s
decorations: but Dom Manuel explained that at this season of general
merriment this palisade also was mirth-provoking because (the weather
being such as was virtually unprecedented in these parts) a light snow
had fallen during the night, so that each head seemed to wear a
nightcap.

They bring Manuel to Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence and King of
Aries, who was holding the Christmas feast in his warm hall. Raymond sat
on a fine throne of carved white ivory and gold, beneath a purple
canopy. And beside him, upon just such another throne, not quite so
high, sat Raymond's daughter, Alianora the Unattainable Princess, in a
robe of watered silk which was of seven colors and was lined with the
dark fur of barbiolets. In her crown were chrysolites and amethysts: it
was a wonder to note how brightly they shone, but they were not so
bright as Alianora's eyes.

She stared as Manuel of the high head came through the hall, wherein the
barons were seated according to their degrees. She had, they say, four
reasons for remembering the impudent, huge, squinting, yellow-haired
young fellow whom she had encountered at the pool of Haranton. She
blushed, and spoke with her father in the whistling and hissing language
which the Apsarasas use among themselves: and her father laughed long
and loud.

Says Raymond Berenger: "Things might have fallen out much worse. Come
tell me now, Count of Poictesme, what is that I see in your breast
pocket wrapped in red silk?"

"It is a feather, King," replied Manuel, a little wearily, "wrapped in a
bit of my sister's best petticoat."

"Ay, ay," says Raymond Berenger, with a grin that was becoming even more
benevolent, "and I need not ask what price you come expecting for that
feather. None the less, you are an excellently spoken-of young wizard of
noble condition, who have slain no doubt a reasonable number of giants
and dragons, and who have certainly turned kings from folly and
wickedness. For such fine rumors speed before the man who has fine deeds
behind him that you do not come into my realm as a stranger: and, I
repeat, things might have fallen out much worse."

"Now listen, all ye that hold Christmas here!" cried Manuel "A while
back I robbed this Princess of a feather, and the thought of it lay in
my mind more heavy than a feather, because I had taken what did not
belong to me. So a bond was on me, and I set out toward Provence to
restore to her a feather. And such happenings befell