He raised his voice. “Ho, there, Ironbeard! Let us redeem our manners!”
The largest of the Sea Kings, a grizzled giant with a laugh like the north wind, came forward and before Carse realized their intention they had tossed him onto their shoulders and marched with him up the quay where everyone could see him.
“Hark, you!” Rold bellowed. “Hark!”
The crowd quieted at his voice.
“Here is Carse, the barbarian. He took the galley—he captured Ywain—he slew the Serpent! How do you greet him?”
Their greeting nearly brought down the cliffs. The two big men bore Carse up the steps and would not put him down. The people of Khondor streamed after them, accepting the men of his crew as their brothers. Carse caught a glimpse of Boghaz, his face one vast porcine smile, holding a giggling girl in each arm.
Ywain walked alone in the center of a guard of the Sea Kings. The scarred man watched her with a brooding madness in his unwinking eyes.
Rold and Ironbeard dumped Carse to his feet at the summit, panting.
“You’re a heavyweight, my friend,” gasped Rold, grinning. “Now—does our penance satisfy you?”
Carse swore, feeling shamefaced. Then he stared in wonder at the city of Khondor.
A monolithic city, hewn in the rock itself. The crest had been split, apparently by diastrophic convulsions in the remoter ages of Mars. All along the inner cliffs of the split were doorways and the openings of galleries, a perfect honeycomb of dwellings and giddy flights of steps.
Those who had been too old or disabled to climb the long way down to the harbor cheered them now from the galleries or from the narrow streets and squares.
The sea wind blew keen and cold at this height, so that there was always a throb and a wail in the streets of Khondor, mingling with the booming voices of the waves below. From the upper crags there was a coming and going of the Sky Folk, who seemed to like the high places as though the streets cramped them. Their fledglings tossed on the wind, swooping and tumbling in their private games, with bursts of elfin laughter.
Landward, Carse looked down upon green fields and pasture land, locked tight in the arms of the mountains. It seemed as though this place could withstand a siege forever.
They went along the rocky ways with the people of Khondor pouring after them, filling the eyrie-city with shouts and laughter. There was a large square, with two squat strong porticoes facing each other across it. One had carven pillars before it, dedicated to the God of Waters and the God of the Four Winds. Before the other a golden banner whipped, broidered with the eagle of Khondor.
At the threshold of the palace Ironbeard clapped the Earthman on the shoulder, a staggering buffet.
“There’ll be heavy talk along with the feasting of the Council tonight. But we have plenty of time to get decently drunk before that. How say you?”
And Carse said, “Lead on!”
XI. Dread Accusation
That night torches lighted the banquet hall with a smoky glare. Fires burned on round hearths between the pillars, which were hung with shields and the ensigns of many ships. The whole vast room was hollowed out of the living rock with galleries that gave upon the sea.
Long tables were set out. Servants ran among them with flagons of wine and smoking joints fresh from the fires. Carse had nobly followed the lead of Ironbeard all afternoon and to his somewhat unsteady sight it seemed that all of Khondor was feasting there to the wild music of harps and the singing of the skalds.
He sat with the Sea Kings and the leaders of the Swimmers and the Sky Folk on the raised dais at the north end of the hall. Ywain was there also. They had made her stand and she had remained motionless for hours, giving no sign of weakness, her head still high. Carse admired her. He liked it in her that she was still the proud Ywain.
Around the curving wall had been set the figureheads of ships taken in war so that Carse felt surrounded by shadowy looming monsters that quivered on the brink of life, with the torchlight picking glints from a jeweled eye or a gilded talon, momentarily lighting a carven face half ripped away by a ram.
Emer was nowhere in the hall.
Carse’s head rang with the wine and the talking and there was a mounting excitement in him. He fondled the hilt of the sword of Rhiannon where it lay between his knees. Presently, presently, it would be time.
Rold set his drinking horn down with a bang.
“Now,” he said, “let’s get to business.” He was a trifle thick-tongued, as they all were, but fully in command of himself. “And the business, my lords? Why, a very pleasant one.” He laughed. “One we’ve thought on for a long time, all of us—the death of Ywain of Sark!”
Carse stiffened. He had been expecting that. “Wait! She’s my captive.”
They all cheered him at that and drank his health again, all except Thorn of Tarak, the man with the useless arm and the twisted cheek, who had sat silent all evening, drinking steadily but not getting drunk.
“Of course,” said Rold. “Therefore the choice is yours.” He turned to look at Ywain with pleasant speculation. “How shall she die?”
“Die?” Carse got to his feet. “What is this talk of Ywain dying?”
They stared at him rather stupidly, too astonished for the moment to believe that they had heard him right. Ywain smiled grimly.
“But why else did you bring her here?” demanded Iron-beard. “The sword is too clean a death or you would have slain her on the galley. Surely you gave her to us for our vengeance?”
“I have not given her to anyone!” Carse shouted. “I say she is mine and I say she is not to be killed!”
There was a stunned pause. Ywain’s eyes met the Earth-man’s, bright with mockery. Then Thorn of Tarak said one word, “Why?”
He was looking straight at Carse now with his dark mad eyes and the Earthman found his question hard to answer.
“Because her life is worth too much, as a hostage. Are you babes, that you can’t see that? Why, you could buy the release of every Khond slave—perhaps even bring Sark to terms!”
Thorn laughed. It was not pleasant laughter.
The leader of the Swimmers said, “My people would not have it so.”
“Nor mine,” said the winged man.
“Nor mine!” Rold was on his feet now, flushed with anger. “You’re an outlander, Carse. Perhaps you don’t understand how things are with us!”
“No,” said Thorn of Tarak softly. “Give her back. She, that learned kindness at Garach’s knee, and drank wisdom from the teachers of Caer Dhu. Set her free again to mark others with her blessing as she marked me when she burned my longship.” His eyes burned into the Earthman. “Let her live—because the barbarian loves her.”
Carse stared at him. He knew vaguely that the Sea Kings tensed forward, watching him—the nine chiefs of war with the eyes of tigers, their hands already on their sword hilts. He knew that Ywain’s lips curved as though at some private jest. And he burst out laughing.
He roared with it. “Look you!” he cried, and turned his back so that they might see the scars of the lash. “Is that a love note Ywain has written on my hide? And if it were—it was no song of passion the Dhuvian was singing me when I slew him!”
He swung round again, hot with wine, flushed with the power he knew he had over them.
“Let any man of you say that again and I’ll take the head from his shoulders. Look at you. Great nidderlings, quarreling over a wench’s life. Why don’t you gather, all of you, and make an assault on Sark!”
There was a great clatter and scraping of feet as they rose, howling at him in their rage at his impudence, bearded chins thrust forward, knotty fists hammering on the board.