Kathi jumped to her feet. To the pleasure of Nicholas, so did the Danziger. Even Sersanders, although muttering something about returning to Skalholt, joined them outside in the glittering, shifting, rumbling playground of giants and dwarves and accompanied the three of them on their tour. They were moved to imitate the puttering mud, warmed their hands in the streams, blew alcoholic fumes into the profound, steaming basins. They collected stones and fed the gurgling orifices and counted in unison until the geysirs burst forth. They put Sersanders’s hat into one, and a glove which emerged like an insect.
They made up rhymes and spells and orders which they timed contrapuntally to several geysirs at once, after they had found how to set the explosions. Sersanders, relaxed with judicious applications of wine, joined in boisterously. Benecke played his supporting role without stint, but without giving voice. It was his dry remark which at last made them all stop and listen. ‘Snow is coming. You should strike your tent and move, while you can see.’
It was, of course, sensible.
ex Dorothy Dunnett, To Lie with Lions; vol 6 of the eight-volume series The House of Niccolò : (1996) : 58-60
not borrowable at archive.org : link
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Dorothy Dunnett (1923-2001), writer of historical fiction
wikipedia : link
24 May 2026