The King sat and said
but little while they spake, but he misdoubted them that they were
liars. So the Council brake up with nothing done; but the King took
the matter to heart, being, as kings go, a just man, besides being
more valiant than they mostly were, even in the old feudal time. So
within two or three days, says the tale, he called together such lords
and councillors as he deemed fittest, and bade busk them for a ride;
and when they were ready he and they set out, over rough and smooth,
decked out in all the glory of attire which was the wont of those
days. Thus they rode till they came to some village or thorpe of the
peasant folk, and through it to the vineyards where men were working
on the sunny southern slopes that went up from the river: my tale does
not say whether that were Theiss, or Donau, or what river. Well, I
judge it was late spring or early summer, and the vines but just
beginning to show their grapes; for the vintage is late in those
lands, and some of the grapes are not gathered till the first frosts
have touched them, whereby the wine made from them is the stronger and
sweeter.
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