Once upon a Spring morn

oncoming hunt.

Louder and louder sounded the pursuit, and now Celeste could hear the hammering of hooves. Tethered below, her horse snorted and pawed at the soft ground, as if asking the princess to join in the chase.

Of a sudden, a terrified stag burst through the underbrush and fled past the great oak. A moment later, yelping dogs raced by, and not far behind, riders galloped after, the one in the lead- What’s this? A crow upon his shoulder? — sounding the horn.

Celeste raised her own trump as they came on, and she blew a call. In the fore the man bearing the bird glanced ’round and then up as Celeste continued to bell the clarion. Ruthlessly hauling back on the reins, the horse screaming in pain, the man wrenched the steed to a halt at the perimeter of the oak. The other riders-

some dozen in all-momentarily passed him, and then cruelly hauled their own horses to a stop. They turned and rode back to mill about this man.

In the distance the bay of the hounds diminished.

The man looked up at the leather-clad, slender princess, with her pale blond hair and green eyes. . and he grinned. “Well, now, what have we here?” Celeste stared down at this brown-haired, unshaven, crow-bearing man, dressed in a red tabard emblazoned with the sigil of a black bird in flight. On his shoulder the bird shifted about and with glittering eyes looked up at her as well, as did the rest of the band, arrayed in red tabards, all.

“Who gave you permission to hunt in my demesne?” demanded Celeste.

The calls of the pack hounding the stag grew faint.

The crow turned its head, and it seemed to whisper in the leader’s ear. The man frowned, and then looked up and said, “And just who might you be?”

“Celeste, Princesse de la Foret de Printemps.” The crow ruffled its feathers and turned to the man and emitted a croak as if to say, “See, I told you she was the one.”

The man sneered and said, “Well, then, ‘Princess of the Forest of Spring’-”

But Celeste interrupted him and again demanded, “I ask, who gave you permission to hunt in my demesne?”

“Bah! We need no permission to take that which we seek,” sneered the man.“Come down from there, Princess, for, whether you like it or no, we have been sent to take you to someone who”-he grinned again-“wishes to see you.” Then he barked a laugh and said, “By being out here alone, as she said you often are, you have saved us a bit of trouble.”

“Brigand,” spat Celeste, and she nocked an arrow.

The man sniggered, joined by all in his band. “Ah, indeed we are brigands, Princess, and sent to fetch you. So put away your little arrow and come down; else we’ll have to use our own-yet dead or alive, it matters not to our mistress, for she would see you either way.” He signaled to one of his henchmen, and that man rode forward and reached for his bow.

“Call off your lapdog,” said Celeste to the man with the crow. “Else you will be the first to die.” The brigand leader sighed, and then gestured a command to the man in the fore, and that henchman nocked an arrow. As he raised his weapon- Thock! — a crossbow quarrel took him in the ear, and he fell from his horse, dead as he hit the ground.

“Yahhh!” came a cry, and out from the surrounding trees an armored man in a blue surcoat charged on a black steed; even as he galloped forward, he swung a shield up and onto his left arm, and drew a glittering sword. Laying about to left and right with his gleaming blade, the rider crashed in among the brigands.

“Well, second to die,” Celeste muttered, and she let fly her own shaft, and the leader fell slain. As the man tumbled from his horse, the crow took to wing and cried out, “Revenge! Revenge!” as it circled up and about, but Celeste paid it little heed, as she winged arrows into the melee below, aiming for those nearest the rider in blue, especially those behind. Man after man she felled, as the deadly blade of the swordsman reaped brigands.

Of the thirteen outlaws, only two managed to survive, and they fled into the forest-one with an arrow in his side, the other now missing a hand. Most of the brigands’ horses galloped away with the two, though some of the mounts fled elsewhere, the reek of slaughter more than they could bear.

In the preternatural silence that followed, far away the sounds of the hounds vanished, and somewhere a crow calling for revenge flew beyond hearing.

The man in blue wheeled his horse about and looked up at Celeste. “Are you well, demoiselle?”

“Indeed, Sieur, ” replied Celeste, somewhat breathlessly, her heart yet pounding. “And you?”

“I have taken a cut across the leg, but otherwise-”

“Oh, Sieur,” cried Celeste, “let me tend that.” She shouldered her bow and began scrambling down from the oak.

The rider glanced about and then hung his shield from a saddle hook and dismounted and stepped to the base of the tree. He set his sword aside and removed his helmet; a shock of raven-dark hair tumbled out. And as Celeste came down the last of the trunk he reached up and featherlight swung her to the ground. She turned

’round in his embrace and looked up into his dark grey eyes. He held her closely and returned the gaze. “Oh, my,” he breathed, “you are so beautiful.”

2

Roel

With her heart pounding, “Sieur, we must tend to your leg wound,” said Celeste, dropping her gaze, knowing a blush filled her features, for in addition to having dark hair and grey eyes and a handsome face, he was tall and strong and most certainly brave. . and dangerous in battle, and perhaps otherwise, too. . the kind of man she had dreamed of meeting one day, and here she was in his arms.

“ ’Tis but a scratch,” said the man, a rakish grin filling his features as he reluctantly released his embrace.

“Sit with your back to my Companion of Quietness,” said Celeste, gesturing at the trunk of the oak.

The man raised an eyebrow at her name for the tree; nevertheless he eased himself down and leaned against its bole.

“Have you a name, Sieur?” asked Celeste, as she knelt to examine the wound.

“Roel,” replied the man. “Son of Sieur Emile and Lady Simone, brother of Sieurs Laurent and Blaise and of Demoiselle Avelaine.”

“You are a chevalier?” asked Celeste as she peeled back the edges of the slash through his leg leathers.

“Oui,” said Roel, breathing in the scent of her hair.

“Oh, my, that is a rather nasty cut,” said Celeste, examining the wound. She stepped to her horse, and unlike Roel’s black, her grey was white-eyed, agitated by the faint smell of spilled blood, mixed with the urine of released bladders and the feces of loosened bowels of the slain men. “Shhh. . shhh. .,” hushed the princess, running her hand along the steed’s neck, calming it. She opened a saddlebag and took out a cloth-wrapped bundle and a small waterskin and returned to the knight.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, and undid the cloth, revealing cheese and bread and an apple. The food she handed to him, but she kept the cloth. As blood welled from the cut, she ripped the fabric in two and laid one half on the grass. She folded the other and set it aside as well. Then she poured water on the wound to wash the blood away, and quickly took up the folded cloth and pressed it against the cut, and bound it there with the first piece.

“There, that ought to hold until I can get you to the manse,” she said.

Yet kneeling, she looked at him, and, dagger in hand, he offered her a slice of apple. “First, demoiselle, let us finish this cheese and bread and fruit, for you never know when we might get to eat again. And, oh, might you have a bottle of wine in those saddlebags of yours?” Celeste burst out laughing. Why, she did not know, though it might have been the incongruity of a wounded man on a field of battle calmly eating an apple and speaking of wine. He smiled in return, a gleam in his eye, and added, “Besides, my sire always told me to never pass up the chance of a