Tianwen·Magweth Pengolodh

cloth man. "While we wait, we can watch the swimming competition." As the swimmers plunged into the water, he explained the rules of the competition—they were to swim to the farthest headland of Toruni and back.Another group of swimmers dived deep to recover the silver-encrusted shell that Cirjatan had thrown into the water.Each victor was drawn aboard and stood beside Cirjatan, and Cirjatan took the garlands of Oyo Lari from Lady Laurenque, and placed them on their heads.Pengolod eyed the diving champion, a well-proportioned man beaming and still dripping from his body. "I bet he won't sleep alone tonight," Pengolod said admiringly.

Alfwine turned around suddenly: "You elves also talk about this kind of thing?"

"Of course we talked," Pengolod said. "I didn't bring it up much because, just like you didn't mention the competition to me, we kept talking about other things." He looked out over the water again. "No women swimming?"

Alfwinet coughed: "Everyone thinks that a man who dives, cough, and gets in touch with Unnie's water will please her more. Elf, uh, do elf women have similar swimming competitions? Ah Tang, if you sit In the back, please stay in the stern, or we'll have to beg Ossie for mercy."

"They can do what all elf men do if they want to. We elves don't have a contest like that, but Lindon has a lot of women diving for pearls. What's up with this on the water? Another contest?" Doesn't look like it.A large coracle crashed into the empty yard where the boats were waiting to return.The nobles on the barge continued to praise the swimmers, while the guards on the water deliberately ignored the ark.

At first, the ark seemed to be just another boat full of women, until the passengers, in hoarse or shrill voices, began to shout—the same group that had been seen at the shipyard banquet last time. funny actor.The clowns dressed up as elf ladies, sang ditties in a mixture of real and false voices, and waved tacky and dazzling scarves at the crowd.The tallest one stood in the middle, again in a white robe and a long straw-colored wig, strumming an out-of-tune harp and howling a dirty ditty, his sonorous voice carried far across the water.As before, the audience clapped and laughed, welcoming the burlesque.For a moment, the ark stopped spinning in the water, and Pengolod took this opportunity to see a poorly drawn duck's head drawn in front of it.Seeing them mocking the elf ship with the bow of the swan like this, he couldn't help gritting his teeth.

Suddenly some black tarred kayaks burst out of the flock and sprinted like sharks at the gleaming ark.Those pretending elf women screamed and fainted, covering their faces with their hands. "We are attacked! Attacked by Orcs! Help, oh help!" they cried.The actors at the helm of the orc boats had walnut juice and black oil paint on their skin, and wore rags and leather thongs.They grinned and imitated the orcs so well that Pengolod shuddered, though the orcs had never been in water.Their antics were brilliant, and the threat lessened: some twirled the kayaks, people appearing and disappearing, the rest threw fake wooden swords between the kayaks in a quick juggling.A man jumped out of the boat, swam to the duck boat, and managed to climb aboard; he looked around maliciously, sticking out his red-stained tongue.

Just at that moment, another out-of-key instrument played hoarsely, and another clown boat came through the waves.At the prow of the long canoe stood the figure of the Pocket King, a tall and fat man in a crudely embroidered coat.Behind him was a clown who was so skinny that he was struggling to row the unbalanced boat, and he was almost lifted out of the water. "Row! Row! Row!" roared the Pocket King, "we must go to save our elf allies! Come on, I say, come on!" The canoes were in the waters where the conflict had occurred, and the Orc-clowns turned , downcast. "Dark and dirty creatures, go away!" The Pocket King patted his stomach under the taut undersized clothes, "The army of Númenor will drive you all away!" After finishing speaking, the Pocket King was like a big stone They also jumped into the water with a splash, splashing water on every boat.

As ever, the crowd cheered the cheesy humor as if it was the happiest of joys.The orc clowns howled and retreated in panic. "My hero!" cried the fake elf queen, pulling the Pocket King aboard the duck boat.

Pengolod turned to look at Cirjatan's barge again, to see how the nobles would react.Most people still deliberately ignored the farce, but Qiryatan was watching, his expression dumbfounded; even so, when he stood up, his posture was noticeably taller, and his belt was tightened by one ring.Pengolod turned to Alfwine, and raised his voice over the noise, asking, "These clowns make fun of even the army of Númenor. Why do the nobles allow them to do this?"

Alfwine said: "The clowns usually appease Ossie. They tend to laugh at any—" The crisp sound of the trumpet interrupted him.The trumpets continued, and again the flags of all the boats were raised.They were on the water watching the entertainment, had been there from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon, and the rowing boats were returning.The burlesquers were suddenly able to steer the boat without any problems, and left the harbor quickly.

To the previous uproar the crowd added the sound of horns and bells.There was an uproar from every boat as the winning rowboat raced into the harbor, wild waving, and those who had been in the water, who were wet anyway, plunged again.The only dejected faces they could see were the two in the nearby boat. "Cheer up," Elfwine shouted, "we didn't win either." The winning ship came to a halt close to Cirjatan's barge, but speeches honoring the victor were barely audible.The harbor was soon filled with other returning boats trying to slow down, some plunging headlong into the crowd of onlookers, causing chaos.Alfwine shook his head: "It's like this every year. Half of the people stay on the water to revel, and the other half return to the shore to revel." He looked around the water with nostalgia, and then said, "If you have never seen it, Then you should go and have a look. Ah Tang, do you stay on the water, or paddle back with us?" Ah Tang awkwardly climbed into the boat for the fourth time, causing all three of them to get wet.They pulled from the water and joined the revelry on shore.

Unnie's Contest

When the sun went down, Pengolod sat down on the bench behind Alfwine's shop with great relief: "I have never, never seen such a crazy feast and celebration in my life. Comedians, music hand, the woman lifted the man's shirt..."

Alfwine was as tired as he was, and sat down with a groan of pain.He rolled the turned foot up to his knee and unlaced the boot-like shoe. "Thanks we're both wearing trousers, aren't we?" They laughed again.Pengolod thought that it was really rare to be able to laugh without restraint at any time in Romenna. "You have to understand that part of it is that the Great War is over. In the past seven years, there hasn't been a single such revelry half as good as this one. Most of the soldiers who went to the war came back—of course, the ones who The ones that weren't killed—most of the widows are past mourning too. You don't mind if I take my boots off?"

"No, not at all." Pengolod carefully looked around, except for Alfwine's lame leg, until Alfwine sighed, obviously relieving the pain a little.

"I can't believe that women are teasing a crippled man this year," he said.

"They kept chasing you even when I didn't see it? It's really vulgar and rude." Pengolod said for his friend's injustice.

Alfwinet laughed and laughed: "I didn't mean that. If they didn't think about you, they wouldn't do that." He slowly lowered his twisted foot and became melancholy, "You know, I want to get married. "

"Really?" Pengolod felt that Alfwine was only in his early thirties, and getting married at this age must be too early even among mortals.

Alfwinai replied gruffly: "I am a man who is not dead, of course I want to get married, even if I have a disabled leg." He was quiet for a moment, then continued, "Do you still remember the day at the shipyard banquet? The family sitting next to us? While you were away, the girl's father came and said something to me. He offered to marry her to me on the condition that I do things for his business."

For a moment, Pengolod felt as speechless as he had been with Tar-Minastir: "Will you marry her?"

Alfwine said softly: "I'm such a cripple, it seems that I should think this is my best choice. It's better than not being able to marry anyone." Pengolod nodded, closed his mouth tightly, thinking about Overheard some mean words about Alfwine. "If I didn't have to give up my business, I'd probably agree."

Pengolod breathed a sigh of relief.

Alfwine went on: "But the problem is, there would never be such a thing before the Great War. That girl would not be willing enough to let her father come over. She didn't come over in person, I didn't notice Anyway, today... I don't know what to think, suddenly I am not ignored, but noticed. Did the elves change like this? After your war is over—after you gave me In the Battle of Tears, so many of your elf men died——your crippled teacher Rumir, ah, does he have any romance?