The two brigands outside had news of how fared the battle within only when Sir Clovis came around the manor house to them armed with a pick, a shield unlike most, and a vest and cap of leather such as they used, but worn by a mightier man. One bandit swift in wit and his feet fled then, but the other, braver, held to this resolve that he repay his friends who had aided him and been aided by him in the past, more than once.

The brigand began the combat with a thrust and scratched the knight's shield with his spear's iron point. Sir Clovis threatened the knee of his enemy with his pick and pressed hard with his shield, and in struggling against that the brigand was pushed against the house and could withdraw nowhere else. The knight smote his foe's shoulder such a heavy blow that no longer could the man wield the spear but instead drew his dagger with his other hand.

Sir Clovis found wind enough to say, “Yield, and you will not be the first.” The brigand dropped his dagger to the ground, but when the knight knelt for it, the man fled. “I should have had more care. Even so, his band will be smaller for the battle here, and like as not the Ampheraean will do the equal or more to them. There is no long life in banditry regardless, now that Cuculna is ruined.” Sir Clovis reasoned in that way. He took the dagger, a thing good for a knight to have, and looked over the house in a more thorough way.

If a full fierce battle between a peace-shunning knight and men who wished for gain above all else, even their lives, stirred no one in the house, there must be none there save that they hid. For all his searching he found no people anywhere, and though there seemed some strangeness in that, for not at all did neglect rule the house, Sir Clovis saw no adventure in it or aid he was able to give.

Thinking that, he left. A road ran to the house's door, wide and cleared of hindrances, and on the other side of it or alongside must be some town or castle untroubled by brigands that welcomes travelers and does not shun them from fear rightly felt. “And if some lord or daring man is minded to bring battle to those brigands and settle the land they now make unfriendly, I will join him. Though Sir Hring may have done so himself already, as I never heard that Krystilans love peace more than their name.” So said Sir Clovis as he set out. For a long time still he saw no one, not in the fields or on the road, and he wondered much at that, though his wonder passed as he traveled farther. For the road widened, the farms about were tended by men and women not afraid to step a pace beyond their doors, and he met travelers who told him a city indeed lay ahead that was called Aequinium. Then they laughed and praised him for his jest when they looked over him more.

“I am glad of that. Share the jest with me if you would, for I want cheer,” Sir Clovis said.

A traveler, whose name was Rodrigo, a miller by trade, pointed to his shield and said, “Switch your shield for another, young man, if you wish for us not to know your family!” So he said in merry words and went on his way with his friends.

Sir Clovis had not thought to worry what emblem his shield had, any more than does a bird, not yet born, ask whether the shell that guards it is of a color fit for its rank. He turned the borrowed thing over in his hands and saw wind-seizing sails, a bull in the flames, and a sceptered man giving laws and peace to the people. What meaning was behind it he had no hope to learn since the shield showed but a part of the picture, and in the middle at that. The edges of the shield ended in no pleasing way chosen by art, but with a part of a leg mid-step on one side, the nearest length of some mast or wall-guarding tower across from it, and above all the bottoms of rain-heavy clouds.

“Nevertheless I honor it as a shield for the good it did me. I will praise you, stout shield, when we meet with your owners in that city nearby, where I suppose they went and left their manor house empty behind them.” Sir Clovis marched with all the more cheer for what the travelers told him to that river-straddling city, Aequinium, and found in the square a greeting other than what he thought.

“The Upani have come! I see it there!” A man said that who had many about him, men and women, gray and youthful both, and there was such gladness at those words as Sir Clovis had not seen since King Raymond's defeat, and he smiled at that remembering it while knowing the man was wrong in what he said, who said more beside. “I never knew any of that family to be so great in frame as you, though more than one foreigner has been welcomed by the Upani when they deemed him high in virtue, and you may be Fyodor's son, or Lando's. But we will learn of that soon. Does Juliano yet live, and where is he?”

Others asked as well after Juliano, Valerio, sweet Breda, and whether she or Publia had won the contest as to the number of their children, for each had made boasts as to that, or had little Leticia won the crown in the end.

“You ask me what I will not feign to know. I am sorry for that, but will tell you what I do, which is less than you may like but more than you did before.” Sir Clovis said that and told them all he had done since King Hector of Ephys sent him on the task of the bell, which was long in the telling.

The hearers marveled much when they heard it. “Is it true, that you were there when the villain who called himself king by reason that he held what wise King Gaspar did of old, but covered it with as much misery as he could fashion for us, ended his harm-doing life? That was when he raised his hand to rule at times and left it not altogether to robbers who thrived after the wardens of the people of old had been unseated by sorceries shunned by the good.” An Aequinian asked that who was named Tullio Roxtanus, and he spoke for all the crowd that had gathered.

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“It is. Did you know of it already, though he died so short a time ago? We saw none around when it was done but wicked knights, and they did not escape us.”

A third man, Septimio Lirio, beyond the others in age and his bearing both, told him, “Yes, and we learned of it in various ways, for which reason we trusted that a thing was true we otherwise would doubt from despair that anything so good for us should ever come to pass in our lives. Signs of his death came first, unsure as they were, for horses looked toward Cuculna and neighed, church bells rang though unrung by anyone, and flowers bloomed with golden petals whatever their color may be in other years, to say a few. We sent swift-footed runners unafraid to play the part of scouts, who relied on the ruin made of Cuculna to report that the fiend had died without daring to go closer. I know without asking that every lord and lordless city did some such thing so that if not all in this country have learned of it, time will fill the gap. We, my family and the others here, came upon our hearing of Cuculna's end, as we pledged long ago.

“Once, sir knight, this city of Aequinium was ruled by the people, who wisely set above themselves some that were more listened to and more trusted so that their advice was asked on every matter. Fifty great families, the Fifty they called us, settled everything as we judged best, and the city thrived so long as we judged well. That was until a man came who told our fathers he was king, now and forever more, and that they had but to obey his will and all would be well for them. They did so obey, but they liked it not, nor were they underlings who did what they hated for long. This city had a mural once in this square that any who viewed it might be roused to a love of this city that deserves it by the display of its past and what its founders and heroes did. The Fifty cut that mural into parts and took them as a pledge they would return, and after that left for their manors and villages where they played the part of people withdrawn from the worry and trouble of leading cities. The Upani owned the piece you have and the house where you found it, and if they are not here yet, they must be minded to repair to whatever treasuries and armories they made secret about their lands with the desire to dress themselves in a well-jeweled way and walk through the city as they used to, wealthy and given honor by all who met them.”

Again spoke the first man to greet Sir Clovis, who was Renato Partanus. “Doubtless they do, and for their slowness will pay the price, which shall be this should my words win agreement. Sir knight, of all the men gathered here, you are the noblest for your deeds, yours and your fellow knights, and latest to leave Upani lands, however your father and mother were named. Why should you not be Upanus for the day, and the rest of us see our plan through and make good our pledges?”

Those in the crowd were glad at his words and yelled their agreement, saying they wished for nothing more than that, what Renato had said, and acclaimed him as worthy an advisor to the people as the Partani ever had been. Sir Clovis listened like a mountain that the clouds give a wreath of snow from their awe, which the sober mount wears without complaint and looks all the nobler for it, and bigger. “I will do if it is a help to you, for I recall to me no better welcome than what I have had in Aequinium,” he said, and went with them to that wall, once part of a courthouse that was taken down in lawless times. There the pieces of the mural were placed, one after another, the corners first.

Aequinium was rebuilt then from the start. Colonists traveled the road of fins and scales in many-oared ships, waged a war of hatchet and ax against high-ruling cedars and ashes, made furrows in the resisting earth, and gave themselves laws that seemed good. Aequinians pointed at their forebears where they saw them that their children might learn them and not think the city a thing belonging to others, and told the stories they knew of it, which were many.

Much cheer was had then, but Sir Clovis feared art had been marred and said this. “Learned men have chided me for not knowing the history of Salisville where I was born, so I make no claim to be either historian or artist. Yet the mural is missing a piece. I am sure of it.”

“Nor is that strange, for of the Cobreni I have heard no word since they left the city. We noble families sent runners and letters to one another and back again, and traveled about also, some more than others. Because of that, how we all fared was never hid. But as for the Cobreni, well, I know where are their lands and no more,” Septimio Lirio told Sir Clovis, and none there gainsaid him or had better news.

“Though their skill in hiding will make them no less welcome when we see them,” Renato Partanus said, but failed to hide his worry.

Sir Clovis thought on that and spoke cheerful words. “If they are welcome to you as you say, why, I ween you are welcome to them just alike. Men hate or love each other both more often than one hates and the other loves, and if it be not so in this case, I will strive to make peace between you. First seek them out. I will join you till the Upani revoke my fresh title.”

“Yet where may they be? Answer us that and I will be much surprised.” Septimio Lirio challenged the knight with that speech, but Sir Clovis did not lose heart at it.

“Rather, tell me where they were the last that you heard. We will go there, some of us, armed for the robbers and unloved lords about, and learn what we are able. By my spurs, if these families are so old and noble as I was told, which I trust they are from the merit of this city which is humbling great even from the little time I have been in it, I say few contests are too much for you to win, and you ought therefore to enter as many as you are able. Many would do better to try more than they do, and that is the lesson I have learned from my travels that outmatches any others and makes them small beside it.”

The Aequinians liked well what that eager knight said, Septimio much and Renato more. All willed that they yield to Sir Clovis for a time longer the role not yet taken by some son of the Upani that he might lead the search he advised, and straightaway they chose envoys to aid him. After that, the fifty families less two played the part that nobles ought and feasted the city altogether with meat and the hidden wealth of well-grown fruit, setting tables and cushions in the square and the streets around. The merriment did not cease till after a footrace through the streets of Aequinium the youths of the Fifty ran to learn which of those honor-loving families had the hosting of Sir Clovis that night. And it was the Sulones that won it and overcame the others in speed.