Sorondur Hostakyermo, chief priest of the House of the Eagle in Emynos, was astonished, and offended, and perturbed, and finally deeply displeased by the demand that was made on him without any warning; but he had to give way, for Lord Melohtar was a power in the neighbourhood. Bishop Erumardil was an unknown power in the church hierarchy; and as for that Mr. Gumasson, there was something about him, for all his quietness, which did make one eventually feel that it would be much better to follow whatever course of action he favoured. After half-an-hour’s violent argument, the chief priest agreed to include this novel Rite of Attempted Disenchantment within tomorrow’s Spring Festival. Leaving Erum with him to work out the details, Melohtar took Swin’s arm and led him forth.
It was indeed a beautiful town, a gem of a town. Though the stonework was grey and austere everywhere, every porch and window, every gable and chimney-stack, every column and arch and stairway were arranged with an attractiveness of proportion that seemed to sparkle in its simplicity. Every little square had its own dancing fountain; every street was spacious, every cobbled alley friendly and inviting, every arched passage dark with the promise of some new welcome. Here the crowds, the beast-market and the general cheerful bustle of a Saturday morning, there the courtyards of the colleges, above all the weathercocks of the great houses and the spire of the little Erumar, like an unassuming cousin of some great and mighty lord. Melohtar had the right of entry into all three of the colleges. A word with the porter, a brief conference with the secretary or sub-warden, and then he and Swin were standing in the midst of a lovely sunny quadrangle, or gazing up into the slotted dome of an observatory, or beholding the precise, elegant labour of forty quills. Looking at the scores of grey-robed copyists seated at the long desks in one of the larger cloisters, with the piles of rolled parchment, the sheaves of swan’s feathers and the great glass jars of ink, Swin was moved to exclaim: ‘What a lot of words! What a lot of writing! Where does it all end?’
‘It never ends,’ answered the delighted Melohtar. ‘We have here the most numerous assembly of learned men, and the greatest source of books, throughout both kingdoms. Hey, that’s the bell for lunch. Come on!’
After lunch, however, the carefree mood was abruptly ended. Swin and Melohtar had strolled back to the main Square, where the traders set up their stalls in the benign shadow of the church, and where, in summertime, the tavern-keepers would place seats and tables for those who might like to sit and watch the scene. The two friends had a cup of wine there. As it was too chilly for sitting long outside, they walked across to admire the graceful span of the river-bridge, the green banks, the hundreds of swans and the stipple of light on the river. Two women approached from the far bank: a lady clad in dark fur of sable, and a maidservant, more plainly dressed, following behind her and carrying a bundle. Melohtar advanced to meet them in the middle of the bridge.
‘Dear Lady Miriel,’ said he, raising his hat, ‘what an unexpected pleasure! I trust I find you well?’
For the first few moments Swin was left out while Melohtar and Miriel exchanged compliments and enquiries. He thus gained a brief but very helpful interval in which to assemble his thoughts. He had at once recognised Miriel’s name as one of those mentioned in the letter from Bentliman Gough. Looking at her face, however, he recognised it not at all. His memory of the last year was still completely missing; and his sense of the lack was increasingly disturbing, even painful. Yet this lady might be one of those whom –
‘Bless me, what an oaf I am,’ said Melohtar. ‘Fancy neglecting to introduce my good friend, indeed my best friend, Mr. Swin Gumasson from the land of Doroech – or else – you’ve possibly met before?’
His manner was bland, his assurance perfect. Swin bowed awkwardly and Miriel gave him the deepest and widest of curtseys, kneeling almost to the ground. Her face, as she then looked up at him, was scarlet. She stripped off her glove and held out her hand, which he took and respectfully kissed. And then, out of the year’s absence that was like a great blank wall in his mind – out of the silence that was like a white and featureless sky – a tiny shape, a quaint absurd memory, a fragment of a single word came back to him:
‘Lady Miriel,’ he said: ‘Hi.’
‘Hi, Swin,’ she replied, smiling with tears in her eyes. She was glad to see him. ‘Lord Melohtar told us all that you’d been slain by the dragon.’
Melohtar sighed loudly and gave them a rueful comical smile. ‘I can see that I’ve got my work cut out for the next six months,’ he said, ‘correcting that particular mistake in people’s minds; yet how shall I complain, being myself the one who put it into circulation? It’s all a mystery. I must have been dreaming. I’m a complete ass. May I be permitted to move on from the embarrassing subject, and to enquire, Madam: whereabouts in this town are you residing?’
‘Up at the end of North Vale: with my sister and her child.’
‘So far out? Dear me. You must live very quietly. But have you no news of Court? I myself have been rather out of things since last autumn.’
They began to gossip together, leaving Swin out – very much to his relief. Almost at once he found he was hearing nothing of their talk. The pretty servant-girl was staring at him openly, unabashedly, meaningfully. He met her gaze. She moved towards him.
‘You don’t remember me, do you, Swin?’ she said. ‘Scrubbed your back for you, I did.’
‘I’m truly sorry,’ he said. ‘A dragon didn’t eat me up, but something was done to me all the same, and now I can’t remember the least thing about it. Please, who are you?’
‘Feima. We met at Lady Arloth’s house. I was the shy one.’
He shook his head helplessly.
‘Well now, big man, ain’t you interested in the consequences?’
‘Consequences?’
Somehow he knew what was coming next; somehow it was also a blinding, devastating surprise. Feima had come right up to him. Melohtar and Miriel were miles away. The girl held up the bundle and gently moved a woollen wrap.
A small round face looked into his. The red hair was there, a good thatch of it, yes. And the blue eyes.
‘What’s his name?’ he asked.
‘Culuriel. She’s a girl.’
Culuriel seemed slowly to become aware of him. She smiled. The depth of her eyes was like an arrow. Similes can be overworked, and the last sentence does sound absurd; yet in his narration to Aldred who writes this, Swin has said, has said explicitly and insisted that the child’s eyes seemed extraordinarily deep, and that in that depth he had a feeling of being shot to the heart. Let the reader judge the truth of the description. Swin stroked a soft cheek with one finger. He fought with tears. Feima covered up the baby daughter once more. He leaned on the cold stone parapet, clenching his teeth. The voices of Melohtar and Miriel came back.
‘...Your own trouble, my lord?’
‘I have a priestly friend who reckons he can do something about that! Will you be in church tomorrow? If you are, you may possibly witness a miracle.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I, dear lady, neither do I. Alas, we leave for Ruminas on Monday, but – let me see – could not you and your sister join us for dinner tomorrow evening? That would certainly cheer the gloom of our departure.’
‘I’m sure Alquessiel will be delighted.’
‘Excellent!’
They took their leave of each other. Miriel and Feima walked on, and Melohtar and Swin strode briskly out of the town. ‘Let’s stretch our legs,’ said Melohtar: ‘Let us go up to the ruins of the old city.’ For Dunbury, like Vinyards, was not quite where it had once been. Tactful and sensitive, Melohtar was able fully to appreciate his friend’s turbulent feelings. Swin said no word as the two achieved the steep climb; he listened in silence, when they stood on the broad hill-top, amidst the windy ruins, to Melohtar’s stories of the old Kingdom; and he gradually became a little more cheerful while they made their way down and returned to Melohtar’s house. Over supper they talked with Erum about the day, and the town, and the meeting on the bridge. Erum, who had been fasting for three days, returned a pale smile and sipped from his glass of water. Then the three friends sat together in silence.
The next day saw the fulfilment of Erum’s hopes. No need, in telling this, to try to enhance the wonder of that miracle. At noon precisely, under the eyes of the people of Dunbury, Erum opened the door of Gauriel’s cage and commanded her, in a voice of compelling power, to come forth. She slunk out of the cage, cowered before the hem of his robe and tried to lick his boots. He bent down: he placed his hands on her head and back: and then, in a quiet voice that seemed to roll round the nave of the church like distant thunder, he pronounced the counter-spell, Ilye ve wen kenuvar! Immediately the wolf writhed onto her back and howled a long cry that rose to a scream of pain and terror, a woman’s scream. And the white coat had the off-whiteness of ancient tatters of a bridal dress; and glimpses of pink skin became visible as the wolf continued to thrash and roll with paws in the air; and then she turned over, and there was Gauriel on her hands and knees, red-faced, desperately trying to cover her nakedness with the inadequate rags. Sternly Erum commanded her to kneel before him, and she knelt, and her hands fell down to her sides, and her long golden hair was the only covering for her back. He spoke to her quietly, and she whispered soft answers, but no-one else heard what was being said. Then he laid both his hands on her head, and blessed her in the name of Almighty Dru; and she held a rag over her breasts while he led her down the steps of the altar to the place where her husband stood. And Erum placed Gauriel’s hand in Melohtar’s hand, and repeated the final words of the marriage-service that had been said a year ago: ‘Go forth now as man and wife!’ And now, although the bride’s face and neck and bosom were all red with a fiery blush, her eyes were brilliant and she no longer appeared to care for her decency; but the bridegroom’s face was set and white. Hand in hand they walked down the aisle, and Erum followed them, and some of those who were present have said that he seemed to be holding a whip.
Swin remained in his place.
He sat in the church till the end of the service, and for some time after. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon walking round and round the town, deep in thought. At length, as the day was drawing in, he came back to the house. He found Erum and Melohtar and Gauriel sitting in the front parlour with old Lady Mareth, Melohtar’s great-aunt, who resided in the family home as its housekeeper. Gauriel was wearing a dress of fine-spun grey wool, cut low in the bosom, long-sleeved and close-fitting about the waist. She also had on a diamond necklace and ear-rings that had belonged to Melohtar’s mother. With her long hair newly washed and glistening like a nimbus in the light of the candles, she was more beautiful than ever; but her manner towards Swin, when he was re-introduced to her, was likewise more cold. However, the occasion was much less uncomfortable than might have been feared. Gauriel was very willing to hear about everything that had been going on during her absence, so there was plenty to talk about. She volunteered nothing about her experiences in beast’s form; not because she had already forgotten them all (as Swin soon began to wonder) but merely on account of a natural, even a proper reserve. (Much later, she did confide in Aldred; but he has promised to leave this chapter a complete blank.) Melohtar talked fluently, modestly, wittily; Swin gradually realised that it was Melohtar who was most exerting himself to keep the talk going, exerting himself as never before, and doing so with very fair success. Carriage-wheels rumbled outside, and the butler announced Lady Miriel and Lady Alquessiel. In they came, followed by Feima, now carrying two bundles. Even this moment, as the whole gathering perforce got up to look at the little ones and to congratulate the mothers – even this moment passed over without awkwardness, with a smoothness that was almost bizarre. Gauriel, as she has since admitted, had had no intimate friends before her marriage; Melohtar himself had been her closest friend; but the two sisters had been within her circle at Court, and she was able to relax with them as well as with anyone else. ‘So we’re to do the office of the bridesmaids, are we?’ said Alquessiel brightly, and everyone suddenly realised that that must be so.
At Melohtar’s request, Mareth had ordered a specially good dinner, the best that could be provided just after the end of winter and at a time of scarcity. A soup of dried peas and dried apples and bacon, with new loaves and good salt butter, was followed by a stuffed swan, perfectly cooked, and a great dish of roasted potatoes and carrots and parsnips, with the best old wine from the cellar; and afterwards a mincemeat pudding and a custard. Swin ate hugely, and so, in a perfectly ladylike way, did Gauriel. At least she began by doing so, partaking avidly of the roast swan and enjoying the use of her knife and fork. But then – Swin noticed this – a thought struck her. She laid down the implements, then took them up again and continued to eat, but now much more slowly, pushing the bones to one side of her plate and filling it with bread and vegetables. No matter. It was almost unbelievable, yet when the time came for the bride to withdraw, and her attendants to follow her, undress her and prepare her to receive her groom, there was a positively light-hearted feeling round the table. The ladies left the room; Gauriel smiled and blew her husband a kiss with almost a twinkle in her eye, as if to say, ‘Don’t be too long.’
Almost. The door closed behind them, the footsteps died away along the passage and Melohtar slumped forward, his forehead hitting the table with quite a bang. ‘I can’t do this,’ he said dully, face down.
‘Oh yes you can,’ said Swin. ‘Drink up!’
After another forty-five minutes of steady drinking Melohtar rose from his chair. His cheeks were flushed, his movements resolute and deliberate. He left his companions and sought the bridal chamber. Swin and Erum shook their heads at one another and finished the last bottle. Then they too went to bed.
Some time after the middle of the night, Swin was obliged to get up and make prolonged use of his chamber-pot. It was another dark, still night: the house was quiet, the whole town silent. There was no sound at all, once he had finished urinating, save the quiet breathing of Erum in the other bed, and a very faint moaning or wailing. Swin became still, held his breath and listened intently. There was the moaning sound. It was coming nearer, the cry of some wretched forlorn animal. It ululated and died away in a thin whine before becoming distinct again. Minutes passed. Swin had the impression that it had reached the house.
He left the bedchamber, stole across the landing on bare feet and descended the main stair.
Plain to be heard, now, was the sobbing whine, and even a scratching on the outside of the front door.
Swin wondered whether or not to rouse the servants, or to alarm the whole house, in case the thing outside was dangerous, and soon decided not to. There was only the one creature, and the tone of its voice proclaimed it to be not at all dangerous: pitiable, rather, and in the most desperate need.
He puffed up the embers of the fire in the dinner-hall, lit a candle and returned to the front door. This was secured with a chain and a bar but not locked. The moan changed to a whining whistle as the creature became aware of the door being unfastened.
The door swung open. Swin smelled the familiar scent of dog or wolf. There it was, a great dark mass with a pair of red eyes. The animal padded forward, sniffed at Swin’s feet and raised its head in mournful entreaty. It gave a couple of tail-wags. Then it collapsed on the floor. Its coat was very rough, and partly wet, and filled, so far as Swin could see, with bits of dead leaves and twigs and burrs. Also the side of its head was injured. One eye oozed and glistened in the candle-light.
The dog wore a leather collar with tarnished studs. Below the collar hung a bronze disc, also tarnished and corroded. The corrosion obscured the engraved letters of a name which, in any case, Swin would have been unable to read.