“Are you asking us to vote on an order of succession right now?” Prince Manganot of Banglecode demanded.
“It seems clear enough already,” said Mirigant. “The Coronal appointed a Regent when he went off on the grand processional, and the Regent appointed three more—I assume with Lord Valentine’s approval—when he too left the Castle. Those three have governed us for some months. If we must find a new Coronal, shall we not find it among those three?”
Stasilaine said, “You frighten me, Mirigant. Once I thought it would be a grand thing to be Coronal, as I suppose most of you also thought, when you were boys. I am a boy no longer, and I saw how Elidath changed, and not for the better, when the full weight of power descended upon him. Let me be the first to fall down in homage before the new Coronal. But let him be someone other than Stasilaine!”
“The Coronal,” said the Duke of Chorg, “should never be a man who hungers too deeply for the crown. But I think he ought not to be one who dreads it, either.”
“I thank you, Elzandir,” said Stasilaine. “I am not a candidate, is it understood?”
“Divvis? Hissune?” Mirigant said.
Hissune felt a muscle leaping about in one of his cheeks, and a strange numbness in his arms and shoulders. He looked toward Divvis. The older man smiled and shrugged, and said nothing. There was a roaring in Hissune’s ears, a throbbing at his temples. Should he speak? What was he to say? Now that it had come down to it at last, could he stand before these princes and blithely announce that he was willing to be Coronal? He felt that Divvis was engaged in some maneuver far beyond his comprehension; and for the first time since he had entered the Council Chamber this afternoon he had no idea of the direction to follow.
The silence seemed unending.
Then he heard his own voice—calm, even, measured—saying, “I think we need not carry the proceedings beyond this point. Two candidates have emerged: consideration of their qualifications seems now in order. Not here. Not today. For the moment we have done enough. What do you say, Divvis?”
“You speak wisely and with deep understanding, Hissune. As always.”
“Then I call for adjournment,” said Mirigant, “while we consider these matters and wait for the arrival of further news of the Coronal.”
Hissune held up a hand. “One other thing, first.”
He waited for their attention.
Then he said, “I have for some time wished to travel to the Labyrinth, to visit my family, to see certain friends. I believe also it would be useful for one of us to confer with the officials of the Pontifex, and get first-hand knowledge of the state of Tyeveras’s health; for it may be that we will have to choose a Pontifex and a Coronal both, in the months just ahead, and we should be ready for such a unique event if it comes upon us. So I propose the designation of an official embassy from Castle Mount to the Labyrinth, and I offer myself as the ambassador.”
“Seconded,” said Divvis at once.
There was a business of discussing and voting, and once that was done there was a vote for adjournment, and then the meeting dissolved into a swirl of smaller groups. Hissune stood by himself, wondering when he would awaken from all this. He became aware after a moment of tall fair-haired Stasilaine looming over him, frowning and smiling both at the same time.
Quietly Stasilaine said, “Perhaps it is a mistake to leave the Castle at such a time, Hissune.”
“Perhaps. It seemed the right thing for me to do, though. I’ll risk it.”
“Then proclaim yourself Coronal before you go!”
“Are you serious, Stasilaine? What if Valentine still lives?”
“If he lives, you know how to arrange for his becoming Pontifex. If he is dead, Hissune, you must seize his place while you can.”
“I will do no such thing.”
“You must! Otherwise you may find Divvis on the throne when you return!”
Hissune grinned. “Easily enough dealt with. If Valentine is dead and Divvis has replaced him, I will see to it that Tyeveras at last is allowed to rest. Divvis immediately becomes Pontifex and must go to the Labyrinth, and still another new Coronal is required, with only one candidate available.”
“By the Lady, you are astonishing!”
“Am I? It seems an obvious enough move to me.” Hissune took the older man’s hand firmly in his. “I thank you for your support, Stasilaine. And I tell you that all will be well, at the end. If I must be Coronal to Divvis’s Pontifex, so be it: we can work together, he and I, I do think. But for now let us pray for Lord Valentine’s safety and success, and leave off all these speculations. Yes?”
“By all means,” said Stasilaine.
They embraced briefly, and Hissune went from the council chamber. In the hallway outside, all was in the same confusion as before, though now perhaps a hundred or more of the lesser lords were gathered, and the looks that he received from them when he appeared were extraordinary. But Hissune said nothing to any of them, nor did he as much as let his eyes meet any of theirs as he moved through the throng. He found Alsimir at the edge of the crowd, gaping at him in a preposterous slack-jawed wide-eyed way. Hissune beckoned to him and told him to make ready for a journey to the Labyrinth.
The young knight looked at Hissune in total awe and said, “I should tell you, my lord, that a tale came through this crowd some minutes ago that you are to be made Coronal. Will you tell me if there is truth to that?”
“Lord Valentine is our Coronal,” said Hissune brusquely.
“Now go and prepare yourself for departure. I mean to set out for the Labyrinth at dawn.”
6
When she was still a dozen blocks from home, Millilain began to hear the rhythmic shouting in the streets ahead of her: “Yah -tah, yah -tah, yah-tah, voom,” or something like that, nonsensical sounds, gibberish, pounded out at full-throated volume again and again and again by what sounded like a thousand madmen. She came to a halt and pressed herself fearfully against an old crumbling stone wall, feeling trapped. Behind her, in the square, a bunch of drunken March-men were roistering about, smashing windows and molesting passersby. Somewhere off to the east the Knights of Dekkeret were holding a rally in honor of Lord Sempeturn. And now this new craziness. Yah-tah, yah-tah, yah-tah, voom. There was no place to turn. There was no place to hide. All she wanted to do was to reach her house safely and bolt the door. The world had gone crazy. Yah-tah, yah-tah, yah-tah, voom.
It was like a sending of the King of Dreams, except that it went on hour after hour, day after day, month after month. Even the worst of sendings, though it might leave you shaken to the roots of your soul, lasted only a short while. But this never ended. And it grew worse and worse.
Riots and lootings all the time. No food but scraps and crusts, or occasionally a bit of meat that you might be able to buy from the March-men. They came down out of their mountains with animals they had killed, and sold you the meat for a ruinous price, if you had anything left to pay for it with, and then they drank up their profits and ran amok in the streets before they went home. And new troubles constantly springing up. The sea dragons, so it was said, were sinking any vessel that ventured out to sea, and commerce between the continents was virtually at an end. Lord Valentine was rumored to be dead. And not one new Coronal in Khyntor now but two, Sempeturn and that Hjort who called himself Lord Stiamot. And each with his own little army to march up and down shouting slogans and making trouble: Sempeturn with the Knights of Dekkeret, the other one with the Order of the Triple Sword, or some such name. Kristofon was a Knight of Dekkeret now. She hadn’t seen him in two weeks. Another Coronal in Ni-moya, and a couple of Pontifexes roaming around also. Now this. Yah-tah yah -tah yah-tah voom.