Robert Silverberg - The King of Dreams

After a long moment the contact between Majipoor’s Coronal and the Lord of Zimroel’s privy counsellor broke, and it was Mandralisca who was the first to look away, in order to make some remark to his table-companions. There were three of those: a round-faced common-looking man of middle years or a little more, a handsome, open-faced lad with golden-white hair who could not have been more than eighteen or nineteen, and a small, swarthy-skinned, squinch-eyed fellow who beyond any question had to be Dinitak’s despised helmet-making uncle, Khaymak Barjazid of Suvrael.

Servitors brought wine around, and filled all their bowls. Dekkeret wondered idly whether Dantirya Sambail’s old custom of taking a poison-taster with him wherever he went might not have been appropriate here. Though it seemed absurd, he put his hand over Fulkari’s when she reached in an automatic way for her wine-bowl, and held her back.

She gave him a questioning look.

“We must wait for the toast,” he whispered, not knowing what else to say.

“Oh. Of course,” she said, looking a little abashed.

The Lord Gaviral was on his feet, now, wine-bowl in his hand. The hall grew silent. “To amity,” he said. “To harmony. To concord. To the eternal friendship of the continents.”

He looked toward Dekkeret and drank. Dekkeret, realizing now that his wine had been poured from the same flask as Gaviral’s, rose and returned the toast with equally empty generalities, and drank also. It was superb wine. Whatever else would happen here at Mereminene Hall, they were not going to be poisoned this evening, he decided.

All around the room, the Sambailid folk were on their feet—all of them men, Dekkeret noted—holding high their bowls and calling out, “To amity! To harmony! To concord!” Even Mandralisca had joined the toast, although what he held in his hand was a water-glass, not a winebowl.

“Your privy counsellor doesn’t care for wine, eh?” Dekkeret said to Gaviral.

“Abhors it, in fact. Will not touch the stuff. Had to drink too much of it, I suppose, when he was taster to my uncle the Procurator.”

“I take your point. If I thought there might be poison in every winebowl that was handed me, I might lose my taste for drink myself, after a year or two,” said Dekkeret, and laughed, and took another sip of his own.

It still seemed very odd to him that Mandralisca had not come up to be introduced. The merest provincial mayor was ever eager to force his name and pedigree on a visiting Coronal; and here was a man who held the rank of privy counsellor to someone who gave himself the title of lord, and claimed authority over all of Zimroel, and he chose instead to nest among his own companions at a far table. But that was Mandralisca’s style, apparently: to lurk in the background and allow someone else the visible glory. That was how he had operated in Dantira Sambail’s time, and that seemed to be how he operated now.

Dekkeret did remark again on Mandralisca’s evident shyness to Gaviral at one point in the evening, saying that it was strange that he was not at the high table.

“He is a man of very humble birth, you know,” Gaviral said piously. “He feels it is not his place to be up here with those of us whose ancestry is so splendid. But you will meet him tomorrow, my lord, when we all gather in the meadow to explore the details of the treaty we wish to propose.”

It was midday, bright and warm, when the summons came to gather in the meadow for the conference that had brought the Coronal to this place. When Dekkeret reached the site, a broad grassy plain far from the main houses that was bordered on three sides by a dark, dense forest and on the fourth by a pleasant stream, he saw that a meeting-table made of broad planks of polished black wood, mounted on a foundation of thick yellowish beams that tapered to a point, had been erected parallel to the stream. A neat array of paper and parchment was set out on it, weighed down by crystal globes to keep them from blowing away in the gentle breeze, and also inkpots, milufta-feather pens, and various other writing gear. Dekkeret saw also an assortment of wine-flasks, wine of half a dozen different colors, and a row of bowls waiting to be filled. Once the treaty had been presented and—as Gaviral so plainly hoped—agreed upon, the signatory parties would no doubt be expected to celebrate the event right here upon the spot.

The Lord Gaviral, resplendent in a metallic jerkin that seemed almost like a suit of armor and richly tooled scarlet leggings piped with golden thread, was already at the site, standing beside the table. His brothers Gavahaud and Gavilomarin, splendidly dressed also, flanked him.

As for Mandralisca, he stood just at his master’s elbow, clad now not in last night’s skin-tight black leathers but in a far gaudier costume: a knee-length red-and-green jacket with a wide, flat collar decked with white steetmoy fur and hanging sleeves that were slashed to allow his arms to come through, over dark gray hose of the finest weave, and a broad meshwork belt at his waist supporting a fancy tasseled pouch. It was the sort of dandyish costume that Septach Melayn might have chosen, though the sight of Mandralisca’s pale, hard, sinister face rising above that flaring collar muted the outfit’s flamboyance more than somewhat. Mandralisca’s own threesome of companions, the pudgy little bandy-legged aide-de-camp and the tall fair-haired youth and the scrawny, evil-looking Barjazid, were only a short distance behind him.

Dekkeret had worn his green-and-gold robes of state to the meeting, and the slender golden circlet that he often used in the place of the star-burst crown. Gialaurys, beside him, was in full armor, but without a helm. Septach Melayn was content with a doublet and bright leggings. The spiral Labyrinth symbol on his breast was his only ornament. Dinitak wore his usual simple tunic, and Fulkari had chosen simple garb also. A row of Dekkeret’s hand-picked guardsmen stood some distance to the rear. Gaviral had an honor guard behind him as well, at the same distance.

“An auspicious day, my lord!” cried Gaviral, as Dekkeret approached. “A day when harmony is to be attained!”

His voice was cheery, but sounded forced and strained; and there was a generally edgy look about him, a fidgeting of his lips, a flickering instability of his gaze. Well, thought Dekkeret, he has a great deal at stake here: he has brought the Coronal Lord far into this unfamiliar territory to demand unheard-of concessions from him, and the Coronal has given every indication that he will listen to the Sambailid demands seriously and perhaps even to accede to them, but he has no certain assurance of what the Coronal actually has in mind. Nor do I of him, Dekkeret thought. We are both playing here with closely guarded hands.

“Harmony, yes. Let us hope that that is what we fashion here today,” said Dekkeret, giving Gaviral the warmest of smiles.

As he spoke he allowed his eyes to rest steadily on Gaviral’s, which were bloodshot and uneasy; but the Sambailid looked quickly away, and busied himself fussing among the papers and writing apparatus laid out on the table, as though he were some sort of amanuensis rather than the self-styled Pontifex of Zimroel. Dekkeret’s gaze moved onward toward Mandralisca, who offered an altogether different response, a cold, unwavering stare, full of menace and loathing, which Dekkeret admired for its unconcealed sincerity if for nothing else.

“Shall we drink to a successful conclusion to our talks, lordship, before we get to the work of setting forth our proposals and hearing your response?” Gaviral said.

“I see no reason why not,” replied Dekkeret, and the wine-bowls were filled. Once again—he could not help himself—Dekkeret kept surreptitious watch to see whether his bowl and Gaviral’s were filled from the same flask, which once again they were. Indeed, the bowls were being filled so indiscriminately up and down the table that there was no way that poison could be involved, not unless Gaviral cared to take some of his own men down with the visitors.