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flickers of the brazier-light— She —the youngest, there, there in the darkest shadow of the farthest bed— she had hair as gold as gold .
    “Well, here’s our father’s latest guest.”
    It was the tallest, eldest girl who spoke, with amber hair. In age, the soldier thought, she was some years his junior, but then a wealthy,
    cared-for woman, he knew, could often look much younger than her
    years, just as a poor and ill-used one could seem older.
    “There is a chamber set by for you,” levelly said the girl with
    tortoiseshell hair.
    “Every comfort in it,” said the girl with topaz hair.
    “But we know you won’t enjoy that since—” said the girl with hair
    like beech leaves.
    “You must watch us closely and follow behind so that—” said hair
    like walnut wood.
    “You may report to the king what we do,” concluded hair like
    cornfields.
    “A shame,” said Summer Wine.
    • 78 •
    • Tanith Lee •
    “And unkindness,” said Spring Hair.
    “Every inch of your tired frame must protest,” said Winter Mead.
    “But such is human life,” said Copper, tossing her locks as she
    stopped her comb.
    “Alas,” said Bronze, also stopping hers.
    Then, in the sparkless gloaming, Gold-as-Gold said this: “We
    know you must do it, and will never deny you have now no choice.
    Come, join us then in a cup of liquor for the journey, and we’ll be on our way, while you shall follow, poor soldier, as best you can.”
    The soldier bowed very low, but he said nothing, and when they
    poured out the wine, each had a bright metal cup with jewels set
    round the rim. But the cup they gave him was of bright polished
    metal too.
    Then the young women drank, and the soldier pretended to drink,
    because what the witch had told him was so firmly fixed in his brain he was by that instant like a fine actor who had learned his part to perfection. And presently he did speak, and said might he sit just for a minute, and the young women who were by then finishing putting
    on their cloaks and shoes for the outer world, or so it looked, nodded and said he might.
    Yannis thought, The draught came from the same pitcher. The drug must be in the cup—but no matter, I never even put my lip to it without my finger between.
    Next he plumped down the cup, spilling a drop. He let his head
    droop suddenly and seemed surprised. He smiled for the first,
    stupidly. Then he shut his eyes and thought, God help me now , but he had not forgotten the secret of the trance.
    Another moment and Yannis himself sat upright in the chair, even
    as his body stretched unconscious across it. He was out of his skin.
    And oh, the moonlight in the chamber then, how thrillingly clear, a
    transparent silver mirror that he could see straight through. And the soul-cord that connected flesh and spirit, more silver yet.
    He let himself drift up a wall, and hung there, and watched.
    They came soon enough, and tried him, gently at first. Then they
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    • Below the Sun Beneath •
    mocked, and Amber and Beech Leaves and Spring Beer slapped his
    face, and then Cornfields came up to him and tickled him maliciously.
    Walnut Wood kicked his sound ankle, and Bronze and Winter Mead
    spat on him. Tortoiseshell cursed him articulately, in which Summer
    Wine and Copper joined. Only Topaz stuck a pin into his arm and
    twisted it.
    Sure he slept, they then turned together up the room to its darker
    end, where Gold yet stood, the youngest of them. She instead came
    down, and hesitated by him a second. Standing in air, the soldier
    thought, Now what will she do?
    “Poor boy,” said Gold, though her face was impassive, and she
    anyway half his age. “Poor boy.”
    “You silly,” called one of the others. “Why pity him? Would he pity
    us ? Hurry, so we can be off.”
    So Gold left him, or his body, sleeping.
    But Yannis pursued all of them, unseen, up the room.
    They spoke a rhyme in that ancient and angular other tongue, and
    then they stamped, each one, on a