In moments, though, that sense of well-being was completely gone from him, and he found himself tumbling back into confusion and dismay.

The first thing that went wrong was nothing more than a minor blunder, absurd but forgivable, scarcely his fault at all. Sleet had remarked on the obvious anxiety the Pontifical officials displayed every time they looked toward the Coronal's table: plainly they were madly fearful that Lord Valentine was not sufficiently enjoying himself. And Hissune, newly radiant with wine and gloriously happy to be at the banquet at last, had brashly blurted out, "They ought to be worried! They know they'd better make a good impression, or they'll be out in the cold when Lord Valentine becomes Pontifex!"

There were gasps all around the table. Everyone stared at him as though he had uttered some monstrous blasphemy—all but the Coronal, who clamped his lips together in the manner of one who has unexpectedly found a toad in his soup, and turned away.

"Did I say something wrong?" Hissune asked.

"Hush!" Lisamon Hultin whispered fiercely, and the mountainous Amazon woman nudged him urgently in the ribs.

"But is it not so that one day Lord Valentine will be Pontifex? And when that happens, won't he want to install a staff of his own?"

Lisamon nudged him again, so emphatically that she all but knocked him from his seat. Sleet glared belligerently at him, and Shanamir said in a sharp whisper, "Enough! You're only making it worse for yourself."

Hissune shook his head. With a trace of anger showing beneath his confusion he said, "I don't understand."

"I'll explain it to you later," said Shanamir.

Stubbornly Hissune said, "But what have I done? To say that Lord Valentine is going to be Pontifex some day, and—"

With deep frost in his voice Shanamir said, "Lord Valentine does not wish to contemplate the necessity of becoming Pontifex at this time. He particularly does not wish to contemplate it during his dinner. It is something not spoken of in his presence. Do you understand now? Do you?"

"Ah, I do now," said Hissune miserably.

In his shame he wanted to crawl under the table and hide. But how was he supposed to have known that the Coronal was touchy about having to become Pontifex some day? It was only to be expected, wasn't it? When a Pontifex died, the Coronal automatically took his place, and named a new Coronal who would himself eventually go on to dwell in the Labyrinth. That was the system: that was the way it had been for thousands of years. If Lord Valentine disliked the idea of being Pontifex so much, he might better have served himself by declining to become Coronal; but it didn't make sense for him to close his eyes to the succession law in the hope it would go away.

Though the Coronal himself had maintained a cool silence, great damage surely had been done. To show up late, then to say the wrongest possible thing the first time he opened his mouth—what a woeful beginning! Could it ever be undone? Hissune brooded about it all through the performance of some terrible jugglers, and during the dreary speeches that followed, and he might have gone on agonizing over it all evening, if something far worse had not happened.