Robert Silverberg - Sorcerers of Majipoor

He drew himself up as tall as he could. “Not of a size with your brother, say, or Navigorn, or Mandrykarn. But I am no dwarf either, lady. We would look well together, you and I. I remind you that you are not greatly large yourself. You come barely shoulder-high to me, I would say.”

“Do you think I’m speaking of height?” she said. “Well, then, an idiot as well.” She shook her hand in the air at him. “Go. I beg you, go. Quickly, now. I tell you: go. Before you make me say something truly cruel.”

Korsibar was in his private study, an hour later when the Lady Thismet came to him. It was the first meeting she had had alone with him in a very long while, not since she had shared with him the horoscope that Thalnap Zelifor had prepared for her. They had not spoken of that matter since. Plainly he was not going to yield to her request without a battle, and with Prestimion loose in the land and speaking of rebellion, she hesitated to tax him again with the matter just now. But it had not left her mind.

As she entered, he seemed uncertain and ill at ease, as though he feared she had come here to begin some new discussion of her having a throne of her own. Thismet suspected he would have preferred to forbid her his presence entirely, but did not care to impose so substantial a prohibition on his own sister. And in any case it was trouble of a different sort that she planned to make for him today.

He had some maps beside him, and a stack of official reports.

“News from the battlefield?” she asked. “Details of the great victory?”

“You’ve heard, then?”

“Count Farquanor was kind enough to bring me some word of it just now.”

“We’ll have Prestimion back here in chains by Seaday next, is my guess. And then a course of instruction in proper behavior will begin for him that he’ll hew to for the rest of his life.”

He returned to his scrutiny of his charts. She said, after watching him for a moment with displeasure, “Attend to me, Korsibar.”

“What is it, sister?” Without looking up. “I hope you haven’t chosen this moment to renew your demand for—”

“No, nothing to do with that. I want you to dismiss Farquanor and banish him from the Castle.”

Now he did look up indeed, and stared at her in complete astonishment.

“You are ever full of surprises, sister. You want me to dismiss—”

“Farquanor. Yes. That’s what I said, to dismiss him. He’s not deserving of any place in this court.”

Korsibar seemed to grope for words a moment.

“Not deserving of a place?” he said finally. “On the contrary, Thismet. Farquanor’s not a lovable man, but very useful, and I mean to use him. Oljebbin’s finally agreed to step down at the turn of the year, and Farquanor will be High Counsellor. I owe him that much, and ’twill shut him up, to have the thing he’s dreamed of so long.”

“Not shut him up enough,” said Thismet. “He’s just been to see me, Korsibar. Has asked me to marry him.”

“What?” Korsibar blinked and smiled as though in nothing more than mild surprise; and then, as he weighed her words again and the impact of them sank in, the smile turned to laughter, and the laughter to great heavy racking guffaws and a slapping of his thigh until he could get himself under control once again. “Marry you?” he said at last. “Well, well, well: bold little Farquanor! Who’d have thought him capable of it?”

“The man’s a snake. I never want to see his narrow little face again. You refuse me many things, Korsibar, but don’t refuse me this one: send him from the Castle.”

“Ah, no, sister, no, no! It would not do.”

“No?” she said.

“Farquanor is very valuable to me. He’s overreached himself here perhaps: should certainly have discussed this thing with me, at least, before he went sniffing off to you. It is a bold request, I agree. A match beyond his level perhaps. But he’s a shrewd and crafty counsellor. I couldn’t do without him, especially now, with Prestimion still at large out there, perhaps planning some new rampage now that he’s slipped away from Navigorn. I need a man like Farquanor, full of spite and mischief, to lay my plans for me: can’t only have great noble-souled clods around when you’re king, don’t you see?—You could do worse, in any case, than to marry him.”

“I would sooner marry some Liiman peddling sausages on the streets.”

“Oh. Oh. The flashing Thismet eye! The bared teeth! Well, then, reject him, sister, if that’s how you feel about him. By no means would I force him on you.”

“Do you think I haven’t rejected him already? But I want you to get him forever out of my sight.”

Korsibar pressed his fingertips against his temples. “I’ve explained to you how valuable he is to me. If you like, I’ll rebuke him, yes, tell him to put the idea entirely out of his mind forever, send him to you to crawl and snivel a little by way of apologizing for his impudence. But I won’t get rid of him. And you should marry, anyway. It’s time for it, and even a little past the time perhaps. Marry Navigorn, for example. Fine and noble and decent, that one.”

“I’m not interested in marrying anyone.” Thismet altered the tone of her voice, deepening it, putting somewhat of an edge on it. “You know what I want, Korsibar.”

She saw him quail. But she pushed onward all the same. If he would not satisfy her in the one matter, she would harry him on the other.

“Give me a crown,” she said. “Make me Corona in joint reign with you.”

“That thing again?” He clamped his lips and his face grew dark with anger. “You know that that can never be.”

“A simple decree—as easily as you took the crown the day Prankipin died, you could—”

“No. Never, Thismet. Never. Never!” Korsibar gave her a long, deadly furious look, and then he sprang from his seat and paced in agitation before her. He was bubbling with rage. “By the Divine, sister, don’t plague me with this business of a crown again, or I tell you I’ll marry you to little Farquanor myself! I’ll put your hand in his and proclaim you man and wife before all the world, and if he has to strap you down to have his consummation of you, it’ll be no grief to me. This is a solemn pledge, Thismet. One more word about this lunacy of your being Coronal and you are Farquanor’s bride!”

She stared at him, horror-stricken.

He was silent a time. She saw the anger gradually subsiding in him, but his face now was stony. “Listen closely to me,” Korsibar said, more calmly now. “There is a rebellion in the land against my reign. I must destroy Prestimion, which I will do, which in fact I am well on my way to doing. When that’s done, I’ll stand unchallenged here as Coronal of Majipoor, and when I come fully into my kingship, it will be mine, and mine alone. Do you understand that, Thismet? I will not go before the world and say that I am building another throne at this Castle and that a woman will occupy it as my equal. For you to ask to be joint Coronal is as bizarre as for Farquanor to ask for you in marriage. He will not be your husband unless by your obstinacy you make me give you to him; and you will not be Coronal, not under any circumstances whatever. That is my final word on the subject. Final. And if you will excuse me now, sister, the good Sanibak-Thastimoon waits outside to see me on a matter of high importance, and I would not delay him any longer—”

In the hour of his defeat by Arkilon plain, the skies opened on Prestimion and pelted him with one of the heavy rains of autumn that were so common in these parts. So he rode long and hard under a driving deluge far into the night, accompanied by only a few dozen of his men; and he was soaked to the bone and in a sorry frame of mind indeed when he reached, finally, the forest of Moorwath by Arkilon’s western flank This was the spot he and Septach Melayn had chosen as their gathering-place should the battle at Arkilon go badly for them. In his pre-battle mood of optimism he had never truly foreseen an outcome that might cause him to be spending this night beneath the tall and fat-trunked vakumba-trees of Moorwath; but here he was, lame and wet and weary in the darkness.