Serithorn smiled lightly. “Ah? You mean Prestimion hasn’t reappointed you as Admiral, is that it? Well, we’ll miss you, Gonivaul. But of course it’s a lot of ghastly drudgery, being Grand Admiral. I can hardly blame you for being willing to lay the job down.—Tell me, Gonivaul, did you ever set foot on board a seagoing vessel so much as once, during your entire term of office? No, surely not. A risky thing it is, going to sea. Man can drown, doing that.”
It was an old business, the duels of sarcastic byplay between these two great lords.
The part of Gonivaul’s face that was visible turned bright red with wrath.
“Serithorn—” he began ominously.
“If I may, gentlemen,” said Navigorn, cutting smoothly across the banter just as matters were threatening to become unruly.
Gonivaul backed off, grumbling. Serithorn chuckled in satisfaction.
Navigorn said, “I’ve not yet officially come into my new post, and already I’ve been handed a most peculiar problem to deal with. Perhaps you two, who know all the ins and outs of Castle politics as few others do, can advise me.”
“And what problem may that be?” said Serithorn, making no great show of interest. He was looking not at Navigorn but at the field below.
The second of the day’s two non-human contestants was at the baseline now, a great shaggy Skandar wearing a soft woolen jerkin boldly striped in black and orange and yellow. His bow, broader and more powerful even than Prestimion’s, dangled casually from one of his four huge hands like a plaything. The herald’s announcement gave his name as Hent Sekkiturn.
“Do you recognize the colors this archer wears, by any chance?” asked Navigorn.
“They are those of the Procurator Dantirya Sambail, I believe,” said Serithorn, after a moment’s inner deliberation.
“Exactly. And where is the Procurator himself, do you think?”
“Why—why—” Serithorn looked around. “You know, I don’t actually see him. He should be sitting right up here near us, I’d say. Do you have any idea of where he is, Gonivaul?”
“I haven’t laid eyes on him all week,” said the Grand Admiral. “Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I did see him. He’s not what you’d call an inconspicuous man, either. Could it be that he’s skipped the coronation altogether and stayed home, back there in Ni-moya?”
“Impossible,” Serithorn said. “A new Coronal is being crowned for the first time in decades, and the most powerful prince in Zimroel doesn’t bother to show up? That would be absurd. For one thing, Dantirya Sambail would want to be on the scene when the new appointments and preferences are handed out. And so he was, I’m quite certain, during the months when old Prankipin was dying. He’d have stayed for the coronation, certainly. Besides, Prestimion would surely take mortal offense if the Procurator were to snub him like this.”
“Oh, Dantirya Sambail’s at the Castle, all right,” said Navigorn. “That’s precisely the problem I want to discuss. You haven’t noticed him at any of the festivities because he happens to be a prisoner in the Sangamor tunnels. And now Prestimion’s set me in charge of him. I’m to be his jailer, it seems. My first official duty as a member of the Council.”
A look of incredulity appeared on Serithorn’s face. “What are you saying, Navigorn? Dantirya Sambail, a prisoner?”
“Apparently so.”
Gonivaul seemed equally amazed. “I find this altogether unbelievable. Why would Prestimion put Dantirya Sambail in the tunnels? The Procurator’s his own cousin—well, some sort of relative, anyway, right? You’d know more about that than I do, Serithorn. What is this, a family quarrel?”
“Perhaps it is. More to the point,” Serithorn said, “how could anybody, even Prestimion, succeed in locking up someone as blustering and obstreperous and generally vile as Dantirya Sambail? I’d think it would be harder than locking up a whole pack of maddened haiguses. And if it’s actually been done, why haven’t we heard about it? I’d think it would be the talk of the Castle.”
Navigorn turned his hands outward in a shrug. “I have no answers for any of this, gentlemen. I don’t understand the least thing about it. All I know is that the Procurator’s in the lockup, or so Prestimion assures me, and the Coronal has assigned me the job of making sure he stays there until he can be brought to judgment.”
“Judgment for what?” Gonivaul cried.
“I don’t have the slightest idea. I asked him what crime the Procurator was accused of, and he said he’d discuss that with me some other time.”
“Well, what’s your difficulty, then?” asked Serithorn crisply. “The Coronal has given you an assignment. You do as he says, that’s all. He wants you to be the Procurator’s jailer? Then be his jailer, Navigorn.”
“I hold no great love in my heart for Dantirya Sambail. He’s little more than a wild beast, the Procurator. But even so—if he’s being held without justification, purely at Prestimion’s whim, am I not an accomplice to injustice if I help to keep him in prison?”
Gonivaul said, amazed, “Are you raising an issue of conscience, Navigorn?”
“You might call it that.”
“You’ve taken an oath to serve the Coronal. The Coronal sees fit to place Dantirya Sambail under arrest, and asks you to enforce it. Do as he says, or else resign your office. Those are your choices, Navigorn. Do you believe Prestimion’s an evil man?”
“Of course not. And I have no desire to resign.”
“Well, then, assume that Prestimion believes there’s just cause for locking the Procurator away. Put twenty picked men on duty in the tunnels round the clock, or thirty, or however many you think are necessary, and have them keep watch, and make sure they understand that if Dantirya Sambail manages to charm his way out of his cell, or to bully and bluster his way out, or to get out in any other way at all, they’ll spend the rest of their lives regretting it.”
“And if men of Ni-moya, the Procurator’s men, that unsavory crew of murderers and thieves that Dantirya Sambail likes to keep about him, should come to me this afternoon,” said Navigorn, “and demand to know where their master is and on what charges he’s being held, and threaten to start an uproar from one end of the Castle to the other unless he’s released immediately—?”
“Refer them to the Coronal,” Gonivaul said. “He’s the one who put Dantirya Sambail in jail, not you. If they want explanations, they can get them from Lord Prestimion.”
“Dantirya Sambail a prisoner,” said Serithorn in a wondering tone, as though speaking to the air around him. “What a strange business! What an odd way to begin the new reign!—Are we supposed to keep this news a secret, Navigorn?”
“The Coronal told me nothing about that. The less said the better, I’d imagine.”
“Yes. Yes. The less said the better.”
“Indeed,” said Gonivaul. “Best to say no more.” And they all nodded vigorously.
“Serithorn! Gonivaul!” a hearty, raucous voice cried just then, from a couple of rows above. “Hello, Navigorn.” It was Fisiolo, the Count of Stee. With him was a short, stocky, ruddy-faced man with dark, chilly eyes and a high forehead. A formidable mass of stiff silvery hair swept upward from that forehead to a prodigious and somewhat alarming height. “You know Simbilon Khayf, do you?” Fisiolo asked, with a glance toward his companion. “Richest man in Stee. Prestimion himself will be coming to him for loans before long, mark my words.”
Simbilon Khayf favored Serithorn and Gonivaul and Navigorn with a quick, bland, beaming inclination of his head, studiedly modest. He seemed very much flattered to find himself in the presence of peers of such lofty position. Count Fisiolo, a square-faced, blunt-featured man who was never one to stand on ceremony, immediately beckoned Simbilon Khayf to follow him down into the box that the other three occupied, and he lost no time in doing so. But he gave the distinct impression of being someone who knew that he was far out of his depth.