“May that truly be so. I’ll have them examined this very day. But even if they prove to bear iron, what then? A bit of red sand and a few leaves won’t take us very far. Skakkenoir itself remains undiscovered.”
“It lay just beyond the next hill, Prestimion! I swear it!”
“Ah, but did it, though?”
Abrigant gave him a stormy look. “I would go again and see. With bigger floaters and a great many more men. And no six-month deadlines, this time. It’s a ghastly land, but I would go, if only you’ll authorize a second expedition. And I’ll bring back all the iron you would ever want to possess.”
“First the chemical analysis of these little samples of yours, brother. And then we’ll discuss a new expedition.”
Abrigant seemed to be on the verge of some hot retort; but just then came a knock at the door, the little rat-tat-tat pattern that Prestimion recognized as Varaile’s. He held up his hand to silence his brother before he could speak and crossed the room to admit her.
She greeted him with a warm hug; and only after they stepped back from each other did she notice that there was someone else in the room.
“Forgive me, Prestimion. I didn’t know that you were—”
“This is my brother Abrigant, newly among us again after a difficult journey to the far south, questing after the land of iron. It took him very much by surprise, apparently, to discover that I had married in his absence. Abrigant: here is my consort Varaile.”
“Brother,” she said unhesitatingly. “How happy I am to know that you’ve returned safely!” And went instantly to him and enfolded him in an embrace nearly as warm as the one she had given Prestimion.
Abrigant seemed taken aback for a moment by the immediate openhearted fondness of her greeting, and returned it stiffly and awkwardly at first. But then he took her more wholeheartedly into his arms; and when he released her his eyes were shining in a new way and his fair-skinned face was reddened with confusion and pleasure. It was plain to see that Varaile had won him over in an instant, that he was overwhelmed by the beauty and poise and imposing presence of his brother’s new wife.
“I was just telling Lord Prestimion,” Abrigant said, “how greatly I regretted missing your wedding. I am the brother nearest to him in age; it would have been my great pleasure to stand beside him when he spoke his vows.”
“He too regretted it that you could not be there,” said Varaile. “But it was possible you’d be gone a very long while, and no one was sure how long. We both thought it best not to wait.”
“I quite understand,” Abrigant said, with a little bow. He could not have been more courtly, now. The angry man of a few moments before had utterly vanished. Looking toward Prestimion, he said, “I think we’ve finished our business for now, brother.—I’ll go to my rooms, if I may, and leave you with your lady.”
His eyes were glowing, and the meaning of that glow was as unmistakable to Prestimion as if it were possible for him to read his brother’s thoughts. You have done well for yourself, brother. This woman is truly a queen!
“No, no,” Varaile said, “I was just passing by. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your meeting. Surely you two still have much to tell each other.” She blew Prestimion a kiss and started toward the door. “Will we be lunching in the Pinitor Court as usual, my lord?”
“I think we will. And perhaps Abrigant will join us.”
“I would like that,” she said pleasantly, and made gestures of farewell to them both, and left the room.
“How altogether splendid she is,” Abrigant said, still aglow. “I comprehend everything now.—Does she call you ‘my lord’ all the time?”
“Only when she’s among people unfamiliar to her,” Prestimion said. “A little touch of formality, is all. She’s a very well-bred woman, you know. But we’re on more intimate terms when we’re alone.”
“I would hope so, brother.” Abrigant shook his head in amazement. “Simbilon Khayf’s daughter! Who would ever believe it? That squalid little man, bringing into the world a woman like that—”
4
And now it was summer in the Alhanroel midlands where Castle Mount rose to the heavens, though there was no sign of a change of seasons at the Castle itself, favored as always by its perpetual gentle springtime.
A deceptive calm had settled there. For the moment, at least, there were no crises to deal with. Prestimion, accustoming himself now to his role as Coronal, met with delegations from far-off lands, paid occasional visits to the neighboring cities of the Mount, presided over the deliberations of the Council, conferred with the representatives of the Pontifex and the Lady on such matters of government as required his cooperation. The plague of madness continued to claim new victims, but not quite so voraciously as before, and the populace at large seemed to have accepted it as a fact of life, like unduly heavy rainfall that flooded the fields at harvest time, or lusavender blight, or the sandstorms that sometimes ravaged southeastern Zimroel, or any of the other little flaws of existence that made Majipoor something other than a perfect paradise.
As for Dantirya Sambail, he seemed to have vanished from the face of the world. That he had lost his life somehow in the course of his wanderings through Alhanroel struck Prestimion as being much too good to be true; but he was coming reluctantly to accept the possibility that that might have been what had occurred. The mere thought of a world without Dantirya Sambail caused wondrous serenity and ease to steal over him. At moments of high stress or great fatigue during the course of his daily tasks Prestimion would sometimes pause and think, I am rid forever of Dantirya Sambail, simply for the sake of savoring the tranquility that the words brought to his spirit.
Varaile, too, had adapted well to the change in her circumstances that marrying Prestimion had brought. The Coronal’s wife had tasks of her own, a full daily round of them. One, though, was self-imposed: a visit to Simbilon Khayf in his comfortable captivity in the guest-house in the northern wing of the Castle near Lord Hendighail’s Hall, every morning before going on to that day’s regular chores.
The man who once had been the richest citizen of Stee, and whose grand mansion in that city had been the object of universal envy and admiration, now lived in just five modest rooms far from the center of Castle life. But he did not seem to care, or even to notice. Simbilon Khayf’s days of striving were over. He gave no indication even of remembering the power that had been his, or the fierce driving ambition that had led him to it, or the multitude of little vanities by which he had announced to the world that Simbilon Khayf was a force to be reckoned with.
Each day now he was born anew into the world. Yesterday’s experiences, such as they had been, had been washed from his mind as completely as the tracks that birds make at low tide along the sandy shore of the Inner Sea. His morning nurse awakened him and bathed him and dressed him in a simple white robe, and gave him his breakfast, and took him for a short walk along Lord Methirasp’s Parapet, the broad cobblestoned terrace behind his residence. Usually Varaile arrived just as he was returning from that.
This morning, as every morning, Simbilon Khayf seemed relaxed and happy. He greeted her, as ever, with a courteous if absent-minded kiss on the cheek and a brief, fleeting handclasp. Though he remembered little of his former life, he did, at least, generally recall that he had a daughter, and that her name was Varaile.