Turning then to Dekkeret, he said, “Dantirya Sambail has assembled a fleet off Piliplok. Its captains are waiting for an order from their master to sail toward Alhanroel. Let them know, Dekkeret, that the order they await will never come. See to it that they disperse peacefully.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we will disperse them by force,” said Prestimion. “But I pray it won’t come to that. Tell them, in my name, that there are to be no more Procurators in Zimroel. That title is now extinct. We will divide the powers of the one who held it among other princes who are more loyal to our crown.”
And then, to the Lady: “Mother, I thank you for your great help, and I release you now to return to your Isle. Dinitak, you will come with me to the Castle; we’ll find work for you there. And you, Dekkeret—Prince Dekkeret, you are thenceforth—and you, Maundigand-Klimd—come, we’ll prepare for our return to the Mount. This sorry business has kept us away from home long enough.”
16
“And this is Prince Taradath,” Varaile said, bringing forth a small fur-wrapped bundle. A wrinkled red face was visible at its upper end.
Prestimion laughed. “This? This, a prince?”
“He will be,” said Abrigant, who had come quickly up from Muldemar that morning when news of Prestimion’s return to the Castle from the west country had reached him. They were gathered in the great sitting-room of the royal apartments of Lord Thraym’s Tower, Prestimion’s official residence. “He’ll be as tall as our brother Taradath was, and just as quick with his wit. And as good an archer as his father, and Septach Melayn’s equal with the sword.”
“I will begin his instruction as soon as he can walk,” said Septach Melayn gravely, “and by the time he is ten there will be none who can stand against him.”
“You are all very optimistic,” Prestimion said, peering in astonishment at the small wrinkled visage of his newborn son. Every baby looks like every other one, he thought. But yes, yes, this one is a Coronal’s son and the descendant of princes, and we will make something special of him indeed.
He looked toward Abrigant. “Since you see such aptitude in store for him, brother, what skills do you propose to offer him yourself? Will you take him down to Muldemar and teach him the secrets of the winery, do you think?”
“Make a vintner of him, Prestimion? Oh, no: it’s metallurgy I’ll guide him toward!”
“Metallurgy, eh?”
“I’ll put him in charge of the great iron-mines of Skakkenoir, on which the foundations of the prosperity of your reign are to stand.—You do remember, Prestimion, that you promised me that I would be given a second chance to go in search of the metals of Skakkenoir, once this little matter of Dantirya Sambail was dealt with? And I have politely sat on my haunches at Muldemar ever since, waiting for my moment. Which is now at hand, I think, brother.”
“Ah,” Prestimion said. “Skakkenoir, yes. Well, then, take five hundred men, or a thousand, and go to look for Skakkenoir, Abrigant. And come back from there with ten thousand pounds of iron for us, will you?”
“Ten thousand tons,” said Abrigant. “And that will be only the beginning.”
Yes, Prestimion thought.
Only the beginning.
He had been Coronal how long now? Three years? Four? That was hard to say, because of Korsibar, and the thing that had been done at Thegomar Edge to make it seem that no civil war had ever happened. He had no clear idea of the date of his own reign’s starting-point. In the public chronicles of the realm it would be set at the hour of Prankipin’s death and Confalume’s ascension to the Pontificate; but Prestimion himself knew that there had been the two years of strife, his wanderings in the provinces and the battles far and wide, before he had truly come to the possession of the throne. And even then, hardly had he been formally crowned but there had been Dantirya Sambail to deal with all over again, and everything else—
Well, there would be a new beginning now, once and for all.
He took the baby from Varaile and held him very gingerly, not at all certain of the best way of doing it, and he and Varaile walked off a little way to stand by themselves, leaving the others—Septach Melayn and Gialaurys and Navigorn and Abrigant and Maundigand-Klimd, those who had been the pillars of his reign thus far—to gather by the table where an array of the wines of Muldemar had been laid out to celebrate the Coronal’s return. Out of the corner of his eye Prestimion saw Dekkeret somewhat shyly standing at the edge of the group, Dekkeret who would surely be a figure of great importance in the land in the years ahead, and he smiled as Septach Melayn beckoned him to the table and affectionately put an arm around the young man’s shoulders.
To Varaile, Prestimion said, “And your father? He’s made an extraordinary recovery, I hear.”
“A miracle, Prestimion. But he’s not really his old self, you know. Hasn’t said a word about all the properties I signed away while he was sick. Hasn’t spent so much as a moment meeting with the moneymen who used to take up all his time. He’s lost all interest in making money, it would seem. The baby, that’s what appears to matter to him the most. Though he said to me yesterday that he hopes he can be some use to you as an economic adviser, now that you’re back at the Castle.”
That was an odd notion, taking Simbilon Khayf into the Council. But these were new times, and Simbilon Khayf, it seemed, was a new man. Well, we will see, Prestimion thought.
“His help will be very valuable, I’m sure,” he said.
“And he’s eager to give it. He has the greatest respect for you, Prestimion.”
“You must bring him to me in a day or two, Varaile.”
Then he turned away and stood for a time by the window, peering into the courtyard below. There was a good view from here of much of the Inner Castle, the heart and nucleus of the entire great structure, the high domain of power. This Castle in which he dwelled was called Lord Prestimion’s Castle now, and would be until the end of his reign. The world had been given into his hand to rule; and though he had made an uncertain beginning of things, he was certain now that his mistakes were behind him, that an age of miracles and wonders was about to commence. And for the first time since they had come to him to tell him that the Pontifex Prankipin was dying and he would very likely be selected to take Lord Confalume’s place as Coronal, he felt a sensation of something very much like peace stealing over his heart.
He let his mind go roaming outward, beyond the Inner Castle and beyond the uncountable multitude of rooms that surrounded the Castle’s core, and on past the Mount at whose summit it stood, and the wondrous multifarious sprawl of the Majipoor lowlands farther on. In a moment’s flicker of his mind he undertook a journey that no man could hope to complete in a lifetime, from one end of the world to the other, and returned just as swiftly to the Mount, to the Castle, to this tower that was his home.
“Prestimion?” Varaile said, as if from a great distance away.
He looked around, startled by the intrusion on his reverie. “Yes?”
“You’re holding the baby upside down.”
“Ah. Ah, so I am.” He grinned. “Perhaps you’d better take him back, eh?”
Well, perhaps not all the mistakes were behind him yet.
He handed the baby to Varaile and leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose. And went back across the room to see if Septach Melayn and Gialaurys and the rest had left any of the best wines for him.
Maps
