“Indeed, I think one could not help liking him. It is wonderful how he keeps his interest in things where other men would become just querulous invalids.”
The dusk was coming on as we reached the city gates and rode up the winding street into the citadel. The shops were all alight with little twinkling oil-lamps, where late passers-by were making their last purchases.
When we got in, we found Kyrlos and Torka sitting alone in the great hall. The others were evidently not back. Kyrlos asked after Paulos, and said he hoped to find time to see him on the way to Miletis the next day.
Forsyth came in presently, and we waited for a while, sitting over the fire, for the evenings were very chilly. But they did not come, so finally we started our evening meal. In the middle of it a messenger arrived from Stephnos, saying that there were reports of an enemy raid expected, and that they were stopping to see if anything occurred during the night, and would join us next day at Miletis.
Torka’s wife was away, and Kyrlos had asked him not to have any one in to supper, as he wished for a quiet evening, since there would be much to do for the next few days. Also he would be glad to get to bed early and rest his neck, which was getting stiff. Forsyth sent him off shortly after we had had supper, and went with him to bandage up his wound again. Torka went to see about the arrangements for the next day, and Aryenis and I were left alone sitting over the fire in the hall.
We were neither of us very talkative. She was leaning forward, one shapely arm propping her chin, gazing into the glowing logs, and I was, I think, gazing at her, with the firelight glinting on her wonderful hair. Payindah’s words kept on coming back to me, and I could not help thinking what a very alluring prospect a vista of evenings with some one like Aryenis sitting by the fire would be, especially if the some one were one’s own Aryenis, and the firelight came from one’s own fireside.
“You are silent, Harilek,” she said at last, turning her head.
“So also are you, Aryenis. What were you looking at in the fire? Pictures like the children look for in the winter evenings?”
“Perhaps. It is pleasant to sit by the fire, seeing pictures of things that might be: fairy stories such as we used to be told, of enchanted castles and dragons, and things like that.”
“You forget the fairy princess with the red-gold locks, Aryenis. There is always one of them in the stories, isn’t there?”