Carfilhiot found the remark over-flippant. "So you mock me, he said sadly. "You think me too clumsy and foolish for the sleight."
Tamurello, a massive man whose veins were charged with the dark rank blood of a bull, laughed indulgently. He had heard the plaint before, and he made the same answer he had made before. "To become a sorcerer you must undergo many trials, and work at many dismal exercises. A number of these are profoundly uncomfortable, and perhaps calculated to dissuade those of small motivation."
"That philosophy is narrow and mean," said Carfilhiot.
"If and when you become a master sorcerer, you will guard the prerogatives as jealously as any," said Tamurello.
"Well, instruct me! I am ready to learn! I am strong of will!"
Once more Tamurello laughed. "My dear friend, you are too volatile. Your will may be like iron, but your patience is something less than invincible."
Carfilhiot made an extravagant gesture. "Are there no shortcuts?
Certainly I can use magical apparatus without so many tiresome exercises."
"You already have apparatus."
"Shimrod's stuff? It is useless to me."
Tamurello was becoming bored with the discussion. "Most such apparatus is specialized and specific."
"My needs are specific," said Carfilhiot. "My enemies are like wild bees, which can never be conquered. They know where I am; when I set out in pursuit, they dissolve into shadows along the moor."
"Here I may be able to assist you," said Tamurello, "though without, I admit, any great enthusiasm."
On the following day he displayed a large map of the Elder Isles.
"Here, as you will notice, is Vale Evander, here Ys, here Tintzin Fyral." He produced a number of manikins carved from blackthorn roots. "Name these little homologues with names, and place them on the map, and they will scuttle to position. Watch!" He took up one of the manikins and spat in its face. "I name you Casmir. Go to Casmir's place!" He put the manikin on the map; it seemed to scamper across the map to Lyonesse Town.
Carfilhiot counted the manikins. "Only twenty?" he cried. "I could use a hundred! I am at war with every petty baron of South Ulfland!"
"Name their names," said Tamurello. "We shall see how many you need."
Grudgingly Carfilhiot named names and Tamurello put the names to the manikins and placed them on the board.
"Still there are more!" protested Carfilhiot. "Is it not understandable that I would wish to know where and when you fare from Faroli? And Melancthe? Her movements are of importance! And what of the magicians: Murgen, Faloury, Myolander and Baibalides?
I am interested in their activities."
"You may not learn of the magicians," said Tamurello. "That is not appropriate. Granice, Audry? Well, why not? Melancthe?"
"Melancthe in especial!"
"Very well. Melancthe."
"Then there are Ska chieftains and the notables of Dahaut!"
"Moderation, in the name of Fafhadiste and his three-legged blue goat! The manikins will crowd each other from the map!"
In the end Carfilhiot came away with the map and fifty-nine homologues.
One late summer morning a year later, Carfilhiot went up to his workroom and there inspected the map. Casmir kept to his summer palace at Sarris. At Domreis in Troicinet a glowing white bail on the manikin's head indicated that King Granice had died; his ailing brother Ospero would now be king. At Ys Melancthe wandered the echoing halls of her seaside palace. At Oaldes, north along the coast, Quilcy, the idiot child-king of South Ulfland, played daily at sand-castles on the beach... Carfilhiot looked once more to Ys. Melancthe, haughty Melancthe! He saw her seldom; she held herself aloof.
Carfilhiot's gaze ranged the map. With a quickening of the spirit he noticed a displacement: Sir Cadwal of Kaber Keep, had ventured six miles southwest across Dunton Fells. He would seem to be proceeding toward Dravenshaw Forest.
Carfilhiot stood rapt in reflection. Sir Cadwal was one of his most arrogant enemies, despite poverty and an absence of powerful connections. Kaber Keep, a dour fortress above the dreariest sweep of the moors, lacked all cheer, save only security. With only a dozen clansmen at his command Sir Cadwal had long defied Carfilhiot. Ordinarily he hunted in the hills above his keep, where Carfilhiot could not easily attack; today he had ventured down upon the moors: reckless indeed, thought Carfilhiot, most unwise! The keep could not be left undefended, so it would seem that Sir Cadwal rode with only five or six men at his back, and two of these might be his stripling sons.
Malaise forgotten, Carfilhiot sent urgent orders down to the wardroom. Half an hour later, wearing light armor, he descended to the parade ground below his castle. Twenty mounted warriors, his elite of elites, awaited him.
Carfilhiot inspected the troop and could find no fault. They wore polished iron helmets with tall crests, chain cuirasses and jupons of violet velvet embroidered in black. Each carried a lance from which fluttered a lavender and black banneret. From each saddle hung an axe, a bow and arrows to the side; each carried sword and dagger.
Carfilhiot mounted his horse and gave the signal to ride. Two abreast, the troop galloped west, past the reeking poles of penance, beside the drowning-cages along the riverbank and their accessory derricks and down the road toward the village Bloddywen.
For reasons of policy Carfilhiot never made demands upon the folk of Bloddywen, nor in any way molested them; still, at his approach children were snatched within, doors and windows were slammed shut, and Carfilhiot rode through empty streets, to his cold amusement.
Above, on the ridge, a watcher noted the cavalcade. He retreated over the brow of the hill and flourished a white flag. A moment later, from the highest portion of a fell a mile to the north a flutter of white acknowledged his signal. Half an hour later, had Carfilhiot been able to observe his magic map, he might have seen the blackthorn manikins designating his most hated adversaries departing their keeps and mountain forts to move down the moors toward the Dravenshaw.
Carfilhiot and his troop clattered through Bloddywen, then turned away from the river and rode up to the moors. Gaining the ridge, Carfilhiot halted his troop, ranged them in a line and addressed them: "Today we hunt Cadwal of Kaber Keep; he is our quarry. We will meet him by the Dravenshaw. So as not to startle his vigilance, we will approach him around the side of Dinkin Tor.
Listen now! Take Sir Cadwal alive, and any of his blood who may ride with him. Sir Cadwal must repent the harms he has done me in full measure: Later we will take Kaber Keep; we will drink his wine, bed his women and make free of his bounty. But today we ride to take Sir Cadwal!"
He swung his horse up and around in a fine caracole and galloped away across the moors.
On Hackberry Tor an observer, noting Carfilhiot's movements, ducked behind a crag and there signaled with a white flag until, from two quarters, his signals were acknowledged.
Carfilhiot and his troop rode confidently into the northwest. At Dinkin Tor they halted. One of the number dismounted and climbed to the top of a rock. He called down to Carfilhiot: "Riders, perhaps five or six, at most seven! They approach the Dravenshaw!"
"Quick then," called Carfilhiot, "we'll take them at the forest's edge!"
The column rode west, keeping to the cover of Dewny Swale; at an old road they swung to the north and galloped at full speed for the Dravenshaw.
The road skirted the tumbled stones of a prehistoric fane, then turned directly down toward the Dravenshaw. Across the moor the roan horses ridden by Sir Cadwal's troop glimmered like raw copper in the sunlight. Carfilhiot signaled his men. "Quietly now! A
volley of arrows, if necessary, but take Cadwal alive!"
The troop rode beside a stream fringed with willow. Clicks and snaps! A sibilant whir! Arrows across space at flat trajectory!
Needle points thrust through chain-mail. There were groans of surprise, cries of pain. Six of Carfilhiot's men sagged to the ground in silence; three others took arrows in leg or shoulder.