Dr. Reed Chalmers, though he did not recognize the sensations, was falling in love.
The girl’s eyelids fluttered. She turned her head and gave him along, slow look. He squirmed again. Then his professional sense awoke under that intent gaze. Something was the matter with her.
Certainly she was not feebleminded. She must be acting under some sort of compulsion — posthypnotic suggestion, perhaps — Magic!
He leaned forward, and was nearly knocked from his seat by a violent clap on the back.
«Good fortune, palmer!» cried a raucous voice. The dark Blandamour stepped past him, one arm bound tightly to his side. «Gramercy for your care of my little rosebud!» With the undamaged arm, he swung the girl expertly from her place in the casement and kissed her with a vigour that left, a damp spot on her veil.
Chalmers shuddered internally. The girl submitted with the same air of preoccupation. She sank back into the casement. Chalmers meditated on a suitably horrible end for this jolly roughneck. Something humorous and lingering, with either boiling oil or melted lead.
«Hi, Doc, how are we doing?» It was Shea. «Hi, Sir Blandamour. No hard feelings, I hope?»
The knight’s black eyebrows came down like awnings. «Against you, you kern?» he roared. «Nay, I’ll give you a meeting beyond the castle gate and spank you with the flat o’ my blade.»
Shea looked down his long nose and pointed towards Bbndamour’s bandaged shoulder. «Be careful that iron arm of yours doesn’t get rusty before you go that far,» he remarked. He turned to Chalmers. «Come on, Doc, we got some reserved seats for the beauty parade. They’re starting now.»
* * *
As they left, Chalmers said: «Harold, I wish I could talk to that girl. uh. in private. I believe she’s the. uh. key to what we’re looking for.»
Shea said: «Honest? She’s Blandamour’s lady, isn’t she? I suppose if I fought him for her and beat him, she’d be mine.»
«No, no, Harold, I implore you not to start any more fights. Our superiority over these people should be based on. uh. intellectual considerations.»
«Okay. It’s funny, though, the way they pass women around like bottles of liquor. And the women don’t seem to mind.»
«Custom,» remarked Chalmers. «Beyond that, deep-rooted psychology. The rules are different from those we’re accustomed to, but they’re strict enough. A knight’s lady is evidently expected to be faithful to him until he loses her.»
«Still,» Shea persisted, «if I had a lady, I’m not sure I’d want to enter her in this beauty contest, knowing she’d be turned over to the winner of the tournament.»
* * *
«Custom again. It’s not considered sporting to hold out on the other knights by refusing to risk an attractive lady.»
They had been bowed into a kind of throne room with a raised dais at one end. At one side of the dais the bearish Satyrane sprawled in a comfortable chair. Six musicians with tootle-pipes and things like long-stemmed ukeleles were setting up a racket unlike any music Shea and Chalmers had ever heard. The knights and ladies appeared to find it charming, however. They listened with expressions of ecstasy till it squeaked and plunked to a close.
Satyrane stood up, the famous girdle dangling from his hand. «All ye folks know,» he said, «that this is a tournament of Love and beauty as well as a garboil. This here girdle goes to the winning lady. It used to be Florimel’s, but she lost it and nobody knows where she is, so it’s finders keepers.»
He paused and looked around. «Now, what I want to say is that this here is a very useful little collop of jewellery, both for the lady and her knight. It has a double enchantment on it. For the lady, it makes her ten times fairer the minute she puts it on, and it hides her from anyone who would do her wrong. But also, it won’t stay around the waist of any wench who’s not perfectly chaste and pure. That’s for the benefit of the knight. The minute this lady can’t keep her belt on he knows she’s been up to tricks.» He ended with a bellowing laugh. A few echoed it. Others murmured at his uncouthness.
Satyrane waved for quiet and went on. «Now, as to who wins, the honourable judges have eliminated the contestants down to four, but among the claims of these four they say they can’t decide nohow. So they ask, lords and ladies, that you yourselves choose.» Satyrane turned to the opposite side of the dais where four women sat, with veils over their heads, and called: «Duessa! Lady to Sir Paridell.»
* * *
One of the girls rose and advanced to the front of the dais. Satyrane removed her veil. Her hair was red almost as bright as her heavily rouged lips. Eyebrows slanted low at the centre. She looked a queenly, disdainful scorn at the audience. The company murmured its appreciation. Satyrane stepped back a pace and called: «Cambina! Lady and wife to Sir Cambell.»
She came forward slowly — blonde, almost as tall as Cambell himself, and of the mature, Junoesque beauty she dwarfed without outshining the fiery little redhead.
Shea whispered to Chalmers: «A little bit too well upholstered for me.»
Just then there was a clang as an iron glove was thrown on the floor. Cambell’s deep voice boomed, «My challenge to any one who tries to take her from me!»
There was no acceptance. Satyrane never turned a hair. He whipped off the next veil crying: «The Lady Amoret!» She stepped forward bravely, turning her head to show the perfect profile, but as Satyrane announced, «Lady and wife of Sir Scudamour,» the delicate nostrils twitched. They gave an audible sniffle. Then, abandoning all efforts at self-control, the burst into a torrent of tears for the absent Scudamour. The Lady Duessa looked angry contempt. Cambina tried to comfort her as the sobs became louder and louder, mixed with words about, «— when I think of all I’ve been through for him —» Satyrane threw up his hands despairingly and stepped back to the fourth contestant. Shea saw one of the judges whisper to Satyrane. «What?» said the woodland knight in an incredulous stage-whisper. He shrugged and turned to the company.
«Sir Blandamour’s lady, Florimel!» he announced, and drew the veil from the woman with whom Chalmers had been talking. Shea heard Chalmers gasp. The girl who advanced to the front of the dais with a sleep-walker’s step and wide eyes was the most beautiful thing Shea had every seen. Clapping and murmurs foretold who would win.
But there was a buzz of talk as well. Shea’s ear caught Britomart’s remark to Chalmers: «Good palmer! You who are skilled in magic and supersticerie, mark her well!»
«Why. why, Miss Britomart?»
«Because there’s something here very strange. She’s as like that Florimel of the sea to whom the girdle really belongs as one pea to another. Yet I will swear it is not the same woman, and see! — all here are of the same mind.»
In truth the hall was shouting for Florimel as the winner, but they were shouting for «Blandamour’s Florimel,» as though to distinguish her from the true owner of the girdle. Satyrane bowed and extended the jewelled trinket towards her.
With a word of thanks she took the belt. She clasped it around her middle. There seemed to be some difficulty about buckling it. She fumbled, worked at it a second, snapped it tight, lifted her hands — and the enchanted belt, still buckled, slid down her hips and thumped to the floor.
* * *
A low murmur of laughter ran around the room. Everyone looked at Blandamour who turned beet-colour. Florimel stepped out of the circle of the belt and picked it up, a frown of puzzlement on her perfect features.
«Here, let me put it on,» said the red-haired Duessa, and snatching it, suited the action to the word. As soon as she clasped it, the girdle popped open and slid down. She caught it and tried again. Same result. Shea noticed her lips were moving as though pronouncing a charm.