Prestimion said, “Good Admiral and Master, you’ve heard Prince Korsibar. Will you give us a ruling in this?”
Gonivaul grunted in his beard. His brows lowered and his cheeks screwed upward into a squint until his eyes had all but disappeared within the dark fur that covered so much of his face; and for an inordinate time he seemed lost in what was plainly meant to pass for thought. At long last he said, “Which is the later of the two lists?”
“Mine,” Farholt said instantly. “There is no disputing that.”
Gonivaul took the slip from him, and the other from Gialaurys, and studied them both another endless while. Then at length the Admiral said, “We have room for compromise here. The wrestling is moved to the middle of the games, between the hammer-throw and the archery.”
Farholt quickly signaled his acceptance; but from Gialaurys there came a grumbling sound, and there might have been something more from him had Prestimion not silenced him with a hiss.
Once the wrangling was over and the preliminary planning for the games completed, servitors entered the room with refreshments for the assembled lords. Others of the Labyrinth’s highborn guests who had played no part in the planning session came in now also, for there was to be a general festivity here today in celebration of the impending commencement of the games.
The various princes and dukes and counts moved apart about the hall by twos and threes, gathering by the quaint and curious bits of ancient statuary that were scattered throughout it. They were, supposedly, portraits of Pontifexes and Coronals of ages gone by. While waiting for the wine to be served, the guests studied one statue and another, touching them, tracing the outline of a sharp nose or an outthrust chin, speculating on the identities of those whom they were meant to represent. “Arioc,” said Gialaurys, pointing at a particularly preposterous-looking one. No, said Duke Oljebbin, that was Stiamot, the conqueror of the Shapeshifters, which led to an extensive dispute between him and Prince Serithorn, who was pleased to count Stiamot among his numerous royal ancestors. Then the scrawny little Farquanor, huge Farholt’s brother, identified a statue of a tall man imbued with sublime dignity and nobility as being that of one of his ancestors, the Pontifex Guadeloom, bringing a skeptical chuckle from Prince Gonivaul, and so it went from one to another.
“That was done well, your passing that disagreement so quickly to the Admiral,” Korsibar said to Prestimion. They stood together at one sharp angle of the seven-sided room beneath a broad sky-blue arch touched with borders of red autumn fire. “Those are two devilish short-tempered men, and they have no tolerance for one another at all. Let the one say ‘spring’ and the other will instantly say ‘winter’; let one say ‘black’ and from the other will come ‘white’; and so on through the dictionary for sheer love of contrariness. When they come together in the wrestling, it’ll be a spectacle indeed.”
“My cousin of Ni-moya expressed the belief the other day that it might be just such a way between you and me as it is between Farholt and Gialaurys,” said Prestimion, smiling a little, though barely drawing back his lips. “That is to say, he thinks that we are contrary to the essence; that there’s an innate tension between us that creates automatic conflict, that you might be expected to oppose a certain thing only because I was the one who had advocated it.”
“Ah, no, Prestimion,” returned Korsibar, smiling also, and with rather more warmth to it. “Do you really believe that to be so?”
“It was the Procurator that said it.”
“Yes, but you and I know that it isn’t like that with us at all. Do you feel a tension as you stand here beside me? I’m not aware of any. And why should there be? There’s no rivalry where rivalry isn’t possible.” Korsibar clapped his hands to a passing servitor. “Hoy, some wine here!” he called. “The good strong Muldemar wine, from the prince’s own vineyard!”
Many others around the room were watching them closely. Among them was Count Iram of Normork, a slender red-haired man famous for his prowess in chariot-racing: a kinsman of Prince Serithorn’s, he was related also to Lord Confalume’s family by marriage. Iram plucked at Septach Melayn’s sleeve and said, cocking an eyebrow toward Korsibar and Prestimion, “How strained their smiles are, how hard they work at seeming friendly to each other! And look how gingerly they clink their wine-bowls! As though both of them fear that there’d be an explosion if they were to hit them together a trifle too hard.”
“I think those are two men who fear very little,” said Septach Melayn.
But Iram persisted. “Beyond question they hold themselves in a very stiff fashion. As well they ought to, I suppose; for what a tremendous lot of awkwardness there must be between them! Prestimion pays deference to Korsibar, since after all Korsibar is the Coronal’s son and therefore somewhat royal himself. But Korsibar for his part knows that he has to show respect to Prestimion, who very soon will be a king in his own right and therefore a higher man than Korsibar.”
Septach Melayn laughed. “Prestimion will be king, yes. But never, I suspect, will he be a higher man than Korsibar.”
Count Iram seemed perplexed at that. His mind was not of the quickest. But then he grasped the point of Septach Melayn’s words; for it was plain to see that the long-legged Korsibar rose up far above Prestimion, who came not much more than breast-high to him. Which was all that Septach Melayn had intended, a mere idle jest.
“Higher in that sense, yes,” the count said. “I take your meaning.” He offered a polite chuckle for Septach Melayn’s feeble play on words.
“It was not a very profound observation,” said Septach Melayn.
Indeed he felt a little abashed at his own vapidity. How could anyone speak of Prestimion as inconsequential beside the Coronal’s son, even in jest? The smaller man’s sturdy breadth of shoulder and invariable air of unshakable aplomb gave him a commanding look all out of keeping with the meagerness of his stature. And this day in particular Prestimion seemed to glow with the radiance of his advancing destiny. He was dressed in a regal robe of glossy crimson silk belted with emerald-green, with a massy golden pendant in the form of a bright-eyed crab hanging from a thick chain on his breast, whereas Korsibar wore only a simple knee-length tunic of white linen that any sausage-vendor might have worn, and open sandals of the most common design. For all his noble height and grandeur of form, Korsibar just now seemed eclipsed, cast into shadow by the flood of light that streamed from Prestimion.
“Be that as it may,” Iram went on, “but tell me this, Septach Melayn: does Prestimion privately feel himself more worthy than Korsibar, or does he have secret doubts? And, more to the point: does Korsibar truly think that Prestimion’s fit to have the throne? There’s much talk going around that Prestimion’s coming greatness doesn’t sit very well with the Coronal’s son.”
“And who talks this talk?” asked Septach Melayn.
“Procurator Dantirya Sambail, for one.”
“Well, yes, Dantirya Sambail. I heard his famous remark. But there’s no substance to it. Venom drips as easily from the Procurator’s lips as rainfall does from the sky in the forests of Kajith Kabulon. The moist heavy clouds there have no choice but to let their surplus water spill out each day; and so it is with Dantirya Sambail. He’s a mass of hatefulness within, and from time to time he has to vent some of it into the air.”
“Dantirya Sambail is the only one who has said it aloud. But everyone thinks it.”
“Thinks that Korsibar is resentful of Prestimion?”
“Well, and is there anyway for him not to be? When he’s such a grand figure of a man, and so much held in esteem everywhere, and the son of a great and beloved king besides?”
“No Coronal’s son has ever followed his father to the throne,” said Septach Melayn. “None ever will, without bringing calamity down upon us all.” Idly he twirled the tip of his little golden beard, and after a moment said, “I agree, Korsibar is very impressive-looking, yes. If Coronals were chosen for their looks, he’d have the job without question. But the law ver
y clearly states that we have no hereditary kingship here, and Korsibar’s a law-abiding man. Never has he given any indication of harboring dishonorable ambitions of any sort.”
“So you think all’s well between him and Prestimion?”
“I have no doubt of it.”
“All the same, the air these days is heavy with portents, Septach Melayn.”
“Is it, now? Well, better portents in the air than a swarm of dhiims, eh? Because the bite of a dhiim is real, and hurts; but no one’s ever seen a portent, let alone been injured by one. Let the loathsome mages chatter all they like. I can see the future every bit as clearly as the best of them, Iram, and this is what I have to tell you: in due time Prestimion is going to come serenely to the throne, and Korsibar will gladly pay homage to him along with all the rest of us.”
Count Iram nervously fingered a small bright amulet of gold and sea-dragon ivory that he wore dangling by a little silver chain from the breast of his tunic. “You are very lighthearted about these matters, Septach Melayn.”
“Yes. I’m lighthearted about most matters, I suppose. It’s my character’s biggest flaw.” Septach Melayn gave Count Iram a good-humored wink and turned away to find some other conversational partner among a group of younger princes that had collected about the table of wines.
At the opposite end of the room a new figure now appeared, toward whom the attention of a great many instantly began to flow: the Lady Thismet, accompanied by her lady-of-honor Melithyrrh and a little group of her handmaidens. Sanibak-Thastimoon was with her also, garbed in the formal red and green livery of Korsibar’s service, and the sight of the Su-Suheris magus caused no little whispering in the hall. There were few who failed to find the Su-Suheris folk sinister and forbidding, if only for the strangeness of those double heads.
Like her brother, Thismet had chosen to dress in uncomplicated manner this day, a light cream-white gown of a matte texture, belted in red, with a tracery of red pearls woven into it along her left shoulder to her breast, and for other ornament merely a single sharp manculain spine thrust through the glossy tight-curled darkness of her hair. The simplicity of her costume made a striking effect in this congregation of formally robed lordlings. It was as though she stood in a brilliant spotlight, attracting all eyes to her; and yet she had done nothing at all other than enter the room, smile at this one and at that, and beckon for a bowl of wine.
She spoke for a time with her brother’s dear friend Navigorn of Hoikmar, who was regarded almost as Korsibar’s equal as a stalwart huntsman, and with Mandrykarn and Venta, those other close hunting companions of Korsibar’s. Then she dismissed them smoothly from her and with one quick imperious glance summoned Farholt to her side, and Farholt’s smaller and more malevolent younger brother also, the serpentine Farquanor. These two had been standing with the Procurator Dantirya Sambail and the Coronal’s white-haired cousin, Duke Oljebbin of Stoienzar, but they came to her at once, lithe little Farquanor taking up a position at her left hand and big blocky Farholt stationing himself immediately in front of her like a one-man mountain, altogether concealing her from the view of those behind him.
It required some effort to believe that this pair had sprung from the same womb. They were opposites in all ways, hot raucous bellowing Farholt given to all forms of excess and impulse, and icy little Farquanor a quiet man of cunning and caution, who advanced inch by inch through life from one carefully constructed scheme to another. Farholt was huge and fleshy and ponderous of movement, Farquanor slim and taut-skinned and quick. But their kinship could be seen in their eyes, which were of the same flat deadly gray hue, and in the ruddiness of their complexions, and in the prominent jut of their noses, which seemed to spring at a straight line from the midpoint of their foreheads. They had royalty in their ancestry; the long-ago Lord Guadeloom, he who had abruptly and surprisingly been made Coronal as a result of certain curious events surrounding the sudden abdication of the Pontifex Arioc.
Like Lord Confalume, Lord Guadeloom had had a son of more than usual splendor and nobility, Theremon by name. A tradition persisted in the family of Farholt and Farquanor that Guadeloom’s son Theremon had been far more deserving to be Coronal after him than any other man. But when it was Lord Guadeloom’s time to become Pontifex, he had named a mediocre bureaucrat called Calintane to succeed him, putting aside his own son just as all Coronals before him had done. That decision had rankled in Theremon’s descendants throughout the succeeding generations. The hereditary resentment of the family had descended through the long centuries to Farholt and Farquanor, who often when in their cups would hold forth on the fire that still coursed in them when they considered the ancient injustice done their ancestor. The Lady Thismet had long been aware of the passion those two felt on the subject, she found it of special interest at the present moment. They had talked about it most earnestly in her sitting-room only the day before, Farquanor and Farholt and she. “Concerning the matter that you and I discussed a little while ago—” Thismet said now.
The brothers were instantly attentive, though the flatness and deadness of their eyes seemed to bely the alertness of their features.
She said, with the serenity of a smooth-flowing stream, “Sanibak-Thastimoon has cast the auguries. The moment is auspicious for making a beginning of great endeavors: the time has arrived to commence our project.”
“Here? Now?” Farquanor asked. “In this room?”
“This very room, this very instant.”
Farquanor looked warily toward his brother, then to the Su-Suheris, whose faces were as inscrutable as ever, and lastly at Thismet.
“Is this wise?” he asked.
“It is. I am determined.” Thismet gestured toward the far side, where Prestimion and Korsibar were still engrossed in their talk, looking like nothing so much as a pair of old friends who had not seen one another in many months and were warmly renewing their acquaintance. “Go to him. Draw him aside. Say to him the things we agreed yesterday you would say.”
“And if I’m overheard?” Farquanor asked, his lean hard-angled face clouding, his eyes coming to life with the glint of uncertainty. “What then for me, publicly uttering subversive and indeed seditious notions under Prestimion’s very nose?”
“I would assume that you’d utter your utterances in a low guarded voice,” Thismet said. “No one’s going to overhear you amidst all this noise. And I’ll see to it that Prestimion himself is busy elsewhere while you speak with Korsibar.”
Farquanor nodded. His moment of unsureness was gone; already, Thismet could see, he was eager for the task. With a flick of her fingertips she sent him on his way, and she watched intently as Farquanor set out across the room, approached Korsibar and Prestimion, spoke briefly with them, doing some pointing and nodding in her direction. Then Prestimion, smiling, broke away and began to head through the crowd toward her. “Leave me,” Thismet murmured to Farholt. But she asked Sanibak-Thastimoon to remain with her.
Farquanor and Korsibar, she saw, had now withdrawn a little way deeper into the room, to a quiet alcove at the next angle of the wall, where the immense hideous flat-faced bust of some primordial Coronal partly concealed them from view. The way they stood, face-to-face, presenting themselves in profile to the rest of the room, it was impossible for anyone to read their lips. She could see Farquanor saying something to Korsibar, and Korsibar’s brow lowering in a heavy frown, and Farquanor speaking on, with many a quick gesture of his hands, while Korsibar leaned forward from the waist as though to hear more dearly what the smaller man was telling him.
Watching them, Thismet felt the rate of her heartbeat accelerating and her throat going dry. The pattern of the years to come—for Korsibar, for her, for the entire world—would very likely be shaped by the words Farquanor was speaking now. For better, for ill, the thing was being set in motion. She stole a quick glance at Sanibak-Thastimoon beside her. He was smiling an eerie double smile at her, as though to say, All will be well, have no fear.
Then Prest
imion was at her side and saying, with the courteous little gesture of formal obeisance due to her as daughter of the Coronal, “The Count Farquanor tells me you have something you wish me to hear, lady.”
“Indeed,” she said.
She studied him with carefully hidden care. They had, of course, known each other ever since they were children, but to Thismet, Prestimion was just one of the many young lords who thronged the Castle, and not nearly the most interesting of those: she had paid little attention to him over the years. He had always seemed to her nothing more than a self-absorbed lordling on the make, earnest and studious and ambitious, and perhaps a trifle too short to be really attractive, though certainly he was good-looking enough. It was only after Prestimion had begun to emerge a few years ago as the probable candidate for her father’s throne that she had given him serious scrutiny. Mainly, Thismet found him irritating these days; but how much that was because of anything he did or said, and how much simply because she disliked him for the likelihood that he was going to occupy the throne that she wished her brother would have, she could not say.
What surprised her this day, as he stood beside her now perhaps a trifle too closely, was something that she had never in anyway felt before: a faint troublesome stirring of response to Prestimion as a man.
He was no taller than he ever was, and he wore his fair hair, as always, in an unflattering way. But he was different today in other ways. Already he had begun to hold himself in a truly regal fashion, but without seeming to be working hard at it, and there was a kingly glint in his eyes, and it seemed almost as though a sort of electricity were playing about his brow. Perhaps the rich splendid garb he wore today had something to do with it: but Thismet knew it was something else that was drawing her, something more elemental, which was nothing but the gathering force of Prestimion’s imminent rise to power. There was a magnetism in that. She could feel its pull. A strange pulsation came sweeping upward through her from her loins to her breast, and onward to her head.