“ ‘Some say one thing and some another,’ replied the angel. ‘Now let me mount up behind you. Not far from here there is a goodly port, and there I have just sold two destriers as good as yours or better.

We shall sell yours as well, and the gold ring that circles my boot.’

“In the port they did as the angel had indicated, and with their money purchased a ship, not large but swift and sound, and hired three knowing seamen to work her.

“On the third day out from port, the youngest suitor had such a dream by night as young men have.

When he woke he touched the pillow near his head and found it warm, an when he lay down to sleep again, he winded some delicate perfume—the odour, it might have been, of the flowering grasses the women of my land dry in spring to braid in the hair.

“An isle they reached where no men come, and the youngest suitor went ashore to search for the lark. He found it not, but at the dying of the day stripped off his garments to cool himself in the surging sea. There, when the stars had brightened, another joined him. Together they swam, and together lay telling tales on the beach.

“One day while they were peering over the prow of the ship for another (for they traded at times and at times fought also) a great gust of wind came and the angel’s hat was blow into the all-devouring sea, and soon the brown cloth that had covered her face went to join it.

“At last they grew weary of the unresting sea and thought of my land, where the lions ride our cattle in autumn when the grass burns, and the men are brave as bulls and the women fierce as hawks. Their ship they had called the Lark and now the Lark flew across blue waters, each morn impaling the red sun upon her bowsprit. In the port where the had bought her they sold her and received three times the price, for she had become a famous vessel, renowned in song and story; and indeed, all who came to the port wondered at how small she was, a trim, brown craft hardly a score of paces from stem to rudderpost.

Their loot they sold also, and the goods they had gained by trading. The people of my land keep the best destriers they breed for themselves, but it is to this port that they bring the best of those they sell, and there the youngest suitor and the angel bought good mounts an filled their saddlebags with gems and gold, and set out for the armiger’s house that is so remote that no one ever comes there.

“Many a scrape did they have upon the way, and many a time bloody the swords that had been washed so often in the cleansing sea and wiped on sailcloth or sand. Yet at last come they did. There the angel was welcomed by the armiger, shouting, and by his wife, weeping, and by all the servants, talking.

And there she doffed her brown clothing and became the armiger’s daughter of old once more.

“A great wedding was planned. In my land such things take many days, “for there are roasting pits to be dug anew, and cattle to be slaughtered, and messengers who must ride for days to fetch guests who must ride for days also. On the third day, as they waited, the armiger’s daughter sent her servant to the youngest suitor, saying, “My mistress will not hunt today. Rather, she invites you to her bedchamber, to talk of times past upon sea and land.”

“The youngest suitor dressed himself in the finest of the clothes he had bought when they had returned to port, and soon was at the door of the armiger’s daughter.

“He found her sitting on a window seat, turning the pages of one of the old books her mother had carried from her own home and listening to the singing of a lark in a cage. To that cage he went, and saw that the lark had a ring of gold about one leg. Then he looked at the armiger’s daughter, wondering.

“‘Did the angel you met upon the strand not promise you should be guided to this lark?” she said.

‘And by the best road? Each morning I open his cage and cast him out upon the wind to exercise his wings. Soon he returns to it again, where there is food for him, clean water, and safety.”

“Some say the wedding of the youngest suitor and the armiger’s daughter was the finest ever seen in my land.”

XIV. Mannea

THAT NIGHT THERE WAS much talk of Foila’s story, and this time it was I who postponed making any judgment among the tales. Indeed, I had formed a sort of horror of judging, the residue, perhaps, of my education among the torturers, who teach their apprentices from boyhood to execute the instructions of the judges appointed (as they themselves are not) by the officials of our Commonwealth.

In addition, I had something more pressing on my mind. I had hoped that our evening meal would be served by Ava, but when it was not, I rose anyway, dressed myself in my own clothes, and slipped off in the gathering dark.

It was a surprise—a very pleasant one—to find that my legs were strong again. I had been free of fever for several days, yet I had grown accustomed to thinking myself ill (just as I had earlier been accustomed to thinking myself well) and had lain in my cot without complaint. No doubt many a man who walks about and does his work is dying and ignorant of it, and many who lie abed all day are healthier than those who bring their food and wash them.