“Let’s try the great hall first,” he snapped, leading the way on the double.
The main building had much of the architecture and most of the atmosphere of a penitentiary. There was a man on guard when we reached the inner doors. At least there was a spear as well as a bottle beside him, as he sat slumped on the steps. He looked up when we came running, and we slowed to answer his challenge, if any.
“Is it all right to go in?” I demanded, when he merely stared at us.
“No, but you wouldn’t want to anyhow.”
“Why not?”
“Because there ain’t nobody in there.” The pathos of it was too much for him, and his voice broke. “They all went off and left me, and I’m alone all by myself.”
From the way Jones groaned I knew he caught the implication as well as we. There couldn’t be too many places for a crowd of people to go in this tiny island. If Ravan and his guests weren’t in the castle, then they must be at the chapel. The poor donkey looked almost out of his senses as we started to run again. The only thing which kept him from dashing ahead of us was that he didn’t know the way.
“You stick with us even when we get in sight of the place,” Golias counseled him. “We’ve got to work together, or we’re all sunk.”
Following them out the second of two lesser gates in the rear, I saw that we didn’t have far to go. The terrace between the castle walls and the swamp which so effectually protected them was narrow. Nearer than I wanted it to be, an ecclesiastical structure hunched under dead trees as gray as the sky. Three buzzards were on the roof.
“It looks like we’re expected,” I panted.
Golias didn’t answer, and another few seconds brought us within the crumbling stone wall bounding the church yard. A glance did our business there. Except for faded grass, the only growth was a crop of pustulant toadstools. I echoed Jones’ moan.
“There’s nothing to do but see what’s inside,” Golias said. “Hang on to Lucius’ ear, Shandon, and don’t let him get away from you.”
He flung open the door, and I gingerly crossed the threshold, donkey ear in hand. Because everyone was engrossed with what was going on in the rear of the chapel, nobody noticed us. I looked and listened with the dreadful conviction we had come too late.
A pair of men and a pair of women were standing before the chancel rail while a parson, facing them, raised his voice in the even cadences belonging to ritual. A couple was being married, and while I couldn’t be sure it was Hermione in the mist of bridal draperies, I was pretty certain that the man on her right was Ravan.
Promptly after reaching that conclusion, I saw that the moment of absolute crisis was at hand. I hadn’t concentrated on the minister’s words, but I suddenly heard Don Rodrigo — I remembered his voice, right enough — say: “I do.”
While I gasped, stunned, the vicar rushed on with “Do you, Hermione,” and so forth. Golias was at my shoulder now, and I turned to look at him despairingly. He wore the expression of a man expecting to be hit in the stomach.
“She’s the only one who can stop the train now,” he said.
Against all hope, she did so. “No, I do not!” she cried, when the priest came to an enquiring pause.
That was all she said, but it was effective. Ritual is always thrown for a loss when it doesn’t draw the right answers. The minister peered at his book as if he thought he must have read the wrong passage. Ravan jumped, then whirled to glower at the spectators, now suddenly noisy. The maid of honor and the best man stepped hastily out of the limelight, which had become disturbing. The bridesmaids got in a huddle to talk things over. Only the man posted to give the bride away showed no signs of agitation.
“Father,” he demanded, “why have you interrupted the service?”
“But, your majesty,” the parson protested, “she said — ”
“I heard her reply,” the king asserted. “She said: ‘I do.’ Or is it your opinion that something is faulty with our hearing?”
“Oh, no, your highness!” In his eagerness to disclaim such a thought the minister ran a finger into one of his own ears. “I’m afraid it’s my hearing that is faulty, sire. I’m getting old, I suppose.”
“Too old to retain the benefice of Bray?” the arch king enquired.
“Why — why — no, your majesty! I should certainly think not.”
“We might even find a better place for you,” Jamshyd suggested. “But not until after the wedding. Please carry on from the exact point where you left off.”
Everybody stepped into place once more. I thought Hermione’s courage had lost the game to trickery, and looked at Golias again. From his expression I saw that he had thought of something.
“Your arch majesty, my Lord Ravan, and all assembled here,” he shouted, “I put you under geas!”
While I held my breath and squeezed Jones’ ear, everyone turned to stare. Everyone but Jamshyd, that is, who seemed impervious to shock.
“Who dares,” he asked in a voice which barely showed his displeasure, “to put our royal self under geas?”
“A bard.”
“I knew that. Nobody but a damned poet would have the consummate impudence. If it’s Nornagest, I’ll fry you over the same fire that eats your candle. Who is it? Say your name or lose your bid.”
“Taliesin,” Golias told him.
“Ah. Taliesin puts us under geas and escapes whole if he can. What are the terms?”
“No one here is to move from where he stands or to lift a hand until I’ve finished singing a song for this wedding.”
“Sing, then, and be cursed, since I can’t stop you.”
“Thanks, sire,” Golias said through his teeth. He gave me a shove. “The bridesmaids’ bouquets!” he hissed. “They may have roses in them.”
I stepped forward, tugging at Jones’ ear, as Golias sounded off.
Birth and mortality
Are only two of three,
Mating’s a mystery
Great as its brothers;
Not less to be revered,
More, maybe, to be feared
As more the realm of Wyrd
Than the two others.
Great Gunnar, noble Finn
Blasted their might and kin;
Conor did so begin
Ulad’s undoing.
Though they were high in name,
Loss was their lot, and shame —
Right pay, and theirs the blame
For an ill wooing.
There was standing room only in the church, and Jones hadn’t been able to see what was going on. Having heard Hermione’s voice, he was eager to do something, but the crowd through which we were pushing obscured his view. Sticking close to me, he was unexpectedly cooperative. That, however, was the only comfort connected with my assignment. This place didn’t have to be called Chapel Dangerous to make me know it. Because of the whammy Golias had put on them all, nobody stopped us. Yet from the way the men looked at us, I would have liked it better if they hadn’t let us pass. It isn’t getting into the trap that stumps the mouse.
What would happen when Golias ran out of song I didn’t try to imagine, but he was still going strong when we had threaded our way to the wedding party.
So I direct my verse
To speed a working curse
Bound to be cause and nurse
Of a miscarriage.
For what is being wrought
Here out of evil thought;
Let doom be hailed and brought
Down on this marriage!
Seeing Hermione, who had turned with the rest to stare at us, Jones stopped. I yanked at his ear savagely.
“The bouquets!” I implored him. “It’s our only chance.”
We went to each of the startled bridesmaids, wasting our time, as I would have known if I hadn’t been so rattled, by going to more than one. Their posies were identical and roseless from first to last of the dozen. I left each knowing that a hope for life had failed me.
Doubtless Golias,
following us with his eyes, realized this as keenly as I, though his voice rang out as confidently as if all were well.
Fetch the wrath, Alecto!
Megaera, pour out woe!
Quick bane, and not the slow;
Don’t spare or palter.
Then may Tisiphones
Hand thrust the bitter lees
Forced on Achillides,
Too, at the altar!
Now, if you three assent,
There is an instrument
Sharpened for this intent,
Savagely biding;
There’s a man, having sown
Bias’ follies, so has known
Kormak’s blight, then been thrown
Into strange hiding.
I had finished with the bridesmaids. Hermione, a desperate glance told me, had no flowers. My last hope was the maid of honor. Her bouquet was dangling, petals down, from her left hand, the one nearest me. Trudging toward her with Jones in tow, I grabbed it from her. Then I dropped it as though it were hot.
“We’re licked, Lucius,” I rasped. “Let’s make a break for it.”
In my eagerness I dragged him a few feet before he balked. When I turned to swear at him, therefore, I was on the maid of honor’s right. She was holding another bouquet — Hermione’s. Naturally the bride wouldn’t be holding flowers during the course of the sacrament, but I didn’t stop to figure the wherefores out then. I snatched the bouquet, glanced at it, started to drop it, then looked at it again. My mind had been on the lookout for something red; but my eye had registered the shape of roses, even though they were white.
Lucius was forlornly mooning at Hermione, and I nearly jerked his ear loose before I could get him to look. The delay, brief as it was, infuriated me.
“Damn you, Jones, roses!” I snarled. “Eat ’em before I cut you open and ram ’em inside with my foot!”
I was holding them so near him that he probably couldn’t see what I was offering. The urgency in my tone got to him, though, so his mouth opened. Golias saw that, and his voice was a chortle of triumph.
He, by express command
Of his stars, understand,
Can have none, or the hand
Of Hawthorns daughter.
Judge if hell fail you when
He sees his man of men,
On his two legs again,
Ripe to do slaughter.
As once a vengeful force
Crammed the skin of a horse,
One man could well, of course,
Lurk in an ass’s.
But where the roses bloom
He leaves that hiding room,
Finding a kinder doom
As the spell passes.
He stopped, so his hex was non-operative; but I forgot to be scared. Along with everybody else I stood fixed, my eyes upon Lucius.
“Good gracious!” one of the bridesmaids squeaked. “What’s happening?”
She had reason for asking. Jones had no sooner swallowed that bunch of rosebuds than he stood on his hind legs, flexing his front ones and throwing back his head. His ears were shrinking like burning paper. When only the nubs were left, they flattened out on the sides of his head, and the hair peeled off.
From then on it was as if a rapid action caricaturist was showing how a few lines could change one thing into another. When the muzzle had been transformed into a face, humanity raced down the shortened neck and made arms out of the forelegs. The process was so enthralling to watch that I forgot I had any connection with it.
Jones himself was the first to react to the state of affairs. As his tail began to evaporate, he reached hastily for the bundle of clothes I held. Becoming aware of the necessity, I was trying to help him sort them out, when I heard Golias’ shout of anger.
“The sword, Lucius! Damnation, you’re not still a jackass! Shandon, give him the sword!”
Lucius compromised by stepping into his pants and letting it go at that. While he was snugging them to a no longer hairy waist, I unsheathed the weapon and had the hilt ready for his fist. It was time for that, for the spell of the marvel was being everywhere broken.
Don Rodrigo was ahead of the rest. “Why, it’s my putative young kinsman, stepping out of character,” he announced.
Jones leaned on his sword. “My lord,” he said, “when we last met, I made a promise to come to your wedding.”
“Quite true,” Ravan acknowledged. “At the time I issued the invitation it was sincerely done. But the king thought it best, in view of certain enquiries being made by my betrothed’s kindred, to hold the ceremony in this far, new holding of mine rather than at court. And in my amorous impetuosity, forgivable, I trust, I forgot to notify you of the change in plans.”
In spite of his mocking words, he was watching Jones keenly, and in the course of his speech he drew his own sword. It was done in an offhand manner, as if he had nothing on his mind. When his weapon was fully out of the scabbard, however, he leaped and lunged with vicious swiftness.
He failed to kill, because Lucius spun sidewise and sucked in his guts till they hugged his backbone. Before Ravan could recover, Jones stepped inside his guard and took his head off with a two handed blow. The head bounced at my feet, like the green man’s. Unlike Bercilak, though, Don Rodrigo didn’t recover it. His body collapsed, spewing blood all over the floor, and stayed still as only the dead can.
Preparing for consequences, I caught up the sword he had dropped, but for a moment no one moved except Hermione. “Darling,” she said, swaying toward Lucius, “are you all right?”
He took his eyes off Ravan. The killing fury hadn’t left them, but he managed to make his voice soft.
“Yes, my love.”
“Then I’m all right,” she assured him; and passed out in the arms of Golias, who had just pushed his way forward.
“Huon couldn’t have done it better,” he congratulated Lucius. “No, don’t worry about her. It’s just reaction, and the bridesmaids can take care of her. Come and get her!” he snapped at the bewildered girls. “I’ve got other things to do.”
“Taliesin,” the arch king said in his bored, easy voice, when Hermione had been taken off Golias’ hands, “have you and your friends accomplished everything you had planned — with the possible exception of getting out alive?”
“Almost everything, your highness.”
“Then let me point out to you that although some of your activities were remarkable, I find them in wretched taste at a wedding.”
As he spoke, I could feel swords in my gizzard. Golias didn’t like it either, but he shrugged. “If you’re concerned about the loss of the groom, sire, we can fix you up with a better one.”
To my surprise Jamshyd seemed to be giving his words consideration. “A dead favorite is not a favorite at all,” he finally observed to no one in particular. He glanced at me, then stared at Jones. “I’ve been king long enough never to have a man killed without finding out who he is.”
Lucius stopped looking defiant and looked confused instead. “I don’t quite know, your highness. That seems a foolish admission, but they tell me that the name I have always carried is not rightly my own.”
“What name is that?”
“Lucius Gil Jones, your majesty.”
“What?” His majesty looked mildly interested. “Next of kin to the old baron — and to the late Lord Ravan, for that matter?”
“The old baron’s grandson and heir, sire,” Jones flushed as he bowed. “But my legitimacy is in doubt.”
“A bastard is as much a grandson as any other.”
“Not if somebody else’s son is the father.” Lucius’ voice was so husky he was all but whispering as he pointed that out. “It’s what my grandsire came to question — at my Lord Ravan’s instigation, I believe. I can’t, of course, be sure, and my father is not alive to speak.”
“That’s so.” Jamshyd looked reflective. “You know, I have always thought Don Rodrigo brought about your father’s mysterious disappearance after he ca
me to covet the person and property of your mother, whose widowhood, it is interesting to note, was terminated by death shortly after her refusal of him.” He paid no attention to Jones’ exclamation. “Put up your sword — you, too, you with the silver lock — and kneel to your sovereign.”
While I was still fumbling to stick my blade in its sheath, for I wasn’t going to argue while there was any chance of arbitrating, Jones stepped over Ravan’s body, knelt, and bent his head. I looked at Golias to see whether he thought good would come of it, but I saw he was holding his breath, too. For an agonizing minute the king stared down at the man at his feet. Naked above the waist, Lucius peeled well. He had a finely muscled back and a clear skin whose whiteness was only broken by that heart-shaped birth mark on his shoulder. After an interval his majesty put a finger on it.
“Get up,” he ordered. “Some few years ago, when I was only a prince,” he went on, when Lucius had risen, “I knew the old baron’s son. In fact I was a very good friend of his — and he was my associate. I make this distinction for you, because you’ll never have the royal opportunity to make it for yourself.”
Jamshyd must have had magnificent features once. They still looked so at first glance, then with repulsion you realized that there was no more feeling behind them than exists behind the smile of a jack o’lantern. Watching his eyes as he spoke, I shivered, because I remembered where I had seen such a look of self-possessed deadness before. It was every time I had gazed in the mirror during the months — years, perhaps — prior to boarding the Naglfar. It shocked me to find something at once so familiar and so disquieting in the Commonwealth. It also filled me with vague premonitions of evil.
“You are young Jones,” the king said, after his parenthetical observation. “As an intimate, if not a friend of your father, I know that a son, reckoning the normal period of gestation, was conceived on your parents’ honeymoon. You are that son. I was present to cheer your father’s anxiety when you were born and saw you before you wore your first diaper. Both the shape and the location of your birth mark check with your name — and I will so inform your grandfather.”
Before Lucius could respond, the arch king turned his back on him. “Get that girl on her feet,” he commanded. “I came here to attend a wedding, and I’m not used to being thwarted.”