DON RODRIGUEZ

CHRONICLES OF SHADOW VALLEY

To WILLIAM BEEBE





CHRONOLOGY

After long and patient research I am still unable to give to the reader of these Chronicles the exact date of the times that they tell of. Were it merely a matter of history there could be no doubts about the period; but where magic is concerned, to however slight an extent, there must always be some element of mystery, arising partly out of ignorance and partly from the compulsion of those oaths by which magic protects its precincts from the tiptoe of curiosity.

Moreover, magic, even in small quantities, appears to affect time, much as acids affect some metals, curiously changing its substance, until dates seem to melt into a mercurial form that renders them elusive even to the eye of the most watchful historian.

It is the magic appearing in Chronicles III and IV that has gravely affected the date, so that all I can tell the reader with certainty of the period is that it fell in the later years of the Golden Age in Spain.





CONTENTS

THE FIRST CHRONICLE HOW HE MET AND SAID FAREWELL TO MINE HOST OF THE DRAGON AND KNIGHT

THE SECOND CHRONICLE HOW HE HIRED A MEMORABLE SERVANT

THE THIRD CHRONICLE HOW HE CAME TO THE HOUSE OF WONDER

THE FOURTH CHRONICLE HOW HE CAME TO THE MOUNTAINS OF THE SUN

THE FIFTH CHRONICLE HOW HE RODE IN THE TWILIGHT AND SAW SERAFINA

THE SIXTH CHRONICLE HOW HE SANG TO HIS MANDOLIN AND WHAT CAME OF HIS SINGING

THE SEVENTH CHRONICLE HOW HE CAME TO SHADOW VALLEY

THE EIGHTH CHRONICLE HOW HE TRAVELLED FAR

THE NINTH CHRONICLE HOW HE WON A CASTLE IN SPAIN

THE TENTH CHRONICLE HOW HE CAME BACK TO LOWLIGHT

THE ELEVENTH CHRONICLE HOW HE TURNED TO GARDENING AND HIS SWORD RESTED

THE TWELFTH CHRONICLE THE BUILDING OF CASTLE RODRIGUEZ AND THE ENDING OF THESE CHRONICLES





DON RODRIGUEZ





THE FIRST CHRONICLE

HOW HE MET AND SAID FAREWELL TO MINE HOST OF THE DRAGON AND KNIGHT

Being convinced that his end was nearly come, and having lived long on earth (and all those years in Spain, in the golden time), the Lord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez, whose heights see not Valladolid, called for his eldest son. And so he addressed him when he was come to his chamber, dim with its strange red hangings and august with the splendour of Spain: "O eldest son of mine, your younger brother being dull and clever, on whom those traits that women love have not been bestowed by God; and know my eldest son that here on earth, and for ought I know Hereafter, but certainly here on earth, these women be the arbiters of all things; and how this be so God knoweth only, for they are vain and variable, yet it is surely so: your younger brother then not having been given those ways that women prize, and God knows why they prize them for they are vain ways that I have in my mind and that won me the Valleys of Arguento Harez, from whose heights Angelico swore he saw Valladolid once, and that won me moreover also .