MADOUC

"So it seems to me," said Madouc. "Did you speak with my father?"

"I remember no conversation."

"What of his name?"

"No one troubled to ask. Put the subject out of your mind: that is my best advice."

"But! want to learn my pedigree. Everyone has one but me."

"You will find no pedigree in yonder hole! So now: be off with you, before I hang up young Pymfyd by his toes, just to maintain order!"

Pymfyd cried out: "Come along, Your Highness! No more can be done!"

"But we have done nothing!"

Pymfyd, already out of earshot, failed to respond.

V

One bright morning Madouc came briskly along Haidion's main gallery and into the entry hall. Looking through the open portal and across the front terrace, she noticed Prince Cassander leaning against the balustrade, contemplating the town below and eating purple plums from a silver dish. Madouc looked quickly over her shoulder, then ran across the terrace and joined him.

Cassander glanced at her sidelong, first carelessly, then a second time, with eyebrows raised in surprise. "By Astarte's nine nymphs!" swore Cassander. "Here is a definite marvel!"

"What is so marvellous?" asked Madouc. "That I deign to join you?"

"Of course not! I refer to your costume!"

Madouc looked indifferently down at herself. Today she wore a demure white frock with green and blue flowers embroidered along the hem, with a white ribbon constraining her copper-gold curls. "It is well enough, or so I suppose."

Cassander spoke in fulsome tones. "I see before me, not a wild-eyed scalawag escaping a dogfight, but a royal princess of delicacy and grace! Indeed, you are almost pretty."

Madouc gave a wry laugh. "It is not my fault. They dressed me willy-filly, so that I might be fit for the cotillion."

"And that is so inglorious?"

"Not altogether, since I will not be there."

"Aha! You run grave risks! Lady Desdea will be rigid with vexation!"

"She must learn to be more reasonable. If she likes dancing, well and good; it is all the same to me. She may jig, jerk, kick high in the air and jump in a circle, so long as I may do other wise. That is reasonable conduct!"

"But it is not the way things go! Everyone must learn to act properly; no one is exempt, not even I."

"Why, then, are you not at the cotillion, sweating and hopping with the others?"

"I have had my share of it-never fear! It is now your turn."

"I will have none of it, and this is what Lady Desdea must get through her head."

Cassander chuckled. "Such mutiny might easily earn you another beating."

Madouc gave her head a scornful toss. "No matter! I shall utter not a sound, and they will quickly tire of their sport."

Cassander uttered a bark of laughter. "Wrong, in every respect! I discussed this same topic only last week with Tanchet the under-torturer. He states that voluble types who instantly screech and blubber and make horrid noises-these are the ones who fare the best, since the torturer is quickly satisfied that his job has been well and truly done. Take my advice! A few shrill screams and a convulsion or two might save your skin a whole medley of tingles!"

"This bears thinking about," said Madouc.

"Or-from a different perspective-you might try to be mild and meek, and avoid the beatings altogether."

Madouc gave her head a dubious shake. "My mother, the Princess Suldrun, was mild and meek, but failed to escape an awful penalty-which the poor creature never deserved. That is my opinion."

Cassander spoke in measured tones: "Suldrun disobeyed the king's command, and had only herself to blame."

"Nevertheless, it seems very harsh treatment to visit upon one's own dear daughter."

Cassander was not comfortable with the topic. "Royal justice is not for us to question."

Madouc gave Cassander a cool appraisal. He frowned down at her. "Why do you stare at me so?"

"Someday you will be king."

"That well may be-later, so I hope, rather than sooner. I am in no haste to rule."

"Would you treat your daughter in such a fashion?"

Cassander pursed his lips. "I would do what I thought to be correct and kingly."

"And if I were still unmarried, would you try to wed me to some fat bad-smelling prince, so as to make me miserable the rest of my life?"

Cassander gave an exclamation of a

"Small chance of that," said Madouc under her breath.

"I did not hear your remark."

"No matter. Do you often visit the old garden where my mother died?"

"I have not done so for years."

"Take me there now."

"Now? When you should be at the cotillion?"

"No time could be more convenient."

Cassander looked toward the palace, and seeing no one, gave a flippant wave of the hand. "I should stand aloof from your vagaries! Still, at the moment I have nothing better to do. Come then, while Lady Desdea is yet dormant. I do not take kindly to complaints and reproaches."

Madouc said wisely: "I have learned the best response. I feign a blank stupid perplexity, so that they weary themselves with explanations, and forget all else."

"Ah Madouc, you are a crafty one! Come then, before we are apprehended."

The two set off up the cloistered way toward Zoltra Bright- Star's Wall: up past the orangery, through the wall itself by a dank passage and out upon the parade ground at the front of the Peinhador: a place known as ‘The Urquial'. To the right, the wall veered sharply to the south; in the angle, a thicket of larch and juniper concealed a decaying postern of black timber.

Cassander, already beset by second thoughts, pushed through the thicket, cursing the brambles and the drift of pollen from the larches. He thrust at the postern and grunted at the recalcitrance of the sagging timbers. Putting his shoulder to the wood, he heaved hard; with a dismal groaning of corroded iron hinges the postern swung open. Cassander gave a grim nod of triumph for his victory over the obstacle. He beckoned to Madouc. "Behold! The secret garden!"

The two stood at the head of a narrow vale, sloping down to a little crescent of beach. At one time the garden had been land scaped after the classic Arcadian style, but now grew rank and wild with trees and shrubs of many sorts: oak, olive, laurel, bay and myrtle; hydrangea, heliotrope, asphodel, vervane, purple thyme. Halfway down to the beach a clutter of marble blocks and a few standing columns indicated the site of an ancient Roman villa. The single whole structure to be seen was near at hand: a small chapel, now dank with lichen and the odor of wet stone.

Cassander pointed to the stone chapel. "That is where Suldrun took shelter from the weather. She spent many lonely nights in that small place."

He gave his head a wry shake. "And also a few nights not so lonely, which cost her dear in grief and sorrow."

Madouc blinked at the tears which had come to her eyes and turned away. Cassander said gruffly: "The events are many years gone; one should not mourn forever."

Madouc looked down the long descent of the garden. "It was my mother, whom I never knew, and it was my father, who was put in a hole to die! How can I forget so easily?"

Cassander shrugged. "I don't know. I can only assure you that your emotion is wasted. Do you wish to see more of the garden?"

"Let us follow the path and find where it leads."

"It goes here and there, and finally down to the beach. Suldrun whiled away her days paving the path with pebbles from the beach. Rains have undone the path; there is little to show for her work-or her life, for that matter."

"Except me."

"Except you! A notable accomplishment, to be sure!"

Madouc ignored the jocularity, which she found to be in rather poor taste.