everything. Still, nothing ventured
He drew a deep breath and plunged: «You could marry me.»
Belphebe’s mouth fell open. It was some seconds before she answered: «You jest, good Squire!»
«Not at all. People do it in my country, you know, just like here.»
«But — knew you not that lam affianced to Squire Timias?»
It was Shea’s turn to stare blankly
Belphebe said: «Nay, good friend, take it not so to heart. I had thought it known to the world, else I should have told you. The fault was mine.»
«No I mean. it wasn’t let’s skip it.»
«Skip it?» said Belphebe wonderingly. Shea bent over his rabbit-haunch, muttering something about the meat’s being good.
Belphebe said: «Be not angry, Harold. Not willingly would I hurt you, for I like you well. And had I know you sooner. But my word is given.»
«I suppose so,» said Shea sombrely. «What sort of man is your friend Timias?» He wondered whether the question had a useful purpose, or whether he was showing a slight touch of masochism in keeping the painful subject alive.
Belphebe’s face softened. «A most sweet boy; shrinking and sensitive, not like these brawling knightly ruffians.»
«What are his positive qualities?» asked Shea.
«Why — ah — he can sing a madrigal better than most.»
«Is that all?» said Shea with a touch of sarcasm.
Belphebe bridled. «I know not what you mean. ’Tis even the core of the matter that he’s no bold confident venturer like yourself.»
«Doesn’t sound to me like much of a reason for marrying anybody. I came across a lot of cases like that in my psych work; usually the woman lived to regret it.»
Belphebe jumped up angrily. «So, Squire, you inquire of my privy affairs that you may sting me with your adder’s tongue? Fie on you! It regards not you whom I marry, or why.»
Shea grinned offensively. «I was just making general remarks. If you want to take them personally, that’s your lookout. I still say a woman is taking a lousy chance to marry a human rabbit in the hope of making a lion out of him.»
«A murrain on your general remarks!» cried Belphebe passionately. «An you would company me, I’ll thank you to keep your long tongue in its proper groove! Better rabbit than fox with pretence of marriage —»
«What do you mean, pretence?» barked Shea. «I meant that when I said it! Though now I see that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea —»
«Oh, you do? You change your mind quickly! I’ll warrant me you’d have done so in any case!»
Shea got himself under control, and said: «Let’s not go any farther with this, Belphebe. I’m sorry I made those cracks about your boy-friend. I won’t mention him again. Let’s be friends.»
Belphebe’s anger wilted. «And right sorry am I that I threw your proposal in your face, Squire Harold; ’twas a sad discourtesy.» Shea was surprised to see a trace of moisture in her eye. She blinked rapidly and smiled. «So, we are friends, and our breakfast done. Let us be on.»
The new sun was a patch of flecks of orange fire through the foliage. They found a sluggish little stream and had to squeeze through the thickets on its banks.
They reached a stretch of drier ground where the glades expanded to continuous meadow and the forest shrank to clumps of trees. They left one of these clumps and were swishing through the long grass, when a leathery rustle made them look up.
Overhead swooped a nightmarish reptile the size of an observation plane. It had two legs and a pair of huge bat-wings. On its back rode Busyrane, all clad in armour, but his face, which was smiling benignly. «Well met, dear friends!» he called down. «What a pleasing thought! Both at once!»
«Into the woods!» cried Belphebe and set the example. «The wivern cannot fly among the trees.»
«What did you call it? Looks like some kind of a long-trailed pterodactyl to me.» Shea craned his neck as the sinister shadow wove to and fro above the leaves.
Belphebe led the way to the opposite side of the grove. When Busyrane circled above the segment away from them, they dashed across the open space and into the next clump. A shrill hiss behind and above warned them that they had been spotted.
They worked their way through this grove. From under the trees they could see Busyrane silhouetted against the sky, while he couldn’t see them.
«Now!» said Belphebe, and ran like an antelope through the long grass. Shea pounded after. This was a longer run than the first, a hundred yards or more. Halfway across he heard the hiss of cloven air behind and drove himself for all his strained lungs were worth. The shadow of the monster unblurred in front of him. It was too far, too far — and then he was under the friendly trees. He caught a glimpse of the reptile, horribly close, pulling up in a stall to avoid the branches.
Shea leaned against a trunk, puffing. «How much more of this is there?»
Belphebe’s face had a frown. «Woe’s me; I fear this forest thins ere it thickens. But let’s see.»
They worked round the edges of the grove, but it was small, and the distance to all others, but the one they had come from, prohibitively great.
«Looks like we have to go back,» said Shea.
«Aye. I like not that. Assuredly he will not have pursued us alone.»
«True for you. I think I see something there.» He pointed to a group of distant figures, pink in the rising sun.
Belphebe gave a little squeak of dismay. «Alack, now we are undone, for they are a numerous company. If we stay, they surround us. If we flee, Busyrane follows on that grim mount — What are you doing?»
Shea had gotten out his knife and was whittling the base of a tall sapling. He replied: «You’ll see. This worked once and ought to again. You’re good at tree climbing; see if you can find a bird’s nest. I need a fistful of feathers.»
She went, puzzled but obedient. When she returned with the feathers, Shea was rigging up a contraption of sapling trunk and twigs, tied together with ivy vine. He hoped it wasn’t poison ivy. It bore some resemblance to an enormous broom. As Shea lashed a couple of crosspieces to the stick he explained: «The other one I made a single-seater. This’ll have to carry tandem. Let’s see the feathers, kid.»
He tossed one aloft, repeating the dimly remembered spell he had used once before, and then shoved it in among the twigs.
«Now,» he said, «I’m the pilot and you’re the gunner. Get astride here. Think you can handle your bow while riding this thing?»
«What will it do?» she asked, looking at Shea with new respect.
«We’re going up to tackle Busyrane in his own element. Say, look at that mob! We better get going!» As the pursuers came nearer, thrashing the brushes of the near-by groves in their hunt, Shea could see that they were a fine collection of monsters: men with animal heads, horrors with three or four arms, bodies and faces rearing from the legless bottoms of snakes.
They straddled the broom. Shea chanted:
«By oak, ash, and yew,
The high air through,
To slay this vile caitiff,
Fly swiftly and true!»
The broom started with a rush, up a long slant. As it shot out of the grove and over the heads of the nearest of the pursuit, they broke into a chorus of shouts, barks, roars, meows, screams, hisses, bellows, chirps, squawks, snarls, brays, growls and whinnies. The effect was astounding.
But Shea’s mind was occupied. He was pleased to observe that this homemade broom seemed fairly steady though slower than the one he had hexed in the land of Scandinavian myth. He remembered vaguely that in aerial
