They of Poictesme narrate fine tales as to the deeds that Manuel the Redeemer performed and incited in the days of his reign. They tell also many things that seem improbable, and therefore are not included in this book: for the old songs and tales incline to make of Count Manuel's heydey a rare golden age.
 
So many glorious exploits are, indeed, accredited to Manuel and to the warriors whom he gathered round him in his famous Fellowship of the Silver Stallion,—and among whom, Holden and courteous Anavalt and Coth the Alderman and Gonfal and Donander had the pre-eminence, where all were hardy,—that it is very difficult to understand how so brief a while could have continued so many doings. But the tale-tellers of Poictesme have been long used to say of a fine action,—not falsely, but misleadingly,—"Thus it was in Count Manuel's time," and the tribute by and by has been accepted as a dating. So has chronology been hacked to make loftier his fame, and the glory of Dom Manuel has been a magnet that has drawn to itself the magnanimities of other days and years.
 
But there is no need here to speak of these legends, about the deeds which were performed by the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, because these stories are recorded elsewhere. Some may be true, the others are certainly not true; but it is indisputable that Count Manuel grew steadily in power and wealth and proud repute. Miramon Lluagor still served him, half-amusedly, as Dom Manuel's seneschal; kings now were Manuel's co-partners; and the former swineherd had somehow become the fair and trusty cousin of emperors. And Madame Niafer, the great Count's wife, was everywhere stated, without any contradiction from her, to be daughter to the late Soldan of Barbary.
 
Guivric the Sage illuminated the tree which showed the glorious descent of Dame Niafer from Kaiumarth, the first of all kings, and the first to teach men to build houses: and this tree hung in the main hall of Storisende. "For even if some errors may have crept in here and there," said Dame Niafer, "it looks very well."
 
"But, my dear," said Manuel, "your father was not the Soldan of Barbary: instead, he was the second groom at Arnaye, and all this lineage is a preposterous fabrication."
 
"I said just now that some errors may have crept in here and there," assented Dame Niafer, composedly, "but the point is, that the thing really looks very well, and I do not suppose that even you deny that."
 
"No, I do not deny that this glowing mendacity adds to the hall's appearance."
 
"So now, you see for yourself!" said Niafer, triumphantly. And after that her new ancestry was never questioned.
 
And in the meanwhile Dom Manuel had sent messengers over land and sea to his half-sister Math at Rathgor, bidding her sell the mill for what it would fetch. She obeyed, and brought to Manuel's court her husband and their two boys, the younger of whom rose later to be Pope of Rome. Manuel gave the miller the vacant fief of Montors; and thereafter you could nowhere have found a statelier fine lady than the Countess Matthiette de Montors. She was still used to speak continually of what was becoming to people of our station in life, but it was with a large difference; and she got on with Niafer as well as could be expected, but no better.
 
And early in the summer of the first year of Manuel's reign (just after Dom Manuel fetched to Storisende the Sigel of Scoteia, as the spoils of his famous fight with Oriander the Swimmer), the stork brought to Niafer the first of the promised boys. For the looks of the thing, this child was named, not after the father whom Manuel had just killed, but after the Emmerick who was Manuel's nominal father: and it was this Emmerick that afterward reigned long and notably in Poictesme.
 
So matters went prosperously with Dom Manuel, and there was nothing to trouble his peace of mind, unless it were some feeling of responsibility for the cult of Sesphra, whose worship was now increasing everywhere among the nations. In Philistia, in particular, Sesphra was now worshipped openly in the legislative halls and churches, and all other religion, and all decency, was smothered under the rituals of Sesphra. Everywhere to the west and north his followers were delivering windy discourses and performing mad antics, and great hurt came of it all by and by. But if this secretly troubled Dom Manuel; the Count, here as elsewhere, exercised to good effect his invaluable gift for holding his tongue.
 
Nor did he ever speak of Freydis either, though it is recorded that when news came of the end which she had made in Teamhair under the oppression of the Druids and the satirists, Dom Manuel went silently into the Room of Ageus, and was not seen any more that day. That in such solitude he wept is improbable, for his hard vivid eyes had forgotten this way of exercise, but it is highly probable that he remembered many things, and found not all of them to his credit.
 
So matters went prosperously with gray Manuel; he had lofty palaces and fair woods and pastures and ease and content, and whensoever he went into battle attended by his nine lords of the Silver Stallion, his adversaries perished; he was esteemed everywhere the most lucky and the least scrupulous rogue alive: to crown all which the stork brought by and by to Storisende the second girl, whom they named Dorothy, for Manuel's mother.............