Allegories; Fantasy fiction; Historical fiction; Middle Ages -- Fiction
Then they left the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn, walking together.
The folk who went toward London were now well out of sight and
hearing, which possibly accounts for the fact that Jurgen was now in
no wise thinking of Guenevere. So it was that Guenevere rode out of
Jurgen's life for a while: and as she rode she talked with Lancelot.
21.
How Anaïtis Voyaged
Now the tale tells that Jurgen and this Lady of the Lake came
presently to the wharves of Cameliard, and went aboard the ship
which had brought Anaïtis and Merlin into Glathion. This ship was
now to every appearance deserted: yet all its saffron colored sails
were spread, as though in readiness for the ship's departure.
"The crew are scrambling, it may be, for the largesse, and fighting
over Gogyrvan's silver pieces," says Anaïtis, "but I think they will
not be long in returning. So we will sit here upon the prow, and
await their leisure."
"But already the vessel moves," says Jurgen, "and I hear behind
us the rattling of silver chains and the flapping of shifted
saffron-colored sails."
"They are roguish fellows," says Anaïtis, smiling. "Evidently, they
hid from us, pretending there was nobody aboard. Now they think to
give us a surprise when the ship sets out to sea as though it were
of itself. But we will disappoint these merry rascals, by seeming to
notice nothing unusual."
So Jurgen sat with Anaïtis in the two tall chairs that were in the
prow of the vessel, under a canopy of crimson stuff embroidered with
gold dragons, and just back of the ship's figurehead, which was a
dragon painted with thirty colors: and the ship moved out of the
harbor, and so into the open sea. Thus they passed Enisgarth.
"And it is a queer crew that serve you, Anaïtis, who are Queen of
Cocaigne: for I can hear them talking, far back of us, and their
language is all a cheeping and a twittering, as though the mice and
the bats were holding conference."
"Why, you must understand that these are outlanders who speak a
dialect of their own, and are not like any other people you have
ever seen."
"Indeed, now, that is very probable, for I have seen none of your
crew. Sometimes it is as though small flickerings passed over the
deck, and that is all."
"It is but the heat waves rising from the deck, for the day is
warmer than you would think, sitting here under this canopy. And
besides, what call have you and I to be bothering over the pranks of
common mariners, so long as they do their proper duty?"
"I was thinking, O woman with unusual eyes, that these are hardly
common mariners."
"And I was thinking, Duke Jurgen, that I would tell you a tale of
the Old Gods, to make the time speed more pleasantly as we sit here
untroubled as a god and a goddess."
Now they had passed Camwy: and Anaïtis began to narrate the history
of Anistar and Calmoora and of the unusual concessions they granted
each other, and of how Calmoora contented her five lovers: and
Jurgen found the tale perturbing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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