Figures of Earth

They of Poictesme narrate that in the old days when miracles were as common as fruit pies, young Manuel was a swineherd, living modestly in attendance upon the miller’s pigs. They tell also that Manuel was content enough: he knew not of the fate which was reserved for him.

Meanwhile in all the environs of Rathgor, and in the thatched villages of Lower Targamon, he was well liked: and when the young people gathered in the evening to drink brandy and eat nuts and gingerbread, nobody danced more merrily than Squinting Manuel. He had a quiet way with the girls, and with the men a way of solemn, blinking simplicity which caused the more hasty in judgment to consider him a fool. Then, too, young Manuel was very often detected smiling sleepily over nothing, and his gravest care in life appeared to be that figure which Manuel had made out of marsh clay from the pool of Haranton.

This figure he was continually reshaping and realtering. The figure stood upon the margin of the pool; and near by were two stones overgrown with moss, and supporting a cross of old worm-eaten wood, which commemorated what had been done there.

One day, toward autumn, as Manuel was sitting in this place, and looking into the deep still water, a stranger came, and he wore a fierce long sword that interfered deplorably with his walking.

“Now I wonder what it is you find in that dark pool to keep you staring so?” the stranger asked, first of all.

The first thing of all that Manuel did, was to fill a knapsack with simple and nutritious food, and then he went to the gray mountain called Vraidex, upon the remote and cloud-wrapped summit of which dread Miramon Lluagor dwelt, in a doubtful palace wherein the lord of the nine sleeps contrived illusions and designed the dreams of men. When Manuel had passed under some very old maple-trees, and was beginning the ascent, he found a smallish, flat-faced, dark-haired boy going up before him.

“Hail, snip,” says Manuel, “and whatever are you doing in this perilous place?”

“Why, I am going,” the dark-haired boy replied, “to find out how the Lady Gisèle d’Arnaye is faring on the tall top of this mountain.”

“Oho, then we will undertake this adventure together, for that is my errand too. And when the adventure is fulfilled, we will fight together, and the survivor will have the wealth and broad lands and the Count’s daughter to sit on his knee. What do they call you, friend?”

“I am called Niafer. But I believe that the Lady Gisèle is already married, to Miramon Lluagor. At least, I sincerely hope she is married to this great magician, for otherwise it would not be respectable for her to be living with him at the top of this gray mountain.”

“Fluff and puff! what does that matter?” says Manuel. “There is no law against a widow’s remarrying forthwith: and widows are quickly made by any champion about whom the wise Norns are already talking.

Thus speaking, and thus disporting themselves, they came leisurely to the base of the gray mountain and to the old maple-trees, under which they found two persons waiting. One was a tall man mounted on a white horse, and leading a riderless black horse. His hat was pulled down about his head so that his face could not be clearly seen.

Now the companion that was with him had the appearance of a bareheaded youngster, with dark red hair, and his face too was hidden as he sat by the roadway trimming his long fingernails with a small green-handled knife.

“Hail, friends,” said Manuel, “and for whom are you waiting here?”

“I wait for one to ride on this black horse of mine,” replied the mounted stranger. “It was decreed that the first person who passed this way must be his rider, but you two come abreast. So do you choose between you which one rides.”

“Well, but it is a fine steed surely,” Manuel said, “and a steed fit for Charlemagne or Hector or any of the famous champions of the old time.”

“Each one of them has ridden upon this black horse of mine,” replied the stranger.

Niafer said, “I am frightened.” And above them a furtive wind began to rustle in the torn, discolored maple-leaves.

“⁠—For it is a fine steed and an old steed,” the stranger went on, “and a tireless steed that bears all away. It has the fault, some say, that its riders do not return, but there is no pleasing everybody.”

So by the light of the seven candles Dom Manuel first saw Queen Freydis in her own shape, and in the appearance which she wore in her own country. What Manuel thought there was never any telling: but every other man who saw Queen Freydis in this appearance declared that instantly all his past life became a drugged prelude to the moment wherein he stood face to face with Freydis, the high Queen of Audela.

Freydis showed now as the most lovely of womankind. She had black plaited hair, and folds of crimson silk were over her white flesh, and over her shoulders was a black cloak embroidered with little gold stars and ink-horns, and she wore sandals of gilded bronze. But in her face was such loveliness as may not be told.

Now Freydis went from one side of the place to the other side, and saw the magics that protected the enclosure. “Certainly, you have me fast,” the high Queen said. “What is it you want of me?”

Manuel showed her the three images which he had made, set there arow. “I need your aid with these.”

Queen Freydis looked at them, and Freydis smiled. “These frozen abortions are painstakingly made. What more can anybody demand?”

Dom Manuel told her that he desired to make an animated and lively figure.

Whereupon she laughed, merrily and sweetly and scornfully, and replied that never would she give such aid.

“And now that every obligation is lifted, and we are reunited, my dear Niafer,” says Manuel, as they sat resting after his fight with the dragon, “we will, I repeat, be traveling every whither, so that we may see the ends of this world and may judge them.”

“Dearest,” replied Niafer, “I have been thinking about that, and I am sure it would be delightful, if only people were not so perfectly horrid.”

“What do you mean, dear snip?”

“You see, Manuel, now that you have fetched me back from paradise, people will be saying you ought to give me, in exchange for the abodes of bliss from which I have been summoned, at least a fairly comfortable and permanent terrestrial residence. Yes, dearest, you know what people are, and the evil-minded will be only too delighted to be saying everywhere that you are neglecting an obvious duty if you go wandering off to see and judge the ends of this world, with which, after all, you have really no especial concern.”

“Oh, well, and if they do?” says Manuel, shrugging lordily. “There is no hurt in talking.”

“Yes, Manuel, but such shiftless wandering, into uncomfortable places that nobody ever heard of, would have that appearance. Now there is nothing I would more thoroughly enjoy then to go traveling about at adventure with you, and to be a countess means nothing whatever to me.