Sir Famet looked right and left at the courtiers who stood in polite proximity. "Sir, might you not prefer to hear me in private?"

"Not at all!" declared King Deuel. "At Alcantade we have no secrets. We are like birds in an orchard of ripe fruit, where everyone trills his happiest song. Speak on, Sir Famet."

"Very well, sir. I will cite certain events which disquiet King Granice of Troicinet."

Sir Famet spoke; King Deuel listened carefully, with head cocked to the side. Sir Famet finished his exposition. "These, sir, are the dangers which menace us all—in the not too distant future."

King Deuel grimaced. "Dangers, everywhere dangers! I am beset on all hands, so that often I hardly take rest of nights." King Deuel's voice became nasal and he twitched in his chair as he spoke. "Daily I hear a dozen pitiful cries for protection. We guard our entire north border against the cats, stoats, and weasels employed by King Audry. The Godelians are also a menace, even though their roosts lie a hundred leagues distant. They breed and train the cannibal falcons, each a traitor to his kind. To the west is an even more baleful threat, and I allude to Duke Faude Carfilhiot, who breathes green air. Like the Godelians he hunts with falcons, using bird against bird."

Sir Famet protested in a strained voice. "Still, you need fear no actual assault! Tintzin Fyral stands far beyond the forest!"

King Deuel shrugged. "It is admittedly a long day's flight. But we must face reality. I have named Carfilhiot a dastard; and he dared not retort, for fear of my mighty talons. Now he skulks in his toad-wallow planning the worst kinds of mischief."

Prince Trewan, ignoring Sir Famet's cold blue side-glance, spoke out briskly: "Why not place the strength of those same talons beside those of your fellow birds? Our flock shares your views in regard to Carfilhiot and his ally King Casmir. Together we can rebuff their attacks with great blows of talon and beak!"

"True. Someday we shall see the formation of just such a mighty force. In the meantime each must contribute where he can. I have cowed the squamous Carfilhiot and defied the Godelians; nor do I spare mercy upon Audry's bird-killers. You are thereby liberated to aid us against the Ska and sweep them from the sea. Each does his part: I through the air; you on the ocean wave."

The Smaadra arrived at Avallon, largest and oldest city of the Elder Isles: a place of great palaces, a university, theaters and an enormous public bath. There were a dozen temples erected to the glory of Mithra, Dis, Jupiter, Jehovah, Lug, Gaea, Enlil, Dagon, Baal, Cronus and three-headed Dion of the ancient Hybrasian pantheon. The Somrac lam Dor, a massive domed structure, housed the sacred throne Evandig and the table Cairbra an Meadhan, objects whose custody in olden days had legitimized the kings of Hybras.*

*The table, Cairbra an Meadhan, was divided into twenty-three segments, each carved with now unreadable glyphs, purportedly the names of twenty-two in the service of the fabulous King Mahadion. In years to come a table in the style of Cairbra an Meadhan would be celebrated as the Round Table of King Arthur.

King Audry returned from his summer palace riding in a scarlet and gold carriage drawn by six white unicorns. On the same afternoon the Troice emissaries were allowed an audience. King Audry, a tall saturnine man, had a face of fascinating ugliness. He was noted for his amours and said to be perceptive, self-indulgent, vain and occasionally cruel. He greeted the Troice with urbanity and put them at their ease. Sir Famet delivered his message, while King Audry leaned back into his cushions, eyes half-closed, stroking the white cat which had jumped into his lap.

Sir Famet concluded his statement. "Sir, that is my message to you from King Granice."

King Audry nodded slowly. "It is a proposal with many sides and more edges. Yes! Of course! I dearly yearn for the subjugation of Casmir and the end of his ambitions. But before I can commit treasure, arms and blood to such a project I must secure my flanks. Were I to look away an instant, the Godelians would come pounding down on me looting, burning, taking slaves. North Ulfland is a wilderness, and the Ska have encroached upon the foreshore. If I embroiled myself in North Ulfland against the Ska, then Casmir would be upon me." King Audry reflected a moment, then: "Candor is such a poor policy that we all recoil automatically from the truth. In this case you might as well know the truth. It is to my best interests that Troicinet and Lyonesse maintain a stalemate."

"Daily the Ska grow stronger in North Ulfland. They too have ambitions."

"I hold them in check with my fort Poelitetz. First the Godelians, then the Ska, then Casmir."

"Meanwhile, what if Casmir, with the help of the Ska, takes Troicinet?"

"A disaster for both of us. Fight well!"

Dartweg, King of the Godelian Celts, listened to Sir Famet with a ponderous and bland courtesy.

Sir Famet came to the end of his remarks. "That is the situation as it seems from Troicinet. If events go with King Casmir, he will move at last into Godelia and you will be destroyed."

King Dartweg pulled at his red beard. A Druid bent to mutter in his ear and Dartweg nodded. He rose to his feet. "We cannot spare the Dauts so that they may conquer Lyonesse. They would thereupon attack us with new strength. No! We must guard our interests!"

The Smaadra sailed on, through days bright with sunlight and nights sparkling with stars: across Dafdilly Bay, around Tawgy Head and into the Narrow Sea, with the wind dead fair and wake warbling up astern; then south, past Skaghane and Frehane, and smaller islands by the dozens: cliff-girt places of forest, moor and crag, exposed to all the winds of the Atlantic, inhabited by multitudes of sea-birds and the Ska. On various occasions Ska ships were sighted, and as many of the small trading cogs, Irish, Cornish, Troice or Aquitanian, which the Ska suffered to ply the Narrow Sea. The Ska ships made no effort to close, perhaps because the Smaadra clearly was able to outrun them down a fresh wind.

Oaldes, where ailing King Oriante maintained a semblance of a court, was passed by; the final port of call would be Ys at the mouth of the Evander, where the Forty Factors preserved the independence of Ys against Carfilhiot.

Six hours out of Ys the wind slackened and at this time a Ska long-ship, powered by sweeps and a red and black square sail came in view. Upon sighting the Smaadra it changed course. The Smaadra, unable to outrun the Ska ship, prepared for battle. The catapults were manned and armed, fire-pots prepared and slung to booms; arrow-screens raised above the bulwarks.

The battle went quickly. After a few arrow volleys the Ska moved in close and tried to grapple.

The Troice returned the arrow fire, then winged out a boom and slung a fire-pot accurately onto the long-ship, where it exploded in a terrible surprise of yellow flame. At a range of thirty yards the Smaadra's catapults in a leisurely fashion broke the long-ship apart. The Smaadra stood by to rescue survivors but the Ska made no attempt to swim from the wallowing hulk of their once-proud ship, which presently sank under the weight of its loot.

The Ska commander, a tall black-haired man in a three-pronged steel helmet and a white cap over the pangolin scales of his armor, stood immobile on the afterdeck and so sank with his ship.

Casualties aboard the Smaadra were slight; unfortunately they included Sir Famet, who, in the initial volley, took an arrow in the eye and now lay dead on the afterdeck, with the arrow shaft protruding from his head two feet into the air.

Prince Trewan, conceiving himself the second ranking member of the delegation, took command of the ship. "Into the sea with our honored dead," he told the captain. "The rites of mourning must wait upon our return to Domreis. We will proceed as before, to Ys."