Don Rodriguez; Chronicles of Shadow ValleyDunsany, Lord
Science
Don Rodriguez; Chronicles of Shadow Valley
Dunsany, Lord
Fantasy fiction, English; Magicians -- Fiction; Spain -- Fiction
So came Rodriguez and his bride to the forest; he silent, perplexed,
wondering always to what home and what future he brought her; she
knowing less than he and trusting more. And on the untended road that
the bowmen shared with stags and with rare, very venturous travellers,
the wheels of the woodland chariot sank so deep in the sandy earth that
the escort of bowmen needed seldom to run any more; and he who sat by
the driver climbed down and walked silent for once, perhaps awed by the
occasion, though he was none other than Morano. Serafina was delighted
with the forest, but between Rodriguez and its beautiful grandeur his
anxieties crowded thickly. He leaned over once from the chariot and
asked one of the bowmen again about that castle; but the bowman only
bowed and answered with a proverb of Spain, not easily carried so far
from its own soil to thrive in our language, but signifying that the
morrow showeth all things. He was silent then, for he knew that there
was no way to a direct answer through those proverbs, and after a while
perhaps there came to him some of Serafina's trustfulness. By evening
they came to a wide avenue leading to great gates.
Rodriguez did not know the avenue, he knew no paths so wide in Shadow
Valley; but he knew those gates. They were the gates of iron that led
nowhere. But now an avenue went from them upon the other side, and
opened widely into a park dotted with clumps of trees. And the two
great iron shields, they too had changed with the changes that had
bewitched the forest, for their surfaces that had glowed so
unmistakably blank, side by side in the firelight, not many nights
before, blazoned now the armorial bearings of Rodriguez upon the one
and those of the house of Dawnlight upon the other. Through the opened
gates they entered the young park that seemed to wonder at its own
ancient trees, where wild deer drifted away from them like shadows
through the evening: for the bowmen had driven in deer for miles
through the forest. They passed a pool where water-lilies lay in
languid beauty for hundreds of summers, but as yet no flower peeped
into the water, for the pond was all hallowed newly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account