"Soldiers?" Valentine asked.

"Citizen-militia," said Ermanar. "Hastily organized, from the looks of them. They wear no uniforms, only ribbons round their arms, with the starburst emblem on it."

"Excellent. The starburst is consecrated to my favor. I’ll go to them and ask their allegiance."

Vinorkis said, "What will you wear, my lord?"

Puzzled, Valentine indicated the simple clothes in which he had been traveling since the Isle of Sleep, a white belted tunic and a light overblouse.

"Why, these, I suppose," he said.

The Hjort shook his head. "You should wear finery, and a crown, I think. I think it very strongly."

"My thought was not to appear overly ostentatious. If they see a man in a crown, whose face is not the face they know as Lord Valentine’s, usurper will be the first thought to come to their minds, will it not?"

"I think otherwise," Vinorkis replied. "You come to them and say, I am your rightful king. But you don’t look like a king. A simple costume and easy manners may win you friends in quiet conversation, but not when large forces are assembled. You would do well to dress more awesomely."

Valentine said, "My hope was to rely on simplicity and sincerity, as I have done ever since Pidruid."

"Simplicity and sincerity, by all means," said Vinorkis. "But also a crown."

"Carabella? Deliamber? Advise me!"

"A little ostentation might not be harmful," said the Vroon.

"And this will be your first public appearance as claimant to the Castle," Carabella said. "Some look of regal splendor, I think, may serve you well."

Valentine laughed. "I’ve grown away from such costumes in these many months of wandering, I fear. The idea of a crown now seems only comic to me. A thing of twisted metal, poking up from my scalp, a bit of jewelry—" He stopped. He saw them all gaping at him. "A crown," he said in a less lighthearted tone, "is only an outward thing, a trinket, an ornament. Children might be impressed by such toys, but adult citizens who—" He stopped again.

Deliamber said, "My lord, can you remember how you felt, the first time they came to you at the Castle and put the starburst upon your brow?"

"There was a chill down my back, I do confess."

"Yes. A crown may be a child’s ornament, a silly trinket, true. But it is also a symbol of power, that sets the Coronal apart from all others, and transforms mere Valentine into Lord Valentine the heir of Lord Prestimion and Lord Confalume and Lord Stiamot and Lord Dekkeret. We live by such symbols. My lord, your mother the Lady did much to restore you to the person you were before Til-omon, but there is still a good deal of Valentine the juggler about you, even now. And that is not a bad thing. Still, more impressiveness and less simplicity is called for here, I suspect."

Valentine was silent, thinking of Deliamber mumbling and waving his tentacles, and his own realization that sometimes one had to indulge in theatrics to achieve one’s proper effects. They were right and he was wrong.

He said, "Very well. I will wear a crown, if one can be fashioned for me in time."

One of Ermanar’s men quickly assembled one for him out of scraps of a defective floater-engine, the only spare metal that was at hand. Considering its hastily improvised nature, it was a decent job of crown-making, Valentine thought, the joinings not too rough, the spokes of the starburst reasonably equally spaced, the inner orbits of the armature smoothly coiled. Of course it was nothing to compare with the authentic crown, with its inlays and chasings of seven different precious metals, its finials of rare gems, its three gleaming diniabastones mounted on the browband. But that crown — made in the great reign of Lord Confalume, who must have taken a hearty joy in all the trappings of imperial pomp — was elsewhere at the moment, and this one, once it took its place upon his consecrated brow, would most likely magically invest itself with the proper grandeur. Valentine held it in his hands a long moment. Despite the scorn for such things he had expressed the day before, he felt a little awed by it himself.

Deliamber said mildly, "The militia of Pendiwane are waiting, my lord."

Valentine nodded. He was garbed in borrowed finery, a green doublet that belonged to one of Ermanar’s comrades, a yellow cloak that Asenhart had produced, a heavy golden chain belonging to the hierarch Lorivade, high glossy boots lined with the white fur of the northern steetmoy, that were contributed by Nascimonte. Not since the ill-fated banquet in Til-omon, when he had worn another body entirely, had he dressed with such gaudiness. It was a strange feeling to be clad so pretentiously. He lacked only the crown.

He started to put it on, and stopped abruptly, realizing that there was history in this moment, whether he liked the idea or not: the first time he donned the starburst in this his second incarnation. Suddenly this event began to seem less like a masquerade and more like a coronation. Valentine looked around uneasily.

"I should not put this on my head myself," he said. "Deliamber, you’re my chief minister. You do it."

"My lord, I am not tall enough."

"I could kneel."

"That would not be fitting," said the Vroon, a little sharply.

Plainly Deliamber did not want to do it. Valentine looked next toward Carabella. But she recoiled, horrified, whispering, "I am a commoner, my lord!"

"What does that have to do with—" Valentine shook his head. This was becoming an annoyance. They were making too much of an occasion out of it. He glanced around the group and saw the hierarch Lorivade, that cool-eyed and stately woman, and said, "You are the representative of the Lady my mother in this group, and you are a woman of rank. May I ask you—"

But Lorivade said gravely, "The crown, my lord, descends to the Coronal by authority of the Pontifex. It seems more fitting that Ermanar place it on you, as the highest official of the Pontifex among us today."

Valentine sighed and turned to Ermanar. "I suppose that’s right. Will you do it?"

"It will be a great honor, my lord."

Valentine handed the crown to Ermanar and moved the silver circlet of his mother as far down his scalp as it would go. Ermanar, who was not a man of great height, took the crown in both hands, trembling a little, and reached up, straining to extend his arms. With great care he lowered the crown over Valentine’s head and slipped it into place. It fit perfectly.

"There," Valentine said. "I’m glad that’s—"

"Valentine! Lord Valentine! Hail, Lord Valentine! Long life to Lord Valentine!"

They were kneeling to him, making the starburst to him, shouting out his name, all of them, Sleet, Carabella, Vinorkis, Lorivade, Zalzan Kavol, Shanamir, everyone, Nascimonte, Asenhart, Ermanar, even — surprisingly — the offworlder Khun of Kianimot.

Valentine gestured in protest, embarrassed at all this, wanting to tell them that this was no true ceremony, that it was done only for the sake of impressing the citizens of Pendiwane. But the words did not leave his throat, for he knew that they were untrue, that this improvised affair was in fact his second crowning. And he felt the chill down his spine, the shiver of wonder.

He stood with arms outspread, accepting their homage.

Then he said, "Come. On your feet, all of you. Pendiwane is waiting for us."

The scouts’ report had it that the militia and the high personages of the city had been camped outside Pendiwane’s western gate for some days, awaiting his arrival. Valentine wondered what the condition of the townspeople’s nerves might be, after so long and uncertain a vigil, and what sort of reception they planned to give him.

It was only an hour’s ride to Pendiwane now. They moved quickly through a region of pleasant forests and broad, rolling, rain-sleekened meadows that soon gave way to agreeable residential districts, small stone houses with conical red-tiled roofs the predominant style. The city ahead was a major one, capital of its province, with a population of twelve or thirteen million; it was chiefly a trade depot, Valentine recalled, through which the agricultural produce of the lower Glayge Valley was funneled on its way upriver to the Fifty Cities.