Read "Figures of Earth" by James Branch Cabell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
They of Poictesme narrate how Queen Freydis and Count Manuel lived together amicably upon Upper Morven. They tell also how the iniquitous usurper, Duke Asmund, at this time held Bellegarde close at hand, but that his Northmen kept away from Upper Morven, on account of the supernatural beings you were always apt to encounter thereabouts, so that Manuel and Freydis had, at first, no human company.
"Between now and a while," said Freydis, "you must be capturing Bellegarde and cutting off Duke Asmund's ugly head, because by right and by King Ferdinand's own handwriting all Poictesme belongs to you."