chamber, and Camille gasped again, for marching inward came three tiny beings, no taller than a foot or so. And they were accoutered in brown leather breeks and brown leather boots, straps of leather crisscrossing their otherwise bare chests. Brown was their hair and hanging down their backs, with a strip of leather across each brow to hold it out of their eyes. Quivers of arrows were strapped to their thighs, and bows were affixed across their backs, and each one carried a spear in hand. In spite of their diminutive stature, quite savage they looked, and their strides conveyed a feral fierceness.
The woman on her knees scuttled aside. “Protect me, my lord,” she wailed.
Yet the three tiny beings marched straight to the foot of the dais and looked up at the prince, their eyes widening at the sight of the mask, but the one in the center glanced at Lanval and received a nod of assurance.
And now Camille could see that ritual tattoos of swirls and lines adorned their arms and chests and faces; what they meant, she could not say, yet it added to their savage aspect.
“You slew her man?” asked Alain.
“Aye, my lord,” replied the one in the center, his hand tapping the arrows at his hip.
“I told you,” screeched the woman, then flinched as all three tiny beings glowered at her. “See, even now they would slay me, too, and I haven’t done-”
A raised finger from Alain silenced the dame. “Lord Kelmot,” said Alain, addressing the one who had spoken, “you slew him because…?”
“Because, Prince Alain, he slaughtered three of our lynx: at the first one, we said to him that he might have made a mistake. At the second one, we told him ‘No more.’ At the third one, we killed him.”
“See, I told you!” wailed the woman. “All for the skin of a cat, all for-”
Again the prince silenced her with a raised finger. “My lady, the lynx is protected within the Summerwood. In fact, in all the Forests of the Seasons. Your husband Fricor, if I recall, was a poacher brought before me apast.” Alain glanced at Lanval, who nodded. The prince turned back to the woman. “I told him at that time to forgo such ways, and it seems he did not heed. I deem justice here has been done by the Lynx Riders.”
“Oh, but what’ll I do?” moaned the woman. “Why should I have to go without for the disobedience of my man?”
Kelmot turned toward the dame. “You are the one who skinned the cats and scraped and cured the hides.”
“And cooked and ate the meat,” spat another of the tiny folk.
“And these were lynx!” exclaimed the third, then hissed and raised a clawed hand at the woman, who scuttled farther away.
“Ah, Madam,” said Alain, “so then you are not completely innocent in this.”
“Would you have me starve?” wailed the dame.
“None starve in the Summerwood,” declared Lord Kelmot, “not with the bounty of the Autumnwood at hand.”
Now Alain turned to Camille. “My lady, what punishment would you advise I should decree against this dame?”
Camille but barely contained her dismay at being asked to judge the woman, down on her knees and wringing her hands and moaning. Furiously, Camille thought, and then she said, “My Lord Prince Alain, I would have you give her a gold piece”-protests rose to the lips of the Lynx Riders, but Camille spoke on-“and banish her from all the Forests of the Seasons.”
“No!” wailed the dame. “I would then have to work for my food and-”
“Silence, woman,” said Alain. He gestured toward Camille. “So she has said; so shall it be. You are banished forever from the Forests of the Seasons. You may take with you only those things which you can carry.” He then looked at tiny Kelmot. “My lord, would you and yours see that she is gone from these borders within a twelveday?”
“Gladly, my lord,” replied Kelmot, then he glanced at Camille and smiled, revealing a mouthful of catlike teeth. “A most fair judgement, my lady.”
And thus was justice done.
“Love,” said Camille down the length of the table, “altogether a year and some months have passed since the Bear brought me here, and yet it seems but yester, for these have been the happiest days of my life.”
“A year and some months? I didn’t know, and I am quite happy, too.”
Camille smiled, but silently added, Save for the cloud which hangs over thee.
“Speaking of the months that have passed, have you ever wondered about time?” asked Alain.
“Time, my lord?”
“ ’Tis a great mystery to dwellers of Faery, for here it holds no sway.”
“How so, my lord, for do not events occur, things grow, days pass in Faery? And if so, then what is that but a measure of time?”
Alain laughed. “Ah, Camille, you are too clever by far, yet this is what I mean: indeed things do grow and days pass, but nought in Faery becomes overly aged, with the attendant infirmities that does bring. People do not wither and die of time’s rade, do not pass away into the dust of the years. All things in Faery simply are.”
Camille frowned. “But Alain, people do grow old in Faery. Look at Andre; he is a man of age.”
“Ah, but that is because he spent overlong in a place outside Faery, out in a mortal land where time does rule, and his age caught up to his years.”
“Oh,” replied Camille. “But what of those such as Jules? He is but a lad. Will he not age in Faery, not grow into his manhood?”
“Ah, there is the mystery of it, Camille. Jules will indeed age-though at a slower rate than in the mortal lands-up until he reaches his prime, and then he will not go beyond.”
“All part of the magic of Faery?”
Alain nodded. “Indeed.”
Camille paused and laid down her fork beside her plate. “Which reminds me, Alain: is the harvest eternal in the Autumnwood? If so, then how can that be? When grain is reaped, when crops are picked, what happens then? I mean, without winter to rest, spring to renew and seeds to be sown, and summer to ripen, how can autumn bring forth a harvest?”
“ ’Tis another mystery, that, my love,” replied Alain. “I think Borel’s winter demesne does somehow allow all the Forests of the Seasons to rest, and that Celeste’s Springwood somehow permits the renewal of all, as well as the sowing of-what? — not seeds, but rather crop. Too, my Summerwood somehow allows the ripening of the bounty that is to come, while Liaze’s demesne takes from them all and provides an eternal harvest. Things plucked or reaped in the Autumnwood-or in the other Forests of the Seasons as well-simply seem to… reappear.-Oh, not instantly, but after some while, and not as long as anyone is watching; but one day it will be there, as if it had been there all along, somehow overlooked or unseen. Beyond that, I cannot say aught, for ’tis of Faery in the Forests of the Seasons we speak; I add, however, that elsewhere in Faery, across its far-flung realms, other conditions apply, some of them quite uncanny.”
“My, but these are strange rules which govern this part of Faery and the life herein,” said Camille, taking up her fork and spearing more of the delicious asparagus.
Alain said, “You speak of rules, my darling, as if there were many, but I know of only two.”
“Two?”
Alain nodded and stood and walked to her end of the table. He leaned down and peered at her with his grey eyes through his grey silken mask, then he kissed her, and said, “The first rule of life is to live, Camille, but the prime rule of life is to love.”
She reached up and pulled him down for another kiss, this one decidedly more lingering.
Alain then strode back to his end of the table and sat, and Camille said, “The reason I spoke of the year and some months that have passed, beloved, is that I would like to visit my family and see how they have fared, especially Giles. I think I would need but a sevenday at Papa’s cottage, seven days to catch up in all.”
Alain took up his goblet of dark ruby wine and sipped. He set the glass down and said, “I will arrange for it to be done.”
“Would you not come with me?”
“My love, the Bear will be your escort, though I will send couriers ahead and have Borel and his Wolves
