Once upon a Spring morn

Roel sighed in exasperation. “I did not see you among the company. How came you in the first place?”

“Why, on a horse, my lord. I knew you would need your valet de chambre, though it seems you yourself did not. A candlemark or so after you rode away, I realized where my duty lay, and so I saddled a mount, and took another one in tow, one laden with needed supplies, and I followed. I just now reached the camp, or, let me say, I reached the camp a short while ago.”

Roel smiled and said, “You rode all the way completely alone through the deep and dark and perilous forest?”

“Indeed, my lord, though I believe it will be even deeper and darker and certainly much more perilous were I to have to ride back to the manor.” Roel burst into laughter; Celeste’s own giggles turned to laughter as well. Gerard didn’t blink an eye or shift his stance one hair as he let the mirth run its course. Finally, he made a slight gesture toward a newly pitched tent and said, “My lord, your shelter is ready. And would you and Princess Celeste like a good red wine to go with your evening meal?”

Once more Roel and Celeste fell into helpless laughter.

“I’ll take that as a ‘oui,’ my lord.” And with that, Gerard turned on his heel and strode away.

In the silver light of dawn, Celeste rose and walked past the sentry toward a wooded area designated as a place of privacy for her.

After she relieved herself, Celeste strode through the strip of woodland and toward the swift-running stream.

As she neared, she heard someone weeping, and at the edge of the flow she came upon a small lad, no more than four summers old. In tattered clothes he was, and sitting on a rock and holding a trimmed branch in one hand-more of a long switch than a pole-and a length of fishing line in the other. Celeste looked ’round, but no adult did she see.

“Child, what are you doing here so early in the morning and all alone?” Sobbing in snuck s and snub s, the small boy looked up with tear-filled eyes. “I came to catch a fish for breakfast.”

“Where are your pere and mere?”

“Elsewhere, my lady. Very far elsewhere.”

“They left you alone in the world?”

The child managed a whispered, “I have two sisters, and they will have nothing to eat,” and then he broke into wrenching sobs.

“Two sisters? No one else?”

“Non.”

“Then come with me, my lad,” said Celeste. “I will gather some food for you and your sisters.”

“Non, non,” cried the child, “I must catch a fish for them. But the string came loose from the pole, and a knot is needed.”

Celeste sighed. “Here, let me.” He held both out to her.

She took them and quickly she tied the twine to the end of the switch, and then cast the hook into the stream. She handed the branch back to the lad, and he looked up at her and said, “Merci, Princess.” And in that moment a shimmer came over the boy, and of a sudden before Celeste stood a slender maiden with silver hair and argent eyes, and from somewhere, nowhere, everywhere, there came the sound of battens and shuttles, as of looms weaving.

Celeste glanced at the dawn light growing in the sky and curtseyed and said, “Lady Skuld. Lady Wyrd. She Who Sees the Future.”

Skuld smiled and said, “We meet again.” Celeste nodded, for on the day before the wedding of Camille and Alain, Skuld and her sisters-Verdandi and Urd-suddenly appeared before her family-her pere and mere, her brothers and sister, and Camille and Michelle. Too, Hierophant Marceau had been there as well, though he had fainted dead away from shock when the three Fates abruptly materialized.

“My lady,” said Celeste, “when last I saw you, you warned that the acolytes would seek revenge. Is that who-?”

Skuld held up a hand palm out, stopping the flow of Celeste’s words. “Child, you know I cannot answer questions directly. I cannot e’en give you advice unless you first perform a service for me, and then answer a riddle. Because you tied my line to my pole when I was in the form of a small child, you have met the first requirement.” Celeste sighed. “I take it that you have something to tell me, and to hear it a riddle I must answer. Yet I have never been particularly good at riddles. May I at least fetch someone to help me? Roel perhaps?” Skuld laughed and shook her head. “They are all yet asleep and will not waken-not even your truelove-

until our business here is done.”

Celeste groaned and glanced back at the camp. In the growing light, no one stirred, not even the sentry, who seemed locked in his stance. She looked again at Skuld and said, “In all fairness I must confess that I know the riddle of the Sphinx and the riddles you posed to Camille and Borel.”

Skuld smiled. “I shall not ask you any of those, nor the one I posed to your sister.”

Celeste’s eyes flew wide in startlement. “You aided Liaze in her search for Luc?”

“Is that a question you would have me answer?” Celeste threw out a hand of negation. “Non. Non. If you posed a riddle to her, one she correctly answered, then you aided her.”

Again Skuld smiled.

Celeste took a deep breath and said, “As for a riddle you would have me answer, say away,” and then she braced herself as if for a blow.

Of a sudden the sound of looms weaving swelled, and Skuld said:

“Trees on my back, dwelling below, I fare when a wind does flow.

Name me. . ”

Even as the clack of shuttle and thud of batten diminished, Celeste’s heart sank and tears sprang into her eyes. I will never get the answer, never.

“Wipe away your tears,” said Skuld, “and think.”

With the heels of her hands, Celeste dried her cheeks, and she looked at Skuld and then away. In that moment a small piece of wood caught in the flow went racing downstream. Watching it, Celeste recalled a happier time long past in her childhood, when she and her brothers stood by a brook and-

“A ship!” she cried. “Lady Wyrd, ’tis a ship, for the trees on its back are the masts, the dwelling below houses the crew, and a ship does fare when a wind flows.” With hope in her eyes, she looked at Skuld.

Skuld now smiled and said, “Correct. And now I have something to tell you, and a gift for you as well.”

“This something you are going to tell me, is it in the form of a rede?”

Skuld nodded, and again Celeste groaned. “Lady Wyrd, I am not good with puzzles and redes, can you not say it straight out?”

“No, Princess, I cannot, for my sisters and I must follow the rules.”

“Rules,” mused Celeste. “I wonder just whose they are.”

“That I will not say,” replied Skuld. “Instead, this is what I’ve come to tell you.” And again as the thud and clack of weaving intensified, Skuld said:

“Seek the map, it is the key,

For Changelings dwell beyond the sea.

Yet beware, for there are those

Who bar the way: dreadful foes.

“A moon and a day, there is no more For the lost sister you would restore.

Seven years all told have nearly passed; A moment beyond and the die is cast.

“What might seem fair is sometimes foul And holds not a beautiful soul.

Hesitate not or all is lost;

Do what seems a terrible cost.”

Skuld fell silent, and Celeste said, “I understand some of it but not all. Lady Wyrd, would you please-?” Again, with an upraised hand, Skuld stopped the flow of Celeste’s words. “I cannot, Celeste. But this I can tell you: along