The windows of this room were equipped with
heavy shutters, as was fitting in a castle constructed
to withstand assault. But on this upper level of the
castle, high above any possible assault by climbing
troops, the windows were large, and today all the
shutters had been thrown open. Framed in their
casement openings, the sea and the rocky hills and the
town below all appeared like fine tapestries of
afternoon sunlight, thrown by some Old World magic
on the walls.
Kristin had risen quickly from the throne when the
door opened, and when her uncle had closed it again
behind him she had moved a few paces forward,
toward Mark. But now the two of them, she and
Mark, were still standing a little apart, looking at each
other as if they had nothing to say-or perhaps as if
neither of them could manage to say anything.
But their eyes drew them together. Suddenly they
were embracing, still without a word of speech. Then
Kristin tore herself away.
“What is this they’ve given you to wear?” she
asked, as if the sight of the costume they had put on
him, some antique ceremonial thing, made her want to
laugh and cry at once.
But still he said nothing.
She tried again, not with laughter, but now with an
almost distant courtesy. How fine that he had already
been reunited with his family. She’d had no idea, of
course, that they’d been living here. In recent years a
lot of refugees, good people, had come in. Did Mark’s
mother and sister know him after so long a time?
How long had they been living here in Tasavalta? Did
he have any trouble recognizing them? It was too bad
his father was away.
“Kristin.” As he called her by her name, he
wondered if it was the last time he would ever be able
to do so. “Stop it. Have you nothing real to say to me?
Why didn’t you tell me?”
There was a pause, in which Kristin drew a deep
breath, like a woman who wondered if it might be her
last.
“Yes,” she said then. “I must say something very
real to you, Mark. For the sister of a Princess
Regnant to have married a-commoner, and a foreigner
as well-that would have been very hard. Very nearly
impossible. But I would have done it. I wanted to
marry you. I wanted it so much I was afraid to. tell
you who I was. And I was going to marry you,
wherever that path led. I hope you will believe that.”
“Kristin, Princess . . .”
“Wait! Let me finish, please.” She needed another
pause to get herself together. “But my sister Rimac is
dead. She died childless and unmarried, and I am ruler
now. For a Princess Regnant to marry a commoner,
let alone a foreign soldier, is impossible. Impossible,
except-again I hope you
will believe me-I would have done it anyway. It
would have meant resigning the throne, probably
leaving the country; I would have done that for you.
But…”
“But.”
“But you must have heard them! There isn’t anyone
else to rule! You heard Rostov. If I hadn’t come back
to take the throne, there would have been a civil war
over the succession. Even with attackers threatening
us from outside. I know my people. We probably
seem to you a happy, peaceful country, but you don’t
know . . .”
Again Mark was silent. ,
“I . . . Mark, our land and people . . . we owe you
more than we can ever repay. We can give you
almost anything. Except the one thing that you want.
And that I want . . . oh, darling.”
This time the embrace lasted longer. But as before,
the Princess broke it off.
Mark was conscious that he still had a duty to
perform, and drew himself up. “I am the bearer of
certain messages, that Sir Andrew, whom I serve, has
charged me to deliver to the ruler of the Lands of
Tasavalta.”
Kristin, as never before conscious of duty, drew
herself up, too, and heard the messages. They were
more or less routine, diplomatic preliminaries looking
to the establishment of more regular contacts. Sir
Andrew had long resisted adopting the diplomatic
pretense that he was still actually governing the lands
and people that had been stolen from him; but he had
recently been persuaded of the value of taking such a
pose, even if the facts were otherwise.
Mark concluded the memorized messages. “And
now, I am ordered to place myself at Your Majesty’s
disposal.” Again, in the fog of his exhaustion, the
feeling came over him that none of this really had
anything to do with him; he had stumbled into the
middle of a play, there were certain lines that he was
required to read, and soon it would all be over.
Kristin said, “I am glad to hear it. You will need a
few days in which to rest, and recover from . . .” She
had to let that trail away. With a toss of her head she
made a new start. “You will be assignedmodest
quarters here in the palace.” Quarters far from my
own rooms. So Mark understood the phrase. “Then-
you heard what I told Karel. I mean to send you on a
special mission. This should not pose any conflict with
your orders from Sir Andrew, if they are to place
yourself at my disposal. I hope that you will accept the
assignment willingly.”
He could feel only numbness now. “I am at Your
Majesty’s disposal, as I said before.”
“Good.” Kristin heaved an unroyal sigh: part of an
ordeal had been passed. “The mission you are to
perform for Tasavalta is a result of some magical
business of Karel’s. In divination . . . you will be given
more details later. But according to him, the
indications are so urgent that he dared not wait even
until tomorrow to confront me with the results.
“You are to go and find the Emperor, and seek an
alliance with him for Tasavalta-and an alliance with
him for Sir Andrew too, if you feel you are
empowered by Sir Andrew to do that. I leave that to
your judgement.”
“The Emperor. An alliance with him?” Even in
Mark’s present state of embittered numbness, he
had to react somehow to the strangeness of that
proposal. An alliance, as if the Emperor were a
nation, or had an army? Of course the indications
were, Mark thought, that the Emperor was, or at
least could be when he chose, a wizard of immense
power.
Curious in spite of everything, he asked, “Me,
negotiate for you in such a matter? I’m not even one
of your subjects. Or a diplomat. Why me?”
“Karel says it should be done that way. Though I
don’t think that he himself knows why. But I’ve
learned over the years that my uncle usually gives
his monarch good advice.”
“Karel wants to make sure I’m out of the way.”
“There is that. But sending you back to Sir
Andrew would do that just as well. No. There’s
something about the Emperor-and about you. I
don’t know what.”
The Emperor, thought Mark. The man that Draffut,
after fifty thousand years of knowing human beings,
trusted at first meeting. The man who had said that
he, Mark, should be given Sightblinder.
The man in whose name a simple incantation had
twice, in Mark’s experience, repelled demons ….
The sorcerer Karel-it was, Mark supposed, fool-
ish to think he had not been listening-was back in
the room now, as if on cue.
After all that had already happened today, Mark
had no real capacity left for surprise, so he felt no
more than dull curiosity when he observed that the
magician was carrying a sheathed Sword.
Karel in his soft, rich voice said to him: “It is
Coinspinner, and it has come to us in a mysterious
way. And you are going to take it with you to help
you find the Emperor.”
Mark’s dinner that evening was eaten not in the
palace, but in the vastly humbler home of his sister
Marian. It had turned out that she was now living
in the town, really a small city, not far below.
Mark had by now had a little time in which to
savor the great news that his father Jord, who he
had thought for ten years was dead, was alive after
all. And not only was Jord still alive but well and
active at last report, off now on some secret mission
for the Tasavaltan intelligence service. Neither
Mala nor Marian appeared to know where Jord had
been sent or when he might be back, and Mark,
with some experience in these matters himself, did
not press to find out. For now it was enough to
know that he at least had a good chance of someday
seeing his living father once again.