Camille fluttered her eyes at Alain and said, “Why, whatever do you mean, sieur? Would I even know how to handle such devices? I am sure I would be all thumbs.”
They both broke out laughing.
Lanval smiled and shook his head and left them to their games.
Alain sobered and said, “Burying the box in compost, that was clever, my dear. But even more clever was presenting to Olot those double-answer posers, and challenging him to remove the wax, and solving the riddles of the Fates Themselves.”
Without comment, Camille smiled at Alain, then gestured at the board. She would play white this time.
He nodded, and she unconventionally opened the game by stepping forward the spearman who stood just to the right of the white queen’s heirophant.
As Alain pondered his response, Camille’s eyes wandered to the echecs board on the central table, the one reserved for Alain’s sire and dam should they ever be found. Then she stared up at the portrait of Lady Saissa, she with her black hair and black eyes. Then she turned and looked at Lord Valeray’s portrait, grey eyes and dark hair, though not as black as the lady’s. And as she looked, a thought eased at the edge of her mind, something that Alain had said, yet she could not quite recall what it “Your move, Ma’amselle Burglar.”
Camille grinned, and studied the board. Alain had sprung his black king’s warrior across “I have it!” she shrieked, Alain starting back. Camille leapt up from the table and darted to peer at Lady Saissa’s portrait, then whirled and dashed across to Lord Valeray’s. “Alain, I might know where your parents are.”
“What?” Alain, scrambled to his feet. “Where?”
“Oh, love, I might be wrong, but you said that I had solved the riddles of the Fates Themselves, but there is one I had not, for I knew not then what it meant. I still might not know what it means, but I do hope I am right.”
“Which riddle is that, Camille?”
“Urd’s last.”
“ ’Tis done,” said Alain. “The ribbon is laid.”
“Good,” said Camille, “for they know not the path, and we can but hope the ribbon will guide them, for neither of us nor anyone else must lead; ’tis my belief they need do this voluntarily, else it might have no effect.”
Alain nodded.
Camille hugged him. “And be prepared for disappointment, for I am not certain I am right. But if I am, then something wonderful will happen.”
At Alain’s second nod, Camille said, “You go on in; I’ll be at the gazebo. And remember, when I ring the bell-”
“I remember,” said Alain, his voice tight with tension.
With Scruff on her shoulder, Camille turned and headed for the gazebo, while Alain entered the hedge maze.
A quarter candlemark later, just as the sun reached the zenith, Blanche stepped from the manor and started for the gazebo, a tray of food in her hands. And at nearly the same time, Renaud rounded the corner of the manse and headed for the gazebo as well.
When they arrived, as Blanche laid out the lunch on the table-bread and cheese and petit fours and tea, and a small bit of millet seed for Scruff, who hopped down and began pecking away-Camille craned her neck about as if looking for someone and said, “Renaud, the prince would like to know how goes the crafting of shoes for the horses to come, now that the Bear is gone. But I don’t see Alain at the moment. Hmm… ” Her eyes lighted on a small bell on the table. In spite of her tension, she laughed gaily and said, “I know, why don’t I just ring for him?”
“Oh, Camille,” said Blanche, “the prince isn’t someone you just-”
But Camille took up the bell and jingled it quite hard, the tinkle ringing across the sward.
As Camille set the bell back to the table “Help! Help!” came a cry.
Scruff lifted up his head.
“Oh, help me!” came another cry.
Scruff took to wing, flying for the maze, even as Camille cried out, “Alain, Alain!”
“ ’Tis the prince,” gasped Blanche, but Renaud was already running toward the hedge.
Camille scrambled to her feet and followed Blanche, the handmaiden running swiftly after Renaud.
Now others ran toward the maze, one of these Lanval, though he and they were yet a distance away.
Renaud was first to the entry, where he hesitated, for he did fear this place: “I think if I ever went in there, I would lose myself forever,” once he did say to Camille.
Then Blanche reached the entry, and she hesitated too, for she shared Renaud’s fear.
But then Alain called out again, “Oh, help me! Help me!”
Gritting his teeth, Renaud, with Blanche right behind, darted inward, both casting their fears aside. Without realizing it, Renaud followed a long ribbon lying on the ground and twisting into the labyrinth.
Camille stopped at the entrance, and even as Scruff flew back over the hedges and landed on her shoulder, chirping an irritated “ chp! ” Lanval arrived. “Keep the others out, Lanval,” Camille said, then she darted within.
Twisting and turning, Renaud and Blanche ran through the high hedgerows, the ribbon guiding their feet. Winding and weaving, jinking left and right, at last they came to the very center of the maze, and there they found Alain waiting, standing beside the statues of his parents.
And even as they gaped at the completely unhurt prince, and then looked full at the effigies, a great burning came over the smith and handmaiden; Alain cried out and leaped forward to aid, but the furious flames cast no heat, and the two within were not harmed. And so he stepped back, as Camille, now at the center as well, chanted Urd’s final allusion:
“Nearly dual,
It is the key;
That which two fear
Shall set four free.”
And Blanche and Renaud disappeared in the flames as the glamour burned away, and when the fire dwindled and vanished, where they had been now stood Lady Saissa and Lord Valeray, each of them somewhat dazed.
In the faraway town of Lis, there where Camille had first boarded the red coach, in the stable across the street from the Golden Trough, two people who but for the hue of their eyes were twins of Camille’s Blanche and Renaud, two people who had had no memory of who they had been, two people who, some eighteen years past, had titled themselves Clarisse and Georges, those two people suddenly knew their identities: they were the true Blanche and Renaud. How they had lost their memories, how they had been whisked from Summerwood Manor to the town of Lis those eighteen years agone, they had not the vaguest idea, though each of them knew that magic was somehow involved.
But in the maze at Summerwood Manor: “Mother! Father!” cried Alain with tears in his eyes, and he embraced them both.
Great was the rejoicing there in the labyrinth, and great the joy as well when the King and Queen of the Forests of the Seasons emerged arm and arm with Alain and Camille.
Lanval bowed low and glanced at Camille and then said, “My lord Valeray, my lady Saissa, your quarters are ready and raiment has been laid out, for we were expecting you.”
Valeray raised an eyebrow. “Expecting us?”
Lanval canted his head toward Camille and said, “The Lady Camille told us you would come… or rather that you might.”
“It was someone we trusted,” said Lord Valeray, “one of magekind who had been here before and has come since, and who cast the curse that transformed us, and in evil glee made us fear the very thing which would set us free.”
“The sight of our likenesses in the heart of the maze,” said Lady Saissa.
“Was this done using a clay amulet?” asked Camille.
At Valeray’s nod, Alain growled, “A Seal of Orbane.” Then he looked at sire and dam and asked, “And who was this trusted mage who came and did this to you?”
Rage filled Lady Saissa’s eyes, and she said, “It was-”
