“What is it like, if not like this?”
“I can’t say. The Divine be blessed, we have none of it on Majipoor, whatever it may be. But if we did, I think we’d not be taking baths in it. This must be some lively kind of mineral water.”
“Very likely,” Carabella said.
They bathed together in silence awhile. Valentine felt the vitality returning to his spirit. The tingling water? The comforting presence of Carabella close by, and the freedom at last from the press of courtiers and followers and admirers and petitioners and cheering citizens? Yes, and yes, those things could only help to bring him back from his brooding, and also his innate resilience must be manifesting itself at last, drawing him forth from that strange and un-Valentine-like darkness that had oppressed him since entering the Labyrinth. He smiled. Carabella lifted her lips to his; and his hands slipped down the sleekness of her lithe body, to her lean muscular midsection, to the strong supple muscles of her thighs.
“In the bath?” she asked dreamily.
“Why not? This water is magical.”
“Yes. Yes.”
She floated above him. Her legs straddled him; her eyes, half open, met his for a moment, then closed. Valentine caught her taut little buttocks and guided her against him. Was it ten years, he wondered, since that first night in Pidruid, in that moonlit glade, under the high gray-green bushes, after the festival for that other Lord Valentine? Hard to imagine: ten years. And the excitement of her had never waned for him. He locked his arms about her, and they moved in rhythms that had grown familiar but never routine, and he ceased to think of that first time or of all the times since, or of anything, indeed, but warmth and love and happiness.
Afterward, as they dressed for Nascimonte’s intimate dinner for fifty guests, she said, “Are you serious about making Hissune Coronal?”
“What?”
“I think that that surely was the meaning of what you were saying earlier—those riddles of yours, just as we arrived at the festival, do you recall?”
“I recall,” Valentine said.
“If you prefer not to discuss—”
“No. No. I see no reason to hide this matter from you any longer.”
“So you are serious!”
Valentine frowned. “I think he could be Coronal, yes. It’s a thought that first crossed my mind when he was just a dirty little boy hustling for crowns and royals in the Labyrinth.”
“But can an ordinary person become Coronal?”
“You, Carabella, who were a street-juggler, and are now consort to the Coronal, can ask that?”
“You fell in love with me and made a rash and unusual choice. Which has not been accepted, as you know, by everyone.”
“Only by a few foolish lordlings! You’re hailed by all the rest of the world as my true lady.”
“Perhaps. But in my case the consort is not the Coronal. And the common people will never accept one of their own as Coronal. To them the Coronal is royal, sacred, almost divine. So I felt, when I was down there among them, in my former life.”
“You are accepted. He will be accepted too.”
“It seems so arbitrary—picking a boy out of nowhere, raising him to such a height. Why not Sleet? Zalzan Kavol? Anyone at random?”
“Hissune has the capacity. That I know.”
“I am no judge of that. But the idea that that ragged little boy will wear the crown seems terribly strange to me, too strange even to be something out of a dream.”
“Does the Coronal always have to come from the same narrow clique on Castle Mount? That’s how it’s been; yes, for hundreds of years—thousands, perhaps. The Coronal always selected from one of the great families of the Mount: or even when he is not of one of those, and I could not just now tell you when we last went outside the Mount for the choice, he has been highborn, invariably, the son of princes and dukes. I think that was not how our system was originally designed, or else why are we forbidden to have hereditary monarchs? And now such vast problems are coming to the surface, Carabella, that we must turn away from the Mount for answers. We are too isolated up there. We understand less than nothing, I often think. The world is in periclass="underline" it’s time now for us to be reborn, to give the crown to someone truly from the outside world, someone not part of our little self-perpetuating aristocracy—someone with another perspective, who has seen the view from below—”
“He’s so young, though!”
“Time will take care of that,” said Valentine. “I know there are many who think I should already have become Pontifex, but I will go on disappointing them as long as I can. The boy must have his full training first. Nor will I pretend, as you know, any eagerness to hurry onward to the Labyrinth.”
“No,” Carabella said. “And we talk as though the present Pontifex is already dead, or at death’s door. But Tyeveras still lives.”
“He does, yes,” said Valentine. “At least in certain senses of the word. Let him continue to live some while longer, I pray.”
“And when Hissune is ready—?”
“Then I’ll let Tyeveras rest at last.”
“I find it hard to imagine you as Pontifex, Valentine.”
“I find it even harder, love. But I will do it, because I must. Only not soon: not soon, is what I ask!”
After a pause Carabella said, “You will unsettle Castle Mount for certain, if you do this thing. Isn’t Elidath supposed to be the next Coronal!”
“He is very dear to me.”
“You’ve called him the heir presumptive yourself, many times.”
“So I have,” Valentine said. “But Elidath has changed, since we first had our training together. You know, love, anyone who desperately wants to be Coronal is plainly unfit for the throne. But one must at least be willing. One must have a sense of calling, an inner fire of a sort. I think that fire has gone out, in Elidath.”
“You thought it had gone out in yourself, when you were juggling and first were told you had a higher destiny.”
“But it returned, Carabella, as my old self reentered my mind! And it remains. I often weary of my crown—but I think I’ve never regretted having it.”
“And Elidath would?”
“So I suspect. He’s playing at being Coronal now, while I’m away. My guess is that he doesn’t like it much. Besides, he’s past forty. The Coronal should be a young man.”
“Forty is still young, Valentine,” said Carabella with a grin.
He shrugged. “I hope it is, love. But I remind you that if I have my way, there’ll be no cause to name a new Coronal for a long time. And by then, I think, Hissune will be prepared and Elidath will step gracefully aside.”
“Will the other lords of the Mount be as graceful, though?”
“They will have to be,” said Valentine. He offered her his arm. “Come: Nascimonte is waiting for us.”
13
Because it was the fifth day of the fifth week of the fifth month, which was the holy day that commemorated the exodus from the ancient capital beyond the sea, there was an important obeisance to perform before Faraataa could begin the task of making contact with his agents in the outlying provinces.
It was the time of the year in Piurifayne when the rains came twice daily, once at the hour before dawn, once at twilight. It was necessary to make the Velalisier ritual in darkness but also in dryness, and so Faraataa had instructed himself to awaken at the hour of the night that is known as the Hour of the Jackal, when the sun still rests upon Alhanroel in the east.
Without disturbing those who slept near him, he made his way out of the flimsy wicker cottage that they had constructed the day before—Faraataa and his followers kept constantly on the move; it was safest that way—and slipped into the forest. The air was moist and thick, as always, but there was no scent yet of the morning rains.