And then at last, to walk between the double rows of guards with Carabella on his arm to a point halfway toward Nascimonte, and there to wait while the Duke advanced, and bowed and made the starburst gesture, and most solemnly bowed again to Carabella—
And Valentine laughed and came forward and took the gaunt old bandit into his arms, and held him tight, and then they marched together through the parting crowd toward the reviewing stand that surmounted the festival.
Now began a grand parade of the kind customary to a visit of the Coronal, with musicians and jugglers and acrobats and tandy-prancers and clowns and wild animals of the most terrifying aspect, which were not in fact wild at all, but carefully bred for tameness; and along with these performers came all the general citizenry, marching in a kind of glorious random way, crying out as they passed the stand, “Valentine! Valentine! Lord Valentine!”
And the Coronal smiled, and waved, and applauded, and otherwise did what a Coronal on processional must do, which is to radiate joy and cheer and a sense of the wholeness of the world. This he found now to be unexpectedly difficult work, for all the innate sunniness of his nature: the dark cloud that had passed across his soul in the Labyrinth still shadowed him with inexplicable despond. But his training prevailed, and he smiled, and waved, and applauded for hours.
The afternoon passed and the festive mood ebbed, for even in the presence of the Coronal how can people cheer and salute with the same intensity for hour after hour? After the rush of excitement came the part Valentine liked least, when he saw in the eyes of those about him that intense probing curiosity, and he was reminded that a king is a freak, a sacred monster, incomprehensible and even terrifying to those who know him only as a title, a crown, an ermine robe, a place in history. That part, too, had to be endured, until at last all the parade had gone by, and the din of merrymaking had given way to the quieter sound of a wearying crowd, and the bronze shadows lengthened, and the air grew cool.
“Shall we go now to my home, lordship?” Nascimonte asked.
“I think it is time,” said Valentine.
Nascimonte’s manor-house proved to be a bizarre and wonderful structure that lay against an outcropping of pink granite like some vast featherless flying creature briefly halting to rest. In truth it was nothing more than a tent, but a tent of such size and strangeness as Valentine had never imagined. Some thirty or forty lofty poles upheld great outswooping wings of taut dark cloth that rose to startling steep peaks, then subsided almost to ground level, and went climbing again at sharp angles to form the chamber adjoining. It seemed as though the house could be disassembled in an hour and moved to some other hillside; and yet there was great strength and majesty to it, a paradoxical look of permanence and solidity within its airiness and lightness.
Inside, that look of permanence and solidity was manifest, for thick carpeting in the Milimorn style, dark green shot through with scarlet, had been woven to the underside of the roof canvas to give it a rich, vivid texture, and the heavy tentpoles were banded with glittering metal, and the flooring was of pale violet slate, cut thin and buffed to a keen polish. The furnishings were simple—divans, long massive tables, some old-fashioned armoires and chests, and not much else, but everything sturdy and in its way regal.
“Is this house anything like the one the usurper’s men torched?” Valentine asked, when he was alone with Nascimonte a short while after they had entered.
“In construction, identical in all respects, my lord. The original, you know, was designed by the first and greatest Nascimonte, six hundred years ago. When we rebuilt, we used the old plans, and altered nothing. I reclaimed some of the furnishings from the creditors and duplicated the others. The plantation too—everything is just as it was before they came and carried out their drunken wrecking. The dam has been rebuilt, the fields have been drained, the fruit trees replanted: five years of constant toil, and now at last the havoc of that awful week is undone. All of which I owe to you, my lord. You have made me whole again—you have made all the world whole again—”
“And so may it remain, I pray.”
“And so it shall, my lord.”
“Ah, do you think so, Nascimonte? Do you think we are out of our troubles yet?”
“My lord, what troubles?” Nascimonte lightly touched the Coronal’s arm, and led him to a broad porch from which there was a magnificent prospect of all his property. By the twilight glow and the soft radiance of drifting yellow glowfloats tethered in the trees, Valentine saw a long sweep of lawn leading down to elegantly maintained fields and gardens, and beyond it the serene crescent of Lake Ivory, on whose bright surface the many peaks and crags of Mount Ebersinul, dominating the scene, were indistinctly mirrored. There was the faint sound of distant music, the twanging of gardolans, perhaps, and some voices raised in the last gentle songs of the long festal afternoon. All was peace and prosperity out there. “When you look upon this, my lord, can you believe that trouble exists in the world?”
“I take your point, old friend. But there is more to the world than what we can see from your porch.”
“It is the most peaceful of worlds, my lord.”
“So it has been, for thousands of years. But how much longer will that long peace endure?”
Nascimonte stared, as though seeing Valentine for the first time that day.
“My lord?”
“Do I sound gloomy, Nascimonte?”
“I’ve never seen you so somber, my lord. I could almost believe that the trick has been played again, that a false Valentine has been substituted for the one I knew.”
With a thin smile Valentine said, “I am the true Valentine. But a very tired one, I think.”
“Come, I’ll show you to your chamber, and there will be dinner when you’re ready, a quiet one, only my family and a few guests from town, no more than twenty at the most, and thirty more of your people—”
“That sounds almost intimate, after the Labyrinth,” said Valentine lightly.
He followed Nascimonte through the dark and mysterious windings of the manor-house to a wing set apart on the high eastern arm of the cliff. Here, behind a formidable barricade of Skandar guards that included Zalzan Kavol himself, was the royal suite. Valentine, bidding his host farewell, entered and found Carabella alone within, stretched languidly in a sunken tub of delicate blue and gold Ni-moyan tile, her slender body dimly visible beneath a curious crackling haze at the surface of the water.
“This is astonishing!” she said. “You ought to come in with me, Valentine.”
“Most gladly I will, lady!”
He kicked off his boots, peeled away his doublet, tossed his tunic aside, and with a grateful sigh slipped into the tub beside her. The water was effervescent, almost electrical, and now that he was in it he saw a faint glow playing over its surface. Closing his eyes, he stretched back and put his head against the smooth tiled rim, and curled his arm around Carabella to draw her against him. Lightly he kissed her forehead, and then, as she turned toward him, the briefly exposed tip of one small round breast.
“What have they put in the water?” he asked.
“It comes from a natural spring. The chamberlain called it ‘radioactivity.’ ”
“I doubt that,” said Valentine. “Radioactivity is something else, something very powerful and dangerous. I’ve studied it, so I believe.”