“But I do not love him, you minx, you jill-flirt, you harridan! Rather, it is hatred which possesses me when I look on this great-hearted young champion and perceive in him all that I might have been and shall never be. Rather, it is hatred which possesses me when I think that this man merits all your abominable perfections.”
So unbounded was the atrocious woman’s unreason that, under the pelting of Volmar’s abuse, she continued to smile happily.
“Come now,” said Sonia, “but let us be more wise, and discuss other matters than the undying dislike which we have for each other.”
“Ah, ah!” declared Mr. Smith, “but, at last, one of you has said something sensible. Let us by all means talk about other matters. It is the peculiar blessing of man that, even though he has five senses with which to acquire knowledge, and a brain with which to make reflections, he has likewise a vocabulary with which to edit any awkward results.”
Volmar grunted. Volmar said then,—
“But what is there to talk about?”
“Everything,” replied Mr. Smith, with enthusiasm.
—Whereafter he proceeded to demonstrate the at least partial truth of his statement. For Mr. Smith, now that he had touched on the great importance of mankind’s vocabulary, began talking about the odd fact that no tribe of American Indians, howsoever large their vocabulary, appeared to have practised any regular system of writing; and he quoted the five theories by which scientists have accounted for the omission. He spoke also of the couvade, customary among the Carib Indians, by which, when a child was born, the father was brought to bed instead of the mother; and he passed on to consider the equally strange crowning of Inez de Castro as the lawful Queen of Portugal several years after her death. Why was it, in point of fact, Mr. Smith then debated, that washing was injurious to pearls? and just how far north did the redbird migrate in spring? He deduced that the most probable answers were: (a) on account of the concentric layers of the pearl; and (b) Massachusetts.
He next mentioned, as a fact of not inconsiderable interest to a sound logician, that Mount Fujiyama was 12,395 feet in height; told why milk boiled more quickly than water; explained the difference between a concerto and a symphony; and he talked eloquently about the dolphin (or Coryphcena hippurus) both as a conventional symbol in printing and in candlesticks and as a prognosticator, in marine credence, of fair weather and of white-capped waves and of cloudless blue skies.
Very deeply engrossed by the informative nature of Mr. Smith’s remarks, the three of them (in the same instant that Mr. Smith finished telling about how the cushions used in upholstering came to be called squabs) reached a broad muddied river shining like brass in the sunlight. Fording this river, the Amio, they rode up, across fields which were overgrown with blue-flowering heather, into the city of Sorram. This town was girdled with olive-trees and mulberry-trees, and well fortified with white stone towers. Here they were met by the King of Ecben in person, who came piously with an abbot riding on each side of him; and before him walked four clerks, each clothed in long robes of lamb-skin and carrying a leaden sword, because the realm was at peace with all other kingdoms this week.
They attended mass here, first at the convent church of St. Clara, and afterward at the cathedral church of St. Agnan. But the feasting was different in Sorram, because of the old custom of Ecben that the men sat at table with men, while the ladies ate together in another banqueting hall, which was walled with engraved plates of silver that depicted the misfortunes of Alfgar, who had once reigned over this same kingdom.
XVII. PARTING IN ANGER
So they came uneventfully, upon the next afternoon but one, to where the charmed forest of Branlon stood between the kingdoms of Ecben and Rorn.
“Let us pause here,” said Volmar, when they had reached a deserted smithy.
“You select an uncheering spot,” returned Mr. Smith, “where desolation alone woos the regard. And yet, truly, it is well for us to sip, rather than to gulp, our advancement. We need but one step onward, over the invisible line between Ecben and Rorn, to step up in this world rather dizzily. A step more, and we are in the semi-fabulous kingdom of Rorn. Through that step you become a queen, Lady Sonia. A step more, and Volmar and I, with our embassy discharged, and with the uncaptivating off-chance of being sewed up alive in a sack of quicklime dismissed, will become very great lords in reality as well as in title, the each one owning his castles, his demesnes, his manors—”
“Now but do you stop talking for one half-minute,” said Volmar, “if you find such a thing to be possible.”
“Why, pray, should the all-envied, proud Lord of Achren not talk at his own will about facts which are of considerable interest to a sound logician?” Mr. Smith demanded; and he continued, equably:
“Also his warrens, his parks, his woodlands, his messuages, his fishings, his peasantry, his droits de seigneur, and all the other appurtenances of a snug nobleman. No, my dear Lord of Druim; I shall not keep silence; for admiration finds here its food. In such circumstances it really does behoove us, I submit, to acclaim the wonders of geography; and to applaud without any glum backwardness the injustice of our good fortune. In short, upon this engagingly funereal occasion, which marks the decease of all sorrow and trouble, we ought to step out of Ecben with the solemnity of rejoicing pall-bearers.”
“Ah, but for one,” replied Volmar, “I shall not step at all; and you two must go forward without me. To become a blacksmith has long been my ambition; it was the dream of my boyhood: and in this smithy I intend to fulfill my desire.”
Now Mr. Smith shook his divine head; and he emitted the brief low whistle of a dignified reflectiveness upon the dissatisfying.
“Truly,” remarked Mr. Smith, “the arts of Urc Tabaron are dependable. So it is in this manner that he compels you to make your home in Branlon.... Well! I assent; and yet it does seem a trifle unfair to the all-envied, proud Lord of Druim.”
“This thing is in no way reasonable,” said Sonia, “that on a sudden the Lord of Druim should become a blacksmith.”
The gross eyebrows of Volmar puckered. His face scowled. And he said, sullenly,—
“Nevertheless, Lady, it does not suit me to enter the kingdom of Rorn, now that the woman whom I most dislike of all women living is to be Queen over Rorn.”
Then Sonia came to him, with a little laugh which was half a sob; and her eyes were very bright, and all her bright-colored small face seemed wholly wonderful. She took his hand, saying:
“Let there be friendship between us, Volmar, putting the past aside. Out of that ancient lie which you spoke in my father’s hall has come for you a wide lordship and much wealth, and for me a kingdom and a champion without any stain to be my husband. The old evil has turned somehow into good; and so let our sharp enmity turn now into friendship.”
He replied: “I have got for you a young king of men to be your bedfellow. And now”—his face changed—“now that I bring you to King Feodor’s bedside, I perceive that I detest you more than I had suspected, Sonia, O my lost Sonia, and I cannot go forward to witness your happiness.”
She appeared startled and a little troubled. But she said only,—
“You speak in riddles, Volmar.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Smith, “I believe that the Lord of Druim speaks of a most ancient riddle. And I could give a guess at its name.”
“It is called hatred,” Volmar returned. “I dislike this woman so much that I am not content to be a well-thought-of baron, and her husband’s servant, in any kingdom of which this woman is the queen. I prefer to remain here in Ecben as a blacksmith or, if the need be, to go as a vagabond into wild places where I shall not be seeing her detestable face or be thinking about her golden-brown eyes and her hateful milk-white body. So do you ride forward with her, Lord of Achren. Do you deliver her soft, sweet, dear, damnable, paltry abominable body to King Feodor. And I will await your return here in this smithy.”
Long and steadfastly the Princess looked up at Volmar. Her
large eyes were not friendly now. There was in them only a doubtfulness and a half-frightened wondering. She said then:
“O most perverse and most stubborn man, I am well rid of you, for your ways trouble me beyond endurance. So I will go now to become a crowned queen in whose thoughts there is no place for a drunken liar.”
XVIII. THE TRUTH OF IT
Volmar sat late at the door of his smithy. There was no moon; darkness lay about him; but overhead all the stars of heaven seemed flaring and vibrant, in the while that Volmar regarded them and thought gravely about celestial deficiencies. Yes; it was undeniable that the Great Dipper needed a very much brighter star in the place of Megrez, so as to keep the outline of the Great Dipper distinct and uniform, nor did it appear pardonable for Orion to be wearing his sword on the wrong side, or for Cassiopeia, who was a great queen, but you must not think about queens, to have a chair which was rickety and back-breaking to sit in, even though these celestial blunders were not the concerns proper to a blacksmith, who must not think above his station, who must not think about the most lovely and dear of all human faces, but only about horses. Yes, you must think very resolutely about horses.
There had been Pegasus, and Caligula’s horse, and the Wooden Horse of Troy, and Mahomet’s horse, and Alexander the Great’s horse, and the nightmare, and Balaam’s ass, although the true nightmare would henceforward be to dream about the most lovely and dear of all human faces, knowing that you would not ever again see the detestable creature, and quarrel with her, and provoke her so that a clear patch of red would flare on each of the high cheekbones deliciously. But no horse was of that delicious delicate color, about which a blacksmith had no more reason to think than he had to think about the doings of a king and a queen when they in bed together, oh, God, but you could not endure the thought of those royal doings! You could only long to break, and to hurt, and to torture unhurriedly, without killing either one of them, until you had quite requited such lechery. So you must think about other matters, if but for your own sanity’s health, Volmar decided; and he groaned aloud.
“Well, at all events,” said Volmar, “there is more happiness in Rorn than there is in my smithy. And I have served for their own good the King and the Queen of that kingdom loyally.”
“But there is no queen in Rorn,” said a tiny voice.
Then Volmar uttered a half-frightened cry; and his arms clasped about Sonia before he had recollected this was a person whom he peculiarly hated. He thrust her away from him, and he shouted,—
“Why do you return to be plaguing me?”
“It was merely,” said, in the darkness, the urbane voice of Mr. Smith, “that the new Queen of Rorn, just before we reached Garian, thought of a fact which might ease your conscience. So she has mercifully returned to tell you about that fact, because all facts are of considerable interest to a sound logician.”
“It was merely,” said Sonia’s voice, “that, as we were riding along, I thought about the bold lie which you told in my father’s great hall publicly.”
Volmar said: “I have paid for that bragging lie with a life’s failure. Because of it, I, who might have been Lord of Druim—yes, and a not ever troubled demigod in Auster likewise—stand here, a mere blacksmith, without any honor in this world, and with a dead heart inside me. That ought to content you, Sonia.”
“The wealth and the high station which you have flung away, hard-headed Volmar, content me,—ah, but quite utterly do they content me! Yet you said then that I had given you my fancy, and that until life ends, I would be remembering you with love.”
“I spoke infamy, babbling a sot’s drunken lies,” replied Volmar; “and so, after all this while, you must be returning to remind me of my infamy. That is very like you, most hateful of women.”
“Oh, stubborn and most foolish of all living creatures, save only one creature, perhaps,” replied Sonia, laughing somewhat ruefully, “but it occurred to me, just as we were riding along, and when there was not much else to think about, that you had spoken the truth.”
He cried out, hoarsely: “Do not tempt me, Queen of Rorn! Do not mock my exceeding folly!”
“But here is no Queen of Rorn,” her grave sweet voice declared, steadfastly, and without any hesitating, in the kindly darkness. “Here is only a stubborn and a very foolish girl who dislikes you and your childish blustering weakness, O my dearest, with all her judgment, and who yet loves you—Volmar the Sober Truth-Speaker—with all her heart.”
“There is no reasonableness in her love,” he returned, sombrely, “because there is no reasonableness in me, and not much control over myself either.”
She admitted this, saying—with a small, wonderful, low outburst of laughter,—“No.”
Then the man said: “If there be any happiness in the time to come, Sonia, that will be a miracle and no less. Out of the dark I cry to you, my one love: and I say, Beware of Volmar! I say that I shall strive to be worthy of you, O my dear Sonia. And I say also that I shall fail. I cry to you, in the while that my arm goes about you, Do you leave me, Sonia! Do you not put any faith in Volmar!”
She replied, with strange soberness: “And I also shall fail you, perhaps. I shall turn even more quick-tempered, it may be; and when I am angry, why, then no doubt, I shall talk endlessly about the grand Feodor whom I might have married. Yes, that is very likely, Volmar; we both know far too well how to hurt each other: and the veiled future frightens me as I speak here with you, thus truthfully, in this deep darkness. We shall have our one hour of happiness; and after that will follow, as I fear, O my dearest, our black misery, black as this darkness.”
“Do you be wise, Sonia! for in Garian a fine throne and a young king of men await you.”
“But in this ruined dark smithy, Volmar, I find love and you whom I choose without overmuch hopefulness—and yet without any faltering either. There is no joy in my heart, O wild-hearted Volmar, now that I lay this cold hand of mine upon your hot large hand, but only a distrust of you and of your doings in the bleak time to come, and a strong need of you. Even from that first day of ours, in my father’s orchard, it was true that I had given you my fancy along with my distrust. Yes, and it remains true, O very dear, weak, loud-tongued Volmar, that until my life ends, I shall be remembering you with love,—at all times of course, except when we are quarreling.”
Then Volmar said, “Do you go away, Mr. Smith, and leave the two of us doomed persons together.”
“Indeed,” replied Mr. Smith, “I suspect that Urc Tabaron has been a little rash in this special matchmaking. Nevertheless, my dear boy, I obey you.”
PART THREE. THE BOOK OF ELAIR
“Consolidation of the railways of Evain, comprising 3,028 miles, formerly operated by twenty-six companies, into one operating company known as the Stairth if Branlon Rapid Transit, Inc., was completed early in 1932, under the direction of seven financial genii. The authorized capital in 1934 was £38,911,604; gross receipts £4,979,809; operating expenditures £46,154,181. Vessels entering the five ports of Evain in 1934 numbered 13,629 (including sailing vessels and the galleons of romance) of 8,682,470 tons.”
XIX. HOW THEY QUESTED
Now the tale speaks of the second magic of Urc Tabaron, telling how Fergail, the young Queen of Evain, let it be known in the lands beyond common-sense that she would become the wife of him who brought to her the charm, or the elixir—or, in brief, a thaumaturgy of any sort—by which her youth might be made steadfast.
There was no woman more comely than Fergail. Her wealth in oaken houses, in tilled lands, and in white and black cattle, was beyond counting; so likewise were the numbers of men that wooed her. But now, because of the second magic of Urc Tabaron, now in the mind of Fergail moved a gray thought of how patiently time waited to despoil her of all such pleasantries; and in the Queen’s silver mirror smiled back at her a fair-colored assurance that so long as youth lasted, in a worldful of persuadable male creatures, Fergail need lack the fulfilling of no desire.
She summo
ned her druids. In their presence she laid both hands on the private parts of the image which was called the Red Stallion of Stairth, and she made publicly that oath which only the queens and the kings of Evain might make, and, breaking which, they also must be broken, into four pieces. Fergail thus made her oath to marry the champion who should procure for her a dependable magic by which, in derision of time’s malice, her young beauty would be made perpetual.
Hearing her, Elair the Song-Maker laughed high-heartedly. He got ready his horse, his sword, his fine harp of maple-wood, and his pistols. After that, he rode out of Evain, well armed in all respects except that upon his head showed a wreath of rowan berries in place of a helmet. He rode eastward, .thinking always about the sea-green color of Fergail’s eyes and about the red color in the curved lips of Fergail and about the clear gold of young Fergail’s hair. There was not in this world her twin for loveliness.
Thus likewise, upon the highways and down the pleasant lanes of the lands beyond common-sense, rode yet other enamored horsemen. Among them were kings and princes, a brace of fine emperors, and many dozens of lean poets and burly men-at-arms, each one of them led by his desire of Fergail and by memories of her bright beauty. To all these came adventures, and to some of these came death, in their searching for a magic which would make eternal the dear youth of Fergail: but with none of these men have we any concern.
The tale follows Elair the Song-Maker, whom the Master of Gods begot upon Airel, a conversation woman; and the tale narrates how Elair rode out of Evain, looking for Urc Tabaron and for such aid as this wizard had once given in the old days to Elair’s mother, Airel of the Brown Hair.
XX. LANDS BEYOND COMMON-SENSE
Now in those days to be a young champion riding at adventure through the traditionary lands beyond common-sense, upon that immemorial business of a champion, the pursuit of a quest, was a fine calling, with few idle moments in it. The countryside abounded in matters of interest; and the local doings afforded to the wayfarer every one of the more handsome improbabilities of romance.
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