Michaelmas

Michaelmas is named as the day on which a queen and her retinue are expected to arrive by bay, fixing a date for a lavish public progress. In the passage, the feast day becomes the hinge between uncertain landscape and imagined spectacle: a ceremonial calendar promises order, while the vision around it keeps multiplying into grotesque pageantry.

The Announced Date

The speaker points to a pink banner raised on a pole and interprets it as a sign of welcome. The image prompts an account of an effigy or royal standard displayed on a roofstaff, from which it will be cast toward the gunnings of a fortress. The passage then announces that the queen, described as lying abroad because of the gales, will come with her liege and dignitaries on the bay tomorrow, identified as Michaelmas and timed between the third and fourth hours of the clock.

A Royal Progress in Vision

The promised arrival expands into a procession led by the herald Ulaf Goldarskield. The queen’s company includes knights, tramplers, cavalcaders, and a projected hunt with golden beagles and white elkox terriers. Riders are to appear in Beaufort blue and buff, while the crowd is imagined grinning through collars. The festive expectation is therefore not a quiet observance: Michaelmas supplies a date for a spectacle of rank, movement, hunting, and public display.

Ceremony and Instability

The announcement’s crisp calendrical detail contrasts with the passage’s uncertainty and verbal distortions. The speaker has been asking about a legend on a pointing pole and worrying over unfamiliar terrain; the banner seems to offer a readable sign, but its meaning opens onto a pageant whose participants and actions grow increasingly extravagant. Michaelmas anchors the vision in a named feast day without making the scene stable or fully verifiable. Its function is both temporal and theatrical: it schedules the royal arrival and gives the surrounding fantasy the form of a public ceremonial promise.