Many faces were absent, of course; many people had died in the battle against the Shai. And Mariel was not at the banquet; she haunted the royal apartments upstairs like a ghost.
Narrion climbed to the dais. He wore the skeleton and mask of the Fools, and the land-ring of Etrara, but his tall lean figure was unmistakable. “My people!” he said. He seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. “By edict of your king, Narrion the Good—” Laughter came from the audience. “By edict of Narrion the Good, I say, there will be special entertainment on this day. First we will have a play, The Comedy of the Two Courtiers.”
Val tried not to smile. No one knew it, least of all Narrion, but he had written that play, and had given it to an actor to pass off as her own. Dozens of people were writing plays now; hardly a day passed without some young author following the example of their king and traveling to the library at Tobol An for inspiration. No one could remember a time when the invention of poets had flowed so freely.
They thought he went to the library to read the old stories and poems, the ancient histories, and so he did. But he also went to see Taja; her calm strength and her wisdom refreshed him in a way that his courtiers could not. On some days he thought that she might change her mind and become his queen, on others that she would stay at her library, living there like a priest in an observatory. But she had never returned any of the poems he had sent her.
The Shadow King clapped his hands, and the actors climbed to the stage. There were men players as well as women now; one of the first thing Val had done had been to rescind King Tariel’s decree forbidding men to appear on stage. He had spent a year acting in one part or another, and it had done no harm to his dignity that he could see.
The men on stage seemed uncertain, unused to performing, but the women faced the audience like the seasoned actors they were. Out of long habit Val looked for Tamra, but did not see her anywhere. One of the men, the Prologue, moved to the front of the stage and began to speak.
A few people in the audience stirred uneasily. They still remembered the play interrupted by the Maegrim a year ago. But no one came into the hall, and the play continued.
The Maegrim’s prophecy had come true that year, Val thought. Nearly everyone in the room that night had fallen from the ladder. But the grim year was over; Callabrion had ascended, thank the gods.
He forced himself to pay attention to the play. The inept courtier was about to say something funny; he hoped that people would laugh. They did. He sat back in his chair, gratified.
The play ended to strong applause. Narrion climbed to the stage again and announced that the banquet would be served.
To Val’s surprise Narrion did not return to the dais. Val watched as the Shadow King moved to the back of the hall and sat at an empty chair next to him. “My lord,” Val said, “I am a humble beggar, not at all worthy—”
Narrion took off his skeleton mask and brushed back his long black hair. The land-ring of Etrara glittered on his finger; Val wondered briefly, as he would no doubt wonder for years to come, if Narrion would return the ring at the day’s end. “I read your book,” Narrion said.
At first Val thought he meant the play, and he wondered how on earth Narrion could have known. Then he realized Narrion meant his book about the perfect courtier, the only thing he had published under his own name.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“I can’t say I know much about the subject. To be honest, I may be the worst courtier on Sbona’s earth.”
Surely Narrion hadn’t broken with tradition to talk about books. Val waited, knowing that the other man had something on his mind.
“Do you remember when I summoned up Callabrion?” Narrion asked. Val nodded. “He said he had fallen in love with the beauty of the earth. And I asked him why he had never noticed that beauty before—do you remember that?”
Val nodded again.
“The gods fall in love with earthly women, not with abstractions like beauty. I wondered then whether he might have been hiding something, but I said nothing. But as it turned out, I was right. He was in love.”
Val remembered Callabrion’s impassioned speeches in favor of love at Duchess Sbarra’s gatherings. “Riel?” he asked.
“Tamra,” Narrion said. “She’s pregnant. She says the old stories are true—when a woman carries a god’s child she knows it.”
Val could not think what to say.
“She thinks she might leave me,” Narrion said. “She says I’m too concerned with court politics, with the Society.” He looked at Val, his expression unreadable. “They don’t care about us, the gods,” he said. “I don’t say they’re evil. But I doubt they’re good, either. Don’t you see? We mean nothing to them. Sbona didn’t care if we destroyed ourselves fighting a wizards’ war. All she wanted was her son.”
“Do you truly think so? At the end of the battle for Etrara, when Callabrion ascended, I looked at you and I thought—”
“What am I to think, my lord? You made me your fool. It’s not that I don’t deserve the office—I probably deserve it twenty times over. But what do I say to Tamra? She married a courtier high in Gobro’s favor, and now that courtier is nothing but the king’s fool, a man who takes office one day a year.” He paused. “Sbona fashioned us for finding—the goddess said that the night we overthrew the Shai, the night Callabrion ascended. But did you ever think what the old proverb really means? We were created to search for Sbona’s lost children, nothing more. When she found them we had outlived our usefulness. What happens to us then is not their concern.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Val said slowly. “Sbona fashioned us for finding—I think that means she gave us the greatest gift she could. We can understand things, see to the heart of them. The poet-mages are the best at this, of course, but all of us can do it to some extent. I know that to be true from my own experience. At the end of long searching I was able to understand who I am.”
“Of course,” Narrion said bitterly. “You’re the king. But what about those whose search leads them down less fortunate paths?”
The pages came out of the kitchen and began to serve the meal. Val studied the man he had thought was his cousin. They were more than kin, he thought; Narrion was his double, his dark twin. Summer and winter, they were bound together for as long as they lived.
He had planned to tell Narrion about the gift of land he would give him, but now he decided to say nothing. It would not do for Narrion to think he could sway him in this fashion; he would find out about the gift soon enough.
“How can you ask me that, my old friend?” Val said. “You taught me that everything changes, that nothing stands still. I am sure you will not be a fool forever.”
Slowly Narrion’s expression eased, lost some of its harshness. Perhaps he had heard rumors of the gift of land, and Val’s hint had confirmed them. Or had Val finally made him understand something of the god of summer, of the balance the gods make together?
“The Maegrim are always right,” Val said. “Someone’s fortune is always about to change.”
About the Author
Lisa Goldstein has published ten novels and dozens of short stories under her own name and two fantasy novels under the pseudonym Isabel Glass. Her most recent novel is The Uncertain Places, which won the Mythopoeic Award. Goldstein received the National Book Award for The Red Magician and the Sidewise Award for her short story “Paradise Is a Walled Garden.” Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Some of her stories appear in the collection Travellers in Magic.
Goldstein has worked as a proofreader, library aide, bookseller, and reviewer. She lives with her husband and their overexuberant Labrador retriever, Bonnie, in Oakland, California. Her website is www.brazenhussies.net/goldstein.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the expr
ess written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1994 by Lisa Goldstein
Cover design by Mauricio Diaz
Map by Michaela Roessner and Ellisa Mitchell
ISBN: 978-1-4976-7363-2
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Summer King, Winter Fool Page 28
