"Lord Pirmence, your abnegation does you credit. However, I assure you that honour sufficient for all will be won on the moors of South Ulfland!"
"That is good to hear!" declared Lord Pirmence. "But alas! You forget my advancing years! I have enemies, yes: pangs and aches, failing vision, asthma, toothlessness and senile cachexis; but they are no longer cruel knights, ogres, Goths and Moors. I intimately know the ague, gout, rheumatism and palsy. If truth be known, I am almost ready to creep away to Castle Lutez, to wrap myself in eiderdowns and quiet my roaring digestion with a diet of curds and gruel."
Aillas said soberly: "Lord Pirmence, I am greatly distressed to hear of your decrepitude."
"Alas! It is an end to which we all must come!"
"So I am led to believe. Incidentally, are you aware that a person who bears a striking resemblance to yourself roams the coarser districts of Domreis? No? He does your reputation no credit! Recently, close on midnight, I happened to look into the Green Star Inn and there I saw this person with one foot on a bench, the other on a table, brandishing high a tankard of ale and trolling a mighty stave; meanwhile he clasped one of the tavern wenches with an iron grip. His whiskers were exactly like your own and he seemed to enjoy almost an excess of exuberant good health."
"How I envy the man!" murmured Lord Pirmence. "I wonder at his secret!"
"Perhaps you will learn it in South Ulfland. I consider your presence indispensable. After all, when one hunts important game, he calls out the old hound. I rely upon you to impose order upon the barons of the moors."
Lord Pirmence gave a delicate cough. "I would survive not a single windy day on those desolate fells!"
"To the contrary! You will thrive in the fresh climate! ‘An Ulf lives forever—unless he is cut with steel, or chokes on his meat, or falls drunk into the mire!' So say the Ulfs. You will soon be as hearty as ever!"
Lord Pirmence shook his head. "Truly, I am not your man! I have little tact with boors and bog-trotters. With the best will in the world I will surely do our cause a disservice."
"Odd," mused Aillas. "I was told that you have recently become expert in the field of secret diplomacy!"
Lord Pirmence pursed his lips, pulled at his mustache, and looked toward the ceiling. "Hum, ha! Not quite true! Still— when duty calls I must ignore all else and leap into the breach."
"That is the response I expected from you," said Aillas.
An hour before the flotilla's departure, Aillas came down to the jetty to find Shimrod lounging against a stack of bales. Aillas stopped short. "What are you doing here?"
"I have been waiting for you to appear."
"Why did you not show yourself in Miraldra? I sail on the tide for South Ulfland!"
"No difficulty there. I will accompany you, if I may."
"Aboard the ship? To Ys?"
"That is my hope."
"Naturally you may come." Aillas scrutinized Shimrod keenly. "I sense a mystery here. Why your sudden yearning for the hinterlands?"
"The city Ys? Hardly a hinterland."
"I see that you plan to tell me nothing of consequence."
"There is nothing to tell. I have a few items of business at a place not far from Ys, and during the voyage I shall enjoy myself in your company."
"Come aboard, then. But you must be prepared to sleep in the bilge."
"Any little cranny, such as the captain's saloon, will suit me well."
"I am happy to find you so flexible. Let us see what we can do."
II
PROPELLED BY FAIR WINDS and riding sunny blue seas, the ships from Troicinet made a pleasant voyage along the Lir. On the second day they rounded Cape Farewell, then discovered three days of calms and fickle winds, while only a mile to the east rose the tall Cliffs of Kegan, bearded with white foam.
Mile by mile the flotilla made its northing until finally the shape of Cape Kellas appeared on the horizon.
Rounding the cape, past the colonnaded Temple of Atlante, the fleet entered the estuary of the Evander and dropped anchor beside the docks of the city Ys.
One by one the ships approached the docks, discharged troops and cargo, took aboard fresh water and contingents on their way home, and put out to sea again.
Aillas, conferring with his commanders, heard both good and bad news. His strictures against raids, pillaging and the prosecution of feuds had, for the most part, been heeded. Some of the barons wholeheartedly endorsed the call for public order; others seemed to be watching and waiting before committing acts which could bring them to ruin: each, in effect, waiting for someone to test the mettle of the new king. This peace, no matter how fragile and tentative, was good news.
On the other hand, the barons had not fulfilled the total scope of Aillas' commands. Few, if any, had disbanded their companies of armed retainers that they might return to more productive work, in field, quarry and forest, and so bring some small measure of prosperity to the land.
Aillas immediately sent messengers to every castle, fortress and mountain keep, requiring that the barons, or knights, or earls, however they styled themselves, should meet with him at Stronson, the castle of Sir Helwig, high in the heart of the moors.
Aillas rode to the meeting in company with Sir Tristano, Lord Maloof, who was glum, and Lord Pirmence, who showed an airy detachment, together with an escort of thirty knights and a hundred men-at-arms. The day of the meeting was blessed with fine warm weather; the moors smelled fresh of heather, gorse and fern, with the elemental reek of the dank turf rising heavy below.
The company, assembled on the meadow to the side of Stronson Castle, made a fine spectacle, with metal gleaming and colours ablaze in the sunlight. The barons for the most part wore mail shirts and metal caps; their jupons, capes and trousers were of rich colour and fine fabric, and many wore sleeveless aprons embroidered with personal emblems or the arms of their houses. Almost all had brought heralds who held high gonfalons displaying the baronial arms.
Thirty-six of the forty-five barons commanded to the conclave were on hand. Sir Helwig called out a summons and those present came to sit at a semi-circular table, each with his herald and gonfalon at his back. To one side Aillas' escort rested at ease. Not so those retainers and clansmen who had come to Stronson in company with the barons; they stood in knots and groups, with those parties at feud darting lambent glances toward each other.
For several minutes Aillas considered the thirty-six more or less amicable faces. Privately he felt the turn-out to be satisfactory, but to ignore the nine cases of contumacy would instantly make a mockery of his authority. Here, in fact, was his test, and the barons watched him with curiosity as he stood to the side with Tristano and Sir Helwig's herald, conning the list of those not on hand.
Aillas went to confront the company; standing clean-shaven and crisply handsome before the grizzled and hard-bitten barons of the moors, he seemed almost ludicrously inexperienced and untried; certain of the barons took no pains to conceal their opinions.
Amused rather than nettled, Aillas spoke a polite greeting and expressed his pleasure for the fine weather which favored the occasion. He took up his list and called out the names of the missing nine barons. Receiving no response, he turned to Sir Tristano: "Despatch a knight with five soldiers to the home-places of each of these truants. Let the knights express my displeasure. Let them announce to each that since he would not meet me here at Stronson, or send a message of courteous explanation, he is therefore commanded to my camp at Ys. Let each understand with the utmost clarity that if he fails to appear within the week, he shall be disenfranchised from his lands and reduced to the rank of commoner, and all his property shall immediately revert to the king. These truants must also be told that their punishment, should they fail to appear, will be my first order of business, and that, one by one, I will strike them low. Let the knights and their escorts depart at once."