Then it was Dekkeret’s turn to speak, conveying Lord Prestimion’s greetings and—since that was the official pretext of his visit—congratulating the Count and Countess on the birth of their son. He extended Lord Prestimion’s regret at not being able to be present in person just now. The congratulatory gifts that had been sent by Lord Prestimion were carried in by Dekkeret’s men. Justiciar Corde spoke. Several other high officials of the court, obviously eager to make a powerful impression on the future Coronal, spoke also, effusively and to tiresome effect. Then Count Considat spoke again, no more ably than before, but at least with greater brevity. Dekkeret, caught a bit by surprise, improvised a reply. Then, only then, was food at last served, a sorry sequence of overcooked, feebly spiced meats and flaccid vegetables and prematurely opened wines. After-dinner speeches were to follow. Dekkeret made his way through the interminable ceremony by dint of a mighty summoning of patience and discipline.
He realized only too well that many more such evenings were in store for him in the years ahead. Once, when he was much younger, he had imagined that a Coronal’s life must be an endlessly glamorous affair of tournaments and feasting and revelry, interrupted now and then by the making of grand, dramatic decisions that would alter the fates of many millions of people. He knew better now.
The next day, with no official functions scheduled before nightfall, Dekkeret took Dinitak on a tour of the city, just the two of them—and a dozen or so bodyguards. It was a clear, warm morning, the air soft and fragrant in the eternal springtime of Castle Mount, the sunlight bright and strong. The soaring jagged crags of the Mount, rising beyond the city wall on all sides of Normork, glinted like ruddy bronze in that brilliant light.
Visitors to Normork often commented on the contrast between the glorious beauty of the city’s setting and the dark, hermetic look of the city itself, a tumbled multitude of close-packed gray buildings huddling in the shadow of that colossal black wall. Dekkeret, having been raised here, took the prevailing somberness of Normork for granted without finding anything unusual in it, indeed, without really noticing it at all; but now for the first time he began to see the city through the eyes of its critics. Perhaps, he thought, all the years he had spent dwelling in the airy higher reaches of Castle Mount were starting to alter his outlook toward this place.
The city wall was all but unscalable from without. Everywhere inside the city, though, stone staircases were set flush against its inner face that led to the top. They gave easy access to the broad road, wide enough for ten people to walk abreast on it, that ran along the wall’s rim. Dekkeret and Dinitak, accompanied by their inescapable gaggle of security men, ascended by way of the stairs just opposite their hotel.
In silence they set out westward around the city perimeter. After a time Dekkeret beckoned to his companion to follow him to the wall’s outer border. Leaning far out over it, he said, “Do you see that highway down there below us? The thing that looks like a white ribbon stretching a long way off into the east? That’s the one that comes up from Dundilmir and Stipool and the other cities over yonder on this level of the Mount. That road is the chief route of access to Normork for those cities and everything farther down. But you’ll notice that it doesn’t actually run into Normork anywhere. It can’t, because it comes in on the wrong side of town. You’ve already seen that the only entrance to the city is way around over there, on the side of Normork that faces upslope.”
Dinitak looked and nodded. “Yes. It comes straight up to the wall just below where we’re standing, but there’s no place to enter the city here. So it turns left instead and continues along the outside of the wall, following it all the way around, I suppose, until—until what? Until it reaches that stupid little gate?”
“Exactly. On the other side it joins up with the highway that we came down from the Castle on, and they become a single road that runs into Normork by way of the Eye of Stiamot.”
“And they make travelers from downslope go right around the city in order to enter from the upslope side? What an addlepated arrangement!”
“So it is. But changes are coming.”
“Oh?”
“I told you I had a plan for this city,” said Dekkeret grandly. “We’re standing right above the location where one day I intend to cut a second gateway through this wall.” He made a broad sweeping gesture, taking in a great swath of the titanic rampart of black stone. “Listen to this, Dinitak! The gate that I have in mind to build will be something truly majestic, nothing remotely like the puny little hole by which we entered yesterday. I’m going to make it fifty feet high and forty feet wide, or even more, so that even a Skandar will feel small when he stands under it. I’ll fashion it out of a kind of black wood that I know of from Zimroel, a rare and costly wood that takes a high polish and will shine like a mirror in the morning light, and I’ll bind it with big iron bands and the hinges will be of iron too; and by my most sacred decree it’s going to stand wide open at all times, except when the city is in peril, if ever it is. What do you say to that, eh?”
Dinitak was silent for a moment, frowning.
“I wonder,” he said finally.
“Go on.”
“It sounds very impressive, I agree. But do you think they’d genuinely want a gate like that here, Dekkeret? I’ve been here not even a day and a half, but my clear impression already is that what concerns these Normork folk above all else is safety. They lust for it beyond all reason. They are the most cautious people in the world. And this enormous impregnable black wall of theirs that they cherish so dearly is the symbol of that obsession. Doubtless that’s why the only opening in the wall is such a tiny one, and why they take care to shut that little opening and lock it up tight every evening at sunset. Do you think that the convenience of travelers coming from the downslope cities matters a damn to them, compared with the security of their own precious selves? If you come along and poke a great gaping breach in their wall for them, how likely is it that they’re going to love you for it?”
“I’ll be Coronal then. The first Coronal ever who was born in Normork.”
“Even so—”
“No. They’ll accept my gate, I’m sure of it. They’ll love my gate. Not at first, no, perhaps. I grant you they’ll need some time to get used to it. But it’ll be an utterly splendid gate, the new symbol of the city, something that people will travel from all over Castle Mount to stare at. And the citizens will point to it and say, ‘There it is, there’s the gate that Lord Dekkeret built for us, the most magnificent gate that can be found anywhere in the world.’ ”
“And the fact that it stands open all the time—?”
“Even that. A sign of municipal confidence. What enemies are there for them to fear, anyway? The world is at peace. No invading army is going to come marching up the side of Castle Mount. No, Dinitak—perhaps they’ll mutter and mumble at first, but in a very short while they’ll all agree that the new gate is the most wondrous thing that’s been built here since the wall itself.”
“No doubt you are correct,” said Dinitak, with just the lightest touch of irony in his tone.
Dekkeret heard it. But he would not let himself be checked. “I know that I am. The gate is going to be my monument. The Dekkeret Gate, is what people will call it in centuries to come. Everyone coming up the Mount from below will pass through it and gape at it in awe, and they’ll tell each other that this great gate, the most famous gate in the world, was built long ago by a Coronal Lord named Dekkeret, who was a man of this very city of Normork.”