The Nightmare Had Triplets (38 page)

    Moreover, it was heart-warming to talk with Oina, as he did after their fine supper that night, about the wide world which Elair had travelled over, and to recount to her his superb adventures therein, while she listened admiringly, with her red lips a bit parted and her soft eyes glowing in the candle light, and he told about how, at Winden, he had fought with three worms simultaneously, each one of them larger than a cart horse. It was Elair’s way whenever he talked about himself to use freely a poet’s license.

    But the trouble was, What to do with her? When the best people came from Arleoth, upon the second day of Elair’s stay in the gray house, to dispose of them was no heavy task. It involved merely the killing of three leading citizens and the slight wounding of a fat bishop’s backside—an operation as respectfully performed as proved possible—before the best people went away from Elair of their own will.

    Yet his problem remained: and a person who had? upon his hands, willy-nilly, the daughter of a known wizard was in a hard quandary. During the latter years of his life, Urc Tabaron, so far as Elair could discover, had dealt only with elemental spirits, a few demons, and a deposed pagan deity called Mr. Smith; so that no human friend anywhere survived to whose kindness Oina might be entrusted. The convent, that ever-open refuge for womankind, was closed sternly to a girl of Oina’s far too dubious origin, as to which a bishop would now speak forcefully without pausing to sit down.

    In brief, there seemed nobody ready to take charge of her; and yet to leave her alone in this forest was impossible, even apart from the fact that the best people of Arleoth, upon the first news of Elair’s departure, would promptly utilize the child’s soft slender little body for a fine public witch-burning.

    Now came to the gray house an heroic being, of majestic and yet affable demeanor, with a twittering halo of white birds circling about his dark head; and he carried in his hand a long silver staff, having a fir-cone at the tip of it. This person shone, like white fire, until of a sudden the birds left him. He assumed then the hues more proper to mortality.

    Afterward, when Elair had asked of this visitant his name and mission, benign Mr. Smith said:

    “I am the Lord of this forest, whom curiosity led hither. I desired to see again that son whom Smirt of the High Misdeeds begot upon Airel the conversation woman in six conversations.”

    Elair answered the renowned demi-god, “Well, and you behold that son, Lord of the Forest, howsoever unworthy I may be of my sublime sire, who was a supreme master of gods, whereas I am only a supreme master of warfare and of love-making and of minstrelsy.”

    “Ah, but at least you inherit his well-known modesty,” replied Mr. Smith, admiringly, “along with his good looks.”

    “Meanwhile, Lord of the Forest, I do not understand how you can be seeing me again unless you have seen me somewhere before to-day.”

    “Now you bring up this point, Elair, that does appear logical,” Mr. Smith admitted.

    “For you cannot possibly have seen me in this part of the world, Lord of the Forest, which I am now visiting for the first time.”

    “Yes, that is true, Elair.” So then, after thinking over the matter for some while, Mr. Smith suggested,—

    “It follows, no doubt, that I must have seen you in some dream or another.”

    “Yet that does not quite follow,” said Elair, puzzled.

    “Well, but how else would you explain it?” asked Mr. Smith, with the air of a broad-minded person who has formed his own private opinion, but who remains open to argument.

    Such obtuseness rather bothered Elair. Yet he said patiently:

    “But I am not explaining it. You are explaining it.”

    “Then why, Elair, do you not listen to this explanation as carefully as I listen, in the deferred hope of understanding my explanation, instead of becoming loud-voiced and angry?”

    “Because, Lord of the Forest—well, because when I listen to you I do not know at all what you are talking about. Your words are smooth, and they are self-confident, but they do not mean anything.”

    “Now you become commonplace, tall child of a dream, for I cannot guess how many thousands of persons have said to me that same thing.”

    “Nor am I the child of a dream,” Elair then stated, with a continued vast patience. “I am the unworthy son of that sublime Smirt who had such tremendous adventures in the old days; and who became a master of gods; and who rode away, in the company of a red-colored devil called Company, upon a flash of lightning; and who so met my dear mother, upon a glass mountain, in a planet which Smirt owned in fee simple.”

    It was a précis of Elair’s origin which Mr. Smith appeared to regard with urbane but frank scepticism. Mr. Smith coughed delicately, saying,—

    “Need I point out, Elair, to a person of your sound judgment, that, inasmuch as happenings of this exact nature do not happen except in dreams, it follows that you, Elair—who were the result of this not wholly conventional rendezvous—must necessarily have been a by-product of this same Smirt’s dreaming, and perhaps of his indigestion?”

    “Indeed, but you had far better not point out any such scandal as to my ancestry,” replied Elair, angrily.

    “So, then, you see for yourself,” said Mr. Smith, spreading out his very beautifully shaped white hands.

    By this deduction was Elair a bit puzzled. Still, he said, amicably enough:

    “Well, why, of course, Lord of the Forest, so long as you leave the entire matter to my judgment, there is no possible room for quarrel—And yet, after all, Lord of the Forest, just what do I see?”

    “Why, you see that you yourself do not dispute your origin, on account of your remarkable and your profound intelligence.”

    “Nevertheless, sir—”

    “—For you perceive that origin to be oneirodyniac.”

    “Oh, but do I indeed, Lord of the Forest?”

    “Yes, Elair, you perceive it to be virtually unequalled.”

    “Well, but—” said Elair.

    “And I, Elair, if you will permit me to say so, I rejoice to behold your sanity, your self-control, and your rare poise, after having been confronted by this discovery.”

    But all these compliments Elair waved aside with a huge hand; and he benignantly answered:

    “You are a little bit too flattering, Lord of the Forest. No, no: I would not say quite that.”

    “Yes, and your not saying it, Elair, is what I have somewhere heard described as the defect of your qualities. But I say it, Elair, because I can say without impropriety all that from saying which you are prevented by the well-known modesty you got from your father.”

    “Ah, ah! But, then, really, sir—” Elair remarked, from a point somewhere between pleasure and embarrassment, and a good way removed from any least comprehension as to what this demi-god might be talking about.

    “Now modesty, I repeat, is a fine virtue, Elair.”

    “Indeed, I have often heard of it, Lord of the Forest.”

    “It prevails especially among women, Elair, so the women all tell us.”

    “Nevertheless—” said Elair.

    “Why, but, upon my word, that is true,” replied Mr. Smith. “I am extremely glad, my dear fellow, you should have pointed that out. Yes, among women, modesty is very often a most puzzling and incalculable virtue, and a plain virtue of ritual. You are quite right, Elair; and I follow your argument with entire approval. As in Sumatra, for example, the knees, so in Persia the breasts, are the only parts of her body which a well-bred woman will not display freely to the public. In some sections of the United States, such as Georgia and Mississippi—and, I believe, also in certain portions of Vermont—it is considered immodest for a woman to exhibit her navel in mixed company. Yet their modesty incites Mohammedan women to go always with their faces veiled; whereas in China either to display or to mention her foot would disgrace for life any properly brought-up female.”

    “Still—” said Elair.

    “Yes,” Mr. Smith assented, “but that also is wholly true. Even where, as in most countries of Central Africa, a gentlewoman is accustomed to go stark naked, and thus exhibits her entire person, she yet manages to preserve a becoming modesty by having her body tattooed with attractive designs. Yes, I am glad that you should have brought up all these facts, Elair, because they are of considerable interest to a sound logician.”

    “It was merely that they occurred to me in passing, Lord of the Forest. Nevertheless, just what has all this modesty to do with your curious notion about my being the son of a dream?”

    “Ah, that concerns your own modesty, Elair. For I say, in all calmness, that most people would be confounded by any such discovery as you have just made, about this oneirodyniac problem. They would become indignant. They would argue. Whereas you, Elair, you confront the inevitable with a composure which I can but describe as marmoreal, and which I envy beyond any describing at all.”

    “Well, but in this world, sir,” replied a quite mollified and a gravely condescending Elair, “one does learn by-and-by to take problems as they come. Avoid haste, that is the main thing. Do not ever let them flurry you. Take them to bed with you, if you like. Remember always that there is no least need to make any fuss over them. Yes, sir, it
really does pay, in the long run, not to make any fuss over them. Just turn them over quietly.”

    “I can but bow to your far wider experience, my dear boy,” replied Mr. Smith,—“without venturing to endorse all these sage axioms about women.”

    “So, do you think I am still talking about women?” Elair asked, a little uncertainly.

    “I apologize, Elair. I admit the adroit rebuke. You alluded to them, far more tactfully, just as ‘problems’. Yet you very well know how to dispose of them, under any and all descriptions, I can see; and so, one need not worry as to your future.”

    Thus speaking, Mr. Smith went away; and Elair slightly tilted his wreath of red rowan berries, in order to scratch pensively at Elair’s black head.

    “The poor lad,” said Mr. Smith, “has leaden wits and a heart of gold. Yes, Branlon and the unreasonable small magic of Branlon will hold him, even though it might perhaps be just as well to advise that little gray witch about his footsteps.”

    But Elair said: “This Lord of the Forest is a queer person. He is, perhaps, slightly insane. He, most certainly, is lewd-minded; and he is infected with much self-conceit. Yet he was not very far wrong when called them ‘problems.’”

    Elair brooded over his problem. The days passed. Then Elair sighed, and he told Oina that the one way out of their difficulty was for her to become his wife. “For I cannot desert you, child. And it is not right for us to be living together without being married.”

    “Your will is my will, Elair. But it is that Fergail woman whom you love.”

    “It is Fergail,” Elair corrected this inaccurate young person, “whom I worship. Still, I am fond of you. Your cooking pleases me. And I daresay we would get on together well enough. Besides that, I have but a little chance of winning Fergail, because I have not any notion where a person can find the Water of Airdra.”

    “Yet is Fergail the queen of this world’s women, as you have told me time and again, Elair, until I simply cannot stand it any longer, Elair.”

    “And why, Oina, should I not tell you that which is true? Yet it is equally true that Fergail must belong, not to me, but to that lucky champion who shall bring to her the Water of Airdra, or some other magical drink, by which her youth will be made steadfast.”

    “Indeed I remember very well,” Oina replied, smiling reflectively, as she went on with her sewing, upon a pair of plain gray serviceable hose for Elair the Song-Maker, “how my dear father laughed when he heard that news, asking me how I would fancy this fine queen for my stepmother.”

    “Ah, yes,” Elair assented; “so you lied to me in declaring that you had heard no talk of Queen Fergail!”

    For an instant she appeared startled, biting her lip. Then Oina very placidly went on with her sewing.

    “It was a matter,” Oina declared, with an almost violent lack of interest, “which passed quite out of my mind. For what is this Fergail to me?”

    “And after all,” Elair said, complacently, “I was right when I thought Urc Tabaron would know this secret if any person knew it. In such deductions I am not often mistaken, because—like Mr. Smith—I appraise matters logically. Well, and do you know, Oina, logic now points out to me that if your father had ever laid his eyes on Queen Fergail, it is wholly certain he would have made her your stepmother, because there is no man so wise or so infirm but his heart becomes a bonfire at his first sight of Queen Fergail?”

    At that, Oina put by, neatly, upon her little table, the pair of plain gray serviceable hose. She arose. She looked up, for one heart-beat, at Elair the Song-Maker. She went quietly to a cupboard. She returned with a gold phial.

    “Here, wicked Elair, is the Water of Airdra. Urc Tabaron procured it long and very long ago, as a proof of his art’s perfection. But he was too wise to make any use of it, he said, after he had invoked three old wispy women, and had talked with them. ‘The Norns, howsoever frequent may be their blunders, deserve our respect.” he said, ‘because they control the fate of all men. I consent therefore to their unflattering opinion that this Fergail is better suited to be my granddaughter.”

    Then Oina gulped, saying: “I do not know what that meant. I know only that this bold-faced bad Fergail is yours for the asking.”

    After that, Oina wept quietly.