Now the woman came across the dock. "This belongs to you, gentlemen?" she asked, extending the purse.

"Thank you, ma'am," grunted Urson, reaching forward.

"I'll take it, ma'am," said Geo, intercepting. Then he recited:

"Shadows melt in light of sacred laughter.

Hands and houses shall be one hereafter.

"Many thanks," he added.

Beneath the veil, on her shadowed face, her eyebrows raised. "You have been schooled in courtly rites?" She observed him. "Are you perhaps a student at the university?"

Geo smiled. "I was, until a short time ago. But funds are low and I have to get through the summer somehow. I'm going to sea."

"Honorable, but perhaps foolish."

"I am a poet, ma'am; they say poets are fools. Besides, my friend here says the sea will make a man of me. To be a good poet, one must be a good man."

"More honorable, less foolish. What sort of a man is your friend?"

"My name is Urson," said the giant, stepping up. "I've been the best hand on any ship I've sailed on."

"Urson?" said the woman, musing. "The Bear? I thought bears did not like water. Except polar bears. It makes them mad. I believe there was an old spell, in antiquity, for taming angry bears...."

"Calmly brother bear," Geo began to recite.

"calm the winter sleep.

Fire shall not harm,

water not alarm.

While the current grows,

amber honey flows,

golden salmon leap."

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