That had been a favorite locution of Dantirya Sambail, that double “ah,” with a moment’s pause between them and a whiplash emphasis on the second one. Gaviral could not have been very old when Dantirya Sambail died, but he had managed to copy the Procurator’s intonation perfectly. It was odd and not in any way amusing to hear that double “ah” coming from Gaviral’s lips, as though by some act of ventriloquy beyond the grave. The Lord Gaviral had more than a touch of his famed uncle’s ugliness, but scarcely any at all of his dark wit and black devious shrewdness, and it did not sit well with Mandralisca to be treated to so accurate an imitation of the Procurator’s manner. Those were feelings that he kept to himself, though, as he did so many others.
“I am ready now,” Mandralisca said, “to propose an alteration of our strategy.”
“And that would be—?”
“To move ourselves somewhat more aggressively into a position of visibility, milord. I suggest that we quit this place out here in the desert and transfer our center of operations to the city of Ni-moya.”
“You perplex me, Count. This is a step you have warned us against since the beginning of our campaign. It would, you said, send an immediate signal to the Pontifical officials that swarm everywhere in Ni-moya that a revolt had broken out in Zimroel against the authority of the central government. Only last month you warned us against tipping our hand prematurely. Why, now, do you contradict your own advice?”
“Because I have less fear of the central government now than I did last year, or even last month.”
“Ah. Ah!”
“I still believe we should proceed with immense caution toward our goal. You will not hear me counselling any declarations of war against the government of Prestimion and Dekkeret: not yet, at any rate. But I see now that we can afford to take greater risks, because the weapons at our disposal”—and he hefted the helmet—“are more substantial than I had earlier imagined. If Prestimion and Company attempt to harm us, we can fight back.”
“Ah!”
Mandralisca waited for the second one, glaring fiercely at Gaviral in expectation. But it failed to come.
After a moment he said, “We will go to Ni-moya then. You will re-occupy the procuratorial palace, although you will not, at any time, attempt to reclaim the title of Procurator. Your brothers will take possession of dwellings nearly as grand. For the present you will live there purely as private citizens, however, claiming authority only over your family’s own estates. Is that understood, milord Gaviral?”
“Does that mean we’re not to be regarded as lords any more?” said Gaviral. It was evident from his expression that that possibility was distressing to him.
“In the inwardness of your own households, you will still be the Lords of Zimroel. In your intercourse with the people of Ni-moya you will be the five princes of the House of Sambail, and nothing more—for the time being. Later on, milord, I have a finer title even than ‘Lord’ for you, but that will have to wait some while longer.”
An excited gleam came into Gaviral’s ugly face. He leaned forward eagerly. “And what would that finer title be?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.
“Pontifex,” said Mandralisca.
12
“My lord,” Dekkeret’s chamberlain said, “Prince Dinitak is here.”
“Thank you, Zeldor Luudwid. Ask him to come in.”
It amused him to hear the chamberlain promoting Dinitak to the principate. No such title had ever been conferred on him, and Dekkeret had no particular plan for doing so, nor had Dinitak shown the slightest desire to be raised to the nobility. He was still Venghenar Barjazid’s son, after all, a child of the Suvrael desert who once had collaborated with his disreputable father in swindling and exploiting travelers who had hired them as guides through that forbidding land. The Castle Mount aristocracy had accepted Dinitak as Dekkeret’s friend, because Dekkeret gave them no choice in that. But they would never abide Dekkeret’s thrusting him in among them as a member of their own exalted caste.
“Dinitak,” Dekkeret said, rising to embrace him.
In recent weeks Dekkeret had adopted as his headquarters one of the segments of the Methirasp Long Hall, which was not a hall at all, but rather a series of octagonal chambers within Lord Stiamot’s Library. The library itself was a continuous serpentine passageway that wound back and forth around the summit of Castle Mount to a total length of many miles, and, according to legend, contained every book that had ever been published in any world of the universe. At one point directly beneath the greensward of Vildivar Close it opened out into the twelve chambers of the Methirasp Hall. They were set aside for the use of scholars; but it was a rare day when more than one or two of them were occupied.
Dekkeret, coming upon the rooms in one of his explorations of the Castle, had taken an immediate fancy to them. They were lofty chambers two stories high, their walls covered with mural paintings of sea-dragons and fanciful beasts of the land, knights in tournament, natural wonders, and much else, all rendered in a delightful medieval style. Far overhead, brightly colored ceilings, done in vermilion and yellow and green and blue and covered with a fine, clear varnish that made them gleam like crystal, provided warm reflected light. Connecting corridors lined on both sides with rows of books led to the library proper. Dekkeret found himself coming back again and again to this pleasing sanctuary within the Castle, and eventually had chosen to have the segment of it known as Lord Spurifon’s Study closed off and made into an auxiliary office for himself. It was here that he received Dinitak Barjazid this day.
They talked quietly of idle things for a time—a visit Dinitak had lately made to the great city of Stee, and Dekkeret’s plans for a journey to that city and some of its neighbors on the Mount, and the like. It was not hard for Dekkeret to see that some suppressed inner tension was at work within his friend’s soul, but he let Dinitak set the pace for the conversation; and gradually he came around to the matter that had led him to seek this private audience with the Coronal.
“Have you seen much of Prince Teotas of late, your lordship?” Dinitak asked, with a new sort of intensity entering into his tone.
Dekkeret was jarred by the unexpected mention of Teotas’s name. The problem of Teotas had become a touchy one for him.
“I see him now and again, but not very often,” Dekkeret replied. “With the business of who is to be High Counsellor still up in the air, he seems to be avoiding me. Doesn’t want to refuse the post, but can’t bring himself to accept it, either. I blame Fiorinda for that.”
Dinitak’s cool penetrating eyes registered surprise. “Fiorinda? How is Fiorinda involved in your choice of a High Counsellor?”
“She’s married to the man I’ve chosen, isn’t she, Dinitak? Which gives us a layer of complication that I never took into account. I suppose you’re aware that she’s gone off to the Labyrinth to be with the Lady Varaile, leaving Teotas behind.” Dekkeret riffled irritatedly through the piles of papers on his desk. It bothered him to be discussing the increasingly troublesome Teotas problem, even with Dinitak. “I would never have supposed that she’d ask Teotas to decide between being High Counsellor and parting with his wife.”
“Is it as serious as that, do you think?”
Angrily Dekkeret swept the papers into a stack. “How do I know? Teotas barely speaks to me at all nowadays. But why else is he hesitating to accept the appointment? If Fiorinda has given him some sort of ultimatum about her living at the Labyrinth, he can’t very well stay here and become High Counsellor, not if he wants to keep his marriage together. Women!”
Dinitak smiled. “They are difficult creatures, are they not, my lord?”