The knight and the daughter of a wide-sailing captain had eagerness to see that island that was peopled enough for contests, as Silacchia was not. They departed and ran to the shore, pushed the boat where the shape of its hull served them well, and rowed whither the lord had told them. Sir Donn had strength in his limbs enough for that, and a current not there before spared him from heavy toil, an unnatural thing though kindly.
The star-chasing sun had only just begun its pursuit when the boat reached that spray-wettened Calisole which was larger by far than sea-ringed Silacchia or Ocrens. Sir Donn rowed by a village at first and then another, for he had been told where Bridarica was which was past them. While doing that he said, “I have heard of Calisole, but never of any contest there. Its men have gone to the mainland for wrestling and the footrace, I know that, for I went against them before. None spoke to me of any need for judges, which perhaps is a rebuke to me as a man not to be relied upon.”
“Or else they disliked to bother you with it. The villagers on islands that are little understand how little they are. As merry as their own customs seem, when a well-traveled knight from great Caerffos comes among them, doubtless they are covered in chagrin that he should measure his city against their village, even should he say nothing belittling,” Jocosa said, and Sir Donn agreed there was truth in that.
Nor did he deem clear-eyed Jocosa mistaken when she called out that Bridarica was ahead, for he saw that a town was built about a bay nearby, a small one. It had homes more and bigger than did the villages, and among those were men spreading banners of a festive sort, a single color each and meant for the wind to catch and make to flutter. Those townsmen welcomed two travelers right heartily and told them of the annual festival with its dance that was held in Bridarica and enjoyed as well by the four villages that went to town for it.
As for the contest, the people of the town seemed right abashed when asked about it, and Jocosa smiled at that. When they heard it was the command of the lord on Ocrens, that changed their words to ones of welcome and thanks, for they had long hoped to have people from outside who loved no village more than another. Yet they never dared ask the few who put in to that bay, busy with travel as those sailors were. Therefore the Bridaricans were right full of cheer and feasted Sir Donn and Jocosa well before the judging. There was music as well, and it would be unwise to doubt the foreign judges did their part in the playing. They learned as well of the matter of the contest, which was this.
Of all work done on that island the foremost was fishing, and not with nets only but with spears that gave the islanders much of pride from their deftness with them. Sharks at times they speared as well, seldom, but in a number enough that a merchant deemed it worth the cost to have a ship stop there each year to take in goods the Calisolans fashioned from the hides of those sharks. Every year ere the ship came, the villagers strove against one another to craft something of sharkskin, whether a bag, a wallet, a rain-warding hood, or whatever seemed best to the crafter. Those goods were what Jocosa, Sir Donn, and an envoy sent from each village and the town had before them to judge.
The people from Etti and Issino came first, and later those from the villages farther, and all had on their best clothes and cheer all about them. They had also prize-worthy goods, those islanders with a hope of winning the contest or, less than that, more praise than their neighbors or brothers would have. The judges in the end gave the triumph to Notus from Densinera, which was no rare feat for him, the guests were told.
After that began the dance and every other part of the festival, and in truth out of the men and women of Calisole, more cared for that than the sharkskin, but liked not to say so. For all the island met in Bridarica it seemed, and cousins spoke to their cousins who had not in months, and sisters and brothers to their brothers and sisters. And each village boasted of the dishes it brought, how far above the others they were in taste, and those were not the sort they ate on a common day but were set aside for merry evenings. Though the contest was done, the villagers tried themselves against one another in everything, whether cooking or eating, the size of their catches either largest or smallest, and the hardships they had with their boats.
During that, Jocosa and Sir Donn went among them, mindful of what Sebeneuse's lord desired as far as news from neighboring lands. Nor did it lessen the gladness of those villagers to speak with visitors from rich Caerffos and Cannfold or, as happened more and more, to dance with them. There was some loss of gladness later, when young men saw how pleasing was that bold and well-spoken knight to young women, and when young women saw how those men turned their eyes always in hope Jocosa would be free, even when they talked or danced with another. But all that made the people already married to smile and laugh the more.
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The guests learned with words chosen for the purpose how fared the people of the island, who had taken sick and who had regained blessed wellness, who among women was heavy, and whether the few chickens on Calisole waxed in their number or waned. They asked as well whether tales had come there of a country to the west where Gaspar once ruled, and hearing they had not, Sir Donn put that right. Beside that, they heard of a stubborn lord who did not bear that King Percy should judge whether his claim was true or otherwise and withstood Boncot's army long, that there was a Baron Vadim who had war against an unknown army of men and won it, and that a king long dead, it was thought, returned to his country bearing the seed of a tree promised by a spirit to be unlike any other, should he tend it himself over the seasons to come.
What was true and what not was no care of the tellers, and let the hearer be the fool should he trust in it all. Nevertheless Sir Donn and Jocosa, those ready travelers of the dolphin-road, heard all of it that they might report it to Sebeneuse's lord with not a single word out of place. That done, they took their leave that night, and it was a struggle to win free of the islanders who begged them not to flee and give Calisole a name for discourtesy. Jocosa foresaw that and advised Sir Donn, saying whenever he wished to depart, he should make his start long before that.
“I see the reason in that, since the like ought to be done as a squire to rouse the armsmen and make them ready before the knight your master comes to look them over. But I had forgotten it, since my squirehood ended years ago,” Sir Donn said as they walked to the shore, the judges two, and rowed again to Ocrens. The current, wondrous to tell, carried them as swiftly thither as it had thence, which spared the rowing knight wind enough for speech.
“That was not so troublesome as I feared from the strangeness about the task. Did Sebeneuse's lord have mercy for my being here?” asked Jocosa.
Sir Donn answered, “It may be that way, but it may be this, that when we return he will have another task. He will surprise me greatly by doing otherwise. If a man obeys you and finds it no hardship, the command was too light for him and must be followed by one heavier. Such is oft the result of the mind's many workings. Every squire has learned that lesson to his woe, and every knight and lord is pleased to teach it.”
In moon-watched Sebeneuse, the lord saw them with no wait, for his desire was to be told all that happened and what did the people there, and how they did it. “Which I must hear from you. As surprising as this land may be, do not think I am some sorcerer or spirit who is able to learn anything using arts shunned by honest men. It is only that I am given a place unlike most to rule, and I am practiced in its ways,” the master of that peerless estate said with honest speech.
“That is praiseworthy,” said Sir Donn. “Both to know your own land well as a ruler ought, but also to be aware of the customs your neighbors think good. We are not so far from Caerffos at the speed of a well-sailed ship, but nevertheless I learned much I never knew.”
“It is well that it is so. Were any country, city, or even a house alone and apart where one family lives, a large one, to have all its ways and habits understood in a word or two, I must deem it peopled by wailing ghosts or else gobelins that feign lawliness. Else even those who live in a place all their lives may not know all there is of it. I do not blame myself for not learning all my neighbors do, which no man ever may, but only if I fail to learn more.”
Thereupon the two told Sebeneuse's lord all they had seen and heard, and he praised them for their skill in recalling. To that Sir Donn said, “Thank you, and I might thank you also for keeping your word in that this task was knightly enough. I am unsure any other man might not play the role of judge, the more so since they did, but it is something my pride likes to hear.”
The lord said this as his answer. “There is reason in it, by your own report. From seeing the glances and looks all had toward you two, the young men and women now will desire much to better themselves in their crafts and their charming speech that they not be so overmatched. They will thereby become boons to their villages, whereas they were till now content and strove less because of it. A knight may deem his renown not enough for him and seek peril, and a merchant look over his books and be moved to cannier effort, but the fiercest spur for many is as I have said.”
“Now I fear the breadth of a lord's mind,” Jocosa said by way of praise.
The ruler of Ocrens smiled at that and spoke in this way. “It is true that we must think over many things, who hope to be sure in our sway. At times we must change the course we have set as well, when some storm or chance demands it, and for that reason I will put to you a second task that I learned must be done even as you were on Calisole.” Jocosa looked at Sir Donn then and he at her, and both struggled against the merriment they felt. “Nor is there any question that a knight is needed, when at the Gray Mirror Castle on the island Istanna a squire is soon to have his knighthood. Baron Istannius called witnesses there, five in all, but hopes that one more will come, the accustomed number there. Now that sixth is kept from the fish-wandered field by winds grown unkind. Is there a single word more that must be said?”