“Announce to King Helmas,” said Florian, as he brushed the dust from his bottle-green knees, and saw with regret that nothing could be done about the grass-stains, which, possibly, had got there when he knelt to cut off the tarandus’ head,—“announce to King Helmas that the lord of Puysange is at hand.”
“You are talking, sir,” the porter answered, resignedly, “most regrettable nonsense. For the knife is in the collops, the mead is in the drinking-horn, the eggs are upon the toast, the minstrels are in the gallery, and King Helmas is having breakfast.”
“None the less, I have important business with him—”
“Equally none the less, nobody may enter at this hour unless he is the son of a king of a privileged country or a craftsman bringing his craft.”
“Parbleu, but that is it, precisely. For I bring in that wagon very fine samples of my craft.”
The porter left his small grilled lodge. He looked at the piled heads of the monsters, he poked them with his finger, and he said mildly, “Why, but did you ever!” Then he returned to the gate.
“Now, my friend,” said Florian, with the appropriate stateliness, “I charge you, by all the color and ugliness of these samples of my craft, to announce to your king that the lord of Puysange is at the gate with tidings, and with proof, that the enchantment is happily lifted from this castle.”
“So there has been an enchantment. I suspected something of the sort when I came to, after nodding a bit like in the night, and noticed the remarkably thick forest that had grown up everywhere around us.”
Florian observed, to this degraded underling who seemed not capable of appreciating Florian’s fine exploits, “Well, certainly you take all marvels very calmly.”
The sad porter replied that, with a reigning family so given to high temper and sorcery, the retainers of Brunbelois were not easily astounded. Something in the shape of an enchantment had been predicted in the kitchen last night, he continued, after the notable quarrel between Madame Mélusine and her father.