"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 circ.u.mstances 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 Ca.s.sander, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 ident.i.ty 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 n.o.bles of Caduz sat in conclave, a weird-woman dressed in white entered the chamber holding high a gla.s.s 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 b.a.l.l.s 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, Ca.s.sander and Suldrun were baptized and required to attend early morning ma.s.s 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 G.o.d," 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 'G.o.d' supply the money? No. It was milked from peasants."

"Your Majesty, humbly we accept alms."

"It would seem far easier for all-powerful G.o.d 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 ma.s.s and so incurred her mother's displeasure.

Suldrun found little time for herself. n.o.ble maidens attended most of her waking hours, to chatter and gossip, to plan small intrigues, to discuss gowns and manners, and to a.n.a.lyze 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 gra.s.s. 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 pa.s.sed 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 ca.s.sock 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 pa.s.sed before Suldrun, despite her resolution, returned to the garden. Upon pa.s.sing 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-l.u.s.t 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 pa.s.sionate 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 a.s.sembled 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 a.s.sistance 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 partic.i.p.ation in the war.

The marine transport of Lyonesse and Dascinet a.s.sembled 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 s.p.a.ce 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 embarra.s.sment 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, inst.i.tuted 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 sh.o.r.e-watch and employed spies, in both Dascinet and Troicinet. Meanwhile, Casmir a.s.sembled 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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.es 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 a.s.sess the aftermath with at least a degree of dispa.s.sion.

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 pa.s.sively 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 bypa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage.

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."