Confalume was himself again, rejuvenated, thriving. He had always been a man of tremendous physical vigor, not tall but powerfully built, with keen gray eyes and a full thick sweep of hair that had maintained its chestnut hue far into his later years. In any gathering at the Castle, the former Lord Confalume had automatically been the center of attention, not solely because he was Coronal, but because there emanated from him such personal magnetism, such a potent pull of inherent force, that you could not help but turn toward him. And clearly more than a vestige of that Confalume still remained. That innate vigor of his had pulled him through the crisis. Good, Prestimion thought. He felt a tide of immense relief go flooding through him. But at the same time he realized that he would be dealing now not with a shattered, weary old man to whom he could say whatever he thought most useful, but rather with one who had spent better than forty years on the Coronal’s throne, and who understood the wielding of high power better than anyone else in the world.
“You look well, majesty. Remarkably well!”
“You seem surprised, Prestimion.”
“I had heard rumors of a troubled mood—restlessness, difficulty sleeping—”
“Pah! Rumors, nothing more. Fables. I had a few hard moments at the beginning, perhaps. There’s a necessary period of adjustment, coming down from the Castle to live in this place, and I won’t pretend that that part’s easy. But it passes; and then you feel quite at home here.”
“Do you, then?”
“I do. And you should take comfort from it. There’s never been a Coronal yet who hasn’t been appalled by the necessity of moving along eventually to the Labyrinth. And why not? To wake each morning in the Castle, and look out at that great airy expanse all around, and to be able to descend from the Mount whenever you please to go wherever you like, Alaisor or Embolain or Ketheron if the whim takes you, or Pidruid or Narabal, for that matter—all the while knowing that one of these days the old emperor’s going to wake up dead, and when that happens they’re going to come for you and ship you down the Glayge to this place and point nine miles straight down and say, Here’s your new home, Lord So-and-So—” The Pontifex smiled. “Well, it’s not all that terrible to be here, let me assure you. It’s different. Restful.”
“Restful?” That hardly seemed the word for this sunless cheerless place.
“Oh, yes. There’s definitely something to say for the seclusion, for the peace and quiet of it. No one can even speak to you directly, you know, no one but your Spokesman and your Coronal. No pestilent petitioners plucking at your sleeve, no crowds of ambitious lordlings flocking around hoping for favors, no backbreaking journeys to undertake across thousands and thousands of miles because your Council has decided that it’s time to show your face in some distant province. No, Prestimion, you sit down here in your cozy underground palace, and they bring you legislation to read and you glance at it and say yes or no or maybe, and they take it away and you no longer have to give it a thought. You’re young and full of vitality, and you can’t begin to comprehend the merits of being sequestered in the Labyrinth. I admit that I felt the same way, thirty years ago. But you’ll see. Have yourself forty-odd years as Coronal, as I did, and I promise you you’ll be more than ready for the Labyrinth, and no anguish about it at all.”
A forty-year reign as Coronal? Well, there was no probability of that, Prestimion knew. Confalume was past seventy already. A decade or so at the Castle was about the best the new Coronal could hope for, and then he would find himself Pontifex. But the older man seemed sincere in what he was saying, and there was great comfort in that.
“No doubt all you tell me about life in the Labyrinth is true,” Prestimion said, smiling. “I’m quite willing to wait forty years to find out, though.”
Confalume looked pleased. His return to something approaching his old strength was neither a pretense nor an illusion, Prestimion realized. Confalume seemed rejuvenated, brimming with life, settling in for a long stay in his strange new home.
He filled their wine-bowls with his own hand—for once, no oversolicitous servants were lurking about—and swung around in his seat to face Prestimion. “And you?” he said. “Not overwhelmed, are you, by all your new tasks?”
“So far I hold my own, your majesty. Although it’s been a busy time.”
“It must have been, yes. I hear so little from you. You leave me in the dark, you know, about all the affairs of the realm, and that’s not so good.”
It was said very pleasantly, but there was no mistaking the implicit sting of the words.
Prestimion’s reply was a cautious one. “I realize, sir, that I’ve been remiss in reporting to you. But there’s been a great many problems to take care of all at once, and I wanted to be able to come to you with some evidence of real progress to show.”
“Problems such as what?” the Pontifex asked.
“Dantirya Sambail, for one.”
“The bloody Procurator, yes. But he’s all noise and no push, is that not so? What’s he been up to?”
“Contemplating setting up a separate kingdom for himself in Zimroel, apparently.”
Confalume’s hand leaped as if of its own accord to the rohilla in his lapel and rubbed it in a counterclockwise way. He gave Prestimion an incredulous stare. “Are you serious? And is he? Where is he now? Why haven’t I been told of any of this?”
Prestimion stirred uneasily in his seat. They were entering into perilous territory here. “I was waiting, sir, until I could interrogate the Procurator myself about his intentions. He was at the Castle for a time"—that was true enough—“but then he left, supposedly on a journey into the east country.”
“Why would he go there?”
“Who can know any reason for anything Dantirya Sambail does? At any rate, I gathered a small force and went out there after him.”
“Yes,” said the Pontifex tartly. “So I understand. You might have informed me of that, too.”
“Forgive me, sir. I’ve been remiss in many ways, I see. But I assumed your own officials would notify you of my departure from the Castle.”
“As they did, yes.—Dantirya Sambail eluded you in the east-country, apparently.”
“He’s in southern Alhanroel now, and intends, I assume, to take ship shortly for his homeland. When I leave here, I’ll be going down toward Aruachosia to try to seek him out.” Prestimion hesitated a moment. “The Grand Admiral has blockaded the ports.”
Confalume’s eyes flashed surprise. “What you’re telling me, then, is that you regard the most powerful man in the world, other than yourself and me, as a dangerous threat to the integrity of the realm. Am I correct? That he has eluded your attempts to take him into custody. That he is currently a fugitive running hither and thither around Alhanroel as he seeks to get back overseas. What is it we have here, Prestimion, a civil war in the making? Over what? Why should the Procurator suddenly be talking about setting up an independent government? He’s been content with the present power-sharing arrangements all these years. Is it that he looks upon the new regime as weak, and feels safe in making his move? By the Divine, he won’t succeed at it!—You’re his kinsman, Prestimion. How can he dare think of launching an uprising against his own kin?”