On a bright May morning, at a spot on Bakers’ Square that overlooked the lake, Braeth the Bard, who had made more money that morning that he usually did in a month, began the tale of Sir Anduir for the sixth time.
“I begin my tale, not with Sir Anduir, whom few of us know by face, but with his close friend, Sir Athenrin, whom we of the city know well, for he is the most beloved paladin of Poyn. Or rather, I will begin, not with Sir Athenrin, but with his father, Lord Wender of Fallasbring, for he it was who first brought us, in the city’s darkest hour, tidings of the strange and desperate exploits of this strange and daring knight. Lord Wender came to us almost as a prisoner in the late autumn of the twentieth year of King Medvelil’s reign, with an escort of six knights, hanging his head, for he was under a shadow of treason.”
Braeth had already worked the crowd, greeting the fishers of the isles and the shepherds of the high country, praising a boy soldier who had marched from distant Kyliand and lost a leg in the Battle of the Bogs until the crowd lifted him on their shoulders and cheered, and bowing low to six mounted warriors in black, representatives of Poyn’s proud and treacherous allies, the Varannian kingdoms. The mere air, warm and soft and fragrant with flowers, was enough to make a man drunk with delight that day. There was just enough of a breeze to ripple the waters of Lake Shivershine and make the branches of the trees dance. But it was less the glory of spring than the relief of a victory strange and unlooked-for that made their hearts glad. And they were excited, for they had come that day to greet a hero.
“In earlier times, none would have spoken to, scarcely looked at, one who was said to have yielded a strong castle to the enemy, without a fight, in return for the emperor’s favor. But we had heard of so much treason by then that we were numb. So many great, noble families, whose prowess we had admired on the tournament field and whose eloquence had swayed the counsels of the king’s parliament, had made their separate peace with Tuvel, and were lost to the kingdom. Lord Wender, at least, seemed penitent. And so none jeered at him or threw stones or spat from rooftops. Some even began to approach him, to hear his story.
“Lord Wender was a man who had loved life too much. He seemed like a ghost, a man overspent. I do not mean that he was a drunkard and a wastrel. True, he did love wine. But he also loved music, spring flowers, birdsongs at dawn, hunting amidst the blaze of an autumn forest. Far more, he loved his friends, of which he had once had many. As the grave took them, he began to live too much in the past, in reminiscences. What he remembered was all gladness and joy, merriment amidst loving friends, yet the memory of it had sorrow in it. Lord Wender longed for what no man can have: the past.
“Other than the past, what he loved best in the world was his son, Sir Athenrin. And what father could resist being proud of such a son? He is tall, strong, and brave, so handsome that half the girls in Poyn broke their hearts when they heard of his engagement to the famous beauty, Lady Julia. He was graceful on the tournament field, dauntless in battle, merciful in victory, and marvelously polite and well-spoken. His ears hunger for the commands of the king, for each of them is a chance to gain honor. And second to the king are the commands of any damsel. When he rides along the road, every lady may expect to hear a compliment, and every beggar may expect silver or gold in his palm.
“He was his father’s son by Lady Athemiara, a beauty as famous in her day as Lady Julia now, of the House of Metellin. Fallasbring and Metellin were equals in wealth and ancient lineage, but in its martial fame Metellin was far superior, for the lords of Fallasbring had never been great soldiers, while the House of Metellin had produced great knights in every generation, and several Marshals of the Realm had arisen from that august family. For love of Lady Athemiara, Lord Wender had gone to war, hoping to make a name for himself and be worthy of her, though he had not the heart of a soldier. He won her love, in the end, not by courage but by faithfulness, for he tended to her mortally wounded father at the end, and when the dying duke of Metellin saw how kind and warm-hearted he was, he thought his daughter would be happy with him, and gave his blessing to the marriage. The twelve years that she lived with him were the happiest of Wender’s life, and grief at her death was the beginning of his decline. But their son took her place in his father’s heart. He was, if you will forgive the pun, the sun of his father’s life. Wender began to come to Poyn for every tournament, and would cheer until he was hoarse as Athenrin jousted, and then stay for weeks to boast, until his son blushed with shame at his father’s exaggerations and doting. Yet Athenrin loved his father too, as that happy man seemed to love every day that dawned and every creature that breathed.
“And then the war came, and Lord Wender heard dark tidings of defeat and death, and saw the roads clogged with peasant wagons in flight to the wilds of the east before the conquering hosts of Tuvel, until one day a company of emissaries, dressed in white, was seen riding along the high road towards the castle. Now you must know that although in his strength and prowess Athenrin was entirely a son of Metellin and not of Fallasbring, yet in the tournaments he had chosen to carry a shield bearing not a diving falcon, the coat of arms of Metellin, but a songbird, the coat of arms of Fallasbring, so that he was sometimes called the Knight of the Songbird Shield. On that day, the watchmen who informed him of this company of emissaries had sad news, for they saw that one of that approaching company carried with him the Songbird Shield.
“On hearing this, Lord Wender immediately mounted his horse and rode with some squires to meet the emissaries. ‘You have my son’s shield,’ he demanded, full of fear. ‘Tell me why. What news have you of him?’ And their leader spoke.”
Braeth performed with a harper and a drummer-flautist, and for several seconds they had begun to beat and strum softly to prepare the way for a song. Now Braeth’s voice rose in a tone of high and heroic lamentation, as he sang:
“Sad news bring I,” the liar said
“Sad news from Falloden Field,
“Great duke, your valiant son is dead
“Behold his helmet and shield.”
At these cruel words fell he to his knees
And light was lost to his eyes.
Great tears fell down like stormy seas
And they feared he never would rise.
The song had fourteen verses, and it told much of the tale, but cryptically and a bit inaccurately—for example, it called Wender a “duke” when his real title was “lord”—since it was really a much older song to which Braeth had merely altered the words to make them suitable for the present purpose. These imperfect lyrics, borne upon the swell Braeth’s beautiful baritone voice amidst the harper’s harmonies, stirred the emotions of the audience, but when Braeth finished he had to start the tale where he had left off.
“The emissary, to Lord Wender’s surprise, was a Poynese by birth and spoke Poynese as his native tongue. Wender had even known him as a boy, when he had been called Raif Tingwald, and he had once seen him joust in a tournament in Poyn. Now he was called Ravuk Pasha, and had been the proconsul of a small city in the imperial service, before he was summoned to serve as council to the imperial armies. ‘I look back upon my life in Poyn as if it were a dream,’ he said to Lord Wender, as he knelt weeping. ‘We lived by fancies rather than facts, and chased after words of which we hardly knew the meaning, like courage and honor and quest and freedom. But that folly is at an end. It is just as the old prophecy said: ten generations will the heirs of Donbold sit upon the throne of Poyn, and Medvelil is the last. The time has come to join the empire. There will be one ruler over all races of men. No more confusion of contrary laws and warring peoples. There is only the will of the emperor, and death to those who resist, and life and prosperity to those who obey. The emperor is high like the heavens, and his commands are sunlight, and his punishments are rain, and the slaves who toil are the earth, from which all good things grow, and it is we, the emperor’s friends, to whom it is given to reap the harvest. And you, too, are now invited to join that brilliant and blessed company. Be wise, my friend. What did Athenrin profit by all his courage? Does he not now curse his folly, from the helpless grave? Had he but joined us, you and he and I might drink wine and celebrate together this day. Life is now, and it is to be lived!’”
And Braeth’s audience marveled at the speech which he put into the mouth of the traitor Ravuk Pasha. For they had felt constantly the menace, nay the terror, of Tuvel, but few of them had ever, until now, quite understood its seduction. With Braeth’s help, they glimpsed for a moment what Tuvel might seem to the lords and barons and dukes, to those high enough that they might become the emperor’s friends. And they understood why so many of the knightly caste, whom they had once been accustomed to esteem brave and loyal, had proven, in the kingdom’s hour of need, to be cowards and traitors. Someone began to applaud, and suddenly a storm of grateful applause surprised the bard like a splash in the face. But it died down quickly, for the story had them all in suspense, and they would not delay it.
“And then,” continued Braeth, “Ravuk Pasha produced, and offered to Lord Wender, the finest falcon he had ever seen in his life. ‘Take this, my friend,’ said Ravuk Pasha. ‘It is a gift from the emperor, a token of his sorrow at the death of your son, a token of his hope of reconciliation.’ And Lord Wender took the bird, and Ravuk Pasha treated that as a sign of his assent to be the emperor’s friend. It is strange that Lord Wender, avid hunter as he was, could spare a glance even for the finest falcon when he was so stricken with grief. Some say that he was so near to madness at that moment, so desperate to see any trace of his only love in this world, that he imagined that the falcon was his son, under an enchantment, or at least conceived a wild hope that it might be. Be that as it may, he took the bird, and then Ravuk Pasha urged him, ‘My lord, why do you grieve here, in the middle of the road? Would it not be more fitting to go to your castle, a place that he loved, and where there are things to remember him by? I regret that we could not bring his body back. Alas, the laws of Tuvel grant no such rights to those who fight against her, for to oppose the emperor is to be a criminal. But if you have not his body, yet you have his room, his things, mementos, do you not? Besides, it is already evening, and getting cold.’
“Lord Wender neither replied nor looked up, yet he obeyed, and Ravuk Pasha and his delegation followed him into the castle. During the night, a Tuvelain garrison marched up to Fallasbring, and Ravuk Pasha opened the gate for them, so that the castle was now under Tuvelain occupation. There were no knights in the palace to resist them, and besides, most thought the Tuvelains were admitted with Lord Wender’s permission, since he and Ravuk Pasha had ridden in together as if they were friends. Yet Ravuk Pasha would not yet risk an open breach with Lord Wender, and he did not attempt to remove the Poynese servants and squires who were left in the castle. They lived uneasily under one roof.
“And so Lord Wender grieved, and was sunk in despair, and would not leave his room, and would scarcely eat or drink, so that the servants asked one another in whispers if he were dying. But at last there came a day when he had no tears left. And he arose, and saw that it was a golden day of high autumn, and the mists of early morning were melting in the sunshine. It was a day for a hunt. And it seemed strange to him that the world should go on when he had thought everything good in it was irrevocably lost. Hardly knowing what he was doing, and feeling that it was a dream, which would gave way the moment he touched it, he began to follow his old custom, going to the stables, calling his hounds, and riding to the village to see if any of his old hunting fellows wished to join him. Some were gone to war, and others considered him a traitor now and shut their doors to him, but two old men and one boy agreed to come. And they rode over the golden hills, and the finest falcon Wender had ever seen caught hares and geese, and they cut wood and made a roaring fire and feasted on fresh game in the forest, and the scent of fresh game meat over the fire called to Wender’s mind a hundred glad memories. At last, as the shadows lengthened, they rode out of the forest again into the open fields of stubble, and in the slanting sunlight Lord Wender saw what he thought he would never see more. Five knights of Poyn, mounted and armed, had espied them, and were coming towards them.
“One of Wender’s comrades counseled him to turn back into the forest, for there they might not follow, but if they should meet the knights, they would regard him as a traitor and kill him. Wender did not hear this advice. He had already dismounted, and was looking intently at the tallest of the knights, and suddenly began running. You may be sure that no man has ever been so glad to look upon those who have come to arrest him. For that knight was Sir Athenrin. At his side was a knight whom Wender did not know, Sir Anduir.”
At that moment Braeth had to interrupt his story, for a swell of excitement had arisen far off, in a different part of the city, and Braeth’s audience suddenly began to whisper to one another, and to turn and look westward towards the docks. For the streets of Poyn were filled that day with eager crowds, gathered from the lake towns and the isles and the high country and even from foreign countries, all excitedly waiting for the arrival of Sir Anduir, who was supposed to be brought by one of the ferries that morning. And so a hubbub had somehow begun, and others took it as a sign, and the city stirred in anticipation, but it proved to be a false rumor, and Braeth’s audience turned back to him.
“Lord Wender fell at the feet of his son’s horse. ‘My son!’ said he. ‘You are alive! What joy! All is well! I scarcely know what I have done, but it does not matter now. To see you was my whole desire, and it was more than I dared to hope for.’
“Sir Athenrin looked upon his father with love, and pity, and pain. ‘Father,’ he said. ‘They told me that you sold the castle for a hunting falcon. And here you are, and it seems that what they said is true, for you are hunting, and with that strange bird that may be the emperor’s gift. How could you do such a thing?’ And he wept.
“Lord Wender bowed lower at this rebuke but showed neither anger nor pain. ‘When they told me that you were dead, I had no strength or will to resist them. It seemed to me that nothing mattered in the world. I am sorry that I am not brave like you, my son. But now that you are alive, I care not if they hang me. You are alive! That is all that matters to me.’
“On hearing this, Athenrin dismounted and embraced his father. ‘I hope they will not hang you, father,’ he said. ‘I will petition the king to have mercy.’
“As father and son embraced, Lord Wender noticed that Athenrin’s forehead, neck, arms, and breast were all stained, even soaked, in blood. ‘My son, you are wounded!’ he said in sorrow.
“’Yes, father,’ Athenrin answered. ‘We had to fight to regain the castle.’
“And Athenrin told him how he and a large company of knights and armed riders had ridden from the west to the gates of Fallasbring, and an old servant had espied Athenrin and opened the gates to them joyfully. They sat down in the banquet hall, and the servants began gladly to bring them meat and drink. But some, who had begun to enjoy Ravuk Pasha’s bribes, murmured against them, saying it was no longer lawful for Poynese knights to be under Fallasbring’s roof. And word was soon brought to the commander of the Tuvelain garrison, and his men began to file into the banquet hall, silently surrounding the knights. And the knights continued eating for one or two minutes, for no battle had been declared, but there was a growing nervousness in the room, and then suddenly, no one knew how, a fierce battle erupted. It was not only that the knights fought the Tuvelain soldiers, but the Poynese servants and squires whose home was Castle Fallasbring drew knives and swords against each other, for they did not know whose side they were meant to be on. And Athenrin was terribly grieved at this scene, and he did not fight, but leapt upon the tables and shouted and pleaded for all to lay down their weapons, and soon the instinctive respect of the Poynese for the master’s son, and of the knights for their comrade, made everyone in the room lay down their weapons, except the Tuvelain soldiers. The Tuvelain commander then spoke. But he had not the eloquence of Ravuk Pasha, and spoke only a little of the Poynese language, and in that he took stupid pride. ‘These knights – enemies. All – must die, or surrender. All – obey emperor.’ These words, and the sight of the Tuvelains alone armed and alien and insolent, suddenly united the Poynese, and they seized any weapon that was at hand and attacked, and lifted the tables and hurled them at their enemies, and scalded them with hot soup, and the cooks brought boiling water from the kitchen and poured it on them, and the knights plunged into the fray and slaughtered left and right, and Athenrin killed four soldiers, and Anduir five. Soon the last few soldiers in the Tuvelain garrison had surrendered.
“When Lord Wender heard that so much blood had been shed because of his own frailty, and especially, that some of his own servants and squires had killed one another, he hung his head and wept. Yet no shame could have made him really sad now, for too great was his joy that his son was living.
“They returned to the castle, and mourned the dead, and then Sir Athenrin held court, and he sat in judgment on his father, and deposed him as lord of Fallasbring for treason, as the law required, and he became Lord Athenrin of Fallasbring, taking his father’s place. He sent his father under armed escort to Poyn, with a petition to the king that the death sentence be lifted from his father’s head, and began to prepare the castle for a Tuvelain siege. The remainder of the Tuvelain garrison was well treated, but Ravuk Pasha was hanged.” There was applause in the crowd.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, consider how bravely Athenrin acted, how prudent and wise, how just, how merciful. Is not this the Athenrin we know? But now consider this. How did the Songbird Shield come to be in the hands of Ravuk Pasha while Athenrin was yet living?
“For it turns out that there was a moment when Sir Athenrin was not brave, when none was brave, when all chivalry faltered and failed, except for one man. In that day of ruin, when twenty thousand faced fifty thousand and were crushed, on Falloden Field, Athenrin turned and ran for his life, throwing away his helmet and shield so that he might outrun his enemies. He wandered then, like a waif, like a beast, scurrying in fear from a stronger foe, eating roots of the forest, until a company of dark riders found him and renewed his hope and courage. The leader of that company was Sir Anduir, who alone of all who fought at Falloden Field was never beaten. He had dragged a mortally wounded comrade into the forest in hopes that he might recover, and when he returned to the battle, he found it finished.
“But even then his heart did not yield. He changed clothes with a dead Tuvelain soldier and rode through the midst of the Tuvelain army unscathed, for he speaks the Tuvelain tongue so well that none of them can recognize him as a stranger. He rode southwards and found the country already deserted, for the people feared to be enslaved by the legions. Then he rode westward into the Black Hills, where outlaws dwell. By now, he had taken off his Tuvelain rags, and looked again the Poynese knight, and the outlaws of that country, who hate all the knights, would have slain him, except that he was playing on his flute as he rode. And Anduir, from his childhood, has always played so beautifully on his flute that he enchants all who hear him, and can stir them to sorrow, or mirth, and especially to courage. Those outlaws who had dwelt in solitary places for years had never heard any sound so beautiful. So instead of slaying him, they came up to meet him. And Anduir told them that Poyn was in its darkest hour, and told him that if they defend it they would no more be outlaws. So they remembered their love for the land from which they were exiled, and joined him.
“And so it was in the company of outlaws that Poyn’s greatest knight dragged the kingdom’s cause back from the brink of ruin. He scaled the walls of Castle Vadane and assassinated its treacherous duke in cold blood, which some have called unchivalrous, but Vadane was the blackest traitor that ever lived, and thus terror was struck into the heart of all other dukes and noblemen who considered abandoning their allegiance. They rode eastward now, in advance of the Tuvelain army, and the people were amazed to see a Poynese knight, whose kind they had thought extinguished forever, and he roused their courage. He found broken knights along the way, like Athenrin, and restored their courage. He learned that the people were taking refuge in the forests, and instructed them to make sylvan fortifications and armories there, and to undertake resistance. They called his company ‘the Black Riders’ at first, and later, ‘the Swords of Liberty.’
“What, you might ask, is the secret of such invincible courage? Sir Anduir had seen worse. He had seen, indeed, the worst of all. He had seen his family slaughtered. He had been a Tuvelain slave. As a child, he had lost everything, father and mother, home and homeland, freedom.
“The House of Trelaninth, of whom Sir Anduir is the last representative, can trace its descent to the court of Donbold and even earlier. Two of its knights have fought dragons.” Braeth did not mention that they had both been eaten by the dragons. “Its honor and courage is stainless from that day to this. Yet none of that race was ever entrusted with the office of Marshal of the Realm, an unusual deficiency in a family so fiercely loyal to the kings of Poyn and so renowned for feats of arms. The reason is this. A Marshal must be reluctant to hazard his person in battle. He must count his life a little more valuable than others’, since he must plan the battle and give the commands. The knights of Trelaninth could never be trusted to do this. Their place was in a desperate night raid or at the head of the cavalry charge.
“This was proven, to the kingdom’s cost, by Sir Anduir’s father, that merry hero, Sir Calillus. Seventeen years ago, when Tuvel invaded Poyn the first time, King Medvelil ought to have sent orders to the dukes and barons of the northwest about how to deal with the oncoming legions, but he delayed. The castle Trelaninth was the first across the river, and it was not built to withstand a siege. Why the defenses of Trelaninth castle are so weak is not known. Some say it is because the dukes of Trelaninth were so poor, and indeed they were deeply indebted from their habit of hosting tournaments. Others say it is because the dukes of Trelaninth despised defense, preferring always to be on the attack. Knowing that Trelaninth could not withstand a siege, and preferring not to retreat, and having no orders from the king, Calillus sent messengers asking the bravest knights to come and stand with him against the invader. To his aid went the bravest and strongest knights in the kingdom.
“Calillus and his knights fought Tuvel as if they were jousting in a tournament. His battle plan consisted, as far as we know, of a single great cavalry charge. He may have had about two thousand knights with him. There were fifty thousand in the Tuvelain legions against whom they charged. It was suicidal. The knights were slain to the last man. Yet they killed five times their number of the enemy. The emperor was so shaken by their valor and prowess that he began to fear for the success of the invasion. Had he known that the cream of Poynese knighthood had just died in one day, and that no such men were left living, he might have pressed on. He suspected, indeed, that Calillus’s charge was a sort of bluff, an attack which Poyn could not afford to repeat, let alone redouble. But he was a timid man. His imagination was full of the worst possibilities, and he could not face them. And so Calillus’s mad strategy worked.
“He declared that Tuvel would march no farther, and sent terms of peace to Medvelil, taking from Poyn only the duchy of Trelaninth itself, which he had already conquered. But the emperor was frustrated at his failure, and furious in particular at Calillus, whose useless courage had robbed him of the prestige of a great conquest. In a vindictive rage, he ordered that the House of Trelaninth be exterminated. We do not know why Calillus’s family were still in the castle and were taken with it. Some say Calillus had expected to win, but that seems unlikely. Others say Calillus, the soul of chivalry himself, attributed the same virtue to others, and thought his family would be as safe in the emperor’s keeping as the emperor’s family would have been had they been captured by Calillus. Perhaps. It is also said that Calillus ordered his lady to flee, but she, for love, disobeyed him, for she had the art of healing and feared he would return wounded so that only she could save him. For whatever reason, Calillus’s wife, and sons, and daughters, were still in the castle, and on the morrow of the battle, soldiers were ordered to search it and slay everything that moved.
“Anduir was a boy of six. He was solitary by nature, and liked to hide in the upper rooms. He could also, even at that age, play the flute with enchanting beauty, though more simply than he would later. He seems not to have understood what was happening that morning. Some say that even the ladies of the House of Trelaninth were so brave that they met death without crying and screaming, and their stoicism saved the boy’s life. For because he did not realize his danger, Anduir passed the time by playing his flute. And when a Tuvelain soldier found him there, and heard with wonder such tunes produced by such a tiny mouth and fingers, it seemed to him a pity to destroy such strange and wonderful skill, which could fetch a fine price on the slave market. And so the emperor’s orders were thwarted, and Anduir was sold into slavery, to play his flute in the drinking-parties of the wealthy and powerful in Tazraj.” Tazraj was a great riverine port city in the south of the Tuvelain empire.
“It was there that his uncle Drannon, a merchant who was of the lineage of Trelaninth on his mother’s side, found him seven years later. Drannon bought him in the slave market, freed him, and brought him back to Poyn. And please note, ladies and gentlemen, this twist of fate. It was ten years to the day that Anduir first came among us. How different he was then! He was a stranger, who had never seen the city. He barely spoke the Poynese language. He was a gentleman born, but had been raised as a slave. Yet we welcomed him then, as now. The streets were full of crowds waiting to get a look at him. However, we came then only for the sake of his famous father. We wanted to see the son of the man whose face we knew from the Knightsbridge statue. In those prosperous yet perilous times, when the capital seemed bereft of great men, and we knew our weakness, and daily expected an invasion we lacked the strength to resist, we wanted to see at least the echo of old heroism. Ten years later—ten years to the day—we welcome him back, not as the echo, but as the rebirth of heroism, not as the son of the man who saved the kingdom, but as the man who saved it himself. What will he be in another ten years?”
By now, the harper and drummer had begun again, and Braeth was about to begin another song. But at that moment a great cheer arose from far away, and spread up and down the streets until the whole city was cheering, and boys on the rooftops were shouting and pointing. “Anduir is coming! Anduir is coming!” The ferry was still some minutes away, amidst the deep blue waters, yet from the rooftops the figure of a horseman could be seen. As the ferry approached the docks people pressed for the best positions. Everyone knew the procession route, and they lined up along it, and opened a narrow gap through which Anduir’s horse might ride. And now he was here, alighting upon the dock, riding onto the shore, riding up the boulevard, and the children pressed up close to touch his horse, and girls threw baskets of flowers from the windows.
Poyn was a city of pageantry and chivalrous glamor that knew how to give a hero’s welcome, and knew how to enjoy it. For the first twenty years of the reign of that peaceable king, Medvelil, they had had few opportunities. But during the war there had been many. And so they had rather definite expectations which Anduir disappointed, or at least surprised. First, he was small. He was of medium height, and seemed of medium strength. He bore no coat of arms. His garb was brown, a sort of rustic riding cloak, not the usual chain mail or plate mail that knights liked to wear in processions, that would flash in the sun. Of course he had been traveling. No one, perhaps, had told him there was to be a procession. Indeed, the event was almost wholly unplanned. Oddest of all was his face, which wore an expression, not of lofty pride, nor of gladness and glory, but of curiosity and wonder. Amidst those throngs come to praise him, he seemed more interested in seeing than in being seen. Somehow, the crowd took its cue not to cheer as usual, but hushed instead. And amidst that bright sunlight, those colorful crowds, and that eerie silence, Anduir took his flute from some pouch or pocket attached to his belt, and began to play.
Melodies leaped and darted from his flute, wove and danced and hung in the air, eloquent without words. It was nothing so definite as a story or a scene that they expressed. Music cannot do that. It was a mood, but the mood was very apt. It mingled a gladness that might have been that of a May morning, with a poignancy that might have been the memory of sons and brothers lost, and it soared with the magnificence of old legends, yet it had, too, the earthy solidity of working people. Probably everyone heard something different in it, yet it satisfied everyone by awakening in them a longing, a hunger, for adventure and heroism, which ennobled them. A bard who, sitting beside Sir Corr’s Fountain, began to add harmonies to Anduir’s melodies as he passed, might have been considered overbold, except that he seemed so enthralled with the music that he could not help it. The music made the sky seem bluer, the sun brighter, and Mount Uruit, rising behind Poyn Castle to the east of the city, higher and more magnificent. The girls would not let their flowers go to waste, so petals fluttered down upon the crowd from above, but now, with the expected cheering replaced by silence and music, they seemed not festive, but poignantly, mystically graceful.
The crowd ended at Knightsbridge, and Anduir rode across it, past his father’s statue, and dismounted at the foot of the King’s Steps. As he solemnly ascended them, his flute put away now and his head bowed reverently. At the top of the steps, in front of the castle gates, stood King Medvelil. At the top step, Anduir knelt on one knee. Following custom, Medvelil spoke words of welcome and congratulation to the kneeling knight, and then bade him rise. As he did, the people, relieved of the weight of solemnity, burst into cheers and shouting, and corks popped, and some of the bards began to play dancing music. They felt they had been in the presence of some mystery, and it made them all merry.
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