Chapter Ten
The Tasks
"Ask him to do me this courtesy... And ask for a like favour from me, and then he'll be a true love of mine... Love imposes impossible tasks... But none more than any heart would ask..."
-Scarborough Fair, Old English Ballad
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He waits in agony for her reply. Will she not be his wife?
When she turns her glimmering eyes upon him, they are wet and flecked with gold, as if she struggles not to weep.
"Because you doubted, the laws of my kind say I must set you the task you appoint yourself," she replies, her voice like icy salt tears, drops of winter. Her heart shudders with the pain of the cruel thing she must say. "So that is what you must do."
"Bring me a necklace of icicles that will not melt,
"Bring me slippers of glass that are as comfortable as if they were of silk,
"Bring me a dress of white rose petals, that have no stitch or seam,
"Bring me a cape of swan feathers- but they must be freely given. You cannot kill the creatures they come from."
Isumbras feels as if he may die. How can he do these things?
His lady continues on with the trials of hell.
"Bring me a crown of moonlight that I can touch and wear,
"Bring me the moon itself on a chain,
"And finally, bring it all back to me wrapped in the fur of a white wolf- but do not harm him, nor kill him. This you must do before a year and a day has passed. Then, and only then, shall I be your bride."