Don Rodriguez; Chronicles of Shadow ValleyDunsany, Lord
Science
Don Rodriguez; Chronicles of Shadow Valley
Dunsany, Lord
Fantasy fiction, English; Magicians -- Fiction; Spain -- Fiction
And they went on building the towers above the height of the roof And
near the top of them they made homes for archers, little turrets that
leaned like swallows' nests out from each tower, high places where they
could see and shoot and not be seen from below. And little narrow
passages wound away behind perched battlements of stone, by which
archers could slip from place to place, and shoot from here or from
there and never be known. So were built in that distant age the towers
of Castle Rodriguez.
And one day four weeks from the felling of the first oak, the period of
his promise being accomplished, the King of Shadow Valley blew his
horn. And standing by what had been the bowmen's cottage, now all shut
in by sheer walls of Castle Rodriguez, he gathered his bowmen to him.
And when they were all about him he gave them their orders. They were
to go by stealth to the village of Lowlight, and were to be by daylight
before the house of Don Alderon; and, whether wed or unwed, whether she
fled or folk defended the house, to bring Dona Serafina of the Valley
of Dawnlight to be the chatelaine of Castle Rodriguez.
For this purpose he bade them take with them a chariot that he thought
magnificent, though the mighty timbers that gave grandeur to Castle
Rodriguez had a cumbrous look in the heavy vehicle that was to the
bowmen's eyes the triumphal car of the forest. So they took their bows
and obeyed, leaving the craftsmen at their work in the castle, which
was now quite roofed over, towers and all. They went through the forest
by little paths that they knew, going swiftly and warily in the
bowmen's way: and just before nightfall they were at the forest's edge,
though they went no farther from it than its shadows go in the evening.
And there they rested under the oak trees for the early part of the
night except those whose art it was to gather news for their king; and
three of those went into Lowlight and mixed with the villagers there.
When white mists moved over the fields near dawn and wavered ghostly
about Lowlight, the green bowman moved with them. And just out of
hearing of the village, behind wild shrubs that hid them, the bowmen
that were coming from the forest met the three that had spent the night
in taverns of Lowlight. And the three told the hundred of the great
wedding that there was to be in the Church of the Renunciation that
morning in Lowlight: and of the preparations that were made, and how
holy men had come from far on mules, and had slept the night in the
village, and the Bishop of Toledo himself would bless the bridegroom's
sword. The bowmen therefore retired a little way and, moving through
the mists, came forward to points whence they could watch the church,
well concealed on the wild plain, which here and there gave up a field
to man but was mostly the playground of wild creatures whose ways were
the bowmen's ways. And here they waited.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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