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"
’m
done here. Are you in a place where a coach and four dragons won't do any
harm?"
Ornach looked at me through the trump contact, and glanced behind me at his
own coach and dragons. The coach-and-four had taken me to Glendang in style
and comfort, but the journey had lasted half a day. Before I went, Ornach
had made it clear that he was in a hurry, so now my mission was completed
I intended to take the ultimate shortcut back. Through the trump contact I
could see Ornach was in his study.
"No, I’m not," he said and frowned in frustration.
"I could just ride back, but that would take several hours and you said
you were in a hurry-"
"Very well," Ornach grumbled. He stomped out the door, through a
shadow veil and into the nearest courtyard. The trump contact opened wider
and I let my servants come through.
"So, you've got my trump, then?" Ornach asked when I stood before
him.
"Ehm, no," I said. "Rinaldo has it, my cousin Rinaldo."
"Your cousin?"
"Yes. A son of Brand, his mother is a by-blow of the house of Baccaran.
Her name is Jasra. Or it was. I don't know if she's still alive, I suppose
she is. And under the name of Baccaran, Rinaldo swindled Lord Mylor out of-"
"Swindled...?"
"Well, he probably traded the trump for a potted plant."
Ornach digested this information.
"Have you contacted your cousin yet?"
I had not because I wanted to report back first, and Ornach agreed he needed
to know who owned his daughter's trump.
"Boadice, you probably know him better than I do, what
do you think he will want for it?"
I put my pink in my mouth. To our left, the last dragon was unharnassed and
taken away.
"He is rumoured to be a born salesman…" I said.
"Good. That means we can negotiate."
"What would you offer him?"
Ornach looked at me with a mixture of surprise and annoyance.
"Rinaldo is no Chaosite," I explained. "A vote in the Council
or political favours in the Courts won't do it for him."
"You can offer him my gratitude," Ornach said. "If he is wise,
that will be enough. And if it isn’t, he will tell you what he wants.
If it's minor, you can give it to him. If it's not, I'll hear about it."
Ornach turned around and started to walk away, but then he turned
back.
"You're not going to sell my Ways. That is not a minor thing. I like
it here and here I will stay. And I don't have too much real-estate bordering
on the Abyss, so don't sell that off either."
"Very well." I said, "Anything else?"
Ornach shook his head and turned. I remembered something and ran a pace or
two to catch up with my employer. Together, we entered the house.
"Excuse me, but have you heard anything about my trumps yet? Rinaldo's
trump is among them and I need it to get hold of him."
Ornach reached into his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled piece of parchment.
On one side it had an incomplete list of the salaries of the lesser demons
of Ornachways. The other side was covered with Ornach’s tightly scribbled
handwriting.
"I suggest," Ornach said, indicating the side with his writing on
it, "That you type this out and send it to Galoria. You are, after all,
my secretary."
In fact I employed several young women to take the more boring secretarial duties off my hands. When I started out in his service, I explained to Ornach what a secretary did. And although Ornach never quite grasped the idea of keeping an appointment book, between us we organised the running of House Ornach quite efficiently. While Ornach discussed the purchase of a pair of demon hounds with the master of dogs, I deciphered his handwriting.
It was a letter to the King of Galoria. In it, my employer expressed
his disappointment in the short-sightedness Monias had shown in the treatment
of his secretary. Ornach's displeasure could be lessened by the speedy return
of my personal possessions.
"Not bad," I thought, and said:
"It doesn’t mention when the trumps have to be returned. How quickly,
I mean. How about two weeks?"
"Remember they have to come all the way over here to bring them,"
Ornach said with a smile. "Or will you fetch them up yourself? Besides,
you know that half of the Nexus is out of order, don't you? It's a public
secret."
So that was why Monias has reacted to the Flying Egg like he did. I didn’t think everyone knew about the Nexus. More likely it was common knowledge among those closely connected with the Not-Yet-War.
. . . _ . . .
We decided to give Galoria two months -their time- to return my trumps. Ornach stayed in the stable yards and I went on to see the sub-secretaries. My employees slash colleagues were both likeable and reliable. Together, we had worked out a filing system for Ornach ways that could be turned into an eight dimensional organisational nightmare if I wanted it so. I was very proud of it. Each of the sub-secretaries could mess the file system up, but only I could untangle it. It was our life insurance. We five had Ornachways ticking over like clockwork.
The weakest part in our beautifully efficient system was, in fact, Ornach. He simply refused to keep us informed about his appointments! Occasionally, he would enter something in his diary like: 'see that man with the hair about the papers', or he would write 'don't forget to see that tall woman, brownsky' on the entry for yellowsky. I knew he did it so I could not keep tabs on him the way I would have liked, and I also knew it amused us both. I therefore relied on my contacts, my position in the house and coffee-talk with the secretaries to keep me informed.
The girls had hot news to share. While I was away, Samal had been disowned and they did not know why. One day Ornach said: 'Samal is no longer my son' and they were told to handle the paperwork. I wondered what Samal had done. He was an aggravating young bastard, but then, he always had been. File it away for future reference. The letter to Galoria, I handed over to the calligrapher to rework into an official document. It would take her the better part of an afternoon but then you’d have an impressive document with ribbons, seals and everything: the works.
After coffee, walking back to my old rooms, I thought about Rinaldo and the trump. It all came down to one thing: did Rinaldo know what the trump was? Did he, perhaps, know a little bit but not the whole story? How much did he, for instance, know about Ornach and the inter-reality conflict? Did he know the trump of the black spider was a young woman’s prison and not just an interesting antique? Did he know that Ornach and his children were connected to the recent disturbances from something outside of reality?
And if he did, or even if he did not know, where did Rinaldo stand in this? On whose side was he? On whose side would he be when he knew what I knew? Before I could enter negotiations, I should ideally have found the answers to these questions. Yeah, right. I would have to wing it. And Rinaldo was far better at winging these things than I am. But I did think I knew a bit more about the trump than he did. I knew about Ornach and Ornach's children and I knew more than most about this war. But where did I stand? Did I want to strengthen the house of Ornach by returning another child to him? Would I be able to recruit Bihaye's aid in defending this reality? Would I need to betray my oath to Ornach? In the stable yard he had said: "I like it here and here I will stay". Perhaps there was hope.
. . . _ . . .
Now that the document demanding my trumps was on its way to Galoria, I had time for one of my older plans. When I was in Sherwyn, I took souvenirs from Adrian's room to trade for back issues of the Adrian fan club magazine. I’d had tabs on that club ever since it was founded and had long intended to extend my influence there.
As luck would have it, there was a large gathering that very day. I disguised myself and went to take a little look. To my surprise, the fan club was blooming. More than that, it was thriving spectacularly. The gathering was held in the back room of a pub, but boy was that space huge. There were several wide, high ceilinged rooms connected by double doors, windowless but well lit. The place was almost filled to capacity, and not only with cooks and maidservants but with daughters of the upper classes too. Well dressed young ladies with veils and shapeshifted features were browsing the stands and participating in the discussions. There was much to discuss. Some members said they had seen, or knew someone who had seen King Adrian himself. I did not think my cousin would have had time to visit Chaos recently. These sightings would be the result of these women's overactive imagination, or a shapeshifting young man was using Adrian's image to get into their pants, or, well, it could be anything.
In the stands you could buy any kind of Adrian-related junk, and I indulged myself. Soon I was the proud owner of a book about Adrian's style of fighting (with many references to books about Benedict), two T-shirts with Adrian’s face on it, and a snow-ball with a miniature of the Sherwyn castle inside. I could also not resist buying the most hideous thing there: a matched set of glow-in-the-dark painted plates in a velvet-lined box. One plate showed Adrian in full plate armour, the other a winged white hart. Did I mention they glowed in the dark? The colours were awful. They would make a good present for someone I really disliked.
Some of the souvenirs from Sherwyn; the shirt and the pillowcase and the pens and pencils, I gave to the chairwoman of the fan club. She was one of the few people who knew who I was and could vouch for their authenticity. This turned out to be my second biggest mistake of the day. Some time after I left the chairwoman, the crowd became agitated and I caught the rumour that the Lady Boadice might be present this very minute. I started to hunt the hall with my Adrian book just like everyone else, but my attempt at camouflage was cut short by the chairwoman confiding to her best friend that, 'now don't tell anyone else, but--'...
You can guess the rest. I was mobbed by hundreds of eager fans. They tore the clothes from my body. The only thing that saved my hair was that it was pinned tightly to my head to accommodate the wig. I ended up ordering them into an orderly queue and spent the next three hours signing autographs.
After that I made the first biggest mistake of that day: I rounded up the people I knew: the movers and the shakers of the club as far as they were members since the founding. (I supposed the ones who were with the club since it was small would be the least likely to be spies for other parties.) First I chided them about the treatment I had suffered from the hands of their friends, and went on by suggesting that the animosity between King Adrian and my father, prince Bleys, saddened me. They could understand that.
I was too tired, too stupid, maybe both, and this just wasn’t my day. I had intended to gently lead them to conclude that my father was innocent, and of course Adrian was too, it must therefore have been Murlas who had killed Jaill's nephew. That was what I had planned. What I did was just tell them about my theory, and they sort of swallowed it but it will make me look mighty unsubtle when it comes out, and in this situation it will. You can bet your brand new Adrian shirt on it. Stupid me.
The only useful thing I got out of the visit was the idea that if I ever wanted to threaten a member of my family in a non-lethal way, all I had to do was trump a few hundred of Adrian's fans in. Alexander, his autograph I mean, was especially sought after because it was so rare. After I had closed off by suggesting to the fans that they could be spectators in the upcoming duel between Adrian and Bleys, I went home and slept for ten hours straight. What a stupid, stupid day.
. . . _ . . .
Next ‘morning’, just as I was leaving my room to
go down for breakfast, I felt the siren song of a trump contact. I did not
intend to take it; without my cards I was still unable to identify the caller.
But my curiosity grew when whoever was looking at my card kept insisting patiently,
minute after minute. Carefully, I opened the door of my mind, just a little.
It was Gran.
"Ah, Boadice, at last!" he said, obviously happy.
"You can go now," I said to the guard I had asked in to knock me
unconscious if anything went wrong. I opened my mind further.
"I have been trying to trump you for ages!"
Gran smiled at me, and held out his hand, asking without words if he could
come to me.
"Sure you can come," I said. "How much time has passed for
you?" I went back into my room and closed the door behind me.
"Right now?"
"Of course," Gran said, and stepped through the trump
contact. He looked good in gold and brown velvet. Perhaps he was a bit thinner
than last time I saw him, but it suited him. My dear friend and companion...
"I missed you so much!" I cried and fell into his arms. I shouldn’t
have. I should have kept my composure. All I wanted was a cuddle but I found
I had started to cry. I blurted out how Murlas had invaded my mind when I
was a prisoner in Galoria, and told Gran of the hell I had gone through and
what it had felt like. He just held me and stroked my hair.
"It was awful," I said when I came to myself. Gran gave me a handkerchief
and I blew my nose.
"I missed you too, Boadice," Gran said.
I glowered and pushed him away. My lover had re-married my mortal
enemy. I did not intend to go easy on him.
"Well", I said. "You married Trisha. What would you need me
for?" I turned my back on him.
"I didn't," Gran said, "My family did."
"You let them. And I am still angry. It's just that I can't do without
you, so--"
No-one ever makes this sort of confession, I know. It’s just not done. Even for open emotional types like me it is more than uncommon. But it was true and I could not help myself. And besides; if I pushed Gran away, I would be miserable. Gran would be unhappy, I would be unhappy, and the only one who would be happy was Trisha, and we could not have that.
"How about we go away for a couple of days?" Gran
said. "Just you and me?"
"I can't," I said. "I have work to do."
Gran insisted and I had to point out that the last time I took the afternoon
off, I stayed away for six months, Chaos time. I was still trying to make
up for that. Gran of all people should remember this. Because I had been gone
that long, his family had been able to make him re-marry Trisha, or rather
they had undone the annulment of the marriage.
"Can’t you get away for a few days?" Gran insisted. "Perhaps
to a fast-time shadow?"
"You have a fast-time shadow?" I asked, surprised. They are extremely
convenient.
Gran frowned.
"Real fast time shadows are rare and very dull places most of the time,
but I thought you would know a good one. Can't I… What is that work
you have to do for Ornach?"
Now that was nobody's business but Ornach's and mine.
"Just hopping all over shadow, talking to people," I said, truthfully.
"And I can’t have someone tagging along."
"Are you sure?" Gran insisted. "Can't we make a trip of it,
the two of us? Trisha is hugely pregnant and will have her baby soon, and-"
"I don't want to hear that!" I said. Not only was the thought of
Trisha having Gran's child painful in the extreme, the way Gran said it suggested
that he had come to me because he was not getting any you know with her.
Sneaking off for a rendezvous with your mistress just as your wife is ready
to give birth is also a pretty despicable thing to do. On the other hand:
just months ago, that same wife would have cheerfully shot him through the
head, so I could forgive Gran for wanting to get away for a while. I just
wished…
I pulled my ex-fiancée into the bedroom and closed the
door.
"Gran," I said, "My period is late, and..."
Then I felt a cramp. I always have cramps just before my menses. I disentangled
myself from my lover's arms and went to the bathroom to check. The red stain
told me 'no'; I was not pregnant.
'A miscarriage,' I thought, but even I can't lie to myself that badly. I had
been late, perhaps a day or two but that was all. I went back into my bedroom
to cry and be comforted again.
This meant no sex and Gran was disappointed, and I hit him with
a pillow for not hiding it better.
"It would have been wonderful, having a child with you," Gran said,
"We will, one day. I almost have one already, and there are sure to be
more. Things are looking up for the family."
Angry, I hit him again.
"Just you understand that as long as you are with Trisha," I said,
"I am seeing other men."
There. That would teach him.
"Why?" Gran said. "I don't love her. I love you."
"Yes, but you still sleep with her."
"That’s business."
"Sure it is."
"For procreation! For descendants..."
I knew that. Noblesse oblige, and a marriage for love is a rare thing. I also knew I would not let him have his cake and eat it. I would keep Gran in my bed for my own pleasure and happiness, and I would also get other men to please me and make me happy, if I could find any that dared.
We gently bickered and cuddled and had a spot of breakfast on
the sofa.
"Is it really that impossible for you to come away with me for a little
while?" Gran asked. He sighed.
"You don't want to, do you? Do you think it is fun for me, living with
Trisha instead of with you? You know it is you I wanted to marry."
"You didn’t try very hard," I sulked.
"Oh yes I did!"
"All talk, no action."
"You know how my father thinks about us." Gran said and handed me
a roll. "If your fertility had been proven without a doubt, it would
not have been the problem it was. You can say what you want, but this way,
there will be new child in the family. The first new Escallwyn in a very long
time."
"Yes, I know," I said, tired of fighting. "And I don't blame
the child. I blame you for not trying hard enough."
“I did make an effort," Gran said. "I tried very hard to—“
"Obviously not enough."
Gran sighed. "Let's not spoil things. We're together now."
"But I can't run off with you. I can’t go and stay away for days,"
I said. "Not now."
Gran gave me a Logrus trump of himself and made me promise to
trump him. I could not use the card for trump identification because it was
based on Logrus so concentrating on it would make me nauseous, but it was
nice to have.
"Why don't you just make one of me?" Gran said.
"That would take at least two days! Didn’t you listen? If I had
that kind of time, I –“
We talked some more about finding a swift shadow. Gran thought he could get one that ran at a rate of twelve hours there to one hour here, and I agreed that would be fine. It meant I would have four days with Gran instead of one night's sleep here, and that could be arranged.
"You must trump me when Trisha is going into labour,"
I said. "I would like to see, to be there."
"I can't say when that will be," Gran said, "it can happen
tomorrow, it can take another two weeks."
When I chided him for not knowing such an important thing, Gran protested
it was his first child. The baby would come when it was good and ready, and
no-one could know when that was going be.
I sighed and let it go. We snuggled up on the sofa until it was time for me
to go.
Before Gran trumped away, I asked:
"I would like it very much if you dumped Trisha. Perhaps after the child
is born."
"That would not be politic," Gran said. "It would antagonise
the Chartins, for one. It would be dangerous, you know that."
"I know," I sighed. "Yuk."
"Perhaps later, when there is a king and things are stable, we can take
risks again. But you can’t ask that of me right now."
"Would you kill her if I asked you to?"
"Trisha?"
"Yes," I said drowsily.
"She is the mother of my child," Gran said. "No. No, I would
not do that. And I would really hold it against you if you murdered her."
"I would not have respected you if you did," I said, and I meant
it. If he killed his wife for me he would not be the gentle Gran I fell in
love with. But I just wished he would do something for me. I wished I was
not forever second best, always the bastard child, a mistress but never a
wife.
Leaning against the doorsill, I watched Gran trump away.
. . . _ . . .
So much to do, so little time. I said goodbye to Ornach and told him I had to go to Amber because it was the only place I could get a trumpdeck, which I needed if I wanted to trump Rinaldo. Luckily, I have almost all of my private trumps memorised. It took me only a hop to Ygg and another hop to the courtyard by the stables to bring me to the heart of the eternal city. Such dizzying speed: from one side of the universe to the other in a handful of minutes. It was confusing. Standing under a sky turning from white to pink, I concentrated on a card with a picture of a tree on it. The picture took on depth, I smelled the leaves and grass and lo, I was there. Under the wide green branches, I took out another card and made it into a gate to a world with a deeper, darker blue sky, one with different smells and sounds, with stone walls and cobbles and warm bright stinging sunshine. I took a deep breath to steady myself, then another to celebrate my homecoming. I had trumped into the courtyard in front of the stables instead of going straight to the great hall because I wanted to see the sun for a moment. The turning sky of Chaos is beautiful, but it never feels like outside.
Time to go in. On the stairs to the second floor I met Uncle
Gerard.
"Boadice!" he said. “I’m glad to see you, it's good
that you’ve come home or you would have been late! We tried to trump
you but you didn’t take our calls."
Gerard, tall and broad-shouldered, was dressed richly and formally. The silk
and velvet and fur made my uncle look like a rich, aristocratic, amiable bear.
"I lost all my trumps in Galoria," I said. "They
put me on trial for--"
"I heard something about it," Gerard said.
Together we walked up the stairs and he turned his head to look at me. "You
sound as if you are proud of it..?"
I shrugged.
"It was a show trial. I showed them up. It doesn't bother me."
"I would like to hear all about it, but at some other time. You heard
Brand is back?"
I had not, and Gerard filled me in:
Apparently Dorian had found our notorious (nefarious) uncle in a different reality, and brought him home with him. Brand had lost his memory and thought he was Fabian from the Courts of Chaos of that reality. He had been imprisoned by Flora, of all people, as was Dorian. Dorian had found out that Flora was conspiring against the crown and collaborating with the Enemy-with-a-capital-E. When she knew he knew, she seized Dorian too. He met 'Fabian' in her prison. With the help of Melusine, who turned out to be Flora's daughter, the three of them escaped and made their way back here. There was more but this was the gist of it. I thanked my uncle Gerard profusely. This more than earned him my small story about Estefan.
After Brand fell into the abyss, the Family had posthumously sentenced him to death. There would be a family council to determine if this sentence would be carried out. This was why the Family had been trying to trump me. And to think I almost missed it! My mind reeled with the possibilities. Not only did I have to fit my mind around the idea of Flora as the great villainess --according to Gerard she had been the one responsible for Vialle's miscarriages-- there was also the possibility of trading this information about Brand with his son Rinaldo.
Gerard did not think Flora would attend the family council.
We agreed that it would be a good joke if she would. Gerard said that it would
solve many of our problems. Like the wicked fairy in the fairytales, Amberites
have a way of showing up anyway when they are not invited.
"She will curse us all--" I said, and Gerard said:
"And when little Ruby is sixteen she will prick her finger on the Pattern..."
Smiling, we contemplated the image of Castle Amber asleep and overgrown with
roses. By then Gerard had reached his floor. We said goodbye and I walked
on to my suite.
. . . _ . . .
In my dressing room I changed into a gown of lovely blue velvet. To speak to Random I would have to get past his secretary: an annoying man who lived to protect his king from unnecessary hassle. I remembered him from last time. A quick look in my files told me his name: Sir Vandemar. I had given him a nickname too: Eagle Nose. Now how could I convince Sir Vandemar that I was not unnecessary hassle but a vital contribution?
The last time I saw him, sir Vandemar had been quite susceptible to my charms, that is why I decided on the blue velvet gown I mentioned earlier. Amber's fashion prescribes ankle length skirts, but unlike Galoria’s fashion there are no volumous hoops or underskirts. The dress stood out only slightly at the ankles, hugged my hips and waist and stopped abruptly half an inch above my nipples. Sexy, I thought.
Almost satisfied, I looked at myself in the mirror. I am pretty enough but I wished I had an hourglass figure like Aunt Flora. She might have been a traitor and a collaborator, but she was the most vivacious member of our Family; the final authority on beauty and style. Amber wouldn’t be the same without her. I wished I had breasts like hers. Mine were pushed up slightly by hidden stays but my boobs are neither large nor small. If I could not look like Flora, I would have liked to be tall and willowy, anything instead of my average size and measurements. Gran calls my body a study in perfect classical proportions but he is not an impartial observer. I sighed. I would have to work with what I had and make up for the rest with a va-va-voom attitude. I exhaled, put my hands down the front of my dress, pulled up my bosoms and inhaled again.
. . . _ . . .
I found sir Vandemar in the antechamber to Random's main office. He was an olive skinned, black haired nobleman of one of Amber's foremost families. I heard he did his job well, and one of his duties was managing the King's appointment book. This position gave him a lot of power, and in my opinion he enjoyed that power just a little bit too much. When I closed the door, he looked up from the report he was reading. I smiled and swayed over to his desk.
"Hello lord Vandemar," I purred and leaned over.
"I wonder, would perhaps the king be present?"
"Lady Boadice! I shall take a look," sir Vandemar said. He made
a show of looking in a large leather bound notebook when he was really checking
out my cleavage from under his eyebrows.
"The king is in a meeting at the moment," he said and he closed
the book.
"Then I will wait," I said and planted my behind on his desk.
Sir Vandemar offered to make an appointment for me, he could squeeze me in somewhere next week (which was not a bad offer) but I insisted I would wait for my uncle here. I then got him to speak about himself, something everyone enjoys, and started some light flirting. This soon deteriorated into heavy flirting due to sir Vandemar's rather high opinion of himself. But Yurgo Chartin had taught me well and I kept sir Vandemar guessing. When he tried to touch me, I slapped his hand with the fan I had brought for just that purpose, and if Random would just end that darned meeting I was set. But after three quarters of an hour, I was still dodging sir Eaglenose’s advances and the game was getting a bit stale. Moreover, I could hear soft sounds of drumming drifting through the walls.
"Naughty mister Vandemar." I said. "The king
is playing his drums! That means I can go and see him easily, just for a moment."
I got up and walked to the door.
"No no," sir Vandemar rose and protested: "He is in a meeting."
"I really enjoy a good drum solo," I said, "bye bye, good sir."
I went into Random’s study. The room was empty! And when I closed the
door, the sound of drumming was fainter, not louder. That poncy nobleman had
been stringing me along! I turned on my heels and strode back into the anteroom,
taking care to keep swaying my hips.
"You naughty man!" I chided the secretary. "He was not there
at all," and quickly left in the direction of the drumming. If I had
had my trumps I would not have gone through all this trouble.
. . . _ . . .
Random saw me enter the music room but kept on drumming. I sat
down until he finished his 'riff', or whatever it’s called.
"Phoo," Random said when he had finished. He wiped the sweat from
his face and neck with a cloth. "What shadow do you come from? Perhaps
I should go there someday." He was alluding to the way I was dressed.
Worried, I looked down. Was my dress so far out of fashion that it was no
longer recognisable as Amber-ish?
"I needed to persuade your secretary to allow me to see you," I
said.
"Aha. And when did he say you could get an appointment?"
"If you had been in your office I would have seen you two minutes ago."
"You went that far? Wow."
My uncle grinned. His hair was spiky with sweat and stood straight up.
I blushed, grinned and shook my head. "No... You heard
what happened in Galoria? The thing is, they have my trumps."
"Then go and fetch them," Random said, throwing the cloth into a
basket.
"People are working on that. But it will take too long."
"People are working on it... Why don't you go and get them yourself?"
"Firstly, I am persona non grata in Galoria. And secondly I don't have
the time."
"Ah, that means nothing," Random said. "It happened to me too.
It's no problem at all, you go there, marry someone, become queen--"
Was he suggesting I marry Monias? I did not need my trumps that badly.
"Ho, wait, you don't mean--"
"That's what I did, last time I got banished," Random said.
O yes, of course. He meant Rebma and his marriage to Vialle.
"Oh yeah," I said and I smirked. "I don't think I have your
kind of luck. I mean, Monias... Duh."
"Who said it was luck," Random said, grinning back at me. "Okay,
I'm not complaining about the marriage thing, but on the other hand..."
He looked at the exposed tops of my breasts. "Sometimes I miss it, you
know."
"Hrm, yes, well," I said, tugging up my dress. "I was wondering
if you could lend me one of the spare decks for the moment."
Random frowned.
"They're the tools of my trade!"
"Boadice," Random said, "You are a trump artist!"
"Pleeeease!"
"Do I have to start distributing spare decks to trump artists too?”
"I don't have time to go and make trumps of twenty plus relatives--"
"You don't have time to go and make trumps of twenty plus relatives.
Yes, and where am I supposed to find those trumps?"
"You do have spares, don’t you?"
The last time I looked there were spare decks in the glass casement in the
library, and Random had a couple of the newer trumps in a drawer. That was
I don't know how many months ago, but still.
"You do have spare decks, don't you?"
"Yes, but they are not inexhaustible.
"It's only on loan; I will return them when I get my own back."
"So you’re telling me," Random said, "that you want an
Amber trumpdeck to continue your work for Ornach." He stepped out from
behind his drums and sat down on a chair.
"To be reachable," I said. "If I had had my trumpdeck, Gerard
would have been able to trump me to tell me about the Family Council. Now
I had to find out about it myself. I would have missed it otherwise. And it’s
pure coincidence that I am here now. I could have missed the whole thing."
"Boadice," Random said, gravely, "have you considered
your position in this family? Okay, you work for someone who is from Chaos,
who carries an obvious grudge towards Dworkin, one of the most prominent members
of our family--"
"Look at the facts instead of at theory," I said. "Ornach has
not undertaken anything, zero point nothing, to threaten Dworkin or Amber.
I have been looking out for that, yes? So far, my work for Ornach has laid
Amber two golden eggs, to whit: Llewella and Estefan. I mean, count your blessings!"
"Okay," Random said, "A trumpdeck... Hmmmm...
It would still be nice to get a little report now and then. What Ornach is
up to, how that struggle for the throne of Chaos is going... Things in the
Courts, you know, gossip? When you're king, these things are hard to come
by."
I nodded.
"Let me begin by telling you the story of how I ended up with Estefan,"
I said. "You know, reality--"
Random sighed and interrupted me.
"Boadice, management information! You know, stuff you can write on one
side of a small sheet of paper? That's what I need. Not the whole story."
So I gave him the short short version of my story about the
Flying Egg, Galoria and the trial. Random kept muttering 'Just the facts,
just the facts' and I told him everything except for the conversation I had
with Malachie. I also told him about Overshadow and the hole in reality.
"So that's where you were hanging out," Random said. "Why didn't
you tell anyone?"
"Stubbornness," I mumbled. As far as I’m concerned, a secret
like your identity in Overshadow is best kept by hiding that you even have
a secret.
"Half this reality cavorts about on the Overshadow, or so it seems, the
way I hear everyone talking. It's not something to be ashamed of, you know."
"No; stubbornness,” I said. “And they took so much trouble
to get it out of me!”
I sighed and finished the story.
"Now wasn't that useful?"
“It was,” Random agreed.
I asked:
"And how is Estefan?"
"Yes, yesyesyes. He still has to get used to things. I think he finds
it a bit primitive here."
"You have not given him a nerd shadow yet? He is still here? Great!"
"Yes, he is. I wanted to keep him under observation for a while. And
things have been busy over here. I haven't got around to setting him up."
"Oh," I said. "And where is he now?"
"Do I look like I know were every occupant of my palace is every two
minutes? Have you tried that? You have an exaggerated vision of kingship.
You should try it for a year!"
"I was expecting an answer like: 'cell five, block A',"
I said, stunned by his outburst. "Never mind. So you let him walk free.
Fine, No, I'll find him. And the family council is, what, tomorrow?"
"No," Random said, "The day after. I need to give everyone
time to get here."
"Has Rinaldo been invited?"
"We are still in debate about it," Random said. "The problem
is... we, my brothers and sisters, know what his vote will be, but first we
want to... The problem is, if we reach consensus, the risk is great that...
We must be able to act on our decision. And I don't know if we will be able
to, with Rinaldo around. If he attends the family council, we will have to
take precautions that he won't... I think he won't be very helpful, at the
moment. I'm still thinking about it."
That meant "no".
Perhaps I could use this... I very well might. But I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t.
. . . _ . . .
