“I have seen too much not to be aware how little it is, but for all that I am full sure I had seen that place had it been there earlier. In fact I claim it was not.”
“As for me, I like to look over maps when on ship, and I cannot think every mapmaker is so low as to lie about there being no isle there,” Jocosa said, and the thing was beyond their wit.
Sir Donn left off from planting seeds that would never grow and said this. “There is no doubt of it but that I must go there, however doubtful the matter.”
“Yes, and it is well that you are here, Sir Donn, and not some feeble knight unable to escort a woman in searching out whatever marvels may be there, away from this place where to be alone is unbearable for how eerie it is.” So Jocosa said, and though Sir Donn was minded otherwise before, she spoke words so just and true that he was won over to her view on it.
The boats hauled up on the beach nearest the village were guarded no better than the homes within it. Neither were oars hard to use for that knight who had made such a journey from Mumport to the false king Viljami's country as few could say they had, which was done by the strength of his rowing and that of other men heavy in war and toil alike. For the pilot, Jocosa played the part with such skill as her father had taught her and guided the boat past rock and shallows to that uncanny island.
That matters there fared unlike on Silacchia they knew before they pulled the boat up the soft shore, for the din troubled their ears and alarmed them as surely as had the earlier quiet. There was much being done there as is not elsewhere carried out while the stars drift above, it seemed from the sounds both of work and of speech heard from inland. No other boats or ships rested on that gentle beach, nor did the daughter and knight see any people there, and so they went up to the island's middle where was a town.
Nor had they seen such a town before, for every home seemed a mansion and every mansion a palace, each house many in its doors and windows as well, and two stories high at the smallest. Of towers there were so many as to make a forest of them, and neither had they the look of strong places some lord built from threat of war, but rather covered themselves in streamers and flowers so that the visitor who climbed the stairs on the outside of them was made right festive in his mood by them. And from every window shone joyous light.
Sir Donn and Jocosa marveled at what they saw as they walked up and down the streets, which were made of stones tightly fit. One called the eyes of the other to the height of a building, five stories if one, and the answer to that was to note the wreaths over every door, all fresh and pleasing still to smell. Much was in that town any would deem worth seeing, though it was small, and nearly as great in its height as in its length and its width.
The travelers waxed merry at those sights even as their puzzlement waxed also. For in all that town, small and busy, filled with voices and the sounds men and women make in the course of things, they met not a single person in the outside streets. Not unlike was that town to a tempest that troubles the sea and the land alike, tearing fences from the unwilling ground and battering men and women, birds and animals with gales borne only through favor and not by any strength of living things to withstand them, for none have enough. But within the storm, wondrous to hear, there is such calmness that a man in the middle of it will never think that many suffer hardship but a few yards from him. So too did the travelers see lonely roads when all else seemed full of companionship and business.
If that town had any house that was the chiefest, it must be that which Sir Donn and Jocosa then found, which was eight stories in all, and each two of them smaller in size than those below so that it narrowed as it rose. No spire though was that building, but spires were placed on it at the corners of every second roof, and they were capped with bronze at first, then silver, then gold, and at the last some metal that was above those, worked in ancient times but now unknown. That palace was unlike other homes and towers of the town in this also, that two men stood before it.
Neither seemed they unusual in any wise that suited the town about them, save that Sir Donn judged them right mighty from their bearing. Their dress though was more that of servants than of a war-loving lord's heavy right and left hand. Those men, when they saw a mail-clad knight, neither armed themselves nor raised the cry, but stood untroubled and peaceful. Sir Donn matched them in that and spoke words free of threat.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Hello, and may all be well for you. I am Donn of Caerffos, and this is Jocosa daughter of Cornard with me. We are both come from elsewhere this very night, Silacchia it is called. What is this island and this town, and who is the mayor of it, or rather the lord? Yes, a lord I ween, from the grandeur of it.”
The servant on the left smiled and answered well-meaning words of his own. “I know not how you reached this land, but you are not less welcome for that, either you, sir knight, or you, my lady. This island is Ocrens, the town is called Sebeneuse, and as for its lord, you will learn what it is good for you to know from his mouth straight. His will is to see himself every man and woman who visits, were they even less pleasing in their speech and not so mighty and fair-seeming as you. Do you follow me now inside.” Saying that, he opened the door that was in two parts and tall enough that a giant might walk through it, and indeed two giants were carved in it, facing each other.
Men of some wealth must choose this, whether to adorn more the outside of their homes or the inside, to think of their fame or their ease. The lord of Ocrens had wealth beyond that and chose nothing but what was best, for there was such furniture within as a forest must be planted anew to give wood for it, cups and bowls of crystal both clear and tinted as well by the hands of craftsmen who thought of how drinks of several colors would look in them, and paintings and tapestries enough that if any part of the wall bore not some tale of boldness or morals, there was without doubt a likeness of faraway countries and castles hung there. As for the skill of them, to make but one work of equal merit would be proof to any craftsman that his life had some reason for it.
That was one room only, and more could be said about each of them so that the talk of it would never end, so many and full of art they were. The servant did not guide Sir Donn and Jocosa about the place but rather did his master's will and led those guests to him, who was on the sixth floor, surrounded by richness beyond what other rulers have, even the wide-ruling king of Boncot. Another man must be overmatched by the splendor of what was about him, but not that lord, who lacked nothing in his height, his bearing, or his winning speech when he greeted the travelers.
“Welcome to Ocrens, to Sebeneuse, to my home! This country may seem unlike those you know in some ways, but the gap is this only, that under the sun and moon there is what is open and what is hid, and over what is hid I have been placed, and there is nothing more to learn that will be of use to you. I wish not to bore you with that. Instead hear what is good for you to know, that though you came here most oddly and not by my will, there is nothing of menace here, and this has happened before to other guests who never took harm from it. Next is to know that to leave here is a matter of less trouble than yawning, should I allow it, but beyond the puissance of anyone should I not.
“Were I without duties, I would give you leave forthwith and gifts as well, but otherwise is the world than our wish. Rather you must do a task to earn your exit. Furthermore, since you must travel whither these tasks await even to the lands you know, where men and women may be seen when they sleep, I am moved by need to ask surety of your return, knowing there is no doubt of it in truth. Do you entrust me that turquoise you have.”
Sir Donn took in his hand that startling great chunk with no thought to do anything but as the master of that palace bade, for he valued the thing little. But Jocosa was of an unlike mind, unwilling let pass all that a man said because he was a lord who said it. “Since that turquoise is to be my surety as well, it is half mine, and I will ask that you swear to return it to Sir Donn when he has fulfilled his duty to you. Beside that, I will do whatever task as well as I am able, and gladly if it is a help to anyone, but we must recall and keep to this, that any task given to a worthy knight ought to be worthy indeed of that knight and not shame him.”
The lord listened to that and said, “I had not yet chosen the task, and now I will do so with your worry in mind so that a good and knightly man will not shun what I ask. More than that, I think now of something it is best for a knight to do, and not any other. That is the task I have chosen. For the turquoise, I must make as my plea the oddness of my realm that I cannot so swear. However, you will have back turquoise of equal worth or more, by the love of the Lord above us all.”
Jocosa was able to hope for no better result than that, and therefore she allowed Sir Donn to give over their rock. He asked also for his task, which the lord there told him. “I would have you both travel to the town of Bridarica on wave-lapped Calisole, an island not too far for your prowess in boating. The people of Calisole hold every year a contest and ought to have judges from without to fend off ill feeling if the Densinerans win again, or else if those Densinerans think themselves spurned that they win too much. Row there, you will find it no great striving, and be you a judge in the contest. I like to hear also how the people fare on all the islands of the blue-gray sea and in the countries about it, which I hope you will report to me. Go swiftly lest you be late for it, a rudeness to be avoided.”