"You won't have to; you can trade with Newhaven and Bigglersport. Count Lionel and Duke Joris are both defying Angus; they've refused to furnish him men, they've driven out his tax collectors, those they haven't hanged, and they're building ships of their own. Angus is building ships, too. I don't know whether he's going to use them to fight Bigglersport and Newhaven, or attack you, but there's going to be a war before another year's out." The _Goodhope_ and the _Speedwell_, he found, had gone back to Gram. They were commanded by men who had come into favor at the court of King Angus recently. The _Black Star_ and the _Queen Flavia_--whose captain had contemptuously ignored an order from Gram to re-christen her _Queen Evita_--had remained. They were his ships, not King Angus'. The captain of the merchantman from Wardshaven now on orbit refused to take a cargo to Newhaven; he had been chartered by King Angus, and would take orders from no one else. "All right," Trask told him. "This is your last voyage here. You bring that ship back under Angus of Wardshaven's charter and we'll fire on her." Then he had the regalia he had worn in his last audiovisual to Angus dusted off. At first, he had decided to proclaim himself King of Tanith. Lord Valpry, Baron Rathmore and his cousin all advised against it. "Just call yourself Prince of Tanith," Valpry said. "The title won't make any difference in your authority here, and if you do lay claim to the throne of Gram, nobody can say you're a foreign king trying to annex the planet." He had no intention of doing anything of the kind, but Valpry was quite in earnest. So he sat on his throne, as sovereign Prince of Tanith, and renounced his allegiance to "Angus, Duke of Wardshaven, self-styled King of Gram." They sent it back on the otherwise empty freighter. Another copy went to the Count of Newhaven, along with a cargo in the _Sun Goddess_, the first non-Space-Viking ship into Gram from the Old Federation. * * * * * Seven hundred and fifty hours after the return of the _Nemesis_, the _Corisande II_ emerged from her last microjump, and immediately Harkaman began hearing of the Battle of Audhumla and the destruction of the _Yo-Yo_ and the _Enterprise_. At first, he merely reported a successful raiding voyage, from which he was bringing rich booty. Oddly varigated booty, it was remarked, when he began itemizing it. "Why, yes," he replied. "Secondhand booty. I raided Dagon for it." Dagon was a Space Viking base planet, occupied by a character named Fedrig Barragon. A number of ships operated from it, including a couple commanded by Barragon's half-breed sons.