"Your Majesty!" said Jorian, bowing low. "Your radiant Highness! This is indeed a pleasure."
"It iss my pleasure, also," said Yargali, speaking Mulvani with an accent that centuries of dwelling in Trimandilam had not affected. "You are a Novarian, no?"
Karadur materialized like one of his spirits and engaged the king in a low-voiced discussion of the state of organized magic in the empire, while Jorian answered the princess: "Aye, Highness. A subject of the king of Kortoli, to be exact."
"Know you any of those lively Novarian dances? I find the Mulvanian kind all too stately for an active person like myself."
"Permit one to think. One used to be pretty good at our local peasant dance, the volka."
"Oh, I know that one! That iss the one that goes one—two—three— four—five—six—turn, one—two—three—four—five—six—turn, no?"
"Like this?" said Jorian, walking the fingers of his right hand across the palm of his left.
"But yess! In the reign of King Sirvasha, there was an ambassador from Kortoli here, who showed me. Will you ask me to dance the volka with you, my lord Jorian?"
"One wonders if our musicians know any suitable tune?"
"Oh, we can dance it to any tune that is loud and fast, with a strong one-two beat, no? Come, let us speak to them about it."
Yargali started off across the marble floor towards the orchestra. Jorian followed, feebly protesting: "But, Your Highness! One is sure the king's other guests will not know—"
"Oh, to the next incarnation with them! Thiss will be for just you and me. We will show them barbarians are better dancers than they! We will make them look like the bumps of the logs, no?"
Soon Jorian found himself alone on the dance floor with the princess, the other guests having drawn to the sides. Each placed his hands on the other's shoulders, and off they went in the vigorous, stamping, and whirling steps of the volka. On and on they went, round and round. Having noted that Mulvanian musical compositions were apt to run on for half-hours or even for hours, Jorian feared that he would be compelled to dance until morning.
After a mere quarter-hour, however, the orchestra stopped. Both Jorian and his partner were breathing hard and sweating freely. The noble lords and ladies snapped their fingers by way of applause, while the pair bowed in all directions and Lord Chavero scowled and pulled his long mustache.
"One suggests," said Jorian, "that we could use a bit of that fruit punch."
"An excellent idea, my lord. And you need not use those stilted, ultra-polite forms of speech with me. It iss all very well for these Mulvanians; but my people, who were wise when your forebears were sitting on a bough and scratching, do not bother with such useless refinements. Life iss complicated enough without going out of one's way to make it more so, no?"
A team of sixteen professional dancing girls, wearing a multitude of beads and bangles and nothing else, had come out on the floor and were performing a dance with little, shuffling steps and rhythmic jerkings of their arms and heads. Jorian said:
"How would Your Highness like to step out on the terrace to cool off?"
"By all means."
When they were outside under the stars, Jorian said: "The holy man's outburst does not seem to have aiscouraged the festivities."
"Oh, these Mulvanians! Always they are talking about their moral purity. No wine, no meat, no fornication, and so on. But when one comes to know them, they are just as sinful in their own little ways as everybody else. Now they will go home feeling very virtuous because they let the holy man harangue them without taking offense, and they will go right on doing the things they always do."
"We had a Mulvanian saint like that in Kortoli once," said Jorian. "He all but ruined the kingdom before they got rid of him."
'Tell me about thiss holy man!"
"Gladly. This took place back in the reign of King Filoman the Weil-Meaning—the father of the more famous King Fusinian.
"King Filoman had without doubt the noblest emotions and the best intentions of any king who ever reigned in Novaria. Nor was he stupid; but alas! he had no common sense whatever. One version of the legend says that this was the result of a peculiar planetary conjunction at the time of his birth. Another says that, when the fairies gathered for his naming ceremony, the fairy who was supposed to confer common sense upon him became enraged when she saw that another fairy wore a gown just like her own and left in a huff without bestowing her gift. So Filoman grew up with all the virtues—courage, honesty, diligence, kindliness, and so forth—except common sense.
"It was after the bankruptcy of the kingdom, as a result of the pension scheme of the ghost that Filoman had retained as his minister, that this holy man, Ajimbalin, came to Kortoli. Filoman's new minister, Oinax, had just been promoted from a mere clerk in the Treasury and was too much in awe of the king to tell him aught that Filoman did not wish to hear. So Ajimbalin was soon ensconced in the palace, pouring advice into Filoman's ears.
"Filoman lent these ears willingly enough, for he felt guilty about the collapse of the pension scheme and the hardships that ensued, and even more guilty about his failure to make all the Kortolians as pure and upright and virtuous as himself. 'It is no wonder,' said Ajimbalin, 'when you and your entire people engage in so many vile, sinful habits.'
" 'I thought I lived a reasonably virtuous life,' said Filoman. 'But, holy Father, perhaps you can persuade me to the contrary.'
" To achieve salvation for yourself and your folk,' said the ascetic, 'you must follow the path to moral perfection on which I shall guide you. By setting an example, we may hope to persuade all your subjects to do likewise; and if example and precept avail not, then stronger measures may be needed. First you must give up fermented beverages, your—ugh!—wine and—ugh!—beer.'
" 'If you mean drinking to excess,' said Filoman, 'I do not believe I am guilty of that. I have never been drunk in my life.'
" 'Nay,' quoth Ajimbalin, 'I mean you must give them up entirely.' So he presently had the court on a regimen of fruit juice, like the punch we have been drinking. Can I get you another?"
"No; please go on with your story."
"Ajimbalin then wished to extend this prohibition to all Kortolians, but Oinax stood up to him and averred that the kingdom needed the tax revenue after its recent disasters. So the general prohibition of wine and beer was put off for the time being.
"Then Ajimbalin told the king: 'You must give up this revolting custom of eating the flesh of slain animals. It shows a lack of proper respect for life. How know you if the cow or pig your servants butcher for your table be not an incarnation of one of your own ancestors?' So the king and the court went on a diet of breadstuff's and greens, like that to which I have been subjected during my stay here.
"Then the holy man said: 'Next, my son, you must give up the vile, sensual pleasure of going in unto your wife. Since desire is the source of all sorrow, you can attain happiness and escape sorrow only by extinguishing desire and relinquishing all bonds to earthly things and persons.'
" 'But I am chiefly concerned, not with my own happiness, but with my subjects' welfare!' protested Filoman.
" 'All the better,' said Ajimbalin. 'By following my rules of life, you will not only achieve a state of indescribable bliss yourself, but also attain such strength and wisdom that you will easily solve your kingdom's problems. You will be able to push over a city wall or pick up an elephant. You will know the secrets of the forty-nine Mulvanian heavens of the gods and of the forty-nine hells of the demons. You will no longer need an army, for you will be able to rout any foe singlehanded. But you cannot have these things and the mingling of your vile flesh with that of a woman, too.'