Лайон Спрэг Де Камп Array - The Incomplete Enchanter

* * *

As they left, Chalmers said: «Harold, I wish I could talk to that girl. uh. in private. I believe she’s the. uh. key to what we’re looking for.»

Shea said: «Honest? She’s Blandamour’s lady, isn’t she? I suppose if I fought him for her and beat him, she’d be mine.»

«No, no, Harold, I implore you not to start any more fights. Our superiority over these people should be based on. uh. intellectual considerations.»

«Okay. It’s funny, though, the way they pass women around like bottles of liquor. And the women don’t seem to mind.»

«Custom,» remarked Chalmers. «Beyond that, deep-rooted psychology. The rules are different from those we’re accustomed to, but they’re strict enough. A knight’s lady is evidently expected to be faithful to him until he loses her.»

«Still,» Shea persisted, «if I had a lady, I’m not sure I’d want to enter her in this beauty contest, knowing she’d be turned over to the winner of the tournament.»

* * *

«Custom again. It’s not considered sporting to hold out on the other knights by refusing to risk an attractive lady.»

They had been bowed into a kind of throne room with a raised dais at one end. At one side of the dais the bearish Satyrane sprawled in a comfortable chair. Six musicians with tootle-pipes and things like long-stemmed ukeleles were setting up a racket unlike any music Shea and Chalmers had ever heard. The knights and ladies appeared to find it charming, however. They listened with expressions of ecstasy till it squeaked and plunked to a close.

Satyrane stood up, the famous girdle dangling from his hand. «All ye folks know,» he said, «that this is a tournament of Love and beauty as well as a garboil. This here girdle goes to the winning lady. It used to be Florimel’s, but she lost it and nobody knows where she is, so it’s finders keepers.»

He paused and looked around. «Now, what I want to say is that this here is a very useful little collop of jewellery, both for the lady and her knight. It has a double enchantment on it. For the lady, it makes her ten times fairer the minute she puts it on, and it hides her from anyone who would do her wrong. But also, it won’t stay around the waist of any wench who’s not perfectly chaste and pure. That’s for the benefit of the knight. The minute this lady can’t keep her belt on he knows she’s been up to tricks.» He ended with a bellowing laugh. A few echoed it. Others murmured at his uncouthness.

Satyrane waved for quiet and went on. «Now, as to who wins, the honourable judges have eliminated the contestants down to four, but among the claims of these four they say they can’t decide nohow. So they ask, lords and ladies, that you yourselves choose.» Satyrane turned to the opposite side of the dais where four women sat, with veils over their heads, and called: «Duessa! Lady to Sir Paridell.»

* * *

One of the girls rose and advanced to the front of the dais. Satyrane removed her veil. Her hair was red almost as bright as her heavily rouged lips. Eyebrows slanted low at the centre. She looked a queenly, disdainful scorn at the audience. The company murmured its appreciation. Satyrane stepped back a pace and called: «Cambina! Lady and wife to Sir Cambell.»

She came forward slowly — blonde, almost as tall as Cambell himself, and of the mature, Junoesque beauty she dwarfed without outshining the fiery little redhead.

Shea whispered to Chalmers: «A little bit too well upholstered for me.»

Just then there was a clang as an iron glove was thrown on the floor. Cambell’s deep voice boomed, «My challenge to any one who tries to take her from me!»

There was no acceptance. Satyrane never turned a hair. He whipped off the next veil crying: «The Lady Amoret!» She stepped forward bravely, turning her head to show the perfect profile, but as Satyrane announced, «Lady and wife of Sir Scudamour,» the delicate nostrils twitched. They gave an audible sniffle. Then, abandoning all efforts at self-control, the burst into a torrent of tears for the absent Scudamour. The Lady Duessa looked angry contempt. Cambina tried to comfort her as the sobs became louder and louder, mixed with words about, «— when I think of all I’ve been through for him —» Satyrane threw up his hands despairingly and stepped back to the fourth contestant. Shea saw one of the judges whisper to Satyrane. «What?» said the woodland knight in an incredulous stage-whisper. He shrugged and turned to the company.

«Sir Blandamour’s lady, Florimel!» he announced, and drew the veil from the woman with whom Chalmers had been talking. Shea heard Chalmers gasp. The girl who advanced to the front of the dais with a sleep-walker’s step and wide eyes was the most beautiful thing Shea had every seen. Clapping and murmurs foretold who would win.

But there was a buzz of talk as well. Shea’s ear caught Britomart’s remark to Chalmers: «Good palmer! You who are skilled in magic and supersticerie, mark her well!»

«Why. why, Miss Britomart?»

«Because there’s something here very strange. She’s as like that Florimel of the sea to whom the girdle really belongs as one pea to another. Yet I will swear it is not the same woman, and see! — all here are of the same mind.»

In truth the hall was shouting for Florimel as the winner, but they were shouting for «Blandamour’s Florimel,» as though to distinguish her from the true owner of the girdle. Satyrane bowed and extended the jewelled trinket towards her.

With a word of thanks she took the belt. She clasped it around her middle. There seemed to be some difficulty about buckling it. She fumbled, worked at it a second, snapped it tight, lifted her hands — and the enchanted belt, still buckled, slid down her hips and thumped to the floor.

* * *

A low murmur of laughter ran around the room. Everyone looked at Blandamour who turned beet-colour. Florimel stepped out of the circle of the belt and picked it up, a frown of puzzlement on her perfect features.

«Here, let me put it on,» said the red-haired Duessa, and snatching it, suited the action to the word. As soon as she clasped it, the girdle popped open and slid down. She caught it and tried again. Same result. Shea noticed her lips were moving as though pronouncing a charm.

«At least, I can do it,» said Cambina, and Duessa threw the belt at her angrily. But Cambina could not make the belt stay either. No more could the others, as they tried one after another. With each effort the knights’ jokes grew louder and more barbed. Satyrane looked worried. Shea sympathized with him. This backwoods knight had tried so hard to give a polite tournament and party. Blandamour had ruined one with his back blow at Britomart, while the girdle was ruining the other.

But Satyrane was not done yet. «Ladies!» he shouted. «Cease, I pray you! The rules of the contest only provide that this girdle should go to the winner with nothing about her trying it on. That’s Florimel, and she is now the lady of the winner of the tournament, who is — by the seven thousand virgins of Cologne, it’s the Princess Britomart!»

The tall blonde stepped forward and said something to Satyrane, then turned to the company. «I do refuse this gift,» she said, «since I am sworn to accompany Amoret till she finds her Scudamour.»

Chalmers whispered: «Harold, I’ve simply got to talk to that girl. For.. uh. scientific reasons. Couldn’t you persuade Britomart to accept her for —»

«I say to me!» Blandamour’s shout drowned, every other sound. «If the winner won’t have her, then she’s mine again by right of reversion!» Satyrane, scratching his head-was the middle of a knot of knights.

«Assotishness!» shouted Sir Cambell. «If the winner won’t have her, then she reverts to the champion of the other side and, marry, that am I!»