"Am I? Do I order you about, and have you pour my wine for me, and bring me my slippers like a servant?"

"You know I mean otherwise, Valentine."

"Then call me Valentine, and not 'my lord.' I was your king, and I am your emperor now, but I am not your master. That has always been understood between us, so I thought."

"I think perhaps it has—your majesty."

She laughed, and he laughed with her, and drew her close and held her against him. After a moment he said, "I have often told you I feel a certain regret, or even guilt, for having taken you away from a juggler's free life, and given you in its place all the heavy responsibilities of Castle Mount. And often you have told me, No, no, nonsense, there is nothing to regret, I came of my own will to live by your side."

"As in all truth I did, my lord."

"But now I am Pontifex—by the Lady, I say those words, and they sound like another language in my mouth!—I am Pontifex, I am indeed Pontifex, and now I feel once more that I must rob you of the joys of life."

"Why, Valentine? Must a Pontifex give up his wife, then? I've heard nothing of that custom!"

"A Pontifex must live in the Labyrinth, Carabella."

"You come back to that again!"

"It never leaves me. And if I am to live in the Labyrinth, why, then you must live there also, and how can I ask that of you?"

"Do you ask it of me?"

"You know I have no wish to part from you."

"Nor I from you, my lord. But we are not in the Labyrinth now, and it was my belief you had no plan for going there."

"What if I must, Carabella?"

"Who says must to a Pontifex?"

He shook his head. "But what if I must? You know as well as I how little love I have for that place. But if I must—if for reasons of state I must—if the absolute necessity of it is forced upon me, which I pray the Divine will not happen, but if indeed there comes a time when I am compelled by the logic of government to go down into that maze—"

"Why, then I will go with you, my lord."

"And give up all fair winds, and bright sunny days, and the sea and the forest and the mountains?"

"Surely you would find a pretext for coming forth now and then, even if you found it necessary to take up residence down there."

"And if I can't?"

"You pursue problems too far beyond the horizon, my lord. The world is in peril; mighty tasks await you, and no one will shove you into the Labyrinth while those tasks are undone; there is time later to worry about where we will live and how we will like it. Is that not so, my lord?"

Valentine nodded. "Indeed. I foolishly multiply my woes."