Roger Zelazny - A Farce To Be Reckoned With

"You knew that beforehand. And what difference does it make?"

"Quite a lot, sir. I would still have to live in the same world as her husband. You couldn't spend all your time protecting me, could you?"

"You do have a point," Azzie said. "But you have already made your choice. Cressilda it will have to be."

"There was nothing in the agreement," Kornglow said, "that said I couldn't change my mind.

Light-mindedness is one of my most salient characteristics, my lord, and it isn't fair to ask me to change my changeability."

"I'll look into it," Azzie said. "I'll let you know my decision soon."

With that he vanished, and Kornglow settled down for a nap, since there seemed nothing else to do.

But he was rudely awakened yet again; Azzie had arrived with a new white horse that anyone could tell had to be magical, so beautiful was it.

An interview with Leonore had confirmed what Azzie had suspected all along: she was not a woman of Earth at all, but rather a large elf disguising herself as a human being.

"Elves are mean-spirited," she told Azzie. "Since I am taller than most of them, they laugh at me for being a giantess, and none will marry me. As a human woman I am considered petite, and I am much beloved.

If I marry a human, it is certain I will greatly outlive my husband. But I'll show him a good time while he's on Earth."

Just then, Kornglow rode up on the magic horse.

The elf-girl was suddenly shy. And who would not be when the powers of Evil had suddenly intervened to ensure one's happiness?

"My lord," Leonore said to Azzie, "I know our happiness was not your intention or concern, but I thank you for it anyhow. What do you require of my man?"

"Simply that he take you and get promptly to Venice," Azzie said. "I have a great deal for you to do once you're there, and I don't know if I'll have time to devise any adventures for you along the way."

"We will go directly, as you wish," Leonore said. "I will get Kornglow to stick to business."

And so the lovers departed, both mounted on the magic horse, on the high road toward Venice.

Azzie shook his head as he watched them go. Things weren't working out at all as he had expected.

None of the actors seemed to be doing what they were supposed to. It's what came, he supposed, of not having their lines written out for them.

Lady Cressilda sat in her carved rosewood chair in the deep bay window of her second-floor sitting room, a needlepoint tapestry on her lap. She was pricking out the Judgment of Paris in rose and lavender, but her mind was elsewhere. Presently she put down her work and sighed and looked out the open window. Her ash-blond hair was pulled straight back and framed her face like a dove's wing. Her small features were pensive.

It was early in the morning, but it felt already as if it would be another hot day. Below, in the courtyard, a couple of chickens were scratching at a corncob; Cressilda could also hear singing from the shed to the left where the women were doing the month's washing. The distant neighing of a horse came to her ears, and she thought she might go hunting a little later. She thought it without much enthusiasm, though, for the larger game animals, the boars and stags, had been hunted out of the surrounding woods by the generations of Sforzas who had owned this property since time out of mind. She herself was a skilled huntress; a veritable Diana, the court poets called her. But she was not interested in their silliness, any more than in Rodrigo's forced pleasantries when they met at the breakfast table from time to time.

Something white moved in the courtyard below, and Cressilda looked to see what it was. A white stallion was picking its way slowly across the hard-packed earth. It moved alertly, its proud head held high, nostrils flared. For a moment it seemed as if the shimmering outline of a winged man moved at its head, leading it. She stared at it, perplexed. She could remember no such horse in the Sforza stables, and she knew every one of them, from the newborn colts to the old warhorses put out to pasture. She also knew most of the better horses in the area, and this steed was none of them.

There was no sign of a rider about. Where could this steed have come from, with its glowing white mane and its uncanny eye? This horse was magic…

She ran to the stairs, hurrying down them, through the big dusty receiving rooms, and out into the courtyard. The white horse had come up to the door. It seemed to recognize her and nodded its noble head as she approached. Cressilda stroked its velvety nose; the stallion whinnied and nodded its head.

"What are you trying to tell me?" Cressilda asked. She opened the saddlebag closest to her, hoping to find a clue to the animal's ownership. Within she found a tall candlestick that to all appearances was made of purest red gold. A note was inside, written on parchment and rolled into a screw. She straightened it out, and read, "Follow me, and wish for what you will. It will be granted."

Her wish! It had been many years since she had even thought of it. Could this noble steed be the means of accomplishing that dream? Had it been sent by Heaven itself? Or was it perchance a gift from Hell?

She cared not. She vaulted into the saddle. The stallion shivered, laid back its ears, then calmed to her touch.

"Take me to whoever sent you," Cressilda said. "I would get to the bottom of this, no matter where it takes me."

The horse broke into a smart trot.

A warhorse? You say my lady departed on a warhorse?" Lord Sforza was said to be a little slow on the uptake, but he understood horses — and he understood people riding away on them, especially his wife.

"You saw all this yourself?"

"With my very own eyes, lord."

"Do you think it was a magic horse?"

"I do not know," the thaumaturge said. "But I can find out."

The interview was taking place in his alchemist's studio in the high tower. The thaumaturge lost no time stoking up the fire under his alembic; when it was roaring he poured in various powders, and the fire flared up green and then purple. He watched carefully as variously colored smokes arose. Then he turned to Sforza.

"My spirit familiars signal me that it was indeed a magic horse. We have probably seen the last of our Lady Cressilda, for ladies who ride away on magic horses rarely return, and if they do, to be frank, sir, there's no living with them."

"Damnation!" Sforza said.

"You can lodge a complaint through my familiars, sir. There may still be a chance of getting her back."

"I don't want her back," Sforza said. "I'm more than happy to be rid of her. She's no fun anymore. I'm glad Cressilda is gone. What annoys me is that she got the magic horse. They don't come around very often, do they?"

"Very seldom," he admitted.

"And she had to grab it. Maybe this horse was meant for me. How dare she take the only magic horse that's been seen in these parts since time immemorial?"

The thaumaturge spoke soft words, but Sforza would not be consoled. He stamped out of the tower and down to the manor house. He was a scholar, in his own view anyhow, and it galled him that a matter as interesting as this had come and gone before he'd had a chance even to see it. What irked him most, though, was that magic horses usually carry with them the fulfillment of a wish, and he had missed that, too. It was a chance that would never come again.

Believing so, he was utterly flabbergasted when, an hour later, he went down to his stables to loiter, he saw there was another white horse there, one he had never seen before.

It was a stallion, and it was white. Though not quite as imposing as he thought a magic horse ought to be, it looked enough like a magic horse for him. Without another thought, he swung into the saddle.