This was the wedding of Rodriguez and Serafina, of which gossips often spoke at their doors in summer evenings, old women mumbling of fair weddings that each had seen; and they had been children when they saw this wedding; they were those that threw small handfuls of anemones on the path before the porch.  They told the tale of it till they could tell no more.  It is the account of the last two or three of them, old, old women, that came at last to these chronicles, so that their tongues may wag as it were a little longer through these pages although they have been for so many centuries dead.  And this is all that books are able to do.

First there was bell-ringing and many voices, and then the voices hushed, and there came the procession of eight divines of Murcia, whose vestments were strange to Lowlight.  Then there came a priest from the South, near the border of Andalusia, who overnight had sanctified the ring. (It was he who had entertained Rodriguez when he first escaped from la Garda, and Rodriguez had sent for him now.) Each note of the bells came clear through the hush as they entered the church.  And then with suitable attendants the bishop strode by and they saw quite close the blessed cope of Toledo.  And the bridegroom followed him in, wearing his sword, and Don Alderon went with him.  And then the voices rose again in the street:  the bells rang on:  they all saw Dona Mirana.  The little bunches of bright anemones grew sticky in their hands:  the bells seemed louder:  cheering rose in the street and came all down it nearer.  Then Dona Serafina walked past them with all her maids:  and that is what the gossips chiefly remembered, telling how she smiled at them, and praising her dress, through those distant summer evenings.  Then there was music in the church.  And afterwards the forest-people had come.  And the people screamed, for none knew what they would do.  But they bowed so low to the bride and bridegroom, and showed their great hunting bows so willingly to all who wished to see, that the people lost their alarm and only feared lest the Bishop of Toledo should blast the merry bowmen with one of his curses.

And presently the bride and bridegroom entered the chariot, and the people cheered; and there were farewells and the casting of flowers; and the bishop blessed three of their bows; and a fat man sat beside the driver with folded arms, wearing bright on his face a look of foolish contentment; and the bowmen and bride and bridegroom all went away to the forest.

Four huge white horses drew that bridal chariot, the bowmen ran beside it, and soon it was lost to sight of the girls that watched it from Lowlight; but their memories held it close till their eyes could no longer see to knit and they could only sit by their porches in fine weather and talk of the days that were.