In some alarm Septach Melayn said, “Surely you’re not thinking of a grand processional, Prestimion! Not yet! Not in the first month of your reign—nor even the first year, for that matter.”
Prestimion shook his head. “No. It’s much too soon for that, I agree.” What did he want, though? It was far from clear even to himself. Improvising hastily, he said, “Short visits somewhere, perhaps—not a grand processional but a little one, through half a dozen of the Fifty Cities, let’s say—two or three weeks going here and there on the Mount. To bring myself closer to the people, to get to know what’s on their minds. I’ve been too busy in these years of war to pay any attention to anything except raising armies and making battle plans.”
“Yes, certainly, travel to some of the nearby cities. Yes, by all means, do,” said Septach Melayn. “But it’ll take time—weeks, even months—to arrange even the simplest of official journeys. Surely you know that. The arrangements for proper royal accommodations, the programs of events to be drawn up, the receptions, the banquets that must be organized—”
“More banquets,” said Prestimion glumly.
“They are unavoidable, my lord. But I have a better suggestion, if you merely want to escape from the Castle for quick visits to the neighboring cities.”
“And what is that?”
“Korsibar, I’m told, also wanted to travel about on the Mount while he was Coronal. And did so secretly, in disguise, making use of some shapechanging device that the sneaky Vroon wizard Thalnap Zelifor invented for him. You could do the same, taking on this guise or that one, as it pleased you, and no one the wiser.”
Prestimion looked at him dubiously. “I remind you, Septach Melayn, that at this very moment Thalnap Zelifor is on his way to exile in Suvrael, and all of his magical devices have gone with him.”
Frowning, Septach Melayn said, “Ah. In truth I had forgotten that.” But then his eyes brightened. “Yet there’s really no need of such magic, is there? I understand it failed one day for Korsibar anyway, while he was in Sipermit, I think, and he was seen changing to his true semblance. Which gave rise to the silly fable that Korsibar was a Metamorph. If you were to wear a false beard, though, and a kerchief around your head, and dressed yourself in commoner’s clothing—”
“A false beard!” said Prestimion, with a guffaw.
“Yes, and I would go with you, or Gialaurys, or the two of us both, also in disguise, and we’d sneak off to Bibiroon, or Upper Sunbreak, or Banglecode or Greel or wherever it is you want to go, and spend a night or two sniffing around having high sport far from the Castle, and no one would ever know? What do you say to that, Prestimion? Would that ease this restlessness of yours at least a little?”
“I do like the idea,” Prestimion said, feeling a spark of joy rising within his breast for the first time in more weeks than he cared to count. “I like it very much!”
And would gladly have set forth from the Castle that very evening. But no, no, there were more meetings to attend, and proposals to consider, and decrees that must be signed. He had never fully comprehended until now the meaning of the old saying that it was folly to yearn to be the master of the realm, for you would discover in short order that you were in fact its servant.
“Lordship, it is Prince Abrigant of Muldemar to see you,” came the voice of Nilgir Sumanand, who held the post of major-domo to the Coronal now.
“Admit him,” Prestimion said.
Tall slender Abrigant, seven years Prestimion’s junior and the elder of his two living brothers, came striding into the royal office. The Prince of Muldemar, he was, now, having succeeded to Prestimion’s old title upon Prestimion’s becoming Coronal. Prestimion was seriously thinking of giving him a seat on the Council as well, not at once, perhaps, but after young Abrigant had had a chance to ripen into his maturity a little further.
Abrigant might more readily have been Septach Melayn’s brother than Prestimion’s, so different in physical type was he. He was slim where Prestimion was stocky, and lanky where Prestimion was short statured, and his hair, though golden like his brother’s, had a sheen and a radiance that Prestimion’s had never had. He cut a fine figure, did Abrigant: dressed this evening as though for a formal public occasion of court, with a tight-fitting, high-waisted pinkish-purple doublet of rich Alaisor make, and soft long-legged breeches of the same color, tucked into high boots of the distinctive yellow leather of Estotilaup that were topped with fine lace ruffles.
He offered his brother not only the starburst gesture but a grand sweeping bow, greatly overdone. Irritatedly Prestimion made a quick brushing motion with his hand, as if to sweep the effusive obeisance away.
“This is a little too much, Abrigant. Much too much!”
“You are Coronal now, Prestimion!”
“Yes. So I am. But you are still my brother. A simple starburst will be sufficient. More than sufficient, indeed.” He began once more to toy with the slender crown lying on his desk. “Septach Melayn tells me you have ideas to put before me. Dealing with, so I understand it, the matter of bringing some relief to the regions currently suffering from crop failures and other such disruptions.”
Abrigant looked puzzled. “He said that, did he? Well, not exactly. I know that certain places here and there around Alhanroel are in bad shape, all of a sudden. But I don’t know the whys and wherefores of any of that, except for a few obvious things like the collapse of the Mavestoi Dam and the flooding of the Iyann Valley. The rest’s a mystery to me, what might be causing these sudden local outbreaks of food shortages, or whatever. The will of the Divine, I suppose.”
Statements of that kind troubled Prestimion, and he was hearing them more and more often. But what could he expect, when he had kept everyone around him in ignorance of the major event of the era? Here was his own brother, one of his most intimate friends, whom he hoped would also become, eventually, one of his most useful advisers, a member of the Royal Council. And he knew nothing of the war and its effects. Nothing!
A great civil war had devastated great sectors of Alhanroel for two whole years, and Abrigant had no inkling that it had ever occurred. Living in such darkness, how could he be expected to make rational decisions about public affairs? For a moment Prestimion was tempted to confess the truth. But he checked himself. He and Septach Melayn and Gialaurys had agreed most vehemently that they should be the only ones to know. There could be no revelations after the fact, not now, not even for Abrigant.
“You’re not here to talk about remedies for the afflicted provinces, then?”
“No. What I have are ideas concerning ways to increase the general economic well-being of the entire world. If all the world grows wealthier, then the distressed districts will be helped along with everyone else. Which must be what led Septach Melayn to misunderstand my purpose.”
“Go on,” said Prestimion uncomfortably.
This new earnestness of Abrigant’s was very strange in his ears. The Abrigant he knew was energetic, impetuous, even somewhat hotheaded. In the struggle against the usurping Korsibar he had been a valiant, ferocious warrior. But a man of ideas, no. Prestimion had never known his brother to show much aptitude for abstract thought. An athlete, was what he was. Hunting, racing, sport of all kinds: that was where Abrigant’s interests always had lain. Perhaps maturity was coming upon him faster than Prestimion had expected, though.
Abrigant hesitated. He seemed uncomfortable too. After a moment he said, as if reading his brother’s mind, “I’m well aware, Prestimion, that you think I’m a pretty shallow sort. But I do a lot of reading and studying now. I’ve hired experts to tutor me on matters of public affairs. I—”