Then he said, continuing our earlier conversation as though there had been no break in it at all, "I don't believe Sunteil is afraid of your returning. I think it's your not returning that he fears."
"Polarca has the same theory." "Polarca? Has he been here too?"
"His ghost. Still is. Perhaps hovering right over your shoulder as we eat." I shoveled down the cassoulet in silence for a while, washing it along with splendiferous gulps of the wine, and belched him a belch of great resonance and grandeur to show my appreciation. "This is truly fine, Julien. If I had to come back in my next life as a Gajo, I would want to be a Frenchman of France, and eat like this three times a day."
"The King of the Gypsies does me great honor by such lavish praise, Yakoub."
"Former King of the Gypsies, Julien."
"You hold the title until your death, or until the judges of the great kris formally depose you. Your abdication is not binding on the Rom government. As you well know."
"Are you a lawyer now as well as a chef?" I asked.
"You also know that matters of succession are of deep importance to me, Yakoub. It is my great passion, my overwhelming obsession." "I thought your great passion was for food," I said, maybe too sharply. "And your overwhelming obsession was something to do with women."
"Don't mock me, Yakoub."
I had stung him that time. I was sorry, and I said so. Perhaps he did have his little pretensions. But he was an old friend, and a dear one. He said, after a while, "No one understands your abdication. They see it as a betrayal of all that you have worked for during a long and honorable life."
I could have explained myself then, I suppose. Did he think, did any of them think, that there had been no reason for my going away, that I had simply tossed my crown away for the sheer spiteful fun of it? I will admit to you here and now that there had been times on Mulano when I woke up in the night in a sweat, convinced of my own utter idiocy. But generally I didn't think that was the situation and I certainly didn't want them to, neither the high lords of the Imperium nor those who were now the big Gypsies. Did they believe I was that flighty, that capricious, that irresponsible? Me? Speak, Yakoub, explain yourself, defend yourself. Here's your moment.
But Syluise's laughter rang in my ears. And also I reminded myself yet again that this old and dear friend of mine was a GaJo, and a confidante of the emperor and in the direct pay of the Lord Periandros besides, and all I said was, "Power kept too long goes flat, Julien. You know, when you leave a bottle of champagne open too long, what happens to it?"
"I cannot believe that any such thing has happened to you, mon ami."
"How long was I king? Forty years? Fifty years? Enough."
"So this is what you will do? Will you sit here in all this ice and snow -forgive me, I truly cannot like this place, my friend-will you watch these unpleasant green tentacles writhe and quiver at you for the rest of your days, and do nothing else?"
"For the rest of my days? I don't know that. This is what I have been doing. It pleases me to do it. This is what I intend to continue doing, Julien, until it stops pleasing me, if it does. If."
"This I do not understand. A moment of boredom, a fit of mere pique, Yakoub, and you allow yourself to throw away everything that you-'5
"Let me be, Julien. I know what I'm doing." "Do you?"
"I know that I'm done with being king. Isn't that sufficient for you? Damn it, Julien, let me be!"
I pushed my plate aside and walked to the door of the bubble and stared out at the gently undulating arms of the forest. I listened to my breath go in and out, in and out. I sent little messages of greetings to my liver, my pancreas, my alimentary canal. Hello there, old friends. And my bodily organs sent friendly little messages back. Hello there, you. We know each other so well, my organs and I. I basked in their admiration. The high regard in which they held me pleased me very much. We had a good thing going. If we played our cards right we could stick together another two hundred years. Maybe even more. I thought about that and it felt good. I thought about tonight's dinner. I thought about the wine. I thought about the snow that was starting to fall in counterclockwise swirls. The one thing I didn't want to think about was being king again. I wanted to think about not being king. The presence of the absence of my power was what gave me life and vigor these days.
Into my mind came lovely lascivious thoughts that had nothing to do with anything Julien had been saying. Watching the forest's green limbs writhing voluptuously about, I felt strange stirrings within myself. I could go out there, I thought, and lie down naked in their midst, and then they would embrace me like a lover. I imagined all those myriad tentacles caressing my body, slithering here and there in all the sensitive places, knowing just what I liked best. Sucking, stroking, tickling, poking. Ooh. Ah. Oh, yes, good! Very good! Gently I drifted into profound eroto-botanical fantasies, odd but pleasing floral delights. There was fine food in my belly and good red wine in my brain and now my loins were coming alive with these delectable new yearnings. At my age, still capable of responding to something strange and new! Pay heed to that, all of you. Hearken and learn. You might think the old fires die down, but they don't. No. Not even on this chilly world. Not at all. Ever.
Julien came up behind me. His voice drilled cruelly into my reverie. "And your people, Yakoub? You will leave them kingless forever? You will allow the guild of pilots to disintegrate?"
The vision of tentacular delight shattered and popped like a punctured balloon. I was furious with him for breaking in on me. He should have known. A moment of solitary reflection, a sacred interlude. Private and sacrosanct. And he had smashed it without a thought. And him claiming to be French, too.
But I held my wrath in check. For ancient friendship's sake. Sourly I said, "The krisatora know what to do. If they want another king, they can declare the office vacant and elect someone. Otherwise the Rom can manage well enough without a king for five years, for fifty, for five hundred if necessary. The French have managed without one, haven't they, for something like thirteen hundred years."
"And there are no more French," said Julien bleakly. "What do you mean?"
"We are nowhere. We are nothing. We are a memory, a book of recipes, and a difficult language that scarcely anyone understands. Is that what you want for your people, Yakoub?"
"We are Rom. We have been since before there were French or English or Germans or any of the million tribes of Earth. We will go on being Rom whether we have a king at this moment or not." I found my wine and took a deep draught of it. That calmed me a little. It was splendid stuff, and when my temper had cooled I told him so. The French might be an extinct culture, but someone still understood how to make a decent Bordeaux. After a moment I said, "Why am I in the thoughts of the Lord Periandros?"
"The emperor is old and feeble." "That is hardly news, Julien."
"But now the end seems to be in sight. A year or two, perhaps, but he can't last much longer than that."
"So? The Rom won't be the only ones with a succession problem, then. What else is new?"
"This is serious, Yakoub. There are three high lords and the emperor has shown no strong inclination toward any of them."
"I know that. Let them draw straws to see who gets it, then." "They are very strong men, and very determined. If the emperor dies without indicating a preference, there could be a war for the throne."