by Jack Vance
“And what do you make of Faroli?”
“It is a splendid manse of silver and glass and precious black wood. Silver poles support the roof, which is like the roof of an enormous many-sided tent, but for its sheathing of green silver tiles. The gate was guarded by a pair of gray lions, double the size of the ordinary beast, with fur as glossy as fine silk. They rose up on their hind legs and called out: ‘Halt, as you value your life!’ I named myself the emissary of King Casmir, and they let me pass without emotion.”
“And Tamurello himself? I am told that he never seems the same man twice.”
“As to that, sir, I cannot say. He appeared to be tall, very thin and very pale, with black hair in a tall crest over his scalp. His eyes glowed like carbuncles and his robe was embroidered in silver signs. I gave him your message, which he read at once. Then he said: ‘Await me here. Do not move by so much as a pace or the lions will tear you to bits.’
“I waited, as still as stone, while the lions sat watching. Presently Tamurello returned. He gave me that packet which I have just presented to your Majesty, and quelled his lions so that I could take my departure. I returned to Haidion at best speed, and there is no more to be told.”
“Well done, Shalles.” King Casmir looked toward the parcel as if he might now open it, but once again turned back to Shalles.
“And now you will wish to be rewarded for your services.”
Shalles bowed. “As your Majesty so pleases.”
“And what might be your desires?”
“Most of all, sir, I wish a small estate near the town Poinxter in Gray wold County, where my family resides and where I was born.”
King Casmir compressed his lips. “A bucolic life makes one sluggish and reluctant of foot when he goes out on the king’s service. He thinks more of his hives and his calving and the set of his grapes than of the royal necessities.”
“In truth, your Majesty, I have reached that time in life when I am no longer apt for midnight skulking and sinister plots. My brain has grown heavy along with my belly; it is time that I settled to a life where my great adventure of the day is a fox in the chicken-run. In short, your Majesty, pray excuse me from further service. These last months have brought me dreads in the dark and nimble escapes enough for a lifetime.”
“Do you have an estate in mind?”
“I have not taken time to search the area, sir.”
“And what quality estate do you consider your effort of this short period has earned?”
“If I were paid for time alone, three gold crowns would suffice. If you ask the value I put on my life, I would not sell for ten caravans laden with emeralds, not even if six shiploads of gold were added for an inducement. So I would wish to be paid with some regard for the risks I took with my costly life, for priceless plots and inspired slander, for windy nights on the moors while honest men slept snug in their beds. Your Majesty, I submit without question to your generosity. I may say that I would rejoice at a gentleman’s house beside a good stream, with ten acres of woodland and three or four farms out at leasehold.”
King Casmir smiled. “Shalles, if you have used as much fluency in my service as you have in your own, your requests are mild and fair, and so I must judge them.” He wrote upon a parchment, performed a flourishing signature and handed the document to Shalles. “Here is the royal patent upon an unnamed property. Go to Poinxter, discover a suitable premise of the style you stipulate, and present this patent to the county reeve. Do not thank me. You may go.”
Shalles bowed low and departed.
King Casmir stood brooding into the fire. The parcel from Tamurello rested on the table. King Casmir summoned his a aide of all purposes Oldebor.
“Sir, your wishes?”
“You will recall Shalles.”
“Distinctly, sir.”
“He has returned from a brief stint in South Ulfland with exaggerated expectations and perhaps a too intimate knowledge of my affairs. Does your experience suggest a manner of dealing with Shalles?”
“Yes, sir.”
“See to it. He is on his way to Poinxter in County Gray wold. He carries a document signed by me which I would wish returned.” King Casmir turned back to the fire and Oldebor departed the sitting room. King Casmir at last opened the parcel to discover a stuffed blackbird mounted on a stand. A sheet of parchment, folded and tucked between the bird’s legs, read:
To hold converse with. Tamurelo, pluck a feather from the belly of the Bird and place in the flame of a candle.
Casmir examined the stuffed bird, taking critical note of drooping wings, molting feathers and a half-open beak.
The look of the bird might or might not convey an overtone of sardonic meaning. Dignity, however, prompted Casmir to ignore all but the explicit purport of bird and message. He departed the chamber, descended curving stone steps, passed through an arched portal into the Long Gallery. He walked with a ponderous tread, looking neither right nor left, and footmen at their posts along the gallery jerked quickly erect, aware that the apparently abstracted gaze of the round blue eyes in fact apprehended every detail.
King Casmir entered the Hall of Honours, a vast high-ceilinged chamber reserved for the most solemn of state occasions, to which King Casmir had vowed to restore the throne Evandig and the table Cairbra an Meadhan. The Hall of Honours was now furnished with his own ceremonial throne, a long central table and, around the walls, fifty-four massive chairs, representing the fifty-four noble houses of Lyonesse.
To Casmir’s annoyance, he discovered the princess Madouc playing alone among the chairs, jumping from seat to seat, balancing on the arms, squirming through the underbraces.
For a moment Casmir stood watching. A curious child, he thought, self-willed to the point of intractability. She never cried, except sometimes in small furious gasps of vexation when someone dared to thwart her. How different yet how alike were Madouc and her mother Suldrun (such was Casmir’s understanding of the case), whose dreamy docility had masked an obduracy as hard as his own.
Madouc, at last aware of Casmir’s cold stare, paused in her antics.’ She turned to watch Casmir with a gaze of mild curiosity mingled with displeasure at this unsuitable and blundering invasion of her privacy. Like Princess Suldrun before, Madouc regarded this chamber as her personal domain.
Casmir came slowly into the room, never relaxing his cold blue stare, in order that the saucy little minx might be overawed. Madouc’s gaze dropped to the stuffed bird which Casmir was carrying. While she neither giggled nor even smiled. Casmir knew that she was amused at the picture he made.
Madouc, becoming bored with both bird and Casmir, resumed her play. She jumped from the arm of one chair to the arm of the next, then glanced around to see if Casmir were still in the room.
Casmir halted by the table. He spoke in an even voice, which, echoing against the stone walls, seemed to become grating and harsh. “Princess, what do you do here?”
Madouc supplied Casmir with the information he seemed to require. “I am playing on the chairs.”
“This is not the place for your game. Go and play somewhere else.”
Madouc jumped down from the chair and ran hopping and skipping from the room. Without a backward glance she was gone.
Casmir took the bird around the Great Throne of Haidion to the back wall and through the hangings into a storeroom. Here he manipulated the lock of a secret door. It swung wide and Casmir was allowed access into that chamber where he kept his magical trinkets and artifacts. The most valuable of his belongings, Persilian the Magic Mirror, had been lost some five years before, and to this day Casmir was uncertain as to how the mirror had been sequestered and who was responsible. To his knowledge, no one knew of the secret chamber save himself. He would have been dumbfounded to learn the truth: that the culprits were Princess Suldrun and her lover Aillas, then Prince of Troicinet, who had taken Persilian at the behest of Persilian himself.
Casmir glanced suspiciously around the room, to assure himself that
none of his other properties had disappeared. All seemed in order. A globe of swirling green and purple flame illuminated the chamber. An imp in a bottle glowered at him and tapped fingernails against the glass, hoping to engage his attention. On a table rested an object of astronomical significance, presented to one of Casmir’s ancestors by Queen Dido of Carthage; and as always Casmir bent to examine the instrument, which exhibited an amazing complexity. The base was a circular ebony platter, marked around the rim with signs of the zodiac. The golden ball at the center, so Casmir had been told, represented the sun. Nine silver balls of various size rolled in circular troughs around the center, but for what purpose was a secret known only to the ancients. The third ball from the center was accompanied by a smaller ball and made its circuit in exactly one year, which only perplexed Casmir the more: if the object were a chronometer designed to measure yearly intervals, then why the other balls, some of which moved almost imperceptibly? Casmir no longer speculated in regard to the object and now gave it only a cursory survey. He placed the stuffed bird on a shelf and considered it a moment. At last he turned away. Before initiating a conversation with Tamurello, he must decide carefully what he wished to discuss.
Departing the secret chamber, Casmir passed through the Hall of Honours and stepped out into the gallery. Here, as luck would have it, he encountered Queen Sollace and Father Umphred. They had been out together in the royal carriage, inspecting sites for a cathedral.
Queen Sollace told Casmir: “The optimum site is clear; we have seen it and measured it: that area just to the north of the harbour entrance!”
Father Umphred spoke in enthusiasm: “Already a sweet sanctity surrounds your remarkable spouse! I would like to see, flanking the grand front entrance, two statues worked in imperishable bronze: on one hand the noble King Casmir and on the other the saintly Queen Sollace!”
“Have I not declared the project impractical?” demanded King Casmir. “Who will pay for such nonsense?”
Father Umphred sighed and raised his gaze to the ceiling. “The Lord will provide.”
“Indeed?” asked King Casmir. “How, and in what style?”
” ‘Take no other gods before me!’ So spoke the Lord on Mount Sinai! Each new Christian may properly atone for his years of sin by dedicating his wealth and his labor to the construction of a great temple; thus will be eased his way into Paradise.”
Casmir shrugged. “If fools so want to spend their money, why should I complain?”
Queen Sollace gave a glad cry. “Then we have your permission to proceed?”
“So long as you faithfully adhere to each and every provision of royal law.”
“Ah, your Majesty, that is glorious news!” cried Father Umphred. “Still, to which provisions of the law are we susceptible? I assume that ordinary custom will here prevail?”
“I am unacquainted with these ‘ordinary customs,’” said King Casmir. “The laws are simple enough. First, under no circumstances, may moneys or other articles of value, be exported from Lyonesse to Rome.”
Father Umphred winced and blinked. “From time to time-”
King Casmir spoke on. “All moneys collected must be declared to the Chancellor of the Royal Exchequer, who will levy the appropriate tax, which will be deducted in advance of all else. He will also fix the annual rent upon the land.”
“Ah!” groaned Father Umphred. “That is a discouraging prospect! It cannot be! No secular power may levy tax upon property of the church!”
“In that case, I retract and renounce my permission! Let no cathedral be built at Lyonesse Town, now or ever!”
King Casmir went his way, with Queen Sollace and Father Umphred looking disconsolately after him.
“He is a most obstinate man!” said Queen Sollace. “I have prayed that the Lord bring the balm of religion into his heart, and today I felt that my prayers had been answered. But now he is settled; barring some miracle, he will never change.”
Father Umphred said thoughtfully: “I can supply no miracles, but I know certain facts which Casmir would go to great lengths to learn.”
Queen Sollace gave him a questioning look. “Which facts are these?”
“Dear Queen, I must pray for guidance! Light from above must show me the path.”
Queen Sollace’s face took on a petulant droop. “Tell me and allow me to advise you.”
“Dear Queen, dear blessed lady! It is not so easy! I must pray.”
III
TWO DAYS LATER KING CASMIR RETURNED to the secret room. He plucked a feather from the belly of the stuffed blackbird and took it away to his private parlour, at the side of his bedroom. Lighting a candle from the fire, he thrust the feather into the flame, where it burned with little puffs of acrid smoke.
King Casmir watched the wisps dissipate into the air. He called: “Tamurello? Do you hear me? It is I, Casmir of Lyonesse.”
From the shadows spoke a voice: “Well then, Casmir: what now?”
“Tamurello? Is it you whom I hear?”
“What do you wish of me?”
“A sign that I truly speak with Tamurello.”
“Do you remember Shalles who now lies sightless in a ditch with his throat cut?”
“I remember Shalles.”
“Did he tell how he saw me?”
“Yes.”
“I showed him the wizard Amach ac Eil of Caerwyddwn in the full of my black dreuhwy.13”
Tamurello mentions the idea apparently in a spirit of mockery or as an extravagant flourish in response to Casmir’s rather heavy insistence upon identification.
King Casmir grunted in acquiescence. “I call your name now for a reason. My ventures stagnate. I feel frustration and anger on this account.”
“Ah, Casmir, on my word you ignore such good fortune which the Cutter of Threads has allowed you! At Haidion you bask at your ease in the warmth of a dozen blazing hearths. Your table is mounded with succulence and savor! You sleep between silken sheets; your raiment is the softest cloth; gold adorns your person. There seems an adequate population of voluptuous boys; in this regard you never need fear deprivation. When someone excites your displeasure, you utter two words and he is murdered, if he is lucky. If he is unlucky, he goes to the Peinhador. All in all, I consider you a fortunate man.”
Casmir ignored the gibes, which exaggerated his appetites; indeed, he was almost austere in his use of catamites. “Yes, yes; no doubt you are right. Still, these remarks fit your case as pointedly as they do my own. I suspect that you are often provoked when events fail to suit you.”
From the shadows came a soft laugh. “One signal difference between the cases! You are applying to me, not I to you.”
Casmir responded in even tones: “I appreciate the distinction.”
“Still, you have deftly probed my sore spot. Murgen has discovered one or two of my foibles and makes as if the world were about to end, as perhaps it will someday. Have you heard of his latest quirk?”
“No.”
“A magician named Shimrod lives at Trilda, near the village Twamble.”
“I am acquainted with Shimrod.”
“If you can believe it, Murgen has appointed Shimrod to be my monitor and overseer, to ensure my deference to Murgen’s will.”
“That would seem an irksome case.”
“No matter. Should Shimrod swallow himself like a revolving snake, it is all one with me. He is easily confused; I will do as I did before, and poor Shimrod will go sprawling down uncharted abysses.”
King Casmir made a cautious suggestion: “Our destinies may well go hand in hand. Perhaps we can profit by an association.”
Again the soft laugh from the shadows. “I can put toad-heads on your enemies! I can change the stone of their castles to suet pudding. I can enchant the surf, to bring sea-warriors with mother-of-pearl eyes charging ashore out of each breaking wave! But never may I do so! Even if, through some folly, I thought it advisable.”
King Casmir said patiently: “I understand that this must b
e so. Still …”
” ‘Still’?”
“Still this. Persilian the Magic Mirror once spoke out to me, though I had put no charge upon him. The utterance defies both fact and reason, and causes me a great puzzlement.”
“And what was the utterance?”
“Persilian spoke like this:
Suldrun’s son shall undertake Before his life is gone To sit his right and proper place At Cairbra an Meadhan. If so he sits and so he thrives Then he shall make his own The Table Round, to Casmir’s woe, And Evandig the Throne.
“So spoke Persilian, and would say no more. When Suldrun bore the girl Madouc, I went to question Persilian, but then he was gone. I have long brooded over this matter. Somewhere among those words lives wisdom, had I the wit to search it out.”
After a moment the voice responded: “I care nothing for you or your prospects; and I will listen to no reproaches should your affairs go badly. Still, I am driven by my own forces in a direction which may for a time run parallel to your own. My impulse is detestation. It fixes upon Murgen, his scion Shimrod, and King Aillas of Troicinet, who at Tintzin Fyral did me savage and irreparable harm. Count me not your friend but the enemy of your enemies.”
Casmir gave a grim chuckle. At Tintzin Fyral Aillas had hanged Tamurello’s lover Faude Carfilhiot on a gallows grotesquely high, and gaunt as a spider’s leg. “Very well; you have made yourself clear.”
“Do not be too sure,” said the voice, speaking sharply. “Your surmises in regard to me will surely be incorrect! At this time Murgen’s calculated affronts cause me a great wrath. He uses the charlatan Shimrod as counterpoise to me, and sets him to bait me with his surveillances. Shimrod becomes self-important and pompous; he expects me to make a daily report upon my conduct. Ha! I will show him conduct to scorch his backside!”
“All very well,” said Casmir. “What of Persilian’s prediction? He spoke of ‘son,’ but Suldrun bore a daughter only: is the prediction false?”
“Uncertain! These apparent contradictions often are masks for startling truth.”
