Zalzan Kavol looked back, frowning. "Your majesty?" he said.

"Keep going," said Valentine. "When you reach the front row of them, step back and let me through, and remain at my side."

He felt Carabella's hand closing in fear on his wrist.

"Do you remember," he said, "early in the war of restoration, when we were coming into Pendiwane, and found a militia of ten thousand waiting for us at the gate, and there were just a few dozen of us?"

"This is not Pendiwane. Pendiwane was not in rebellion against you. There was no false Coronal waiting at the gate for you, but only a fat terrified provincial mayor."

"It is all the same," Valentine said.

He came to the bridge's end. The way was blocked there by the troops in green and gold. An officer in the front line whose eyes were glittering with fear called out hoarsely, "Who are you that would enter Khyntor without leave of Lord Sempeturn?"

"I am the Pontifex Valentine, and I need no one's leave to enter a city of Majipoor."

"The Coronal Lord Sempeturn will not have you come further on this bridge, stranger!"

Valentine smiled. "How can the Coronal, if Coronal he be, gainsay the word of the Pontifex? Come, fellow, stand aside!"

"That I will not do. For you are no more Pontifex than I."

"Do you deny me? I think your Coronal must do that with his own voice," said Valentine quietly.

He began to walk forward, flanked by Zalzan Kavol and Lisamon Hultin. The officer who had challenged him threw uncertain glances at the soldiers to his right and left in the front line; he drew himself up rigidly, and so did they; their hands went ostentatiously to the butts of the weapons they carried.

Valentine continued to advance. They stepped back half a pace, and then half a pace more, while continuing to glare sternly at him. Valentine did not halt. The front line was melting away to this side and that, now, as he marched steadfastly into it.

Then the ranks opened and a short stocky man with rough reddish cheeks emerged to face Valentine.

He was clad in a Coronal's white robe over a green doublet, and he wore the starburst crown, or a reasonable likeness of it, in his great wild tuft of black hair.

He held up both hands with his palms outstretched and cried loudly, "Enough! No further, impostor!"

"And by whose authority do you issue such orders?" Valentine asked amiably.

"My own, for I am the Coronal Lord Sempeturn!"

"Ah, you are the Coronal, and I am an impostor? I had not understood that. And by whose will are you Coronal, then, Lord Sempeturn?"

"By the will of the Divine, who has appointed me to rule in this time of a vacancy on Castle Mount!"

"I see," said Valentine. "But I know of no such vacancy. There is a Coronal, Lord Hissune by name, who holds office by legitimate appointment."