Once Upon an Autumn Eve by Dennis L. McKiernan

drapes to, then curtseyed and said good-night and slipped from the room.
    When she was gone, Liaze threw herself onto the bed and released her pent-up grief.

14
    Riddles
    W eeping off and on, Liaze did not sleep the remainder of that night, and just ere first light she arose and donned her leathers, wincing a bit from the darkening bruise on her breast. She strapped on a long-knife. She took up her bow and quiver of arrows and started for the door, but turned and stepped back and retrieved Luc’s silver horn. Then she went into the hallway beyond.
    “My lady,” said Didier, one of the wards at the door. Patrice, the other guard, bobbed his head. “Zacharie says we are to accompany you, wherever you go.”
    “Non,” said the princess. “I need to be alone to think.”
    “We can stand off a good distance,” said Patrice.
    Liaze sighed. “Very well, but at a good distance: I want no distractions.”
    “How far, my lady?” said Didier.
    “A hundred paces or more.”
    “A hundred paces? But, my lady—”
    Liaze lifted the silver horn. “At need I will call.”
    The warders looked at one another, and reluctantly agreed, and Patrice said, “As you wish, Princess.”
    Down the stairs they went, and the manor was silent, and those whose duties began this early were creeping about, despair on their faces, as if they were in mourning. And as the princess went by, some opened their mouths as if to speak, but they knew not what to say, while others simply curtseyed and lowered their gazes and hurried away on their errands.
    Out from the manor Liaze went with her two guards, and she strode across the lawn toward the willow grove, the early light of dawn just barely in the skies.
    As they reached the golden leaves and drooping branches, Liaze said, “Wait here.”
    Didier raised his hands in protest. “But my lady, we will not be able to see—”
    “I will be within a hundred paces, or thereabout, and I have the horn,” said Liaze, cutting off his objection. “I need to be alone, and the pool with its welling water is soothing unto me.”
    Again the guards looked at one another, and Patrice said, “As you will, Princess.”
    “But please, my lady,” said Didier, “keep the horn at hand, always within reach.”
    “I will,” said Liaze, then she turned on her heel and walked in among the golden leaves, soon to be lost to sight.
    With willow branches swaying behind her, Liaze came to the glade, and in the light of dawn she saw a crone at the water’s edge, weeping.
    A witch?
    Liaze raised the horn, preparing to blow, but then she hesitated.
    Wait! It is said witches are unable to weep ought but falsely, shedding no tears whatsoever.
    She scanned the crone’s face, and real tears flowed down.
    Loosening the keeper on her long-knife and nocking an arrow to string, Liaze stepped toward the side of the pool across from the crone.
    As she took station on the flat rock opposite, the hag looked up and uttered a wail. “My shoe, my shoe,” she cried, and pointed at the wooden sabot floating in the welling water. “Will you fetch my shoe?” And she wailed and buried her face in her hands.
    Liaze looked over her shoulder and listened for racing footsteps.
    The guards. They’ll come running at the crone’s keening.
    But they did not.
    The ugly, withered old woman looked up and again wailed. “My shoe, my shoe; please, oh please, fetch it.”
    Liaze frowned. A hag who has lost her shoe: where have I heard that be—?—Borel!
    Her heart pounding with hope, Liaze slipped the arrow back into the quiver and stepped ’round to the rill flowing outward and waited. Soon the shoe came drifting toward the outlet and into the stream. She stooped and took up the sabot, its straps tattered, and part of the wooden sole missing. With her long-knife yet unfettered—just in case—she stepped across the rill and walked about the remainder of the pool to the crone and held out the wooden shoe.
    “Why, thank you my dear,” said