“But… but you warned me to behave myself with her.”
“’That were afore I kenned ye well. Noo methinks ye’re a richt guid man for her; and the lassie needs a man. She and ye could reign o’er us in the woods. We’d be glad o’ ye.”
“Good grief! You’re no help whatsoever.”
“I been as helpfu’ as could be,” said Hugi in an injured tone. “Ye dinna know hoo oft I turned ma face, or wandered into the woods, to leave ye twa alane.”
“That’s not what—Oh, never mind.”
Holger lit his pipe and stared gloomily into the fire. He wasn’t any Don Juan. He couldn’t understand why one woman after another, in this world, should throw herself at him. Meriven and Morgan had had good practical reasons, but he wasn’t too dense to realize they had enjoyed their work more than usual. Alianora had quite simply fallen in love with him. Why? He had no illusions about his own irresistibility.
But of course that alter ego of his could be another story. He imagined that his slow return to forgotten habits showed in numberless subtle ways which transformed the total impression he made. What had he been like, this knight of the hearts and lions?
Well, let’s see. Figure it out on the basis of what had happened hitherto. Obviously a mighty warrior, which was what counted most in this world. A gusty, good-natured bruiser, not especially nimble-witted, but likeable. Something of an idealist, presumably: Morgan had spoken of his defending Law even if he stood to gain more from Chaos. He must have had a way with the ladies, or so wise a jade as she would hardly have taken him off to Avalon. And… and… that seemed to be all he could deduce. Or remember?
No, wait, Avalon. Holger looked at his right hand. That same hand had rested on a balustrade of green malachite, whose top was set with silver figures that had jewels in their centers. He remembered how the sun had fallen on the back of his hand, turning the hair to gold wires against the brown skin, and how the silver under his palm was warmer than the stone, and how the rubies glowed crimson. Straight down below the balustrade tumbled a cliff, which was of glass. From above he could see how the grottos broke light into a million rainbow shards, spraying the light outward again, hot sparks of red and gold and violet. The sea beneath had been so dark it was almost purple, with foam of amazing snowy whiteness where the cliff plowed the water… for Avalon stayed never in one place, the island floated over the western ocean in a haze of its own magic…
No more would come to mind. Holger sighed and composed himself for sleep.
After a week or so—he lost count of days—they left the wilderness and entered lands where the forest was thinned to copses. Grainfields billowed yellow across the hills. Shaggy little horses and cows pastured behind rail fences. The peasant homes grew numerous, mostly of rammed earth in this district, clustered in hamlets amid the cultivated acres. Here and there could be seen a stockaded wooden castle. The up-to-date ones of stone lay westward, where the Holy Empire held full sway. The mountains Holger had crossed, and the Faerie wall of dusk, were quite lost to sight. Northward, however, he saw the dim blue line of a much higher range, three of whose snowpeaks seemed to float pale and disembodied in the sky. Hugi said the Middle World lay beyond those too. No wonder the men hereabouts always went armed, even when working in the fields; no wonder the elaborate hierarchical civilization of the Empire was discarded for a frontier informality. The knights who put the travelers up two evenings in succession were unlettered, rough-fisted Western marshal types, though friendly enough and avid for news.
Toward sunset of their third day in the farmlands they entered Tarnberg, which Alianora said was the nearest thing to a city in the whole eastern half of the duchy. But its castle stood vacant. The baron had fallen with his sons in battle against heathen raiders from the north, his lady had gone west to her Imperial kinfolk, and no successor had yet arrived. It was a part of the general bad luck in the last few years, the radiation of Chaos as the Middle Worlders readied their powers. Now the Tarnberg men posted their own guard on the wooden walls, and governed themselves by an improvised council of estates.