Prestimion looked at him without comprehension. “What are you talking about? How am I alone? I have you. I have Gialaurys. I have Maundigand-Klimd to offer me wisdom and consolation, both heads of him. I have my two sturdy brothers. I have—”
“Thismet will not come back to life, Prestimion.”
Septach Melayn’s bold words struck Prestimion like a slap across the face.
“What?” he asked, after a stunned moment. “Does the madness have hold of you, now, that you talk such idiocy? Yes, Thismet is dead, and always will be. But—”
“Are you going to spend the rest of your life in mourning for her?”
“No one but you, Septach Melayn, would dare speak so close.”
“You know me well. And speak close I do.” There was no way to deflect the singleminded force of Septach Melayn’s intensely focused blue gaze. “You live in terrible solitude, Prestimion. There was a time, in those few weeks before Thegomar Edge, when you seemed full of new life and joy, as though some piece of you that long was missing had at last been put into place. That piece was Thismet. It was plain to us all at Thegomar Edge that we were destined to smash Korsibar’s revolt that day, because you were our leader, and you had taken on an aura of invincibility. And so it befell; but in the hour of victory Thismet was slain, and nothing has been the same for you ever since.”
“You tell me nothing that I do not already—”
Coronal or no, Septach Melayn coolly overspoke him. “Let me finish, Prestimion. Thismet died, and it was the end of the world for you. You wandered the battlefield as though you were the one that had lost the war, not as though you had fought your way through to the throne. You called for the memory-obliteration, as if you needed to hide the dark circumstances surrounding your ascent from all the universe, and who could speak against you in that moment? On the very day of your coronation I came upon you in despair in the Hendighail Hall, and you said things to me that no one would have believed if I had repeated them beyond us two: the kingship meant nothing to you, you said, except years and years of hard joyless work, and then some time in the grimness of the Labyrinth while waiting for your death. All this despair I credit to the loss of Thismet.”
“And if that’s so, what then?”
“Why, you have to put Thismet from your mind, Prestimion! By the Divine, man, don’t you see that you must give her up? You’ll always love her, yes, but loving a ghost brings chilly comfort. You need a living consort, one who will share the glories of your reign when all is going as it should, and hold you in her arms in the darkness of the other times.”
Septach Melayn’s fair skin was flushed now with the excitement of his own oratory. Prestimion stared at him in astonishment. This was presumption indeed. Septach Melayn was a uniquely privileged friend; only he in all the world could speak to him like this. But what he was saying now came near a breach of that privilege.
Containing himself with no little effort, Prestimion asked, “And you have a candidate in mind for the post, I suppose?”
“It happens that I do. The woman Varaile, of Stee.”
“Varaile?”
“You love her, Prestimion.—Oh, don’t start fulminating at me with protests! I saw it plain as day.”
“I’ve met her just once, for no more than an hour, while going under an assumed name and wearing false whiskers.”
“It took five seconds, no more, for the thing to happen between you. She struck as deep into your soul as a woodsman’s axe, and struck such sparks from you that it lit the entire room.”
“You think I’m made of metal within, then, that an axe will strike sparks against me? Or stone, perhaps.”
“There could be no mistaking it: she for you, and you for her.”
Prestimion found nothing here that he could deny. And yet it was outrageous to be invaded so intimately, even by Septach Melayn. He reached for the flask of wine that sat between them and held it contemplatively a long while with both his hands before refilling their bowls. At last he said, “What you propose is impossible. Varaile is a commoner, Septach Melayn, and her father is a gross and boorish beast.”
“You wouldn’t be marrying her father.—As for her, Coronals have married commoners many a time. I will get the history books and quote you examples, if you like. In any case, all aristocrats spring from common families, if only you go back far enough. I mean no offense, Prestimion, but is it not true that the princely family of Muldemar itself sprang from a line of farmers and vinters?”
“Ages ago, long before Lord Stiamot’s day, Septach Melayn. By the time he began to build this Castle we were already ennobled.”
“And you will hold your nose and make Simbilon Khayf a count or an earl—not the first grubby vulgar moneylender to be granted such a dignity, I think—and by so doing, you’ll be able to make his daughter a queen.”
It was a struggle now not to order Septach Melayn from the room. Prestimion fought for inner calmness, and found some, and his tone was a level one as he replied, “You amaze me, my friend. I concede the point that grieving forever over Thismet would be folly, and a Coronal does well to provide himself with a consort. But would you really marry me to a woman I’ve known less than an hour? The question of her common birth completely aside: I remind you again, Septach Melayn, that she and I are complete strangers to each other.”
“Which can readily be repaired. She’s in the Castle this very hour. Next week she comes before you at the royal reception. As has already been pointed out, if you ask her to join the ladies-in-waiting of the Castle, she’ll have no way to refuse. And then there’ll be ample opportunity for you and her to—”
The anger that had been not very far from the surface in Prestimion a moment before dissolved now in laughter. “Ah, I see it all! You’ve contrived the whole thing very carefully, haven’t you, by dangling that offer of a royal reception before them?”
“It was necessary to buy her silence, or Simbilon Khayf would have known who those three merchants were who came to him for a loan that day in Stee.”
“So you’ve said. I wonder if there might not have been some simpler way to manage all that.—In any case, Septach Melayn, let us make an end of this. I want you to understand that at the present time the idea of marriage is extremely distant from my mind. Is that clear?”
“All I ask is that you take the opportunity to get to know her a little better. Will you do that much?”
“It’s important to you that I do, I see.”
“It is.”
’Well, then. For your sake, Septach Melayn, I will. But don’t arouse any false hopes in her, my good friend. However much you may want me to, I’m not about to take a wife. If you yearn so much for there to be marriage festivities at the Castle, you can marry her.”
“If you choose not to,” said Septach Melayn airily, “then I will.”
5
It had been Lord Confalume’s custom, and Lord Prankipin’s before him, to hold invitational royal receptions on the second Starday of each month. Various prominent citizens of the realm were brought before the Coronal and honored with a moment or two of his attention. Prestimion, though he found the custom fatuous and even distasteful, was aware of its usefulness in forging the ties through which governance was achieved. A moment spent in the presence of a Coronal was something that would remain with a citizen for a lifetime; that person would always think of himself as affiliated in some way with the grandeur and power of that Coronal, and would feel enhanced by that, and profoundly grateful, and eternally loyal.
This was only the third such reception that Prestimion had been able to find time to hold since his accession. Since it was primarily an act of political theater, the royal levee needed careful staging and thorough rehearsal. Among other things, he had to spend an hour or two, the night before, going over the list of events with Zeldor Luudwid, the chamberlain in charge of such events, memorizing some flattering fact about each honoree. Then, on the day of the ceremony, at least an hour more was required for proper robing. He must look overwhelmingly regal. That meant not merely some costume in the traditional green and gold, the colors that symbolized to any viewer the office and the power of the Coronal. It meant elaborate over embellishment: varying combinations of fur mantles, silken scarves, stiff flaring epaulets, diadems and gems, all manner of frills and furbelows, this bit of trimming and that one being put on him and removed and put on him again until just the right mix of grandiosity was attained.