Sabledrake Magazine
February, 2002
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The Solstice
Copyright © 2002 By L. D. Korn
With a protective thrust to her back, he shoved Lady Crayola through the door of the cottage they had just found. She tripped through the doorway and onto the floor. From behind him he could hear cavalry carving through the forest. His guess was that there had to be six, maybe seven men pursuing them. And the Solstice was tonight, which meant it would be the shortest night of the year.
“That hurt!” Lady Crayola fussed while dusting herself off.
“How is your skill with a crossbow?” he asked while removing his backpack from his aching shoulders.
“Hark, he speaks at last,” she said.
He was somewhat shorter than the other knights she had met before, if a bit too quiet for her tastes. Although considering the fact that he had just pulled her out of that hellhole down in the valley, she certainly wasn’t going to piss him off.
“Lady Crayola, did your Father teach you to use one or not? We’re running out of time here!”
“Umm . . . yes,”
He didn’t hand her the crossbow, he tossed it to her. She caught it and began pulling the bowstring back. A quiver of quarrels quickened across the floor to her. Lady Crayola hastily bent down and loaded one of them into the weapon. He was kind of cute, she thought to herself. And just then a grin began to climb onto her face.
The shorter than usual knight located a table in the corner of the one room cottage. With his lower center of gravity, he convinced the table that it was to be relocated up against the only door in or out of the place. The other three walls to the place each had a window. Not a big window, but ones big enough to fire a crossbow out of. . . or into. Two chairs, one with a broken leg, were in a pile by a small stove that probably couldn’t burn itself anymore. The knight slinked in his chain mail armor over to the chairs. He told Lady Crayola to get by the window. He then tossed one chair in front of each of the two remaining windows. Now, if someone tried to climb in, he could smack the daylights out of them with a blast of a chair.
“Your smiles do neither of us good,” he said. “Keep looking out the window,”
“They’ve already taken up their positions out-"
“S’blood! Why do you not tell me these important things?”
The knight peeked out the window. Sure enough, the pursuers had already dismounted from their steeds and begun to surround the cottage. It would be night soon. That would only add to their problems.
“Forest, ho!” the undersized knight yelled out the window. “We shall try fortune in a second fight. Until that time nears us, perhaps bring us thee some firewood?”
“Have you gone insane?” Lady Crayola grabbed him by his armor-coated arm.
“Duck,” was all he said.
Four crossbow bolts sought out the interior of the room and planted themselves on the far wall. Another impaled its pointed suggestion on the exterior of the rustic, country home.
“Now we have additions to our munitions,” the short knight said as he began to pull the bolts from the far wall.
“The second word makes the fray, good sir,” Lady Crayola added.
“It was not I who decided to take a stroll in the woods all by my lonesome, Crayola. You’re Father is in more than just ill humor,”
“I did not venture by myself. My entourage encountered an ambushed,”
“Entourage? Well-dressed servants with knives fit for only the slaying of cheese is no entourage,” the knight explained while pulling the first three bolts from the mortar in the wall.
“I will have you know that they were well-trained with their weapons,”
“A handful of servants falling upon their own blade is of little taste, Crayola,”
“That’s Lady Crayola to you. . . sir,” and a colorful pronunciation to the word “sir” she did add.
“And Phillip to you, Lady,” he said as he was reaching for the last bolt. That meant they had fired from prone positions outside. Good, he thought. He pondered how Crayola could probably hit a target lying still easier than a moving one. Then, from outside, a voice sought conversation with one of the inhabitants of the cabin.
“Phillip! Oh Phillip of Glassware!” came the voice. “Run out of places to hide, have you?”
“You’re Phillip of Glassware?” Lady Crayola asked the short knight.
“Lady Crayola,” Phillip scratched at a cut over his left eyebrow. “It would bring great pains upon me think I was taking advantage of you, but-”
“Of course not. The honor is all mine, Sir Phillip. What is it that I can-“
“Would you pull out that last bolt for me? I am short-breathed and am unable to dislodge it,” and then he went over the window for some parlay with that say-so from the forest. He grabbed the crossbow from Lady Crayola as they traded spaces. He went to the window.
“Oh Phillip! Phillip of-“
“Of my title I am aware, McLuste. What is it that you trouble us with now?”
The resonance that a forest can add to a voice is a most peculiar thing, Phillip thought to himself. A woodpecker could be heard in the distance.
“Did you miss us, my kinsman Phillip?” the voice hidden in the foliage inquired.
“Some actions depend solely upon my aim!”
“Sounds like you’re threatening my men. You wouldn’t do such a thing, now would you?”
“For an unspeakable wag, words somehow do continue to flow from your fat-witted hole,”
“What wonderful evening for a fire,” responded McLuste. “It’s the Solstice tonight, isn’t it, Phillip?”
Lady Crayola brought over the last bolt to Phillip. He handed her the crossbow and then drew his sword. They exchanged glances if only for a second. Her green eyes he found. . . distracting. For the first time she came face to forehead with the fact he was clearly half a cubit shorter. But she didn’t care.
“He is your kinsman?” Lady Crayola asked.
“Of those things, I had no say,” responded Sir Phillip.
“Do tell what is this Solstice, then?”
“Did not your Father give you books to read at some time in your childhood? It’s the shortest night of the year. Perhaps new friends should be in your future, Lady Crayola. I suppose it matters not anymore. They’ll soon try to burn us out of here,” he said while searching for his bag.
“It is better to marry than to burn,” she replied.
“Perhaps your Father did give you books,”
Phillip of Glassware tore open his backpack and retrieved a skin of water. His thirst commanded his actions for a moment. He then handed the deer skin of liquid to Lady Crayola who responded to his gesture.
“This liquid force won’t quench the thirst I have, Sir Phillip,” and she drank from his skin.
While keeping an ever watchful eye out the window, he responded with, “A blind woman once sat behind a pile of rocks thinking that no one could see her,”
“It was a man. And I can see him, by Heaven I can,” she smiled.
“Twisting ropes of sand redeems nothing, Lady Crayola,”
“Those who love well, forget slowly,”
The light in the room began to fade as the sun came nearer to completing its day-long journey.
Again, the voice from the forest, the voice of McLuste penetrated the room during another moment between Lady Crayola and Phillip of Glassware.
“Whoa! The ducats some people have to pay for torches of quality, Phillip! Plenty of multiplying villanies run amuck when you get right down to it!”
Phillip just laughed out loud. “You prove yourself an imbecile, McLuste. Paying for a stick with oiled cloth!”
Phillip began pacing. Time was short. He thought to himself how it would be pitch black soon and six, maybe seven of them would be. . . no, there were only four bolts pulled from the wall. . . and the one outside. Okay, so five of them. . . that’s better than six. . . and she can shoot.
“Is it not in you to call upon your calmness, Sir Phillip?” Lady Crayola suggested.
“Did I give you wine from that skin? If I don’t return you home, your Father shall invite me to his next banquet. . . from my neck up,”
“Light still enters the room, Phillip,” and she grabbed him.
A woman holding a crossbow had never seized Phillip before. It was hard to resist. So he gave in. Their lips met in a gentle collision of reconcilable differences. It was a long moment. But then, to a wearied traveler like Phillip, a mile is an eternity.
“To a traveler in love,” she said to him. ”A thousand miles is a mere walk across the room,”
“We can’t live on love alone; damn I’m so stupid for I can do nothing but surround myself with thoughts of you,”
“You kiss by the book,” and she let loose another one of those smiles.
“’Zounds! He gave you that book, too?”
“The cottage is mostly stone, Phillip. And they have to come in here,”
“You women are eternally without reason,” and he began double-checking the table that had been pushed fast against the door.
“That’s why we’re never wrong,”
A torch landed inside the room. Phillip tossed it into the old, broken stove. Laughter emanated from the darkened forest by more than one set of vocal chords. Phillip started to pace again and then stopped himself. He looked right into the eyes of his new love.
“All right, Lady Crayola, this we’ll call home for now,”
“We have excellent aim,” she said as she went back to the window with his crossbow.
**
The End