The guardsmen were crowding about the two boys, looking curiously at Constans. But Ulick ordered them out imperiously, and they obeyed, being men of slow wit and not used to argue with their superiors. Ulick turned to Constans. "Well, that was fair enough, to make up for—for the other thing?"
Constans nodded a hearty assent; he hesitated, and then spoke, steadily: "But you must understand that I would rather fight again than wear the iron collar of a slave, or call any one master, even you. You will kill me, for you are the better man with the naked fist. But I should prefer it that way."
"Will you leave this with me?" asked Ulick, nodding his head wisely, and Constans wondered and submitted.
They went out into the breathless noon of an August day. Two or three men were loitering about, and Ulick frowned as he saw them.
"I shall have to take you to my grandsire," he whispered. "These are Quinton Edge's men, and they are doubtless under orders to watch us. This way," and Constans followed obediently.
Ulick stopped at a beautiful Gothic edifice, built about a small court-yard, in which a score of the green-jerkined guardsmen were lounging. In a corner stood a wooden cistern for the collection of rain-water from the roof-spouts. Ulick drew a pannikin of water and offered it to Constans that he might bathe his face, which was badly puffed and marked. How reviving, the touch of the cool, clean liquid! Constans arose, mightily refreshed; then, in response to his guide's look, he followed him into the main hallway of the house and up the broad stairs.
The building, judging from its size and appointments, must have been the dwelling of one of the richest members of the ancient plutocracy, and the traces of a splendid luxury were to be seen on all sides. The colored marbles underfoot, the gilding overhead, the gorgeous, albeit torn and weather-stained tapestries that covered the walls—these things were eloquent of a pristine magnificence that could hardly have been equalled, even in this city of palaces. Constans kept looking about him with all his eyes, but Ulick strode along indifferently. Every son of the Doomsmen might possess a dwelling measurably as fine as this if he chose to look for it, but from a practical point of view the sole qualification for a man's house was that it should be standing in plumb and tolerably weather-proof. Gold-leaf and silken hangings would not keep out the rain, and it was folly to spend time in making repairs. When a house became uninhabitable it was a simple matter to move into another.
The apartment into which they now entered was long and lofty. The thick curtains remained drawn before the windows, excluding so much of the light that Constans had great difficulty in finding his way about. Then, his eyes adjusting themselves to the obscurity, he saw before him a divan piled high with pillows. Propped up against them was the figure of an old man.
And such a man! In his prime he must have been a very colossus of strength and stature, and even now, in his senility, the muscles that had made terrible those great limbs could be plainly traced. For this was Dominus Gillian, whose name had been first a byword and then a terror, and even now was a power to conjure with; Dom Gillian, renegade and hero, gallows-bird and world-builder, but ever and in all things a man, as all other men will bear witness.
He knew his favorite grandchild, and smiled as Ulick respectfully raised and kissed his hand, that hand in whose hollow had lain the world, now shrunken and nerveless, scarce able to crush an impertinent fly. Ulick spoke slowly and distinctly, explaining his action and seeking boldly to justify it.