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weapons. She only knew that she would not stand by and do nothing while they humiliated a helpless man.
    The riders were nearer now. In the lead was Sasha Jahan, the eldest of Amroth Jahan's three sons. He glared from side to side as he rode, as if the sight of the abandoned farm was a personal affront: the gates of the pens swinging on broken hinges, the doors to the outbuildings kicked in by looters, the giant weeds standing like sentries across the cracked earth.

    Caressa had brought the Great Jahan here as the fierce short spring had driven out the last of winter, and here she had watched over him as he had aged and sickened before her eyes. He laughed as loudly as ever, and shouted as much, but his body dwindled day by day. They never spoke of it. They made no plans for the future. When his sons had come to him before and asked him to name one of them as his successor, he had burst into a mighty rage and slashed at them with his whip; the same silver-handled whip that must be passed on to the next Great Jahan of the Orlan nation.
    And now he was weaker still; and they were back.
    The horsemen stopped at the broken fence and dismounted. They spoke together briefly, in low voices. Then the three sons approached Caressa in the farmhouse door.
    "We've come to talk with my father," said Sasha Jahan. He spoke abruptly and did not meet Caressa's eyes.
    "He doesn't want to see you," Caressa replied.
    "We'll see him," said Sasha grimly. "Whether he wants it or not."
    Caressa's black eyes flashed with anger.
    "Who are you to give orders to the Jahan of jahans?"
    "Who are you to stand in my way? What business is this of yours? You're no Orlan. What is it you want with a feeble old man?"
    Caressa stared at him with contempt.
    "I saw your father when he was the leader of ten thousand men. I saw him take on each one of you and drag you down into the dirt. And you call him a feeble old man! Have you forgotten so soon?"

    "No," said Sasha Jahan bitterly. "I've not forgotten. I've not forgotten how he laughed at me, and called me a lumpish fool, and rolled his eyes when I spoke. I've not forgotten how he beat me when I offended him, and made me fear him, and made me hate him. No, I've not forgotten."
    A silence followed this outburst. Then Alva Jahan spoke.
    "What my brother says is true."
    Caressa looked from one to the other.
    "So now that he can no longer defend himself, you come for your revenge?"
    "No," said Sabin, the youngest brother. "We come to ask him to name his successor. The Orlan nation must have a leader again."
    "And if he refuses?"
    "What's it to you?" exclaimed Sasha. "He's twice your age, and always drunk, and no beauty, and sick. What's he got left to give you?"
    "He gives me nothing," said Caressa proudly. "But he has honored me with his love. I saw him when he was great. I would rather have nothing and the love of a great man than all the world and the company of little men like you."
    Sasha blushed an angry red and turned aside.
    "Let's search him out," he said. "He's here somewhere."
    As he spoke there came a deep roar of laughter from one of the barns.
    "That's him. Drunk in the hay!"
    The three sons strode across the yard to the hay barn. There, in a broad hollow in the haystack, they found their father, Amroth Jahan. Round him and over him there wriggled and squealed a litter of six-week-old piglets.

    "Piggy, piggy, piggy!" he was crying, scrabbling with his great hands to take hold of one of the piglets.
    His sons stared at him in shock. Their father, once so explosively powerful, had become an old man. His cheeks had sunk and his hair was gray. His laugh was the same as ever, but his eyes when he looked up and discovered them were cloudy and pale.
    "Go away!" he shouted at them. "Don't need you any more. Got new sons—much pinker—much more wriggly!"
    He managed now to grasp one of the piglets. He held it up and kissed its nose.
    "You shall rule after me," he crooned. "Piggy Jahan!"
    The piglet wriggled