“Lest I be too large I leve here to tel you of many rare and remarcable occurants and observacions whych never the less I laye by in my mynde to aquent you with agaynst my coming home or by further writinge. Laxus bearing a kings name do puffe himself up alledging he wan the sefight but I shall satisfy your Majestie to the contrary. Gro followeth the wars in as goode sort as his lean spare bodey will wel beare. Of Gallandus I nedes must saye he do meddyl too much in my counsailles, still desyring me do thus and thus but I will nat. Heretofore in the like unrespective manner he hath now and then used mee which I have swolewed but will not no more. Who if hee go about to calumniate me in any thinge I praye you Lorde let mee know it though I despise baithe him and all such. And in acknowledgement of Your highe favors unto meward do kiss your Majesties hand. “Most humbly and reverently untoe my Lorde the Kynge, undir my seal. CORSUS.” • • • • • The King put up the writing in his bosom. “Bring me Corsus’s cup,” said he. They did so, and the King said, “Fill it with Thramnian wine. Drop me an emerald in it to spawn luck i’ the cup, and drink him fortune and wisdom in victory.” Prezmyra, that had watched the King till now as a mother watches her child in the crisis of a fever, rose up radiant in her seat, crying, “Victory!” And all they fell a-shouting and smiting on the boards till the roof-beams shook with their great shouting, while the King drank first and passed on the cup that all might drink in turn. But Gorice the King sat dark among them as a cliff of serpentine that frowns above dancing surges of a springtide summer sea. When the women left the banquet hall the Lady Prezmyra came to the King and said, “Your brow is too dark, Lord, if indeed this news is all good that lights your heart and mind from withinward.” The King answered and said, “Madam, it is very good news. Yet remember that hard it is to lift a full cup without spilling.” • • • • • Now was summer worn and harvest brought in, and on the twenty-seventh day after these tidings afore-writ came another ship of Witchland out of the west sailing over the teeming deep, and rowed on a full tide up Druima and through the Ergaspian Mere, and so anchored below Carcë an hour before supper time. That was a calm clear sunshine evening, and King Gorice rode home from his hunting at that instant when the ship made fast by the water-gate. And there was the Lord Gro aboard of her; and the face of him as he came up out of the ship and stood to greet the King was the colour of quick-lime a-slaking.