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."