Once Upon an Autumn Eve Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked at the princess and said, “Did I not tell you that one day the right man would come along and—”
    “Zoé, Zoé, we know nothing of him.”
    “My lady, recall: I said that this might be the day, and he is so handsome and tall and strong in spite of being slender, and—”
    “Zoé, again I say, we know nothing of him.”
    “Ah, Princess, I saw how he made you blush. And his words were so romantic: ‘My angel,’ he said. ‘My beautiful angel.’ What could be more fitting?” Zoé sighed, and her eyes lost focus, as if she were captured in a rêve . But then she started and exclaimed, “Oh, my, I just had a thought. At the pool. He must have seen you naked. Did he? Did he?”
    “He had already swooned,” said Liaze, taking up her glass and peering into the depths.
    Zoé giggled and clasped her hands together. “Oh, I think not, my lady, for you are blushing again.”
    Liaze swirled her wine and smiled unto herself, then said, “After he had fallen from his horse, when I went to him in the moonlight he opened his eyes long enough to look at me, but only my face. Then he swooned.”
    “He said nothing?”
    “Just one word,” said Liaze. “Ange.”
    “Angel!” squealed Zoé, clapping her hands. “I knew it!”
    “I repeat, he only saw my face.”
    “Ah, but non, I think not, for men are sneaky in the way they look at us and manage to see more than they let on.”
    Liaze sipped her wine. I think this one would look frankly and openly at anyone or anything that interested him. Liaze did not say so to Zoé, for that would attribute to the knight something that she knew not. Thrusting my own ways upon him.
    Zoé smiled, and then, all handmaiden business, she held out a washcloth and a bar of lavender-scented soap. “Cook says the meal will be ready within a candlemark.”
    The princess tossed down the last of her wine and traded her glass for the cloth and soap.
     
    Just after dawn the next morn, Liaze, wearing her hunting leathers, saddled her horse, Stablemaster Eugéne standing by.
    An outer door opened, and Zacharie entered. “The falcons have flown with their messages, my lady.”
    “Well and good,” said Liaze. “Let us hope when they return they do not bear ill tidings.” She glanced across at the chevalier’s black horse, the stallion’s attention on Liaze’s mare. “Zacharie, are you certain there was nought in our mysterious knight’s baggage to identify him?”
    “Non, my lady,” replied the steward. He looked at Eugéne. “And we searched most thoroughly.”
    Eugéne nodded in agreement and said, “Though his steed put up a ruckus last night, still he is a noble one, and the trappings are of worth. Perhaps the knight is highborn.”
    Liaze cinched the girth and said, “Unless the blow to his head has removed his memory, when he wakens we shall know.” As she took up a saddle quiver filled with arrows and tied it to the forebow, Liaze frowned and glanced at the black and said, “Put up a ruckus, you say? Why so?”
    Eugéne shrugged. “Something disturbed him, I would say, though I cannot say what. Got the other horses in a rumpus, too. By the time I arrived, they’d begun calming down. Whatever it was, a badger or some such, it was gone.”
    “When was this?” asked Liaze.
    “Just before Zacharie and I went through the knight’s goods; searching for his identity, we were,” said the stable master.
    “My lady, mayhap it was one of the Goblins,” said Zacharie.
    “If so, it’s no longer about,” said Liaze, taking up her horn bow.
    “Even so, my lady,” said the steward, fretting, “I would rather you let Rémy and the men make certain that the woods are clear of—”
    “Non, Zacharie,” said Liaze, stringing the weapon. “I would see for myself these raiders.” She tested the pull and said, “Besides, it will hearten the staff to see that I go unafraid.”
    As she slipped the bow into the saddle scabbard Zacharie sighed and nodded in acceptance, for