Also there are knives, if not of steel, and many who
might wish to discover whether a god who courts women like a man can be
harmed by poisons or pierced by knives. Oh!" he added, in another tone,
ceasing from his bitter jests, "believe me that I would shield, not mock
you. This Lady Quilla is a queen in a great game of pieces such as you
taught me to play far away in England, and without her perchance that
game cannot be won, or so those who play it think. Now you would steal
that queen and thereby, as they also think, bring death and destruction
on a country. It is not safe, Master. There are plenty of fair women in
this land; take your pick of them, but leave that one queen alone."
"Kari," I answered, "if there be such a game, are you not perchance one
of the players on this side or on that?"
"It may be so, Master, and if you have not guessed it, perhaps one day
I will tell you upon which side I play. It may even be that for my own
sake I should be glad to see you lift this queen from off the board, and
that what I tell you is for love of you and not of myself, also of the
lady Quilla, who, if you fall, falls with you down through the black
night into the arms of the Moon, her mother.
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