Tales of Majipoor Read Online Free PDF Page B

savoring the wine, pondering it, seemingly lost in recollection of a far-off time. At length he began to speak again. “Strelkimar was very diplomatic about it all, at least outwardly. He behaved as though his cousin was just going through a phase. He loved Thrykeld, you know – as I said, we all loved him; a kind, good man – but gradually it became clear that the Coronal had become unstable, was slipping over, in fact, into a kind of megalomania.” Mundiveen went on to describe how, urged on by his Ghayrog counsellor, Lord Thrykeld had promulgated a law giving him the power to annul any previous statute without consent of the Council. This was absolutism; it was something entirely new in the history of the world. Strelkimar and a few of the other counsellors then made their objections known, objected very strongly, Mundiveen said, and Thrykeld – a Thrykeld none of them had ever known before – retaliated immediately, dismissing the entire Council except for the Ghayrog. He intended to rule, he announced, by personal decree.
    “Strelkimar confronted him on that, of course,” Mundiveen said. “Thrykeld flew into a rage. No one had ever seen him even mildly angry before. He ordered Strelkimar banished to Suvrael and all his possessions confiscated.”
    Astounded, Stiamot said, “I never heard a thing about that. It was never made public, was it?”
    “Of course not. No one beyond the Council ever knew anything about it. Except me.”
    “You weren’t a Council member.”
    “No. But I was very close to the Coronal. To his cousin, too. And I was stupid enough to try to intervene in the crisis. I got between them: I told Lord Thrykeld that it was very dangerous to try to strip a great prince like Strelkimar of his estates, and I went to Strelkimar and begged him to be patient, to wait his cousin’s madness out, even to go into exile for a time until things calmed down. I was the very soul of moderation and conciliation. So of course they both turned on me.”
    Stiamot signalled for another flask of wine. The little man seemed to have an infinite capacity.
    “It was impossible to reason with the Coronal,” Mundiveen said, when he was sated for the moment. “He was far gone in his lunacy and the only person he would listen to was the Ghayrog. He drove me from his side. Strelkimar now let it be known that he felt the Coronal would have to be set aside, for the good of the whole commonwealth. I opposed him on that. I felt I had no choice about it. I went to him and said that Thrykeld was undoubtedly behaving very strangely, but no Coronal had ever been removed from office in all the history of the world; that to depose one would be an offense against the Divine; that all of this would surely blow over in a little while. No, said Strelkimar, his cousin was hopelessly mad. He intended to push him aside. I made the error of getting very excited. I swore great purple oaths that I would stand beside the anointed Coronal no matter what Strelkimar did. I threatened to go to the people with word that Strelkimar was planning to overthrow their monarch. I vowed to fight him every step of the way. My behavior was extremely rash. I forbade him to depose Thrykeld. Imagine that! Saying a thing like that to a man like Strelkimar. I became as crazy as Thrykeld himself was, I suppose.”
    He fell silent. The silence stretched for a minute or more. When it began to seem as though he did not intend to resume at all, Stiamot prodded him:
    “And—?”
    “And that evening three hired thugs wearing masks came for me and took me from Stee to someplace far downslope, Furible or Stipool or one of those cities, and there they beat me until both they and I were sure that I was at the edge of death, and then they left me. But I didn’t die. They badly damaged me, but I lived. All they did was cripple me, as you see. Or did you think I was born with my backbone all askew like this?”
    “Strelkimar’s men, were they?”
    “They didn’t go