“Yes, my Lord of Strombor. You are to see my Lady Mayfwy. The Lady Mayfwy — wife of Zorg of Felteraz.”
CHAPTER NINE
Two disgusting specimens of some abhorrent species of water vermin were hoisted aboard next morning, swinging groaning and complaining over Lilac Bird ’s parados to be dumped all squishy and green of face onto the deck.
The mobiles in their gaudy clothes and rusty swords who had brought them home stood on the jetty, guffawing, their hands on their hips, their heads thrown back, emptying their stalwart lungs into the early morning suns-shine. Both the suns of Kregen were close together. The genial sounds of work in the harbor floated up, cries and calls, the clink of tools, the slop of water, the screams of gulls. The lighthouse men were going off watch, rubbing their eyes and yawning. The tall pharos reared up from the far end of the jetty past the first of the seaward defense walls, its immense lantern mirrors dark and motionless. Down by the fishmarket the catch was being landed and the wives were arguing and fighting and more than one silvery-scaled fat fish went slap! across the cheeks of a beldame. The scene was one I could half close my eyes and absorb and imagine I was back in Plymouth — well, almost. Zolta and Nath lay on the deck, two pitiful objects.
Sharntaz, the new second in command, rolled across to inspect them with the toe of his boot. I, Dray Prescot, who seldom laugh, felt the strange bubbling inside me, straining my ribs. Nath held his head and groaned. Zolta held his stomach and moaned. As objects of pity they aroused only the most violent hilarity in the rough seafolk of Sanurkazz.
When Zenkiren appeared and everyone immediately straightened up ready for morning inspection, he cast a single glance at the two culprits, who attempted to stand up, their faces the color of that interesting cheese sometimes discovered abandoned in the buildings of Magdag.
“You two,” he said. He jerked a hand. “With the Lord of Strombor. Move! ”
“Aye, Captain,” they stuttered, and shambled off after me.
It was hardly fair on them, but I knew they would not forgive me if I traveled to Felteraz without them. As I had explained to Zenkiren, they were oar comrades of Zorg also. We made the journey in a two-wheeled cart drawn by a docile ass, a somewhat different variety from that of the Plains of Segesthes but with the same patient obstinacy, and as I handled the reins those two lay in the back and groaned with every jolt of the wheels.
“My head! Mother Zinzu the Blessed! For a little wine to moisten these cracked lips!”
“You drank it all last night,” said Zolta disagreeably.
“And that wench you found me! Aie! How she-”
“You have no stomach for the finer arts, Nath, and that is the truth, by Zim-Zair.”
“Ha! Since when have you used Krozair oaths, my fat tallowed sea snake?”
Then we were all silent, for a space, for we remembered our friend Zorg of Felteraz, to whose widow we now traveled.
The way was not far but we did not hurry in the warm sunshine. The weather continued fine and mild. For Zolta and Nath this was a holiday as well as a pilgrimage; for me it was a digression from my set course I had to make, a task laid on me, a task I knew without a single hesitation Delia of the Blue Mountains would approve and applaud.
Felteraz, a town and an estate and a small fishing harbor, lay a little over three dwaburs to the east and we had to be ferried over the neck of the Sea of Marshes to pick up our asscart. The gut there was about a mile or so broad and no bridges spanned it, but the shining water was always alive with small craft, oared wherries, pulling barges, dinghies, ferries, and the occasional stately passage of a swifter, every oar in line and rising and falling as one to the beat of the drum-deldar. Now we ambled along the dusty path, for the suns had quickly dried the overnight dew. We passed cultivated fields, and small farms and a tiny village or two nestled into the rocks. Here there could be habitation near the shore. For the frowning walls of the citadel of Sanurkazz to the west and the much lesser citadel of Felteraz to the east provided protection and a powerful deterrent to a swift raiding descent on the coast. In general the coasts of the inner sea, the Eye of the World, lie barren beneath the suns.
I wondered what Mayfwy would be like. Zorg had never mentioned her, save that once, when he had been unable any longer to keep bottled within him the passions of his life, for he had been dying. He had said “Krozair” and “Mayfwy” in a breath, a dying breath. I had formed an image of her, of a serene and calm grand dame, straight, with the management of the estate and the overlordship of the town and harbor and citadel a burden she was capable of bearing with dignity and composure, a charge she accepted with all the loyalty I had come to know and admire in Zorg, her husband. We stopped to eat in one of the villages, and Nath quickly bargained for a bottle of Zond wine, and Zolta had an apple-cheeked girl perched on his knee and screaming with laughter in almost no time at all. I ate bread, soft, fluffy bread torn in chunks from the long loaves of Kregen, and smeared with honey from the innkeeper’s hives. A heaping dish of palines in the center of the table completed Nath’s hangover cure; there is nothing as sovereign as palines to pick a man up from the floor. There are many things I know I have forgotten in my long life. I sincerely believe I shall never forget that ambling ride on an asscart from Sanurkazz to Felteraz along the dusty coast road of the Eye of the World with the warm sunshine golden and glorious upon us, streaming in opaline radiance upon the vineyards and orange groves, and upon the browned and smiling faces of the people we passed. It is a simple memory, but a long one. And those two lusty rogues, Nath and Zolta, rollicked and sang in the cart as we rolled creaking and lurching along the road.
Felteraz came in sight. I shall say little about the place. The town was charming, high-banked along the terraced side of a hill, trending up to where a great dike cut off the frowning mass of the citadel. I have seen the incomparable view along the brilliant cliffs of Sorrento. Felteraz is something like that. The harbor lay cinctured by a solid granite wall and there was also a lighthouse as there was in Sanurkazz. From the high loft of the citadel I could look out and down along those cliffs which the setting suns crimsoned and opaled in breathtaking radiance, smothered in profuse vegetation, with blooms of gorgeous color and scents of delight breaking the patterns of greenery and rock. We rolled along behind our ass up to the drawbridge over the dike, and the bridge was down and a friendly man-at-arms clad in mail let us through. His white surcoat bore a symbol I was to come to know welclass="underline" two galley oars, crossed, divided upright by a long sword, so that the whole looked something like the letter X with a center upright. The symbol was stitched in red and gold, surrounded by a lenk-leaf border. The man-at-arms lifted his long sword in salute as we passed, and, gravely, I acknowledged it. A smiling maid in a white apron, with naked flashing legs, with a sprightly eye that sized up Zolta in a moment, led us into a spacious antechamber hung with tapestry and with solid tables and chairs positioned about. She was gone only five minutes or so and I knew Zenkiren had sent a message, that we were expected.
Mayfwy, widow to Zorg of Felteraz, entered the room.
I knew what I had expected. A grand dame, solid, filled with the virtues of her exalted office, wearing stiff robes, brocade, girdled with a golden belt from which hung suspended bunches of iron keys of her responsibilities as chatelaine.
Of all the inward expectation, Mayfwy possessed only the glittering golden belt. From the belt, the chatelaine itself, hung a silver key.
Mayfwy danced lightly into the room, smiling, brimming over with joy and goodwill. She was young, incredibly young to be what she was. Her mass of dark and curly hair glistened with health and oils and ministrations. Her pert face with its saucy eyes appraised us. Her small and sensuous mouth broke into a smile as she advanced, more sedately, her hand extended.