The appearance of the king's troops and the king himself destroyed his plans, and instantly he knew the bitterness of total defeat. If blood flowed now, the deepest torrent would be Wilding blood. What now? he asked himself. Withdraw? Fight? Parley? He could see nothing but humiliation.
In dejection and defiance Lord Loftus stood facing the king's troops, helmet thrown back, hands resting on the pommel of his sword, point down in the turf between his feet.
A herald rode forward, dismounted with a brave flourish and faced Lord Loftus. "Sir: I speak with the voice of King Aillas. He commands you to sheath your sword, then come forward and render an explanation for your presence here. What message shall I bear to King Aillas?"
Lord Loftus made no reply. With savage force he sheathed his sword and marched across the ground. Aillas dismounted from his horse and stood waiting. All eyes, of the Wilding clansmen, of the Fian Gosse defenders, and of the royal troops, marked his every step.
At Fian Gosse the portcullis creaked up, and Lord Bodwy, with three retainers, came forth, and also approached King Aillas.
Lord Loftus came to a halt ten feet in front of Aillas. In silence, Lord Bodwy came up from the side.
Aillas spoke coldly: "Deliver your sword to Sir Glyn, who stands yonder. You are under arrest, and I charge you with conspiracy to effect an illegal assault and to commit acts of bloody violence."
Lord Loftus stonily yielded his sword.
Aillas said: "I will listen to your defense."
First Lord Loftus spoke, then Lord Bodwy, then Loftus once more, and Bodwy and finally Glannac; and now all the tale was told.
Aillas spoke in a voice more contemptuous than harsh: "Loftus, you are obstinate, over-proud and inflexible. You seem neither cruel nor vicious, merely hot-headed to a foolish degree. Can you gauge your luck that I arrived here when I did, before blood had been let? If a single life had been lost, I would have judged you guilty of murder and hanged you on the instant, and reduced your castle to broken stones."
"The blood of my nephew Slevan was shed! Who will hang for this crime?"
"Who is the murderer?"
"One of the Gosse."
"Never!" cried Bodwy. "I am not such a fool!"
"Exactly so," said Aillas. "Only someone foolishly passionate, such as yourself, would fail to perceive the pattern of this crime, which was calculated to set you at odds and to cause me grief. You have posed me a predicament and I must walk a careful path between wisdom and blind justice, nor do I want to punish foolishness for its own sake. Further, Lord Pirmence gives you a clean bill in the matter of imprisonment and torture, which weighs heavily in your favor. So then: what assurances can you give that you will never again take up arms to work your private justice, except in self-defense, or in service of the king?"
Lord Loftus blurted: "What assurance can Bodwy give that he will steal no more of my cattle?"
Bodwy gave a laugh of sheer amusement. "Did you steal my bull Black Butz?"
"No, nor would I do such a thing."
"No more would I steal from your herd."
Loftus scowled off toward the hills. "You claim that this is all a prank?"
"Worse, far worse!" declared Lord Bodwy. "Someone planned that you should invest and overrun Fian Gosse, and then suffer the consequences, to the detriment of me, you, King Aillas and all the land."
"I see the thrust of your reasoning. Only a madman could conceive a work so cunning!"
"Not a madman," said Aillas. "Unless Torqual is mad."
Lord Loftus blinked. " ‘Torqual'? He is an outlaw!"
"In the service of Lyonesse. Speak now, Loftus! How will you assure me of your future faith, loyalty and obedience to the laws of the land?"
With poor grace, Lord Loftus knelt and pledged himself to the king's service, by his honour and the reputation of his house.
"That must suit the case," said Aillas. "Sir Bodwy, what do you say?"
"I have no fault to find, so long as there is an end to suspicion between Wilding and Gosse."
"Very well, so be it. Sir Glyn, return to Sir Loftus his sword."
His heart too full for words, Sir Loftus sheathed his sword.
Aillas said: "Our enemy is Torqual. He hides in North Ulfland and comes here to do dark deeds. I doubt not but what he watches at this moment from the mountain or the forest.
I ask that you both learn all you can of him. At this time we cannot enter North Ulfland, lest we provoke the Ska, for which we are not yet ready. Sooner or later, however, they will take heed of us; and I doubt they will consider our convenience.
"In the meantime, instruct your herdsmen and crofters to keep a sharp watch across the moors. Man, woman or child, whoever helps to trap Torqual, his fortune is made. Make this known, if you will. Also, warn your kin and your clans-folk of Torqual and his tricks.
"Now, Lord Loftus, I cannot let you go scot-free, for the sake of my reputation. First, I place you on probation for five years. Second, I fine you twenty gold crowns, to be paid into the royal treasury. Third, you must host a festival of friendship between your clans, at which no weapons may be displayed, and only soft words spoken. Let there be music and dancing and an end to the shedding of neighborly blood."
Lord Bodwy turned to Loftus and extended his arm. "Here is my hand on it."
Lord Loftus, still somewhat stiff and utterly humiliated, felt a sudden liberation from all which had gone before. In a pulse of generosity as warm as Bodwy's own, he took the hand and clasped it. "You shall never find me lacking. I hope that we shall be good friends and neighbors."
II
NO SOONER HAD AILLAS RETURNED to Doun Darric than his forebodings were realized in full degree, and his previous problems suddenly became trivial.
Aillas had long awaited a signal of Ska hostility to his rule, if only a skirmish or two, to test his mettle. Instead of a signal, the Ska dealt him a harsh and brutal blow: a challenge which allowed him only two responses. He could submit, thereby incurring ridicule and loss of face, or he could fight, which meant lunging into a conflict for which he was not yet ready.
The Ska action could not be considered a surprise. Aillas knew the Ska intimately; they considered themselves at war with the rest of the world, and took advantage of every opportunity to extend the range of their power. Since South Ulfland under King Aillas could only become stronger, his rule must be expunged promptly. As a first step, with minimum expenditure of force and Ska lives, they took the town Suarach on the south bank of the River Werling, hard by the border between the two Ulflands.
The Ska heretofore had left Suarach in peace, to serve as a neutral area where they might trade with the outer world. The town fortifications had long been broken; and Aillas, lacking both funds and troops for an adequate garrison, perforce had left Suarach undefended, hoping that the Ska would continue to regard the town as a neutral zone.
The Ska, however, moved suddenly, to make their policy in regard to South Ulfland unmistakable; they marched into Suarach with four regiments of mixed cavalry and foot soldiers, and took the town without resistance of any kind.
Immediately they impressed labor gangs from the town's population and, working with that ferocious intensity characteristic of all their conduct, they repaired the fortifications, and Suarach became a mortal insult to Aillas and the dignity of his rule, which he could not ignore without a sad diminution of prestige.
For two days Aillas kept to his Doun Darric headquarters, calculating his options. An instant counterattack to retake Suarach by frontal assault seemed the least feasible of his choices. The Ska enjoyed short lines of communication; their warriors were superior to the raw Ulfish troops in every category by which soldiery could be measured: training, discipline, leadership, weaponry, and, most telling of all, the almost religious certainty of Ska invincibility. The Troice troops, so Aillas believed, matched the Ska more evenly, but still, in sheer fighting ability, could not be held equal to the Ska*.