night Amor lay under the sky looking at his myriad brothers, the stars,
and drawing calm from them.

"If you lie through the night upon the battlements and think only of the
stillness and the stars you will forget your anger and its poison will
die away. If you put into your mind a beautiful thought it will take the
place of the evil one. There is no room for darkness in the mind of him
who thinks only of the stars." This had been said to him by the Ancient
One.

Upon the plateau at the foot of the crag on which the castle stood there
were marvelous walled gardens. The sad young Queen of the first King
Mordreth had planted them, and after her death they had been left to run
wild. Since the baby King Amor had been brought to the mountain top the
Ancient One and his servitor had made them bloom again. As soon as he
was old enough to hold a small spade Amor had worked in the beds. All
things grew for him as if his touch were a spell; birds and bees and
butterflies flocked round him as he labored. He knew what the bees
hummed and where they flew to load themselves with honey; butterflies
lighted upon his hands and taught him strange things. Birds told him of
their travels, and brought him seeds from far countries which he planted
in his gardens and which bloomed into marvelous flowers. A swallow who
loved him very much and who had seen many wonderful lands once brought
him a seed from an emperor's secret garden which none but four of his
own slaves had ever seen. These slaves had been born in the garden and
would never leave it while they lived.

King Amor planted the seed in a pleasaunce of its own. It grew into the
most beautiful blue flower the world had ever known. It was of a blue so
pure and exquisitely intense that it was rapture to look at it. Its