The road now had entered the fringes of the Dark Woods. Visbhume steered the wole to the side and off across a little meadow of blue grass to the shade of three dark blue trees, where he halted and threw down the anchor. With stately demeanor he descended to the sward, set out the miniature cottage and caused it to expand. Finally he turned to Glyneth, still on the low bench of the pergola. "My dear, you may alight."
"I prefer to stay here."
Visbhume spoke crisply, with an overtone of menace in his tone: "Glyneth, step down from the wole, if you please. We have important matters to discuss."
Glyneth jumped down from the wole, ignoring Visbhume's hand. With a cool smile, Visbhume signaled Glyneth to the doorway of the cottage. She entered and seated herself, while Visbhume closed the door and shot the bolt.
"Are you hungry?" asked Visbhume.
"No."
As soon as she had spoken Glyneth realized that she had made a mistake. Any procedure which used time was to her advantage.
"Do you thirst?"
Glyneth gave a noncommittal shrug and Visbhume brought wine from the cupboard and poured full two goblets. "My, dear, we are at last genuinely and intimately alone! Is that not a thrilling thought? I have yearned long for this moment, meanwhile ignoring insults and indignities as befits a knight of chivalry. Such matters—pah! They are the twitchings and squealings of small minds; noblesse allows me to put them aside, as a gallant ship rides over the spatter and spray of the envious waves! Drink now! Let this good vintage bring warmth to your veins! Drink, Glyneth, drink! .... What? You shun the wine; you push aside the goblet? Truly, I am not pleased! Rather than sparkling eyes and excited mouth I find a squint, a hunching, a dyspeptic pinch of nostril, a grim behavior. This is a time for gayety! I am somewhat puzzled by your posture. You crouch and watch me sidelong as if I were a rat eating the breakfast cheese. On your feet, then! Let us act in the manner of dainty lovers! Be so kind as to loose your garments and let them slide, and so to display your lovely supple limbs!"
Glyneth shook her head. "I will do nothing like this."
Visbhume smiled. "Really? What a pity that I lack a full measure of time so that I might match you at every turn! But time is of the essence; the affair must be effected in a makeshift manner, and first, for reasons which will become clear to you, I must know what I brought you here to learn. Quickly now, that we devote the greater time to our pleasure!"
Temporizing, Glyneth asked: "What did you wish to know?"'
"Ha hah! Can you not guess?"
"Not really. I am puzzled."
"Then I will tell you exactly! After all, why should you not be told? Surely you will never use the knowledge to my disadvantage! Am I correct in this?"
"Yes."
"Of course I am correct! Listen then! King Casmir heard a prediction regarding the first-born son of Princess Suldrun. There is mystery in connection with Suldrun's child. Princess Madouc is a changeling, but what of the boy the fairies took? There was a boy who left Thripsey Shee and who became your companion. His name is Dhfun, but he would seem too old to be Suldrun's child. Who then is Dhrun's mother? Where is that boy whom the fairies took and gave Casmir Madouc in return? This boy would now be five or six years old. By the prediction he will sit on Evandig before Casmir or some such affair, and Casmir is anxious to locate him."
So that he may put the child to death?"
Visbhume smiled and shrugged.
"Such is the way of kings. Now you can understand the import of my curiosity. Do you so understand?"
"Yes!"
"Excellent! Then, in all kindness, I ask that you tell me what you know of the matter, and I therefore put this easy and harmless question to you: who is Dhrun's mother?"
"Dhrun never knew his mother," said Glyneth.
"He was raised by fairies and spent a most curious childhood. He once told me the name of Madouc's mother; she had consorted with men and her name was Twisk."
"Words, words, words!" cried Visbhume fretfully. "They are not responsive to my question! Once more: who is or was Dhrun's mother?"
Glyneth shook her head. "Even if I knew, I would tell you nothing, since it might aid King Casmir, our enemy."
Visbhume spoke sharply: "You try my patience! But I have a remedy!" He brought a little green glass bottle from his wallet. "This, as you will recall, is the true and veritable Potion of Amour. One drop brings yearnings to every nook and cranny the female soul and encourages prodigies of sexual valor in every male. Suppose that I forced you to ingest not just a single sip, but two or even three? In your urgent zeal you would tell me what I wanted to know in a trice, nor would you be at all loath to step from your garments."
Tears rolled down Glyneth's cheeks. What a sorry end for my life! Visbhume clearly intended either to kill her outright, or at best, to abandon her on Tanjecterly. Visbhume came up to her with his bottle. "Come then, open that pretty little mouth. One drop shall I give you; one drop will suffice, and if not, then we shall try another."
V
IN HIS CELL AT THE TOWN PUDE, Kul rubbed the ropes binding his arms against a sharp edge of the door-frame, and rasp them through. He untied the ropes from his legs, broke open the door to the cell with a single lurch and burst out into the courtyard. A pair of guards jumped up to intercept him but were sent sprawling; Kul took his sword from the gatehouse; then ran out into the street and eastward along the road.
Fulgis the constable organized a party of pursuit, including! the redoubtable Zaxa, a hybrid creature half-man and half-hespid batrache, with arms like baulks of timber, a heavy? gray hide proof against spear, arrow, claw or fang. Zaxa rode a small pacing wole, and carried his fabulous sword Zil, while the others of the party rode steeds of other descriptions."
The posse set off in hot pursuit and presently overtook Kul who ran into the Deep Woods. The pursuers coursed behind, shouting and hallooing, and exchanging repartee. Kul dropped from a tree into their midst, destroyed eight warriors and ran off. The pursuers came after, more cautiously, consulting among themselves and exchanging terse instructions, with Zaxa in the lead. Kul slid around to their rear and attacking once more, wrought further carnage. By the time Zaxa arrived on the scene, Kul was gone once more, only to leap from the shadows, seize the constable Fulgis and break his head against a tree trunk, but Zaxa at last confronted him.
Zaxa bellowed: "Feroce, you are clever, you are fierce but now you must pay for your murders, and the cost shall be high!"
Kul responded: "Zaxa, allow me to make a suggestion. you go your way and I will go mine. In this case, neither shall take harm from the other. It is a plan which redounds to the profit of both. Can you not perceive the wisdom of this proposal?"
Zaxa stood back blinking as he pondered the concept. At last he spoke: "No doubt there is something in what you say. But I rode this far distance with the express and stated purpose of lopping away your head with my fine sword Zil, and it seems somehow bootless to turn about now and ridt emptyhanded back to Pude. The townsfolk would ask: ‘Zaxa did you not ride from town pell-mell that you might destroy a murderous feroce?' And I could but answer: ‘True! That was my purpose!' Then they would say: ‘Ah, the clever brute evaded your search!' To this I would be forced to answer: "Quite to the contrary! We met and spoke a few civil words to other, then I came home.' The townsfolk might say nothing aloud, but I feel that I would lose esteem around the neighborhood. Therefore, even at the risk of discomforture I feel myself obliged to kill you."
"What if you die first?"
Zaxa bellowed and beat his great chest. "Once I lay hands on you, the issue is closed. Prepare to learn the full extent of the infinite hereafter." The two joined battle. In the end, panting, bloody, and eith one arm mangled, Kul stood above the corpse of Zaxa. He gazed around the forest glade, but the surviving villagers, seeing how the battle went, had departed. Kull looked down at Zaxa's great gray carcass and almost could feel a pang of pity. Kul took up Zaxa's magnificent sword Zil, staggered to axa's mount, climbed to the seat, and set off in search of Visbhume and Glyneth.