Sometimes Rupen was nearly as rich as a bandit chief as he had been in the castle of Etchmiadzin. More often he went hungry. There were white scars on his arms, and along his ribs, and a great gash on his cheek and forehead that was only partly hidden by the leather patch covering the ruin of his left eye-socket.
He seldom thought of Faerie. Few even of the hard-bitten crew who rode with him had the nerve to bring up his journey to the castle of the sparrowhawk. After a while, most of those who had known of it were dead.
Then one day, as the lady Olissa had decreed, full memory came flooding back, and he knew in astonishment that a decade had passed. He thought of the tiny space of time he had spent in her arms, of his life as a prince before, and the long years of misfortune that came after. He thought of what he had become: ladder-ribbed, huddled close to a tiny fire in a drafty hut, drinking sour wine.
He thought of Olissa again. Not even the folk of Faerie see all the future, exactly as it will be. "I'd do it over again, just the same way," he said out loud.
One or two of his men looked up. The rest kept on with what they were doing.
THE SUMMER GARDEN
A couple of things came together in "The Summer Garden." One is its model?it springs from a tale in Boccaccio's Decameron. The other was my falling in love, just about the time when I wrote the piece, with a woman who did not fall in love with me. These things happen. One of the advantages of being a writer is having the chance to work them out on paper.
A different version of this story appeared in the February 1982 Fantasy Book as "The Summer's Garden." The editor liked the idea but did not approve of its high, almost Dunsanian style and demanded a complete rewrite. He also introduced sundry other changes, most of them, I think, gratuitous. For better or worse, this is the way I think "The Summer Garden" ought to read.
In the Empire of Kar V'Shem, in the town of Sennar, through which flow the laughing waters of the River Veprel, there lived the merchant Ansovald. A warm, good-hearted man, he had grown nearly rich from his trade in the furs and honey that the River Veprel brought down from the fabled North, and his home was in the finest quarter of the city, not too far from the marketplace but not too close to the church. With him dwelt his wife Dianora, the delight of his life. Her skin was fairer than the whitest linen, her eyes more green than the verdant jade which now and then appeared from out of the trackless East, her hair the blue-black of the midnight sky, and her nature… ah, with her nature we press close to the heart of the matter, for she was of that rare breed who can bear to give hurt to no living creature.
Being such as one, it is only natural that Dianora shared with her dear husband some years of wedded bliss. Nor should it surprise us to learn that her beauty and warmth attracted the notice of others in the town of Sennar beside the merchant Ansovald. Toward these she was, as was her way, unfailingly kind, but, as she truly loved her husband, unfailingly unavailable. One by one, some sooner, some later, they came to understand this and troubled her no more. All save Rand.
Now Rand was a belted knight, a veteran of wars and sanguinary single conflicts, yet withal a poet and dreamer as well. The experiences of his life had forged in him a singleness of purpose not easily matched in all the Empire of Kar V'Shem, let alone the sleepy town of Sennar. Thus when his sonnets fell on deaf ears and his gifts were discreetly returned, he did not grow downhearted?as had so many before him?but paid court to Dianora with greater vigor than before, reckoning the prize he sought all the more valuable for its difficulty of attainment.
The lady was unwilling simply to tell him to be gone; she did not wish to wound his feelings, recognizing his manly qualities even if they tempted her not. Instead, through a maidservant she sent him a message, as follows: "Know that to prove your deep love for me, you must produce in dead of winter a garden full of summer's fruits and flowers. Then I shall be yours to command, but until and unless this be done, you must cease importuning me." Confidently expecting that Rand would find the assigned task as difficult as she deemed it, she banished the knight from her thoughts, glad she had found a way to dismiss him without harshness and certain he would not pester her again.
But no sooner had her servant delivered the note and departed than Rand struck scarred fist against strong palm and spoke. "I shall do it," he vowed, though there was none to hear him. The arduousness of the task did not daunt him as the lady Dianora had hoped; in his wanderings he had seen more marvels than she had ever imagined, she who had never strayed more than a mile or two beyond the sheltering walls of the town of Sennar.
Undaunted Rand may have been, but also uncertain as to how to proceed, for he himself had no notion of how such a wonder as that required of him might be produced. How could one call into being the fragrance and beauty of a summer garden in a world all drear with cold and ice? All the savants and sages to whom he put the question owned themselves baffled. And so for a year and more he remained thwarted, until the mage Portolis took it in his mind to visit Sennar.
When he learned of the arrival of so famous a thaumaturge as Portolis, Rand wasted no time in making his acquaintance and setting forth the problem which had so long tormented him. After he had spoken, Portolis scanned his face. Rand would sooner have faced some men's swords than the wizard's eyes, for they were gray and hard as the granite ramparts of the mountains of Rincia, behind which the sun god sought his bed each day. But it ill-behooved a belted knight to show any trace of fear, and so Rand sat unflinching.
At length the wizard nodded slowly. "I can do this thing," he said, "yet the price of its success may be more than you would willingly pay."
Quoth Rand, "For the love of my lady Dianora no price could be too great."
The knight thought he saw a glint of irony kindle for a moment in the terrible eyes of Portolis, but it faded so quickly he could not be sure. "Are you certain of this?" the wizard asked. Rand had been gripped by his obsession for long and long, and could do nothing else but nod. "Be it so, then," Portolis said. "My fee?which must be paid in advance, as the components of this spell are quite costly?is seven thousand seven hundred seven and seventy kraybecks of gold."
Rand blanched, for after paying so great a sum he would be left in poverty. But his resolve was firm and his voice steady as he answered, "I shall deliver it to you on the morrow."
"Next week will suffice," the wizard said idly. "It is still some time before Midwinter Day, at which time, the gods willing, I shall do as you have requested."
As events transpired, the knight was glad Portolis had not required payment on the following day: to meet the magician's price he was compelled to mortgage both mansion and lands. He dismissed servant after servant, no longer able to afford their keep, until at last he was left with but one retainer, a stolid old fellow named Fant. Together they dwelt miserably in one small room of Rand's palatial home, for the knight lacked the wherewithal to heat the entire building. Rand bore his self-inflicted pauperhood proudly, for his heart, if not his body, was warmed by visions of Dianora in his arms; what, if anything, Fant did for like sustenance, it never occurred to Rand to inquire.
Unmoved by the slide of his client into penury, the wizard's preparations for his spell proceeded apace. More than once he left the town of Sennar for some days, arousing fear in the heart of Rand that he was being deluded by some traveling mountebank. But he always returned, and he expressed grave satisfaction whenever the knight queried his progress.
Midwinter Day, when at length it came, dawned clear and cold, the pale sun seeming wan and weak in a steel-blue sky. The entire surround of the town of Sennar was white and still. Even the laughing River Veprel, whose scurrying waters had long defied the icy hand of winter, lay prisoned under a palm-thick sheet of ice. An unsmiling 'prentice of the mage Portolis called upon Rand and Fant to repair to a certain spot by the banks of the river, where, he said, all was ready for the effort, saving only their presence.