Lyonesse

Suldrun appeared. Immediately she knew why they had come.

Queen Sollace gave her a critical inspection. "Suldrun, what is all this nonsense?"

"What nonsense, royal mother?"

"That you were pregnant with child. I see that this is not so, for which I give thanks. Priest, your tablets have deceived you!"

"Madame, the tablets are seldom wrong."

"But you can see for yourself!"

Brother Umphred frowned and pulled at his chin. "She is not now pregnant, so it would seem."

Queen Sollace stared at him a moment then swept to the chapel and looked within. "There is no child here."

"Then it would seem to be elsewhere."

Now exasperated, Queen Sollace swung upon Suldrun. "Once and for all, let us have the truth of this!"

Brother Umphred added thoughtfully, "If collusion exists, it can easily be discovered."

Suldrun turned Brother Umphred a glance of contempt. "I gave birth to a daughter. She opened her eyes on the world; she saw the cruelty in which life must be lived, and closed her eyes again. I buried her yonder in great sorrow."

Queen Sollace made a gesture of frustration and signaled a page boy. "Fetch the king; this is a matter for his attention, not mine. I would never have pent the girl here in the first place."

King Casmir arrived, already in a foul humor which he masked behind a face of somber impassivity.

King Casmir stared at Suldrun. "What are the facts?"

"I bore a child. She died."

Desmei's prediction, in regard to Suldrun's first-born son, jerked to the forefront of Casmir's mind. "Girl? A girl?"

For Suldrun deception was difficult. She nodded. "I buried her on the hillside."

King Casmir looked around the circle of faces and pointed to Umphred. "You, priest, with your dainty marriages and mincing cant: you are the man for this job. Bring hither the corpse."

Boiling with fury he could not express, Brother Umphred humbly bowed his head and went to the grave. In the final rays of afternoon, he pulled aside the black mold with delicate white hands. A foot below the surface he found the linen cloth in which the dead infant had been wrapped. As he dug away the dirt the cloth fell open to reveal the head. Brother Umphred paused in his digging. Through his mind passed a swift set of images and echoes of past confrontations. The images and echoes broke and vanished. He' lifted the dead infant in its cloth and carried it to the chapel and placed it before King Casmir.

For an instant Brother Umphred looked toward Suldrun and met her gaze, and in that single glance conveyed to her all the bitter hurt her remarks across the years had done to him.

"Sire," said the priest, "here is the corpse of a female infant. It is not Suldrun's child. I performed final rites over this child three or four days ago. It is the bastard of one Megweth, by the groom Ralf."

King Casmir uttered a terse bark of laughter. "And I was so to be deceived?" He looked toward his entourage and pointed to a sergeant. "Take priest and corpse to the mother and learn the truth of this matter. If the infants have been transferred, bring with you the living child."

The visitors departed the garden, leaving Suldrun alone in the light of a waxing moon.

The sergeant, with Brother Umphred, visited Megweth, who gave quick information that the corpse had been given into the care of Ehirme for burial.

The sergeant returned to Haidion not only with Megweth, but also Ehirme.

Ehirme spoke humbly to King Casmir. "Sire, if I have done wrong, be sure that my reason was only love for your blessed daughter the Princess Suldrun, who does not deserve the woe of her life."

King Casmir lowered his eyelids. "Woman, are you declaring that my judgment in regard to the disobedient Suldrun is incorrect?"

"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 assume 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 passes 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?"