Elder Isles 2: The Green Pearl by Jack Vance Read Free Book Online Page A

his table and poured them full of wine, while musicians played jigs and quicksteps, so that the envoys presently forgot their business and cavorted in drunken abandon alongside King Milo.
    Godelia and its boisterous population were in some degree controlled by King Dartweg. The Ska elected their “First Among the First” at ten-year intervals; the current “First” was the strong and able Sarquin.
    The eight kings differed in almost every characteristic. King Kestrel of Pomperol and King Aillas of Troicinet were both earnest young men, brave and honorable, but where Kestrel was humorless and diffident, Aillas showed an imaginative flair which sometimes perturbed more settled personalities.
    The courts of the eight kings were no less disparate. King Audry spent lavishly upon vanity and pleasure, and the splendor of his court at Falu Ffail was the stuff of legend. King Aillas used his revenues to build ships for his navy, while King Casmir spent large sums upon espionage and intrigue. His spies were active everywhere, and especially in Dahaut, where they monitored King Audry’s every sneeze.
    Casmir found information from Troicinet more difficult to secure. He had managed to suborn certain high officials, who transmitted their reports by carrier pigeon, but he relied most heavily upon the master spy “Valdez,” whose information was uncannily accurate.
    Valdez reported at intervals of about six weeks. Casmir, shrouded under a hooded gray cloak, went to a storeroom at the back of a wine-merchant’s shop, where presently he was joined by a man who might well have been the wine merchant: a person of no great distinction, stocky of physique, clean-shaven, economical of speech, with neat regular features and cold gray eyes.
    From Valdez, Casmir learned of four new warships on the ways at the Tumbling River shipyard, two miles north of Domreis. Despite strict security, Valdez was able to report that these ships were light fast feluccas, with catapults hurling iron arrows a hundred yards with sufficient force to open up the hull of any ordinary vessel. These new ships were intended specifically to defeat the long-boats of the Ska and thus hold open the sea-lanes between Troicinet and South Ulfland.
    At the moment Troicinet and Lyonesse kept an uneasy peace, but only after an accommodation whereby Casmir undertook to build no warships which might challenge Troice control of the sea. Aillas had put his case to Casmir in these terms: “Your armies, with your Four hundred knights and multitude of soldiers, protect you well against our attack. If Lyonesse could bring these troops to Dascinet or Troicinet. we would know mortal danger! Lyonesse cannot be allowed the means to land armies on our soil.” Casmir yielded the point without display of emotion, though inwardly he seethed with rage, and the violent dislike he felt for Aillas exacerbated the situation. Valdez, before his departure, remarked that he had recently recruited new and highly placed sources of information.
    “Well done!” said Casmir. “This is the efficient work which we have come to expect from you.”
    Valdez turned toward the door, where he paused and seemed about to speak, but once again turned away.
    Casmir had noticed the hesitation. “Wait! What troubles your mind?”
    “No great problem, though I can conceive of possible inconvenience.”
    “How so?”
    “I am aware that you have informants in Troicinet other than myself, and I suspect that at least one of these is highly placed. From your point of view, this is a happy situation. Still, as mentioned, I have made contact with a person of high degree who may well cooperate with me, although at the moment he is as timid as a bird. I can work less tentatively and with less chance of cross-purposes if I know the identities of your other informants.”
    “The point is well taken,” said Casmir. He reflected a moment, then uttered a small harsh chuckle. “You would be surprised to learn the elevation at