“Mandralisca!” murmured Dekkeret, shaking his head. He was lost in the wonder and horror of the recollection.
Dinitak said, “He was, I think, a greater monster than his master Dantirya Sambail. The Procurator knew when to rein in his ambitions. There was always a certain point that he was unwilling to go beyond, and when he reached that point, he would find someone else to undertake the task on his behalf.”
Dekkeret nodded. “Korsibar, for example. Dantirya Sambail, though always hungry for more power, didn’t try to make himself Coronal. He found a proxy, a puppet.”
“Exactly. The Procurator preferred ever to remain safely behind the scenes, avoiding the worst risks, letting others do his dirty work for him. Mandralisca was of a different sort. He was always willing to risk everything on a single throw of the dice.”
“Serving as a poison-taster, for instance. What sane man would take a job like that? But he seemed heedless of the risk to his own life.”
“I think he must have been. Or perhaps he felt it was a risk worth taking. By letting his master know that he was willing to put his life on the line for him, he would worm his way into Dantirya Sambail’s heart. That must have seemed a reasonable gamble to him. And once he found himself at the Procurator’s elbow, I think he led Dantirya Sam-bail on, from one monstrous deed to the next, possibly just for the sheer amusement of it.”
“Such a person is beyond my understanding,” said Dekkeret.
“Not mine, alas. I’ve had closer acquaintance with monsters than you. But you’re the one who will have to stop him.”
“Ah, but wait! We are moving very quickly here, Dinitak, and these conjectures carry us a great distance.” Dekkeret jabbed a forefinger at the smaller man. “What are you telling me, in fact? You’ve conjured up that old demon Mandralisca; you’ve put your father’s thought-control weapon in his hands again; you’ve suggested that Mandralisca is gearing up to launch yet another war against the world. But where’s the proof that any of this is real? To me it seems that it’s all built out of nothing more than Teotas’s bad dreams and Maundigand-Klimd’s ambiguous vision!”
Dinitak smiled. “The original helmet is still in our possession. Let me get it out of the Treasury and explore the world with it. If Mandralisca still lives, I’ll find out where he is. And for whom he’s working. What do you say, my lord?”
“What can I say?” Dekkeret’s head was throbbing. He had been on the throne barely more than a month, Prestimion was far away and ignorant of all this, and he had no High Counsellor to turn to. He was entirely on his own, save for Dinitak Barjazid. And now the possibility of an ancient enemy stirring somewhere far away suddenly lay before him. In a voice grim with apprehension and frustration Dekkeret said, “What I say is this: find him for me, Dinitak. Discover his intentions. Render him harmless, in whatever way you can. Destroy him, if necessary. You understand me. Do whatever must be done.”
13
Fulkari was crossing the Vildivar Balconies, heading in the direction of the Pinitor Court, when the moment she had been dreading for weeks finally arrived. Through the gateway from the Inner Castle and onto the Balconies at the far end came the Coronal Lord Dekkeret, magnificent in his robes of office and surrounded, as he always was these days, by a little group of important-looking men, the inner circle of his court. Her only path led her straight toward him. There was no avoiding it, now: they must inevitably confront each other here.
She and Dekkeret had not spoken at all in the weeks that had gone by since his ascent to the throne. Indeed she had seen him just a handful of times, and then only at a great distance, at court functions of the kind that highborn young ladies of Fulkari’s sort, descendants of former royal families of centuries gone by, were expected to attend. There had been no contact between them. He had scarcely looked toward her. He behaved as if she were invisible. And she had sidestepped any possibility of contact as well. One time at a royal levee when it seemed that his path across the great throne-room would certainly bring them face to face, she had taken care to slip away into the crowd before he came anywhere near her. She feared what he might say to her.
It was obvious to everyone that whatever relationship once had existed between them was over. Perhaps he was unwilling to say so to her in so many words, but Fulkari had no doubt that it was at an end. Only the fact that he had not yet brought himself to make a formal break with her kept it alive in her heart. Yet she knew how foolish that was.
They had kept company for three years, and now they did not speak at all. Could anything be more clear than that? Dekkeret had asked her to marry him and she had refused him. That had ended it. Was it really necessary, she wondered, for him to acknowledge formally something that was plain to all?
Yet there he was, no more than a hundred yards away and coming straight toward her.
Would he continue to pretend she was invisible when they encountered each other on this narrow balcony? That would be agony, Fulkari thought. To be humiliated like that in front of Dinitak and Prince Teo-tas and the Council ministers Dembitave and Vandimain and the rest of those men. An agony of her own making—she had no doubts about that—but an agony all the same, marking her as nothing more than a discarded royal mistress. And not even that, actually. Dekkeret had not yet become Coronal the last time they had made love. So all she was was someone who had been the lover of the new Coronal when he was still only a private individual, one of the many women who had passed through his bed over the years.
She resolved to address the situation squarely. I am no mere discarded concubine, she thought. I am Lady Fulkari of Sipermit, in whose veins flows the blood of the Coronal Lord Makhario, who was king in this Castle five centuries ago. What had Lord Dekkeret’s ancestors been doing five centuries ago? Did he even know their names?
She and Dekkeret were no more than fifty feet apart now. Fulkari looked straight toward him. Their eyes met, and it was only with great effort that she kept herself from glancing aside; but she held her gaze.
Dekkeret appeared tense and weary. And wary, as welclass="underline" gone now was the cheerful open countenance of the lighthearted man who had been her lover these three years past. He seemed under great strain now. His lips were closely clamped, his forehead was furrowed, there was a visible throbbing of some sort in his left cheek. Was it the cares of his high office that had done this to him, or was he simply reacting to the embarrassment of this accidental encounter in front of all his companions?
“Fulkari,” he said, when they were closer. He spoke softly and his voice seemed as rigid and tightly controlled as was the expression of his face.
“My lord.” Fulkari bowed her head and offered him the starburst salute.
He halted before her. She was close enough to him, here in the tight confines of the little balcony promenade, that she was able to observe a thin line of perspiration along his upper lip. The two men who had been walking closest to the Coronal, Dinitak and Vandimain, stepped back from him and seemed to fade into the background. Prince Teotas, who looked terribly weary and tense himself, bloodshot and haggard, was staring at her as though she were some sort of phantom.
Then Teotas and Dinitak and Vandimain faded back even farther, so that they appeared to vanish altogether, and Fulkari could see only Dekkeret, occupying an immense space at the center of her consciousness. She faced him steadily. Tall woman though she was, she came barely breast-high to him.