by Jack Vance
The ostler, muttering to himself, saddled the horses and led them to the street. "And now, my money!"
Shimrod paid over his price and the ostler retired. Aillas told his fellows, "At this moment I am King of Troicinet. If we arrive at Domreis before noon I will be king tomorrow."
"And if we are late?"
"Then the crown has been set on Trewan's head and he is king. Let us be off."
The four rode west beside the coast, past quiet fishing villages and long beaches. At dawn, with the horses stumbling from fatigue, they arrived at Slaloc where they changed horses and rode through the morning toward Domreis.
The sun rose toward the zenith, and ahead the road curved down a slope, across a park to the Temple of Gaea, where a thousand notables attended the coronation.
At the edge of the temple grounds, the four were halted by a guard of eight cadets from the College of Dukes, wearing blue and silver ceremonial armor, with tall scarlet plumes at the side of their helmets. They dropped halberds to bar the way of the four travelers. "You may not enter!"
From within came the peal of clarions, a processional fanfare signaling the appearance of the king-designate. Aillas spurred his horse into motion and broke past the crossed halberds, followed by his three companions. Before them stood the Temple of Gaea. A heavy entabulature rested on columns in the classical style. The interior was open to the winds. On a central altar burned the dynastic fire. From the vantage of horseback Aillas saw Prince Trewan mount steps, walk with ritual solemnity across the terrace and kneel on a cushioned bench. Between Aillas and the altar stood the quality of Troicinet in formal caparison. Those at the back turned in outrage as the four rode up behind them. Aillas called out: "Make way, make way!" He sought to ride through the ranked nobility, but angry hands seized his bridle and jerked his horse to a halt. Aillas jumped to the ground and thrust forward, pushing the rapt and reverent onlookers roughly from his way, to their shock and disapproval.
The High Priest stood before the kneeling Trewan. He held high the crown and uttered a sonorous benediction in the ancient Danaan tongue.
Thrusting, dodging, side-stepping, careless of whom he shouldered aside, striking down the aristocratic arms which reached to stay him, swearing and gasping, Aillas gained the steps.
The High Priest brought forward the ceremonial sword and placed it before Trewan, who, as custom ordained, placed his hands on the cross-piece of the handle. The priest scratched Trewan's forehead with a knife, drawing a drop of blood. Trewan, bowing his head, pressed the blood to the sword handle, to symbolize his will to defend Troicinet with blood and steel.
The priest raised the crown on high, and held it over Trewan's head, as Aillas gained the steps. Two guards rushed to seize him; Aillas pushed them aside, ran to the altar, thrust the High Priest's arm aside before the crown could touch Trewan's head. "Stop the ceremony! This is not your king!"
Trewan, blinking in confusion, rose to his feet and turning, looked into Aillas' face. His jaw dropped; his eyes widened. Then, feigning outrage, he cried out: "What means this sorry intrusion? Guards, drag off this madman! He has committed sacrilege! Take him aside and cut him loose from his head!"
Aillas pushed the guards aside. He called out: "Look at me! Do you not know me? I am Prince Aillas!"
Trewan stood heavy-browed and indecisive, his mouth twitching and red spots burning in his cheeks. At last he called out in a nasal voice: "Aillas drowned at sea! You can't be Aillas! Guards, hither! This is an impostor!"
"Wait!" A portly old man, wearing a suit of black velvet, slowly climbed the steps. Aillas recognized Sir Este who had been seneschal at the court of King Granice.
Sir Este gazed a moment into Aillas' face. He turned and spoke to the assembled nobility, who had pressed forward to the steps. "This is no impostor. This is Prince Aillas." He turned to stare at Trewan. "Who should know it better than you?"
Trewan made no reply.
The seneschal turned back to Aillas. "I cannot believe that you absented yourself from Troicinet and gave us all to mourn from sheer frivolity, nor that you arrived at this instant merely to create a sensation."
"Sir, I have only just returned to Troicinet. I rode here as fast as horses could carry me, as my comrades here will attest. Before this time I was prisoner to King Casmir. I escaped only to be captured by the Ska. There is more to tell, but with the aid of my comrades I have arrived in time to preserve my crown from the murderer Trewan, who pushed me into the dark sea!"
Trewan gave a cry of rage. "No man may besmirch my honor and live!" He swung the ancient ceremonial sword in an arc to cleave Aillas' head from his body.
Nearby stood Cargus. He flung out his forearm; through the air flew his broad Galician dagger, to strike deep into Trewan's throat, so that the point protruded from the side opposite. The sword clattered to the stone floor. Trewan's eyes rolled upward to show the whites and he dropped in a spraddle-legged heap, to kick and convulse and at last lay quiet on his back.
The seneschal signaled to the guards. "Remove the corpse."
He waited half a minute. "Let the ceremony proceed!"
Chapter 29
AILLAS AND SHIMROD, departing the palace Miraldra before dawn, rode eastward along the coast road. Late in the afternoon they passed through Green Man's Gap, where they halted to look across the view. The Ceald spread away before them in bands of many colors: hazy black-green, grayed yellow and fusk, smoky blue-lavender. Aillas pointed across the distance to a glint of placid silver. "There is Janglin Water, and Watershade. A hundred times I have sat just here with my father; always he was happier to be coming home than going. I doubt if he was comfortable in his kingship."
"What of you?"
Aillas considered, then said: "I have been prisoner, slave, fugitive, and now king, which I prefer. Still, it is not the life I would have chosen for myself."
"If nothing else," said Shimrod, "you have seen the world from its underside, which perhaps might be to your advantage."
Aillas laughed. "My experience has not made me more amiable; that is certain."
"Still, you are young and presumably resilient," said Shimrod. "Most of your life lies ahead of you. Marriage, sons and daughters; who knows what else?"
Aillas grunted. "Small chance of that. There is no one I wish to marry. Except..." An image came to Aillas' mind, unbidden and unpremeditated: a dark-haired girl, slender as a wand, olive-pale of complexion, with long sea-green eyes.
"Except for whom?"
"No matter. I will never see her again... Time we were on our way; there are eight miles yet to ride."
The two men rode down upon the Ceald, past a pair of drowsy villages, through a forest, over old bridges. They rode beside a marsh of a hundred waterways, fringed with cat-tails, willows and alder. Birds thronged the marsh: herons, hawks perched high in the trees, blackbirds among the reeds, coots, bitterns, ducks.
The waterways became deeper and wider, the reeds submerged; the marsh opened upon Janglin Water, and the road, passing through an orchard of ancient pear trees, arrived at Watershade Castle.
Aillas and Shimrod dismounted at the door. A groom came up to take their horses. When Aillas had departed Watershade for the court of King Granice, the groom had been Cern the stable-boy. Cern now greeted Aillas with a broad, if nervous, smile of pleasure. "Welcome home, Sir Aillas—though now it seems it must be ‘Your Majesty.' That doesn't come comfortable to the tongue, when what I remember best is swimming in the lake and wrestling in the barn."
Aillas threw his arms around Cern's neck. "I'll still wrestle you. But now that I'm king, you've got to let me win."
Cern tilted his head sidewise to consider. "That's how it must be, since it's only proper to show respect for the office. So then, one way or the other, Aillas—sir—Your Majesty—however you are to be called—it's good to see you home. I'll take the horses; they'll like a rub and a feed."
The front doors were flung open; in the aperture stood a tall white-haired man in blac
k with a ring of keys at his waist: Weare, the chamberlain at Watershade for as long as Aillas could remember and long before. "Welcome home, Sir Aillas!"
"Thank you, Weare." Aillas embraced him. "In the last two years I've often wished to be here."
"You'll find nothing changed, except that good Sir Ospero is no longer with us, so that it's been quiet and lonely. How often I've longed for the good days, before first you, then Sir Ospero went to the court." Weare took a step back and gazed into Aillas' face. "You left here a boy, without a care, handsome and easy, with never a harsh thought."
"And I have changed? In truth, Weare, I am older."
Weare studied him a moment. "I still see the gallant lad, and also something dark. I fear you have known trouble."
"True enough, but I am here and the bad days are behind us."
"So I hope, Sir Aillas!"
Aillas once again embraced him. "Here is my comrade the noble Shimrod, who I hope will be our guest long and often."
"I am happy to know you, sir. I've put you in the Blue Chamber with a nice view across the lake. Sir Aillas, tonight I thought you would prefer to use the Red Chamber. You'd hardly be for your old rooms, nor for Sir Ospero's chambers, quite so soon."
"Exactly right, Weare! How well you know my feelings! You've always been kind to me, Weare!"
"You've always been a good boy, Sir Aillas."
An hour later Aillas and Shimrod went out upon the terrace to watch the sun settle behind the far hills. Weare served wine from a stoneware jug. "This is our own San Sue which you liked so well. This year we've laid down eighty-six tuppets. I won't serve nut-cakes, because Flora wants you with your best appetite for supper."
"I hope she's not producing anything too lavish."
"Merely a few of your favorites."
Weare departed. Aillas leaned back in his chair. "I've been King a week. I have talked and listened from morning till night. I have knighted Cargus and Yane and invested them with property; I have sent for Ehirme and all her family; she will live out her life in comfort. I have inspected the shipyards, the armories, the barracks. From my spy-masters I have heard secrets and revelations, so that my mind throbs. I learn that King Casmir is building war galleys at inland shipyards. He hopes to assemble a hundred galleys and invade Troicinet. King Granice intended to land an army at Cape Farewell and occupy Tremblance up into the Troaghs. He might have succeeded; Casmir expected nothing so bold, but spies saw the flotilla and Casmir rushed his army to Cape Farewell and arranged an ambush, but Granice was warned by his own spies, and called off the operation."
"The war apparently is controlled by spies."
Ailias agreed that this might seem to be the case. "On balance, the advantage has been ours. Our assault force remains intact, with new catapults to throw three hundred yards. So Casmir stands first on one foot, then the other because our transports are ready to sail, and the spies could never warn Casmir in time."
"So you intend to prosecute the war?"
Aillas looked out across the lake. "Sometimes, for an hour or two, I forget the hole where Casmir put me. I never escape for long."
"Casmir still does not know who fathered Suldrun's child?"
"Only by a name in the priest's register, if even he has troubled to learn so much. He thinks me moldering at the bottom of his hole. Someday he will know differently... Here is Weare, and we are summoned to our supper."
At the table Aillas sat in his father's chair and Shimrod occupied the place opposite. Weare served them trout from the lake and duck from the marsh, with salad from the kitchen garden. Over wine and nuts, with legs stretched out to the fire, Aillas said: "1 have brooded much on Carfilhiot. He still does not know that Dhrun is my son."
"The affair is complicated," said Shimrod. "Tamurello is ultimately at fault; his intent is to work through me against Murgen. He forced the witch Melancthe to beguile me that I might be killed, or marooned, in Irerly, while Carfilhiot stole my magic."
"Will not Murgen act to recover your magic?"
"Not unless Tamurello acts first."
"But Tamurello already has acted."
"Not demonstrably."
"Then we should provoke Tamurello to a demonstration more overt."
"Easier said than done. Tamurello is a cautious man."
"Not cautious enough. He overlooked a possible situation which would allow me to act in all proper justice against both Carfilhiot and Casmir."
Shimrod thought a moment. "There you leave me behind."
"My great grandfather Helm was brother to Lafing, Duke of South Ulfland. I have had news from Oaldes that King Quilcy is dead: drowned in his own bath-water. I am next in line to the Kingdom of South Ulfland, which Casmir does not realize. I intend to assert my claim by the most immediate and definite process. Then, as Carfilhiot's lawful king, I will demand that he come down from Tintzin Fyral to render homage."
"And if he refuses?"
"Then we will attack his castle."
"It is said to be impregnable."
"So it is said. When the Ska failed, they reinforced that conviction."
"Why should you have better luck?"
Aillas threw a handful of nutshells into the fire. "I will be acting as his rightful sovereign. The factors of Ys will welcome me, as will the barons. Only Casmir would oppose us, but he is sluggish and we plan to catch him napping."
"If you are able to surprise me - and you have - then you should surprise Casmir."
"So I hope. Our ships are loading; we are giving false information to the spies. Casmir presently will discover an unpleasant surprise."
Chapter 30
KING CASMIR OF LYONESSE, who never took comfort in half-measures, had established spies in every quarter of Troicinet, including the palace Miraldra. He assumed, correctly, that Troice spies subjected his own activities to a scrutiny equally pervasive; therefore, when taking information from one of his secret agents, he used careful procedures to safeguard the agent's identity.
Information arrived by various methods. One morning at breakfast he found a small white stone beside his plate. Without comment Casmir put the stone in his pocket; it had been placed there, so he knew, by Sir Mungo, the seneschal, who would have received it from a messenger.
After taking his breakfast, Casmir swathed himself in a hooded cloak of brown fustian and departed Haidion by a private way through the old armory and out into the Sfer Arct. After ensuring that no one followed, Casmir went by lanes and alleys to the warehouse of a wine merchant. He fitted a key into the lock of a heavy oak door, and so entered a dusty little tasting room smelling heavily vinous. A man squat and gray-haired, with crooked legs and a broken nose, gave him a casual salute. Casmir knew the man only as Valdez; and he himself used the name "Sir Eban."
Valdez might or might not know him as Casmir; his manner at all times was totally impersonal, which suited Casmir very well.
Valdez pointed him to one of the chairs, and seated himself in another. He poured wine from an earthenware jug into a pair of mugs. "I have important information. The new Troice king intends a naval operation. He has massed his ships in the Hob Hook, and at Cape Haze, troops are moving aboard; an assault is imminent."
"An assault where?"
Valdez, whose face was that of a man clever and cool, ruthless and saturnine, gave an indifferent shrug. "No one has troubled to tell me. The shipmasters are to sail when the weather shifts south—which gives them west, east and north for their sailing."
"They are trying Cape Farewell again: that is my guess."
"It might well be, if defense has been relaxed."
Casmir nodded thoughtfully. "Just so."
"Another possibility. Each ship has been supplied with a heavy grapple and hawser."
Casmir leaned back in his chair. "What purpose would these serve? They can't expect a naval battle."
"They might hope to prevent one. They are taking aboard firepots. And remember, south wind blows them up the River Sime."
"To the
shipyards?" Casmir was instantly aroused. "To the new ships?"
Valdez raised the cup of wine to his crooked slash of a mouth. "I can only report facts. The Troice are preparing to attack, with a hundred ships and at least five thousand troops, well armed."
Casmir muttered. "Bait Bay is guarded, but not that well. They could work disaster if they took us by surprise. How can I know when their first fleet puts to sea?"
"Beacons are chancy. If one fails, through fog or rain, the whole system fails. In any case there is no time to set up such a chain. Pigeons will not fly a hundred miles of water. I know no other system, save those propelled by magic."
Casmir jumped to his feet. He dropped a leather purse upon the table. "Return to Troicinet. Send me news as often as practical."
Valdez lifted the purse and seemed satisfied by its weight. "I will do so."
Casmir returned to Haidion, and within the hour couriers rode from Lyonesse Town at speed. The Dukes of Jong and Twarsbane were ordered to take armies, knights and armored cavalry to Cape Farewell, to reinforce the garrison already on the scene. Other troops, in the number of eight thousand, were despatched in haste to the Sime River shipyards, and everywhere along the coast watches were set. The harbors were sealed and all boats restricted to moorings (save that single vessel which would carry Valdez back to Troicinet), in order that spies might not apprise the Troice that the forces of Lyonesse had been mobilized against the secret assault.
The winds shifted south and eighty ships with six thousand soldiers took departure. Leaning to the port tack they sailed into the west. Passing through the Straits of Palisidra, the fleet kept well to the south, beyond the purview of Casmir's vigilant garrisons, then swung north, to coast easily downwind, with blue water gurgling under the bows and surging up behind the transoms.
Meanwhile, Troice emissaries traversed the length and breadth of South Ulfland. To cold castles along the moors, to walled towns and mountain keeps, they brought news of the new king and his ordinances which must now be obeyed. Often they won immediate and grateful acquiescence; as often they were forced to overcome hatreds fomented by the murders, treacheries and torments of centuries. These were emotions so bitter as to dominate all other thought: feuds which were to the participants as water to a fish, vengeances and hoped-for vengeances so sweet as to obsess the mind. In such cases logic had no power. ("Peace in Ulfland? There shall be no peace for me until Keghorn Keep is broken stone by stone and Melidot blood soaks the rubble!") Thereupon, the envoys used tactics more direct. "You must, for your own security, put aside these hatreds. A heavy hand rules Ulfland, and if you will not conform to the order, you will find your enemies in favor, with the might of the realm at their call, and you will pay a hard price for worthless goods."