It was plain they feasted and that this was an assembly for a reason of importance. This I sensed rather than heard. There was sound in the hall but so muted, so far removed from my own hearing, it was more of the murmur of sea waves breaking on distant shore.
I leaned forward, striving to center upon just one face, hold that in my sight until I could be sure of the features, but there was always that veiling. Then I turned my head to the right, to see who occupied the chair at my hand’s side. There was indeed one there, a woman whose robe was the amber of ripened grain. But her face, the rest of her, was only a blur. When I looked to my left I was sure that my other neighbor was a man, but more than that I could not have told you.
Still holding tightly to the arms of my chair, I waited for them to mark my coming, perhaps for the sorcery either to break into nothingness, or else change, to reveal them fully. Yet neither happened, save that those hazy forms moved, sat, ate, raised goblets to drink, spoke in murmurs, and remained within a world of their own which I could not enter, only watch.
One thing only gleamed in sharp brightness—the runes on the tabletop directly before me. They were fully in my world and my eyes kept returning to them as I became more and more confused by the vision into which I had been plunged. By a great effort I loosed my hold upon the arms of the chair, stretched forth both hands to touch those symbols. If they had ensorcelled me into this state of being, then perhaps they would free me from it again.
I had to summon up my will power to straighten my forefinger, hold it once more above that lettering. Just so had I traced the runes, mark by mark. Three times. What would happen if I wrought so again? I set my teeth and began. Under my touch that inscription was cold as if I had plunged my finger into the water of a mountain spring. So—and so—and so—
Once, twice, three times, I made the gesture, keeping my attention fully on what I did. Then my ears opened— I heard voices—no longer as a distant hum but loud and clear. Though what language they spoke—it was none of mine.
I dared to look up. The hall, all those within had been also given reality, emerged from shadows to full substance. There were men and women, feast-day clad with a richness which I had never seen in any lord’s hall among my own kind. They did not wear emblazoned tabards such as my people kept for occasions of state, rather robes and jerkins of soft, clinging stuff colored as brightly as meadow flowers. There were gemmed girdles, broad jeweled collars, the flash of rings on moving hands.
Their hair was dark, and that of the ladies dressed high and decked with jewel-headed pins, or coronets so begemmed it was as if they had drawn the stars out of the skies to bedeck themselves. Circle crownlets the men wore also, but those each bore a single large gem over the forehead and were of gold or silver, or a red metal I had not
seen before.
Among them were others, even as I had thought. I saw near the high table a woman who was surely of the same race as she who I had met among the trees. There was a man—or so I thought him—who wore no jerkin. But there were two begemmed belts crossing on his breast, and covering each shoulder with a wider span. His skin was furred, his features were covered by a soft down, while from his forehead there curled up and back horns of a red shade which matched the glint of his eyes. I was sure that I saw the arch of furled wings standing above the head of another farther down that board. But as I tried to catch a closer look at what I feared might be one of the monsters, I was startled by a touch. A hand rested upon mine.
“Has the spring wine bemused you, my lord? You stare as one who has not feasted here before.”
Her voice was soft, yet it carried easily through the louder sound of all other voices. I turned my head slowly, to see clearly her who sat at my right, who had spoken words in my own tongue.
She was dark of both hair and skin. Even against my sun-browned flesh hers showed darker still, and I was sure that her coloring owed nothing to the touch of heat or wind. Tall she must have been, for I had to look up a fraction to meet her eyes. Those were brown also, the ruddy brown of that amber which is so highly prized by my kin. But her brows were black and straight above her eyes. She possessed the authority of one well used to command. The amber which I had noticed through the haze was a mantle which she had flung back now that she had put out her hand to mine. Under it was a robe of the yellow shade of ripe-to-cut grain, fitted to a body which was generous of breast, but narrow of waist. Between her full breasts rested a pendant which was also of amber, though the chain which supported it was of black and amber beads alternating. The pendant was formed like a shock of harvested grain, bound together by a vine from which had burst fruit in lusty ripeness.
Her hair had been brought up in a coronet of braids, and, instead of the gem flashing crowns or pins the others wore, there was only over her forehead another amber piece, larger but of the same design as her pendant, supported by a circlet of ruddy gold.
I was so bemused in looking at her. Yes, and in feeling in myself a response such as was certainly not fitting for this time and place—that I had not answered. She was—I could not find words as my thoughts flitted in a crazy fashion to a vision of a field prepared for sowing (also other and less innocent things as my body responded to a growing excitement).
She smiled and her smile was an invitation that drew me so that only my will held me in my seat. Nor did she take her hand away from where it lay on mine. It was a teeth-setting determination to keep from seizing upon her fingers, drawing her to me.
Her eyes changed and there was surprise in them. Then more than surprise, recognition. In that moment I was sure she saw me as what I truly was—not one of their company at all, a stranger caught in some sorcery and so brought among them.
Now I could not have moved even had I allowed myself the wild drive for action which tormented me. Those amber eyes held me. She lifted her other hand to clasp the pendant at her breast. I waited to see her anger grow, to have her claim me imposter, enemy—thief of some heritage which could never be mine.
Instead she only studied me. There was now speculation in her eyes. Her fingers, touching me, moved, closed about my wrist in a grip which I do not believe that I could have thrown off without full exertion of strength. I would not have believed that any woman could hold me so.
She spoke, her words again reaching me clearly under the cover of the babble about us, with a snap of order which I could not have disobeyed.
“Drink!”
There was a goblet at my left hand. Since she did not release the hold on my right I perforce raised that to obey her. The goblet, oddly enough in that place of such wealth, was carved from a solid piece of dark wood. In high relief upon the side was the head of a man, or one close to a man—though the eyes were slanted and there was a wry kind of amusement cleverly suggested by both those eyes and quirk of the lips above a pointed chin. The head of curling locks was crowned by a circlet in the form of deer horns, while the cup was filled near to the brim with liquid which, as I raised the goblet, began to seethe and bubble. Still I could not escape doing as she bade, and I drank.
The liquid was not hot as I had feared from seeing the action within—rather cool. Still, as it went down my throat it spread warmth—warmth and something more. It fired my blood, strengthened my desire.
I had kept my eyes on my companion above the rim of that cup as I drank, and I saw her smile slowly and languorously. Then she laughed a little, her right hand continuing to stroke the pendant between those breasts which flaunted more and more their ripeness, their firmness—