Part 4 (1/2)

Some people paid their debts to help build the wall. Others began to go to church after staying away for years and years. Others made up long-standing quarrels with their relatives and old-time friends, and these stones of reconciliation were, the Wizard proclaimed, the strongest of all, since unity and love are the only impregnable fortresses.

Of course, there was some doubt about the wall, since n.o.body could prove that it really existed. But the Wizard declared he saw it to the eastward growing ever stronger and wider; and he traveled up and down the land prophesying war and the necessity of making the invisible wall strong and high by good works. He met with greatest success in the villages and towns, but when he entered the region of the high castles, where the knights and ladies dwelt, he was much laughed at and some would have had him locked up at once.

Now, being a Wizard, he knew how powerful fas.h.i.+on is in this world, and how a wandering breath may bring it into being, so he said to himself: ”I will go direct to the court of the Princess Myrtle, who has married the Prince Merlin, and will gain her ear. When she knows the invisible wall is to protect her kingdom, she will be gracious and set the fas.h.i.+on of providing stones.”

So he journeyed all day and all night and came at last to the grim city of green stones with towers like aged fingers of gnarled wood in the midst of which the Princess Myrtle held her court in an old red castle set about with small, stiff trees. Now the Princess had not long been married to the Prince Merlin. So full of love were they for each other that for them many days had drifted away like the dreams of a night; and so sweet was their converse, and so softly the minstrels sang that all the court lived in a kind of trance.

The day the Wizard reached the castle it was drowsy noon; and the golden-woven curtains were softly swaying in the breeze; while upon the dim walls the greenish tapestries looked like mysterious forests. The Prince and Princess sat upon their thrones like painted figures, and all around them sat their courtiers in their golden dreams while the minstrels sang:

”The waves are beating on the yellow sands, The moon in a black vault rides white and high.

Let us go forth, from these most desolate lands, Led by the spirit's cry.”

”You are quite right,” said the Wizard. ”Your lands will be desolate unless you help build the invisible wall.”

At that all the courtiers whose eyelids had been drooping with the summer heat and with dreams of romance, looked up, and the Princess Myrtle withdrew her gaze from Prince Merlin, and fastened her sweet eyes upon the Wizard. ”You must not care what the minstrels sing,” she said. ”We are all so happy here, that we love songs of sorrow.”

”Sweet Princess,” said the Wizard, ”King Theophile intends to make war upon you, and I have come to tell you that already your subjects have built a fine invisible wall of good deeds and sacrifices; but they must not perform all the labor and have all the pain while the n.o.bles jest and feast. For the wall must have a stone in it from every kind of man, rich or poor, high or low, else it will not endure. And you, the Princess, must put in the strongest stone of all, since the ruler of a country must be its protector.”

All the courtiers smiled at this, but the Princess did not smile, because she was as wise as she was fair. She looked down at her peach-colored robe of satin and her little slippers embroidered with seed-pearls, and she drew a long-stemmed rose from the jade bowl near her throne to pa.s.s back and forth across her lips, as was her manner when thinking.

”Prince Merlin,” she said at last, ”if this strange tale be true, what stone wilt thou place in the invisible wall?”

”I will go for a month to the Council Chamber instead of lingering near thee while the minstrels sing,” replied her husband.

”Spoken like a prince!” cried the Wizard. ”And what wilt thou do, Princess?”

”I will go to the Council Chamber with milord,” she answered. ”And read most heavy papers of State; for if he shares my play I must share his work.”

”To attend to the duties of sovereignty instead of listening to minstrels in a scented room is a fitting stone for the Princess to place in the invisible wall,” commented the Wizard; then he looked around at the courtiers.

Now after the manner of courtiers they wanted to imitate their Prince and Princess, but they thought this invisible wall a great joke not worth making sacrifices for. The Wizard read their thoughts and said to them: ”If the ruler works alone, he is like a bird with a crippled wing. He can only rule wisely and well if all the wisest and best help him. You are placed high that you may serve. Give me each his vow of sacrifice that the wall may be strong!”

The knights and n.o.bles looked at each other, then at the Princess Myrtle; and she bowed her head and thus addressed them:

”If our weapons against an enemy must be our unity, our mutual love and service, instead of roaring guns and flaming cannon, surely it is easy to provide them. Nevertheless,” she added, turning to the military commander, ”see that the army is made ready.”

The Wizard smiled. ”Well and good, if you remember, dear Princess, that an army can never be greater or stronger than the nation back of it. For every gun manufactured there must be a n.o.ble desire forged, or a high ideal realized; or else the weapons will be but a mask of courage on a weak face.”

The military commander shrugged his shoulders. ”I'll go and see if the gunpowder is dry,” he commented, ”as my contribution to yon stranger's invisible wall.”

Then one by one the n.o.bles at the command of the Princess Myrtle came forward to register each his vow of sacrifice. One said that he would write no more poetry for a year; another that he would eat no truffles for a fortnight; a third proclaimed that he would sell his jeweled sword to buy bread for the poor.

The Wizard listened and shook his head. ”This layer of stones is going to be very weak,” he said. ”Why don't you all stop and think, while the ladies make their vows?”

The maids-of-honor crowded forward like a nose-gay of sweet-scented flowers, eager to do better than the knights in the construction of this invisible wall; for being women they were quicker than their brothers and husbands to understand what the Wizard meant. Yet they, too, were not quite clear in their minds, for one said she would wear linen instead of satin; another that she would give up perfumes for six months; another that she would read no novels for that time.

The Wizard began to look discouraged. At last a beautiful young girl came forward to register her vow. ”I don't care enough about jewels and scents and satins to give them up, Sir Stranger,” she said; ”but I should like to win the love of the poor; so I will visit them, and be as one of them.”

At this the Wizard clapped his hands. ”This stone is most strong,” he said. ”Now, Sir Knights, return and make new vows.”

Then the knights came forward. ”I will be reconciled with my brother,”