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 grass 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 cluster 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 scraps 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 passerby, 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, bypassing 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 Cassander, 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, Duchess 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 Cassander 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?"
"That is essentially three questions."
"Very well," said Aillas. "Tell me how to find my son."