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_ THE ELEVENTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE TURNED TO GARDENING AND HIS SWORD RESTED
These were the days that Rodriguez always remembered; and, side by
side with them, there lodged in his memory, and went down with
them into his latter years, the days and nights when he went
through the Pyrenees and walked when he would have slept but had
to walk or freeze: and by some queer rule that guides us he
treasured them both in his memory, these happy days in this garden
and the frozen nights on the peaks.
For Serafina showed Rodriguez the garden that behind the house ran
narrow and long to the wild. There were rocks with heliotrope
pouring over them and flowers peeping behind them, and great
azaleas all in triumphant bloom, and ropes of flowering creepers
coming down from trees, and oleanders, and a plant named popularly
Joy of the South, and small paths went along it edged with shells
brought from the far sea.
There was only one street in the village, and you did not go far
among the great azaleas before you lost sight of the gables; and
you did not go far before the small paths ended with their shells
from the distant sea, and there was the mistress of all gardeners
facing you, Mother Nature nursing her children, the things of the
wild. She too had azaleas and oleanders, but they stood more
solitary in their greater garden than those that grew in the
garden of Dona Mirana; and she too had little paths, only they
were without borders and without end. Yet looking from the long
and narrow garden at the back of that house in Lowlight to the
wider garden that sweeps round the world, and is fenced by Space
from the garden in Venus and by Space from the garden in Mars, you
scarce saw any difference or noticed where they met: the solitary
azaleas beyond were gathered together by distance, and from
Lowlight to the horizon seemed all one garden in bloom. And
afterwards, all his years, whenever Rodriguez heard the name of
Spain, spoken by loyal men, it was thus that he thought of it, as
he saw it now.
And here he used to walk with Serafina when she tended flowers in
the cool of the morning or went at evening to water favourite
blooms. And Rodriguez would bring with him his mandolin, and
sometimes he touched it lightly or even sang, as they rested on
some carved seat at the garden's end, looking out towards shadowy
shrubs on the shining hill, but mostly he heard her speak of the
things she loved, of what moths flew to their garden, and which
birds sang, and how the flowers grew. Serafina sat no longer in
her balcony but, disguising idleness by other names, they loitered
along those paths that the seashells narrowed; yet there was a
grace in their loitering such as we have not in our dances now.
And evening stealing in from the wild places, from darkening
azaleas upon distant hills, still found them in the garden, found
Rodriguez singing in idleness undisguised, or anxiously helping in
some trivial task, tying up some tendril that had gone awry,
helping some magnolia that the wind had wounded. Almost unnoticed
by him the sunlight would disappear, and the coloured blaze of the
sunset, and then the gloaming; till the colours of all the flowers
queerly changed and they shone with that curious glow which they
wear in the dusk. They returned then to the house, the garden
behind them with its dim hushed air of a secret, before them the
candlelight like a different land. And after the evening meal
Alderon and Rodriguez would sit late together discussing the
future of the world, Rodriguez holding that it was intended that
the earth should be ruled by Spain, and Alderon fearing it would
all go to the Moors.
Days passed thus.
And then one evening Rodriguez was in the garden with Serafina;
the flowers, dim and pale and more mysterious than ever, poured
out their scent towards the coming night, luring huge hawk-moths
from the far dusk that was gathering about the garden, to hover
before each bloom on myriad wingbeats too rapid for human eye:
another inch and the fairies had peeped out from behind azaleas,
yet both of these late loiterers felt fairies were surely there:
it seemed to be Nature's own most secret hour, upon which man
trespasses if he venture forth from his house: an owl from his
hidden haunt flew nearer the garden and uttered a clear call once
to remind Rodriguez of this: and Rodriguez did not heed, but
walked in silence.
He had played his mandolin. It had uttered to the solemn hush of
the understanding evening all it was able to tell; and after that
cry, grown piteous with so many human longings, for it was an old
mandolin, Rodriguez felt there was nothing left for his poor words
to say. So he went dumb and mournful.
Serafina would have heard him had he spoken, for her thoughts
vibrated yet with the voice of the mandolin, which had come to her
hearing as an ambassador from Rodriguez, but he found no words to
match with the mandolin's high mood. His eyes said, and his sighs
told, what the mandolin had uttered; but his tongue was silent.
And then Serafina said, as he walked all heavy with silence past a
curving slope of dimly glowing azaleas, "You like flowers, senor?"
"Senorita, I adore them," he replied.
"Indeed?" said Dona Serafina.
"Indeed I do," said Rodriguez.
"And yet," asked Dona Serafina, "was it not a somewhat withered or
altogether faded flower that you carried, unless I fancied wrong,
when you rode past our balcony?"
"It was indeed faded," said Rodriguez, "for the rose was some
weeks old."
"One who loved flowers, I thought," said Serafina, "would perhaps
care more for them fresh."
Half-dumb though Rodriguez was his shrewdness did not desert him.
To have said that he had the rose from Serafina would have been to
claim as though proven what was yet no more than a hope.
"Senorita," he said, "I found the flower on holy ground."
"I did not know," she said, "that you had travelled so far."
"I found it here," he said, "under your balcony."
"Perchance I let it fall," said she. "It was idle of me."
"I guard it still," he said, and drew forth that worn brown rose.
"It was idle of me," said Serafina.
But then in that scented garden among the dim lights of late
evening the ghost of that rose introduced their spirits one to the
other, so that the listening flowers heard Rodriguez telling the
story of his heart, and, bending over the shell-bordered path,
heard Serafina's answer; and all they seemed to do was but to
watch the evening, with leaves uplifted in the hope of rain.
Film after film of dusk dropped down from where twilight had been,
like an army of darkness slowly pitching their tents on ground
that had been lost to the children of light. Out of the wild lands
all the owls flew nearer: their long, clear cries and the huge
hush between them warned all those lands that this was not man's
hour. And neither Rodriguez nor Serafina heard them.
In pale blue sky where none had thought to see it one smiling star
appeared. It was Venus watching lovers, as men of the crumbled
centuries had besought her to do, when they named her so long ago,
kneeling upon their hills with bended heads, and arms stretched
out to her sweet eternal scrutiny. Beneath her wandering rays as
they danced down to bless them Rodriguez and Serafina talked low
in the sight of the goddess, and their voices swayed through the
flowers with whispers and winds, not troubling the little wild
creatures that steal out shy in the dusk, and Nature forgave them
for being abroad in that hour; although, so near that a single
azalea seemed to hide it, so near seemed to beckon and whisper old
Nature's eldest secret.
When flowers glimmered and Venus smiled and all things else were
dim, they turned on one of those little paths hand in hand
homeward.
Dona Mirana glanced once at her daughter's eyes and said nothing.
Don Alderon renewed his talk with Rodriguez, giving reasons for
his apprehension of the conquest of the world by the Moors, which
he had thought of since last night; and Rodriguez agreed with all
that Don Alderon said, but understood little, being full of dreams
that seemed to dance on the further, side of the candlelight to a
strange, new, unheard tune that his heart was aware of. He gazed
much at Serafina and said little.
He drank no wine that night with Don Alderon: what need had he of
wine? On wonderful journeys that my pen cannot follow, for all the
swiftness of the wing from which it came; on darting journeys
outspeeding the lithe swallow or that great wanderer the white-
fronted goose, his young thoughts raced by a myriad of golden
evenings far down the future years. And what of the days he saw?
Did he see them truly? Enough that he saw them in vision. Saw them
as some lone shephered on lifted downs sees once go by with music
a galleon out of the East, with windy sails, and masts ablaze with
pennants, and heroes in strange dress singing new songs; and the
galleon goes nameless by till the singing dies away. What ship was
it? Whither bound? Why there? Enough that he has seen it. Thus do
we glimpse the glory of rare days as we swing round the sun; and
youth is like some high headland from which to see.
On the next day he spoke with Dona Mirano. There was little to say
but to observe the courtesies appropriate to this occasion, for
Dona Mirana and her daughter had spoken long together already; and
of one thing he could say little, and indeed was dumb when asked
of it, and that was the question of his home. And then he said
that he had a castle; and when Dona Mirana asked him where it was
he said vaguely it was to the North. He trusted the word of the
King of Shadow Valley and so he spoke of his castle as a man
speaks the truth. And when she asked him of his castle again,
whether on rock or river or in leafy lands, he began to describe
how its ten towers stood, being builded of a rock that was
slightly pink, and how they glowed across a hundred fields,
especially at evening; and suddenly he ceased, perceiving all in a
moment he was speaking unwittingly in the words of Don Alvidar and
describing to Dona Mirana that rose-pink castle on Ebro. And Dona
Mirana knew then that there was some mystery about Rodriguez'
home.
She spoke kindly to Rodriguez, yet she neither gave her consent
nor yet withheld it, and he knew there was no immediate hope in
her words. Graceful as were his bows as he withdrew, he left with
scarcely another word to say. All day his castle hung over him
like a cloud, not nebulous and evanescent only, but brooding
darkly, boding storms, such as the orange blossoms dread.
He walked again in the garden with Serafina, but Dona Mirana was
never far, and the glamour of the former evening, lit by one star,
was driven from the garden by his anxieties about that castle of
which he could not speak. Serafina asked him of his home. He would
not parry her question, and yet he could not tell her that all
their future hung on the promise of a man in an old leathern
jacket calling himself a king. So the mystery of his habitation
deepened, spoiling the glamour of the evening. He spoke, instead,
of the forest, hoping she might know something of that strange
monarch to whom they dwelt so near; but she glanced uneasily
towards Shadow Valley and told him that none in Lowlight went that
way. Sorrow grew heavier round Rodriguez' heart at this: believing
in the promise of a man whose eyes he trusted he had asked
Serafina to marry him, and Serafina had said Yes; and now he found
she knew nothing of such a man, which seemed somehow to Rodriguez
to weaken his promise, and, worst of all, she feared the place
where he lived. He welcomed the approach of Dona Mirana, and all
three returned to the house. For the rest of that evening he spoke
little; but he had formed his project.
When the two ladies retired Rodriguez, who had seemed tongue-tied
for many hours, turned to Don Alderon. His mother had told Don
Alderon nothing yet; for she was troubled by the mystery of
Rodriguez' castle, and would give him time to make it clear if he
could; for there was something about Rodriguez of which with many
pages I have tried to acquaint my reader but which was clear when
first she saw him to Dona Mirana. In fact she liked him at once,
as I hope that perhaps by now my reader may. He turned to Don
Alderon, who was surprised to see the vehemence with which his
guest suddenly spoke after those hours of silence, and Rodriguez
told him the story of his love and the story of both his castles,
that which had vanished from the bank of the Ebro and that which
was promised him by the King of Shadow Valley. And often Don
Alderon interrupted.
"Oh, Rodriguez," he said, "you are welcome to our ancient,
unfortunate house": and later he said, "I have met no man that had
a prettier way with the sword."
But Rodriguez held on to the end, telling all he had to tell; and
especially that he was landless and penniless but for that one
promise; and as for the sword, he said, he was but as a child
playing before the sword of Don Alderon. And this Don Alderon said
was in no wise so, though there were a few cunning passes that he
had learned, hoping that the day might come for him to do God a
service thereby by slaying some of the Moors: and heartily he gave
his consent and felicitation. But this Rodriguez would not have:
"Come with me," he said, "to the forest to the place where I met
this man, and if we find him not there we will go to the house in
which his bowmen feast and there have news of him, and he shall
show us the castle of his promise and, if it be such a castle as
you approve, then your consent shall be given, but if not ..."
"Gladly indeed," said Don Alderon. "We will start tomorrow."
And Rodriguez took his words literally, though his host had meant
no more than what we should call "one of these days," but
Rodriguez was being consumed with a great impatience. And so they
arranged it, and Don Alderon went to bed with a feeling, which is
favourable to dreams, that on the next day they went upon an
adventure; for neither he nor anyone in that village had entered
Shadow Valley.
Once more next morning Rodriguez walked with Serafina, with
something of the romance of the garden gone, for Dona Mirana
walked there too; and romance is like one of those sudden,
wonderful colours that flash for a moment out of a drop of dew; a
passing shadow obscures them; and ask another to see it, and the
colour is not the same: move but a yard and the ray of enchantment
is gone. Dona Mirana saw the romance of that garden, but she saw
it from thirty years away; it was all different what she saw, all
changed from a certain day (for love was love in the old days):
and to Rodriguez and Serafina it seemed that she could not see
romance at all, and somehow that dimmed it. Almost their eyes
seemed to search amongst the azaleas for the romance of that other
evening.
And then Rodriguez told Serafina that he was riding away with her
brother to see about the affairs of his castle, and that they
would return in a few days. Scarcely a hint he gave that those
affairs might not prosper, for he trusted the word of the King of
Shadow Valley. His confidence had returned: and soon, with swords
at side and cloaks floating brilliant on light winds of April,
Rodriguez and Alderon rode away together.
Soon in the distance they saw Shadow Valley. And then Rodriguez
bethought him of Morano and of the foul wrong he committed against
Don Alderon with his frying-pan, and how he was there in the camp
to which he was bringing his friend. And so he said: "That vile
knave Morano still lives and insists on serving me."
"If he be near," said Don Alderon, "I pray you to disarm him of
his frying-pan for the sake of my honour, which does not suffer me
to be stricken with culinary weapons, but only with the sword, the
lance, or even bolts of cannon or arquebuss ..." He was thinking
of yet more weapons when Rodriguez put spurs to his horse. "He is
near," he said; "I will ride on and disarm him."
So Rodriguez came cantering into the forest while Don Alderon
ambled a mile or so behind him.
And there he found his old camp and saw Morano, sitting upon the
ground by a small fire. Morano sprang up at once with joy in his
eyes, his face wreathed with questions, which he did not put into
words for he did not pry openly into his master's affairs.
"Morano," said Rodriguez, "give me your frying-pan."
"My frying-pan?" said Morano.
"Yes," said Rodriguez. And when he held in his hand that
blackened, greasy utensil he told Morano, "That senor you met in
Lowlight rides with me."
The cheerfulness faded out of Morano's face as light fades at
sunset. "Master," he said, "he will surely slay me now."
"He will not slay you," said Rodriguez.
"Master," Morano said, "he hopes for my fat carcase as much as men
hope for the unicorn, when they wear their bright green coats and
hunt him with dogs in Spring." I know not what legend Morano
stored in his mind, nor how much of it was true. "And when he
finds me without my frying-pan he will surely slay me."
"That senor," said Rodriguez emphatically, "must not be hit with
the frying-pan."
"That is a hard rule, master," said Morano.
And Rodriguez was indignant, when he heard that, that anyone
should thus blaspheme against an obvious law of chivalry: while
Morano's only thought was upon the injustice of giving up the
sweets of life for the sake of a frying-pan. Thus they were at
cross-purposes. And for some while they stood silent, while
Rodriguez hung the reins of his horse over the broken branch of a
tree. And then Don Alderon rode into the wood.
All then that was most pathetic in Morano's sense of injustice
looked out of his eyes as he turned them upon his master. But Don
Alderon scarcely glanced at all at Morano, even when he handed to
him the reins of his horse as he walked on towards Rodriguez.
And there in that leafy place they rested all through the evening,
for they had not started so early upon their journey as travellers
should. Eight days had gone since Rodriguez had left that small
camp to ride to Lowlight, and to the apex of his life towards
which all his days had ascended; and in that time Morano had
collected good store of wood and, in little ways unthought of by
dwellers in cities, had made the place like such homes as
wanderers find. Don Alderon was charmed with their roof of
towering greenness, and with the choirs of those which inhabited
it and which were now all coming home to sing. And at some moment
in the twilight, neither Rodriguez nor Alderon noticed when,
Morano repossessed himself of his frying-pan, unbidden by
Rodriguez, but acting on a certain tacit permission that there
seemed to be in the twilight or in the mood of the two young men
as they sat by the fire. And soon he was cooking once more, at a
fire of his own, with something of the air that you see upon a
Field Marshal's face who has lost his baton and found it again.
Have you ever noticed it, reader?
And when the meal was ready Morano served it in silence, moving
unobtrusively in the gloom of the wood; for he knew that he was
forgiven, yet not so openly that he wished to insist on his
presence or even to imply his possession of the weapon that fried
the bacon. So, like a dryad he moved from tree to tree, and like
any fabulous creature was gone again. And the two young men supped
well, and sat on and on, watching the sparks go up on innumerable
journeys from the fire at which they sat, to be lost to sight in
huge wastes of blackness and stars, lost to sight utterly, lost
like the spirit of man to the gaze of our wonder when we try to
follow its journey beyond the hearths that we know.
All the next day they rode on through the forest, till they came
to the black circle of the old fire of their next camp. And here
Rodriguez halted on account of the attraction that one of his old
camps seems to have for a wanderer. It drew his feet towards it,
this blackened circle, this hearth that for one night made one
spot in the wilderness home. Don Alderon did not care whether they
tarried or hurried; he loved his journey through this leafy land;
the cool night-breeze slipping round the tree-trunks was new to
him, and new was the comradeship of the abundant stars; the quest
itself was a joy to him; with his fancy he built Rodriguez'
mysterious castle no less magnificently than did Don Alvidar.
Sometimes they talked of the castle, each of the young men
picturing it as he saw it; but in the warmth of the camp-fire
after Morano slept they talked of more than these chronicles can
tell.
In the morning they pressed on as fast as the forest's low boughs
would allow them. They passed somewhere near the great cottage in
which the bowmen feasted; but they held on, as they had decided
after discussion to do, for the last place in which Rodriguez had
seen the King of Shadow Valley, which was the place of his
promise. And before any dimness came even to the forest, or golden
shafts down colonnades which were before all cathedrals, they
found the old camp that they sought, which still had a clear
flavour of magic for Morano on account of the moth-like coming and
going of his three horses after he had tied them to that tree. And
here they looked for the King of Shadow Valley; and then Rodriguez
called him; and then all three of them called him, shouting "King
of Shadow Valley" all together. No answer came: the woods were
without echo: nothing stirred but fallen leaves. But before those
miles of silence could depress them Rodriguez hit upon a simple
plan, which was that he and Alderon should search all round, far
from the track, while Morano stayed in the camp and shouted
frequently, and they would not go out of hearing of his voice: for
Shadow Valley had a reputation of being a bad forest for
travellers to find their way there; indeed, few ever attempted to.
So they did as he said, he and Alderon searching in different
directions, while Morano remained in the camp, lifting a large and
melancholy voice. And though rumour said it was hard to find the
way when twenty yards from the track in Shadow Valley, it did not
say it was hard to find the green bowmen: and Rodriguez, knowing
that they guarded the forest as the shadows of trees guard the
coolness, was assured he would meet with some of them even though
he should miss their master. So he and Alderon searched till the
forest darkness came and only birds on high branches still had
light; and they never saw the King of Shadow Valley or any trace
whatever of any man. And Alderon first returned to the encampment;
but Rodriguez searched on into the night, searching and calling
through the darkness, and feeling, as every minute went by and
every faint call of Morano, that his castle was fading away,
slipping past oak-tree and thorn-bush, to take its place among the
unpitying stars. And when he returned at last from his useless
search he found Morano standing by a good fire, and the sight of
it a little cheered Rodriguez, and the sight of the firelight on
Morano's face, and the homely comfort of the camp, for everything
is comparative.
And over their supper Rodriguez and Alderon agreed that they had
come to a part of the forest too remote from the home of the King
of Shadow Valley, and decided to go the next day to the house of
the green bowmen: and before he slept Rodriguez felt once more
that all was well with his castle.
Yet when the next day came they searched again, for Rodriguez
remembered how it was to this very place that the King of Shadow
Valley had bidden him come in four weeks, and though this period
was not yet accomplished, he felt, and Alderon fully agreed, they
had waited long enough: so they searched all the morning, and then
fulfilled their decision of overnight by riding for the great
cottage Rodriguez knew. All the way they met no one. And
Rodriguez' gaiety came back as they rode, for he and Don Alderon
recognised more and more clearly that the bowmen's great cottage
was the place they should have gone at first.
In early evening they were just at their journey's end; but barely
had they left the track that they had ridden the day before,
barely taken the smaller path that led after a few hundred yards
to the cottage when they found themselves stopped by huge chains
that hung from tree to tree. High into the trees went the chains
above their heads where they sat their horses, and a chain ran
every six inches down to the very ground: the road was well
blocked.
Rodriguez and Alderon hastily consulted; then, leaving the horses
with Morano, they followed the chains through dense forest to find
a place where they could get the horses through. Finding the
chains go on and on and on, and as evening was drawing in, the two
friends divided, Alderon going back and Rodriguez on, agreeing to
meet again on the path where Morano was.
It was darkening when they met there, Rodriguez having found
nothing but that iron barrier going on from trunk to trunk, and
Alderon having found a great gateway of iron; but it was shut.
Through the silent shadows stealing abroad at evening the three
men crashed their way on foot, leading their horses, towards this
gate; but their way was slow and difficult for no path at all led
up to it. It was dark when they reached it and they saw the high
gate in the night, a black barrier among the trees where no one
would wish to come, and in forest that seemed to these three to be
nearly impenetrable. And what astonished Rodriguez most of all was
that the chains had not been across the path when he had feasted
with the green bowmen.
They stood there gazing, all three, at the dark locked gate, and
then they saw two shields that met in the midst of it, and
Rodriguez mounted his horse and stretched up to feel what device
there was on the beaten iron; and both the shields were blank.
There they camped as well as men can when darkness has fallen
before they reach their camping-ground; and Morano lit a great
fire before the gate, and the smooth blank shields touching
shoulders there up above them shone on Rodriguez and Alderon in
the firelight. For a while they wondered at that strange gate that
stood there dividing the wilderness; and then sleep came.
As soon as they woke they called loudly, but no one guarded that
gate, no step but theirs stirred in the forest. Then, leaving
Morano in the camp with its great gate that led nowhere, the two
young men climbed up by branches and chains, and were soon on the
other side of the gate and pressing on through the silence of the
forest to find the cottage in which Rodriguez had slept. And
almost at once the green bowmen appeared, ten of them with their
bows, in front of Rodriguez and Alderon. "Stop," said the ten
green bowmen. When the bowmen said that, there was nothing else to
do.
"What do you seek?" said the bowmen.
"The King of Shadow Valley," answered Rodriguez.
"He is not here," they said.
"Where is he?" asked Rodriguez.
"He is nowhere," said one, "when he does not wish to be seen."
"Then show me the castle that he promised me," said Rodriguez.
"We know nothing of any castle," said one of the bowmen, and they
all shook their heads.
"No castle?" said Rodriguez.
"No," they said.
"Has the King of Shadow Valley no castle?" he asked, beginning now
to despair.
"We know of none," they said. "He lives in the forest."
Before Rodriguez quite despaired he asked each one if they knew
not of any castle of which their King was possessed; and each of
them said that there was no castle in all Shadow Valley. The ten
still stood in front of them with their bows: and Rodriguez turned
away then indeed in despair, and walked slowly back to the camp,
and Alderon walked behind him. In silence they reached their camp
by the great gate that led nowhere, and there Rodriguez sat down
on a log beside the dwindling fire, gazing at the grey ashes and
thinking of his dead hopes. He had not the heart to speak to
Alderon, and the silence was unbroken by Morano who, for all his
loquacity, knew when his words were not welcome. Don Alderon tried
to break that melancholy silence, saying that these ten bowmen did
not know the whole world; but he could not cheer Rodriguez. For,
sitting there in dejection on his log, thinking of all the
assurance with which he had often spoken of his castle, there was
one more thing to trouble him than Don Alderon knew. And this was
that when the bowmen had appeared he had hung once more round his
neck that golden badge that was worked for him by the King of
Shadow Valley; and they must have seen it, and they had paid no
heed to it whatever: its magic was wholly departed. And one thing
troubled him that Rodriguez did not know, a very potent factor in
human sorrow: he had left in the morning so eagerly that he had
had no breakfast, and this he entirely forgot and knew not how
much of his dejection came from this cause, thinking that the loss
of his castle was of itself enough.
So with downcast head he sat empty and hopeless, and the little
camp was silent.
In this mournful atmosphere while no one spoke, and no one seemed
to watch, stood, when at last Rodriguez raised his head, with
folded arms before the gate to nowhere, the King of Shadow Valley.
His face was surly, as though the face of a ghost, called from
important work among asteroids needing his care, by the trivial
legerdemain of some foolish novice. Rodriguez, looking into those
angry eyes, wholly forgot it was he that had a grievance. The
silence continued. And then the King of Shadow Valley spoke.
"When have I broken my word?" he said.
Rodriguez did not know. The man was still looking at him, still
standing there with folded arms before the great gate, confronting
him, demanding some kind of answer: and Rodriguez had nothing to
say.
"I came because you promised me the castle," he said at last.
"I did not bid you come here," the man with the folded arms
answered.
"I went where you bade me," said Rodriguez, "and you were not
there."
"In four weeks, I said," answered the King angrily.
And then Alderon spoke. "Have you any castle for my friend?" he
said.
"No," said the King of Shadow Valley.
"You promised him one," said Don Alderon.
The King of Shadow Valley raised with his left hand a horn that
hung below his elbow by a green cord round his body. He made no
answer to Don Alderon, but put the horn against his lips and blew.
They watched him all three in silence, till the silence was broken
by many men moving swiftly through covert, and the green bowmen
appeared.
When seven or eight were there he turned and looked at them. "When
have I broken my word?" he said to his men.
And they all answered him, "Never!"
More broke into sight through the bushes.
"Ask them" he said. And Rodriguez did not speak.
"Ask them," he said again, "when I have broken my word."
Still Rodriguez and Alderon said nothing. And the bowmen answered
them. "He has never broken his word," every bowman said.
"You promised me a castle," said Rodriguez, seeing that man's
fierce eyes upon him still.
"Then do as I bid you," answered the King of Shadow Valley; and he
turned round and touched the lock of the gates with some key that
he had. The gates moved open and the King went through.
Don Alderon ran forward after him, and caught up with him as he
strode away, and spoke to him, and the King answered. Rodriguez
did not hear what they said, and never afterwards knew. These
words he heard only, from the King of Shadow Valley as he and Don
Alderon parted: ".... and therefore, senor, it were better for
some holy man to do his blessed work before we come." And the King
of Shadow Valley passed into the deeps of the wood.
As the great gates were slowly swinging to, Don Alderon came back
thoughtfully. The gates clanged, clicked, and were shut again. The
King of Shadow Valley and all his bowmen were gone.
Don Alderon went to his horse, and Rodriguez and Morano did the
same, drawn by the act of the only man of the three that seemed to
have made up his mind. Don Alderon led his horse back toward the
path, and Rodriguez followed with his. When they came to the path
they mounted in silence; and presently Morano followed them, with
his blankets rolled up in front of him on his horse and his
frying-pan slung behind him.
"Which way?" said Rodriguez.
"Home," said Don Alderon.
"But I cannot go to your home," said Rodriguez.
"Come," said Don Alderon, as one whose plans were made. Rodriguez
without a home, without plans, without hope, went with Don Alderon
as thistledown goes with the warm wind. They rode through the
forest till it grew all so dim that only a faint tinge of
greenness lay on the dark leaves: above were patches of bluish sky
like broken pieces of steel. And a star or two were out when they
left the forest. And cantering on they came to Lowlight when the
Milky Way appeared.
And there were Dona Mirana and Serafina in the hall to greet them
as they entered the door.
"What news?" they asked.
But Rodriguez hung back; he had no news to give. It was Don
Alderon that went forward, speaking cheerily to Serafina, and
afterwards to his mother, with whom he spoke long and anxiously,
pointing toward the forest sometimes, almost, as Rodriguez
thought, in fear.
And a little later, when the ladies had retired, Don Alderon told
Rodriguez over the wine, with which he had tried to cheer his
forlorn companion, that it was arranged that he should marry
Serafina. And when Rodriguez lamented that this was impossible he
replied that the King of Shadow Valley wished it. And when
Rodriguez heard this his astonishment equalled his happiness, for
he marvelled that Don Alderon should not only believe that strange
man's unsupported promise, but that he should even obey him as
though he held him in awe.
And on the next day Rodriguez spoke with Dona Mirana as they
walked in the glory of the garden. And Dona Mirana gave him her
consent as Don Alderon had done: and when Rodriguez spoke humbly
of postponement she glanced uneasily towards Shadow Valley, as
though she too feared the strange man who ruled over the forest
which she had never entered.
And so it was that Rodriguez walked with his lady, with the sweet
Serafina in that garden again. And walking there they forgot the
need of house or land, forgot Shadow Valley with its hopes and its
doubts, and all the anxieties of the thoughts that we take for the
morrow: and when evening came and the birds sang in azaleas, and
the shadows grew solemn and long, and winds blew cool from the
blazing bed of the Sun, into the garden now all strange and still,
they forgot our Earth and, beyond the mundane coasts, drifted on
dreams of their own into aureate regions of twilight, to wander in
lands wherein lovers walk briefly and only once. _
Read next: THE TWELFTH CHRONICLE
Read previous: THE TENTH CHRONICLE
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