Watching and silent the Necromancer stood, the three-cornered smile upon his lips. They prayed him to do his trick again, but he shook his head and would not.
"To-morrow," he said, "at two P.M.;" and he smiled at the shower of golden coin that rained into his bell-crowned hat.
When they were sure that nothing more was forthcoming, they went marveling away; but all about the silvery fog that clung to the steeples, and the gray mists that lay along the streets, and the clouds that hung sullenly above, still hovered little rosy flecks of flame and hints of rainbow color.
Day after day the Necromancer stood in the market-place, and put his lips secretly to his colored bags, and spoke. He had searched all the copy-books of the kingdom, and had taken familiar truths, such as: "The good die young;" "To be selfish is to be miserable;" "Haste makes waste;" "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush;" and he clothed them in rainbow colors and breathed his mist about them, so that they stalked in beauty wonderful and strange, and the folk who listened did not know their own ideas when they met them face to face, because of the garment of many-colored words in which they came. Then the women went mad throughout the city, mad for the loud-sounding voice and the rattle of the bags, rose-colored, purple, and yellow. By her broidery frame the Countess Angélique forgot to draw green thread of silk through the dim web, and in her lap her white hands lay idle. Walking to and fro by her spinning-wheel, little Jeanne wove into the blue yarn the glittering phrases of yesterday, so that the strands tangled and knotted at the spindle. Margot, the cook, forgot her chickens roasting on the spit, but turned and turned them by the glowing coals till they were burned and black; and Joan the butcher's wife could no longer tell haunch of venison from flitch of bacon, but greeted customers with a vacant stare, for her mind was quite gone, gone the way of the wind, after the wonderful bits of colored fog.
Now the fair-haired maid who had stood awed in the market-place on the day when the enchanter came was a rich merchant's daughter, and her given name was Blanche. She was betrothed to one Hugh of a neighboring city, and he came often to Marmorante, lodging always at the sign of the Red Dragon. Thus had been his wooing, as he stood one day with the maid and her father by the lattice that looked forth on the street.
"Wilt have me?" he asked, and the words cost him much, for he was a man of plain speech, and oft of no speech at all.
The maid stood in the sunshine and looked upon him, and he thought her a goodly sight. Green was her gown, and cut square at the throat, and with it the color of her eyes seemed green, and he knew not if her hand or her neck were whiter.
"I could give thee white velvet to thy train," he stammered, and the old man, her father, stood and watched.
"Dost love me?" asked the maid, for she was one that had heard old ballads sung; and the man opened wide his honest eyes.
"Ay, surely, else had I not asked thee to wife."