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

Would you care to join the company?”
    Yane excused himself. “I must go to my place Skave, and make sure of kegs for the new wine. What troubles the placid ways of Watershade?”
    “The druids. They have settled the island Inisfadhe, where they put a fine fright into Glyneth, and I must set things to rights.”
    “Send Shimrod out to throw a gloom on them, or, better, transform them all into crayfish.”
    Aillas looked over his shoulder as if to make sure that Shimrod was not within earshot. “Shimrod already wonders at my sudden invitation. When dealing with druids, magic is a comforting convenience. I will let Glyneth tell her story; she can twist Shimrod around her finger, and any other man she chooses to wheedle.”
    “Including a certain Aillas, so I have noticed.”
    “Yes. A certain Aillas very much so.”

Chapter 3
    WATERSHADE HAD BEEN BUILT during a long-past time of troubles, to guard the traffic on Janglin Water and to overawe the warrior knights of the Ceald, and never had it so much as come under assault.
    The castle stood at the very edge of the lake, with part of the barrel-shaped keep rising from the water itself. Low conical roofs capped both the keep and the four squat towers adjoining. Trees overshadowed both towers and keep, and softened the castle’s mass, while the quaint conical roofs seemed almost comically inadequate to the task of sheltering the heavy structures below.
    Aillas’ father Ospero had built a terrace around the base of the keep, where it shouldered into the lake. On many a summer evening, while sunset faded into dusk, Aillas and Ospero, perhaps with guests, took supper on the terrace, and often, if the company was good, sat long over nuts and wine and watched the stars come out.
    On the shore grew several large fig trees, which during the heat of summer exhaled a pervasive sweetness attracting countless droning insects; the boy Aillas was not infrequently stung as he clambered among the smooth gray boughs after fruit.
    The keep encompassed a great round hall containing a dining table in the shape of a C thirty feet in diameter at which fifty persons could sit in comfort, or sixty with somewhat less elbow-room. Ospero’s library occupied the floor above, along with a gallery, several parlours and retiring rooms. The towers housed airy bedchambers and pleasant sitting-rooms for the lord of the castle, his family and guests.
    When the court moved to Domreis the moat was neglected and at last became a quagmire choked with reeds, blackberry thicket and scrub willow. Fetid odors rose from the slime and at last Aillas ordained restoration. Work-gangs were employed three months; then finally the gates were opened and fresh water rushed once again into the channel, though the moat now served only domestic purposes. During storms boats were brought in from the lake and moored in the moat. Ducks and geese paddled among the reeds, and the calm waters were fished for carp, eels and pike.
    For Aillas, Watershade was the scene of his most pleasant memories, and across the years changes were few. Weare and Flora now used the titles ‘Seneschal’ and ‘Chatelaine of the House’. Cern, once a stable-boy and Aillas’ playmate, had become ‘Under-Master of the Royal Stable’. Tauncy, the one-time bailiff, had gone lame. As ‘Master Vintner to the Royal Estates’, he controlled the work of Aillas’ winery.
    After long delay, and only at the behest of Weare, Aillas agreed to move into his father’s old chambers, while Dhrun took over those rooms once used by Aillas.
    “So it must be,” Weare told Aillas. “There is no stopping the fall of the autumn leaves, nor the coming of new leaves in the spring. As I have often remarked to Dame Flora, you are perhaps over-inclined to sentimentality. Now, all has changed! How can you hope to rule a kingdom if you are too timid to venture from your childhood nursery?”
    “Weare, dear fellow, you have put a hard question! If truth be known, I am