Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard

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Avram Davidson (1923–1993) was one of the most idiosyncratic talents to write science fiction and fantasy. He was at his best writing short stories, and some of his best have been collected as The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998). Also well worth tracking down are Peregrine: Primus (1971) and its sequel Peregrine: Secundus (1981), plus the collection of stories about a wizard detective, The Enquiries of Doctor Esterhazy (1975), from which the following story comes.

The establishment of Brothers Swartbloi stands, or squats, as it has done for over a century and a half, in the Court of the Golden Hart. The inn, once famous, which gave its name to the court, has long since passed off the scene, but parts of it survive, here a wall, there an arch, and, by sole way of access, a flight of steps (so old had been the inn, that Bella, Imperial Capital of the Triune Monarchy, had slowly lifted the level of its streets around about it). The shops in the Court of the Golden Hart are an odd mixture. First, to the right of the worn three steps, is Florian, who purveys horse-crowns, though the sign does not say so. (All, in fact, that it says is Florian.) There is nothing on display in the window, the window being composed of small pieces of bull’s-eye glass set in lead, a very old window, with the very old-fashioned idea that the sole duty of a window is to let light in through a wall. What are horse-crowns? Has the reader never seen a funeral? Has he not noticed the crowns of ostrich plumes – black, for an ordinary adult, white for a child or maiden-woman, violet for a nobleman or prelate of the rank of monsignor or above – bobbing sedately on the horses’ heads? Those are horse-crowns, and nobody makes them like Florian’s.

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