The Heirs of Hammerfell (31 page)

well I was only awaiting the end of the battle to ask you myself―"

"Oh, Edric," she said, "you know I love you like a sister; if my son is to marry your daughter, will we not be close enough kin?"

"I suppose so," he said- grimly. "And so it seems that everything is settled―"

"One thing is not settled," said Conn, speaking up for the first time, "this clearing out of men because it is more profitable to raise sheep―this sending of my men out to die away from their farms must cease."

Alastair said, "I remind you, brother that they are not your men."

"Then," said Conn, facing his brother squarely, "I plead with you for them―or I will fight you for them. I was brought up with these men and I owe them my own loyalty―"

"I cannot promise to do what you wish," said Alastair. "It is clear that these hills are no place for farming. And if you were thinking with your mind and not with foolish

sentiment you would know it. It will not do for us all to starve, and if you challenge me, I will be forced to remind you―you are a landless man, brother."

"No! It will not be so!" Aidan interrupted, "Recently I came into the overlordship of a property on the border to the south, where the weather is more clement and the farmland still good. I bestow it upon you, Conn, if you will be my true man."

"I will," said Conn gratefully, "and any man who is forced from Hammerfell―or from Storn―may come there and have lands to farm if he will. And if you will―" he turned to Floria. "As a landless man I had

nothing to offer; now I have, thanks to King Aidan. Will you come and share it with me?"

Floria smiled brilliantly at him, "Yes," she replied. "I will."

"And so all this ends as a proper ballad should," Gavin said, "with the making of many marriages. But I get to make the ballad of it!"

"By all means, dear boy," Aidan said, beaming. "You had better put your mind to making that ballad."

Gavin grinned.

"I've already started it," he said.

And everyone in the hills has heard the ballad of the twin Dukes of Hammerfell, and of the old dog who died to save her master in the last battle―but like all true ballads, it has changed a good deal between that day and this.