Author’s note: The word “renard” in French means “fox”. Perhaps there is some connection. Reynardine is an actual legendary figure in English and Irish folklore.

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Reynardine

His hair was red, his eyes green and slanted. There was something about him that spoke of unearthly power. He smiled and nodded politely as she scrambled over the rocks towards where he sat, a flute dangling from his thin, lithe hands.

She was fair, her skin creamy and pale. Her complexion made her dark hair seem darker, and her rosy lips a brighter shade of red. She looked at him queerly, surprised to find a young man so far out on the moor.

“No doubt you heard my flute,” he said quietly. His voice was somewhere between boy and man, and had a musical quality that told her he sang well.

She nodded. The haunting sound of the flute had drawn her away from the manor dairy where she’d been rinsing cheeses in ale, bringing her to this very spot.

“You fear me,” he said. She nodded once, slowly, as if afraid to admit that there was something uncanny about him that made her shiver.

“There is nothing to fear.”

The otherworldiness that he wore like a cloak seemed to dissipate, until he was no more than a lone young piper, sitting on a rock.

She drew nearer.

“Do you know ‘Summer Is A-Comin’ In’?” she asked. He nodded, and brought the flute to his lips.

It was “Summer Is A-Comin’ In”, but not any way she’d ever heard it. There seemed to be more notes, more trills, than should have come from the simple wooden flute. Her eyes drifted shut, her mind borne away on the wings of the old tune, which was both strange and familiar at the same time.

The last note died away, and she opened her eyes, searching his face for an answer as to why he had stopped playing.

“One tune for free,” he said. “But you’ll have to pay for more.”

“I have no coin,” she said.

He shrugged carelessly. “Then you’ll hear no tune.”

She untied her pocket and spilled its contents out on the rock. A jay feather, a bit of bright ribbon, a smooth river pebble, a little knife in a leather sheath.

“Keep your baubles,” he said. “All I ask is a kiss from your lovely red mouth.”

Her cheeks burned bright as a new apple. “Mother told me about young men like you,” she said. “They seduce innocent maids with pretty words, then leave them alone and with child as they go off to seduce more.”

“You misjudge me. I have never left a maid alone with child, nor will I ever. And if they do not follow me when I leave, it is only because they fear to.”

“I fear nothing.”

He leaned towards her then, and pressed his mouth against hers, his tongue running gently over her lower lip. She did not pull away, partly to prove that she was not afraid, and partly entranced by the taste of mint and mushrooms and honeysuckle on his lips.

He sat back after a moment, his crooked grin revealing the whitest teeth she had ever seen.

“Then follow me.”

She allowed him to pull her standing, wondering at the strength in his thin arms.

“Where—” she asked, trance-like. “Where are we going?”

“To a green castle, far away,” he said. “Where I am known as Reynardine.”