Study or no, Queen Clara said now, “Well, and pleased to meet this young man, I’m sure, but it seems to me there’s more to this than meets the heye. Our Pearl is still young for all she’s growed hup into a fine young ‘oman, and I don’t know as I’m all that keen on her marrying someone as we knows nuffink abahrt, hexcept that he use ter be a bird; look at that there Ellen of Troy whose dad was a swan, Leda was er mum’s name; what sort of ome life d’you think she could of ad, no better than they should be the two of them, mother and daughter - what! Alfland! Yer as some’at to say, as yer!” she turned fiercely on her king, who had indeed been mumbling something about live and let live, and it takes all kinds, and seems a gormly young man; “Ah, and if another Trojan War is ter start, needent think to take Buck halong and -“
But she had gone too far.
“Nah then, nah then, Queen Clara,” said her king. “Seems to me yer’ve gotten things fair muddled, that ‘ere Trojing War come abaht acause the lady herself ad more nor one usband, an’ our Pearl asn’t - leastways not as I knows of. First yer didn’t want Buck to get married, nah yer wants our Pearl ter stay at ome. I dessay, when it come our Ruby’s time, yer’ll ave some’at to say bout that, too. Jer want me line, the royal line-age o’ the Kings of Alfland, as as come down from King Deucalion’s days, ter die aht haltergether?” And to this the queen had no word to utter, or, at least, none she thought it prudent to; so her husband turned to the young man clad in the second-best tablecloth (the best, of course, always being saved for the lustral Visitations of the High King himself) - and rather well did he look in it, too - and said, “Sir, we bids yer welcome to this ere Igh Table, which it’s mine, King Earwig of Alfland is me style and title, not but what I mightn’t ave another, nottersay other ones, if so be I ad me entitles and me right. Ah, ad not the King o’ the Norf, Arald Ardnose, slain Earl Oscaric the Ostrogoth at Slowstings, thus allowing Juke Wilfred of Southmandy to hobtain more than a mere foot’old, as yer might call it, this ud be a united kingdom today instead of a mere patch’ork quilt of petty kingdomses. Give us an account of yerself, young man, as yer hobliged to do hanyway according to the lore.”
And at once proceeded to spoil the effect of this strict summons by saying to his royal guest, “Pour us a drain o’ malt and one for his young sprig, wonthcher, Bert,” and handed the mug to the young sprig with his own hands and the words, “Ere’s what made the deacon dance, so send it down the red road, brother, and settle the dust.”
They watched the ale go rippling down the newcomer’s throat, watched him smack his lips. Red glows danced upon the fire-pit hearth, now and then illuminating the path of the black smoke all the way up to the pitchy rafters where generations of other smokes had left their soots and stains. And then, just as they were wondering whether the young man had a tongue or whether he peradventure spoke another than the one in which he had been addressed, he opened his comely red lips and spoke.
“Your Royal Grace and Highnesses,” he said, “and Prince and Princesses, greetings.”
“Greetings,” they all said, in unison, including, to her own pleased surprise, Queen Clara, who even removed her hands from under the apron embroidered with the golden crowns, where she had been clasping them tightly, and sat down, saying that the young man spoke real well and was easily seen to have been well brought hup, whatsoever e ad been a bird: but there, we can’t always elp what do befall us in this vale of tears.
“To give an account of myself,” the young man went on, after no more than a slight pause, “would be well lengthy, if complete. Perhaps it might suffice for now for me to say that as I was on the road running north and east out of Chiringirium in the Middle, or Central, Roman Empire, I was by means of a spell cast by a benevolent sorcerer, transformed into a falcon in order that I might be saved from a much worse fate; that wilst in the form of that same bird I was taken in a snare and manned by one trained in that art, by him sold or exchanged for three whippets and a brace of woodcock to a trader out of Tartary by way of the Crimea; and by him disposed of to a wandering merchant, who in turn made me over to this young prince here for two silver pennies and a great piece of gammon. I must say that this is very good ale,” he said, enthusiastically. “The Romans don’t make good ale, you know, it’s all wine with them. My old dadda used to tell me, Terry, my boy, clean barrels and good malt make clean good ale …’ “
And, as he recalled the very tone of his father’s voice and the very smell of his favorite old cloak, and realized that he would never see him more, a single tear rolled unbidden from the young man’s eye and down the down of his cheek and was lost in the tangle of his soft young beard, though not lost to the observation of all present. Buck snuffled, Ruby climbed up in the young man’s lap and placed her slender arms round his neck, Queen Clara blew her nose into her gold-embroidered apron, King Bert cleared his throat, and King Alf-Earwig brushed his own eyes with his sleeve.
“Your da told yer that, eh?” he said, after a moment. “Well, he told you right and true What, call him dada, do ee? Why, yer must be one a them Lower Europeans, then, for Ive eard its their way o’ speech. What’s is name, then - and what’s yours, for that matter?”
Princess Pearl, speaking for the first time since giving the ring to her small sister, said, “Why, Da, haven’t he told us that? His name is Perry.” And then she blushed an even brighter red than ever.
“Ah, he have, our Pearl. I’ll be forgetting my own name next. Changed into a falcon-bird and then changed back again, eh? Mind them mimworms and that ‘ere dragon hegg, Bert; keep em safe locked hup, for where there be magic there be mischief But what’s yer guvnor’s name, young Perry?”
Young Perry had had time to think. Princess Pearl was to all appearances an honest young woman and no doubt skilled in the art of spindle and distaff and broider-sticking, as befitted the daughter of a petty king; and as befitted one, she was passing eager and ready for marriage to the son of another such. But Perry had no present mind to be that son. Elliptically he answered with another question. “Have you heard of Sapodilla?”
Brows were knit, heads were scratched. Elliptics is a game at which more than one can play. “That be where you’re from, then?” replied King Alf.
The answer, such as it was, was reassuring. He felt he might safely reveal a bit more without revealing too much more. “My full name, then, is Peregrine the son of Paladrine, and I am from Sapodilla and it is in Lower Europe. And my father sent me to find my older brother, Austin, who looks like me, but blond.” This was stretching the truth but little. Eagerness rising in him at the thought, he asked, “Have any of you seen such a man?”
King Bert took the answer upon himself. “Mayhap such a bird is what ee should better be a-hasking for, horhorhor!” he said. And then an enormous yawn lifted his equally enormous mustache.
Someone poked Perry in the side with a sharp stick. He did not exactly open his eyes and sit up, there on the heap of sheepskin and blanketure nigh the still hot heap of coals in the great hall; for somehow he knew that he was sleeping. This is often the prelude to awakening, but neither did he awake. He continued to lie there and to sleep, though aware of the poke and faintly wondering about it. And then it came again, and a bit more peremptory, and so he turned his mind’s eye to it, and before his mind’s eye he saw the form and figure of a man with a rather sharp face, and this one said to him, “Now, attend, and don’t slumber off again, or I’ll fetch you back, and perhaps a trifle less pleasantly; you are new to this island, and none come here new without my knowing it, and yet I did not know it. Attend, therefore, and explain.”