Nobody quite believed this, of course, but in Inis Dahut, as in all other places, the Fundamentalists took a proper pride in their tribal deity, and, whenever they could spare time for religious matters, made as much of him as possible. So they now tendered to Pygé-Upsízugos a fine offering of quails and cinnamon and bullocks’ hearts, and they raised the Hymn of the Star Spangled Buttock in the while that the two ewers containing the blood of the children were placed upon his altar.
Thus everything at first went nicely enough. But when the company of Morvyth’s lovers, with all their swords drawn, had approached the altar, for the consecrating, and in the while that they ascended the smooth porphyry steps, then limping Gonfal stumbled or else he slipped. He thus dropped his sword. The tall champion, clutching hastily at this sword as it fell, caught up the weapon by the newly sharpened blade; and he grasped it with such rather unaccountable vigor that he cut open his right hand to the bone, and cut also the muscles of his fingers.
“Decidedly,” said Gonfal, with a wried smile, “there is some fatality in this; and the quest of Morvyth is not for me.”
He spoke the truth, for his sword-bearing days were over. Gonfal must seek for a physician and bandages, while his rivals’ swords were being consecrated. The Queen noted his going, and, from a point midway between complacence and religious scruples, said under her breath, “One must perforce somewhat admire this realist.”
She heard, from afar, a dwindling resonance of horns and knew that once more the seven heroic lovers of Queen Morvyth had ridden forth to ransack the world of its chief riches. But fair-bearded Gonfal stayed in the pagan Isles of Wonder, and beneath the same roof that covered Morvyth, and cared for no riches except the loveliness of Morvyth, whom he saw daily. And with time the hurt in his hand was cured, but the fingers on that hand he could not ever move again. And for the rest, if people whispered here and there, the susurrus was a phenomenon familiar enough to the economy of court life.
8.
How the Princes Bragged
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NOW, when the year was over, and the south wind was come again into Inis Dahut, the seven lovers returned, bringing with them yet other prodigies acquired by heroic exploits.
Here, for example, was the effigy of a bird carved in jade and carnelian.