Borel looked up. “What?”
“Heed, Prince Borel: had Rhensibe found you in the dream, she is a sorciere and could have done you great harm through magie, whereas I think your arrow-being stone-tipped and not magique at all-would have done no harm whatsoever to her.”
Borel frowned and vented a hard sigh and said, “Perhaps you are right, Flic, but, oh, I would have spitted her neatly.”
“I’m sure you would have, my lord,” said Flic.
Borel sighed again, this time more softly, and he said, “Chelle’s last words to me were ‘Find me, Borel. Please find me. And hurry.’ ”
Borel looked out through the stone ruins of the tower at the yet clouded sky of dawn, and he turned and rummaged within the rucksack and said, “Let us break fast swiftly, and then away, for time grows ever more short.”
To make certain that they were on the correct line, they returned to the edge of the dip in the land where grew the cedar grove, and they found the stand trunk-deep in water. Buzzer flew up and, even though the just-risen sun was not visible behind the cast of the sky, she circled about and took a bearing and then shot off in the direction where the sun would set.
The prince followed at a lope, with Flic once again riding in his customary position in the prow of Borel’s hat.
Across the grassy, rock-laden highlands the prince ran, the cliffs always to the left, with the ocean far below, and still the waters were aroil from the storm, great swells crashing headlong into stone.
On he ran and on, and now and again they passed an isolated farmstead with farmers at work afield and livestock grazing upon the green grass and clover. Occasionally they could see a sailing vessel far out upon the churning sea, making headway either with or against or athwart the waves in the brisk breezes yet blowing.
But then the coastline began to recede as the sheer faces of the leagues-long cliffs slowly swung away, and after a candlemark or so, Borel could no longer hear the ocean surge.
Still he ran on, and the character of the land began to change, for now he splashed through streams flowing down to the sea. Now and then a thicket came into view, and then woodlands, and Borel found himself running through a green forest, and though Buzzer flew but twenty-five or so yards ahead of the prince, occasionally she returned to make certain the slow human was yet on course.
The overcast above began to break, and soon the sky was riven by great swaths of blue. But Borel did not pause to admire the firmament, but continued the long lope.
As the sun rose into the zenith, downslope through the trees Borel espied a glimmering ribbon of water ahead. “It seems we are coming to a river,” he said. “We’ll take our noontide meal on its banks.”
And as they ran down the long cant of land and neared the broad flow, “Uh-oh,” said Flic. “Look.”
Beside the run a child sat on the bank weeping.
“Take care, my lord,” added Flic. “This could be another one of those Fey.”
Borel laughed and trotted on down to the bank, and the child, a rather skinny, yellow-haired demoiselle, perhaps eight summers old, turned and saw him coming, and then began to wail in earnest.
“Demoiselle, why do you cry?” asked Borel, sitting down beside her.
Snuffling and snubbing, the girl looked at the prince, great teardrops welling in her light brown, almost golden, eyes, and she looked at the Sprite, and brightened only slightly, and looked at the bee, and cried, “ Eee! Don’t let it sting me.”
“Hmph!” snorted Flic, but he said no more, for having been once burned, he was now twice shy.
But Borel said, “ ’Tis a very tame bee, my lady, and she would not harm even a fly or a flea.”
“Well, she can sting all the flies and fleas she wants,” said the little girl, “just as long as she doesn’t sting me.” Then the child began to wail again, and gestured at the river.
“What is it, my wee demoiselle?” asked the prince, “And by the bye, I am Borel. Could I have your name?”
“M-my n-name is D-Dandi,” snubbed the girl.
“And what is grieving you, my lady?” asked Borel.
Yet snuck ing a bit, the child got her sobs somewhat under control, and she said, “I came across when the river was low, but now, with the rain, it is quite high and swift and entirely too deep for me to wade, and- snkk — I do not know how to swim, and even if I did, it would- hnk — sweep me out to sea, and then I’d be lost and all aloneuuu — and probably end up on an island with monsters that eat young and tender things like little girls-oh poor me-and I’m hungry and my mother probably thinks I’m dead-poor Momma-or carried off by tigers and bears and Trolls and- wahhh! ”
Borel put his arm about her. “Hush, hush, child. I will feed you and then carry you across, and you can then run swiftly home to your mother, and she will sweep you up in her arms and hug you and kiss you and no longer worry.”
Borel fished about in his rucksack, and he gave her some jerky and a hardtack biscuit, and as she chewed, he poured some honey into the jar lid for Buzzer and Flic. He saw Dandi’s pale brown eyes light up, and he motioned for her to hold out her biscuit and he dribbled a bit of honey thereon.
She gobbled it right up, and looked at Borel soulfully and said, “More, please?”
Borel grinned and set out another hardtack biscuit and drizzled honey atop.
They spent long moments sitting on the bank and speaking about this and that and the rain and the storm and the river and the drifting of the clouds leaving blue skies behind. But at last the meal was done, and Borel said, “Well, now, my girl, it’s time to take you across.” He turned his back and said, “Hop on, Dandi, and I’ll give you a ride.”
“The river is awfully deep,” she said timidly.
“But I am tall,” said Borel.
“The water is quite swift,” she said.
“But I am strong and sturdy,” replied Borel. He looked about and found a hefty stick to act as a stave. “And I’ll use this to steady me.-Come, come, girl, hop on.”
She climbed on his back and whispered in his ear, “I am quite afraid.”
“I’ll be brave enough for both of us, Dandi,” said Borel. And grasping her under one knee with one hand, and with the stave in the other, he waded into the stream.
“Eeeee!” Dandi screamed.
Borel waded on.
Buzzer and Flic flew across, but then flew back and whirled and twirled in the air, trying to take Dandi’s mind off the water.
But Dandi paid them no heed, and she cried, “Oh, oh, I told you it was too high and swift and entirely too deep to wade.”
Now up to his waist, Borel sloshed on, and Dandi began to thrash. Borel tightened his grip under her knee, but her other leg was loose and kicking frantically.
“Oh, oh,” wailed Dandi, flailing about, “I do not know how to swim; we’ll drown.”
Borel clasped her even tighter.
“We’ll fall in and be swept out to sea! Wahhh! ”
It was all Borel could do to hold on to her, thrashing about as she was.
“We’ll be captured by pirates,” wailed Dandi, sobbing and floundering ’round, “and they’ll throw us onto an island and we’ll be eaten by monsters and then chased by tigers and bears and Trolls and-”
Struggling to maintain his grip on her, Borel finally made it to the opposite shore, and Dandi had entirely collapsed into tears. He abandoned the stave and swung her around and set her down at the foot of an oak tree. “D-dry m-my eyes,” she blubbered. And Borel fished about in the rucksack and pulled out a cotton bandanna he had purchased in Riverbend. He knelt and reached forth with the kerchief.
At the very first touch, she grew tall and stood before him as a matronly mademoiselle with yellow hair and golden eyes. Somewhere nearby there sounded the clack of shuttle and the thud of batten of a loom.
“Told you,” shouted Flic, sitting on a branch nearby, Buzzer at his side.
Yet kneeling, “Lady Lot,” said Borel.
She nodded her head in acknowledgement.
