille had wondered how she could get Scruff to remain silent, and she had tried to leave him behind, yet he would have none of it, insisting instead on going with her. And so he was hidden in her high breast pocket, and he remained silent and still—peril was at hand, and he uttered not a peep. In another pocket, Camille carried what she thought might be the least of the gifts of the Fates: Urd’s golden spool; though whether it was truly the least, she could not say. Yet it was the smallest of the three, and as such it best fit the plan she had in mind. Camille had carefully considered Lanval’s warning concerning the Sisters’ words of gift giving, and the other two gifts were hidden next to Lanval’s meager hoard of tea in the hole behind the bricks.

  As they approached the citadel, Camille’s eyes widened in wonderment, for it was truly a formidable fortress, its great stone walls rearing up to castellated heights, towers in the corners fitted with arrow slits. Surrounding all stood a deep, dry moat embedded with sharpened spikes and stakes. A massive drawbridge spanned the moat, and a huge, bronze-clad gate stood open. Just inside the gate, in the mouth of the entryway was a portcullis raised high—fangs ready to drop on intruders, heavy bars to prevent entry as well. Above the gate a great, runic symbol—an O—was carven in the stone, and Camille could not but wonder who had it so sculpted—Olot, most likely, she thought. Across the bridge and into a passageway that jinked right and left they went, murder holes above, ready to rain death down upon any who won past the moat and gate and portcullis. At the exit of the corridor piercing the walls another portcullis and gate stood. Across an open, paved courtyard they were herded and through two massive, recessed doors, which led into the castle proper.

  They came into a great hall, and the stench was nearly unbearable. Camille clapped a hand to her nose and mouth.

  “Take swift and shallow breaths,” whispered Lanval, “and breathe through your mouth only. Soon you will become accustomed to it.”

  How she would ever become accustomed to such a reek, Camille could not imagine, but she did as Lanval advised and took quick, barely drawn breaths. As the Goblins prodded them on inward, Camille looked ’round the great hall. By the early-morning daylight seeping in through high windows, she could see the chamber was filthy, with food rotting and shards of bones scattered across the floor. Flies buzzed among the litter of garbage, and a squirm of maggots wormed within the corpse of a small animal Camille could not identify. Spiderwebs filled nooks and crannies, and in one corner what seemed to be a mounded pile of excrement lay. Tables and benches marked this as a dining hall, with dirt and grease layering much of the furniture, and snoring Goblins lay about, some on the tables, others under.

  A Goblin called out, “Rat catchers, to your traps!” and a score of slaves separated out, each with a guard, and they vanished through doorways and up stairs and down.

  Camille watched them go, wondering what was afoot, yet she was shoved in the small of her back to stumble across the floor, one of the Goblin escort snarling, “No lollygagging, turd, or I’ll take the whip to you.”

  Lanval turned to protest, but Camille shook her head Non, and so he said nought.

  Past a low, one-step dais at one end of the room they were herded; three massive chairs of state set thereon. Through an archway they were goaded and into a huge kitchen beyond, and there they set to work, preparing a great breakfast for their captors.

  “Would that I had some poison,” mumbled a worker, and Camille saw that it was Cecile, one of the seamstresses with whom she had had such cheerful times in the sewing circle of Summerwood Manor. Even so, Camille said nought, having been warned by Lanval that should the Goblins even inadvertently find out who she was, then Olot would be the next to know. And so Camille pitched in as did everyone else, the whip the price of dawdling.

  Soon great pots of porridge were bubbling, and a hundred or so carcasses of rats were gutted and skinned and set asizzling upon spits. Too, great pots of tea were brewed, and now Camille knew where Lanval had gotten his tin of leaves, though how he had managed to do so under the very noses of the ward, Camille could not say.

  Finally, guards snarled orders, and the hot gruel and cooked rats and brewed tea were hauled into the great room to be served to the now-clamoring Goblins, Redcaps all.

  That group was replaced by another, and that one by another still. But soon all Redcaps on the isle had broken their fasts, and finally meager portions of gruel were prepared for the slaves, and half of the kitchen crew was drafted to take the porridge unto the thralls in the fields.

  But Lanval had Camille remain behind, for now they prepared food for Olot and Te’efoon and Dre’ela. An enormous number of rats were set to broil, and a great pot of oil of a sort—somewhat like that of olives—was heated, along with a cauldron of vinegar.

  A gong sounded, and Lanval murmured to Camille, “We will serve them when they get seated. You are to stay behind, else if Olot sees you, in spite of the dirt smeared on your face and your golden locks bound in a scarf, still he might recognize who you are.”

  Even s
o, Camille stood in the shadows at the archway to watch as the Trolls came down a lengthy stairway along one wall and into the dining hall.

  Olot led, and he was yet the same: a hideous, massive, nine-foot-tall Ogre with yellow eyes and green-scummed tusks, and he was still dressed in what looked to be the same greasy animal hides he had worn when Camille first saw him.

  Next came a female Troll, “Te’efoon,” whispered Lanval. A head shorter than Olot, she stood perhaps eight feet tall. If tusks and talons could be called dainty, then hers were a bit more dainty than Olot’s, though her tusks were still scummed and her talons long. Te’efoon was dressed in what looked to be mottled green velvet, though the green could have come from mold. Sprigs of hair sprang from her dangly ears and one of her wide nostrils as well as from a large mole on her chin, though not a sign whatsoever grew on her knobby head. She was spectacularly ugly.

  Yet even more ugly was the third Troll, Dre’ela, some seven-foot-six or so. She had her father’s tusks and her mother’s hair and even longer talons than either. But worst of all was the cut of her burlap dress, for she had little modesty, and now and again as she descended the stairs—

  Camille flinched away from looking at such a hairy and obscenely bright red—

  “Stay here,” again hissed Lanval, and then he and the others took sizzling hot rats and the oil and vinegar out to the low dais to serve the cham, chamum, and chamumi.

  Yet crunching on a mouthful of rat bones, Dre’ela strode into the kitchen and smirked ’round her tusks at the women standing there. And she stood and stroked a necklace made of rings and brooches and bangles of gold strung on a hemp cord. Looped about each wrist as well were bracelets made of cord-hung golden rings and such. When none of the women reacted, Dre’ela growled and croaked, “It is time to feed my groom.” Then she simpered and said once again, “My groom.”

  With a bucket of water, Camille stepped forward and into Dre’ela’s miasma, much like the reek of her Troll sire: that of a rotting animal burst open after lying dead afield for a full sevenday in the glare of the hot summer sun, though in Dre’ela’s case, there was a heavy overlay of musk.