“You really don’t know, do you?” said Robert.
As Camille shook her head, Robert glared at Huges and said, “It’s just as well you don’t, for the Red Garter is no place for the likes of a young fille as you.”
“Robert, it is hers to decide, not yours,” said Huges.
“What would I have to do?” repeated Camille.
“Have you lain with a man?” asked Huges.
Camille reddened, but nevertheless replied, “With Alain, my beloved, he whom I do now seek.”
“That’s what you would have to do with the clientele of the ’Garter. And given your face and form and golden hair, men will gladly pay good coin to couple with you-”
Shocked, Camille blurted, “You want me to lie abed with strangers and do that?”
Huges nodded. “Many a lonely boatman and merchant and trader comes to Les Iles, and I would think one such as you would be in great demand; as I say, your debt would be wholly discharged within two fortnights, perhaps in but one.” Huges glanced at Robert, who stood in grim-lipped silence. “Much less than the three moons Robert offers.”
A fortnight compared to three moons. Yet to couple with strangers, any and all who can pay? But what if on the morrow, someone comes to the city who can tell me where to find my Alain? And if I work here at the Crown and Scepter, how will I even get about to ask, given that I am tied down by having to do kitchen labor? Yet if I work at the Red Garter, a place frequented by travellers and merchants and boatmen, could I not find one who knows whereof I seek? But to lie with strange men, would my heart remain pure? Would Thale ever bear me again? Would I ever-?
“Of course, my uncle would have to approve,” added Huges, breaking into her thoughts. “Perhaps even try you himself.”
“Your uncle?”
“He owns the Red Garter”-Huges smiled-“it is a play on his name: Gautier.”
Camille shuddered and turned to Robert. “Sieur, may I work in your kitchen while I consider what to do?”
Robert smiled. “Indeed, ma’amselle.”
That evening, Camille and Scruff were moved into cramped quarters in the attic, and the following day, Camille began washing dishes and aiding the cook and bearing out garbage to cast into the waters below. It was the best Robert could offer, for, though he sympathized with Camille, her manual skills were those of a crofter, and there were no farms in Les Iles for her to earn her keep while working off her obligation.
Even so, Camille struggled with her dilemma: one hundred days versus as few as fourteen; her virtue versus mayhap finding Alain. She spoke to no one about her quandary, though she did tell of her loss.
Many of the kitchen staff did commiserate with her, telling of cutpurses and robbers and muggers and such, some blaming the burglary on a shadowy thieves’ guild, while others declared that it must have been those wretched urchins who had stolen her wealth, while yet others blamed it on Bogles in the night, or Knockers or River Selkies, or even mayhap-Mithras forbid-creatures of the Unseelie.
The cook did ask how she could have been so innocent as to leave her valuables unwarded, and at this Lisane’s words echoed in Camille’s mind: “… you are quite guileless and trusting, which is both to your good and ill…” Even as tears brimmed in her eyes, Camille answered the cook as she had Lisane. “I am who I am, sieur. If that means I am an innocent, then so it is I am.”
Some four days after, as she was washing dishes she began singing to make the work go swifter, a habit from her days in the cottage of her pere. And as she sang, the cook stopped what he was doing and stood rapt, listening, along with the kitchen help and serving girls, and the common-room staff as well. And soon Robert came to the door of the scullery, drawn thereto by her voice, and, as did the others, he, too, stood spellbound. As Camille turned to take up another dish: “Oh!”-she abruptly stopped-“M’sieur, I did not-Is my singing disturb-I’ll be quiet.”
“No, no, Camille,” protested Robert. “I would have you sing. Why did you not tell me you have the voice of an angel?”
“But, m’sieur, I-”
“How many songs do you know? And have you sung before an audience?”
“Oh, sieur, sing for others? I am no bard nor minstrel.”
Robert snorted. “Minstrels, bards, what would they know of how an angel sings?”
In moments, Robert had taken Camille’s apron from her and had given her a towel to dry her hands. And he drew her into the common room and quietly spoke of her working off her debt much swifter if she would sing therein-two times each eve, and for a candlemark or so each time.
It took less than a fortnight for the word to spread across Les Iles: a golden-haired girl with a golden voice was singing at the Crown and Scepter, and ’twas said she sometimes sings to a wee little bird.
And every night the common room was crowded, come to see and hear the beautiful maiden who sings to a sparrow. They had come for the novelty, but they stayed for the voice. Accompanied by nought but a flute and a drum and a fife and a harp-four musicians she had met in her search-she held the crowd enthralled; and her songs were such that one moment they were laughing, and the next they were in tears.
And every night, after every performance, ere she and the musicians took up the coins cast upon the stage, she would ask the audience if any knew of a place east of the sun and west of the moon, or of an Elven Bard named Rondalo.
The answer was always Non.
Camille’s debt vanished virtually overnight, much sooner than the fortnight or two offered by Huges, and Robert moved her into a suite of rooms. Seamstresses came and fashioned gowns, and from the music halls came managers who offered her unheard-of sums if she would but sing for them.
Camille politely declined, for she yet felt beholden to Robert.
But Robert now knew of her quest, and he bade her to sing in the largest hall-Le Magestreux-at least three nights of each seven, “… for the Crown and Scepter can still highly profit from the other four.”
And so she did.
And there, too, in the grand music hall did she ask the overflowing audiences did they know of the place she sought as well as where might be the bard? And still no answers came.
Days passed, and blossoms withered and vanished-two hundred ten, two hundred twenty, and more-and each day Camille’s desperation grew, and she felt as if she needed to be doing something, anything, other than remaining there in Les Iles… yet what? She had no answer, and there came times in the depths of the night, her despair so deep, she fell asleep while weeping.
Camille continued to trek to the docks and through the city seeking strangers. Too, she hired a group of urchins to be her eyes and ears, and to ask her two questions of strangers as well. But all the queries-hers and theirs-were met by shrugs, though many of those asked did now seem to know of Camille and her continuing quest.
But then came one night…
Camille took up Scruff and reached high to set him on the branch of a potted tree there upon the brightly lit stage. She stood silent for a moment, and a hush fell over the audience, and then came a run of tweeting notes from the fife, and Camille turned as if just discovering the wee brown bird, and she began to sing:
“Tiny brown sparrow, sitting in the tree,
Scruffy little soul, just like me,
Would you be an eagle, would you be a hawk,
Or would you wish instead to sing like a lark?
Or would you have plumage bright and gay,
Or would you wish…”
As Camille came to the second verse, the drum softly took up the rhythm, adding its beat to the chirping fife. At the third verse, the flute joined in, and at the fourth, the harp, and still Camille sang verse upon verse, chorus after chorus, her song telling the well-known tale of the maiden who found comfort in the familiar, yet who wished somehow to experience something new and unpredictable, a maiden who would finally discover love, which would set her free to fly as the transformed sparrow she then was. And in singing this song, Camille’s voice soared to heights that caused the audience to gasp, and it dropped to depths but a whisper, her tones pure and clear and
