Robert Silverberg - Sorcerers of Majipoor

And then, of course, questions of politics aside, there was Thismet herself to weigh into the bargain. That fiery, passionate woman whom he had watched hungrily from a distance for so long: coming to him at last, here, now. Offering herself to him. He had lived like a monk long enough. This was not something lightly to be refused.

“Prestimion? Is that you, all muffled up in that cloak?”

Septach Melayn, it was, coming up behind him. “Yes,” he said. “You’ve spied me out.”

“Svor has told me about Thismet.”

“Yes.”

“She’s the most beautiful woman in the world, I suppose. I do congratulate you. But trouble follows her wherever she goes.”

“I know that, Septach Melayn.”

“Do we want that trouble following us right into the midst of our army, Prestimion? Here on the eve of battle, practically?”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“Gialaurys and I have just been speaking of this and—”

“Well, speak no more. She’s bathing in my tent, and when she’s ready to be visited, I intend to go to her there, and let such trouble follow me as it will. But speak no more.” Prestimion laid his hand on Septach Melayn’s arm, just by the wrist. Gently he said, smiling all the while, but there was more than a little force in his tone also, “Listen to me, old friend. I don’t instruct you in how to use your sword. Pray don’t instruct me in the use of mine.”

And then at last they stood face-to-face, alone in his tent. Thismet had bathed, and had changed into a simple sheer white gown, with nothing beneath. He could see the dark points of her nipples rising against its thin fabric, and the deeper darkness at her loins. Yet without her jewelry and cosmetic adornments, there was a strange purity about her now: an odd word to use in connection with Thismet, purity, but there it was. The bravado she had displayed an hour before, inviting him to search her for concealed weapons and all of that, seemed entirely gone. To Prestimion she appeared tense, uncertain, almost frightened. He had never seen her like that before, not ever. But he understood. He felt somewhat like that himself. The possibility suddenly took wing in him that there might be something more to their coming together than blunt conspiratorial power-hunger, and something more to it too than mere physical gratification. Perhaps. Perhaps.

She said, “I was the one put Korsibar up to taking the crown. Did you know that, Prestimion? I stood behind him and pushed. He would never have done it, but for me.”

“Dantirya Sambail said something of the sort to me about that,” he said. “It makes no difference. This is not the moment to speak of it.”

“It was a great mistake. I know that now. He was not a fitting man to be king.”

“This isn’t the moment to speak of such matters,” Prestimion said again. “Leave them for the historians to discuss, Thismet.” He took a step toward her, arms outstretched. Coolly, she waved him away, telling him with a quick gesture to remain where he was. And then, with a smile that was like the sun emerging after a storm, she slipped the sheer white gown from her body and stood bare before him.

She seemed so small: scarcely breast-high to him, with slender limbs, and a waist that emphasized the fragility of her body by the sharpness of its inward curve above the flaring hips. And yet even so, her body looked taut and trim and strong, an athlete’s body, wide shoulders like her brother’s, lean sinewy muscles, elegant graceful proportions. But for all that, she was utterly feminine. Her breasts were small, but full and round and high, with little hard nipples, virginal-looking ones. Her skin was dusky. Her hair below had the same glossy glint as above, a dense, curling black thatch.

She was perfect. He had never imagined such beauty.

“So many years we were strangers to each other,” she murmured. “‘Good morning, Lady Thismet,’ you would say, and I, ‘Hello, Prince Prestimion,’ and that was all. All those years at the Castle, nothing more than that. What a waste! What a sad and foolish waste of our youth!”

“We’re still young, Thismet. There’s plenty of time to make new beginnings now.” Once more he stepped close to her, and this time she made no retreat. His hands ran across the satin smoothness of her skin. She pressed her lips tight to his and he felt the fiery dart of her tongue, and her fingers raking his back.

“Prestimion—Prestimion—”

“Yes.”

Two more weeks passed in the camp at Gloyn. Then came word from the scouts Prestimion maintained all across the land that Lord Korsibar had come down out of the Mount with an enormous army and begun marching westward. The hierax-riding sons of Gornath Gehayn went aloft on the backs of their giant birds and confirmed it. a great troop of warriors, coming this way.

A pair of messages reached Prestimion’s camp not long afterward, written on the crisp parchment paper used by Coronals and bearing the starburst seal.

One was addressed to Prestimion himself, and warned him to end his rebellion once and for all and surrender himself immediately to the nearest agents of the government so that he might be put on trial for treason. The penalty for failure to surrender, Prestimion was told, was death upon capture for him and for all his high captains who claimed allegiance to him; if he alone yielded himself now, the lives of his chief officers would be spared.

The other message was for the Lady Thismet. It informed her that her august and gracious brother the Coronal Lord Korsibar forgave her for her transgression in having gone to consort with the enemy, and was herewith offering her a pledge of safe conduct across the continent if she chose to return to the Castle and resume her former life of ease and content at the court.

“Well, then,” Prestimion said lightheartedly, when he had read both these documents aloud to his officers, “our choices are clear, aren’t they? I’ll leave for the eastern provinces at once, and go before Korsibar wherever I find him and throw myself upon his mercy. And I’ll take his sister with me and deliver her up safely to him, notifying him with solemn oaths that I return her in the same condition in which she came to me.”

There was laughter from all sides of the campfire, and the loudest of all came from Thismet.

The wine, no fine Muldemar stuff now but only the good rough blue-gray wine of nearby Chistiok Province that came in long flasks made of klimbergeyst-leather, was passed around the cirde once again, and they all sat quietly for a while, drinking. Then Gialaurys said, “Do you intend to wait here for Korsibar to come here to us, Prestimion, or do you think it’s better to carry the war to him wherever we find him?”

“To him,” said Prestimion unhesitatingly. “This flat country is no place to fight a great battle. We’d all go running foolishly hither and yon.”

“And it would disturb the animals of these pleasant plains,” said Septach Melayn. “They’ve had enough trouble on our account already. Prestimion’s right: we go to him.” Prestimion looked about the group.

“Is there opposition? I hear none. Very well: we break camp at dawn tomorrow.”

That was a massive task, for it was a mighty army now that had come together in the peaceful Vale of Gloyn. It took more than a single day to strike the tents and load the floaters and wagons and assemble the pack-animals and get the great eastward journey underway.

But a far mightier army, by all reports of Prestimion’s agents in the field, was heading toward them. Not only had Korsibar mobilized the general army of the provinces surrounding the Mount, but also he had at his service the armies brought from Zimroel by Dantirya Sambail under the command of his brothers Gaviad and Gaviundar, and, furthermore, the private forces controlled by the lords Oljebbin, Gonivaul, and Serithorn.