than
they mostly were, even in the old feudal time. So within two or three
days, says the tale, he called together such lords and councillors as
he deemed fittest, and bade busk them for a ride; and when they were
ready he and they set out, over rough and smooth, decked out in all the
glory of attire which was the wont of those days. Thus they rode till
they came to some village or thorpe of the peasant folk, and through it
to the vineyards where men were working on the sunny southern slopes
that went up from the river: my tale does not say whether that were
Theiss, or Donau, or what river. Well, I judge it was late spring or
early summer, and the vines but just beginning to show their grapes;
for the vintage is late in those lands, and some of the grapes are not
gathered till the first frosts have touched them, whereby the wine made
from them is the stronger and sweeter. Anyhow there were the peasants,
men and women, boys and young maidens, toiling and swinking; some
hoeing between the vine-rows, some bearing baskets of dung up the steep
slopes, some in one way, some in another, labouring for the fruit they
should never eat, and the wine they should never drink. Thereto turned
the King and got off his horse and began to climb up the stony ridges
of the vineyard, and his lords in like manner followed him, wondering
in their hearts what was toward; but to the one who was following next
after him he turned about and said with a smile, "Yea, lords, this is a
new game we are playing to-day, and a new knowledge will come from it."
And the lord smiled, but somewhat sourly.

As for the peasants, great was their fear of those gay and golden
lords. I judge that they did not know the King, since it was little
likely that any one of them had seen his face; and they knew of him but
as the Great Father, the mighty warrior who kept the Turk from harrying
their thorpe. Though, forsooth, little matter was it to any man there
whether Turk or Magyar was their over-lord, since to one master or
another they had to pay the due tale of labouring days in the year, and
hard was the livelihood that they earned for themselves on the days
when they worked for themselves and their wives and children.

Well, belike they knew not the King; but amidst those rich lords they
saw and knew their own lord, and of him they were sore afraid. But
nought it availed them to flee away from those strong men and strong
horses--they who had been toiling f