The foam-whelming galley sped so far as Cousdebourg, a town two days west from Boncot and a fair port. There Sir Donn of Caerffos made trade with another knight, Sir Bevan of Gwellas.

“Sir Bevan, do you ponder this and make judgment which you like more, that turquoise that you have or this diamond of mine. I would gladly have your great turquoise, were you willing,” Sir Donn said.

But Sir Bevan, who knew something of the worth of gems and metals esteemed by men, said this. “Another Bevan chose a merchant's life and is full eager to make that trade. That was done in a dream. This Bevan here chose a life of arms and honesty, and for that reason I will warn you that though the turquoise given me is bigger by far than your diamond, the price it will bring is less everywhere.”

Sir Donn laughed and said in guileless words, “I am no merchant either, sir knight. I thank you for your warning and trust you are right in your costing, but I will tell you this that will overcome your worry. I have no mind to carry on to Boncot or past that to Caerffos, cities I have seen enough, but will part with you here. My will is that I sail to Silacchia, an island nearby, and there meet a friend and awe him by the size of your turquoise, the stone he likes the most, if only you aid me in that.”

Sir Bevan heard those words and said he was sorry at it, to lose a companion in traveling the dolphin-road together. He gave over his turquoise, a most bulky great chunk, and took a diamond that would be the font of wealth for him in sparkling Gwellas. Afterwards all the knights and crew learned the plan of Sir Donn and wished him well in his wandering apart from them, who matched their friendly words and took ship.

The island Silacchia, large enough for but one village, had no wealth or especial trait save this, that it was a port near routes to cities of more renown where captains might get water and rest when the winds and currents sent them off their courses. Little was done there but for the catching of fish and farming in a small way, and Sir Donn passed the men and women there with no care for what they did, though he greeted them in a friendly manner, and they him. None asked whither he walked or whether he wanted a guide for it, sure of this, that he walked to the church and the graveyard there.

Nor were they wrong in that. Straight went that knight to a man buried there, Cornard by name, where he prayed and showed that turquoise he had from Sir Bevan. No more than that was he able to do. Afterwards he made visit to the priest there, Gianumberto his father had named him, and had more startlement from so common a talk than he had in all the tales his fellow knights told him on the journey there when the priest said this. “Now recall to me if I have forgotten, but have you and little Jocosa ever before made the journey to her father's grave both in one day? I suppose she is less little now, so do you forbear from calling her by that. There is only one charm allowed the old but refused the young, which is to speak of things as they were but no longer are.”

Sir Donn in his amazement said, “I trusted Cornard on all those journeys we had seeking marvels about the blue-gray sea, but now is the first day I hear of a daughter, and I doubt all I knew. Tomorrow or a month from now, will I learn six kings bowed to him, each one the ruler of a hundred towns? Yesterday I told the truth had I scoffed at that, but today I cannot. What honesty is there in the world? Still, Jocosa sounds likely enough as a name for his daughter. Was his wife not named Jocatta? I doubt even that, which yesterday was sure.”

Then had the priest surprise of his own that Sir Donn had not heard of her or met her, the lone child of Cornard. His desire thereupon was to go down to the village and acquaint the two, and that friendly knight forbore to go against him. The two walked to the biggest house on all that island which was the mayor's, who when Jocosa visited left it for her use. The villagers honored her much who had wealth from her mother at her death and did not stint in the spending of it, as when she had the church there rebuilt and caused roofing to be brought by ship after island-shaking storms that struck at their whim, and altogether did much for the Silacchians.

All that was told to Sir Donn by his guide as they walked. The pair of them learned that Jocosa was indeed there with her servants, idle for all the rest of that day and set to depart on the next. Gianumberto the priest asked for her time and was given it most gladly, for that daughter and her father both had this trait, that they liked speech more than quiet and new things more than the old. “And this is a calm and quiet day, so let there be speech till something new comes,” Jocosa said in light words.

“Silacchians are ever bereft of newness I am afraid, unless you behave as did your father and venture on his ship that he captained, and take with you a knight eager also to see marvels,” the priest said. “And here is that knight, Sir Donn of Caerffos, who has not yet left off his wanderings and adventures.”

“My wanderings have not ceased, it is true, but I make this claim, trustworthy when a well-traveled man says it, that never did I have an adventure till this month past. A man may see splendor and marvels week after week and not be troubled himself or called to any risk more than what the weather and currents ever have in them.”

Stolen story; please report.

So Sir Donn said, and Jocosa answered him this. “There is this flaw in the thinking of sculptors and painters that they judge their own works whether they are worth buying or not, when it is the buyer who must have his say in that. We common men and women will name your deeds adventures or otherwise, and do not think you understand the matter better for no other cause than that you are the knight doing them.”

Sir Donn yielded to that just and laughing speech. Nor was he slow to tell of Sir Kauko of Calnen, his unusual vessel, and all that happened to the hundred knights. His speaking pleased Jocosa well, and Father Gianumberto also was merry at those wondrous strange stories. But he strove to hide it, deeming it unseemly that a priest should have such liking of earthly matters when those of a ghostly sort were his duty.

Every story the knight told was heard by eager listeners, but Jocosa had the most to say over the spirits and their rewards. “Was there by chance a turquoise among them? I ask only because my father always, when he came back from a journey, grieved that he had not found one large and colored well. Moreover he teased me that only when he had it would he tell me the why that he desired no gem of another sort or lesser in worth.”

“Hearing that is a relief to me. I began to fear I alone knew nothing of what others do or wish done. But Cornard was a man, it seems, who hid his desires from his friends and his family alike, though he had a plain and honest face as his guise. He told me also of the turquoise but not what was behind it, and for that reason I was minded to trade for this and boast of it to him.” Saying that, Sir Donn showed them both the chunk. Nothing better in size or purity could be hoped even by Cornard save that he was greedier than the earth and the sea both together, Gianumberto and Jocosa agreed. They asked what he would do with it, and he admitted to them he lacked any answer as yet.

Thus the story of the hundred knights was told there in Silacchia, as it was all over the west and in every port the Saphonian galley put in. Sir Donn for his part heard what Jocosa said about the lands surrounding the sea, for if she was not so daring as her father, still she liked travel. The priest spoke also of what captains and sailors told him. All those three and the servants as well were light in their moods from that talk when creeping night gave them warning that the sun soon would leave them unguarded. Father Gianumberto and Sir Donn retired to the house near the church where the priest, not for the first time, hosted his young friend the knight who sought sleep and did so right well, so that before the light fled the field he withdrew to the stronghold of dreams.

Yet the night did not bear his sleep but roused him from his bed. He leapt up and took his dagger in hand before he knew even what troubled him, much as when a turtle used to swimming goes onto the shore to no clear purpose but only out of whim, yet once there thinks the sand good for the nest of its eggs soon to be laid. Even so did that knight arm himself and do on his mail, and only after bethought himself the reason for his wariness. And the cause of it was this, that his ears heard not what they did when at other times he had rested on storm-suffering Silacchia. There on that island, unknown to prowling beasts or bandits that make the night unfriendly, men and women might see to that task or those long after the day's bright watchman passed over the horizon with the lantern that lights all the world and warms it. Sir Donn heard nothing of that sort, nor of the small birds and animals that lived there. For that reason he had alarm.

First he sought Gianumberto his host to ask his counsel, but the house was empty but for him, which was eerie. Sir Donn next walked to the village on careful feet, looking left and right, a spear in his right hand and his left busy with a lantern the priest owned. He met no man or woman on the road, nor any land-raiding pirate or gobelin who pursued the slayers of his fierce prince to repay them the price of their deed. All was instead uncanny quiet and still.

Nothing hindered him in his search through the village for any living thing, nor might a pirate or bandit be better pleased at the welcome there. For Sir Donn walked all over and looked in every house, something rude at other times but a knightly duty then, and had all the wealth of the village in his hands from the lack of people to guard it, wished he to put away right for gain. He hoped rather than that to see someone or find a door barred against him, which at last he did when he reached the house of the mayor to search it. A shove failed to move it, and at that he judged something was placed behind, which was sure proof of some person within. Learning that, he spoke with calming words to whatever men and women hid inside, unused to strangeness and doubtless fearful for all there was about them that night.

“Hello to you! I am Donn of Caerffos. There is so much of what is unusual now that no man would believe me were I to claim matters fare well outside of the house, but there is no risk I can see. Be soothed therefore, and do you tell me who of the village is inside there and what you know of this eerie night, for I am all unaware.”

“Sir Donn! I was all alone when I woke. My girls are gone but their clothes are here, and it frightened me when I saw it. I barred the door as well as I was able and waited, but have heard nothing all this time from anyone save now, from you. Hold, and I will remove the chair,” a woman said, who was Jocosa Cornard's daughter.

That was done and the two met who were the only two in all the village, and neither was able to advise the other in any good way. Jocosa, unwilling to ignore what might be done, said this. “Let us then, if it seems not too foolish, look over the island without the village. It may be there is some rite and the people gather elsewhere for it which we, both travelers, never learned.”

Sir Donn agreed to that but had no more hope than she that her guess was right. They indeed found no person other or animal either, no squirrel or bright-eyed owls on all that star-watched island. Neither had any pirate put in at a less-peopled shore, unless it had left already, its hull filled with unjust cargo. They saw nothing in all that sea-skirted land, but across the waves, the moon pointed a pale and slender finger that ended in this, an island nearby, within sight and a wonder to Sir Donn.