II

XOUNGES HAD BEEN A FORTIFIED PLACE since before the beginning of history. The town occupied a flat-topped knob of stone bounded on three sides by cliffs rising a sheer two hundred feet from the water. On the fourth side a narrow saddle of granite something over a hundred yards long connected the town with the mainland.

The Ulfland of four centuries ago had been a powerful kingdom, comprising both North and South Ulfland (though not Ys or the Vale of Evander), Godelia and what were now the Marches of Dahaut, out past Poelitetz. At this time King Fidwig, in the full exercise of his megalomaniac might, decreed the total security of Xounges. Ten thousand men toiled twenty years, to achieve a system of fortifications based on walls of granite forty feet wide at the base and a hundred and twenty feet high, closing the causeway at its narrowest width, again where the causeway entered the town, then hooking out into the Skyre to protect the harbor from attack by sea.

Almost as an afterthought, King Fidwig ordained a palace, and Jehaundel was built to a scale as prodigious as the walls of Xounges.

Much reduced from its old magnificence, Xounges remained as secure against attack as ever. The aristocracy had maintained tall stone townhouses; and formed the nucleus of the small army which defended the city from the Ska.

Jehaundel, now the palace of King Gax, showed a massive facade to the market square, but, like the palaces of the lesser nobility, made no pretense of ancient glory. The wings were closed off, as were the upper floors save for the suite used by King Gax: a dreary set-of chambers carpeted with woven rushes and furnished with massive pieces scarred by the hard usage of centuries. Fuel was an item of expense; the bedroom where King Gax lay dying was warmed only minimally by a mean little smolder of turves.

In his prime Gax had been a man of noteworthy stature and strong physique. For thirty years, while the Ska advanced their black battalions, first into the Foreshore, then across North Ulfland, his rule had gone badly. He had fought hard and suffered wounds, but the Ska were relentless. They destroyed his forces and crushed three proud Daut armies fighting under a treaty of mutual assistance. At last the Ska drove Gax to bay, behind the walls of Xounges. Stalemate came into being. The Ska were powerless to strike at him; and he could exert even less pressure against the Ska.

From time to time Ska emissaries brought Gax lukewarm offers of amnesty, if he would open the gates of Xounges and abdicate in favor of the Ska designate. Gax rejected all such overtures, in the wistful hope that King Audry might once again honour the ancient pact and send a great army to drive the Ska into the sea.

In this policy he was generally supported by his subjects, who saw no advantage for themselves under Ska rule. Sir Kreim, next of the royal succession, also endorsed Gax's intransigence, if for reasons quite at variance with Gax's own. Sir Kreim was a burly heavy-faced man of middle maturity, with black hair, lowering black brows and a short curling black beard in stark contrast to the pallor of his complexion. His appetites were large; his tastes were coarse; his ambitions were unbridled. When he himself assumed the throne, he hoped to use the office for his best personal advantage, either through alliance with the Ska, or abdication at a price which would afford him a luxurious estate in Dahaut.

Time passed and King Gax was unconscionably slow about his dying. If rumor were to be believed, Sir Kreim contained his impatience only by dint of great effort and perhaps had even considered methods to hasten the natural processes.

The chamberlain Rohan, upon learning that Sir Kreim had shown great favor to a pair of the guards outside King Gax's bedchamber, ordered new dead-bolts affixed to the doors and reassigned the guards to permanent night duty on the outer parapets, where rain and storm were merely signals for augmented vigilance. Rohan also devised a system which guaranteed that King Gax's food was the most wholesome in all Xounges; each of the kitchen cooks was required to eat of Gax's food before it was served.

Sir Kreim, taking note of the precautions, congratulated Rohan for his fidelity and grimly set himself to wait for King Gax to die at his own pace.

Meanwhile, the stalemate persisted. King Audry not only failed to succor his ally King Gax; the Ska insolently drove into Dahaut and occupied the fort Poelitetz. In outrage King Audry issued a series of ever more emphatic protests, then warnings, then threats. The Ska paid no heed, and King Audry finally turned his attention elsewhere. In due course he would assemble an invincible army, with a hundred carriages of war, a thousand knights in full regalia, and ten thousand valiant men-at-arms. In a magnificent glitter of sharp steel and silver crests, with banderoles streaming overhead, the great army would fall upon the Ska and send them reeling and skreeking into the sea; and Audry sent King Gax a document asserting his firm decision in this regard.

King Gax seldom stirred from his bed. He could sense the ebbing of his vitality, and sometimes thought to feel the passing of hours and minutes as if they were grains of sand in an hour-glass. His face, once ruddy, was drawn and gray, but his eyes still burned with the smoky yellow gleam of intelligence. He lay motionless, propped up on a pillow, arms arranged on the coverlet, and spent long hours watching the flicker of fire on the hearth.

Occasionally, under Rohan's watchful eye, he conferred with his staff and received visitors, including a deputation of high-ranking Ska: the Dukes Luhalcx and Ankhalcx, and an entourage of lesser lords. While they spoke bluntly and to the point, they conducted themselves with all propriety, and King Gax could find no fault with their general behavior.

During the Ska's first audience with King Gax, necessarily in his bedroom, Sir Kreim and two others were also in attendance. Duke Luhalcx stated the deputation's business: "Your Highness, we regret to find you unwell, but all men die, and it appears that your time is close upon you."

King Gax managed a weary smile. "While life remains, I live."

Duke Luhalcx bowed curtly in acknowledgment. "I intended the comment only as a step-board for the burden of my message, which I now state. The Ska nation rules North Ulfland, and intends to restore the ancient glory. We will expand our power: first to the south, then to the east. The city Xounges is a nuisance to us: a stone in our path. We must guard its approaches lest the Dauts attempt a reinforcement, which would place an enemy force full on our flank and threaten our control of Poelitetz. We want both the city Xounges and the titular rule of North Ulfland, that we may rescind the treaty with Dahaut. With our flank secure, we are free to subjugate South Ulfland, where the new king is becoming obstreperous."

"I am not interested in expediting your conquests. To the contrary."

"Still, you die, and events will pass you by. There is no royal prince in the statutory line of succession—"

Here Sir Kreim indignantly thrust himself forward. "Absurd and incorrect! I am in the direct line of succession, and I shall be the next king of North Ulfland!"

Duke Luhalcx smiled. "We understand your ambitions very well, since you have communicated them to us on several occasions already. We intend to buy neither Xounges nor the title from you." He turned back to King Gax, who had watched the interchange with a wintry smile. "Your Highness, we request that you immediately anoint our designate as the king of North Ulfland."

Sir Kreim cried out: "Your Majesty, the insolence of this proposal is exceeded only by its cold-blooded arrogance! We obviously reject it with indignation!"

Duke Luhalcx paid him no heed. "We will thereupon grant you and all present inhabitants of this place amnesty for acts committed to our detriment and we will confiscate neither wealth nor property. Will you agree to this proposal?"