“They would give us horses?” said Rodriguez again.

“Surely,” said Morano.

And then Rodriguez asked where they cooked the banquet, since he saw that there were only two rooms in the great cottage and his inquiring eye saw no preparations for cooking about the fireplace of either.  And Morano pointed through a window at the back of the room to another cottage among the trees, fifty paces away.  A red glow streamed from its windows, growing strong in the darkening forest.

“That is their kitchen, master,” he said.  “The whole house is kitchen.”  His eyes looked eagerly at it, for, though he loved bacon, he welcomed the many signs of a dinner of boundless variety.

As he and his master returned to the long hall great plates of polished wood were being laid on the table.  They gave Rodriguez a place on the right of the great chair that had the crown of the forest carved on the back.

“Whose chair is that?” said Rodriguez.

“The King of Shadow Valley,” they said.

“He is not here then,” said Rodriguez.

“Who knows?” said a bowman.

“It is his chair,” said another; “his place is ready.  None knows the ways of the King of Shadow Valley.”

“He comes sometimes at this hour,” said a third, “as the boar comes to Heather Pool at sunset.  But not always.  None knows his ways.”

“If they caught the King,” said another, “the forest would perish.  None loves it as he, none knows its ways as he, no other could so defend it.”

“Alas,” said Miguel, “some day when he be not here they will enter the forest.”  All knew whom he meant by they.  “And the goodly trees will go.”  He spoke as a man foretelling the end of the world; and, as men to whom no less was announced, the others listened to him.  They all loved Shadow Valley.

In this man’s time, so they told Rodriguez, none entered the forest to hurt it, no tree was cut except by his command, and venturous men claiming rights from others than him seldom laid axe long to tree before he stood near, stepping noiselessly from among shadows of trees as though he were one of their spirits coming for vengeance on man.

All this they told Rodriguez, but nothing definite they told of their king, where he was yesterday, where he might be now; and any questions he asked of such things seemed to offend a law of the forest.

And then the dishes were carried in, to Morano’s great delight:  with wide blue eyes he watched the produce of that mighty estate coming in through the doorway cooked.  Boars’ heads, woodcock, herons, plates full of fishes, all manner of small eggs, a roe-deer and some rabbits, were carried in by procession.  And the men set to with their ivory-handled knives, each handle being the whole tusk of a boar.  And with their eating came merriment and tales of past huntings and talk of the forest and stories of the King of Shadow Valley.