such as were unknown to Miramon Lluagor and Guivric the Sage.

10

This Horvendile said to the nine heroes, “Now begins the last siege of the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion.”

Donander of Évre was the youngest of them. Yet he spoke now, piously and boldly enough. “But it is our custom, Messire Horvendile, to begin each siege with prayer.”

“This siege,” replied Horvendile, “must nevertheless begin without any such religious side-taking. For this is the siege in which, as it was prophesied, you shall be both against Judah and against Jerusalem, and against Thebes and Hermopolis and Avalon and Breidablik and all other places which produce Redeemers.”

“Upon my word, but who is master here!” cried Coth of the Rocks, twirling at his long mustachios. This gesture was a sure sign that trouble brewed.

Horvendile answered: “The master who held Poictesme, under my whims, has passed. A woman sits in his place, his little son inherits after him. So begins a new romance; and a new order is set afoot.”

“Yet Coth, in his restless pursuit of variety, has asked a wholly sensible question,” said Gonfal, the tall Margrave of Aradol. “Who will command us, who 11now will give us our directions? Can Madame Niafer lead us to war?”

11

“These things are separate. Dame Niafer commands: but it is I—since you ask,—who will give to all of you your directions, and your dooms too against the time of their falling, and after that to your names I will give life. Now, your direction, Gonfal, is South.”

Gonfal looked full at Horvendile, in frank surprise. “I was already planning for the South, though certainly I had told nobody about it. You are displaying, Messire Horvendile, an uncomfortable sort of wisdom which troubles me.”

Horvendile replied, “It is but a little knack of foresight, such as I share with Balaam’s ass.”

But Gonfal stayed more grave than was his custom. He asked, “What shall I find in the South?”

“What all men find, at last, in one place or another, whether it be with the aid of a knife or of a rope or of old age. Yet, I assure you, the finding of it will not be unwelcome.”

“Well,”—Gonfal shrugged,—“I am a 

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