The loss of so many fine specimens was not to be allowed to interfere with the festivities - not if Kov Vodun Alloran na Kaldi had anything to say, no, by Vox!

"There are captives aplenty," he shouted at his chamberlains.  "Use them!  Do I have to think of everything?"

In preparation for the many ceremonies the streets were garlanded, tapestries and carpets hung down from balconies, ales and wines were brought in by the cartful, trees were decorated with strings of colored lights for the evening entertainments.

Strolling players, whose numbers had declined during the Times of Trouble, were now reappearing.  If folk believed that these new troublous times were over, then they could be encouraged in that belief.  Troupes of actors. and actresses, singers, jugglers, fire-eaters, animal-tricksters, gathered in the town to add their color and sparkle to the festive occasion.

In the natural course of his own estimation of himself, Alloran took his personal tailor on his travels.  This functionary shared quarters, meals and salary with the hairdresser, the bootmaker, the perfumer, the mistress of the linen and other men and women whose sole function in life was to care for the person of Vodun Alloran.

"I want clothes more beautiful, more sumptuous, more glorious than any seen before," Alloran instructed his tailor, a snuffily little Och called Opnar the Silk.

"It shall be done, my lord kov," gabbled Opnar.

"After all," said Alloran, looking at himself in the tall mirror in the angle of the room, "after all, this is the first time I have been crowned king."  He smiled widely at his own reflection, pleased with the air of authority and regal command he himself sensed emanating from his reflection.  "Although I am completely persuaded it will not be the last."

"Assuredly not, my lord kov."

The little Och bid his assistants bring in bales of materials so that a beginning could be made on the choice of fabrics.  He was pleased in one way that the kov spoke to him in so familiar a fashion, and in another trembled lest inadvertently a great state secret should slip out and necessitate the removal of his head from his narrow shoulders.