Robert Silverberg: Lord Valentine's Castle

"All sold! All sold! And at a premium price!" He held out a wad of chits that a scribe had given him. "Come with me to the treasury, and then it’s nothing left but play for us! How late did you sleep?"

"Late, I suppose. The inn was almost empty."

"I didn’t have the heart to wake you. You were snoring like a blave. What have you been doing?"

"Exploring the waterfront, mainly. I stumbled into the marketplace while trying to get back to the inn. It was by luck I came upon you."

"Ten minutes more and you’d have missed me forever,"’ said Shanamir. "Here. This place." He tugged at Valentine’s wrist and pulled him into a long, brightly lit arcade where clerks behind wickers were changing chits into coins. "Give; me the fifty," Shanamir murmured. "I can have it broken for you here."

Valentine produced the thick gleaming coin and stood aside while the boy joined a line. Minutes later Shanamii returned. "These are yours," he said, dumping into Valentine’s outstretched purse a shower of money, some five-royal pieces and a jingle of crowns. "And these are mine," the boy said, grinning wickedly and holding up three big fifty-royal pieces of the kind he had just changed for Valentine. He popped them into a moneyband under his jerkin. "A profitable trip, it was. At festival time everyone’s in a fever to spend his money fast. Come, now. Back to the inn, and let’s celebrate with a flask of fireshower wine, eh? The treat’s mine!"

The inn, it turned out, was no more than fifteen minutes from the market on a street that suddenly looked familiar as they entered it. Valentine suspected that he had come within a block or two of it in his fruitless quest. No matter: he was here, and with Shanamir. The boy, relieved at being rid of his animals and excited over the price he had had for them, chattered on and on about what he would do in Pidruid before he returned to his countryside home — the dancing, the games, the drinking, the shows.

As they sat in the tavern of the inn at work on Shanamir’s wine, Sleet and Carabella appeared. "May we join you?" Sleet asked.

Valentine said to Shanamir, "These are jugglers, members of a Skandar troupe here to play in the parade. I met them this morning." He made introductions. They took seats and Shanamir offered them drinks.

"Have you been to market?" said Sleet.

"Been and done," Shanamir said. "A good price."

"And now?" Carabella asked.

"The festival for a few days," said the boy. "And home to Falkynkip, I suppose." He looked a little crestfallen at the thought.

"And you?" Carabella said, glancing at Valentine. "Do you have plans?"

"To see the festival."

"And then?"

"Whatever seems right."

They were finished with the wine. Sleet gestured sharply and a second flask appeared. It was poured around generously. Valentine felt his tongue tingling with the heat of the liquor, and his head becoming a little light.

Carabella said, "Would you think to be a juggler, and join our troupe, then?"

It startled Valentine. "I have no skill!"

"You have skill aplenty," said Sleet. "What you lack is training. That we could supply, Carabella and I. You would learn the trade quickly. I take an oath on it."

"And I would travel with you, and live the life of a wandering player, and go from town to town, is that it?"

"Exactly." Valentine looked across at Shanamir. The boy’s eyes were shining at the prospect. Valentine could almost feel the pressure of his excitement, his envy.

"But what is all this about?" Valentine demanded. "Why invite a stranger, a novice, an ignoramus like me, to become one of your number?"

Carabella signaled to Sleet, who quickly left the table. She said, "Zalzan Kavol will explain. It is a necessity, not a caprice. We are shorthanded, Valentine, and we have need of you." She added, "Besides, have you anything other to do? You seem adrift in this city. We offer you companionship as well as a livelihood."

A moment and Sleet returned with the giant Skandar. Zalzan Kavol was an awesome figure, massive, towering. He lowered himself with difficulty into a seat at their table: it creaked alarmingly beneath his bulk. Skandars came from some windswept, icy world far away, and though they had been settled on Majipoor for thousands of years, working in rough trades needing great strength or unusual quickness of eye, they had a way of eternally looking angry and uncomfortable in Majipoor’s warm climate. Perhaps it was only a matter of their natural facial features, Valentine thought, but he found Zalzan Kavol and others of his kind an offputtingly bleak tribe.

The Skandar poured himself a stiff drink with his two inner arms and spread the outer pair wide across the table as though he were taking possession of it. In a harsh rumbling voice he said, "I watched you do the knives with Sleet and Carabella this morning. You can serve the purpose."

"Which is?"

"I need a third human juggler, and in a hurry. You know what the new Coronal has lately decreed concerning public entertainers?"

Valentine smiled and shrugged.

Zalzan Kavol said, "It is foolishness and stupidity, but the Coronal is young and I suppose must let fly some wild shafts. It has been decreed that in all troupes of performers made up of more than three individuals, one third of the troupe must be Majipoori citizens of human birth, this to be effective as of this month."

"A decree like that," said Carabella, "can accomplish nothing but to set race against race, on a world where many races have lived in peace for thousands of years."

Zalzan Kavol scowled. "Nevertheless the decree exists. Some jackal in the Castle must have told this Lord Valentine that the other races are growing too numerous, that the humans of Majipoor are going hungry when we work. Foolishness, and dangerous. Ordinarily no one would pay attention to such a decree, but this is the festival of the Coronal, and if we are to be licensed to perform we must obey the rules, however idiotic. My brothers and I have earned our keep as jugglers for years, and done no harm to any human by it, but now we must comply. So I have found Sleet and Carabella in Pidruid, and we are working them into our routines. Today is Twoday. Four days hence we perform in the Coronal’s parade, and I must have a third human. Will you apprentice yourself to us, Valentine?"

"How could I learn juggling in four days?"

"You will be merely an apprentice," said the Skandar. "We will find something of a juggling nature for you to do in the grand parade that will disgrace neither yourself nor us. The law does not, as I see it, require all members of the troupe to have equal responsibilities or skills. But three of us must be human."

"And after the festival?"

"Come with us from town to town."

"You know nothing about me, and you invite me to share your lives?"

"I know nothing about you and I want to know nothing about you. I need a juggler of your race. I’ll pay your room and board wherever we go, and ten crowns a week besides. Yes?"

Carabella’s eyes had an odd glint, as though she were telling him, You can ask twice that wage and get it, Valentine. But the money was unimportant. He would have enough to eat and a place to sleep, and he would be with Carabella and Sleet, who were two of the three human beings he knew in this city, and, he realized with some confusion, in all the world. For there was a vacancy in him where a past should be; he had hazy notions of parents, and cousins and sisters, and a childhood somewhere in eastern Zimroel, and schooling and travels, but none of it seemed real to him, nothing had density and texture and substance. And there was a vacancy in him where a future should be, too. These I jugglers promised to fill it. But yet—

"One condition," Valentine said.