“Yes. So you are. But a lady of the court, also, now. Ladies of the court somehow come to learn of many things that mere citizens never hear of even in their dreams.”
It was meant as a joke, if only a feeble one; but it was not received as one. Something was definitely wrong, he thought. A certain degree of tension was only to be expected at such a meeting as this; he felt it himself. But what had impressed him about her whenever he had seen her previously was her remarkable poise, her utter command of self, far beyond her years. She made it seem as if there was no situation, however ticklish, that she would be unable to handle. The unsmiling woman who stood before him now was stiff and uneasy, guarded in her movements, seemingly weighing every word before she spoke.
She said, “Nevertheless, I felt it was inappropriate to inquire after the reason for your journey. Would it be proper to inquire of you whether your trip was a successful one, my lord?”
“It was and it wasn’t. My meeting with the Pontifex went well. After that, I visited strange and interesting places, and met the people who govern them. That part of it was fine also. But I had another purpose, which was to locate a certain troublesome lord whose actions threaten the stability of the realm. Do you know who I mean, Varaile? No. Well, you will, eventually. In any case, I wasn’t able to find him. He seems to have slipped through my net.”
“Oh, my lord, I’m sorry!”
“So am I.”
Prestimion noticed now, for the first time, how plainly and soberly she was dressed: a formal robe, yes, suitable for calling upon a Coronal, but of a drab beige tone that seemed inappropriate for her high-colored complexion, and her only ornament was a slender silver bracelet. And she had pulled her splendid hair back in an unflattering way.
This long-awaited reunion was going most unpromisingly. Some wine and food, he thought: perhaps that would relax things. He summoned Nilgir Sumanand.
Who had everything ready in the antechamber, a feast of truly royal quality. But Varaile only picked at her food, sipped desultorily at her wine.
Prestimion said, finally, when the conversation had sputtered out for the third or fourth time, “There’s some problem here, Varaile. What is it? You seem six million miles away.”
“My lord, do I? Certainly it was most kind of you to ask me to dine with you, and I don’t mean to seem—”
“Call me Prestimion.”
“Oh, my lord, how can I do that?”
“Easily. It’s my name. A long one, perhaps, but not hard to pronounce. Pres-tim-i-on. Try it.”
She looked close to tears. “This is not right, my lord. You are the Coronal and I am no one; and in any event we barely know each other. To call you by your name like that—”
“Never mind, then.” He began to feel some annoyance, but whether it was with her for her moodiness and distance, or for himself for his clumsiness in leading this conversation, he was not sure. Somewhat brusquely he said, “I asked you a minute ago to tell me what the problem was. You evaded the issue. Are you afraid of me? Or do you think it’s wrong, perhaps, for you to be here alone with me?—By the Divine, Varaile, you haven’t fallen in love with someone while I was away, have you?” But he could see by her face that that was not it either. “Tell me. You’ve changed, somehow, in my absence. What’s happened?”
She hesitated a moment.
“My father,” she said, in a voice so faint he could barely make out her words.
“Your father? What about your father?”
Varaile looked away; and a dozen wild suppositions ran through Prestimion’s mind at once. Was Simbilon Khayf seriously ill? Had he died? Gone bankrupt overnight through the catastrophic failure of one of his loathsome speculative schemes? Warned Varaile sternly to ward off any romantic overtures the seductive young Coronal Lord might make?
“He’s lost his mind, my lord. The plague—the madness that is sweeping the world—”
“No! Not him too!”
“It was very quick. He was at Stee when it happened, and I was at the Castle, of course. One day he was fine, I was told, working on deals, meeting with his agents and factors, arranging the takeover of some company, all his usual projects. The next day everything was changed. You know his hair, how proud he is of it? Well, his chief clerk, Prokel Ikabarin, is always the first person to arrive at his office every morning. This time, when Prokel Ikabarin came in, he found my father kneeling in front of his desk, cutting off his hair. ‘Help me, Prokel Ikabarin,’ he said, and handed him the scissors to reach the places he couldn’t get to. He had hacked most of it off by then.”
A surge of amusement welled up in Prestimion at that. He turned aside to conceal his grin from Varaile. Simbilon Khayf’s extravagantly foolish sweep of silver hair, cut down to mere stubble? Why, what more delicious kind of insanity could have stricken him than that?
But there was more. And worse.
Varaile said, “When he was done with his hair, he announced that his life had been a sinful waste, that he repented all his greed, that he must at once distribute his wealth to the poor and take up a life of meditation and prayer. Whereupon he asked Prokel Ikabarin to send for his half-dozen closest advisers, and began signing away his property to whatever charitable organizations happened to come to his mind. He gave away at least half his fortune in ten minutes. Then he put on beggar’s robes and went out into Stee to ask for alms.”
“This isn’t easy for me to believe, Varaile.”
“Do you think it was for me, my lord? I know what sort of man my father was. I never had any illusions about him at all; but it wasn’t for me to lecture him on his ways, nor was I the sort to turn my back on his wealth myself, I suppose, no matter how I felt about his business practices. But when they came to me here at the Castle—I have been in residence here all the time of your absence, you understand, my lord—when they came to me and said my father was roaming through Stee in a torn and dirty robe, begging for a few copper weights for his next meal—well, I thought it was some black jest at first, of course. And then—then, when other reports came in, and I went down to Stee to see for myself—”
“He’s given away everything? The house, too?”
“He didn’t remember about the house. Just as well, too, for what would have become of all our servants, turned out into the streets overnight? Did he expect them to become beggars too? No, he didn’t manage to give it all away. His mind was too murky to manage that. Thousands of royals went, yes—millions, maybe—but there’s plenty left. He still controls dozens of companies, banks all over the world, great estates in seven or eight provinces. But he’s completely incompetent now. I had to have a receiver appointed to manage his holdings—it’s not something I could do myself, you realize. And he’s completely insane. Oh, Prestimion, Prestimion, I was aware of all my father’s faults, his vanity, his hunger for money, his coldblooded treatment of anyone who stood between him and what he wanted, but still—still—he’s my father, Prestimion. I love him. And what has happened to him is so utterly terrible.”
It did not escape Prestimion’s notice that she had begun calling him by his name. “Where is he now?”
“At the Castle. I asked my lord Navigorn to bring him here, because if he stayed in Stee, someone was bound to harm him on the streets. They have him under guard in one of the back wings. I visit him every day, but he hardly recognizes me now. I don’t think he quite knows who he is, any more. Or what he once was.”
“Take me to visit him tomorrow.”
“Do you really think that you ought to see—”
“Yes,” he said. “I do. He is your father. And you are—” There was no need to finish the sentence. The barriers that she had put up between them earlier were gone. She was staring at him now with an entirely new expression in her eyes.