Landing at the great quay, where many ships and galleys lay moored, he passed up towards the market square with the files of his guard, smiling back on the reverences of the people, throwing here and there a coin, happy in the honour that echoed to him from every face. Before the walls of a pilastered house his guards halted with a fanfare of trumpets, a sound that rolled the gates wide and brought a mob of servants to line the outer court. Knights came down from the house with heads uncovered. It was the King's first entry into Gorlois's atrium since the disbanding of the host after the war in Wales. A face scarred with red across cheek and chin, with nose askew, one lower lid turned down, came out to Uther from the doorway of an inner room. There was a drawn look upon the man's face, a sullen saturnine air about him as though he were vexed inwardly with the chafe of some perpetual pain. The pinched frown, the restless bloodshot eyes, the hunched shoulders, were all strange to Uther, who looked for Gorlois, the man of arrogant and imperial pride, whose splendour of person, carriage of head, and long lithe stride had marked him a stag royal from the herd of meaner men. Uther, grave as a god, gripped the other's thin sinewy fingers, his eyes searching Gorlois's face with a large-minded scrutiny inspired by the natural sympathies of his heart. Gorlois, for his part, half crooked the knee, and drew a carved chair before the ill-tended fire. He had an Asmodean pride, and the look in Uther's eyes was more troublesome to him than a glare of hate. His face never lightened from the murk of reserve that covered it like a mask, and it was the King who spoke the first word over the flickering fire. "What of your wounds?" he said. Gorlois's black beard was down on his breast, and he looked only at the fire. He seemed like a man furtive beneath the consciousness of some inward shame, mocking his honour. "My wounds are well, sire." "You look like a man newly risen from a sick bed." "If I look sick, sire, blame my physician; he has tinctured me to the level of perdition. Bodily I never felt in better fettle. I could hew down a horse, and thrust my spear through a pine trunk. A man's face is a fallacy." Uther saw the scars, the harsh smile, and caught the twinge in the seemingly careless voice. He could comprehend some humiliation in the marring of personal comeliness, but not the humiliation that seemed to lurk deep beneath Gorlois's pride. There was more here than the scarring of a cheek. "There is some care upon you, Gorlois," he said. "Sire, you have much observation." "Your men have spoken of the change to you." "They are too discreet, God save their skins." "Pride, pride." "Sire, you are right; my pride suffers the inquisitiveness of kings, not subjects. Eagle calls to eagle; men are mere magpies. Chatter maddens me." "I grip your hand in spirit."