Lord Prestimion Read online

  He had already lived through one usurpation; he had no tolerance in his soul for another, if that was in fact what this strange affair was intended to be.

  The Skandar boatman’s teeth were chattering with fear. “We will die, lordships, we will die, we will die—please, I beg you, let me turn the boat—!”

  Turning was beside the point now, though. The two vessels were so close that the false Lord Prestimion could easily run them down in the channel, if that were his wish. But his mood appeared to be a kindly one tonight. As the riverboat went past the great yacht on its starboard side the supposed Lord Prestimion cast his glance downward, and his eyes met those of Prestimion far below, and for a long moment the two men stared at each other in deep, intense contemplation. Then the grandly dressed Prestimion on the deck smiled to the simply garbed Prestimion in the humble riverboat far below, as a king may sometimes smile to a common man, and nodded in a grand courtly way, and the hand came forth from the surcoat clutching a small round bag of green velvet, which he flung casually outward in Prestimion’s general direction.

  Prestimion was too flabbergasted even to reach for it. But Septach Melayn of the lightning-swift reflexes leaned forward and snapped the fat bulging bag from the air just as it was about to hurtle past into the water. Then the yacht continued splendidly onward, leaving the Skandar’s little boat by itself in mid-river, wallowing in the great ship’s wake.

  For a moment there was a stunned silence aboard the riverboat, broken finally by the low droning of the Skandar’s prayer of thanks for having escaped destruction, and then by an angry shout from Prestimion. “Bythois and Sigei!” he cried, in fury and shock. “He threw money to me! He threw me a purse of money! Me! Who does he think I am?”

  “He plainly must not have any idea, my lord,” said Septach Melayn. “And as for who he thinks he is, well—”

  “Remmer take his soul!” Prestimion cried.

  “Ah, my lord, you should not invoke those great demons,” said Gialaurys worriedly. “Not even in jest, my lord.”

  Prestimion nodded indulgently. “Yes, Gialaurys, yes, I know.” Those awesome names were just noises to him, mere empty imprecations. But not so to Gialaurys.

  His sudden burst of anger began to ease. This was too baroque to be seriously threatening; but he had to know what it all signified.

  Looking toward Septach Melayn, he said, “Is it real money, at least?”

  Septach Melayn extended a hand brimming with coins. “Looks adequately real to me,” he said. “Ten-crown pieces, they are. Two or three royals’ worth, I’d say. Would you like to see?”

  “Give them to the boatman,” Prestimion said. “And tell him to take us to shore. The right bank. That’s where Simbilon Khayf would live, isn’t it? Have him put us down at whichever quay is closest to the home of Simbilon Khayf.”

  “Simbilon Khayf? You intend to visit Sim—”

  “He’s the most important man of commerce in Stee, or so I’ve been told. Anyone who possesses money on a scale that allows him to hurl bags of ten-crown pieces at strangers in riverboats would be known to Simbilon Khayf. He’d certainly be able to tell us who this proud yachtsman is.”

  “But—Prestimion, the Coronal can’t possibly impose himself on a private citizen without warning! Not even one as wealthy as Simbilon Khayf. Any sort of official visit needs great preparation. You don’t really think that you can drop in just like that, do you? ‘Hello, Simbilon Khayf, I happened to be in town, and I wanted to ask you a few questions about—’”

  “Oh, no, no,” Prestimion said. “We won’t tell him who we are. What if there’s a conspiracy of some kind, and he’s part of it? This false Prestimion here may be his cousin, for all we know, and it’ll be the last the world sees of us if we present ourselves in our true guises. No, Septach Melayn, we are so beautifully disguised today: we’ll come as modest merchants asking a loan. And tell him what has just befallen us, and see what he says.”

  “My father will be down shortly,” said the lovely young dark-haired woman who greeted them in the downstairs parlor of Simbilon Khayf’s great mansion. “Will you have some wine, gentlemen? We favor the wine of Muldemar, here. From Lord Prestimion’s own family’s cellars, so my father says.”

  Her name was Varaile. Prestimion, studying her covertly from his seat at the side of the imposing room, could not fathom how someone as coarse-featured and disagreeable-looking as Simbilon Khayf, a man who was scarcely more handsome than a Hjort, could ever have spawned a daughter so beautiful.

  And beautiful she was. Not in the mysterious, delicate way of Thismet; for Thismet had been small, almost tiny, with slender limbs and a startlingly narrow waist above the dramatic flare of her hips. Her superb features were perfectly chiseled, with dark and fiery eyes that sparkled with a lustrous mischievous gleam out of a face as pale as that of the Great Moon, and her skin was of a surpassing whiteness. This woman was much taller, as tall as Prestimion himself, and did not have that look of seeming fragility masking sinewy strength that had made Thismet’s beauty so extraordinary. There had been a radiance about Thismet that Simbilon Khayf’s daughter could not equal, nor did she move with Thismet’s coolly confident majesty.

  But these comparisons, he knew, were unfair. Thismet, after all, had been a Coronal’s daughter, reared amidst the trappings of great power. Her life at court had enfolded her in a glow of royal dignity that could only have enhanced the innate shapeliness of her striking form. And beyond all dispute this Varaile was a woman of extraordinary beauty in her own way, sleek and elegant and finely made. She seemed calm and poised within, too, a woman—a girl, really—of unusual self-assurance and grace.

  Prestimion found it surprising that he was so fascinated by her.

  He was still in mourning for his lost love. He had been granted only those few weeks of surpassing passion with Thismet on the eve of the deciding battle of the civil war—Thismet who had been his most potent enemy, until her abandonment of her foolish feckless brother and her journey to Prestimion’s side—and then she had been taken from him just as their life together was beginning to unfold. One did not recover quickly from such a loss. Prestimion thought, at times, that he never would. Since Thismet’s death he had scarcely looked at another woman, had put completely out of his mind any thought of involving himself with one, even in the most superficial way.

  Yet here he was taking wine from this Varaile’s hand—the good rich wine of his own family’s vineyards, yes, though she had no way of knowing that—and looking upward at her, and meeting her eyes with his; and what was that if not a little shiver of response traveling down his back, and a minute tremor of speculation, even of desire—?

  “Do you plan to be in Stee for very long?” she asked. Her voice was deep for a woman’s, rich, resonant, musical.

  “A day or two, no more. We have business in Hoikmar also to pursue, and after that, I think, in Minimool, or perhaps it’s Minimool first and Hoikmar afterward. And then we return to our homes in Gimkandale.”

  “Ah, you three are men of Gimkandale, then?”

  “I am, yes. And Simrok Morlin here. Our partner Gheveldin”—Prestimion looked toward Gialaurys—“is from Piliplok, originally.” There was no concealing Gialaurys’s broad accent, which marked him at once as a man of eastern Zimroel; best not to pretend otherwise where pretense was needless, Prestimion thought.

  “Piliplok!” Varaile cried. A glint of yearning came into her eyes. “I’ve heard so much of that place, where all the streets run so straight! Piliplok, and of course Ni-moya, and Pidruid and Narabal—like names out of some legend, they are to me. Will I ever visit them, I wonder? Zimroel’s so very far away.”

  “Yes, the world is large, lady,” said Septach Melayn piously, giving her the solemn stare of one who utters profundities. “But travel is a wonderful thing. I myself have been as far as Alaisor in the west, and Bandar Delem in the north; and one day I too will set sail for Zimroel.” And then, with a salacious little smirk: “Have you bee
n to Gimkandale, Lady? It would be my great pleasure to show you my city, should you ever care to visit it.”

  “How splendid that would be, Simrok Morlin!” she said.

  Before he could halt himself Prestimion shot Septach Melayn an astounded glance. What did the man think he was up to? Offering her a tour of Gimkandale, was he? And with such a flirtatious leer? It was a risky tactic. They were in this house as supplicants, not as suitors. Since when was Septach Melayn so flirtatious with women, besides, even one as handsome as this?—And, Prestimion wondered in some astonishment, could that be a trace of jealousy that I feel?

  Simbilon Khayf’s daughter poured more wine for them. She dispensed the costly stuff with a very free hand, Prestimion observed. But of course this was a house of great wealth. From the moment of their entrance into it they had seen trappings and furnishings that were worthy of the Castle itself: doors of dark thuzna-wood inlaid with filigree of gold, and a hall of royal opulence where a jetting plume of perfumed water spumed ceiling-high from a twelve-sided fountain of crimson tiles edged with turquoise, and this parlor here, furnished with costly carpets of tight-knit Makroposopos weave and thickly brocaded cushions. And this was only the first floor of four or five. It looked as though it had all been put together in the last three years; but whoever had done the job for Simbilon Khayf, he had done it very, very well.

  “Ah, here’s my father now,” Varaile said.

  She clapped her hands and instantly a liveried servant entered by a door to the left, carrying a chair so elaborately inlaid with jewels and rare metals that it seemed very much like a throne; and at the same moment, through a door at the opposite side of the parlor, Simbilon Khayf entered briskly, offered curt nods to his unexpected guests, and took the noble seat that had been provided for him. He was uglier even than Prestimion remembered from the one quick glimpse of him he had had during Coronation week: a hard-faced little man with a big nose and thin cruel lips, whose most conspicuous feature was a great excessive mound of silvery hair that he wore absurdly piled up atop his head. He was dressed with pretentious formality, a maroon waistcoat shot through with glittering metallic strands over close-fitting blue breeches trimmed with red satin braid.

  “Well,” he said, rubbing his hands together in what was perhaps the involuntary gesture of a hungry tradesman scenting a deal, “so there’s been some confusion about an appointment, is there? Because, I tell you plainly, I can recall nothing whatsoever about having agreed to see three merchants of Gimkandale this evening at my home. But I didn’t get where I was by turning away honest business out of false pride, eh? I am at your service, gentlemen.—My daughter has been treating you well, I hope?”

  “Magnificently, sir,” said Prestimion. He raised his glass. “This wine—the best I’ve ever tasted!”

  “Of the Coronal’s own cellars,” replied Simbilon Khayf. “The finest Muldemar, it is. We drink nothing else.”

  “How enviable,” said Prestimion gravely. “I am named Polivand, sir; my partner to the left is Simrok Morlin, and over here, sir, is Gheveldin, who comes originally from Piliplok.”

  He paused. This was a tense moment. Simbilon Khayf had attended the coronation banquet; since he had been in the company of Count Fisiolo that day, he must have been seated reasonably close to the high dais. Could the thought be dawning in him that the three merchants before him in his parlor were in fact the Coronal Lord Prestimion, the High Counsellor Septach Melayn, and the Grand Admiral Gialaurys, all of them tricked out in ridiculous disguise? And, if he had seen through their false whiskers, was he even now on the verge of blurting out some stupid question about their reasons for this remarkable attempt at deception? Or would he hold back to see what hand the Coronal might be playing?

  He gave no clue. He looked complacent and even a bit bored, as a man of his stature in the world of business might well be when finding himself in the uninvited and unanticipated presence of such a trio of nobodies. Either he was a superb actor—which was altogether conceivable, considering his astounding ascent to immense wealth in just a few years—or he did in fact believe that his visitors were what they claimed to be and nothing more, earnest businessmen of Gimkandale with a proposition to set before him, and that they did indeed have an appointment with him that he somehow had forgotten.

  Prestimion proceeded smoothly onward. “Shall I tell you why we’re here, good Simbilon Khayf? It is that we have developed a machine for keeping business accounts and other financial records, a machine far more efficient and swift than any now available.”

  “Indeed,” said Simbilon Khayf, without much display of interest. He rested his hands on his belly and steepled his fingers. His eyes, which were icy and unpleasant, showed the beginnings of a glare. Evidently he had come to an instant appraisal of the prospects that these visitors offered, and found not much here to interest him.

  “There’ll be immense demand for it once it’s on the market,” Prestimion continued fervently, with a show of eager need. “Such immense demand that great quantities of borrowed capital will be required to finance the expansion of our factory. And therefore—”

  “Yes. I see the rest. You have brought with you, of course, a working model of your device?”

  “We had one, yes,” said Prestimion, sounding stricken. “But there was an unfortunate accident on the river—”

  Septach Melayn took up the tale. “The boat which we hired to take us from Vildivar Quay to a landing nearer to your house came perilous close to overturning, sir, in a collision that we almost had with a great ship of the river that charged right down upon us, giving us no room, no room whatever,” he said, with such hayseed earnestness that it was all Prestimion could do to keep from bursting into laughter. “We might have drowned, sir! We clung hard to our seats, sir, and managed to stay inside the boat and save ourselves; but two pieces of our luggage went over the side. Including, sir, I am most regretful to tell you, the one—”

  “That contained the model of your device. I see,” said Simbilon Khayf drily. “What an unfortunate loss.” There was little sympathy in his tone. But then he chuckled. “You must have had an encounter with our mad Coronal, is what it sounds like to me. A great garish ludicrous-looking yacht, with lights all over it, was it, that tried to run you down in the middle of the river?”

  “Yes!” cried Prestimion and Gialaurys, both at once. “Yes, that’s it exactly, sir!”

  “True enough,” added Septach Melayn. “It come a foot or two closer to us and we’d have been smashed to smithereens. To utter absolute smithereens, sir!”

  “The Coronal is mad, is that what you said?” Prestimion asked, evincing an expression of the keenest curiosity. “I fail to take your meaning, I think. The Coronal Lord, surely, is atop Castle Mount at this moment, and we have no reason to believe his mind’s in any way impaired, do we? For that would be a terrible thing, if the new Coronal should be—”

  “You must realize that my father’s not speaking of Lord Prestimion, now,” Varaile put in smoothly. “As you say, there’s every reason to believe that Lord Prestimion’s as sane as you or I. No, this is a local madman he means, a young kinsman of our Count Fisiolo, whose reason has entirely fled from him in recent weeks. There’s much insanity loose in Stee these days. We had a dreadful event ourselves a month or two ago, a housemaid losing her mind and leaping from a window, killing two people who happened to be passing by below—”

  “How awful,” said Septach Melayn, with an exaggerated gesture of shock.

  “This kinsman of the Count,” Prestimion said. “He’s deluded, then? And it’s his particular delusion that he’s our new Coronal?”

  “That it is,” Varaile replied. “And therefore can do as he pleases, just as though he owns the world.”

  “He should be locked in some deep dungeon, no matter whose kinsman he might be,” Gialaurys said emphatically. “Such a man should not be loose on the river to the endangerment of innocent travelers!”

  “Ah, I quite agree,” said Si
mbilon Khayf. “There’s been a great disruption of commerce lately, as he rampages up and down with that gaudy ship of his. But Count Fisiolo—who is, I should tell you, a dear friend of mine—is a merciful man. Our lunatic is his wife’s brother’s son, Garstin Karsp by name, whose father Thivvid died suddenly not long ago in the full flower of health. His father’s unexpected death quite knocked young Garstin from his moorings; and when the word came forth that the old Pontifex had also died and that Prestimion would be Coronal after Lord Confalume went to the Labyrinth, Garstin Karsp let it be known that Prestimion was not in fact a man of Muldemar, as was commonly given out, but actually one of Stee. And that indeed he himself was Prestimion, who as Coronal would make his capital here in Stee, as Lord Stiamot did in the ancient days.”

  “And is that claim generally accepted here?” Septach Melayn asked.

  Simbilon Khayf shrugged. “Perhaps by some very simple folk, I suppose. Most of the citizenry understand that this is only Thivvid Karsp’s son, who has gone insane with grief.”

  “The poor man,” said Septach Melayn, and made a holy sign.

  “Ah, not so poor, not so poor! I am banker to the family, and it is no great breach of confidence when I tell you that the vaults of the Karsps overflow with hundred-royal coins the way the skies overflow with stars. He spent a small fortune on that ship of his, did Garstin Karsp. And hired a huge crew to sail it nightly up and down our river for him while he terrifies the riverboat men. Some nights he tosses rich purses full of coins to the boats he passes, and other nights he ploughs right through them as though they aren’t visible. No one knows what his mood will be from one night to the next, so everyone flees when his craft approaches.”

  “And yet the Count spares him,” Prestimion said.

  “Out of pity, for the young man has suffered so from the loss of his father.”

  “And the boatmen whose livelihood he wrecks? What about their sufferings?”