"Vance, Jack - Lyonesse 01 - Suldrun's Garden 1983" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

- - - - Vance uses many footnotes in this volume.  I have attempted to make these available - - - - -

 - - - - to the e-book reader by setting them off with an asterixk (*) and indenting them.        - - - - -

PRELIMINARY

The Elder Isles and its peoples: a brief survey, which, while not altogether tedious, may be neglected by the reader impatient with facts.

The Elder Isles, now sunk beneath the Atlantic, in olden times were located across the Cantabrian Gulf (now the Bay of Biscay) from Old Gaul.

Christian chroniclers have little to say regarding the Elder Isles. Gildas and Nennius both make references to Hybras, though Bede is silent. Geoffrey of Monmouth alludes both to Lyonesse and Avallon, and perhaps other places and events which can less certainly be identified. Chretien of Troyes rhapsodizes upon Ys and its pleasures; and Ys is also the frequent locale of early Armorican folk-tales. Irish references are numerous but confusing and contradictory.  St. Bresabius of Cardiff propounds a rather fanciful list of the Kings of Lyonesse; St. Columba inveighs against the "heretics, witches, idolaters and Druids" of the island he calls "Hy Brasill," the medieval term for "Hybras." Otherwise the record is quiet.

Greeks and Phoenicians traded with the Elder Isles. Romans visited Hybras and many settled there, leaving behind aqueducts, roads, villas and temples. In the waning days of the Empire Christian dignitaries landed at Avallon amid vast pomp and panoply. They established bishoprics, appointed appropriate officials and spent good Roman gold to build their basilicas, none of which prospered. The bishops strove mightily against the olden gods, halflings and magicians alike, but few dared enter the Forest of Tantrevalles. Aspergillums, thuribles and curses proved futile against such as Dankvin the giant, Taudry the Weasoning, the fairies of Pithpenny Shee. Dozens of missionaries, exalted through faith, paid terrible prices for their zeal. Saint Elric marched barefoot to Smoorish Rock where he intended to subdue the ogre Magre and bring him to the Faith. According to subsequent tale-tellers, Saint Elric arrived at noon and Magre politely agreed to hear his declaration. Elric spoke a mighty sermon, while Magre started the fire in his pit. Elric expounded, recited Scripture and sang the glories of the Faith. When he came to an end and declared his final "Hallelujah!," Magre gave him a stoup of ale to ease his throat. Sharpening a knife he complimented Elric upon the fervor of his rhetoric. Then he smote off Elric's head, cut, drew, spitted, cooked and devoured the sanctified morsel with a garnish of leeks and cabbages. Saint Uldine attempted the baptism of a troll in the waters of Black Meira Tarn. She was indefatigable; he raped her four times during her efforts, until at last she despaired. In due course she gave birth to four imps. The first of these, Ignaldus, became father to the eery knight Sir Sacrontine who could not sleep of nights until he had killed a Christian. Saint Uldine's other children were Drathe, Alleia and Bazille.* In Godelia Druids never paused in the worship of Lug the Sun, Matrona the Moon, Adonis the Beautiful, Kernuun the Stag, Mokous the Boar, Kai the Dark, Sheah the Graceful, and innumerable local half-gods. During this period Olam Magnus of Lyonesse, aided by Per-silian, his so-called "Magic Mirror," brought all the Elder Isles (excepting Skaghane and Godelia) under his rule. Styling himself Olam I, he enjoyed a long and prosperous reign and was succeeded by Rordec I, Olam II, then, briefly, by the "Galician Cuckoos," Quarnitz I and Niffith I. Then Fafhion Long-nose reasserted the old blood line. He sired Olam III, who moved his throne Evandig and that great table known as Cairbra an Mead-han, the "Board of Notables,"* from Lyonesse Town to Avallon in the Duchy of Dahaut. When Olam III's grandson Uther II fled to Britain (there to sire Uther Pendragon, father of Arthur, King f Cornwall), the land fragmented to become ten kingdoms: Dahaut, Lyonesse, North Ulfland, South Ulfland, Godelia, Blaloc, Caduz, Pomperol, Dascinet and Troicinet.

           *The deeds of the four have been chronicled in a rare volume, "Saint Uldine's Children."

           *The Round Table of King Arthur was later inspired by the Cairbra an Meadhan.

The new kings found many pretexts for contention, and the Elder Isles entered a time of trouble. North and South Ulfland, exposed to the Ska,* became lawless wastes, occupied by robber knights and dire beasts. Only the Vale Evander, guarded to the east by the castle Tintzin Fyral and to the west by the city Ys, remained a realm of tranquility.

          *See Glossary, III.

King Audry I of Dahaut at last took a fateful step. He declared that since he sat on the throne Evandig, he must be acknowledged King of the Elder Isles.

King Phristan of Lyonesse at once challenged him. Audry assembled a great army and marched down Icnield Way through Pomperol and into Lyonesse. King Phristan led his army north. At the Battle of Orm Hill the armies fought for two days and finally separated in mutual exhaustion. Both Phristan and Audry died in combat and both armies retired. Audry II failed to press his father's claim; effectively Phristan had won the battle.

Twenty years pass. The Ska have made serious inroads into North Ulfland and have taken to themselves a section known as the North Foreshore. King Gax, old, half-blind and helpless has gone into hiding. The Ska do not even trouble to search for him. The king of South Ulfland is Oriante, who resides at Castle Sfan Sfeg near the town Oaldes. His single son, Prince Quilcy, is feeble-minded and spends his days playing with fanciful dolls and doll-houses. Audry II is King of Dahaut and Casmir is King of Lyonesse, and both intend to become King of the Elder Isles and sit rightfully on the throne Evandig.

Chapter 1

ON A DREARY WINTER'S DAY, with rain sweeping across Lyonesse Town, Queen Sollace went into labor. She was taken to the lying-in room and attended by two midwives, four maids, Balhamel the physician and the crone named Dyldra, who was profound in the lore of herbs, and by some considered a witch. Dyldra was present by the wish of Queen Sollace, who found more comfort in faith than logic.

King Casmir made an appearance. Sollace's whimpers became moans and she clawed at her thick blonde hair with clenched fingers. Casmir watched from across the room. He wore a simple scarlet robe with a purple sash; a gold coronet confined his ruddy blond hair. He spoke to Balhamel. "What are the signs?"

"Sire, there are none as yet."

"There is no way to divine the sex?"

"To my knowledge, none."

Standing in the doorway, legs somewhat apart, hands behind his back, Casmir seemed the very embodiment of stern and kingly majesty. And, indeed, this was an attitude which accompanied him everywhere, so that kitchen-maids, tittering and giggling, often wondered if Casmir wore his crown to the nuptial bed. He inspected Sollace from under frowning eyebrows. "It would seem that she feels pain."

"Her pain is not so much, sire, as might be. Not yet, at any rate. Remember, fear magnifies that pain which actually exists."

To this observation Casmir made no response. He noticed, in the shadows to the side of the room, Dyldra the crone, where she crouched over a brazier. He pointed with his finger: "Why is the witch here?"

"Sire," whispered the chief midwife, "she came at the behest of Queen Sollace!"

Casmir grunted. "She'll bring a wrack to the child."

Dyldra only crouched the lower over the brazier. She threw a handful of herbs on the coals; a waft of acrid smoke drifted across the room and touched Casmir's face; he coughed, backed away, and departed the room.

The maid drew hangings across the wet landscape and set the bronze lanterns alight. On the couch Sollace lay taut, legs outthrust, head thrown back, her regal bulk fascinating the attention of those who stood tending her.

The pangs became sharp; Sollace cried out, first for pain, then for rage that she should suffer like a common woman.

Two hours later the child was born: a girl, of no great size. Sollace closed her eyes and lay back. When the child was brought to her she waved it away and presently relaxed into a stupor.

The celebration attendant upon the birth of Princess Suldrun was muted. King Casmir issued no jubilant proclamation and Queen Sollace refused audience to all save a certain Ewaldo Idra, Adept of the Caucasian Mysteries. Finally, and only, so it seemed, that he might not contravene custom, King Casmir ordained a gala procession.

On a day of brittle white sunlight, cold wind and high hurrying clouds, the gates before Castle Haidion opened. Four heralds in white satin marched forth, at a stately step-halt-step. From their clarions depended gonfalons of white silk, embroidered with the emblem of Lyonesse: a black Tree of Life, on which grew twelve scarlet pomegranates.* They marched forty yards, halted, raised clarions and blew the "Gladsome Tidings" fanfare: From the palace yard, on snorting white horses, rode four noblemen: Cypris, Duke of Skroy; Bannoy, Duke of Tremblance; Odo, Duke of Folize and Sir Garnel, Knight Banneret of Castle Swange, nephew to the King. Next came the royal carriage, drawn by four white unicorns. Queen Sollace sat swathed in green robes, holding Suldrun on a crimson pillow: King Casmir rode his great black horse, Sheuvan, beside the carriage. Behind marched the Elite Guard, each of noble blood, carrying ceremonial silver halberds. At the rear rolled a wagon from which a pair of maidens tossed handfuls of pennies into the throng.

          *The usages of heraldry, as well as the theory and practice of chivalry, were still simple and

            fresh. They would not attain their full baroque extravagance for centuries to come.

The procession descended the Sfer Arct, the central avenue of Lyonesse Town, to the Chale, the road which followed the semi-circle of the harbor. At the Chale, the procession circled the fish market and returned up the Sfer Arct to Haidion. Outside the gate, booths offered the king's pickled fish and biscuits to all who hungered; and ale to those who might wish to drink health to the new princess.

During the months of winter and spring King Casmir looked only twice at the infant princess, in each case, standing back in cool disinterest. She had thwarted his royal will by coming female into the world. He could not immediately punish her for the act, no more could he extend the full beneficence of his favor.

Sollace grew sulky because Casmir was displeased and, with a set of petulant flourishes, banished the child from her sight.

Ehirme, a raw-boned peasant girl, and niece to an under-gardener, had lost her own infant son to the yellow bloat. With an amplitude of both milk and solicitude she became Suldrun's wet-nurse.

Centuries in the past, at that middle-distant time when legend and history start to blur, Blausreddin the pirate built a fortress at the back of a stony semi-circular harbor. His concern was not so much assault from the sea, but surprise attacks down from the pinnacles and gorges of the mountains, to the north of the harbor.

A century later the Danaan king, Tabbro, enclosed the harbor behind a remarkable breakwater, and added the Old Hall, new kitchens and a set of sleeping chambers to the fortress. His son, Zoltra Bright Star, constructed a massive stone pier and dredged the harbor so that any ship in the world might moor at the pier.*

          *According to legend both Tabbro and Zoltra Bright Star engaged loald, a submarine giant,

            to aid in their undertakings, for an unknown compensation.

Zoltra further augmented the old fortress, adding the Great Hall and the West Tower, though he died before completion of the work, which continued through the reigns of Palaemon I, Edvarius I and Palaemon II.

The Haidion of King Casmir held aloft five major towers: the East Tower, the King's Tower, the Tall Tower (also known as the Eyrie), the Tower of Palaemon and the West Tower. There were five major halls: the Great Hall; the Hall of Honors; the Old Hall; the Clod an Dach Nair, or the Banquet Hall; and the Small Refectory. Of these, the Great Hall was remarkable for its ponderous majesty, which seemed to transcend the scope of human effort. The proportions, the spaces and masses, the contrasts of shadow and light, which changed from morning to evening and again to the moving illumination of flamboys, all acted together to awe the senses. The entrances were almost afterthoughts; in any case no one could achieve a dramatic entrance into the Great Hall. At one end a portal entered upon a narrow stage from which six wide steps descended into the hall, beside columns so massive that a pair of men, arms outstretched, could not enclasp them. To one side a row of high windows, glazed with thick glass now lavender with age, admitted a watery half-light. At night, flamboys in iron brackets seemed to cast as much black shadow as light. Twelve Mauretanian rugs eased the harshness of the stone floor.

A pair of iron doors opened into the Hall of Honors, which in scope and proportion resembled the nave of a cathedral. A heavy dark red carpet ran down the center from entrance to royal throne. Around the walls ranged fifty-four massive chairs, each signified by an emblem of nobility hanging on the wall above. On these chairs, for ceremonial occasions, sat the grandees of Lyonesse, each under the emblem of his ancestors. The royal throne, had been Evandig until Olam III moved it to Avalaon, along with the round table Cairbra an Meadhan. The table where the noblest of the noble might discover their named places, had occupied the center of the hall.

The Hall of Honors had been added by King Carles, last of the Methewen Dynasty. Chlowod the Red, first of the Tyrrhenians,* extended Haidion's precincts to the east of Zoltra's Wall. He paved the Urquial, Zoltra's old parade ground, and to the back built the massive Peinhador, in which were housed infirmary, barracks and penitentiary. The dungeons under the old armory fell into disuse, with the ancient cages, racks, griddles, wheels, strappado lofts, presses, punches and twisting machines left to molder in the damp.

          *Chlowod's grandfather had been a Balearic Etruscan.

The kings proceeded to rule, one by one, and each augmented Haidion's halls, passages, prospects, galleries, towers and turrets, as if each, brooding on mortality, sought to make himself part of ageless Haidion.

For those who lived there, Haidion was a small universe indifferent to the events of elsewhere, though the membrane of separation was not impermeable. There were rumors from abroad, notices of the changing seasons, arrivals and excursions, an occasional novelty or alarm; but these were muffled murmurs, dim images, which barely stirred the organs of the palace. A comet flaring across the sky? Marvelous!—but forgotten when Shilk the pot-boy kicks the undercook's cat. The Ska have ravaged North Ulfland? The Ska are like wild animals; but this morning, after eating cream on hej porridge, the Duchess of Skroy found a dead mouse in the cream jug, and here was emotion raw and stark, what with her outcries and shoes thrown at the maids!

The laws which ruled the small universe were exact. Status was graduated with the finest of discrimination, from high degree to lowest of the low. Each knew his quality and understood the delicate distinction between next highest (to be minimized) and next lowest (to be enforced and emphasized). Some encroached beyond their station, generating tension; the sharp stench of rancor hung in the air. Each scrutinized the conduct of those above, while concealing his own affairs from those below. The royal personages were watched with care; their habits were discussed and analyzed a dozen times a day. Queen Sollace showed great cordiality to religious zealots and priests, and found much of interest in their creeds. She was thought to be sexually cold and never took lovers. King Casmir made connubial visits to her bed regularly, once each month, and they coupled with stately ponderosity, like the mating of elephants.

Princess Suldrun occupied a peculiar place in the social structure of the palace. The indifference of King Casmir and Queen Sollace were duly noted; petty discourtesies therefore might be visited upon Suldrun with impunity.

The years passed and, without any notice being taken, Suldrun became a quiet child with long soft blonde hair. Because no one saw fit to arrange otherwise, Ehirme made the leap in status from wet-nurse to the private maid of the princess.

Ehirme, untrained in etiquette and not greatly gifted in other ways, had assimilated lore from her Celtic grandfather, which across the seasons and over the years she communicated to Suldrun: tales and fables, the perils of far places, dints against the mischief of fairies, the language of flowers, precautions while walking out at midnight and the avoidance of ghosts, the knowledge of good trees and bad trees.

Suldrun learned of lands which lay beyond the castle. "Two roads lead from Lyonesse Town," said Ehirme. "You may go north through the mountains along the Sfer Arct, or you go east through Zoltra's Gate and across the Urquial. Presently you come to my little cottage and our three fields where we grow cabbages, turnips and hay for the beasts; then the road forks. To the right you follow the shore of the Lir all the way to Slute Skeme. To the left you fare north and join the Old Street which runs beside the Forest of Tantrevalles where the fairies live. Two roads pass through the forest, north to south and east to west." "Tell what happens where they meet!" Suldrun already knew but she enjoyed the zest of Ehirme's descriptions.

Ehirme warned her: "I've never fared so far, you understand! But what grandfather says is this: in the old times the crossroads would move about, because the place was enchanted and never knew peace. This might be well enough for the traveler, because, after all, he would put one foot ahead of him and then the other and the road would at last be won, and the traveler none the wiser that he had seen twice as much forest as he had bargained for. The most troubled were the folk who sold their goods each year at the Goblin Fair, and where was that but at the crossroads! The folk for the fair were most put out, because the fair should be at the crossroads on Midsummer Night, but when they arrived at the crossroads it had shifted two miles and a half, and nowhere a fair to be seen.

"About this time the magicians vied in awful conflict. Murgen proved the strongest and defeated Twitten, whose father was a halfling, his mother a bald priestess at Kai Kang, under the Atlas Mountains. What to do with the defeated magician, who seethed with evil and hate? Murgen rolled him up and forged him into a stout iron post, ten-foot long and thick as my leg. Then Murgen took this enchanted post to the crossroads and waited till it shifted to the proper place, then he drove the iron post down deep in the center, fixing the crossroads so it no longer could move, and all the folk at the Goblin Fair were glad, and spoke well of Murgen."

"Tell about Goblin Fair!"

"Well then, it's the place and time when the halflings and men can meet and none will harm the other, so long as he stays polite. The folk set up booths and sell all manner of fine things: cobweb cloth and wine of violets in silver bottles, books of fairy-skein, written with words that you can't get out of your head once they're in. You'll see all kinds of halflings: fairies and goblins, trolls and merrihews, and even an odd falloy, though they show themselves seldom, out of shyness, despite being the most beautiful of all. You'll hear songs and music and much chinking of fairy-gold, which they squeeze from buttercups. Oh they're a rare folk, the fairies!"

"Tell how you saw them!"

"Oh indeed! It was five years ago when I was with my sister who married the cobbler in Frogmarsh Village. One time, just at gloaming, I sat by the stile to rest my bones and watch while evening came over the meadow. I heard tink-a-tink-tinkle, and I looked and listened. Again: tink-a-tink-tinkle, and there, not twenty paces distant came a little fellow with a lantern that gave green light. From the beak of his cap hung a silver bell that went tink-a-tink-tinkle as he jumped along. I sat quiet as a post, till he was gone with his bell and green lantern, and that's all there is to it."

"Tell about the ogre!"

"No, that's quite enough for today."

"Do tell, please."

"Well, in truth I know not all that much. There are different sorts among the halflings, different as fox from bear, so that fairy and ogre and goblin and skite are different. All are enemies each to each, except at the Goblin Fair. The ogres live deep in the forest, and it's true, they'll take children and roast them on spits. So never you run too far into the forest for berries, lest you be lost."

"I'll be careful. Now tell me—"

"It's time for your porridge. And today, who knows? There might be a nice rosy apple in my bag yonder..."

Suldrun took lunch in her small sitting-room, or, if the weather were fine, in the orangery: delicately nibbling and sipping while Ehirme held the spoon to her mouth. In due course, she fed herself, with careful movements and sober concentration, as if the most important thing in the world was eating daintily, without mess.

Ehirme found the habit both absurd and endearing, and sometimes she would come up behind Suldrun, and say 'Boo!' in her ear, just as Suldrun opened her mouth for a spoonful of soup. Suldrun pretended to be outraged and reproached Ehirme: "That is a naughty trick!" Then she once more commenced to eat, watching Ehirme carefully from the corner of her eye.

Away from Suldrun's chambers Ehirme moved as unobtrusively as possible, but gradually the fact emerged that Ehirme the peasant girl had stolen a march on her betters. The matter was referred to Dame Boudetta, Mistress of the Household, a severe and uncompromising lady, born into the petty gentility. Her duties were manifold: she supervised the female servants, monitored their virtue, arbitrated questions of propriety. She knew the special conventions of the palace. She was a compendium of genealogical information and even greater masses of scandal.

Bianca, an upper-chamber maid, first brought complaint of Ehirme. "She's an outsider and doesn't even live at the palace. She comes in smelling of pigs and now she's taken to all manner of airs just because she sweeps out little Suldrun's bedchamber." "Yes, yes," said Dame Boudetta, speaking through her long high-bridged nose. "I know all about it."

"Another thing!" Bianca now spoke with sly emphasis. "Princess Suldrun, as we all know, has little to say, and may be just a trifle backward—"

"Bianca! That is quite enough!"

"—but when she does speak, her accent is atrocious! What when King Casmir decides to converse with the princess and hears the voice of a stable-boy?"

"Your point is well taken," said Dame Boudetta loftily. "Still, I have already given the matter thought."

"Remember, I am well, suited to the office of personal maid and my accent is excellent, and I am thoroughly conversant with details of deportment and dress."

"I will keep this in mind."

In the end Dame Boudetta appointed a gentlewoman of middle quality to the post: in fact, her cousin Dame Maugelin, to whom she owed a favor. Ehirme was forthwith discharged and sent trudging home with hanging head.

Suldrun, at this time, was four years old, and ordinarily docile, gentle and easy of disposition, if somewhat remote and pensive. Upon learning of the change she stood transfixed in shock. Ehirme was the single living object in the world whom she loved. Suldrun made no outcry. She climbed to her chamber, and for ten minutes stood looking down over the town. Then she wrapped her doll into a kerchief, pulled on her hooded cloak of soft gray lamb's-wool and quietly departed the palace.

She ran up the arcade which flanked the east wing of Haidion, and slipped under Zoltra's Wall by a dank passage twenty feet long. She ran across the Urquial, ignoring the grim Peinhador and the gallows on the roof, from which dangled a pair of corpses.

With the Urquial behind, Suldrun trotted along the road until she was tired, then walked. Suldrun knew the way well enough: along the road to the first lane, left along the lane to the first cottage.

She shyly pushed open the door, to find Ehirme sitting glumly at a table, paring turnips for the supper soup.

Ehirme stared in astonishment. "And what are you doing here?"

"I don't like Dame Maugelin. I've come to live with you."

"Ah, little princess, but that won't do! Come, we must get you back before there's an outcry. Who saw you leave?"

"No one."

"Come then; quickly now. If any should ask, we're just out for the air."

"I don't want to stay there alone!"

"Suldrun, my dearest, you must! You're a royal princess, and you may never forget it! That means you do as you're told. Come along now!"

"But I won't do as I'm told, if it means that you'll be gone."

"Well, we'll see. Let's hurry; maybe we can slip in with none the wiser."

But Suldrun already had been missed. While her presence at Haidion meant nothing particular to anyone, her absence was a matter of great import. Dame Maugelin had searched the entire East Tower, from the garret under the roof-slates, which Suldrun was known to visit (Skulking and hiding, the secret little imp! thought Dame Maugelin), down through the observatory where King Casmir came to assess the harbor beyond, down through the chambers on the next floor, which included Suldrun's rooms. Finally, hot, tired and apprehensive, she descended to the main floor, to halt in mingled relief and fury to see Suldrun and Ehirme push open the heavy door and come quietly into the foyer at the end of the main gallery. In an angry swirl of robes Dame Maugelin descended the last three stairs and advanced upon the two. "Where have you been? We are all in a state of supreme anxiety. Come; we must find Dame Boudetta; the matter is in her hands."

Dame Maugelin marched off down the gallery and along a side corridor to Dame Boudetta's office, with Suldrun and Ehirme following apprehensively behind.

Dame Boudetta heard Dame Maugelin's excited report and looked back and forth between Suldrun and Ehirme. The matter seemed of no great moment; in fact, trivial and tiresome. Still, it represented a certain amount of insubordination and so must be dealt with, briskly and decisively. The question of fault was irrelevant; Dame Boudetta ranked Suldrun's intelligence, sluggish though it might be, about on a par with the moony peasant stupidity of Ehirme. Suldrun, of course, could not be punished; even Sollace would rise in wrath, to learn that royal flesh had been scourged.

Dame Boudetta dealt practically with the affair. She turned a cold gaze upon Ehirme. "Now then, woman, what have you done?"

Ehirme, whose mind indeed was not agile, looked blankly at Dame Boudetta. "I have done nothing, my Lady." Then, hoping to ease matters for Suldrun, she blundered on: "It was just one of our little walks we were having. Wasn't it. Princess dear?"

Suldrun, looking from hawk-like Dame Boudetta to portly Dame Maugelin, discovered only expressions of cold dislike. She said: "I went for a walk; that is true."

Dame Boudetta turned upon Ehirme. "How dare you take such liberties upon yourself! Were you not dismissed from your post?"

"Yes, my Lady, but it wasn't like that at all—"

"Tush, no more. I will hear no excuses." Boudetta signaled to a footman. "Take this woman to the yard and assemble the staff."

Sobbing in bewilderment Ehirme was led to the service yard beside the kitchen, and a gaoler was summoned down from the Peinhador. The palace staff was marshaled to watch, while Ehirme was bent over a trestle by a pair of footmen in Haidion livery. The gaoler came forward: a burly black-bearded man with a pallid, almost lavender, skin. He stood idly by, staring at the maids and twitching his scourge of willow-withes.

Dame Boudetta stood on a balcony, with Dame Maugelin and Suldrun. In a clear nasal voice she cried out: "Attention, staff! I cite this woman, Ehirme, for malfeasance! Through folly and carelessness she sequestered the person of beloved Princess Suldrun, to cause us grief and consternation. Woman, can you now claim contrition?"

Suldrun cried out: "She didn't do anything! She brought me home!"

Beset by that peculiar passion which attends those at an execution, Dame Maugelin dared so far as to pinch Suldrun's arm and drew her roughly back. "Silence!" she hissed.

Ehirme bawled: "I'm shamed if I did wrong! I only walked the Princess home, in haste."

Dame Boudetta suddenly, in all clarity, perceived the truth of the matter. Her mouth sagged. She stepped forward. Events had gone too far; her dignity was at stake. No doubt Ehirme had escaped punishment for other offenses. There was always her presumptuous behavior to be paid off.

Dame Boudetta raised her hand. "For all, a lesson to be learned! Work dutifully! Never presume! Respect your superiors! Watch and take heed! Warden! Eight strokes, stringent but just."

The gaoler stood back, pulled a black executioner's mask over his face, then advanced upon Ehirme. He threw her brown furze skirt up over her shoulders, exposing a pair of ample white buttocks. He raised the switches high. Thwish-wack! A gasping cry from Ehirme. From the onlookers, a mingling of indrawn breaths and titters.

Dame Boudetta looked on impassively. Dame Maugelin showed a pursing mindless smile. Suldrun stood silently, biting her lower lip. With self-critical deliberation the gaoler wielded the scourge. While not a kindly man, he had no taste for pain and today he was in good humor. He contrived a mighty effort, swinging his shoulders, lurching, grunting, but laid small actual weight into his strokes and took away no skin. Ehirme nevertheless bellowed with each stroke, and all were awed by the severity of her thrashing.

"... seven.. .eight. Enough," declared Dame Boudetta. "Trinthe, Molotta; attend the woman; dress her body with good oil, and send her home. The rest of you: return to your work!"

Dame Boudetta turned, marched from the balcony into a parlor for high-caste servants, such as herself, the seneschal, the bursar, the sergeant of the palace guards and the master steward where they could take refreshment and confer. Dame Maugelin and Suldrun followed.

Dame Boudetta faced Suldrun, to find her already halfway to the door. "Child! Princess Suldrun! Where are you going?"

Dame Maugelin ran heavy-legged to stand in Suldrun's way.

Suldrun halted, and looked from woman to woman, her eyes glinting with tears.

"Please give me your attention, Princess," said Dame Boudetta. "We are starting something new, which perhaps has been delayed too long: your education. You must learn to be a lady of esteem and dignity. Dame Maugelin will instruct you."

"I don't want her."

"Nevertheless, you shall have her, by particular order of gracious Queen Sollace."

Suldrun looked up full into Dame Boudetta's face. "Someday I will be Queen. Then you will be whipped."

Dame Boudetta opened her mouth, then shut it again. She took a quick step toward Suldrun, who stood half-passive, half-defiant. Dame Boudetta halted. Dame Maugelin, grinning mirthlessly, watched from the side, eyes looking in several directions.

Dame Boudetta spoke in a croaking voice, painfully gentle. "Now then, Princess Suldrun, I act only from devotion to yourself. It is not meet for either queen or princess to use peevish vindictiveness."

From Dame Maugelin came an unctuous corroboration: "So it is indeed. Remember the same for Dame Maugelin!"

"The punishment is now accomplished," declared Dame Boudetta, still using a careful and strained voice. "Everyone will surely be the better for it; now we must put it from our minds. You are the precious Princess Suldrun, and honest Dame Maugelin will instruct you in the proprieties."

"I do not want her. I want Ehirme."

"Tush now, be complaisant."

Suldrun was taken to her chamber. Dame Maugelin plumped herself in a chair, and began to work embroidery. Suldrun went to the window and stared out across the harbor.

Dame Maugelin trudged up the circular stone steps to Dame Boudetta's apartments, hips rolling and thrusting under her dark brown gown. On the third floor she halted to pant, then went to an arched door of fitted timbers, bound with black iron straps.

The door stood ajar. Dame Maugelin pushed it somewhat more open, with a creaking of iron hinges, so that she could pass her amplitude through the gap. She advanced to stand in the doorway, eyes darting to all corners of the room at once.

Dame Boudetta sat at a table, tendering rape-seed on the tip of a long thin forefinger to a caged tom-tit. "Peck, Dicco, peck! Like a gallant bird! Ah! That was a good one."

Dame Maugelin crept a pace or two forward, and at last Dame Boudetta looked up. "What is it now?"

Dame Maugelin shook her head, wrung her hands and licked her pursing lips. "The child is like a stone. I can do nothing with her."

Dame Boudetta made a short brittle sound. "You must be brisk! Arrange a schedule! Insist on obedience!"

Dame Maugelin held her arms wide, and spoke a single poignant word: "How?"

Dame Boudetta gave an annoyed snap of tongue against teeth. She turned back to the bird cage. "Dicco? Twit, twit, Dicco! One more peck and that is all.  No more!" Dame Boudetta rose to her feet, and with Dame Maugelin in her wake, went downstairs and up to Suldrun's chambers. She opened the door, looked into the sitting room. "Princess?"

Suldrun made no response and, indeed, was nowhere to be seen.

The two advanced into the room. "Princess?" called Dame Boudetta. "Are you hiding from us? Come now; don't be naughty."

Dame Maugelin moaned in a sad contralto: "Where is the perverse little thing? I gave stern instructions that she must sit in her chair."

Dame Boudetta looked into the bedchamber. "Princess Suldrun! Where are you?"

She cocked her head sidewise to listen, but heard nothing. The chambers were empty. Dame Maugelin muttered: "She's gone off again to the stour-woman."

Dame Boudetta went to the window thinking to overlook a view to the east, but the way was concealed by the slanting tiled roof over the arcade and the moldering bulk of Zoltra's Wall. Below was the orangery. To the side, half-hidden under dark green foliage, she noted the glimmer of Suldrun's white frock.

Silent and grim she stalked from the room, followed by Dame Maugelin, hissing and muttering furious phrases under her breath.

They descended the stairs, went out and around to the orangery.

Suldrun sat on a bench playing with a wisp of grass. She noted the approach of the two women without emotion, and returned her attention to the grass.

Dame Boudetta halted and stood looking down at the small blonde head. Anger surged up within her, but she was too clever and too wary to allow it tangible scope. Behind stood Dame Maugelin, mouth puckered in excitement, hoping that Dame Boudetta would deal roughly with the Princess: a shake, a pinch, a slap on the firm little buttocks.

Princess Suldrun raised her eyes and for a moment stared up at Dame Boudetta. Then, as if in boredom or apathy, she looked away, and Dame Boudetta was left with a strange sensation that she was seeing ahead, down long years of the future.

Dame Boudetta spoke in a voice grating with effort: "Princess Suldrun, you are not happy with Dame Maugelin's instruction?"

"I don't like her."

"But you like Ehirme?" Suldrun merely twitched the grass stalk. "Very well," said Dame Boudetta grandly. "So it will be. We cannot have our precious Princess unhappy."

A quick glance upward, which seemed to read Dame Boudetta through and through.

Dame Boudetta thought with bitter amusement: If that's the way it is, let it be. At least we understand each other.

To salvage face she said sternly: "Ehirme shall return, but you must heed Dame Maugelin, who will instruct your deportment."

Chapter 2

EHIRME RETURNED, and Dame Maugelin continued her attempts to instruct Suldrun, with success no greater than before. Suldrun was not so much insubordinate as remote; rather than spend effort in defying Dame Maugelin, she simply ignored her.

Dame Maugelin was placed in an irksome predicament; if she admitted her incapacity, Dame Boudetta might put her to even less pleasant employment. So daily Dame Maugelin presented herself to Suldrun's chambers, where Ehirme was already on hand.

The two might or might not acknowledge her presence. Dame Maugelin, then, wearing a moony grin and looking in all directions at once, would wander about the room, pretending to put things to rights.

At last she would advance upon Suldrun, in breezy and lightsome confidence. "Now, Princess, today we must think about making a fine court lady out of you. To start, show me your best curtsy."

Suldrun had been tentatively instructed in six curtsies of varying formality, mainly by Dame Maugelin's ponderous demonstrations, over and over again, joints creaking audibly, until Suldrun, taking pity, might make an attempt at the exercise.

After the noon meal, which would be served either in Suldrun's chambers, or in the orangery if the weather were fine, Ehirme returned home to manage her own household, while Dame Maugelin laid herself down for an afternoon nap. Suldrun also was expected to sleep, but as soon as Dame Maugelin's throat began to rattle Suldrun was out of her bed, into her shoes and away along the hall and down the stairs, to wander the fastnesses of the ancient palace.

During the slow hours of the afternoon the palace itself seeme to drowse, and the small frail shape moved along the galleries and through the tall chambers like a dream-wisp.

In sunny weather she might visit the orangery, to play pensive games in the shade of sixteen old orange trees; more often she went by unobtrusive ways to the Great Hall and thence to the Hall of Honors beyond, where fifty-four great chairs, ranking the walls to right and left, represented the fifty-four most noble houses of Lyonesse.

The emblem above each chair, for Suldrun, told the innate nature of the chair: qualities distinctive, vivid and complex. One chair was characterized by a shifting sidelong deceit, but pretended graceful charm; another exhibited a doomed and reckless bravery. Suldrun recognized a dozen varieties of menace and cruelty, and as many nameless affections which could not be described or worded, which caused her a churning of the bowels, or thrills along her skin, or erotic sensations, transient, pleasant but very strange. Certain chairs loved Suldrun and gave her protection; others were heavy with danger. Moving among these massive entities, Suldrun felt subdued and tentative. She walked with slow steps, listening for inaudible sounds and watching for movement or shifting of the muted colors. Sitting half-drowsing, half-alert, in the arms of a chair who loved her, Suldrun became receptive. The murmuring unheard voices approached the audible, as tragedies and triumphs were told and retold: the colloquy of the chairs.

At the end of the room a dark red gonfalon, embroidered with a Tree of Life, hung from the beams to the floor. A split in the fabric allowed access to a retiring chamber: a room dark and dingy, smelling of ancient dust. In this room were stored ceremonial oddments: a bowl carved from alabaster, chalices, bundles of cloth.  Suldrun disliked the room; it seemed a cruel little place where cruel deeds had been planned and perhaps accomplished, leaving a subliminal quiver in the air.

Occasionally the Halls lacked zest, then Suldrun might go out along the parapets of the Old Keep, where always there were interesting sights to be seen along the Sfer Arct: travelers coming and going; wagons loaded high with barrels, bales, and baskets; vagabond knights in dented armor; grandees with their retinues; mendicants, wandering scholars, priests and pilgrims of a dozen sects; country gentry come to buy good cloth, spices, trifles of this and that.

To the north the Sfer Arct passed between the crags Maegher and Yax: petrified giants who had helped King Zoltra Bright Star dredge Lyonesse Harbor; becoming obstreperous, they had been transformed into stone by Amber the sorcerer: so the story went.

From the parapets Suldrun could see the harbor and wonderful ships from far lands creaking at their moorings. They were unattainable; to venture so far would arouse storms of reproach from Dame Maugelin; she might be taken in disgrace before Queen Sollace, or even into the awesome presence of King Casmir. She had no wish to see either: Queen Sollace was little more than an imperious voice from a billow of splendid robes; King Casmir, to Suldrun, meant a stern face with prominent blue eyes, golden curls and a golden crown on top, and a fringe of golden beard below.

To risk confrontation with either Queen Sollace or King Casmir was not to be considered. Suldrun confined her adventures to the precincts of Haidion.

When Suldrun was seven, Queen Sollace once more grew big and on this occasion gave birth to a boy. Sollace had lost some of her fear, and as a consequence suffered far less than she had with Suldrun. The baby was named Cassander; in due course he would become Cassander V. He was born during the fine weather of summer, and the festivals attending his birth continued a week.

Haidion hosted notable guests from across the Elder Isles. From Dascinet came Prince Othmar and his Aquitanian spouse Princess Eulinette, the Dukes Athebanas, Helingas, and Outri-madax, with their retinues. From Troicinet King Granice sent his princely brothers Arbamet and Ospero, Arbamet's son Tre-wan and Ospero's son Aillas. From South Ulfland came Grand Duke Erwig, with a birth-gift: a magnificent mahogany chest inlaid with red chert and blue turquoise. King Gax of North Ulfland, beleaguered by the Ska, made no representation. King Audry of Dahaut sent a delegation of nobles and a dozen elephants carved from ivory... And so it went.

At the name-giving ceremony in the Great Hall, Princess Suldrun sat demurely with six daughters of the upper nobility; opposite sat the princelings Trewan and Aillas of Troicinet, Bellath of Caduz, and the three young dukes of Dascinet. For the occasion Suldrun wore a gown of pale blue velvet, and a fillet studded with moonstones confined her soft pale hair. She was clearly well-favored, and attracted the thoughtful attention of many persons who previously had paid her little heed, including King Casmir himself. He thought: "She is pretty, certainly, if somewhat thin and peaked. She has a solitary look about her; perhaps she keeps too much to herself... Well, all this can be remedied. She will grow to be a desirable match." And Casmir, who ever more fervently yearned to restore the ancient grandeur of Lyonesse, went on to reflect: "It is certainly not too early to think along these lines."

He cast his mind across the possibilities. Dahaut was of course the great obstacle to his plans and King Audry was his dedicated if covert enemy. Someday the old war must continue, but rather than attack Dahaut on the east, through Pomperol, where Audry's lines of operation were short (which had been King Phristan's grim mistake), Casmir hoped to attack through South Ulfland, to gnaw at Dahaut's exposed western flanks. And King Casmir mused upon South Ulfland.

King Oriante, a pallid round-headed little man, was ineffectual, shrill and waspish. He reigned at his castle Sfan Sfeg, near the town Oaldes, but could not rule the fiercely independent barons of mountain and moor. His queen, Behus, was both tall and corpulent and she had borne him a single son, Quilcy, now five years old, somewhat lack-witted and unable to control the flow of saliva from his mouth. A match between Quilcy and Suldrun could bring great advantage. Much depended upon how much influence Suldrun could exert over a feeble-minded spouse. If Quilcy were as tractable as report suggested, a clever woman should find no difficulty with him.

Such were King Casmir's reflections as he stood in the Great Hall at the name-day of his son Cassander.

Suldrun felt her father's eyes upon her. The intensity of his gaze made her uncomfortable, and for a moment she feared that she had aroused his disapproval. But presently he looked away, and to her relief paid her no more heed.

Directly opposite sat the princelings from Troicinet. Trewan was fourteen years old, tall and strong for his age. His dark hair was cut low and square across the forehead and hung thick at the sides past his ears. His features were perhaps a trifle heavy but he was by no means ill-favored; indeed, he already had made his presence felt among the housemaids at Zarcone, the manor house of Prince Arbamet, his father. His eyes rested often upon Suldrun, in a way she found disturbing.

The second Troice princeling was Aillas, two or three years younger than Trewan. He was slender of hip and square in the shoulder. His straight light-brown hair was cropped into a cap covering the top of his ears. His nose was short and even; the line of his jaw showed clean and definite. He seemed not to notice Suldrun, which prompted in her an absurd little quiver of vexation, even though she had disapproved of the other prince's boldness... Her attention was distracted by the coming of four gaunt Druid priests.

They wore long robes of brown furze, belted and hooded to hide their faces, and each carried an oak branch from their sacred grove. They shuffled forward, their long white feet appearing and disappearing below the robes, and arranged themselves to north, south, east and west of the cradle.

The Druid to the north held the oak branch over the child and touched his forehead with a wooden periapt, then spoke: "The Dagda blesses you and gives you the benefit of your name Cassander."

The Druid to the west extended his oak branch. "Brigit, first daughter of the Dagda, blesses you and gives you the benefit of poetry, and names you Cassander."

The Druid to the south extended his oak branch. "Brigit, second daughter of Dagda, blesses you and gives the benefit of strong health and powers of healing, and calls you Cassander."

The Druid to the east extended his oak branch. "Brigit, third daughter of the Dagda, blesses you and gives the benefit of iron, in sword and shield, in sickle and plough, and calls you Cassander."

All held their branches to form a leafy ceiling over the child. "May the light of Lug warm your body; may the dark of Ogma improve your prospects; may Lir support your ships; may the Dagda forever hold you in grace."

They turned and moved on slow bare feet from the hall.

Pages in scarlet puff-pantaloons raised clarions and blew the Queen's Honor. The company stood in murmurous near-silence as Queen Sollace retired on the arm of Lady Lenore, while Lady Desdea supervised the removal of the infant prince.

Musicians appeared on the high gallery, with dulcimer, pipes, lute, and a cadwal (this a single-stringed fiddle apt for the playing of jigs). The center of the hall was cleared; the pages blew a second fanfare: Lo! the Jocund King!

King Casmir addressed himself to the Lady Arresme, Duchess of Slahan; the musicians produced a stately concord and King Casmir led Lady Arresme forth for the pavanne, followed by the lords and ladies of the realm, in a pageant of magnificent costumes of every color, with every gesture, every step, every bow and position of head, hand and wrist ordained by etiquette. Suldrun watched in fascination: slow-step, pause, little bow and swing of the arms in graceful style, then another step, and shimmer of silk, the rustle of petticoats to the careful sonorities of the music. How stern and stately seemed her father, even engaged in the frivolity of dancing the pavanne!

The pavanne ended, and the company removed to the Clod an Dach Nair, and found their places at the banquet table. The most rigid rules of precedence applied; the chief herald and an ordinator had worked with enormous pains, making the most subtle of discriminations. Suldrun was seated directly to the right of King Casmir, in that chair usually occupied by the queen. Tonight Queen Sollace was unwell, and lay in her bed, where she ate to repletion of sweet curd tarts, while Suldrun for the first time dined at the same table with her father the king.

Three months after the birth of Prince Cassander, the circumstances of Suldrun's life altered. Ehirme, already mother to a pair of sons, gave birth to twins. Her sister, who had managed the household while Ehirme was at the palace, married a fisherman, and Ehirme could no longer serve Suldrun.

Almost coincidentally, Dame Boudetta announced that by the wishes of King Casmir, Suldrun must be schooled in deportment, dancing, and all other skills and graces appropriate to a royal princess.

Suldrun resigned herself to the program, which was rendered by various ladies of the court. As before, Suldrun used the soporific hours of early afternoon to wander quietly abroad: out into the orangery, or the library, or the Hall of Honors. From the orangery the way led along an arcade, up to Zoltra's Wall, through a vaulted tunnel and out upon the Urquial. Suldrun ventured so far as the tunnel, and stood in the shadows watching the men-at-arms as they drilled with pikes and swords. They made a gallant spectacle, thought Suldrun, stamping, shouting, lunging forward, falling back... To the right a crumbling wall flanked the Urquial. Almost hidden behind a sprawling old larch a heavy wooden door, dessicated with age, led through the wall. Suldrun slipped from the tunnel and into the shadows behind the larch. She peered through a crack in the door, then pulled at a bolt which held the warped timbers in place. She exerted all her strength, to no avail. She found a rock and used it as a hammer. The rivets parted; the bolt sagged aside. Suldrun pushed; the door creaked and shuddered. She turned around and bumped it with her round little buttocks. The door protested with an almost human voice, and moved ajar.

Suldrun squeezed through the gap and found herself at the head of a ravine which seemed to descend all the way to the sea. Greatly daring, she ventured a few steps down an old path. She stopped to listen... no sound. She was alone. She went another fifty feet and came upon a small structure of weathered stone, now desolate and empty: apparently an ancient fane.

Suldrun dared go no farther; she would be missed and Dame Boudetta would scold her. She craned her neck to look down the ravine and glimpsed the foliage of trees. Reluctantly she turned and went back the way she had come.

An autumn storm brought four days of rain and mist to Lyonesse Town, and Suldrun was pent within Haidion. On the fifth day the clouds broke, and shafts of sunlight struck down through the rents at various angles. By noon the sky was half blue space, half hurrying cloud-wrack.

At first opportunity Suldrun ran up the arcade, through the tunnel under Zoltra's Wall; then, after a precautionary glance around the Urquial, under the larch and through the old wooden door. She closed the door behind her and stood tingling with a sense of isolation from all the rest of the world.

She descended the old path to the fane: an octagonal stone structure perched on a stone shelf, with the ridge rising steeply behind. Suldrun looked through the low arched door. Four long steps would take her to the back wall, where the symbol of Mithra overlooked a low stone altar. To each side a narrow window admitted light; slate tiles covered the roof. A drift of dead leaves had blown through the doorway; otherwise the fane was empty. The atmosphere carried a dank clammy-sweet odor, faint but unpleasant. Suldrun twitched her nose and backed away.

The ravine descended steeply; the ridges to either side assumed the semblance of low irregular cliffs. The path angled this way and that: through stones, clumps of wild thyme, asphodel and thistles and out upon a terrace where the soil lay deep. Two massive oaks, almost filling the ravine, stood sentinel over the ancient garden below, and Suldrun felt like an explorer discovering a new land.

To the left the cliff rose high. An irregular copse of yew, laurel, hornbeam and myrtle shaded an undergrowth of shrubs and flowers: violets, ferns, harebells, forget-me-nots, anemones; banks of heliotrope scented the air. On the right hand the cliff, almost equally tall, trapped sunlight. Below grew rosemary, asphodel, foxglove, wild geranium, lemon verbena; slim black-green cypress and a dozen enormous olive trees, gnarled, twisted, the fresh gray-green foliage in contrast with the age-worn trunks.

Where the ravine widened Suldrun came upon the ruins of a Roman villa. Nothing remained but a cracked marble floor, a half-toppled colonnade, a tumble of marble blocks among weeds and thistles. At the edge of the terrace grew a single old lime tree with a heavy trunk and sprawling boughs. Below, the path led down to a narrow beach of shingle, curving between a pair of capes where the cliffs on either hand thrust into the sea.

The wind had eased to a near-calm, but swells from the storm continued to bend around the headlands and break upon the shingle. For a time Suldrun watched the sunlight sparkling on the sea, then turned and looked back up the ravine. The old garden doubtless was enchanted, she thought, with a magic evidently benign; she felt only peace. The trees basked in the sunlight and paid her no heed. The flowers all loved her, except the proud asphodel, which loved only itself. Melancholy memories stirred among the ruins, but they were insubstantial, less than wisps, and they had no voices.

The sun moved across the sky; Suldrun reluctantly turned to go. She would be missed if she stayed longer. Up through the garden she went, out the old door and back down the arcade to Haidion.

Chapter 3

SULDRUN AWOKE TO A COLD GRAY ROOM and a dismal wet light from outside her windows: the rains had returned and the chambermaid had neglected to build up the fires. Suldrun waited a few minutes, then resignedly slid from her bed and with shanks shivering to the chill, dressed herself and combed out her hair.

The maid at last appeared, and hurriedly built the fires, fearful lest Suldrun might denounce her to Dame Boudetta, but the lapse had already slipped from Suldrun's mind.

She went to stand by the window. Rain blurred the panorama; the harbor was a rain-puddle; the tiled roofs of the town were ten thousand shapes in many tones of gray. Where had the color gone? Color! What peculiar stuff! It glowed in the sunlight, but in the dimness of rain it faded: most peculiar. Suldrun's breakfast arrived and as she ate she pondered the paradoxes of color. Red and blue, green and purple, yellow and orange, brown and black: each with its character and special quality, yet impalpable...

Suldrun went down to the library for her lessons. Her tutor was now Master Jaimes, archivist, scholar, and librarian to the ' court of King Casmir. Suldrun had at first found him a daunting figure of severity and precision, for he was tall and thin, and a great thin beak of a nose gave him the look of a predatory bird. Master Jaimes was a few years past the first wild urgencies of youth, but not yet old nor even middle-aged. His coarse black hair was cut level with his mid-forehead clear around the scalp, to hang in a shelf over his ears; his skin was parchment pale; his arms and legs were long and as gaunt as his torso; nevertheless he carried himself with dignity and even an odd ungainly grace. He was sixth son to Sir Crinsey of Hredec, an estate comprising thirty acres of stony hillside, and had gained nothing from his father but gentle birth. He resolved to teach Princess Suldrun with dispassionate formality, but Suldrun quickly learned how to charm and befuddle him. He fell hopelessly in love with her, though he pretended that the emotion was no more than easy tolerance. Suldrun who was perceptive when she put her mind to it, saw through his attempts at airy detachment and took charge of the learning process, as when Master Jaimes frowned at her writing and said: "These A's and G's look quite alike. We must do them all over, in a careful hand."

"But the quill is broken!"

"Then sharpen it! Carefully now, do not cut yourself. It is a knack you must learn."

"Oo-ow—oo!"

"Did you cut yourself?"

"No. I was just practicing in case I did."

"You need not practice. Cries of pain come quite easily and naturally."

"How far have you traveled?"

"What has that to do with cutting a quill?"

"I wonder if the students in far places, like Africa, cut their quills differently."

"As to that I can't say."

"How far have you traveled?"

"Oh—not too far. I studied at the university in Avallon, and also at Metheglin. Once I visited Aquitania."

"What is the farthest place of the whole world?"

"Hmn. That is hard to say. Cathay? The far side of Africa?"

"That can't be the proper answer!"

"Oh? In that case, please instruct me."

"There is no such place; something farther always lies beyond."

"Yes. Perhaps so. Let me cut the quill. There, just so. Now as to the A's and G's..."

On the rainy morning when Suldrun went into the library for lessons, she found Master Jaimes already on hand, with a dozen quills cut and ready. "Today," said Master Jaimes, "you must write your name, in whole and full, and with such exquisite skill that I will exclaim in surprise."

"I will do my best," said Suldrun. "These are beautiful quills."

"Excellent indeed."

"The plumes are all white."

"I believe that is true."

"This ink is black. I think black plumes would be better for black ink."

"I don't think the difference is noticeable."

"We could try white ink with these white plumes."

"I have no white ink, nor yet black parchment. So now—"

"Master Jaimes, this morning I wondered about colors. Where do they come from? What are they?"

Master Jaimes blinked and tilted his head to the side. "Colors? They exist. Everywhere we see color."

"But they come and go. What are they?"

"Well, truthfully, I don't know. How clever of you to ask the question. Red things are red and green things are green, and that would seem to be that."

Suldrun smilingly shook her head. "Sometimes, Master Jaimes, I think I know as much as you."

"Do not reproach me. Do you see those books yonder? Plato and Cnessus and Rohan and Herodotus—I have read them all, and I have learned only how much I do not know."

"What of the magicians? Do they know everything?"

Master Jaimes slouched his awkward length back in his chair and gave up all hopes for a formal and correct atmosphere. He looked out the library window, and presently said: "When I still lived at Hredec—I was little more than a lad—I became friendly with a magician." Glancing at Suldrun he saw that he had captured her attention. "His name was Shimrod. One day I visited his house Trilda, and forgot all about time. Night came and I was far from home. Shimrod caught a mouse and changed it into a fine horse. 'Ride home at speed,' he told me. 'Do not dismount or touch the ground before your destination, for as soon as your foot touches ground, the horse is once more a mouse!'

"And so it was. I rode in style, to the envy of those who saw me, and I took care to dismount behind the stable, so that none would know that I had been riding a mouse.

"Alas! We are wasting time." He straightened up in his chair. "Now then, take up your pen, dip ink, and inscribe me a good R, as you will need to write your name."

"But you have not answered my question!"

"'Do magicians know everything?' The answer is no. Now: the characters, in a fine square hand."

"Oh Master Jaimes, today I am bored with writing. Teach me magic instead."

"Ha! If I knew magic, would I be frousting here at two florins a week? No, no, my princess, I have better schemes in mind!  I would take two fine mice and change them to a pair of beautiful horses and I would become a handsome young prince not much older than you, and we would go riding away over hill and dale; to a wonderful castle in the clouds, and there we would dine; on strawberries and cream and listen to the music of harps and fairy bells. Alas, I know no magic. I am the wretched Master Jaimes, and you are sweet mischievous Suldrun who won't learn I her letters."

"No," said Suldrun in sudden decision. "I'll work very hard so that I can read and write, and do you know why? So that I may learn magic, and you need only learn to catch mice."

Master Jaimes uttered a queer choked laugh. He reached across the table and took her two hands. "Suldrun, you already know I magic."

For a moment they smiled at each other, then in sudden embarrassment, Suldrun bowed her head over her work.

The rains continued. Master Jaimes, walking abroad in the cold and wet, caught a fever and could not teach. No one troubled to notify Suldrun and she went down to the library to find it empty. For a time she practiced writing, and looked through a leatherbound book brought down from Northumbria, illuminated with exquisite depictions of saints in landscapes wrought in vivid inks.

At last Suldrun put the book aside and went out into the hall.  The time was now mid-morning, and servants were busy in the Long Gallery. Undermaids polished the flagstones with beeswax and lamb-skin; a footman stalking on ten-foot stilts replenished the sconces with oil of nenuphar. From outside the palace, muffled by the intervening walls, came the blare of clarions, announcing the arrival of notables.  Looking along the gallery, Suldrun saw them enter the reception hall: three grandees, stamping and shaking the rain from their garments. Footmen hastened forward to relieve them of their cloaks, helmets and swords. From the side a herald raised his voice to its most resonant pitch. "From the Realm of Dahaut, three noble personages! I declare their identities: Lenard, Duke of Mech! Milliflor, Duke of Cadwv and Josselm! Imphal, Marquis of the Celtic March!"

King Casmir stepped forward. "Sirs, I give you welcome to Haidion!"

The three grandees performed a ritual genuflection, bobbing their right knees toward the floor, rising to hold hands out from the sides with head and shoulders still bent. The circumstances indicated an occasion of formal but less than ceremonial import. King Casmir returned them a gracious wave of the hand. "Sirs, for now I suggest that you make haste to your chambers, where warm fires and dry clothing will bring you comfort. In due course we will exchange our counsels."

Sir Milliflor responded: "Thank you, King Casmir. In truth we are wet; the cursed rain has allowed us no respite!"

The visitors were ushered away. King Casmir turned down the gallery. He noticed Suldrun and stopped short. "Eh then, what's this? Why are you not at lessons?"

Suldrun thought to gloss over Master Jaimes' absence from his duties. "I have only just finished my work for the day. I can write all the characters well, and I can use them to make up words. This morning I read a great book about the Christians."

"Ha, so read you did? Characters and all?"

"Not all the characters, Father. They were uncial and the language was Latin. I have trouble with both. But I scanned the pictures carefully, and Master Jaimes tells me that I am doing well."

"That is good to hear. Still, you must learn proper comportment and not go strolling up and down the gallery unattended."

Suldrun spoke in apprehension: "Father, sometimes I prefer to be alone."

Casmir, faintly frowning, stood with feet apart and hands behind his back. He disliked opposition to his judgments, especially from a girl so small and inexperienced. In a measured voice intended to define the facts with exactitude and finality he said: "Your preference must on occasion yield to the forces of reality."

"Yes, Father."

"You must hold in mind your importance. You are the Princess Suldrun of Lyonesse! Soon the quality of the world will be coming to woo you in marriage, and you must not seem a hoyden. We want to pick and choose, for the best advantage to yourself and the kingdom!"

Suldrun said uncertainly, "Father, marriage is nothing I care to think about."

Casmir narrowed his eyes. Again: the hint of wilfulness! In reply he used a voice of bluff jocularity. "I should hope not! You are only just a child! Still, you are never too young to be conscious of position. Do you understand the word 'diplomacy'?"

"No, Father."

"It means dealing with other countries. Diplomacy is a delicate game, like a dance. Troicinet, Dahaut, Lyonesse, the Ska and the Celts, all in pirouettes, all ready to join in threes or fours to deal the outsiders their death-blow. I must ensure that Lyonesse is not excluded from the quadrille. Do you understand my meaning?"

Suldrun considered. "I think so. I'm happy that I must not do any such dancing."

Casmir stood back, wondering whether she might have perceived his meaning all too well. He said shortly: "That's all for now; be off with you to your proper quarters! I will speak to Lady Desdea; she will find you a suitable set of companions." Suldrun started to explain that she needed no new companions, but glancing up into King Casmir's face, she held her tongue and turned away.

In order to obey King Casmir's command in its exact and literal sense, Suldrun ascended to her chambers in the East Tower. Dame Maugelin sat snoring in a chair, with her head thrown back.

Suldrun looked out the window, to discover the steady fall of rain. She thought a moment, then slipped past Dame Maugelin into her dressing-room and changed into a frock woven from dark green linen. With a final demure over-the-shoulder glance toward Dame Maugelin she left the chambers. King Casmir's order had been obeyed; if he chanced to see her she could demonstrate as much by her change of garments.

Daintily, step by step, she descended the stairs to the Octagon. Here she halted to look and listen. The Long Gallery was empty; no sound. She wandered an enchanted palace where everyone drowsed.

Suldrun ran to the Great Hall. The gray light which managed to seep through the high windows was lost in the shadows. On silent feet, she went to a tall narrow portal in the long wall, looked over her shoulder, mouth twitching up at the corners. Then she tugged open the massive door and slipped into the Hall of Honors.

The light, as in the Great Hall, was gray and dim, and the solemnity of the chamber was enhanced. As always, fifty-four tall chairs ranged the walls to left and right and all seemed to stare in brooding disdain at the table which, with four attendant and lesser chairs, had been placed at the center of the room.

Suldrun surveyed the interloping furniture with equal disapproval. It intruded into the space between the tall chairs, and impeded their easy intercourse. Why would anyone do so clumsy a deed? No doubt the arrival of the three grandees had dictated the arrangement. The thought stopped Suldrun in her tracks. She decided to depart the Hall of Honors at once... But not quickly enough. From outside the door: voices. Suldrun, startled, froze into a statue. Then she ran back and forth in confusion, and finally darted behind the throne.

At her back lay the dark red gonfalon. Suldrun slipped through the slit in the fabric into the storage room. By standing close to the hanging and twitching open the slit, Suldrun watched a pair of footmen enter the hall. Today they wore splendid ceremonial livery: scarlet puff-pantaloons, black and red striped hose, black shoes with curled tips, ocher tabards embroidered with the Tree of Life. They paced around the room setting alight the wall sconces. Two other footmen carried in a pair of heavy black iron candelabra, which they set on the table. The candles, each two inches thick and molded from bayberry wax, were also set alight; Suldrun had never seen the Hall of Honors so resplendent.

She began to feel annoyed with herself. She was the Princess Suldrun and need not hide from footmen; still, she remained in concealment. News traveled quickly among the corridors of Haidion; if the footmen saw her, soon Dame Maugelin would know, then Dame Boudetta, and who knows how high the story might rise?

The footmen completed their preparations and retired from the room, leaving the doors open.

Suldrun stepped out into the chamber. Beside the throne she paused to listen, face slantwise, fragile and pale, alive with excitement. Suddenly bold, she ran out across the chamber. She heard new sounds: the jingle of metal, the tramp of heavy footsteps; in a panic she turned and ran back behind the throne. Looking over her shoulder she glimpsed King Casmir in full panoply of might and majesty. He marched into the Hall of Honors, head high, chin and short blond beard jutting. The flames from the sconces reflected from his crown: a simple gold band under a circlet of silver laurel leaves. He wore a long black cape trailing almost to his heels, black and brown doublet, black trousers, black ankle-boots. He carried no weapon and wore no ornament. His face as usual was cold and impassive. To Suldrun he seemed the embodiment of awful pomp; she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under the gonfalon into the back room. Finally she dared to stand erect and peer through the slit. King Casmir had failed to notice a twitching of the gonfalon. He stood by the table with his back to Suldrun, hands on the chair in front of him.

Heralds entered the room, two by two, to the number of eight, each bearing a standard displaying the Lyonesse Tree of Life. They took positions along the back wall. Into the room marched the three grandees who had arrived earlier in the day.

King Casmir stood waiting until the three had separated to stand by their chairs, then seated himself, followed by his three guests.

Stewards placed beside each man a silver chalice which the chief steward filled with dark red wine from an alabaster pitcher. He then bowed and departed the room, and after him, the footmen and then the heralds. The four sat alone at the table.

King Casmir held aloft his chalice. "I propose joy to our hearts, fulfillment to our needs and success to those goals which we hold in mutuality."

The four men drank wine. King Casmir said: "Now then, to our affairs. We sit in informality and privacy; let us speak in candor, without restraint. Such a discussion will yield benefit to us all."

"We will take you at your word," spoke Sir Milliflor. He smiled a thin smile. "Still, I doubt if our hearts' desires run quite so closely in conjunction as you envision."

"Let me define a position which all of us must endorse," said King Casmir. "I cite the memory of the olden times, when a single rule maintained a halcyon peace. Since then we have known incursions, pillage, war and suspicion. The two Ulflands are poisonous wastes, where only the Ska, robbers and wild beasts dare walk abroad. The Celts are suppressed only by dint of constant vigilance, as Sir Imphal will attest."

"I do so attest," said Sir Imphal.

"Then I will put the matter into simple terms," said King Casmir. "Dahaut and Lyonesse must work in concert. With this combined force under a single command, we can drive the Ska out of the Ulflands, and subdue the Celts. Next Dascinet, then Troicinet; and the Elder Isles are once more whole. First: the merging of our two lands."

Sir Milliflor spoke. "Your statements are beyond debate. We are halted by a set of questions: Who becomes preeminent? Who leads the armies? Who rules the realm?"

"These are blunt questions," said King Casmir. "Let the answers wait until we are agreed in principle, then we will examine such possibilities."

Sir Milliflor said: "We are agreed on the principles. Let us now explore the real issues. King Audry sits on the ancient throne Evandig; will you concede his preeminence?"

"I cannot do so. Still, we can rule in tandem as equals. Neither King Audry nor Prince Dorcas are stern soldiers. I will command the armies; King Audry shall conduct the diplomacy."

Sir Lenard uttered a grim laugh. "At the first difference of opinion the armies might well overcome the diplomats."

King Casmir also laughed. "That condition need not arise. Let King Audry rule supreme until his death. Then I will rule until my death. Prince Dorcas shall succeed me. In the event that he breeds no sons. Prince Cassander will be next in line."

"That is an interesting concept," said Sir Milliflor drily. "King Audry is old, and you are relatively young; need I remind you? Prince Dorcas might wait thirty years for his crown."

"Possibly so," said King Casmir without interest.

"King Audry has instructed us," said Sir Milliflor. "His anxieties are similar to yours, but he is wary of your notorious ambitions. He suggests that you would like Dahaut to engage the Ska, thereby allowing you to attack Troicinet."

King Casmir sat silent a moment, then stirred and spoke. "Will Audry agree to a joint effort against the Ska?"

"He will indeed, if the armies are under his command."

"Has he no alternate proposals?"

"He notes that the Princess Suldrun will soon arrive at marriageable age. He suggests the possibility of betrothal between Princess Suldrun and Prince Whemus of Dahaut."

King Casmir leaned back in his chair. "Whemus is his third son?"

"That is true, your Majesty."*

          *The honorifics of the time are modified by a hundred special cases. It is impossible to

            translate them into contemporary terms with both crisp-ness and accuracy; they will

            therefore be rendered in more familiar, if simplistic, terms.

King Casmir smiled and touched his short blond beard. "Let us, rather, unite his first daughter, the Princess Cloire, with my nephew Sir Nonus Roman."

"We will dutifully convey your suggestion to the court at Avallon."

King Casmir drank from the chalice; the emissaries courteously drank as well. King Casmir looked from face to face. "Are you then merely messengers? Or in truth can you negotiate?"

Sir Milliflor said: "We may negotiate within the limits set by our instructions. Would you care to rephrase your proposal in the simplest way, without euphemism?"

King Casmir picked up the chalice in his two hands, held it to chin level, and turned his pale blue eyes over the top. "I propose that the assembled might of Lyonesse and Dahaut, under my command, attack the Ska and drive them back out across the Atlantic, and that next we subdue the Celts. I propose that we join our kingdoms not only through cooperation but also through marriage. Either Audry or I will die first. The survivor shall thereupon rule the joint kingdoms, to be known as the Kingdom of The Elder Isles, in the old fashion. My daughter Princess Suldrun shall marry the Prince Dorcas. My son Prince Cassander shall marry—suitably.  So much I propose."

"The proposal has much in common with our position," said Sir Lenard. "King Audry prefers that military operations conducted on the soil of Dahaut be commanded by himself. Secondly—"

The negotiations proceeded another hour, but only emphasized the mutual inflexibility. Since nothing more had been expected the conversations ended on a polite basis. The envoys departed the Hall of Honors, that they might rest before the evening's banquet, while King Casmir remained brooding alone at the table. In the back room Suldrun watched in fascination, then in panic as King Casmir picked up one of the candelabra, turned and with heavy steps walked toward the back chamber.

Suldrun stood paralyzed. Her presence was known! She turned, darted to the side, ducked into the corner beside a storage case, and pulled a fragment of old rag over her shining hair.

The hangings parted; candlelight flickered through the chamber. Suldrun crouched, awaiting the voice of King Casmir. But he stood in silence, nostrils dilated, perhaps sensing the fragrance of the lavender sachet in which Suldrun's clothes were laid. He looked over his shoulder, then went to the back wall. From a crevice he took a thin iron rod, which he pushed into a small hole at the level of his knee, then into another somewhat higher. A door opened, emitting a light quivering and almost palpable, like a flickering alternation of purple and green. Out from the room flowed the thrilling tingle of magic. A pair of high-pitched voices produced a babbling outcry.

"Silence," said King Casmir. He entered the room and closed the door.

Suldrun jumped from the corner and departed the room. She ran across the Hall of Honors, slipped out into the Great Hall and thence to the Long Gallery. Once more, she went sedately to her rooms, where Dame Maugelin scolded her for soiled clothes and a dirty face.

Suldrun bathed, dressed in a warm robe. She went to the window with her lute and pretended to practice, making such energetic discords that Dame Maugelin threw up her hands and went elsewhere.

Suldrun was left alone. She put the lute aside and sat looking across the landscape. The time was late afternoon; the weather had broken; sunlight glistened on the wet roofs of Lyonesse Town.

Slowly, incident by incident, Suldrun reviewed the events of the day.

The three envoys from Dahaut interested her little, except that they wanted to take her away to Avallon and marry her to a strange man. Never! She would run away; she would become a peasant, or a minstrel girl, or gather mushrooms in the woods! The secret room behind the Hall of Honors in itself seemed neither extraordinary nor remarkable. In fact, it only corroborated certain of her half-formed suspicions regarding King Casmir, who wielded such absolute and awful power!

Dame Maugelin returned to the room, panting in haste and excitement. "Your father commands you to the banquet. He wishes you to be everything a beautiful princess of Lyonesse should be. Do you hear? You may wear your blue velvet gown and your moonstones. At all times remember court etiquette! Don't spill your food; drink very little wine. Speak only when you are addressed, then respond with courtesy and without chewing your words. Neither titter, nor scratch yourself, nor wriggle in your chair as if your bottom itched. Do not belch, gurgle or gulp. If someone breaks wind, do not stare or point or attempt to place the blame. Naturally you will control yoursell as well; nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess. Come! I must brush your hair."

In the morning Suldrun went to take her lessons in the library, but again Master Jaimes was not on hand, nor on the day after, nor the day after. Suldrun became a trifle miffed. Surely Master Jaimes might have communicated with her despite his indisposition. For an entire week she ostentatiously absented herself from the library, but still no word from Master Jaimes!

In sudden alarm Suldrun sought out Dame Boudetta, who sent a footman to Master Jaimes' bleak little cell in the West Tower. The footman discovered Master Jaimes outstretched and dead on his pallet. His fever had become pneumonia, and he had died with no one the wiser.

Chapter 4

ONE MORNING OF THE SUMMER before Suldrun's tenth birthday she went to the third floor parlor in the squat old Tower of Owls for her dancing lesson. The room itself she thought perhaps the finest of all Haidion. A well-waxed birch parquetry floor reflected light from three windows draped with a pearl-gray satin. Furniture upholstered in pale gray and scarlet ranged the walls; and Mistress Laletta made sure that fresh flowers were to be found on all the tables. The students included eight boys and eight girls of high degree, ranging in age from eight to twelve. Suldrun judged them a mixed lot: some agreeable, others tiresome and dull.

Mistress Laletta, a slender dark-eyed young woman of gentle birth but few prospects, taught competently and showed no favoritism; Suldrun neither liked nor disliked her.

On this morning Mistress Laletta was indisposed and could not teach. Suldrun returned to her chambers to discover Dame Maugelin lying grandly naked on Suldrun's bed, mounted by a hearty young footman named Lopus.

Suldrun watched in startled fascination until Dame Maugelin caught sight of her and uttered a horrified cry.

"Disgusting!" said Suldrun. "And in my bed!"

Lopus, sheepishly disengaging himself, drew on his breeches and departed. Dame Maugelin dressed herself no less hastily, meanwhile making jovial small-talk. "Back so soon from dancing, my dear Princess? Well, then, did you have a good lesson? What you saw was nothing of moment, just a bit of play. Better, far better, if no one knew—" Suldrun spoke in annoyance: "You've soiled my bed!"

"Now then, dear Princess—"

"Take all the bedding out—no, first go wash yourself, then bring in all clean bedding and air the room well!"

"Yes, dear Princess." Dame Maugelin hastened to obey, and Suldrun ran off down the stairs, with a lift of the spirits, a skip and a gleeful laugh. Dame Maugelin's strictures might now be dismissed, and Suldrun could do as she pleased.

Suldrun ran up the arcade, scanned the Urquial to make sure that no one watched, then ducked under the old larch and thrust open the groaning old gate. She squeezed through, shut the gate and descended the winding path past the fane and into the garden.

The day was bright and sunny; the air smelled sweet of heliotrope and fresh green leaves. Suldrun surveyed the garden with satisfaction. She had uprooted all those weeds she considered rank and crass, including all the nettles and most of the thistles; the garden now was almost orderly. She had swept leaves and dirt from the tessellated floor of the old villa, and had cleared detritus from the bed of a little stream which trickled down one side of the ravine. There was still much to do, but not today.

Standing in the shadow of a column, she opened the clasp at her shoulder, let her gown drop around her ankles and stepped away naked. Sunlight tingled on her skin; cool air produced a delicious contrast of sensations.

She moved down through the garden. Just so must a dryad feel, thought Suldrun; just so must it move, in just such a hush, with no sound but the sigh of the wind in the leaves.

She halted in the shade of the solitary old lime tree, then continued down to the beach to see what the waves had brought in. When the wind blew from the southwest, as was often the case, the currents swung around the headland and curled into her little cove, bringing all manner of stuff to the beach until the next high tide, when the same current lifted the articles and took them away once more. Today the beach was clean. Suldrun ran back and forth, skirting the surf as it moved along the coarse sand. She halted to scrutinize a rock fifty yards out under the headland, where she once had discovered a pair of young mermaids. They had seen her and called out, but they used a slow strange language Suldrun could not understand. Their olive-green hair hung about their pale shoulders; their lips and the nipples of their breasts were also a pale green. One waved and Suldrun saw the webbing between her fingers. Both turned and looked offshore to where a bearded merman reared from the waves. He called out in a hoarse windy voice; the mermaids slipped from the rocks and disappeared.

Today the rocks were bare. Suldrun turned and walked slowly up into the garden.

She dressed in her rumpled frock and returned to the top of the ravine. First a peek through the gateway to make sure no one watched, then quickly through and a run, hop and skip back down the arcade, past the orangery and once more into Haidion.

A summer storm blowing in from the Atlantic brought a soft rain to Lyonesse Town. Suldrun was confined to Haidion. One afternoon she wandered into the Hall of Honors.

Haidion was quiet; the castle seemed to hold its breath. Suldrun walked slowly around the room, examining each of the great chairs as if to appraise its strength. The chairs in turn considered her. Some stood proud and aloof; others were surly. Some were dark and sinister, others benevolent. At the throne of King Casmir Suldrun surveyed the dark red gonfalon which concealed the back room. Nothing, she told herself, could induce her to venture within; not with magic so close.

Stepping to the side she evaded the purview of the throne and felt more at ease. There, not ten feet from her face, hung the gonfalon. Naturally she dared not enter, nor even approach, the back room... Still, to look would cause no harm.

On soft feet she sidled close to the hanging, and gently pulled it aside. Light from the high windows passed over her shoulder to fall on the far stone wall. There: in a crevice, the iron rod. There: the upper and lower lock-holes. And beyond, the room where only King Casmir might go... Suldrun let the panels come together. She turned away and, in a sober mood, departed the Hall of Honors.

Relations between Lyonesse and Troicinet, never warm, had become strained, for a variety of reasons, which, trifle by trifle, acted to create hostility. The ambitions of King Casmir excluded neither Troicinet nor Dascinet, and his spies pervaded every level of Troice society.

King Casmir was handicapped in his program by the absence of a navy. Despite a long coastline, Lyonesse lacked easy access to the sea, with blue-water ports only at Slute Skeme, Bulmer Skeme, Lyonesse Town and Pargetta behind Cape Farewell. The indented coast of Troicinet created dozens of sheltered harbors' each with piers, yards and ways. There was an amplitude both; of skilled shipwrights and good timber: hackberry and larch for knees, oak for frames, stands of young pinhead spruce for masts and a dense resinous pine for planking. Troice merchant ship: ranged north to Jutland, Britain and Ireland, south down the Atlantic to Mauretania, and the Kingdom of the Blue Men, east past Tingis and into the Mediterranean.

King Casmir considered himself a master of intrigue and sought incessantly for some trifling advantage which he might exploit. On one "occasion a heavily laden Troice cog, inching along the coast of Dascinet in a dense fog ran aground on a sand bank. Yvar Excelsus, the irascible King of Dascinet, instantly claimed the vessel and its cargo, citing maritime law, and sent lighters to unload the cargo. A pair of Troice warships appeared, repelled what was now a swarming flotilla of half-piratical Dasce, and at high tide pulled the cog into deep water.

In a fury King Yvar Excelsus sent an abusive message to King Granice at Alceinor demanding reparations, upon pain of punitive action.

King Granice, who well knew the temperament of Yvar Excelsus, ignored the message, exasperating the Dasce king almost to a state of incandescence.

King Casmir now dispatched a secret emissary to Dascinet, urging attack upon Troicinet, and promising full assistance. Troice spies intercepted the envoy and took him with his documents to Alceinor.

A week later a cask was delivered to King Casmir at Haidion, in which he discovered the body of his envoy with the documents crammed into his mouth.

Meanwhile King Yvar Excelsus became distracted by another matter, and his threats against Troicinet came to nothing.

King Granice made no further remonstrance to King Casmir, but began seriously to consider the possibility of an unwelcome war. Troicinet, with a population half that of Lyonesse, could never expect to win such a war and hence had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

From the town Pargetta, close by Cape Farewell, came ill reports of pillage and slaughter by the Ska. Two black ships, arriving at dawn, discharged troops who looted the town with a dispassionate precision more terrifying than savagery. All who interfered were killed. The Ska took crocks of olive oil, saffron, wine, gold from the Mithraic temple, tin and silver ingots, flasks of quicksilver. They took away no captives, put torches to no buildings, committed no rape or torture, and killed only those folk who impeded their robbery.

Two weeks later a Troice cog, putting into Lyonesse Town with a cargo of Irish flax, reported a disabled Ska ship in the Sea of Tethra, west of Cape Farewell. The Troice cog had put in close to discover forty Ska sitting at their benches too weak to row. The Troice had offered a tow, but the Ska refused to take a line, and the cog sailed away.

King Casmir instantly despatched three war-galleys to the area, where they found the long black ship wallowing dismasted in the swells.

The galleys drew up alongside, to discover disaster, anguish and death. A storm had broken the vessel's back-stay; the mast had collapsed upon the forepeak, crushing the water casks, and half the ship's complement already had succumbed to thirst.

Nineteen men survived; too weak to offer resistance, they were taken aboard the Lyonesse ships and given water. A line was made fast to the long-ship; the corpses were thrown overboard and all returned to Lyonesse Town, and the Ska were jailed in an old fort at the west end of the harbor. King Casmir, riding his horse Sheuvan, went down to the harbor to inspect the long-ship. The contents of the forward and after cargo holds had been conveyed to the dock: a case of gold and silver temple adornments, glass jars of saffron gathered from the sheltered valleys behind Cape Farewell, pottery urns stamped with the symbol of the Bulmer Skeme press.

King Casmir inspected the loot and the long-ship, then rode Sheuvan around the Chale to the fortress. At his command the prisoners were brought out and ranked before him, to stand blinking into the sunlight: tall dark-haired men, pale of complexion, thin and sinewy rather than massive. They looked about them with the easy curiosity of honored guests, and spoke to each other in soft measured voices.

King Casmir addressed the group. "Which among you is captain of the vessel?"

The Ska turned to look at him, politely enough, but no one answered.

King Casmir pointed to a man in the front rank. "Which man among you is in authority? Point him out."

"The captain is dead. We are all 'dead.' Authority is gone, and everything else of life."

"To me you appear quite alive," said Casmir, smiling coldly.

"We reckon ourselves dead."

"Because you expect to be killed? Suppose I allowed you ransom?"

"Who would ransom a dead man?"

King Casmir made an impatient gesture. "I want information, not garble and cant." He looked through the group and in one man, somewhat older than the others, thought to recognize the| quality of authority. "You will remain here." He signaled the guards. "Take the others back to confinement."

King Casmir took the man he had selected aside. "Are you also 'dead'?"

"I am no longer among the living Ska. To my family, my comrades and myself, I am dead."

"Tell me this: Suppose I wished to confer with your king would he come to Lyonesse under guarantees of protection?

"Naturally not." The Ska seemed amused.

"Suppose I wished to explore the possibility of an alliance:

"To what end?"

"The Ska navy and the seven Lyonesse armies, acting in concert, might be invincible."

"'Invincible'? Against whom?"

King Casmir disliked anyone who pretended to more acuity than himself. "Against all others of the Elder Isles! Whom else?"

"You imagine the Ska assisting you against your enemies?  The idea is preposterous. If I were alive I would laugh. The Ska are at war with all the world, including Lyonesse."

"That is no vindication. I am about to adjudge you a pirate." The Ska looked up at the sun, around the sky and out over the sea. "Do as you like. We are dead."

King Casmir showed a grim smile. "Dead or not, your fate shall serve to daunt other murderers, and the time shall be noon tomorrow."

Along the breakwater nineteen frames were erected. The night passed; the day dawned bright and clear. By mid-morning crowds had assembled along the Chale, including folk from coastal villages, peasants in clean smocks and bell-hats, vendors of sages and dried fish. On the rocks west of the Chale crawled cripples, lepers and the weak-minded, in accordance with the statutes of Lyonesse.

The sun reached the zenith. The Ska were led from the fortress. Each was spread-eagled naked to a frame and hung upside down, facing out to sea. Down from the Peinhador came Zerling, the Chief Executioner. He walked along the row, stopped by each man, slit the abdomen, drew out the intestines with a double-pronged hook, so that they fell over the chest and head, then moved on to the next. A black and yellow flag was hoisted at the entrance to the harbor, and the dying men were left to themselves.

Dame Maugelin pulled an embroidered bonnet over her head and went down to the Chale. Suldrun thought that she might be left to herself, but Dame Boudetta took her to the balcony outside the Queen's bedchamber, where ladies of the court gathered to watch the execution. At noon the conversations halted and all pressed to the balustrade to view the proceedings. As Zerling went about his duties, the ladies sighed and made murmuring sounds. Suldrun was lifted to the balustrade the better that she might learn the fate accorded to outlaws. In fascinated revulsion she watched Zerling saunter from man to man, but distance concealed the details of his work.

Few of the ladies present spoke favorably of the occasion. For Lady Duisane and Lady Ermoly who suffered poor vision, the distances were too great. Lady Spaneis pronounced the affair simply dull. "It was like butcher's work upon dead animals; the Ska showed neither fear nor penitence; what kind of execution is that?" Queen Sollace grumbled: "Worst of all, the wind blows directly across the harbor and into our windows. In three days the stink will drive us off to Sarris."

Suldrun listened in hope and excitement; Sarris was the summer palace, some forty miles to the east beside the river Glame.

But there was no instant removal to Sarris, despite the inclinations of Queen Sollace. The corpses were quickly scavenged by carrion birds. King Casmir became bored with the frames and the fragments of bone and gristle hanging at odd angles, and ordered the display dismantled.

Haidion was quiet. Dame Maugelin, suffering from swollen legs, lay moaning in her chamber, high in the Tower of Owls. Suldrun, alone in her room, became restless, but a blustering wind, raw and cold, dissuaded her from the secret garden.

Suldrun stood looking from the window, troubled by a sweet sad malaise. Oh! for a magic steed to carry her away througl the air! How far she would fly, across the white clouds, over the Land of the Silver River, to the mountains at the edge of the world.

For a breathless moment she thought how it would be to don her cloak, slip from the palace and be away: up the Sfer Arct to Old Street, with all the wide land before her! She sighed and smiled a wan smile for the folly of her fancies. The vagabond; she had seen from the parapets were by and large a disreputable lot, hungry and dirty and sometimes rather crass in their habits.  Such a life lacked appeal, and now, as she considered the matter, Suldrun decided that she very much enjoyed shelter from the wind and rain and nice clean clothes and the dignity of her person.

If only she had a magic carriage which at night became a little cottage where she could dine on the things she liked and sleep in a snug bed!

She sighed once more. An idea came into her mfnd. She licked her lips at the audacity. Dared she? What harm could be done, if she were extremely careful? She thought a moment, lips pursed and head tilted sideways: the definitive image of a girl planning mischief.

At the hearth Suldrun put flame to the candle in her night-lamp and drew down the hood. Carrying the candle she descended the stairs.

The Hall of Honors was dim and dreary, and quiet as the grave. Suldrun entered the chamber with exaggerated stealth. Today the great chairs gave her small attention. The unfriendly chairs maintained a stony reserve; the kind chairs seemed absorbed in their own affairs. Very well, let them ignore her. Today she would ignore them as well.

Suldrun went around the throne to the back wall, where she slid the hood from her candle. Just one look; that was all she intended. She was far too wise a girl to venture into danger. She pushed aside the hanging. Candlelight illuminated the room, and the stone wall to the rear.

Suldrun hurriedly found the iron rod; if she hesitated her daring might desert her. Quick then! She pushed the rod into the holes, bottom and top, and returned the iron to its place. The door shuddered open, releasing a plane of purple-green light. Suldrun moved a tentative step forward; no more than a peep or two! Wary now, and slow! Magic had its entrapments: so much she knew.

She eased the door open. The room swam in layers of colored light: green, purple, persimmon red. To one side was a table supporting a peculiar instrument of glass and carved black wood. Flasks, bottles and squat stoneware pots were ranged on shelves, as well as books, librams, touch-stones and mogrifiers. Suldrun came a cautious pace forward. A soft throaty voice called out: "Who comes to see us, quiet as a mouse, a nose at a time, with small white fingers and the smell of flowers?"

A second voice said: "Come in, come in! Perhaps you will do a kind service, to earn our blessings and our rewards."

On the table Suldrun saw a green glass bottle of a size to hold a gallon. The mouth fitted tightly about the neck of a double-headed homunculus, so that only its two small heads protruded. These were squat, no larger than cat-size, with wrinkled bald pates, snapping black eyes, a nose and oral apparatus of tough brown horn. The body was obscured by the glass and a dark liquid, like strong beer. The heads craned to look at Suldrun, and both spoke: "Ah, what a pretty girl!" "And kind-hearted as well!" "Yes, that's Princess Suldrun; already she is known for good works." "Have you heard how she nursed a little sparrow back to its health?" "Come a bit closer, my dear, so that we may enjoy your beauty."

Suldrun remained where she stood. Other objects claimed her attention, but all seemed curious and items to excite amazement rather than functional equipment. An urn exuded the colored light which like liquid flowed down or drifted up to its proper level. On the wall hung an octagonal mirror in a frame of tarnished wood. Farther along, pegs supported a quasi-human skeleton of black bones, slender as withes. From the shoulder blades protruded a pair of curving pinions, punctured with dozens of sockets, from which might have grown feathers, or scales. The skeleton of a demon? Looking into the eye sockets Suldrun felt an eery conviction that the creature had never flown the air of Earth.

The imps called out in hearty tones: "Suldrun, beautiful princess! Step forward!" "Give us the benefit of your presence!"

Suldrun moved a step farther into the room. She bent to examine a plumb-bob suspended over a dish of roiling quicksilver. On the wall above a leaden tablet displayed a set of crabbed black characters which altered as she watched.  a remarkable object indeed.  Suldrun wondered what the characters portended; they were like none she had seen before.

A voice issued from the mirror, and Suldrun saw that a lower section of the frame had been shaped to represent a wide mouth curled up at the corners. "The characters read thus: 'Suldrun sweet Suldrun, leave this room before harm arrives upon you!'

Suldrun looked about her. "What would harm me?"

"Let the bottled imps clamp your hair or your fingers and youl will learn the meaning of harm."

The two heads spoke at the same time: "What a wicked remark! We are as faithful as doves." "Oh! It is bitter to be maligned, when we cannot seek redress for the wrong!"

Suldrun shrank even farther to the side. She turned to the mirror. "Who is it that is speaking?"

"Persilian."

"You are kind to warn me."

"Perhaps. Perversity moves me from time to time."

Suldrun came cautiously forward. "May I look in the mirror?"

"Yes, but be warned: what you see you may not like!"

Suldrun paused to reflect. What might she not wish to see? If anything the concept twitched at her curiosity. She slid a three-legged stool across the room and climbed upon it, so that she looked into the mirror. "Persiiian; I see nothing. It is like looking into the sky."

The surface of the mirror moved; for an instant a face looked into her own: a man's face. Dark hair curled down past a flawless complexion; fine eyebrows curved over lustrous dark eyes; a straight nose complemented a full supple mouth.. .The magic faded. Suldrun again stared into a void. In a thoughtful voice she asked: "Who was that?"

"If ever you meet him, he will pronounce his name. If you see him never again, then his name will serve you no purpose."

"Persilian, you mock me."

"Perhaps. From time to time I demonstrate the inconceivable, or mock the innocent, or give truth to liars, or shred the poses of virtue—all as perversity strikes me. now I am silent; this is my mood."

Suldrun climbed down from the stool, blinking at tears which had come to her eyes. She felt confused and depressed . The two-headed goblin suddenly stretched one of its necks and with its beak seized at Suldrun's hair. It caught only a few strands which it snatched out by the roots. Suldrun stumbled from the room. She started to close the door, then remembered her candle.  She she ran back into the roorn snatched the candle and left.  The jeering cries of the two-headed goblin were muffled by the closing of the door.

Chapter 5

ON THE DAY OF BELTANE, in the spring of the year following Suldrun's eleventh birthday, occurred the ancient rite known as Blodfadh, or "Coming into Flower." With twenty-three other girls of noble lineage, Suldrun stepped through a circlet of white roses, and then led a pavanne with Prince Bellath of Caduz for a partner. Bellath, at the age of sixteen years was spare rather than sturdy. His features were crisp, well-shaped if somewhat austere; his manners were precisely correct and pleasantly modest. In certain qualities he reminded Suldrun of someone else she had known. Who could it be? She searched her mind in vain. As they stepped the careful measures of the pavanne, she studied his face, to discover that he was giving her a similar scrutiny.

Suldrun had decided that she liked Bellath. She laughed selfconsciously. "Why do you watch me so intently?"

Bellath asked half-apologetically, "Shall I tell you the truth?"

"Of course."

"Very well, but you must control your anguish. 1 have been told that you and I are eventually to marry."

Suldrun could find nothing to say. In silence they performed the stately evolutions of the dance.

Bellath finally spoke in anxiety: "I hope that you are not disturbed by what I said?"

"No... I must marry one day—so I suppose. I am not ready to think about it."

Later that night, as she lay in her bed considering the events of the day, Suldrun recalled of whom Prince Bellath reminded her: it was none other than Master Jaimes.

Blodfadh brought changes to Suldrun's life. Despite her inclinations she was moved from her dear and familiar chambers in the East Tower to more commodious quarters on the next floor below, and Prince Cassander moved into Suldrun's old rooms.

Two months previously, Dame Maugelin had died of the dropsy. Her place was taken by a seamstress and a pair of maids.

To Dame Boudetta was given supervision of Prince Cassander.  The new archivist a wizened little pedant named Julias Sagamudus became Suldrun's instructor in orthography, history and calculation with numbers. For the enhancement of her maidenly graces Suldrun was given into the charge of the Lady Desdea, widow of Queen Sollace's brother, who resided permanently at Haidion and performed genteel duties at the languid behest of Queen Sollace. Forty years old, without prooerty, large-boned, tall, with overly large features and bad breath, Lady Desdea had no prospects whatever; still she beguiled herself with impossible fantasies.  She primped, powdered, and perfumed herself; she dressed her chestnut hair in high style, with a complicated bun at the back and twin sponsons of crisp curls confined in nets over her ears.

Suldrun's fresh young beauty and easy absentminded habits rasped the most sensitive fibers of Lady Desdea's disposition. Suldrun's visits to the old garden had now become generally known. Lady Desdea automatically disapproved. For a highborn maiden—or any other kind of maiden—the desire for privacy was not only eccentric; it was absolutely suspicious. Suldrun was somewhat too young to have taken to herself a lover. And yet... The idea was absurd. Her breasts were but nubbins. Still, might she have been beguiled by a faun, who were known to be partial to the tart-sweet charms of young maidens?

So went Lady Desdea's thinking. One day she blandly suggested that Suldrun escort her through the garden. Suldrun tried to evade the issue. "You wouldn't like the place. The path goes over rocks, and there is nothing much to see."

"Still, I think I would like to visit this place."

Suldrun studiously said nothing, but Lady Desdea persisted. "The weather is fine. Suppose we take our little walk now."

"You must excuse me, my lady," said Suldrun politely. "This is a place where I go only when I am alone."

Lady Desdea raised high her thin chestnut eyebrows. "'Alone'? It is not seemly that young ladies of your place should wander alone through remote areas."

Suldrun spoke in a placid and offhand manner, as if enunciating a known truth. "There is no harm enjoying one's private garden.

Lady Desdea could find nothing to say. Later she reported Suldrun's obstinacy to Queen Sollace, who at the moment was testing a new pomade formulated from the wax of lilies. "I've heard something of this," said Queen Sollace, rubbing a gobbet of white cream along her wrist. "She is a strange creature. At her age I had eyes for several gallant lads, but as for Suldrun such ideas never enter her odd little head... Ha! This offers a rich scent! Feel the unction!"

On the next day the sun shone fair among small high cloud-tufts. Reluctantly to her lessons with Julias Sagamundus went Suldrun wearing a prim little lavender and white striped gown gathered high up under her breasts and trimmed with lace at hem and collar. Perched on a stool, Suldrun dutifully wrote the ornate Lyonesse script with a gray goose-quill, so fine and long that the tip twitched a foot above her head. Suldrun found herself gazing out the window ever more frequently, and the characters began to straggle.

Julias Sagamundus, seeing how the wind blew, sighed once or twice, but without emphasis. He took the quill from Suldrun's fingers, packed his exercise books, quills, inks and parchments, and went off about his own affairs. Suldrun climbed down from the stool and stood rapt by the window, as if listening to far music. She turned and left the library.

Lady Desdea emerged into the gallery from the Green Parlor, where King Casmir had instructed her in careful detail. She was only just in time to notice the lavender and white flutter of Suldrun's dress as she disappeared into the Octagon.

Lady Desdea hurried after, heavy with King Casmir's instructions. She went into the Octagon, looked right and left, then went outside, to glimpse Suldrun already at the end of the arcade.

"Ah, Miss Sly-boots!" said Lady Desdea to herself. "Now we shall see. But presently, presently!" She tapped her mouth with her finger, then went up to Suldrun's chambers, and there put inquiries to the maids. Neither knew Suldrun's whereabouts. "No matter," said Lady Desdea. "I know where to find her. Now then, lay out her pale blue afternoon gown with the lace bodice, and all to match, and draw her a bath."

Lady Desdea descended to the gallery and for half an hour sauntered here and there. At last she turned back up the Long Gallery. "Now" she told herself, "now we shall see."

She ascended the arcade and passed through the tunnel ou upon the parade ground. To her right wild plum and larch shadowed an old stone wall, in which she spied a dilapidated timber door. She marched forward, ducked under the larch, pushed open the door. A path led away and down through juts and shoulders of rock.

Clutching skirts above ankles. Lady Desdea picked her way down irregular stone steps, which angled first right then left, past an old stone fane. She proceeded, taking great care not to stumble and fall, which would certainly compromise her dignity. The walls of the ravine spread apart; Lady Desdea overlooked the garden. Step by step she descended the path, and were she not so alert for mischief, she might have noticed the banks of flowers and pleasant herbs, the small stream flowing into artful pools, then tinkling down from stone to stone and into yet another pool. Lady Desdea saw only an area of rocky wasteland, uncomfortable of access, dank and unpleasantly isolated. She stumbled, hurt her foot and cursed, angry at the circumstances which had brought her so far from Haidion, and now she saw Suldrun, thirty feet along the path, quite alone (as Lady Desdea had known she must be; she had only hoped for scandal).

Suldrun heard the steps and looked up. Her eyes glowed blue in a face pale and furious.

Lady Desdea spoke peevishly: "I've hurt my foot on the stones; it's truly a shame."

Suldrun's mouth moved; she could not find words to express herself.

Lady Desdea heaved a sigh of resignation and pretended to look around her. She spoke in a voice of whimsical condescension. "So, my dear Princess, this is your little retreat." She gave an exaggerated shudder, hunching her shoulders. "Aren't you at all sensitive to the air? I feel such a dank waft; it must come from the sea." Again she looked about her, mouth pursed in amused disapproval. "Still, it's a wild little nook, like the world must have been before men appeared. Come, child, show me about."

Fury contorted Suldrun's face, so that teeth showed through her clenched mouth. She raised her hand and pointed. "Go! Go away from here!"

Lady Desdea drew herself up. "My dear child, you are rude. I am only concerned with your welfare and I do not deserve your spite."

Suldrun spoke wildly: "I don't want you here! 1 don't want you around me at all! Go away!"

Lady Desdea stood back, her face an ugly mask. She seethed with conflicting impulses. Most urgently she wanted to find a switch, lift the impudent child's skirt and lay half a dozen goodly stripes across her bottom: an act in which she dared not indulge herself. Backing away a few steps, she spoke in dreary reproach: "You are the most ungrateful of children. Do you think it pleasure to instruct you in all that is noble and good, and guide your innocence through the pitfalls of the court, when you fail to respect me? 1 look for love and trust; I find rancor. Is this my reward? I struggle to do my duty; I am told to go away." Her voice became a ponderous drone. Suldrun turned half-away and gave her attention to the flight of a rock-swallow, then another. She watched ocean swells crashing through the offshore rocks, then come twinkling and foaming up to her beach. Lady Desdea spoke on. "I must make clear: not for my benefit do I clamber through rock and thistle to notify you of duties such as today's important reception, as I now have done. No, I must accept the role of meddlesome Lady Desdea. You have been instructed and I can do no more."

Lady Desdea swung around her haunches, trudged up the path and departed the garden. Suldrun watched her go with brooding gaze. There had been an indefinable air of satisfaction in the swing of her arms and the poise of her head. Suldrun wondered what it meant.

The better to protect King Deuel of Pomperol and his retinue from the sun, a canopy of red and yellow silk, the colors of Pomperol, had been erected across the great courtyard at Haidion. Under this canopy King Casmir, King Deuel, and various persons of high degree came to take their pleasure at an informal banquet.

King Deuel, a thin sinewy man of middle years, carried himself with mercurial energy and zest. He had brought only a small entourage: his only son, Prince Kestrel; four knights, sundry aides and lackeys; so that, as King Deuel expressed it, "we are free as birds, those blessed creatures who soar the air, to go where we wish, at our own speed and pleasure!"

Prince Kestrel had achieved his fifteenth year and resembled his father only in his ginger colored hair.  Otherwise he was staid and phlegmatic, with a fleshy torso and placid expression.  King Casmir none-the-less thought of Kestrel as a possible match for the princess Suldrun, if options more advantageous were not open, and so arranged that a place for Suldrun be laid at the banquet table.

When the place remained vacant, King Casmir spoke sharply to Queen Sollace: "Where is Suldrun?"

Queen Sollace gave her marmoreal shoulders a slow shrug.  "I can't say.  She is unpredictable.  I find it easiest to leave her to her own devices."

"All well and good.  Nevertheless I command her presence!"

Queen Sollace shrugged once more and reached for a sugarplum. "In that case Lady Desdea must inform us."

King Casmir looked over his shoulder to a footman. "Bring here the Lady Desdea,"

King Deuel meanwhile enjoyed the antics of trained animals, which King Casmir had ordained for his pleasure. Bears in blue cocked hats tossed balls back and forth; four wolves in costumes of pink and yellow satin danced a quadrille; six herons with as many crows marched in formation.

King Deuel applauded the spectacle, and was especially enthusiastic in regard to the birds: "Splendid! Are they not worthy creatures, stately and wise? Notice the grace of their marching! A pace: so! Another pace: just so!"

King Casmir acknowledged the compliment with a stately gesture. "I take it that you are partial to birds?"

"I consider them remarkably fine. They fly with an easy courage and a grace far exceeding our own capabilities!"

"Exactly true... Excuse me, I must have a word with Lady Desdea. King Casmir turned aside. "Where is Suldrun?"

Lady Desdea feigned puzzlement. "Is she not here? Most odd! She is stubborn, and perhaps a bit wayward, but I cannot believe her to be wilfully disobedient."

"Where is she then?"

Lady Desdea made a facetious grimace and waved her fingers. "As I say, she is a headstrong child and given to vagaries. Now she has taken a fancy to an old garden under the Urquial. I have tried to dissuade her, but she makes it her favored resort."

King Casmir spoke brusquely. "And she is there now? Unattended?"

"Your Majesty, she permits no one in the garden but herself, or so it would seem. I spoke to her and communicated Your Majesty's wishes. She would not listen and sent me away. I assume she remains still in the garden."

King Deuel sat enthralled by the performance of a trained ape walking a tightrope. King Casmir murmured an excuse, and strode away. Lady Desdea went about her own affairs with a pleasant sense of achievement.

King Casmir had not set foot in the old garden for twenty years. He descended along a path paved with pebbles set into sand, among trees, herbs and flowers. Halfway to the beach he came upon Suldrun. She knelt in the path, working pebbles into the sand.

Suldrun looked up without surprise. King Casmir silently surveyed the garden, then looked down at Suldrun, who slowly rose to her feet. King Casmir spoke in a flat voice. "Why did you not heed my orders?"

Suldrun stared in slack-jawed puzzlement. "What orders?"

"I required your attendance upon King Deuel of Pomperol and his son Prince Kestrel."

Suldrun cast back into her memory and now recovered the echo of Lady Desdea's voice. Squinting off toward the sea she said: "Lady Desdea might have said something. She talks so much that I seldom listen."

King Casmir allowed a wintry smile to enliven his face. He also felt that Lady Desdea spoke at unnecessary length. Once more he inspected the garden. "Why do you come here?"

Suldrun said haltingly: "I am alone here. No one troubles me."

"But, are you not lonely?"

"No. I pretend that the flowers talk to me."

King Casmir grunted. Such fancies in a princess were unnecessary and impractical. Perhaps she was indeed eccentric.  "Should you not entertain yourself among other maids of your station?"

"Father, I do so, at my dancing lessons."

King Casmir examined her dispassionately. She had tucked a small white flower into her gleaming dusty-gold hair; her features were regular and delicate. For the first time King Casmir saw his daughter as something other than a beautiful absent-minded child.

"Come along" he said gruffly. "We shall go at; once to the reception. Your costume is far from adequate but neither King Deuel nor Kestrel will think the worse of you." He noticed Suldrun's melancholy expression.  "Well then, are you reluctant for a banquet?"

"Father, these are strangers; why must I meet them today?"

"Because in due course you must marry and Kestrel might be the most advantageous match."

Suldrun's face fell even further. "1 thought that I was to marry Prince Bellath of Caduz."

King Casmir's face became hard. "Where did you hear that?"

"Prince Bellath told me himself."

King Casmir voiced a harsh laugh. "Three weeks ago, Bellath became betrothed to Princess Mahaeve of Dahaut."

Suldrun's mouth sagged. "Is she not already a grown woman?"

"She is nineteen years old and ill-favored to boot. But no matter; he obeyed his father the king, who chose Dahaut over Lyonesse, to his great folly as he will learn... So you became fond of Bellath?"

"I liked him well enough."

"It's of no consequence now. We need both Pomperol and Caduz; if we make a match with Deuel, we'll have them both. Come along, and mind you, show courtesy to Prince Kestrel." He turned on his heel. Suldrun followed him up the path on laggard feet.

At the reception she was seated beside Prince Kestrel, who practiced lofty airs upon her. Suldrun failed to notice. Both Kestrel and the circumstances bored her.

In the autumn of the year King Quairt of Caduz and Prince Bellath went to hunt in the Long Hills. They were set upon by masked bandits and killed. Caduz was thereby plunged into confusion, forboding and doubt.

In Lyonesse King Casmir discovered a claim to the throne of Caduz, stemming from his grandfather Duke Cassander, brother to Queen Lydia of Caduz.

The claim, based upon the flow of lineage from sister to brother, thence to a descendant twice removed, while legal (with qualifications) in Lyonesse and also in the Ulflands, ran counter to the strictly patrilinear customs of Dahaut. The laws of Caduz itself were ambiguous.

The better to press his claim, Casmir rode to Montroc, capital of Caduz, at the head of a hundred knights, which instantly aroused King Audry of Dahaut. He warned that under no circumstances might Casmir so easily annex Caduz to his crown, and began to mobilize a great army.

The dukes and earls of Caduz, thus emboldened, began to express distaste for Casmir, and many wondered, ever more pointedly, as to the identity of bandits so swift, so deadly and so anonymous in a countryside ordinarily so placid.

Casmir saw the way the wind was blowing. One stormy afternoon, as the nobles of Caduz sat in conclave, a weird-woman dressed in white entered the chamber holding high a glass vessel which exuded a flux of colors swirling behind her like smoke. As if in a trance she picked up the crown, set it on the head of Duke Thirlach, husband to Etaine, younger sister to Casmir. The woman in white departed the chamber and was seen no more. After some contention, the omen was accepted at face value and Thirlach was enthroned as the new king. Casmir rode home with his knights, satisfied that he had done all possible to augment his interests, and indeed his sister Etaine, now Queen of Caduz, was a woman of redoubtable personality.

Suldrun was fourteen years old and marriageable. The rumor of her beauty had traveled far, and to Haidion came a succession of young grandees, and others not so young, to judge the fabulous Princess Suldrun for themselves.

King Casmir extended to all an equal hospitality, but was in no hurry to encourage a match until all of his options were clear to him.

Suldrun's life became increasingly complex, what with balls and banquets, fetes and follies. Some of the visitors she found pleasing, others less so. King Casmir, however, never asked her opinion, which in any case was of no interest to him.

A different sort of visitor arrived at Lyonesse Town: Brother Umphred, a portly round-faced evangelist, originally from Aquitania, who had arrived at Lyonesse by way of Whanish Isle and the Diocese of Skro.

With an instinct as certain and sure as that which takes a ferret to the rabbit's throat, Brother Umphred found the ear of Queen Sollace. Brother Umphred used an insistent mellifluous voice and Queen Sollace became a convert to Christianity.

Brother Umphred established a chapel in the Tower of Palaemon only a few steps from Queen Sollace's chambers.

At Brother Umphred's suggestion, Cassander and Suldrun were baptized and required to attend early morning mass in the chapel.

Brother Umphred attempted next to convert King Casmir, and far overstepped himself.

"Exactly what is your purpose here?" demanded King Casmir. "Are you a spy for Rome?"

"I am a humble servant of the one and all-powerful God," said Brother Umphred. "I carry his message of hope and love to all folk, despite hardship and tribulation; no more."

King Casmir uttered a derisive laugh. "What of the great cathedrals at Avallon and Taciel? Did 'God' supply the money? No. It was milked from peasants."

"Your Majesty, humbly we accept alms."

"It would seem far easier for all-powerful God to create the money... No further proselytizing! If you accept a single farthing from anyone in Lyonesse you will be whipped from here to Port Fader and shipped back to Rome in a sack."

Brother Umphred bowed without visible resentment. "It shall be as you command."

Suldrun found Brother Umphred's doctrines incomprehensible and his manner over-familiar. She stopped attending mass and so incurred her mother's displeasure.

Suldrun found little time for herself. Noble maidens attended most of her waking hours, to chatter and gossip, to plan small intrigues, to discuss gowns and manners, and to analyze the persons who came courting to Haidion. Suldrun found little solitude and few occasions to visit the old garden.

Early one summer morning the sun shone so sweetly and the thrush sang such plaintive songs in the orangery, that Suldrun felt impelled to leave the palace. She pretended indisposition to avoid her maids-in-waiting and furtively, lest someone notice and suspect a lover's tryst, she ran up the arcade, through the old portal and into the garden.

Something had changed. She felt as if she were seeing the garden for the first time, even though every detail, every tree and flower was familiar and dear. She looked about her in sadness for the lost vision of childhood. She saw evidence of neglect: harebells, anemones and violets growing modestly in the shade had been challenged by insolent tufts of rank grass. Opposite, among the cypresses and olive trees, nettles had risen more proudly than the asphodel. The path she had so diligently paved with beach pebbles had been broken by rain.

Suldrun went slowly down to the old lime tree, under which she had passed many dreaming hours... The garden seemed smaller. Ordinary sunlight suffused the air, rather than the old enchantment which had gathered in this place alone, and surely the wild roses had given a richer fragrance when first she had entered the garden? At a crunch of footsteps she looked about to discover a beaming Brother Umphred. He wore a brown cassock tied with a black cord. The cowl hung down between his plump shoulders; his tonsured baldness shone pink.

Brother Umphred, after a quick glance to left and right, bowed and clasped his hands before him. "Blessed princess, surely you have not come so far without escort?"

"Exactly so, since I have come here for solitude." Suldrun's voice was devoid of warmth. "It pleases me to be alone."

Brother Umphred, still smiling, again surveyed the garden. "This is a tranquil retreat. I, too, enjoy solitude; is it possible that we two are cut from the same cloth?" Brother Umphred moved forward, halting no more than a yard from Suldrun. "It is a great pleasure to find you here. I have long wanted to talk to you, in all earnestness."

Suldrun spoke in an even colder voice. "I do not care to talk to you, or anyone else. I came to be alone."

Brother Umphred gave a wry jocular grimace. "I will go at once. Still, do you think it proper to venture alone into a place so secluded? How tongues would wag, were it known! All would wonder whom you favored with such intimacy."

Suldrun turned her back in icy silence. Brother Umphred performed another comical grimace, shrugged, and ambled back up the path.

Suldrun seated herself beside the lime tree. Brother Umphred, so she suspected, had gone up to wait among the rocks, hoping to discover who came to keep rendezvous.

At last she arose and started back up the path. The outrage of Brother Umphred's presence had restored something of the garden's charm, and Suldrun stopped to pull weeds. Perhaps tomorrow morning she would come to uproot the nettles.

Brother Umphred spoke to Queen Sollace, and made a number of suggestions. Sollace reflected, then in a spirit of cold and deliberate malice—she had long decided that she did not particularly care for Suldrun—she gave appropriate orders.

Several weeks passed before Suldrun, despite her resolution, returned to the garden. Upon passing through the old timber door, she discovered a gang of masons at work upon the old fane. They had enlarged the windows, installed a door and broken open the back to expand the interior, and had added an altar. In consternation Suldrun asked the master mason: "What are you building here?"

"Your Highness, we build a churchlet, or a chapel, as it might be called, that the Christian priest may conduct his rituals."

Suldrun could hardly speak. "But—who gave such orders?"

"It was Queen Sollace herself, your Highness, for her ease and convenience during her devotions."

Chapter 6

BETWEEN DASCINET AND TROICINET was Scola, an island of crags and cliffs twenty miles across, inhabited by the Skyls. At the center a volcanic peak, Kro, reminded all of its presence with an occasional rumbling of the guts, a wisp of steam or a bubble of sulfur. From Kro radiated four steep ridges, dividing the island into four duchies: Sadaracx to the north, Corso to the east, Rhamnanthus to the south and Malvang to the west, nominally ruled by dukes who in turn gave fealty to King Yvar Excelsus of Dascinet.

In practice the Skyls, a dark crafty race of unknown origin, were uncontrollable. They lived isolated in mountain glens, emerging only when the time came for dreadful deeds. Vendetta, revenge and counter-revenge ruled their lives. The Skyls' virtues were stealth, reckless elan, blood-lust and stoicism under torment; his word, be it promise, guarantee or threat might be equated with certainty; indeed the Skyl's exact adherence to his pledge often verged upon the absurd. From birth to death his life was a succession of murders, captivities, escapes, wild flights, daring rescues: deeds incongruous in a landscape of Arcadian beauty.

On days of festival truce might be called; then merry-making and reveling exceeded rational bounds. Everything was to excess: tables groaned under the weight of food; fabulous feats of wine drinking were performed; there was passionate music and wild dancing. In sudden spasms of sentiment, ancient enmities might be resolved and feuds of a hundred murders put to rest. Old friendships were made whole, amid tears and reminiscences. Beautiful maidens and gallant lads met and loved, or met and parted. There were rapture and despair, seductions and abductions, pursuits, tragic deaths, virtue blighted and fuel for new vendettas.

The clansmen along the west coast, when the mood came on them, crossed the channel to Troicinet, where they performed mischiefs, including pillage, rape, murder and kidnap.

King Granice had long and often protested the acts to King Yvar Excelsus, who replied in effect that the incursions represented little more than youthful exuberance. He implied that in his opinion the better part of dignity was simply to ignore the nuisances and that, in any event, King Yvar Excelsus knew no practical method of abatement.

Port Mel, at the eastern tip of Troicinet, each year celebrated the summer solstice with a three-day festival and a Grand Pageant. Retherd, the young and foolish Duke of Malvang, in the company of three roistering friends, visited the festival incognito. At the Grand Pageant, they agreed that the maidens who represented the Seven Graces were remarkably charming, but could form no consensus as to which was supreme. Thev discussed the matter well into the evening over wine, and at last, to resolve the matter in a practical way, kidnapped all seven of the maidens and took them across the water to Malvang.

Duke Retherd was recognized and the news swiftly reached King Granice.

Wasting no time in a new complaint to King Yvar Excelsus, King Granice landed an army of a thousand warriors on Scola, destroyed Retherd's castle, rescued the maidens, gelded the duke and his cronies, then, for good measure, burned a dozen coastal villages.

The three remaining dukes assembled an army of three thousand and attacked the Troice encampment. King Granice had secretly reinforced his expeditionary army with two hundred knights and four hundred heavy cavalry. The undisciplined clansmen were routed; the three dukes were captured and King Granice controlled Scola.

Yvar Excelsus issued an intemperate ultimatum: King Granice must withdraw all troops, pay an indemnity of one hundred pounds of gold, rebuild Malvang Castle and put a bond of another hundred pounds of gold to insure no further offenses against the Kingdom of Dascinet.

King Granice not only rejected the ultimatum but decreed annexation of Scola to Troicinet. King Yvar Excelsus raged, expostulated, then declared war. He might not have acted so strongly had he not recently signed a treaty of mutual assistance with King Casmir of Lyonesse.

At the time King Casmir had thought only to strengthen himself for his eventual confrontation with Dahaut, never expecting to be embroiled in trouble not of his own choosing, especially a war with Troicinet.

King Casmir might have extricated himself by one pretext or another had not the war, upon due reflection, seemed to promise advantage.

King Casmir weighed all aspects of the situation. Allied with Dascinet he might base his armies on Dascinet, then thrust with all force across Scola against Troicinet, and thereby neutralize Troice sea-power, which was otherwise invulnerable.

King Casmir made a fateful decision. He commanded seven of his twelve armies to Bulmer Skeme. Then, citing past sovereignty, present complaints and his treaty with King Yvar Excelsus, he declared war upon King Granice of Troicinet.

King Yvar Excelsus had acted in a fit of fury and drunken bravado. When he became sober he perceived the error of his strategy, which neglected an elemental fact: he was outmatched by the Troice in every category: numbers, ships, military skills and fighting spirit. He could take comfort only in his treaty with Lyonesse, and was correspondingly cheered by King Casmir's ready participation in the war.

The marine transport of Lyonesse and Dascinet assembled at Bulmer Skeme; and there, at midnight, the armies of Lyonesse embarked and sailed for Dascinet. They discovered, first, contrary winds; then at dawn, a fleet of Troice warships.

In the space of two hours half of the overloaded ships of Lyonesse and Dascinet were either sunk or broken on the rocks, with a loss of two thousand men. The lucky half fled back downwind to Bulmer Skeme and grounded on the beach.

Meanwhile a miscellaneous flotilla of Troice merchant ships, coastal cogs and fishing vessels, loaded with Troice troops, put into Arquensio, where they were hailed as Lyonesse troops. By the time the mistake was discovered, the castle had been taken and King Yvar Excelsus captured.

The war with Dascinet was over. Granice declared himself King of the Outer Islands, a realm still not so populous as either Lyonesse or Dahaut, but which held in total control the Lir and the Cantabrian Gulf.

The war between Troicinet and Lyonesse was now an embarrassment for King Casmir. He proposed a cessation of hostilities and King Granice agreed, subject to certain terms: Lyonesse must cede the Duchy of Tremblance, at the far west of Lyonesse, beyond the Troagh, and undertake to build no warships by which it might again threaten Troicinet.

King Casmir predictably rejected such harsh conditions, and warned of bitter consequences if King Granice persisted in his unreasonable hostility.

King Granice responded, "Let it be remembered: I, Granice, instituted no war upon you. You, Casmir, made wanton war upon me. You were dealt a great and just defeat. Now you must suffer the consequences. You have heard my terms. Accept them or continue a war which you cannot win and which will cost you dearly in men, resources and humiliation. My terms are realistic. I require the Duchy of Tremblance to protect my ships from the Ska. I can land a great force at Cape Farewell when so I choose; be warned."

King Casmir responded in tones of menace: "On the basis of a small and temporary success, you challenge the might of Lyonesse. You are as foolish as you are arrogant. Do you think that you can outmatch our great power? I now declare a proscription against you and all your lineage; you will be hunted as criminals and killed on sight. I have no more words for you."

King Granice replied to the message with the force of his navy. He blockaded the coast of Lyonesse so that not so much as a fishing boat could safely navigate the Lir. Lyonesse took its subsistence from the land, and the blockade meant only nuisance and a continuing affront which King Casmir was powerless to rebuff.

In his turn, King Granice could inflict no great damage upon Lyonesse. Harbors were few and well-defended. Additionally, Casmir maintained a vigilant shore-watch and employed spies, in both Dascinet and Troicinet. Meanwhile, Casmir assembled a council of shipwrights, and charged them to build swiftly and well a fleet of warships to defeat the Troice.

In the estuary of the River Sime, the best natural harbor of all Lyonesse, twelve keels went on the ways, and as many more at smaller yards on the shores of Bait Bay in the Duchy of Fetz.

One moonless night along the Sime, when the ships were framed, planked and ready for launching, six Troice galleys stealthily entered the estuary and, despite fortifications, garrisons and watches, burned the shipyards. Simultaneously Troice raiders landed in small boats along the shores of Bait Bay, burning shipyards, boats on the ways, and a great stock of timber planks. Casmir's plans for a quick armada went glimmering.

In the Green Parlor at Haidion King Casmir breakfasted alone on pickled eel, boiled eggs and scones, then leaned back to ponder his many affairs. The defeat at Bulmer Skeme and its anguish had receded; he was able to assess the aftermath with at least a degree of dispassion.

All in all, there seemed to be scope for cautious optimism. The blockade was a provocation and an insult which for the nonce, in the interests of dignity, he must passively accept. In due course he would inflict harsh retribution, but for the present he must proceed with his grand design: in short, the defeat of King Audry and restoration of the throne Evandig to Haidion.

Dahaut was most vulnerable to attack from the west: so to bypass the line of forts along the Pomperol border. The avenue of such an invasion led north from Nolsby Sevan, past the castle Tintzin Fyral, then north along that road known as the Trom-pada, into Dahaut. The route was blocked by two staunch fortresses: Kaul Bocach, at the Gates of Cerberus, and Tintzin Fyral itself. A South Ulfish garrison guarded Kaul Bocach, but King Oriante of South Ulfland, in fear of Casmir's displeasure, had already granted Casmir and his armies freedom of passage.

Tintzin Fyral alone stood athwart Casmir's ambition. Tintzin Fyral reared high above two gorges and controlled both the Trompada and the way through Vale Evander into South Ulfland. Faude Carfilhiot, who ruled Vale Evander from his impregnable eyrie, in vanity and arrogance, recognized no master, least of all his nominal sovereign King Oriante.

An under-chamberlain entered the Green Parlor. He bowed before King Casmir. "Sir, a person waits upon your pleasure. He names himself Shimrod and is here, so he declares, at your Majesty's orders."

Casmir straightened in his chair. "Bring him here."

The under-chamberlain retired, to return with a tall young man of spare physique, wearing a smock and trousers of good cloth, low boots and a dark green cap which he doffed to reveal thick dust-colored hair, cut at ear-level after the fashion of the day. His features were regular, if somewhat gaunt: a thin nose, a bony jaw and chin, with a wide crooked mouth and bright gray eyes which gave him a look of droll and easy self-possession, in which there was perhaps not quite enough reverence and abnegation to please King Casmir..

"Sir," said Shimrod, "I am here in response to your urgent request."

Casmir surveyed Shimrod with compressed mouth and head skeptically aslant. "For a fact, you are not as I expected you to be."

Shimrod made a polite gesture, disclaiming responsibility for King Casmir's perplexity.

King Casmir pointed to a chair. "Be seated, if you will." He himself rose and went to stand with his back to the fire. "I am told that you are trained in magic."

Shimrod nodded. "Tongues will wag, at every departure from the ordinary."

Casmir smiled somewhat thinly. "Well then: are these reports accurate?"

"Your majesty, magic is a taxing discipline. Some persons have easy and natural abilities; I am not one of them. I am a careful student of the techniques, but that is not necessarily a measure of my competence."

"What then is your competence?"

"Compared to that of the adepts, the ratio is, let us say, one to thirty."

"You are acquainted with Murgen?"

"I know him well."

"And he has trained you?"

"To a certain extent."

King Casmir kept his impatience under control. Shimrod's airy mannerisms skirted safely around the far edge of insolence; still, Casmir found them irritating, and his response to questions with precise but minimal information made conversation tiresome. Casmir spoke on in an even voice.

"As you must know, our coast is blockaded by the Troice. Can you suggest how I might break this blockade?"

Shimrod reflected a moment. "Everything considered, the simplest way is to make peace."

"No doubt." King Casmir pulled at his beard; magicians were odd folk. "I prefer a method, possibly more complicated, which will advance the interests of Lyonesse."

"You would have to counter the blockade with a superior force."

"Exactly so. That is the crux of my difficulty. I have thought to enlist the Ska as allies, and I wish you to foretell the consequences of such an act."

Shimrod smilingly shook his head. "Your Majesty, few magicians can read the future. I am not one of them. Speaking as a man of ordinary common sense, I would advise you against such an act. The Ska have known ten thousand years of travail; they are a harsh folk. Like you, they intend to dominate the Elder Isles. Invite them into the Lir, give them bases, and they will never depart. So much is obvious."

King Casmir's gaze narrowed; he was seldom dealt with so briskly. Still, so he reasoned, Shimrod's manner might well be a measure of his candor; no one attempting to dissemble would use quite so easy a tone. He asked in a carefully neutral voice: "What do you know of Tintzin Fyral the castle?"

"This is a place I have never seen. It is said to be impregnable, as I am sure you already know."

King Casmir gave a crisp nod. "I have also heard that magic is part of its defense."

"As to that I can't say. It was built by a lesser magician, Ugo Golias, so that he might rule Vale Evander, secure from the syndics of Ys."

"Then how did Carfilhiot gain the property?"

"In this regard I can only repeat rumor."

King Casmir, with an impassive gesture, indicated that Shimrod was to proceed.

"Carfilhiot's own lineage is a matter of doubt," said Shimrod. "It's quite possible that he was sired by the sorcerer Tamurello upon the witch Desmei. Still, nothing is known certainly except that first Desmei disappeared, then Ugo Golias, with all of his staff, as if devils had snatched them away, and the castle was empty until Carfilhiot arrived with a troop of soldiers and took possession."

"It would seem that he also is a magician."

"I think not. A magician would conduct himself differently."

"Then you are acquainted with him?"

"Not at all. I have never seen him."

"Still, you appear to be familiar with his background and personality."

"Magicians are as prone to gossip as anyone else, especially when the subject is as notorious as Carfilhiot."

King Casmir pulled a bell-cord; two footmen entered the parlor with wine, nuts and sweetmeats which they arranged upon the table. King Casmir seated himself across the table from Shimrod. He poured two goblets of wine, one of which he tendered to Shimrod.

"My best respects to your Majesty," said Shimrod.

King Casmir sat looking into the fire. He spoke thoughtfully. "Shimrod, my ambitions are perhaps no secret. A magician such as yourself could provide me invaluable aid. You would find my gratitude commensurate."

Shimrod twirled the goblet of wine and watched the spin of the dark liquid. "King Audry of Dahaut has made the same approach to Tamurello. King Yvar Excelsus sought the aid of Noumique. All refused, by reason of Murgen's great edict, which applies no less to me."

"Pah!" snapped King Casmir. "Does Murgen's authority transcend all other?"

"In this regard—yes."

King Casmir grunted. "Still you have spoken without any apparent restraint."

"I have only advised you as might any reasonable man."

King Casmir rose abruptly to his feet. He tossed a purse upon the table. "That will reimburse your service."

Shimrod turned out the purse. Five golden crowns rolled forth. They became five golden butterflies which fluttered into the air and circled the parlor. The five became ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred. All at once they dropped to cluster upon the table, where they became a hundred gold crowns.

Shimrod took five of the coins, returned them to the purse, which he placed in his pouch. "I thank your Majesty." He bowed and departed the chamber.

Odo, Duke of Folize, rode with a small company north through the Troagh, a dreary land of crags and chasms, into South Ulf-land, past Kaul Bocach where opposing cliffs pressed so close together that three men could not ride abreast.

A fan of small waterfalls fell into the defile to become the south fork of the Evander River; road and river proceeded north side by side. Ahead rose a massive crag: the Tooth of Cronus, or the Tac Tor. Down through a gorge came the north fork of the Evander. The two forks joined and passed between the Tac Tor and the crag which supported the castle Tintzin Fyral.

Duke Odo announced himself at a gate and was conducted up a zig-zag road into the presence of Faude Carfilhiot.

Two days later he departed and returned the way he had come to Lyonesse Town. He alighted in the Armory yard, shook the dust from his cloak and went directly to an audience with King Casmir.

Haidion, at all times an echo chamber of rumor, immediately reverberated to the impending visit of an important grandee, the remarkable lord of a hundred mysteries: Faude Carfilhiot of Tintzin Fyral.

Chapter 7

SULDRUN SAT IN THE ORANGERY with her two favorite maids-in-waiting: Lia, daughter to Tandre, Duke of Sondbehar; and Tuissany, daughter to the Earl of Merce. Lia already had heard much talk of Carfilhiot. "He is tall and strong, and is proud as a demigod! His gaze is said to fascinate all who look upon him!"

"He would seem an imposing man," said Tuissany, and both girls looked sidewise at Suldrun, who twitched her fingers.

"Imposing men take themselves too seriously," said Suldrun. "Their talk is mostly orders and complaints."

"There is much else!" declared Lia. "It comes from my seamstress, who heard the conversation of Lady Pedreia. It seems that Faude Carfilhiot is the most romantic of men. Each evening he sits in a high tower watching the stars rise, pining."

"'Pining'? For what?"

"For love."

"And who is the haughty maiden who causes him such pain?"

"That is the curious part. She is imaginary. He worships this maiden of his dreams."

"I find this hard to believe," said Tuissany. "I suspect that he spends more time in bed with real maidens."

"As to that I cannot say. After all, the reports may be exaggerated."

"It will be interesting to discover the truth," said Tuissany. "But here is your father, the king."

Lia rose to her feet as did Tuissany and more slowly Suldrun. All performed a formal curtsy.

King Casmir sauntered forward. "Maidens, I wish to speak with the princess on a private affair; please allow us a few moments alone."

Lia and Tuissany withdrew. King Casmir surveyed Suldrun a long moment. Suldrun turned half-away, a chill of apprehension at the pit of her stomach.

King Casmir gave a small slow nod of the head, as if in corroboration of some private concept. He spoke in a portentous voice. "You must know that we are expecting the visit of an important person: Duke Carfilhiot of Vale Evander."

"I have heard so much, yes."

"You have come to marriageable age and should Duke Carfilhiot find you pleasing, I would look favorably upon the match, and I shall impart so much to him."

Suldrun raised her eyes to the golden-bearded face. "Father, 1 am not ready for such an event. I have not the slightest yearning to share a man's bed."

King Casmir nodded. "That is sentiment properly to be expected in a maiden chaste and innocent. I am not displeased. Still, such qualms must bend before affairs of state. The friendship of Duke Carfilhiot is vital to our interests. You will quickly become accustomed to the idea. Now then, your conduct toward Duke Carfilhiot must be amiable and gracious, yet neither fulsome nor exaggerated. Do not press your company upon him; a man like Carfilhiot is stimulated by reserve and reluctance. Still, be neither coy nor cold."

Suldrun cried in distress: "Father, I will not need to feign reluctance! I am not ready for marriage! Perhaps I never shall be!"

"Tush now." King Casmir's voice sharpened. "Modesty is all very well in moderation, even appealing. Still, when exercised to excess it becomes tiresome. Carfilhiot must not think you a prig. These are my wishes; are they quite clear?"

"Father, I understand your wishes very well."  "Good. Make certain that they influence your conduct."

A cavalcade of twenty knights and men-at-arms came down the Sfer Arct and into Lyonesse Town. At their head rode Duke Carfilhiot, erect and easy: a man with black curling hair cropped at his ears, a fair skin, features regular and fine, if somewhat austere, save for the mouth, which was that of a sentimental poet.

In the Armory yard the company halted. Carfilhiot dismounted and his horse was led away by a pair of grooms in the lavender and green of Haidion. His retinue likewise dismounted and ranged themselves behind him.

King Casmir descended from the upper terrace and crossed the yard. Duke Carfilhiot performed a bow of conventional courtesy, as did his company.

"Welcome!" spoke King Casmir. "Welcome to Haidion!"

"I am honored by your hospitality." Carfilhiot spoke in a voice firm, rich and well-modulated but lacking timbre.

"I introduce to you my seneschal, Sir Mungo. He will show you to your rooms. A collation is being laid and when you are refreshed we will take an informal repast on the terrace."

An hour later Carfilhiot stepped out on the terrace. He had changed to a robe of gray and black striped silk, with black trousers and black shoes: an unusual garment which enhanced his already dramatic presence.

King Casmir awaited him by the balustrade. Carfilhiot approached and bowed. "King Casmir, already I am finding pleasure in my visit. The palace Haidion is the most splendid of the Elder Isles. Its prospect over city and sea is without parallel."

King Casmir spoke with stately affability. "I hope that your visit will often be repeated. We are, after all, the closest of neighbors."

"Precisely so!" said Carfilhiot. "Unluckily I am vexed with problems which keep me preoccupied at home; problems happily unknown to Lyonesse."

King Casmir raised his eyebrows. "Problems? We are by no means immune! I count as many problems as there are Troice in Troicinet!"

Carfilhiot laughed politely. "In due course we must exchange commiserations."

"I would as lief exchange problems."

"My robbers, footpads and renegade barons for your blockade of warships? It would seem a bad bargain for both of us."

"As an inducement you might wish to include a thousand of your Ska."

"Gladly, were they my Ska. For some odd reason they avoid South Ulfland, though they rampage across the North blithely enough."

A pair of heralds blew a shrill sweet fanfare, to signal the appearance of Queen Sollace and a train of her ladies.

King Casmir and Carfilhiot turned to meet her. King Casmir presented his guest. Queen Sollace acknowledged Carfilhiot's compliments with a bland stare, which Carfilhiot graciously ignored.

Time passed. King Casmir became restive. He glanced over his shoulder toward the palace ever more frequently. Finally he muttered a few words to a footman, and another five minutes passed.

The heralds raised their clarions and blew another fanfare. Out upon the terrace came Suldrun at a lurching run, as if she had been pushed; in the shadows behind her the contorted face of Lady Desdea showed for an instant.

With a grave face Suldrun approached the table. Her gown, of a soft pink stuff, clung close to her figure; from beneath a round white cap soft golden curls hung to her shoulders.

Slowly Suldrun came forward, followed by Lia and Tuissany. She paused, looked across the terrace, brushing Carfilhiot with her gaze. A steward approached with a tray; Suldrun and her maids took goblets of wine, then went modestly apart, where they stood murmuring together.

King Casmir watched under lowering brows and at last turned to Sir Mungo, his seneschal. "Inform the princess that we wait upon her attendance."

Sir Mungo delivered the message. Suldrun listened with a drooping mouth. She seemed to sigh, then crossed the terrace, halted in front of her father, and performed a somber curtsy.

In his richest tones Sir Mungo declared: "Princess Suldrun, I am honored to introduce to you Duke Faude Carfilhiot of Vale Evander!"

Suldrun inclined her head; Carfilhiot smilingly bowed and kissed her hand. Then raising his head and looking into her face he said: "Rumors of Princess Suldrun's grace and beauty have crossed the mountains to Tintzin Fyral. I see that they were not exaggerated."

Suldrun responded in a colorless voice. "I hope you have not heeded these rumors. I'm sure they would give me no pleasure if I heard them."

King Casmir leaned quickly forward with lowering brows, but Carfilhiot spoke first. "Indeed? How so?"

Suldrun refused to look toward her father. "I am made out to be something I do not choose to be."

"You do not enjoy the admiration of men?"

"I have done nothing admirable."

"Nor has a rose, nor a sapphire of many facets."

"They are ornaments; they have no life of their own."

"Beauty is not ignoble," said King Casmir heavily. "It is a gift bestowed to only a few. Would anyone—even the princess Suldrun—prefer to be ugly?"

Suldrun opened her mouth to say: "I would prefer, first of all, to be somewhere other than here." She thought better of the remark and closed her mouth.

"Beauty is a most peculiar attribute," Carfilhiot declared. "Who was the first poet? It was he who invented the concept of beauty."

King Casmir gave an indifferent shrug and drank from his purple glass goblet.

Carfilhiot continued, his voice easy and musical: "Our world is a place terrible and wonderful, where the passionate poet who yearns to realize the ideal of beauty is almost always frustrated."

Suldrun, her hands clasped together, studied her fingertips. Carfilhiot said, "It would seem that you have reservations?"

"Your 'passionate poet' might well be a very tiresome companion."

Carfilhiot clapped his hand to his forehead in mock-outrage. "You are as heartless as Diana herself. Have you no sympathy for our passionate poet, this poor moon-struck adventurer?"

"Probably not. He seems over-emotional and self-centered, at the very least. The emperor Nero of Rome, who danced to the flames of his burning city, was perhaps such a 'passionate poet.'"

King Casmir made a restive movement; this sort of conversation seemed a pointless frivolity... Still, Carfilhiot appeared to be enjoying himself. Was it possible that timid reclusive Suldrun was cleverer than he had supposed?

Carfilhiot addressed himself to Suldrun: "I find this conversation most interesting. I hope that we can continue it another time?"

Suldrun replied in her most formal voice: "Truly, Duke Carfilhiot, my ideas are not at all profound. I would be embarrassed to discuss them with a person of your experience."

"It shall be as you wish," said Carfilhiot. "Still, please allow me the simple pleasure of your company."

King Casmir hastened to intervene before Suldrun's unpredictable tongue gave offense. "Duke Carfilhiot, I notice certain grandees of the realm who wait to be introduced."

Later King Casmir took Suldrun aside. "I am surprised by your conduct in regard to Duke Carfilhiot! You do more harm than you know; his good will is indispensable to our plans!"

Standing before the majestic bulk of her father, Suldrun felt limp and helpless. She cried out in a plaintive soft voice: "Father, please do not force me upon Duke Carfilhiot! I am frightened by his company!"

King Casmir had prepared himself against piteous appeals. His response was inexorable: "Bah! You are silly and unreasonable. There are far worse matches than Duke Carfilhiot, I assure you. It shall be as I decide."

Suldrun stood with down-turned face. She apparently had no more to say. King Casmir swung away, marched off down the Long Gallery and up the stairs to his chambers. Suldrun stood looking after him, hands clenched and pressed to her sides. She turned and ran down the gallery, out into the fading light of afternoon, up the arcade, through the old gate and down into the garden. The sun, hanging low in the sky, sent a somber light under a tall bank of clouds; the garden seemed cool and remote.

Suldrun wandered down the path, past the ruins, and settled herself under the old lime tree, arms clasped around her knees, and considered the fate which seemed to be advancing upon her. Beyond doubt, or so it seemed to her, Carfilhiot would choose to wed her, take her away to Tintzin Fyral, there, at his own good time, to explore the secrets of her body and her mind... The sun sank into clouds; the wind blew cold. Suldrun shivered. Rising, she returned the way she had come, slowly, with eyes downcast. She climbed to her chambers where Lady Desdea gave her a fretful scolding.

"Where have you been? By the queen's command I must array you in fine garments; there is to be a banquet and dancing. Your bath is ready."

Suldrun passively stepped out of her clothes and into a wide marble basin, brimming with warm water. Her maids rubbed her with soap of olive oil and ash of aloe, then rinsed her in water scented with lemon verbena, and dried her with soft cotton towels. Her hair was brushed till it shone. She was dressed in a dark blue gown and a fillet of silver, set with tablets of lapis lazuli, was placed on her head.

Lady Desdea drew back. "That's the best I can do with you. No doubt but what you are well-favored. Still, something is lacking. You must use a bit of flirtation—not to excess, mind you! Let him know that you understand what he has in mind.

Mischief in a girl is like salt on meat... Now, tincture of foxglove, to sparkle your eyes!"

Suldrun jerked back. "I want none of it!"

Lady Desdea had learned the futility of argument with Suldrun. "You are the most obstinate creature alive! As usual, you shall do as you please."

Suldrun laughed bitterly. "If I did as I please, I would not be going to the ball."

"La, then, you saucy mince." Lady Desdea kissed Suldrun on the forehead. "I hope that life will dance to your tune... Come now, to the banquet. I pray you, be civil to Duke Carfilhiot, since your father hopes for a betrothal."

At the banquet King Casmir and Queen Sollace sat at the head of the great table, with Suldrun at her father's right and Carfilhiot to the left of Queen Sollace.

Covertly Suldrun studied Carfilhiot. What with his clear skin, thick black hair and lustrous eyes he was undeniably handsome: almost to an excess. He ate and drank gracefully; his conversation was courteous; perhaps his only affectation was modesty: he spoke little of himself. Yet, Suldrun found herself unable to meet his gaze, and when she spoke to him, as occasion compelled, words came with difficulty.

Carfilhiot sensed her aversion, so she divined, and it only seemed to stimulate his interest. He became even more fulsome, as if he sought to overcome her antipathy by sheer perfection of gallantry. All the while, like a chill on the air, Suldrun felt the careful attention of her father, to such an extent that she began to lose her composure. She bent her head over her plate, but found herself unable to eat.

She reached for her goblet, and chanced to meet Carfilhiot's eyes. For a moment she stared transfixed. He knows what I think, went her thoughts. He knows—and now he smiles, as if already he owned me... Suldrun wrenched her gaze down to her plate. Still smiling, Carfilhiot turned to listen to the remarks of Queen Sollace.

At the ball, Suldrun thought to evade notice by mingling with her maids-in-waiting, but to no effect. Sir Eschar, the under-seneschal, came to seek her out and took her into the presence of King Casmir, Queen Sollace, and Duke Carfilhiot, and other high dignitaries. When the music started, she was convenient to the arm of Duke Carfilhiot and dared not refuse.

In silence they stepped the measures, back and forth, bowing, turning with graceful gesture, among colored silks and sighing satins. A thousand candles in six massive candelabra suffused the chamber with mellow light.

When the music stopped, Carfilhiot led Suldrun to the side of the room, and somewhat apart. "I hardly know what to say to you," Carfilhiot remarked. "Your manner is so glacial as to seem menacing."

Suldrun replied in her most formal voice: "Sir, I am unaccustomed to grand affairs, and in all truth they do not amuse me."

"So that you would prefer to be elsewhere?" Suldrun looked across the chamber to where Casmir stood among the grandees of his court. "My preferences, whatever they may be, seem to be of consequence only to myself. So I have been given to understand."

"Surely you are mistaken! I, for one, am interested in your preferences. In fact I find you most unusual."

Suldrun's only response was an indifferent shrug and Carfilhiot's airy whimsicality for a brief moment became strained, even a trifle sharp. "Meanwhile, your opinion of me is a person ordinary, drab and perhaps something of a bore?" So much said in the hope of exciting a tumble of embarrassed disclaimers.

Suldrun, looking off across the room, responded in an absentminded voice: "Sir, you are my father's guest; I would not presume to form such an opinion, or any opinion whatever." Carfilhiot uttered a soft strange laugh, so that Suldrun turned in startled puzzlement, to look as through a rift into Carfilhiot's soul, which quickly made itself whole. Once more debonair, Carfilhiot held out his hands, to express polite and humorous frustration. "Must you be so aloof? Am I truly deplorable?"

Suldrun once more used cool formality. "Sir, certainly you have given me no reason to form such judgments."

"But is that not an artificial pose? You must know that you are admired. I for one am anxious to gain your favorable opinion."

"Sir, my father wants to marry me away. That is well-known. He pushes me faster than I want to go; I know nothing of love or loving."

Carfilhiot took both of her hands and compelled her to face him. "I will reveal some arcane facts. Princesses seldom marry their lovers. As for loving, I would willingly teach a pupil so innocent, and so beautiful. You would learn overnight, so to speak."

Suldrun pulled her hands away. "Let us rejoin the others." Carfilhiot escorted Suldrun to her place. A few minutes later she informed Queen Sollace that she felt unwell, and slipped quietly from the chamber. King Casmir, elevated by drink, failed to notice.

On Derfwy Meadow, two miles south of Lyonesse Town, King Casmir ordained a pageant and pleasure fair, to celebrate the presence of his honored guest: Faude Carfilhiot, Duke of Vale Evander and Lord of Tintzin Fyral. Preparations were elaborate and bountiful. Bullocks had been turning over coals since the preceding day, with good bastings of oil, onion juice, garlic and syrup of tamarind; now they were done to a turn and exuded a tantalizing waft across all the meadow. Trays nearby were heaped high with loaves of white bread, and to the side six tuns of wine awaited only a starting of the bungs.

Villages of the neighborhood had sent young men and women in festival costumes; to the music of drums and pipes, they danced jigs and kick-steps, until sweat beaded their foreheads. At noon clowns fought with bladders and wooden swords; and somewhat later, knights of the royal court jousted with lances tipped with leather pillows.*

          *'The tournament in which armored knights jousted with lances, or fought mock battles,

             had not yet evolved. Contests of this time and place were relatively mild events:

             competitions at wrestling, horse-racing, vaulting: events in which the aristocracy

             seldom if ever competed.

Meanwhile, the roast meat had been lifted to the carving table, cut into slices and chunks and taken away on half-loaves of bread by all who chose to partake of the king's bounty, while wine bubbled happily through the spigots.

King Casmir and Carfilhiot watched the jousting from a raised platform, in company with Queen Sollace, Princess Suldrun, Prince Cassander and a dozen others of rank. King Casmir and Carfilhiot then strolled across the meadow to watch an archery contest, and conversed to the hiss and chunk of arrow striking into butt. Two from Carfilhiot's retinue had entered the contest and were shooting with such proficiency that King Casmir was moved to comment.

Carfilhiot responded: "I command a relatively small force, and all must excel with their weapons. 1 reckon each soldier the equal of ten ordinaries. He lives and dies by steel. Nonetheless, I envy you your twelve great armies."

King Casmir gave a dour grunt. "Twelve armies are a fine thing to command, and King Audry sleeps poorly on their account. Still, twelve armies are useless against the Troice. They sail back and forth along my shores; they laugh and joke; they pull up beside my harbor and show me their naked backsides."

"Well beyond bow-shot, no doubt."

"Fifty yards beyond bow-shot."

"Most vexing."

King Casmir spoke weightily: "My ambitions are no secret. I must reduce Dahaut, subdue the Ska, and defeat the Troice. I will bring the throne Evandig and the table Cairbra an Meadhan to their rightful places and once more the Elder Isles will be ruled by a single king."

"That is a noble ambition," said Carfilhiot graciously. "Were I King of Lyonesse I would strive no differently."

"The strategies are not easy. I can work south against the Troice, with the Ska as allies; or into the Ulflands, presupposing that the Duke of Vale Evander allows me thoroughfare past Tintzin Fyral. Then my armies drive the Ska from the Foreshore, overawe the Godelians and turn eastward into Dahaut for the climactic campaign. With a flotilla of a thousand ships I overwhelm Troicinet, and the Elder Isles are once more a single kingdom, with the Duke of Vale Evander, now Duke of South Ulfland."

"It is a pretty concept; and, I would think, feasible. My own ambitions are not affected; indeed I am content with Vale Evander. I have yearnings of quite a different sort. In all candor, I have become enamored of the Princess Suldrun. I find her the most beautiful of living creatures. Would you consider me presumptuous if I asked her hand in marriage?"

"I would consider it a most suitable and auspicious match."

"I am happy to hear your approval. What of Princess Suldrun? She has allowed me no conspicuous favor."

"She is somewhat fanciful. I will have a word with her. Tomorrow you and she shall take your betrothal vows in a ceremonial rite, and nuptials will follow in due course."

"This is a joyful prospect, for myself and, so I hope, the Princess Suldrun as well."

Late in the afternoon the royal carriage returned to Haidion, with King Casmir, Queen Sollace and Princess Suldrun. Riding on horseback beside were Carfilhiot and young Prince Cassander.

King Casmir spoke to Suldrun in a ponderous voice: "Today I have conferred with Duke Carfilhiot, and he declares himself enamored of you. The match is advantageous and I agreed to your betrothal."

Suldrun stared aghast, her worst apprehensions realized. Finally she found her tongue. "Sir, can you not believe me? I want no marriage now, least of all to Carfilhiot! He does not suit me at all!"

King Casmir brought the full impact of his round-eyed blue gaze to bear on Suldrun. "This is niminy-piminy petulance; I will not hear of it. Carfilhiot is a noble and handsome man! Your qualms are over-nice. Tomorrow at noon you will pledge troth with Carfilhiot. In three months you shall marry. There is no more to be said."

Suldrun subsided into the cushions. The carriage rumbled along the road, swaying on springs of layered hornbeam. Poplars beside the road passed in front of the sun. Through tears Suldrun watched lights and shadows playing across her father's face. In a soft broken voice she essayed a final plea: "Father, do not force this marriage on me!"

King Casmir listened stolidly, and turning his face away, made no reply.

In anguish Suldrun looked to her mother for support, but saw only waxen dislike. Queen Sollace said tartly: "You are marriageable, as anyone with eyes can see. It is time you were away from Haidion. With your vapors and vagaries you have brought us no joy."

King Casmir spoke. "As a princess of Lyonesse you know neither toil nor care. You dress in soft silk and enjoy luxuries beyond the hopes of ordinary women. As a princess of Lyonesse you also must bend to the dictates of policy, even as I. The marriage will proceed. Have done with this petty diffidence and approach Duke Carfilhiot with amiability. I will hear no more on the subject."

Upon arrival at Haidion, Suldrun went directly to her chambers. An hour later, Lady Desdea found her staring into the fire.

"Come now," said Lady Desdea. "Moping causes the flesh to sag and yellows the skin. Be of good cheer then! The king desires your presence at the evening meal, in an hour's time."

"1 prefer not to go."

"Still, you must! The king has given his order. So hey nonny no! To supper we shall go. You shall wear the dark green velvet which becomes you so that every other woman looks a dead fish. Were I younger I would gnash my teeth for jealousy. I cannot understand why you sulk."

"I have no taste for Duke Carfilhiot."

"Tush. In marriage all things alter. You may come to dote on him; then you will laugh to think of your foolish whims. Now then—off with your clothes! Heigh ho! Think how it will be when Duke Carfilhiot gives the command! Sosia! Where is that flibbet of a maid? Sosia! Brush the princess's hair, a hundred strokes to either side. Tonight it must glisten like a river of gold!"

At the supper Suldrun tried to achieve an impersonal manner. She tasted a morsel of stewed pigeon; she drank half a glass of pale wine. When remarks were addressed to her she responded politely, but clearly her thoughts were elsewhere. Once, looking up, she met Carfilhiot's gaze, and for a moment stared into his lambent eyes like a fascinated bird.

She shifted her gaze and broodingly studied her plate. Carfilhiot was undeniably gallant, brave and handsome: Why then her antipathy? She knew her instincts to be accurate. Carfilhiot was involuted; his mind teemed with strange rancors and peculiar inclinations. Words entered her mind as if from another source: For Carfilhiot beauty was not to be cherished and loved, but something to be plundered and hurt.

The ladies left for the queen's drawing-room; Suldrun quickly ran off to her own chambers.

Early in the morning a brief rain swept in from the sea, to wash the greenery and settle the dust. By midmorning the sun shone through broken clouds, and sent hurrying shadows across the city. Lady Desdea arrayed Suldrun in a white gown with a white surcoat, embroidered in pink, yellow and green; and a small white cap inside a golden diadem studded with garnets.

On the terrace, four precious rugs had been laid end to end, from Haidion's ponderous main entrance to a table draped with heavy white linen. Antique silver vases four feet tall overflowed with white roses; the table supported the sacred chalice of the Lyonesse kings: a silver vessel a foot tall, carved with characters no longer intelligible to Lyonesse.

As the sun rose toward noon, dignitaries began to appear, wearing ceremonial robes and ancient emblems.

At noon Queen Sollace arrived. She was escorted by King Casmir to her throne. Behind came Duke Carfilhiot, escorted bv Duke Tandre of Sondbehar.

A moment passed. King Casmir looked toward the door, where the Princess Suldrun should now be appearing, on the arm of her aunt, the Lady Desdea. Instead, he glimpsed only a flutter of agitated motion. Presently he noted the beckoning arm of Lady Desdea.

King Casmir rose from the throne and strode back to the palace where Lady Desdea stood gesturing in confusion and bewilderment.

King Casmir looked around the foyer, then turned back to Lady Desdea. "Where is Princess Suldrun? Why do you cause this undignified delay?"

Lady Desdea blurted an explanation: "She was ready! She stood there beautiful as an angel. I led the way downstairs; she followed. I went along the gallery, and 1 had a strange feeling! I stopped and turned to look, and she stood there, pale as a lily. She called out something, but I could not quite hear; I think she said: 'I cannot! No, I cannot!' And then she was gone, out the side door and away up under the arcade! I called after her, to no avail. She would not look back!"

King Casmir turned and walked out on the terrace. He halted, looked around the half-circle of questioning faces. He spoke in a harsh monotone. "I beg the indulgence of those now assembled. The Princess Suldrun has suffered indisposition. The ceremony will not proceed. A collation has been laid out; please partake as you wish."

King Casmir turned and reentered the palace, Lady Desdea stood to the side, hair in disorder, arms hanging like ropes.

King Casmir inspected her for five seconds, then stalked from the palace. Up the arcade, under Zoltra Bright Star's Wall, through the timber gate and down into the old garden, he strode. Here Suldrun sat, on a fallen column, elbows on knees and chin in her hands.

King Casmir halted twenty feet behind her. Slowly Suldrun looked around, eyes wide, mouth drooping.

King Casmir said: "You have come to this place in defiance of my command."

Suldrun nodded. "1 did so: yes."

"You have marred the dignity of Duke Carfilhiot in a manner which can know no mitigation."

Suldrun's mouth moved, but no words came. King Casmir spoke on.

"For frivolous whim you have come here rather than in dutiful obedience to the place required by my command. Therefore, remain in this place, both night and day, until the great hurt you have done me is assuaged, or until you are dead. If you depart either boldly or by stealth, you shall be slave to whomever first lays claim to you, be he knight or peasant, loon or vagabond; no matter! You shall be his thing."

King Casmir turned, climbed the path, passed through the gate which closed hard behind him.

Suldrun turned slowly, face blank and almost serene. She looked out to sea, where rays of sunlight shot through gaps in the clouds and down at the water.

King Casmir found a silent group awaiting him on the terrace. He looked this way and that. "Where is Duke Carfilhiot?"

Duke Tandre of Sondbehar came forward. "Sire, upon your departure he waited one minute. Then he called for his horse, and with his company he rode from Haidion."

"What said he?" cried King Casmir. "Gave he no notice of any kind?"

Duke Tandre responded, "Sire, he spoke no word."

King Casmir cast one terrible glance around the terrace, then turned and walked on long strides back into the palace Haidion.

King Casmir brooded for a week, then uttered an angry expletive and set himself to the composition of a letter. The final version read:

For The Notice Of

The Noble Duke Faude Carfilhiot

At Tintzin Fyral His Castle.

Noble Sir:

With difficulty I write these words, in reference to an incident which has given me great embarrassment. I can not properly apologize, since I am as much victim of the circumstances as yourself—perhaps even more. You suffered an affront which understandably caused you exasperation. Still, there is no doubt but what a dignity such as yours is proof against the vapours of a captious and silly maiden. On the other hand, I have lost the privilege of uniting our houses through a marital link. Despite all, I can convey my sorrow that this event occurred at Haidion and so, in this measure, marred my hospitality.  I trust that in the generous breadth of your tolerance you will continue to look upon me as your friend and ally in mutual endeavors of the future.

With my best regards, I am

Casmir,

Lyonesse, the King.

An envoy carried the letter to Tintzin Fyral. In due course he returned with a response.

For The Attention Of His August Majesty Casmir, Of Lyonesse, The King.

Revered Sir:

Be assured that the emotions I derived from the incident to which you refer, while they arose within me—understandably I hope—like a storm, subsided almost as quickly, and left me embarrassed for the narrow verges of my forbearance. I agree that our personal association should in no way be compromised by the unpredictabilities of a young maiden's fancy. As always, you may rely upon my sincere respect and my great hope that your proper and legitimate ambitions may be realized. Whenever the wish comes upon you to see something of Vale Evander, be assured that I shall welcome the opportunity to extend to you the hospitality of Tintzin Fyral.

I remain in all amiability, Your friend, Carfilhiot.

King Casmir studied the letter with care. Carfilhiot apparently cherished no pangs of resentment; still, his declarations of good will, while hearty, might have gone somewhat further and been more specific.

Chapter 8

KING GRAXICE OF TROICINET was a man thin, grizzled and angular, abrupt of manner and notably terse until events went awry, whereupon he singed the air with expletives and curses. He had greatly desired a son and heir, but Queen Baudille gave him four daughters in succession, each born to the sound of Granice's furious complaints. The first daughter was Lorissa, the second Aethel, the third Ferniste, the fourth Byrin; then Baudille went barren and Granice's brother, Prince Arbamet, became heir-presumptive to the throne. Granice's second brother, Prince Ospero, a man of complicated personality and somewhat frail constitution, not only lacked ambition to the throne but so disliked the flavor of court life with its formality and artificial circumstances, that he stayed almost reclusively at his manor Water-shade, at the center of the Ceald, Troicinet's inner plain. Ospero's spouse, Ainor, had died bearing his single son, Aillas, who in due course grew to be a strong broad-shouldered lad of middle stature, taut and sinewy rather than massive, with ear-length blond-brown hair and gray eyes.

Watershade occupied a pleasant place beside Janglin Water, a small lake with hills to the north and south and the Ceald stretching away to the west. Originally, Watershade had served to guard the Ceald, but three hundred years had passed since the last armed excursion through its gates, and the defenses had fallen into a state of picturesque disrepair. The armory was silent except for the forging of shovels and horseshoes; the drawbridge had not been raised within memory. The squat round towers of Watershade stood half in the water, half on the shore with trees overhanging the conical tiled roofs.

In the spring blackbirds flocked above the marsh and crows wheeled in the sky, calling "Caw! Caw! Caw!" across far distances. In the summer bees droned through the mulberry trees, and the air smelled of reeds and water-washed willow. At night cuckoos cried in the forest and in the morning brown trout and salmon struck at the bait almost as soon as it touched the water. Ospero, Aillas and their frequent guests took supper outdoors on the terrace and watched many a glorious sunset fade over Janglin Water. In fall the leaves turned color and the storehouses became chock-full with the yields of harvest. In winter fires burned in all the fireplaces and the white sunlight reflected in diamond sparkles from Janglin Water, while the salmon and trout lay close to the bottom and refused to strike at bait.

Ospero's temperament was poetic rather than practical. He took no great interest either in events at the royal palace Miraldra nor the war against Lyonesse. His bent was that of the scholar and antiquarian. For the education of Aillas he brought savants of high repute to Watershade; Aillas was instructed in mathematics, astronomy, music, geography, history and literature. Prince Ospero knew little of martial techniques, and delegated this phase of Aillas' education to Tauncy, his bailiff, a veteran of many campaigns. Aillas learned the use of bow, sword and that recondite art of the Galician bandits: knife-throwing. "This use of the knife," stated Tauncy, "is neither courteous nor knightly. It is, rather, the desperado's resource, a ploy of the man who must kill to survive the evening. The thrown knife suffices to a range of ten yards; beyond, the arrow excels. But in cramped conditions, a battery of knives is a most comfortable companion.

"Again, I prefer the small-sword to the heavy equipment favored by the mounted knight. With my small-sword I will maim a full-armored man in half a minute, or kill him if I choose. It is the supremacy of skill over brute mass. Here! Lift this two-hander, strike at me."

Aillas dubiously hefted the sword. "I fear that I might cut you in two parts."

"Stronger men than you have tried and who stands here to tell about it? So swing with a will!"

Aillas struck out; the blade was deflected. He tried once more; Tauncy wrenched and the sword flew from Aillas' hands. "Once more," said Tauncy. "See how it goes? Flick, slide, off, away! You may drive down the weapon with all your weight; I interpose, I twist! the sword leaves your grasp; I stab where your armor gaps; in goes the sword and out comes your life."

"That is a useful skill," said Aillas. "Especially against our chicken-thieves."

"Ha! you will not keep to Watershade all your days—not with the land at war. Leave the chicken-thieves to me. Now, to proceed. You are sauntering along the back streets of Avallon; you step into a tavern for a cup of wine. A great lummox claims that you have molested his wife; he takes up his cutlass and comes at you. So now! With your knife! Draw and throw! All in a single movement! You advance, pull your knife from the villain's neck, wipe it on his sleeve. If in fact you have molested the dead churl's wife, bid her begone! The episode has quite dampened your spirit. But you are attacked from another side by another husband. Quick!" So the lesson proceeded.

At the end, Tauncy said: "I consider the knife a most elegant weapon. Even apart from its efficacy, there is beauty in its flight, as it cleaves hard to its target; there is a spasm of pleasure as it strikes home deep and true."

In the springtime of his eighteenth year Aillas rode somberly forth from Watershade, never looking over his shoulder. The road took him beside the marshes which bordered the lake, across the Ceald and up through the hills to Green Man's Gap. Here Aillas turned to look back across the Ceald. Far in the distance, beside the glimmer of Janglin Water, a dark blot of trees concealed the squat towers of Watershade. Aillas sat a moment in contemplation of the dear familiar places he was leaving behind, and tears came to his eyes. Abruptly he reined his horse about, rode through the tree-shrouded gap and down Rundle River Valley.

Late in the afternoon he glimpsed the Lir ahead, and shortly before sunset arrived at Hag Harbor under Cape Haze. He went directly to the Sea Coral Inn where he was well-known to the landlord, and so was provided a good meal and a comfortable chamber for the night.

In the morning he rode westward along the coast road, and by early afternoon arrived at the city Domreis. He paused on the heights overlooking the city. The day was windy; the air seemed more than transparent, like a lens transmitting minute detail with clarity. Hob Hook, with a beard of foaming surf along its outer face, surrounded the harbor. At the base of Hob Hook stood Castle Miraldra, the seat of King Granice, with a long parapet extending to a lighthouse at the end of the hook. Originally a watch-tower, Miraldra, across the ages had been conjoined to an amazing complex of additions: halls, galleries, a dozen towers of apparently random mass and height.

Aillas rode down the hill, past the Palaeos, a temple sacred to Gaea, where a pair of twelve-year-old maidens in white kirtles tended a sacred flame. Aillas rode through the town, the hooves of his horse suddenly loud on the cobbled way. Past the docks, where a dozen ships were moored, past narrow-fronted shops and taverns, then out on the causeway to Castle Miraldra.

The outer walls loomed high above Aillas. They seemed almost unnecessarily massive and the entrance portal, flanked by a pair of barbicans, seemed disproportionately small. Two guards, wearing the dress maroon and gray of Miraldra with polished silver helmets and bright silver cuirasses, stood with halberds tilted at parade-rest. From the barbican Aillas was recognized; heralds blew a fanfare. The guards jerked the halberds into the erect "salute" position as Aillas passed through the portal.

In the courtyard Aillas dismounted and gave his horse over to a groom. Sir Este, the portly seneschal, coming to meet him, performed a gesture of surprise. "Prince Aillas! Have you come alone, without retinue?"

"By preference, Sir Este, 1 came alone."

Sir Este, who was notorious for his aphorisms, produced yet another comment upon the human condition: "Extraordinary that those who command the perquisites of place are those most ready to ignore them! It is as if the blessings of Providence are specious and notable only in their absence. Ah well, I refuse to speculate."

"You are well, I trust, and enjoying your own perquisites?"

"To the fullest! I have, you must know, this deep-seated fear that were I to neglect one of my little privileges, Providence might become peevish and whisk them away. Come now, 1 must see to your comfort. The king is away to Ardlemouth for the day; he inspects a new vessel which is said to be swift as a bird." He signaled to a footman. "Take Prince Aillas to his chamber, see to his bath and provide him garments suitable for the court." Late in the afternoon King Granice returned to Miraldra. Aillas met him in the grand hall; the two embraced. "And how goes the health of my good brother Ospero?"

"He ventures seldom from Watershade. The outer air seems to bite at his throat. He tires easily and goes to hard gasping, so that I fear for his life!"

"All his years he has been frail! In any case, you seem sound enough!"

"Sir, you also seem to enjoy the best of health."

"True, lad, and I will share with you my little secret. Every day at this very hour I take a cup or two of good red wine. It enriches the blood, brightens the gaze, sweetens the breath and stiffens the frontal member. Magicians search high and low for the elixir of life, and they already hold it in their hands, if only they knew our little secret. Eh, lad?" And Granice clapped Aillas on the back. "Let us invigorate ourselves."

"With pleasure, sir."

Granice led the way into a parlor hung with banners, escutcheons and trophies of war. A fire blazed on the hearth; Granice warmed himself while a servant poured wine into silver cups.

Granice waved Aillas to a chair, and settled himself into a chair beside the fire. "I summoned you here for a reason. As a prince of the blood it is time that you acquainted yourself with affairs of state. The surest fact of this precarious existence is that one may never stand static. In this life everyone walks on ten-foot stilts; he must move and hop and cause an agitation; otherwise he topples. Fight or die! Swim or drown! Run or be trampled!" Granice drank down a cup of wine at a gulp.

"The placidity here at Miraldra then, is no more than an illusion?" Aillas suggested.

Granice gave vent to a grim chuckle. " 'Placidity?' I know none of it. We are at war with Lyonesse and wicked King Casmir. It is the case of a small stopper holding back the contents of a tun. I will not recite the number of ships patrolling the Lyonesse coast; that number is a war secret, which Casmir's spies would be glad to learn, just as I would be glad to learn the number of Casmir's spies. They are everywhere, like flies in a barn. Just yesterday I hanged a pair, and their cadavers dangle high on Semaphore Hill. Naturally, I employ spies of my own. When Casmir launches a new ship I am notified, and my agents set it afire while it lies at dock, and Casmir gnashes his teeth to the gum. So goes the war: at a stalemate until the sluggish King Audry sees fit to intervene."

"And then?"

" 'And then?' Battle and blood, sinking ships, burning castles. Casmir is astute, and more flexible then he might seem. He risks little unless the gain is great. When he could not strike at us, his thoughts went to the Ulflands. He tried to suborn the Duke of Vale Evander. The ploy failed. Relations between Casmir and Carfilhiot are now at best correct."

"So what will he do next?"

King Granice performed a cryptic gesture. "Ultimately, if we hold him off long enough, he must make peace with us, at our terms. Meanwhile, he struggles and squirms, and we try to read his mind. We puzzle over the dispatches of our spies; we look at the world as it must appear from the parapets of Haidion. Well, enough for now, of plots and intrigue. Your cousin Trewan is somewhere at hand: a stern and earnest young man, but worthy, or so I hope, since one day, if events pursue their normal course, he will be king. Let us step into the dining hall, where no doubt we will discover more of this noble Voluspa."

At supper Aillas found himself seated beside Prince Trewan, who had grown to be a burly, darkly handsome young man, a trifle heavy in the face, with dark round eyes separated by a long patrician nose. Trewan dressed with care, in a style consonant with his rank; already he seemed to anticipate the day when he would become king: which would be upon the death of his father Arbamet, if Arbamet indeed succeeded Granice as king.

Ordinarily Aillas refused to take Trewan seriously, thus vexing Trewan and incurring his heavy disapproval. On this occasion Aillas restrained his levity, that he might learn as much as possible, and Trewan was more than ready to instruct his bucolic cousin.

"Truly," said Trewan, "it is a pleasure to see you down from Watershade, where time goes like a dream."

"We have little to startle us," agreed Aillas. "Last week a kitchen-maid went to pull greens in the garden and was stung by a bee. That was the most notable event of the week."

"Things go differently at Miraldra, I assure you. Today we inspected a great new ship, which we hope will augment our power, and cause Casmir a canker. Did you know that he wants to ally with the Ska and turn them against us?" "It seems an extreme measure."

"Exactly so, and Casmir may not dare so greatly. Still, we must prepare for any eventuality, and this has been my point of view in the counsels."

"Tell me about the new ship."

"Well, its design comes from the seas under Arabia. The hull is wide at the deck and narrow at the water, so that it is very easy and stable. There are two short masts, each supporting a very long yard at its middle point. One end of the yard is brought down to the deck, the other lifts high to catch the upper wind. The ship should move at speed even in light airs, in any direction whatever. There will be catapults fore and aft and other contrivances to foil the Ska. As soon as possible after shake-down— mind you now, this is secret information—the King has required that I undertake a diplomatic mission of great importance. At the moment I can say no more. What brings you to Miraldra?"

"I am here at King Granice's command."

"For what purpose?"

"I'm not sure."

"Well, we shall see," said Trewan rather grandly. "I will put in a word for you during my next conference with King Granice. It may help your prospects and certainly can't hurt."

"That is good of you," said Aillas.

On the following day Granice, Trewan, Aillas and several others rode out from Miraldra, through Domreis, then two miles north along the shore to an isolated shipyard in the estuary of the Tumbling River. The group passed through a guarded gate, then walked along a trestle to a cove hidden from the sea by a bend of the river.

Granice told Aillas: "We attempt secrecy, but the spies refuse to oblige us. They come over the mountains to swarm among the shipwrights. Some come by boat, others think to swim. We only know of the ones we capture, but it is a good sign that they keep coming, which tells us something of Casmir's curiosity ... There is the vessel itself. The Saracens call this type a felucca. Notice how low she floats! The hull is shaped like a fish and eases through the water without stirring a wake. The riggers are now stepping the masts." Granice pointed to a pole hanging from a derrick. "The mast is timberline spruce which is light and resilient. Yonder lie the yards, which are built of spruce poles scarfed, glued and seized with iron wire and pitch to make a very long spar tapered at each end. There are no better masts or yards on the face of the earth, and in a week we shall put them to test. It will be named Smaadra after the Bithne-Schasian* goddess of the sea. Let us go aboard."

          *One of the Third Era peoples to inhabit the Elder Isles.

Granice led the way to the after cabin. "We are not so commodious as on a merchantman, but the quarters suffice. Now, sit you two yonder." Granice waved Aillas and Trewan to a bench. "Steward, bring Sir Famet here and you may also give us refreshment." Granice seated himself at the table and inspected the two young men. "Trewan, Aillas: listen now with all four of your ears. You are presently to make a voyage aboard the Smaadra. Ordinarily a new ship would be indulged with careful sea trials, and all its parts tested. We shall still do so, but very hastily."

Sir Famet entered the cabin: a sturdy white-haired man with a face chiseled from rough stone. He gave a laconic greeting to Granice and seated himself at the table.

Granice continued his exposition. "I have had recent advice from Lyonesse. It appears that King Casmir, writhing and casting about like a wounded snake, has sent a secret mission to Skaghane. He hopes for the use of a Ska fleet, if only to protect a landing of Lyonesse troops on Troicinet. The Ska so far have committed themselves to nothing. Neither, of course, trusts the other; each would want to emerge with advantage. But, evidently, Troicinet faces a grave danger. If we are defeated, so go the Elder Isles, either to Casmir, or worse, to the Ska."

Trewan said in a portentous voice, "That is menacing news."

"It is indeed, and we must take counter-measures. If the Smaadra behaves as we hope, six new hulls go on the ways at once. Second, I hope to bring pressure, both military and diplomatic, to bear against Casmir, though without any great optimism. Still, the effort can do no harm. To this end, as soon as possible, I will send the Smaadra with envoys first to Dahaut, Blaloc and Pomperol, then Godelia, and finally South Ulfland. Sir Famet will command the voyage; you, Aillas, and you, Trewan, shall be his aides. I intend that you make this voyage not for your health, nor personal satisfaction, nor the enhancement of your vanities, but for education. You, Trewan, are in direct line for the throne. You will need to learn a great deal about marine warfare, diplomacy and the quality of life around the Elder Isles. The same applies to Aillas, who must justify his rank and its perquisites by service to Troicinet."

"Sir, I shall do my best," said Aillas.

"And I, no less!" declared Trewan.

Granice nodded. "Very good; I expected no less. During this voyage, remember well, you are under the command of Sir Fa-met. Listen to him carefully, and profit by his wisdom. He will not require your advice, so please reserve your opinions and theories unless they are specifically required. In fact, on this voyage, forget that you are princes and conduct yourselves as cadets, unskilled and inexperienced but eager to learn. Do I make myself clear? Trewan?"

Trewan spoke in a surly voice: "I shall obey, of course. Still, I was under the impression—"

"Revise that impression. What of you, Aillas?"

Aillas could not help but grin. "I understand perfectly, sir. I shall do my best to learn."

"Excellent. Now look around the ship, the two of you, while I confer with Sir Famet."

Chapter 9

THE PRE-DAWN AIR WAS QUIET and cool; the sky showed the colors of citron, pearl, and apricot, which were reflected from the sea. Out from the Tumbling River estuary drifted the black ship Smaadra, propelled across the water by its sweeps. A mile offshore, the sweeps were shipped. The yards were raised, sails sheeted taut and back-stays set up. With the sunrise came breeze; the ship glided quickly and quietly into the east, and presently Troicinet had become a shadow along the horizon.

Aillas, tiring of Trewan's company, went forward to the bow, but Trewan sauntered after him, and took occasion to explain the workings of the bow catapults. Aillas listened with polite detachment; exasperation and impatience were profitless exercises in dealing with Trewan.

"Essentially, these are no more than monstrous cross-bows," said Trewan in the voice of one providing insights of great interest to a respectful child. "Their range is functionally two hundred yards, though accuracy is compromised on a moving ship. The tensile member is laminated of steel, ash and hornbeam, assembled and glued in an expert and secret method. The instruments will hurl harpoons, stones or fireballs, and are highly effective. Eventually, and I shall see to it personally, if need be, we shall deploy a navy of a hundred ships such as this, equipped with ten larger and heavier catapults. There will also be supply ships, and an admiral's flagship, with proper accommodations. I am not particularly pleased with my present quarters. It is an absurd little place for one of my rank." Here Trewan referred to his cubbyhole beside the aft cabin. Aillas occupied a similar space opposite, with Sir Famet enjoying the relatively commodious aft cabin itself.

Aillas said in full gravity: "Perhaps Sir Famet might consider changing berths with you, if you put it to him in a reasonable manner."

Trewan merely spat over the rail; he found Aillas' humor at times a trifle tart, and for the rest of the day he had nothing to say.

At sundown the winds diminished to a near calm. Sir Famet, Trewan and Aillas took supper at a table on the rear deck, under the tall bronze stern-lantern. Over a beaker of red wine Sir Famet relaxed his taciturnity.

"Well then," he asked, almost expansively, "and how goes the voyage?"

Trewan at once brought forward a set of peevish complaints, while Aillas looked on and listened in slack-jawed wonder: how could Trewan be so insensitive? "Well enough, or so I suppose," said Trewan. "There is obvious room for improvement."

"Indeed?" asked Sir Famet without overmuch interest. "How so?"

"In the first place, my quarters are intolerably cramped. The ship's designer could well have done better. By adding ten or fifteen feet to the length of the ship, he might have provided two comfortable cabins instead of one; and certainly a pair of dignified privies."

"True," said Sir Famet, blinking over his wine. "With another thirty feet still, we might have brought valets, hairdressers and concubines. What else troubles you?"

Trewan, absorbed in his grievances, failed to heed the tenor of the remark. "I find the crew far too casual. They dress as they please; they lack smartness. They know nothing of punctilio; they take no account of my rank... Today while I was inspecting the ship I was told to 'Move aside, sir, you are in the way'— as if I were a squire."

No muscle of Sir Famet's hard face so much as twitched. He considered his words, then said: "At sea as on the battlefield, respect does not come automatically. It must be earned. You will be judged by your competence rather than your birth. It is a condition with which I for one am content. You will discover that the obsequious sailor, like the over-respectful soldier, is not the one you most want beside you in either a battle or a storm."

A trifle daunted, Trewan nevertheless argued his point. "Still, a proper deference is ultimately important! Otherwise all authority and order is lost, and we would live like wild animals."

"This is a picked crew. You will find them orderly indeed when the time comes for order." Sir Famet drew himself up in his chair. "Perhaps I should say something about our mission. The overt purpose is to negotiate a set of advantageous treaties. Both I and King Granice would be surprised if we did so. We will be dealing with persons of status exceeding our own, of the most various dispositions and all stubbornly controlled by their own conceptions. King Deuel of Pomperol is an ardent ornithologist, King Milo of Blaloc ordinarily consumes a gill of aquavit before he rises from bed in the morning. The court at Avallon seethes with erotic intrigues, and King Audry's chief catamite wields more influence than the Lord General Sir Ermice Pro-pyrogeros. Our policy therefore is flexible. At minimum, we hope for polite interest and a perception of our power."

Trewan frowned and pursed his lips. "Why be content with modesty and half-measures? I would hope in my conversations to achieve something closer to the maximum. I suggest that we arrange our strategies more on these terms."

Sir Famet, tilting his head back, showed a cool thin smile to the evening sky and drank wine from his beaker. He set the vessel down with a thump. "King Granice and I have established both strategy and tactics, and we will adhere to these procedures."

"Of course. Still, two minds are better than one"—Trewan spoke past Aillas as if he were not present—"and there is clearly scope for variation in the arrangements."

"When circumstances warrant I shall consult with Prince Aillas and yourself. King Granice envisioned such training for you both. You may be present at certain discussions, in which case you shall listen, but at no time speak unless I direct you so to do. Is this clear, Prince Aillas?"

"Sir, absolutely."

"Prince Trewan?"

Trewan performed a curt bow, whose effect he at once attempted to ameliorate with a suave gesture. "Naturally, sir, we are under your orders. I will not put forward my personal views; still, I hope that you will keep me informed as to all negotiations and commitments, since, after all, it is I who eventually must deal with the aftermath."

Sir Famet responded with a cool smile. "In this regard, Prince Trewan, I will do my best to oblige you."

"In that case." declared Trewan in a hearty voice, "there is no more to be said."

Halfway through the morning an islet appeared off the port bow a quarter of a mile away, the sheets were eased and the ship lost way.  Aillas went to the boatswain who stood by the rail. "Why are we stopping?"

"Yonder is Mlia, the mermen's isle. Look sharp; sometimes you will see them on the low rocks, or even on the beach."

A raft of scrap lumber was lifted on the cargo-boom; jars of honey, packets of raisins and dried apricots were stowed aboard; the raft was lowered into the sea and set adrift. Looking down through the clear water Aillas saw the flicker of pallid shapes, an upturned face with hair floating behind. It was a strange narrow face with limpid black eyes, a long thin nose, an expression wild, or avid, or excited, or gleeful: there were no precepts in Aillas' background for the comprehension of such an expression.

For a few minutes the Smaadra floated still in the water. The raft drifted slowly at first, then more purposefully and with small jerks and impulses moved toward the island.

Aillas put another question to the boatswain: "What if we went to the island with such gifts?"

"Sir, who can say? If you dared to row your boat yonder without such gifts, you would surely find misfortune. It is wise to deal politely with the merfolk. After all, the sea is theirs. Now then, time to be underway. Hoy, you yonder! Trim the sheets! Over with the helm! Let's kick up the spume!"

The days passed; landfalls were made and departures taken. Later Aillas recalled the events of the voyage as a collage of sounds, voices, music; faces and forms; helmets, armor, hats and garments; reeks, perfumes and airs; personalities and postures; ports, piers, anchorages and roadsteads. There were receptions, audiences; banquets and balls.

Aillas could not gauge the effect of their visits. They made, so he felt, a good impression: the integrity and strength of Sir Famet could not be mistaken, and Trewan, for the most part, held his tongue.

The kings were uniformly evasive, and would consider no commitments. Drunken King Milo of Blaloc was sober enough to point out: "Yonder stand the tall forts of Lyonesse, where the Troice navy exerts no strength!"

"Sir, it is our hope that, as allies, we may ease the threat of these forts."

King Milo responded only with a melancholy gesture and raised a tankard of aquavit to his mouth.

Mad King Deuel of Pomperol was equally indefinite. To obtain an audience, the Troice delegation traveled to the summer palace Alcantade, through a pleasant and prosperous land. The folk of Pomperol, far from resenting the obsessions of their monarch, enjoyed his antics; he was not only tolerated in his follies but encouraged.

King Deuel's madness was harmless enough; he felt an excessive partiality for birds, and indulged himself with absurd fancies, some of which, by virtue of his power, he was able to make real. He dubbed his ministers with such titles as Lord Goldfinch, Lord Snipe, Lord Peewit, Lord Bobolink, Lord Tanager. His dukes were Duke Bluejay, Duke Curlew, Duke Black Crested Tern, Duke Nightingale. His edicts proscribed the eating of eggs, as a "cruel and murderous delinquency, subject to punishment dire and stern."

Alcantade, the summer palace, had appeared to King Deuel in a dream. Upon awakening he called his architects and ordained the substance of his vision. As might be conjectured, Alcantade was an unusual structure, but nonetheless a place of curious charm: light, fragile, painted in gay colors, with tall roofs at various levels.

Arriving at Alcantade, Sir Famet, Aillas and Trewan discovered King Deuel resting aboard his swan-headed barge, which a dozen young girls clad in white feathers propelled slowly across the lake.

In due course King Deuel stepped ashore: a small sallow man of middle years. He greeted the envoys with cordiality. "Welcome, welcome! A pleasure to meet citizens of Troicinet, a land of which I have heard great things. The broad-billed grebe nests along the rocky shores in profusion, and the nuthatch dines to satiety upon the acorns of your splendid oaks. The great Troice horned owls are renowned everywhere for their majesty. I confess to a partiality for birds; they delight me with their grace and courage. But enough of my enthusiasms. What brings you to Alcantade?"

"Your Majesty, we are the envoys of King Granice and we bear his earnest message. When you are so disposed, I will speak it out before you."

"What better time than now? Steward, bring us refreshment! We will sit at yonder table. Speak now your message."

Sir Famet looked right and left at the courtiers who stood in polite proximity. "Sir, might you not prefer to hear me in private?"

"Not at all!" declared King Deuel. "At Alcantade we have no secrets. We are like birds in an orchard of ripe fruit, where everyone trills his happiest song. Speak on, Sir Famet."

"Very well, sir. I will cite certain events which disquiet King Granice of Troicinet."

Sir Famet spoke; King Deuel listened carefully, with head cocked to the side. Sir Famet finished his exposition. "These, sir, are the dangers which menace us all—in the not too distant future."

King Deuel grimaced. "Dangers, everywhere dangers! I am beset on all hands, so that often I hardly take rest of nights." King Deuel's voice became nasal and he twitched in his chair as he spoke. "Daily I hear a dozen pitiful cries for protection. We guard our entire north border against the cats, stoats, and weasels employed by King Audry. The Godelians are also a menace, even though their roosts lie a hundred leagues distant. They breed and train the cannibal falcons, each a traitor to his kind. To the west is an even more baleful threat, and I allude to Duke Faude Carfilhiot, who breathes green air. Like the Godelians he hunts with falcons, using bird against bird."

Sir Famet protested in a strained voice. "Still, you need fear no actual assault! Tintzin Fyral stands far beyond the forest!"

King Deuel shrugged. "It is admittedly a long day's flight. But we must face reality. I have named Carfilhiot a dastard; and he dared not retort, for fear of my mighty talons. Now he skulks in his toad-wallow planning the worst kinds of mischief."

Prince Trewan, ignoring Sir Famet's cold blue side-glance, spoke out briskly: "Why not place the strength of those same talons beside those of your fellow birds? Our flock shares your views in regard to Carfilhiot and his ally King Casmir. Together we can rebuff their attacks with great blows of talon and beak!"

"True. Someday we shall see the formation of just such a mighty force. In the meantime each must contribute where he can. I have cowed the squamous Carfilhiot and defied the Godelians; nor do I spare mercy upon Audry's bird-killers. You are thereby liberated to aid us against the Ska and sweep them from the sea. Each does his part: I through the air; you on the ocean wave."

The Smaadra arrived at Avallon, largest and oldest city of the Elder Isles: a place of great palaces, a university, theaters and an enormous public bath. There were a dozen temples erected to the glory of Mithra, Dis, Jupiter, Jehovah, Lug, Gaea, Enlil, Dagon, Baal, Cronus and three-headed Dion of the ancient Hybrasian pantheon. The Somrac lam Dor, a massive domed structure, housed the sacred throne Evandig and the table Cairbra an Meadhan, objects whose custody in olden days had legitimized the kings of Hybras.*

          *The table, Cairbra an Meadhan, was divided into twenty-three segments, each carved with now

            unreadable glyphs, purportedly the names of twenty-two in the service of the fabulous King

            Mahadion. In years to come a table in the style of Cairbra an Meadhan would be celebrated as the

            Round Table of King Arthur.

King Audry returned from his summer palace riding in a scarlet and gold carriage drawn by six white unicorns. On the same afternoon the Troice emissaries were allowed an audience. King Audry, a tall saturnine man, had a face of fascinating ugliness. He was noted for his amours and said to be perceptive, self-indulgent, vain and occasionally cruel. He greeted the Troice with urbanity and put them at their ease. Sir Famet delivered his message, while King Audry leaned back into his cushions, eyes half-closed, stroking the white cat which had jumped into his lap.

Sir Famet concluded his statement. "Sir, that is my message to you from King Granice."

King Audry nodded slowly. "It is a proposal with many sides and more edges. Yes! Of course! I dearly yearn for the subjugation of Casmir and the end of his ambitions. But before I can commit treasure, arms and blood to such a project I must secure my flanks. Were I to look away an instant, the Godelians would come pounding down on me looting, burning, taking slaves. North Ulfland is a wilderness, and the Ska have encroached upon the foreshore. If I embroiled myself in North Ulfland against the Ska, then Casmir would be upon me." King Audry reflected a moment, then: "Candor is such a poor policy that we all recoil automatically from the truth. In this case you might as well know the truth. It is to my best interests that Troicinet and Lyonesse maintain a stalemate."

"Daily the Ska grow stronger in North Ulfland. They too have ambitions."

"I hold them in check with my fort Poelitetz. First the Godelians, then the Ska, then Casmir."

"Meanwhile, what if Casmir, with the help of the Ska, takes Troicinet?"

"A disaster for both of us. Fight well!"

Dartweg, King of the Godelian Celts, listened to Sir Famet with a ponderous and bland courtesy.

Sir Famet came to the end of his remarks. "That is the situation as it seems from Troicinet. If events go with King Casmir, he will move at last into Godelia and you will be destroyed."

King Dartweg pulled at his red beard. A Druid bent to mutter in his ear and Dartweg nodded. He rose to his feet. "We cannot spare the Dauts so that they may conquer Lyonesse. They would thereupon attack us with new strength. No! We must guard our interests!"

The Smaadra sailed on, through days bright with sunlight and nights sparkling with stars: across Dafdilly Bay, around Tawgy Head and into the Narrow Sea, with the wind dead fair and wake warbling up astern; then south, past Skaghane and Frehane, and smaller islands by the dozens: cliff-girt places of forest, moor and crag, exposed to all the winds of the Atlantic, inhabited by multitudes of sea-birds and the Ska. On various occasions Ska ships were sighted, and as many of the small trading cogs, Irish, Cornish, Troice or Aquitanian, which the Ska suffered to ply the Narrow Sea. The Ska ships made no effort to close, perhaps because the Smaadra clearly was able to outrun them down a fresh wind.

Oaldes, where ailing King Oriante maintained a semblance of a court, was passed by; the final port of call would be Ys at the mouth of the Evander, where the Forty Factors preserved the independence of Ys against Carfilhiot.

Six hours out of Ys the wind slackened and at this time a Ska long-ship, powered by sweeps and a red and black square sail came in view. Upon sighting the Smaadra it changed course. The Smaadra, unable to outrun the Ska ship, prepared for battle. The catapults were manned and armed, fire-pots prepared and slung to booms; arrow-screens raised above the bulwarks.

The battle went quickly. After a few arrow volleys the Ska moved in close and tried to grapple.

The Troice returned the arrow fire, then winged out a boom and slung a fire-pot accurately onto the long-ship, where it exploded in a terrible surprise of yellow flame. At a range of thirty yards the Smaadra's catapults in a leisurely fashion broke the long-ship apart. The Smaadra stood by to rescue survivors but the Ska made no attempt to swim from the wallowing hulk of their once-proud ship, which presently sank under the weight of its loot.

The Ska commander, a tall black-haired man in a three-pronged steel helmet and a white cap over the pangolin scales of his armor, stood immobile on the afterdeck and so sank with his ship.

Casualties aboard the Smaadra were slight; unfortunately they included Sir Famet, who, in the initial volley, took an arrow in the eye and now lay dead on the afterdeck, with the arrow shaft protruding from his head two feet into the air.

Prince Trewan, conceiving himself the second ranking member of the delegation, took command of the ship. "Into the sea with our honored dead," he told the captain. "The rites of mourning must wait upon our return to Domreis. We will proceed as before, to Ys."

The Smaadra approached Ys from the sea. At first nothing could be seen but a line of low hills parallel to the shore, then, like shadows looming through the haze, the high serrated outline of the Teach tac Teach* appeared.

          *Literally: 'peak on peak' in one of the precursor tongues.

A wide pale beach gleamed in the sunlight, with a glistening fringe of surf. Presently the mouth of the River Evander appeared beside an isolated white palace on the beach. Aillas' attention was caught by its air of seclusion and secrecy, and its unusual architecture, which was like none other of his experience.

The Smaadra entered the Evander estuary, and gaps in the dark foliage shrouding the hills revealed many more white palaces, on terrace above terrace: clearly Ys was a rich and ancient city.   A stone jetty came into view, with ships moored alongside, and, behind, a row of shops: taverns, green-grocers' booths, and fish-mongers' stalls.

The Smaadra eased close to the jetty, made fast to wooden bollards carved to represent the torsos of mermen. Trewan, Ail-las and a pair of ship's officers jumped ashore. No one took notice of their presence.

Trewan had long since placed himself thoroughly in command of the voyage. By various hints and signals he gave Aillas to understand that, in the context of the present business, Aillas and the ship's officers occupied an exactly equal standing as members of the retinue. Aillas, sourly amused, accepted the situation without comment. The voyage was almost over and Trewan in all probability, for better or worse, would be the future king of Troicinet.

At Trewan's behest, Aillas made inquiries, and the group was directed to the palace of Lord Shein, the First Factor of Ys. The route took them a quarter-mile at a slant up the hillside, from terrace to terrace, in the shade of tall samfire trees.

Lord Shein received the four Troice with neither surprise nor effusive demonstration. Trewan performed the introductions. "Sir, I am Trewan, Prince at the Court of Miraldra and nephew to King Granice of Troicinet. Here is Sir Leves, and Sir Elmoret, and here my cousin, Prince Aillas of Watershade."

Lord Shein acknowledged the introductions informally. "Please be seated." He indicated settees and signaled his servants to bring refreshment. He himself remained standing: a slender olive-skinned man of early maturity, dark-haired, who carried himself with the elegance of a mythical dawn-dancer. His intelligence was obvious; his manners were courteous but so in contrast to Trewan's sententiousness that he seemed almost frivolous.

Trewan explained the business of the delegation as he had heard Sir Famet put it on previous occasions: to Aillas' mind, an insensitive misreading of conditions at the city Ys, what with Faude Carfilhiot looming above Vale Evander only twenty miles east and Ska ships daily visible from the jetty.

Shein, half-smiling, shook his head and gave Trewan's proposals short shrift. "Understand, if you will, that Ys is something of a special case. Normally we are subject to the Duke of Vale Evander, who in equal measure is a dutiful vassal of King Oriante. Which is to say, we heed Carfilhiot's orders even less than he obeys King Oriante. Not at all, in sheer fact. We are detached from the politics of the Elder Isles. King Casmir, King Audry, King Granice: they are all beyond our concerns."

Trewan made an incredulous expostulation. "You would seem to be vulnerable on both sides, to Ska and Carfilhiot alike."

Shein, smiling, demolished Trewan's concept. "We are Trevenas, like all the folk of the vale. Carfilhiot has only a hundred men of his own. He could raise a thousand or even two thousand troops from the valley if a clear need arose, but never to attack Ys."

"Still, what of the Ska? On a moment's notice, they could overrun the city."

Shein once again demurred. "We Trevenas are an old race, as old as the Ska. They will never attack us."

"1 cannot "understand this," muttered Trewan. "Are you magicians?"

"Let us talk of other matters. You are returning to Troicinet?"

"At once."

Shein looked quizzically around the group. "With absolutely no offense intended, I am perplexed that King Granice sends what appears a rather junior group on affairs of so much consequence. Especially in view of his special interests here in South Ulfland."

"What special interests are these?"

"Are they not clear? If Prince Quilcy dies without issue, Granice is next in the lawful succession, through the line that starts with Danglish, Duke of South Ulfland, who was grandfather to Granice's father and also grandfather to Oriante. But surely you were well aware of all this?"

"Yes, of course," said Trewan. "Naturally we keep abreast of such matters."

Shein was now openly smiling. "And naturally you are aware of the new circumstances in Troicinet?"

"Naturally," said Trewan. "We are returning to Domreis at once." He rose to his feet and bowed stiffly. "I regret that you could not take a more positive attitude."

"Still, it will have to serve. I bid you a pleasant voyage home."

The Troice emissaries returned down through Ys to the jetty. Trewan muttered: "What could he mean 'new circumstances in Troicinet?'"

"Why didn't you ask him?" asked Aillas, in a studiously neutral voice.

"Because I chose not to do so," snapped Trewan.

Upon reaching the jetty they noticed a Troice cog, newly arrived and only just making its lines fast to the bollards.

Trewan stopped short. "I'll just have a word with the captain. You three prepare the Smaadra for immediate sailing."

The three returned aboard the Smaadra. Ten minutes later Trewan left the cog and came along the jetty, walking with a slow and thoughtful step. Before boarding, he turned and looked up Vale Evander. Then slowly he turned and boarded the Smaadra.

Aillas asked: "What were the new circumstances?"

"The captain could tell me nothing."

"You seem suddenly very glum."

Trewan compressed his lips but had no comment to make. He scanned the horizon. "The cog lookout sighted a pirate ship. We must be on the alert." Trewan turned away. "I am not altogether well; I must rest." He lurched away to the aft cabin which he had occupied since the death of Sir Famet.

The Smaadra departed the harbor. As they passed the white palace on the beach, Aillas, from the afterdeck, noticed a young woman who had come out upon the terrace. Distance blurred her features, but Aillas was able to make out her long black hair, and, by her carriage or some other attribute, he knew her to be well-favored, perhaps even beautiful. He raised his arm and waved to her, but she made no response and returned into the palace.

The Smaadra put out to sea. The lookouts scanned the horizon but reported no other shipping; the pirate vessel, if such indeed existed, was nowhere to be seen.

Trewan failed to reappear on deck until noon of the following day. His indisposition, whatever its source, had departed and Trewan seemed once more in sound health, if still somewhat gaunt and pale. Except for a few words with the captain as to the progress of the ship, he spoke to no one, and presently returned to his cabin, where the steward brought him a pot of boiled beef with leeks.

An hour before sunset Trewan once more stepped out on deck. He looked at the low sun and asked the captain: "Why do we sail this course?"

"Sir, we have made a bit too much easting. Should the wind rise or shift, we might well fall in peril of Tark, which I put yonder, just over the horizon."

"Then we are having a slow passage."

"Something slow, sir, but easy. I see no occasion to man the sweeps."

"Quite so."

Aillas took supper with Trewan, who suddenly became talkative and formulated a dozen grandiose plans. "When I am King, I shall make myself known as 'Monarch of the Seas!' I will build thirty warships, each with a complement of a hundred mariners." He went on to describe the projected ships in detail. "We will care never a fig whether Casmir allies himself with the Ska or the Tartars, or the Mamelukes of Araby."

"That is a noble prospect."

Trewan disclosed even more elaborate schemes. "Casmir intends to be King of the Elder Isles; he claims lineage from the first Olam. King Audry also pretends to the same throne; he has Evandig to validate his claim. I also can claim lineage from Olam, and if I were to make a great raid and take Evandig for my own, why should I not aspire to the same realm?"

"It is an ambitious concept," said Aillas. And many heads would be lopped before Trewan achieved his purpose, so thought Aillas.

Trewan glanced sidewise at Aillas from under his heavy brows. He drank a goblet of wine at a gulp and once more became taciturn. Presently Aillas went out on the afterdeck where he leaned on the taff-rail and watched the afterglow and its shifting reflections on the water. In another two days the voyage would be over, and he would be done with Trewan and his irritating habits: a joyful thought!... Aillas turned away from the taff-rail and went forward to where the off-watch crew sat under a flaring lamp, a few gambling dice, one singing mournful ballads to the chords of his lute. Aillas remained half an hour, then went aft to his cubbyhole.

Dawn found the Smaadra well into the Straits of Palisidra. At noon Cape Palisidra, the western tip of Troicinet, loomed into view, then disappeared, and the Smaadra now rode the waters of the Lir.

During the afternoon the wind died, and the Smaadra floated motionless, with spars rattling and sails flapping. Toward sunset the wind returned, but from a different quarter; the captain put the ship on a starboard tack, to sail almost due north. Trewan gave vent to his dissatisfaction. "We'll never make Domreis tomorrow on this course!"

The captain, who had adjusted to Trewan only with difficulty, gave an indifferent shrug. "Sir, the port tack takes us into the Twirles: 'the ships' graveyard.' The winds will drive us to Domreis tomorrow, if the currents do not throw us off."

"Well then, what of these, currents?"

"They are unpredictable. The tide flows in and out of the Lir; the currents may swing us in any of four directions. They flow at speed; they eddy in the middle of the Lir; they have thrown many sound ships on the rocks."

"In that case, be vigilant! Double the lookout!"

"Sir, all that needs doing already has been done."

At sunset the wind died again and the Smaadra lay motionless.