away fra the garden. I hae done it thrice altogether, and in the third instance I was nearly the snake’s dinner. But I got o’er the wall j’st in time, and he missed his strike.” Again Gwyd offered the princess first drink, and again Liaze shook her head.
“And when is this day he sleeps?”
“It be in the night o’ the longest day o’ the year.”
Liaze’s face fell. “Oh, Gwyd, the night of the longest day is three moons past and will not come again for nine or ten moons, and I now have but a moon and a sevenday ere a heart will cease to beat.” Liaze sighed. “Mayhap we’ll have to forgo the life-giving elixir.”
They sat in glum silence for long moments, Liaze thinking, Gwyd sipping wine, while in the far distance downslope crofters worked in their fields.
“Ah,” said Gwyd, “the brandy, it be done. Feel the decanters now, m’lady.”
“Why, they’re cool, Gwyd.”
“Aye. The process be finished.” He rinsed out the cup from which he had taken his powdered simple and handed it to her. “Here, Princess, gi’e it a taste.”
Liaze removed the bridge and poured the distillate into the cup and took a sip. “Oh, my, it is quite good.”
Gwyd rinsed out the decanters and the bridge, and set them in the sun to air-dry.
Together, Gwyd and Liaze sat awhile on the bank of the rill, she sipping brandy, he drinking wine.
Finally Liaze reached into the knapsack and pulled out the red scarf. “Why this, Gwyd? Why the red scarf?”
“Princess, let me speak t’some Pixies first. If I be right, then it be part o’ the plan t’let ye ride wi’ the Wild Hunt and yet escape Lord Death in the end.”
Liaze gritted her teeth and said, “Gwyd, there is no reason for you not to tell me of this plan of yours. If it happens to be based on mistaken assumptions, well-”
“Ah, Princess, let me speak t’Pixies first, then I’ll tell all.”
Vexed, Liaze peevishly rewrapped the crystal decanters and the crystal bridge, and put them back in the rucksack, and tossed the scarf in after. “I don’t know why I have to ride with the Wild Hunt in the first place, and your refusal merely adds to the frustration.”
“Well, m’lady, I reck ye need t’ride wi’ the Hunt simply t’find y’r Luc.”
Liaze frowned. “Why, I would think he’s at the Blue Chateau, or nearby. That’s what Leon believes as well. Besides, that’s the way the crows flew.”
“Nae, Princess. ’Fit were that simple, why would Lady Skuld hae gi’en ye the rede in the first place?”
Liaze threw up her hands. “Who knows the ways of the Fates, Gwyd? Not I, and certainly not you.”
“Nae, I dinna ken the Fates, and about that ye of certain be correct, yet here be the way I think on it: Lady Skuld says right in the beginnin o’ her rede ‘In y’r long search f’r y’r lost true love, ye must surely ride wi Fear.’ T’me a key part o’ the rede is ‘long search,’ which means y’r Luc will nae be easy t’find. Now this we do know: the Wild Hunt rides o’er many a realm, and if Luc be nae at the Blue Chateau or e’en nearby, then the only way ye might find him be if the Hunt passes o’er where he be ensconced, where he be imprisoned. If that be true, then the Wild Hunt be the only chance ye hae t’recover y’r Luc.”
“Oh, Gwyd, think you that is true?”
“I dinna ken, m’lady,” said the Brownie. “But Lady Skuld says it be a long search and that ye need ride wi’ Fear, and that be Lord Dread and the Wild Hunt t’my way o thinkin.”
Glumly, Liaze sighed and nodded.
“My ribs already be knittin,” said Gwyd, getting to his feet. “I ween it be time t’be on our way, f’r the moor be some days afar, and, as ye hae said, the moon waits f’r no one.”
The princess reladed the goods and then helped the Brownie onto Pied Agile. “Which way, Gwyd?”
“We’ll hae t’go t’ward the inn where I once served as Brunie, f’r that be the way t’the moor. Besides, that also be the way t’the Pixies I ken, Twk among them, though the heath comes first.”
Liaze stepped to Nightshade, and of a sudden Gwyd groaned. Liaze turned. “Are you in pain?”
“Och, nae, Princess, but I hae a revelation.”
“A revelation?”
“Aye. A problem hae reared its head: a flaw in ma plan. Y’see, since the moor comes ere the realm o’ the inn, and since in that realm be where the Pixies live, then if the Wild Hunt happens by ere I speak t’the Pixies, then you’ll be aridin’ ere we ken what I hae in mind will work or nae at all.”
“Then, Gwyd, you had better tell me what my part in this plan is, for I will not forgo a chance to ride Nightshade with the Wild Hunt.”
“Oh, m’lady, a normal horse canna run wi’ the Hunt. Nae, ye must ride one o’ Lord Fear’s own steeds.”
“If that’s the way it must be, Gwyd, then our horses will be in your charge.”
Gwyd sighed. “I’ll hae t’lead them t’the Pixies, and fra there t’the woodland near the inn, where I’ll wait f’r you t’gi’ me the signal.”
“The signal? What signal?”
“Aye, the signal that ye ken where y’r Luc be.”
Liaze said, “Gwyd, you must tell me of this plan, for I must know what you have in mind if I am to do my part while you do yours. Heed me: whether or no it is deemed worthy by the Pixies, we must take the gamble, for I must ride with Lord Fear.”
Gwyd groaned again and said, “Aye, Princess, ye be right.”
Liaze mounted Nightshade and said, “You can tell me on the way, and we’ll think of what might go wrong and what to do in case it does.” And she heeled Nightshade in the flanks and down the slope they rode.
They turned on an angle between the sunwise bound and that of the sundown marge, and Liaze felt as if she were somehow betraying Luc by veering away from the path that would lead to the Lake of the Rose. Yet she knew she had to ride with Lord Fear, for to do otherwise would mean Luc’s death, or so she now believed. And the only way to find Lord Fear was to be at a place he rode by, and the only one Gwyd or she knew of was on a distant bleak moor.
Down through farmland they rode, and they passed into forested country, and onward they came to more farms. Villages they rode through, and they spent two nights in inns, where they took warm baths and supped on roast beef and tubers and gravy sopped up with good bread, and they drank some of their “weel-aged wine.” It was while Gwyd was deep in his cups that he began calling the princess “lass,” and she smiled at the term, for it gave her pleasure.
In the mornings at the inns, eggs they had and buttered toast and jams and jellies.
And all was paid for with good copper coins taken from the Troll hoard, a hoard no doubt stolen from others.
At the end of the second day, Gwyd announced that his ribs were fully mended, and Liaze marveled at his recovery, due either to the medicinal he had taken or to a Brownie’s natural healing.
And they rode onward.
And all along the way, they discussed and probed and examined every aspect they could think of concerning Gwyd’s plan. Liaze practiced on the silver harp, a travelling bard’s instrument, small and compact and more of a lyre than a full-fledged harp. And she sang love ballades and humorous ditties and songs of epic adventures, all to the delight of Gwyd, not only because of the content, but also because all of those things were part of his ploy for the princess to win free of Lord Fear. “Remember, lass, if we best him, he’ll ne’er bother ye nor me ag’in, nor any o’ those we treasure. And if ye ken what be his true name, ye can banish him altogether.”
On the evening of the third day of travel they crossed a twilight marge to come into a mountainous realm, and it was land that Gwyd had trekked through on his way to Lord Duncan’s.
The going was slow and tedious through this demesne, and they followed notches and deep vales and crossed several cols.
’Round the midday mark some four days after entering the mountains they reached another looming wall of twilight, and they crossed that bound to come to a bleak highland moor, the land damp and chill, with scrub and peat and soggy bogs lying along the way. And a dank wind blew, and wraithlike mist fled across the scape.
“Ah, Gwyd, ’tis a terrible place, this moor.”
“Indeed, m’lady. But it is here Lord Fear rode when I last came by. Up ahead we’ll find a narrow stand of
