“It seems to be an old joke,” said Rhialto. “I have never been able to trace the source.”

As the two walked arm in arm along the main gallery they passed Ildefonse and Byzant standing disconsolately under a marble statue. Rhialto accorded them a polite nod, and made a secret sign of more complicated significance, to the effect that they might feel free to return home without him.

The Lady Shaunica, pressing close to his side, giggled. “What a pair of unlikely comrades! The first a roisterer with mustaches a foot long, the second a poet with the eyes of a sick lizard. Do you know them?”

“Only slightly. In any case it is you who interests me and all your warm sensitivities which to my delight you are allowing me to share.”

The Lady Shaunica pressed even more closely against him. “I begin to suspect the source of your soubriquet.”

Ildefonse and Byzant, biting their lips in vexation, returned to the foyer, where Ildefonse finally made the acquaintance of a portly matron wearing a lace cap and smelling strongly of musk. She took Ildefonse off to the ball-room, where they danced three galops, a triple-polka and a kind of a strutting cake-walk where Ildefonse, in order to dance correctly, was obliged to raise one leg high in the air, jerk his elbows, throw back his head, then repeat the evolution with all briskness, using the other leg.

As for Byzant, Duke Tambasco introduced him to a tall poetess with coarse yellow hair worn in loose lank strands. Thinking to recognize a temperament similar to her own, she took him into the garden where, behind a clump of hydrangeas, she recited an ode of twenty-nine stanzas.

Eventually both Ildefonse and Byzant won free, but now the night was waning and the ball was at an end. In sour spirits they returned to their domiciles, and each, through some illogical transfer of emotion, blamed Rhialto for his lack of success.

2

Rhialto at last became impatient with the plague of ill feeling directed his way for no very clear reason, and kept to himself at Falu.

After a period, solitude began to pall. Rhialto summoned his major-domo. “Frole, I will be absent from Falu for a time, and you will be left in charge. Here —” he handed Frole a paper “— is a list of instructions. See that you follow them in precise detail. Upon my return I wish to find everything in exact and meticulous order. I specifically forbid that you entertain parties of guests or relatives on, in or near the premises. Also, I warn that if you meddle with the objects in the work-rooms, you do so at risk of your life, or worse. Am I clear?”

“Absolutely and in all respects,” said Frole. “How long will you be gone, and how many persons constitute a party?”

“To the first question: an indefinite period. To the second, I will only rephrase my instruction: entertain no persons whatever at Falu during my absence. I expect to find meticulous order upon my return. You may now be off about your duties. I will leave in due course.”

Rhialto took himself to the Sousanese Coast, in the remote far corner of South Almery, where the air was mild and the vegetation grew in a profusion of muted colors, and in the case of certain forest trees, to prodigious heights. The local folk, a small pale people with dark hair and long still eyes, used the word ‘Sxyzyskzyiks’ — “The Civilized People” — to describe themselves, and in fact took the sense of the word seriously. Their culture comprised a staggering set of precepts, the mastery of which served as an index to status, so that ambitious persons spent vast energies learning finger-gestures, ear-decoration, the proper knots by which one tied his turban, his sash, his shoe-ribbons; the manner in which one tied the same knots for one’s grandfather; the proper and distinctive placement of pickles on plates of winkles, snails, chestnut stew, fried meats and other foods; the curses specifically appropriate after stepping on a thorn, meeting a ghost, falling from a low ladder, falling from a tree, or any of a hundred other circumstances.

Rhialto took lodging at a tranquil hostelry, and was housed in a pair of airy rooms built on stilts out over the sea. The chairs, bed, table and chest were constructed of varnished black camphor-wood; the floor was muffled from the wash of the sea among the stilts by a rug of pale green matting. Rhialto took meals of ten courses in an arbor beside the water, illuminated at night by the glow of candle-wood sticks.

Slow days passed, ending in sunsets of tragic glory; at night the few stars still extant reflected from the surface of the sea, and the music of curve-necked lutes could be heard from up and down the beach. Rhialto’s tensions eased and the exasperations of the Scaum Valley seemed far away. Dressed native-style in a white kirtle, sandals and a loose turban with dangling tassels, Rhialto strolled the beaches, looked through the village bazaars for rare sea-shells, sat under the arbor drinking fruit toddy, watching the slender maidens pass by.

One day at idle whim Rhialto built a sand-castle on the beach. In order to amaze the local children he first made it proof against the assaults of wind and wave, then gave the structure a population of minuscules, accoutered as Zahariots of the Fourteenth Aeon. Each day a force of knights and soldiers marched out to drill upon the beach, then for a period engaged in mock-combat amid shrill yells and cries. Foraging parties hunted crab, gathered sea-grapes and mussels from the rocks, and meanwhile the children watched in delighted wonder.

One day a band of young hooligans came down the beach with terriers, which they set upon the castle troops.

Rhialto, watching from a distance, worked a charm and up from a court-yard flew a squadron of elite warriors mounted on humming-birds. They projected volley after volley of fire-darts to send the curs howling down the beach. The warriors then wheeled back upon the youths who, with buttocks aflame, were likewise persuaded to retreat.

When the cringing group returned somewhat later with persons of authority, they found only a wind-blown heap of sand and Rhialto lounging somnolently in the shade of the nearby arbor.

The episode aroused a flurry of wonder and Rhialto for a time became the object of doubt, but along the Sousanese Coast sensation quickly became flat, and before long all was as before.

Meanwhile, in the Valley of the Scaum, Hache-Moncour made capital of Rhialto’s absence. At his suggestion, Ildefonse convened a ‘Conclave of Reverence’, to honor the achievements of the Great Phandaal, the intrepid genius of Grand Motholam who had systematized the control of sandestins. After the group assembled, Hache-Moncour diverted the discussion and guided it by subtle means to the subject of Rhialto and his purported misdeeds.

Hache-Moncour spoke out with vehemence: “Personally, I count Rhialto among my intimates, and I would not think of mentioning his name, except, where possible, for the sake of vindication, and, where impossible, to plead the mitigating circumstances when the inevitable penalties are assessed.”

“That is most generous of you,” said Ildefonse. “Am I then to take it that Rhialto and his conduct is to become a formal topic of discussion?”

“I fail to see why not,” growled Gilgad. “His deeds have been meretricious.”

“Come, come!” cried Hache-Moncour. “Do not skulk and whimper; either make your charges or I, speaking as Rhialto’s defender, will demand a vote of approbation for Rhialto the Marvellous!”

Gilgad leapt to his feet. “What? You accuse me of skulking? Me, Gilgad, who worked ten spells against Keino the Sea-demon?”

“It is only a matter of form,” said Hache-Moncour. “In defending Rhialto, I am obliged to use extravagant terms. If I hurl unforgivable insults or reveal secret disgraces, you must regard them as the words of Rhialto, not those of your comrade Hache-Moncour, who only hopes to exert a moderating influence. Well then: since Gilgad is too cowardly to place a formal complaint, who chooses to do so?”

“Bah!” cried Gilgad furiously. “Even in the role of Rhialto’s spokesman, you use slurs and insults with a certain lewd gusto. To set the record straight, I formally accuse Rhialto of impropriety and the beating of a simiode, and I move that he be called to account.”

Ildefonse suggested: “In the interest of both brevity and elegance, let us allow ‘impropriety’ to include the ‘beating’. Are you agreed?”

Gilgad grudgingly acquiesced to the change.

Ildefonse called out: “Are there seconds to the motion?”

Hache-Moncour looked around the circle of faces. “What a group of pusillanimous nail-biters! If necessary, as Rhialto’s surrogate, I will second the motion myself, if only to defeat with finality this example of childish spite!”

“Silence!” thundered Zilifant. “I second the motion!”

“Very good,” said Ildefonse. “The floor is open for discussion.”

“I move that we dismiss the motion out of hand as a pack of nonsense,” said Hache-Moncour. “Even though Rhialto boasts of his success at the Grand Ball, and laughingly describes Ildefonse’s antics with a fat matron and Byzant’s comic efforts to seduce a raw-boned poetess in a blonde wig.”

“Your motion is denied,” said Ildefonse through gritted teeth. “Let the charges be heard, in full detail!”

“I see that my intercession is useless,” said Hache-Moncour. “I therefore will step aside from my post and voice my own complaints, so that when the final fines and confiscations are levied, I will receive my fair share of the booty.”

Here was a new thought, which occupied the assemblage for several minutes, and some went so far as to inscribe lists of items now owned by Rhialto which might better serve their own needs.

Ao of the Opals spoke ponderously: “Rhialto’s offenses unfortunately are many! They include deeds and attitudes which, while hard to define, are nonetheless as poignant as a knife in the ribs. I include in this category such attributes as avarice, arrogance, and ostentatious vulgarity.”

“The charges would seem to be impalpable,” intoned Ildefonse. “Nevertheless, in justice, they must be reckoned into the final account.”

Zilifant raised his finger dramatically high: “With brutal malice Rhialto destroyed my prized harquisade from Canopus, the last to be found on this moribund world! When I explained as much to Rhialto, first, with mendacity dripping from his tongue, he denied the deed, then declared: ‘Look yonder to Were Wood and its darkling oaks! When the sun goes out they will fare no better and no worse than your alien dendron.’ Is that not a travesty upon ordinary decency?”

Hache-Moncour gave his head a sad shake. “I am at a loss for words. I would render an apology in Rhialto’s name, were I not convinced that Rhialto would make a flippant mockery of my efforts. Still, can you not extend mercy to this misguided man?”

“Certainly,” said Zilifant. “To the precise measure in which he befriended my harquisade. I declare Rhialto guilty of a felony!”

Again Hache-Moncour shook his head. “I find it hard to credit.”

Zilifant swung about in a passion. “Have a care! Even in your quixotic advocacy of this scoundrel, I will not have my veracity assailed!”

“You misunderstood me!” stated Hache-Moncour. “I then spoke for myself, in wonder at Rhialto’s callous acts.”

“Ah, then! We are agreed.”

Others of the group cited grievances which Ildefonse noted upon a bill of particulars. At last all had declared themselves, and Ildefonse, in looking down the list, frowned in perplexity. “Amazing how one like Rhialto could live so long among us and never be exposed! Hache-Moncour, do you have anything more to say?”

“Merely a pro-forma appeal for mercy.”