“We’ve come to fetch you,” Tunigorn put in. “The banquet’s about to begin. Protocol requires that you be at the dais when the Pontifical officials—”
“Protocol! Protocol! That dream was almost like a sending, don’t you understand! Such a vision of disaster—”
“The Coronal does not receive sendings, lordship,” Sleet said quietly. “And the banquet will start in minutes, and we must robe you and convey you. You’ll have Tisana and her potions afterward, if you like, my lord. But for now—”
“I must explore that dream!”
“I understand. But there lacks the time. Come, my lord.”
He knew that Sleet and Tunigorn were right: like it or not, he must get himself to the banquet at once. It was more than just a social event; it was a rite of courtesy, the showing of honor by the senior monarch to the younger king who was his adopted son and anointed successor, and even though the Pontifex might be senile or altogether mad the Coronal did not have the option of taking the event lightly. He must go, and the dream must wait. No dream so potent, so rife with omen, could simply be ignored—he would need a dream-speaking, and probably a conference with the wizard Deliamber also—but there would be time to deal with all that afterward.
“Come, lordship,” Sleet said again, holding his ermine robe of office out to him.
The heavy spell of that vision still clung to Valentine’s spirit when he entered the Great Hall of the Pontifex ten minutes later. But it would not do for the Coronal of Majipoor to seem dour or preoccupied at such an event, and so he put upon his face the most affable expression he could manage, as he made his way toward the high table.
Which was, indeed, the way he had conducted himself all throughout the interminable week of this official visit: the forced smile, the studied amiability. Of all the cities of giant Majipoor, the Labyrinth was the one Lord Valentine loved least. It was to him a grim, oppressive place that he entered only when the unavoidable responsibilities of office required it. Just as he felt most keenly alive under the warm summer sun and the great vault of the open sky, riding in some forest in heavy leaf, a fair fresh wind tossing his golden hair about, so did he feel buried before his time whenever he entered this cheerless sunken city. He loathed its dismal descending coils, its infinity of shadowy underground levels, its claustrophobic atmosphere.
And most of all he loathed the knowledge of the inevitable destiny that awaited him here, when he must succeed to the title of Pontifex at last, and give up the sweet joys of life on Castle Mount, and take up residence for the rest of his days in this dreadful living tomb.
Tonight in particular, this banquet in the Great Hall, on the deepest level of the gloomy subterranean city—how he had dreaded that! The hideous hall itself, all harsh angles and glaring lights and weird ricocheting reflections, and the pompous officials of the Pontifical staff in their preposterous little traditional masks, and the windy speechmaking, and the boredom, and above all the burdensome sense of the entire Labyrinth pressing down upon him like a colossal mass of stone—merely to think of it had filled him with horror. Perhaps that ugly dream, he thought, had been a mere foreshadowing of the uneasiness he felt about what he must endure tonight.
Yet to his surprise he found himself unwinding, relaxing—not precisely enjoying himself at the banquet, no, hardly that, but at least finding it within his endurance.
They had redecorated the hall. That helped. Brilliant banners in green and gold, the colors emblematic of the Coronal, had been hung everywhere, blurring and disguising the strangely disquieting outlines of the enormous room. The lighting too had been changed since his last visit: gentle glowfloats now drifted pleasantly through the air.
And plainly the officials of the Pontifex had spared neither cost nor effort in making the occasion a festive one. From the legendary Pontifical wine cellars came an astounding procession of the planet’s finest vintages: the golden fireshower wine of Pidruid, and the dry white of Amblemorn, and then the delicate red of Ni-moya, followed by a rich, robust purple wine of Muldemar that had been laid down years ago, in the reign of Lord Malibor. With each wine, of course, an appropriate delicacy: chilled thokkaberries, smoked sea dragon, calimbots in Narabal style, roast haunch of bilantoon. And an unending flow of entertainment: singers, mimes, harpists, jugglers. From time to time one of the Pontifex’s minions would glance warily toward the high table where Lord Valentine and his companions sat, as though to ask, Is it sufficient? Is your lordship content?
And Valentine met each of those worried glances with a warm smile, a friendly nod, a lifting of his wine-bowl, by way of telling his uneasy hosts, Yes, yes, I am well pleased with all you have done for us.
“What edgy little jackals they all are!” Sleet cried. “You can smell the worry-sweat on them from six tables away.”
Which led to a foolish and painful remark from young Hissune about the likelihood that they were trying to curry favor with Lord Valentine against the day when he became Pontifex. The unexpected tactlessness stung Valentine with whiplash effect, and he turned away, heart racing, throat suddenly dry. He forced himself to remain calm: smiled across the tables to the high spokesman Hornkast, nodded to the Pontifical majordomo, beamed at this one and that, while behind him he could hear Shanamir explaining irately to Hissune the nature of his blunder.
In a moment Valentine’s anger had ebbed. Why should the boy have known, after all, that that was a forbidden topic of discussion? But there was nothing he could do to put an end to Hissune’s obvious humiliation without acknowledging the depth of his sensitivity on that score; so he let himself glide back into conversation as though nothing untoward had happened.
Then five jugglers appeared, three humans, a Skandar, and a Hjort, to cause a blessed distraction. They commenced a wild and frenzied hurling of torches, sickles, and knives that brought cheers and applause from the Coronal.
Of course, they were mere flashy third-raters whose flaws and insufficiencies and evasions were evident enough to Valentine’s expert eye. No matter: jugglers always gave him delight. Inevitably they recalled to his mind that strange and blissful time years before, when he had been a juggler himself, wandering from town to town with an itinerant raggle-taggle troupe. He had been innocent then, untroubled by the burdens of power, a truly happy man.
Valentine’s enthusiasm for the jugglers drew a scowl from Sleet, who said sourly, “Ah, lordship, do you truly think they’re as good as all that?”
“They show great zeal, Sleet.”
“So do cattle that forage for fodder in a dry season. But they are cattle nonetheless. And these zealous jugglers of yours are little more than amateurs, my lord.”
“Oh, Sleet, Sleet, show more mercy!”
“There are certain standards in this craft, my lord. As you should still remember.”
Valentine chuckled. “The joy these people give me has little to do with their skills, Sleet. Seeing them stirs recollections in me of other days, a simpler life, bygone companions.”
“Ah, then,” Sleet said. “That’s another matter, my lord! That is sentiment. But I speak of craft.”
“We speak of different things, then.”
The jugglers took their leave in a flurry of furious throws and bungled catches, and Valentine sat back, smiling, cheerful. But the fun’s over, he thought. Time for the speeches now.
Even those proved surprisingly tolerable, though. Shinaam delivered the first: the Pontifical minister of internal affairs, a man of the Ghayrog race, with glistening reptilian scales and a flickering forked red tongue. Gracefully and swiftly he offered formal welcome to Lord Valentine and his entourage.