Free The Summer's King by Cherry; Wilder Page A

tall man dressed all in amber, darkly bearded, with a lovely woman leaning upon his arm, her brown head drooping upon his shoulder, her silken gown, the color of a yellow rose, trailing over the grass. Kelen and Zaramund pass by, nodding at Hazard and his fair Taranelda. Only a page and a single waiting woman bear them company.
    Captain Mazura makes ready for the journey downriver to the western sea and the passage to Westport in Athron. Hazard is persuaded to attend the new play at the Tumblers’ Yard, his own work The Masque of the Three Queens , old Eildon stuff that he reworked. Taranelda would gladly have taken the role of Negartha, the Warrior Queen of the Southland but she has let it go to another. She sits with the poet in the curtained stage box where nobles and sometimes royal personages sit. The company plays up well and send many speeches and warm glances towards the box. Hazard, breathing in the warmth, the reek of paint, oranges, candles, is moved to tears in the half darkness. Afterwards there is a long revel at the Tumblers’ Arms, adjoining the yard, and Hazard is king of the revel. Buckrill appears, other poets, scribblers, pretty women, friends and fellow mountebanks whom Hazard has not seen for years. He is presented with a fools’ baton, a metal sphere filled with bells upon a painted stick.
    So in the light of early morning they trail down to the wharves, a little knot of strayed revelers, not so much the worse for wear as they might have been thanks to a property, soon discovered, of the new drink, kaffee. It sobers one up. Buckrill clutches the poet’s arm; he has seen that which is sobering indeed.
    A litter curtained in midnight blue is drawn up, waiting. There are four bearers in the livery of the Markgraf, with the emblem of the silver swan. Taranelda cannot hold back a faint cry of fear. The players who have accompanied Hazard to the dock shrink and fade away like dewdrops. The curtains of the litter are parted, and out into the light of the risen sun there steps a gentleman in a black scholar’s robe. He is of middle height, balding, with a longish fall of greying auburn hair about his high forehead and his pate. His dark gaze is striking because it is slightly off-center, he squints; one is never sure where Rosmer is looking.
    â€œI have been waiting for you, Master Hazard,” he says mildly.
    Hazard is a brave man. With the lap of river water in his ears, plagued by memories of a thousand days in the Wells, he steps forward boldly, shielding Taranelda and Buckrill.
    â€œI cannot say that I am at your service, Master Rosmer,” he says, smiling, “but I bid you good morning.”
    â€œYou have served me nevertheless,” says Rosmer, smiling in his turn. “I have come to tell you how you may serve me in the future.”
    â€œSir, I must disappoint you,” says Hazard. “I am about to go on my travels. The caravel waits.”
    â€œWhat, will you leave Balufir? When this next year, fast approaching, is our jubilee, our Year of Changes. Stay, Master Hazard! There will be rich commissions.”
    â€œYou must pardon, me,” says Hazard, “my health is not good.”
    â€œStay!”
    â€œNo!” cries Hazard. “I can never serve you!”
    â€œGo then,” says Rosmer flatly. “I have asked not for myself but for the Markgrafin Zaramund. I will tell her of your ill health, that you have looked your last upon our fair city.”
    It is a sentence of banishment, and Hazard accepts it, smiling. He bows ironically to the vizier, casts a wistful glance at the proud houses, the towers and gables touched by the sun, the noble trees in the west, about the domes of the palace. He hands Taranelda down into their waiting boat. They exchange a whispered farewell with Buckrill, who looks sick and frightened. The sailors from the Caria Rose lean to their oars, and the boat moves swiftly towards the caravel.
    Buckrill stands