"Sire, I speak not from disrespect, but from faith that you wish to hear truth from your subjects. I do believe that you were far too harsh on the poor bit of a girl. I beg you to let her live a happy life with her own child: She will thank you for the mercy, as will I and all your subjects, for she has in her entire life never done a wrong."

The room was silent. Everyone furtively watched King Casmir, who in his turn pondered... The woman of course was right, thought Casmir. Now to show mercy was equivalent to the admission that he had indeed dealt harshly with his daughter. He could discern no graceful retreat. With mercy impractical, he could only reaffirm his previous position.

"Ehirme, your loyalty is commendable. I can only wish that my daughter had given me a similar service. I will not here and now review her case, nor explain the apparent severity of her punishment, save to state that, as a royal princess her first duty is to the kingdom.

"We will discuss this matter no longer. I now refer to that child borne by Princess Suldrun in what seems to have been lawful wedlock, which makes the child legitimate, hence a subject for my dutiful concern. I must now ask the seneschal to send you out with a suitable escort, that we may have the child here at Haidion where it belongs."

Ehirme blinked indecisively. "May I ask, sire, without giving offense: what of Princess Suldrun, since the child is hers?"

Again King Casmir pondered his reply; again he spoke gently. "You are properly steadfast in your concern for the errant princess.

"First, as to the marriage, I now declare it void, null and contrary to the interests of the state, though the child can only be considered legitimate. As for Princess Suldrun, I will go so far: if she submissively declares her wrong-doing, if she will affirm an intent to act henceforth in full obedience to my orders, she may return to Haidion, and a.s.sume the condition of mother to her child. But first and immediately we shall fetch the child."

Ehirme licked her lips, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, looked to right, then to left. She said in a tentative voice: "Your Majesty's edict is very good. I beg your leave to bring these words of hope to the Princess Suldrun, and lessen her grief. May I just run now to the garden?"

King Casmir gave a grim nod. "You may do so, as soon as we know where to find the child."

"Your Majesty, I cannot reveal her secret! In your generosity, bring her here and tell her the good news!"

King Casmir's eyelids dropped the sixteenth part of an inch. "Do not put loyalty to the princess above duty to me, your king. I ask you the question once more only. Where is the child?"

Ehirme croaked, "Sire, I beg that you put the question to Suldrun."

King Casmir gave a small jerk of the head and twitch of the hand: signals adequately familiar to those who served him, and Ehirme was led from the hall.

During the night Suldrun's sleep, fitful at the best, was disturbed by a periodic mad howling from the Peinhador. She could not identify the quality of the sound, and tried to ignore it.

Padraig, Ehirme's third son, rushed across the Urquial to the Peinhador and flung himself upon Zerling. "No more! She will not tell you, but I will! Only now have I returned from Glym-wode, where I took the cursed brat; there you will find it."

Zerling suspended torment upon the sprawled mound of flesh, and informed King Casmir, who instantly sent a party of four knights and two wet nurses in a carriage to retrieve the child. Then he asked Zerling: "Did the message come through the woman's mouth?"

"No, your Majesty. She will not speak."

"Prepare to cut a hand and a foot each from her husband and sons, unless she pa.s.ses the words through her mouth."

Ehirme saw the grisly preparations through filmed eyes. Zerling said: "Woman, a party is on its way to bring the child back from Glymwode. The king insists that, in order to obey his command, you respond to the question; otherwise your husband and sons must each lose a hand and foot. I ask you: where is the child?"

Padraig cried out: "Speak, mother! Silence has no more meaning!"

Ehirme said in a heavy croak, "The baby is at Glymwode. There, you have it."

Zerling loosed the men and sent them out into the Urquial. Then he took a pincers, pulled Ehirme's tongue from her head and slit it in two. With red-hot iron he seared the wound to staunch the blood, and such was Casmir's final penalty upon Ehirme.

In the garden the first day went by slowly, instant after hesitant instant, each approaching diffidently, as if on tiptoe, to hurry across the plane of the present and lose itself among the glooms and shadows of the past.

The second day was hazy, less breathless, but the air hung heavy with portent.

The third day, still hazy, seemed sluggish and drained of sensibility, yet somehow innocent and sweet, as if ready for renewal. On this day Suldrun went slowly about the garden, pausing at times to touch the trunk of a tree, or the face of a stone. With head bent she walked the length of her beach, and only once paused to look to sea. Then she climbed the path, to sit among the ruins.

The afternoon pa.s.sed: a golden dreaming time, and the stone cliffs encompa.s.sed the whole of the universe.

The sun sank softly and quietly. Suldrun nodded pensively, as if here were elucidation of an uncertainty, though tears coursed down her cheeks.

The stars appeared. Suldrun descended to the old lime tree and, in the dim light of the stars, she hanged herself. The moon, rising over the ridge, shone on a limp form and a sad sweet face, already preoccupied with her new knowledge.

Chapter 17.

AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OUBLIETTE, Aillas no longer considered himself alone. With great patience he had arranged along one wall twelve skeletons. In days long past, when each of the individuals so represented had walked his term of days as a man, and at the end as a prisoner, each had scratched his name, and often a motto, into the rock wall: twelve names to match twelve skeletons. There had been no rescues, pardons, or escapes; such seemed to be the message of the correspondence. Aillas started to inscribe his own name, using the edge of a buckle; then in a spasm of anger he desisted. Such an act meant resignation, and presaged the thirteenth skeleton.

Aillas confronted his new friends. To each he had a.s.signed one of the names, possibly without accuracy. "Still," Aillas told the group, "a name is a name, and were one of you to address me incorrectly, I would take no offense."

He called his new friends to order: "Gentlemen, we sit in conclave, to share our collective wisdom and to ratify a common policy. There are no rules of order; let spontaneity serve us all, within the limits of decorum.

"Our general topic is 'escape.' It is a subject we all have considered, evidently without enlightenment. Some of you may regard the matter as no longer consequential; still, a victory for one is a victory for all! Let us define the problem. Simply stated, it is the act of ascending the shaft, from here to the surface. I believe that if I were able to gain the bottom of the shaft I could climb crab-wise to the surface.

"To this end, I need to elevate myself twelve feet into the shaft, and this is a formidable problem. I cannot jump so high. I have no ladder. You, my colleagues, while strong of bone, lack sinew and muscle... Might it be that with a resourceful use of these bones and yonder rope something could be contrived? I see before me twelve skulls, twelve pelvises, twenty-four thighbones, twenty-four shin-bones, and a like number of upper arms and lower arms, many ribs and a large number of accessory parts.

"Gentlemen, there is work to be done. The time has come for adjournment. Will someone make the appropriate motion?"

A guttural voice said: "I move to dissolve the conference sine die."

Aillas stared around the line of skeletons. Which had spoken? Or had it been his own voice? After a pause he asked: "Are there negative votes?"

Silence.

"In that case," said Aillas, "the conclave is dissolved."

He set himself to work at once, disa.s.sembling each skeleton, sorting the components, testing them in new combinations to discover optimum linkages. Then he began to build, fitting bone to bone with care and precision, grinding against stone when necessary and securing the joints with rope fiber. He started with four pelvises, which he joined with struts of bound ribs. Upon this foundation he mounted the four largest femurs and surmounted these with four more pelvises, and braced with more ribs. Upon this platform he fixed four more femurs, and four final pelvises, bracing and cross-bracing to insure rigidity. He had now achieved a ladder of two stages, which when he tested it bore his weight with no complaint. Then up another stage and another. He worked without haste, while days became weeks, determined that the ladder should not fail at the critical moment. To control sidewise sway, he worked bone splinters into the floor and set up rope guys; the solidity of the structure gave him a ferocious satisfaction. The ladder was now his whole life, a thing of beauty in itself, so that escape began to be of less consequence than the magnificent ladder. He reveled in the spare white struts, the neat joints, the n.o.ble upward thrust.

The ladder was finished. The top level, contrived of ulnas and radii, stood only two feet under the opening of the shaft, and Aillas, with vast caution, practiced inserting himself into the shaft. There was nothing to delay his departure, except to await the next basket of bread and water, so that he might avoid meeting Zerling on his way to feed him. At the next feeding, when Zerling pulled up the untouched food, he would nod sagely and thereafter bring no more baskets.

The bread and water arrived at noon. Aillas took them from the basket, which was then drawn empty up the shaft.

The afternoon waned; never had time pa.s.sed so slowly. The top of the shaft darkened; evening had come. Aillas mounted the ladder. He placed his shoulders against one side of the shaft, his feet against the other, to wedge himself in place. Then six inches at a time he thrust himself up the shaft: at first awkwardly, with fear lest he slip, then with increasing ease. He paused once to rest, and again, when he had approached to three feet from the top, to listen.

Silence.

He continued, now gritting his teeth and grimacing in tension. He thrust his shoulders over the edge of the low wall and rolled to the side. He put his feet to solid ground, stood erect.

The night was quiet around him. To one side the ma.s.s of the Peinhador blotted out the sky. Aillas ran crouching to the old wall which enclosed the Urquial. Like a great black rat he skulked through the shadows and around to the old postern.

The door stood ajar, sagging on a broken hinge. Aillas looked uncertainly down the trail. He slipped through the aperture, crouching uneasily. No challenge came from the dark. Aillas sensed that the garden was untenanted.

He descended the path to the chapel. As he expected, no candle glimmered; the hearth was dead. He proceeded down the path. The moon, rising over the hills, shone on the wan marble of the ruins. Aillas paused, to look and listen, then descended to the lime tree.

"Aillas."

He halted. Again he heard the voice, speaking in a dreary half-whisper. "Aillas."

He approached the lime tree. "Suldrun? I am here."

Beside the tree stood a shape of wisps and mist. . "Aillas, Aillas, you are too late; they have taken our son."

Aillas spoke in astonishment. "'Our son'?"

"He is named Dhrun, and now he is forever gone from me... Oh Aillas, it is not pleasant to be dead."

Tears started from Aillas' eyes. "Poor Suldrun. How could they treat you so?"

"Life was not kind to me. Now it is gone."

"Suldrun, come back to me!"

The pale shape moved and seemed to smile. "No. I am cold and dank. Are you not afraid?"

"I will never be afraid again. Take my hands, I will give you warmth."

Again the shape shifted in the moonlight. "I am Suldrun, yet I am not Suldrun. I ache with a chill all your warmth could never melt... I am tired; I must go."

"Suldrun! Stay with me, I beg you!"

"Dear Aillas, you would find me bad company."

"Who betrayed us? The priest?"

"The priest indeed. Dhrun, our dear little boy: find him, give him care and love. Say that you will!"

"I will do so, as best I can."

"Dear Aillas, I must go."

Aillas stood alone, his heart too full even for the flowing of tears. The garden was empty except for himself. The moon rose into the sky. Aillas finally bestirred himself. He dug under the roots of the lime tree and brought out Persilian the mirror and the pouch with the coins and gems from Suldrun's chamber.

He spent the rest of the night in the gra.s.s under the olive trees. At dawn he scaled the rocks and hid in the undergrowth beside the road.

A band of beggars and pilgrims came from the direction of Kercelot, east along the coast. Aillas joined them and so came down into Lyonesse Town. Recognition? He feared it not at all. Who could know this haggard gray-faced wretch for Prince Aillas of Troicinet?

Where the Sfer Arct met the Chale a cl.u.s.ter of inns displayed their boards. At the Four Mallows, Aillas took lodging, and, finally heeding the reproaches of his stomach, made a slow meal of cabbage soup, bread and wine, eating with great caution lest the unaccustomed food work mischief on his shrunken stomach. The food made him drowsy; he went to his cubicle and shaking out the straw pallet, slept into the afternoon.

Awakening, he stared around the walls in alarm close to consternation. He lay back, body trembling and at last eased his racing pulse... For a period he sat cross-legged on the pallet, sweltering in terror. How had he held his sanity so dark and deep below the ground? Urgencies now thronged upon him; truly he needed time to think, to plan, to recover his poise.

He rose to his feet and went down to the area at the front of the inn, where an arbor of vines and climbing roses shielded benches and tables from the hot afternoon sunlight.

Aillas seated himself at a bench beside the road, and a serving boy brought him beer and fried oat-cakes. Two urgencies pulled him in opposite directions: a near-unbearable homesickness for Watershade, and a longing, reinforced by the charge laid upon him, to find his son.

A dock-side barber shaved him and cut his hair. He bought garments at a booth, washed at a public bath, dressed in his new clothes, and felt immeasurably better. Now he might be taken for a seaman or a tradesman's apprentice.

He returned to the arbor in front of the Four Mallows, which had become busy with late afternoon trade. Aillas drank from a mug of beer and listened to such sc.r.a.ps of conversation as he could overhear, hoping for news. An old man with a flat florid face, silky-clean white hair and a mild blue gaze settled himself across the table. He gave Aillas an amiable greeting, ordered beer and fish-cakes and wasted no time engaging Aillas in conversation. Aillas, wary of Casmir's notorious corps of informers, responded with simple-minded innocence. The old man's name, so Aillas gathered from the salute of a pa.s.serby, was Byssante. He needed no encouragement and provided Aillas information of all kinds. He touched upon the war and Aillas learned that conditions were generally as before. The Troice still immobilized the ports of Lyonesse. A fleet of Troice warships had won a notable victory over the Ska, effectively sealing the Lir from their depredations.

Aillas spoke only: "Exactly so!" and "So I understand!" and "Such things happen, alas!" But this was enough, especially when Aillas ordered more beer and so provided Byssante a second wind.

"What King Casmir plans for Lyonesse, I fear is not succeeding of its own weight, though if Casmir heard my opinion, he'd have me crotch to stock in a trice. Still, the conditions may go even worse, depending upon the Troice succession."

"How so?"

"Well, King Granice is old and fierce but he can't live forever. Should Granice die today, the crown goes to Ospero, who lacks all ferocity. When Ospero dies, Prince Trewan takes the crown, since Ospero's son was lost at sea. If Ospero dies before Granice, Trewan takes the crown directly. Trewan is said to be a fire-breathing warrior; Lyonesse can expect the worst. Were I King Casmir, I would sue for peace on the best terms to be had, and put my grand ambitions aside."

"That might well be the best of it," Aillas agreed. "But what of Prince Arbamet? Did he not hold first claim to the throne after Granice?"

"Arbamet died of injuries when he fell from a horse, something more than a year ago. Still, it's all the same. One is as savage as the next, so that now even the Ska won't come near. Ah my throat! So much talking is dry work. What of it, lad? Can you oblige an old pensioner a stoup of beer?"

Without enthusiasm Aillas called the serving boy. "A measure of beer for this gentleman. Nothing more for me."

Byssante spoke on, while Aillas brooded over what he had heard. Prince Arbamet, Trewan's father, had been alive when he had departed Domreis aboard the Smaadra. The line of succession had been straight: Granice through Arbamet to Trewan, and thereafter Trewan's male progeny. At Ys, Trewan had visited the Troice cog, and apparently had learned of his father's death. The line of descent then became painful from his point of view: Granice through Ospero to Aillas, bypa.s.sing Trewan altogether. No wonder Trewan had returned from the Troice cog in a glum mood! And no mystery whatever why Aillas must be murdered!

Swift return to Troicinet was imperative-but what of Dhrun, his son?

Almost as if in response Byssante rapped him with a pink knuckle. "Look you yonder! The ruling house of Lyonesse drives forth for an afternoon airing!"

Preceded by a pair of mounted heralds and followed by twelve soldiers in dress uniform, a splendid carriage drawn by six white unicorns rolled down the Sfer Arct. Facing forward, King Casmir and Prince Ca.s.sander, a slender big-eyed youth fourteen years old, rode in the back seat. On the seat across sat Queen Sollace in a gown of green silk and Fareult, d.u.c.h.ess of Relsimore, who carried in her lap, or more accurately, tried to control, an auburn-haired infant in a white gown. The child wanted to climb up on the back of the seat despite Lady Fareult's admonitions and King Casmir's scowling. Queen Sollace merely averted her gaze.

"There you have the royal family," said Byssante with an indulgent wave of the hand. "King Casmir, Prince Ca.s.sander and Queen Sollace and a lady whom I don't know. Beside her stands the Princess Madouc, daughter to Princess Suldrun, now dead by her own hand."

"Princess Madouc? A girl?"

"Aye, an odd little creature she's said to be." Byssante finished his beer. "You are a lucky fellow to witness royal pomp so close at hand! And now I'm off to my nap."

Aillas went to his chamber. Sitting on the chair, he unwrapped Persilian and set it on the night-stand. The mirror, in one of its flippant moods, reflected the wall first upside-down, then reversed left to right, then showed a window giving on the stable-yard, then with King Casmir peering balefully in through the window.

Aillas said: "Persilian."

"I am here."

Aillas spoke with great caution, lest inadvertently he phrase a casual remark in the form of a question. "I may ask you three questions, then no more."

"You may ask a fourth question. I will answer, but then I will be free. You have already asked one question."

Aillas spoke carefully: "I want to find my son Dhrun, take him into my custody, then return with him quickly and safely to Troicinet. Tell me how best to do this."

"You must put your requirements in the form of a question."

"How can I do as I described?"