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AMBER
Boadice’s diary,
Session 84
Played on November the 13th, 1998
Written by Jopie Schekkerman, based on a campaign by Astrid Tops.

Having a baby.

    “ou really should be a little more mindful of your reputation, milady,” Mrs. Turpin said while she brushed my hair. I watched her in the mirror. Her mouth was puckered primly but the lines around her eyes had deepened.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I really shouldn’t be repeating this but down in the servant’s hall they say that last night you spent more than an hour alone in a room with King Adrian. It’s only silly tittle-tattle of course and you know I don’t listen to that, but people do gossip so.”
“He is my cousin!” I objected.
I had indeed spent an hour or so in conversation with my cousin Adrian, drinking and talking. But surely no-one thought…
“He’s family!”
“Yes milady, as you say,” Mrs Turpin said. “But malicious tongues will wag… And lord Murlas and lord Dorian too, I heard.”

I cast my mind back to last night. She was right; Adrian and I had talked for a while. When Adrian and I left the room, we saw Dorian and Murlas coming down the hall. Obviously they had been doing some post-family council scheming of their own. Adrian had wanted to speak with Dorian and they left together. This threw Murlas and me together but we had nothing specific to say to each other so we wished each other goodnight and went to our respective rooms. I had been a bit unsteady on my feet because of the whiskey Adrian had served but I wasn’t drunk, I’m sure of that, and neither were my cousins. I did drop into bed without undressing or taking down my hair, and I did have a rather nasty headache, so this morning I needed my maid to brush out my tangles for me. And now she wanted to gossip.

“They are both male!” I objected. “Good grief!”
“Yes,” Mrs Turpin said, “of course, and they downstairs shouldn’t be commenting on the life of their betters, but—“ she dropped her voice, “they do say that lord Murlas has a lover in this Mr. Samal of Chaos. Your ladyship knows those Chaosites are strange people. And there is nothing I would put past lord Murlas, if your ladyship will forgive me.”
“But lord Dorian…!”
Mrs. Turpin pressed her lips together disapprovingly. She was enjoying this.
“Yes, and he used to be such a nice, dependable young man. After his introduction to the Family he seems to have acquired the urge to… sow some wild oats, if you get my drift milady. I heard he has even been seen in a…” she dropped her voice even lower, “a brothel.”

I studiously kept my face from showing what I thought.
So what? With Caine and Bleys and Corwin around, the staff should be used to a little wenching or even whoring at times. In aristocrats it is called ‘being a patron of the arts’. Seeing prostitutes, I thought, was indeed a little out of character for Dorian but what the hell: it wasn’t as if I knew him that well. I personally have an aversion to prostitution. If you talk, really talk with the women of the night, you find out that they despise their customers, each and every one of them. They just despise the clean, polite ones a little less than the others. But there are exceptions to every rule and who am I to judge.

Mrs Turpin went on and talked about how Dorian had been known to attend one or two parties of the Artist’s Society. This society was a group of painters, playwrights, musicians and other –as she put it– ‘artistic types’. Mrs. Turpin did not approve of ‘artistic types’. The way she told it, I gathered the only difference between one of those parties and an orgy was that at a party of the Artist’s Society, people leave the room when they want to have sex. This depressed me. Everyone has sex but me. And the people of Amber knew I was a painter and I had not been invited once.

“And king Adrian, the stories you hear about that kingdom of his!”
My maid had heard vague, distorted rumours about Adrian’s ‘chosen of the week’ system and the servants had embroidered on the tale. According to her, Sherwyn castle was a den of deprivation. Perhaps I should visit it again sometimes.

But first things first. I wanted to speak to my sister. If I was her, I would not take trump calls when I was in as much trouble as she was, but Yaslin might be careless or take chances to get information. I could always try. When Mrs. Turpin was done putting up my hair, I thanked her and withdrew into my parlour.

I calmed myself and concentrated on the image of Yaslin’s trump that was stored in my memory. To my surprise I felt a hint of contact, the careful opening of a mind.
“Boadice?” came my sister’s voice through the trump.
The image in my mind became animated and took on shape and depth in the air before me.
“Yes, it’s me. Don’t you EVER take trump calls again. Don’t you know how dangerous that is!
My sister stood before another carefully chosen blank wall, sword and dagger drawn.
“Adrian says you tried to assassinate Monias and him and DON’T answer this over trump because they can be eavesdropped on. Where are you? No, don’t tell me. I can’t leave here yet.”
“Come to me!” Yaslin said as if she had not heard me. I said I could not, and asked her to trump me again in a day, Amber time. Yaslin refused. She said she had other things to do.
“But wait. Where are you at the moment?’”
“I’m in Amber.“
“Who else is there?”

I’m not the brightest candle in the chandelier but even I saw through that.
“O no no no. You’re not going to—“
“Is Adrian there?”
“You are not going to attack people in Amber. You are going to hide really well, do you hear me?”
“Sis sis sis,” she shook her head. “I have sworn revenge, and I will carry it out. You know I take these things very seriously. He murdered my boyfriend. I am going to kill Adrian. That is the way things are done. The attempt was not directed at Monias—” her voice heated up, “I was going for Adrian!”
“Will you please be quiet!”
“No I will not shut up!!”
All this over an open trump contact!
“Would you at least wait until you talked this over with me?”

Yaslin demanded to know what it was that was taking my time, and I told her Brand had returned. She was not impressed and insisted I should come and help her avenge Treon.
“What is more important to you than me? I’m your sister.”
“You are, and I love you, but these things are never easy.”
“Come on,” she said. “You can take me right next to Adrian. You just have to pull me through for a moment. Come on, I’ve got the bolts ready…”
She just did not listen!
“I told you, honey, people can eavesdrop on trumps!”
“Come to me then, we will discuss it here.”
“I can’t, I tell you. Trump me back in half a day.”
“Half a day! By than Adrian will be back in Sherwyn and I won’t be able to get at him. Help me, sis!”
“That is what I want to talk to you about.”

Yaslin said we should do so now. I refused.
“You are not going to murder Adrian. That is a very BAD idea!”
Yaslin pouted and firmed her jaw at the same time.
“You’re taking his side?”
“I’m not taking—“
“But he is allowed to murder my boyfriend.”
“Don’t say those things over trump! Now be quiet!”
With pain in my heart I slammed the trump contact shut. My poor sister. She was hurting and channelling her hurt into aggression and I couldn’t help her. There was a war going on and she was making things worse. Why did she not listen when I told her trumps can be eavesdropped on? But I regretted breaking off the trump contact. In the state she was in, she was capable of anything. I tried to trump her again but she did not take my call. Either she heeded my words and kept trump silence or I had offended her and she was being stubborn. I am a stupid git with less tact than Alexander.

. . . _ . . .

I calmed myself, put on a different dress and went to see Random’s secretary. After this near-fight I was more convinced than ever that needed those reports Treon had written about Yaslin.
Sir Vandemar was up and working and greeted me with a greedy smile. I smiled back and wished him a good morning. I had an appointment, I said, countering his first attempt at stalling me.
“But while I’m here, would you be a darling and order me some copies of the reports on the lady Yaslin?”
“I’m afraid those reports are classified, but--” Sir Vandemar’s smile broadened as he took hold of my gloved hand, “I could arrange for your ladyship to come and view them. I am sure you may study the documents as long as I remain present…”
“I am so sorry, but I do not have the time. I need copies to study on my travels, I’m afraid.”
After just a moment of flirting, sir Vandemar agreed. The timely arrival of king Random in his office spared me the effort of dumping him.
“Boadice, what are you doing here?” Random asked. I closed the door to shut out his secretary.
“I was going to swear fealty to Amber after the Family council, remember?”
“Oh yes.” Random turned around and took a sword from its place on the wall. There was a little dust on the scabbard. He unsheathed it and said:
“Repeat after me.”

“Don’t we need to have a witness or two present?” I asked. Random slapped his forehead.
“You’re right. Who do you want?”
“Ehm, Bleys?”
“Okay.” Random went behind his desk and took a trump deck from a drawer. He sat down, put his feet on the desk, shuffled out a card and concentrated on the image. It took a long time.
“Perhaps he has… company?” I suggested.
“I told him about this last night,” Random said, annoyed. He concentrated harder, squinting at the card.

“Hi Bleys,” he finally said. “Could you come here? … Yes, right now. Tell her goodbye. No, you can leave that for later.” He took his feet off the desk, got up and a moment later my uncle daddy Bleys stood in the king’s office. With one hand Bleys tucked his shirt in his breeches, grinning merrily, with the other he wiped lipstick from his face with a kerchief. Who on earth would wear lipstick first thing in the morning? Ah well, I guessed that his partner had brought her affection along with breakfast in bed. Everyone has sex but me.
I suggested Fiona as my other witness but Bleys protested you shouldn’t keep that sort of thing confined to one branch of the family. I then asked for Benedict but we settled on Gerard. That uncle was soon summoned from his breakfast table and Random asked me to kneel and “Repeat after me…”

The lack of ceremony was a little disappointing. When it was over we drank a glass of wine to the occasion.
“Wine, before breakfast?” I asked. Bleys said that any daughter of his would be able to take drinking before breakfast in her stride so I shut up and drank. It did clear up the last of my headache. When the uncles started to leave, I had to catch Random again.
“What about the spare trump deck?”
Random groaned. I assured him I would return the trumps. He groaned again.

“There are spare decks in the display case in the library.” I suggested. “Don’t worry, you’ll get them back.”
We were walking rapidly downstairs in the direction of the great library.
“They all say that. Not EVER does one come back.”
“There has to be a first time for everything,” I said cheerfully.
“You know what happens when you lose a trump deck?”
I asked what would happen if I lost a trump deck.
“When a trump artist looses a trump deck, I mean…”
“Aha.”
“Right. I see you understand.”
“Let me guess, this is a new decree?”
Random grinned and nodded.
“I’m fickle that way. But it seemed a good idea all of a sudden.” We had entered the library and Random was looking for the key to the display case.
“I got the idea from the stable master, it’s just like what he insisted we’d do about the horses people kept taking out and not bringing back. He sometimes has very good ideas, he has.”

We found the key to the display case and Random left me with a brand new deck of trumps in my hands. While I walked to my room, I thought that my king’s demand was not as bad as it sounded. If I lost this trump deck, it would give me an excuse to draw trumps of every member of the Family, and thereby memorise them. Then I would recover the original deck and start the Amber Trump Museum. Chaos had a huge trump museum that burned to the ground when Merlin’s blood damaged the Logrus. I had been lucky to have visited the museum just before the disaster. Just thinking about the loss of all those unique and ancient trumps gave me a pain in the gut. It would take centuries before the Amber trump museum would amount to something, but the longest journey starts with a single step.

. . . _ . . .

I sighed and decided I could take some time off before contacting Rinaldo. Adrian was right: sometimes you have to take the time to do your own things. With a memorised trump I took myself to the Carth Islands. If I remembered correctly, I had asked my own information service to gather information on Treon too. Perhaps they had come up with something.

Sure enough, they had. The papers were waiting dutifully on my desk in my office in Carthagena palace. Unfortunately, they told me more or less exactly what I had just yesterday learned from Random and Adrian. If I had read this earlier, who knows what I could have done? Water under the bridge, Boadice, but next time you will take Adrian's advice and make time for dealing with your own problems. If you don't, Ornach and the various calamities will live your life for you.

Spending the morning attending to the affairs of my dukedom would not anger Ornach, I supposed. It wasn’t as if I was taking a mini-vacation with my lover: I had responsibilities. The Carth Islands are larger than any of the dukedoms my cousins received, but they are further from Amber and needed maintenance. There are a great number of them; from little ones the size of a double bed to the really large ones that still have remnants of volcanic activity. The islands are the last stop for Amber’s ships before they undertake the long and hazardous journey to the southern Golden Circle shadows. They function like the last oasis before the caravan enters the desert proper. We do first-aid repair on damaged ships so they can make it to the dry-docks of Amber. To ships going out, we sell citrus fruit, water and fresh vegetables. There is a good deal of fishing going on and a little pearl-diving. On the upper slopes of the larger islands, far above the orange trees, lie the vineyards that produce the heady Carthagenan wine.

When I first came to my dukedom, I found a bastard of a sorcerer had taken up residence in the islands, terrorizing and extorting the population with the help of a woman named Sonia. Sonia, as it turned out, was a supernatural being and could turn into a dragon. Because of them, my first visit to islands did not go quite as smoothly as I had planned. But I bought Sonia off, kicked the parasite sorcerer out, reduced taxes to a reasonable level and started repairs on what had been neglected and rebuilt what had been destroyed.

The papers on my desk showed those civic projects were coming along well. Repairs to the main roads were finished, the improvements to the docks were well under way and local engineers had taken a crack at repairing the leaking fresh water reservoirs.

I was a bit miffed that the population of my islands had not been as enthusiastic about my efforts to bolster the economy as I was. Instead, they seemed immensely pleased with the renovation of Carthagena Palace: something I had set up entirely for my own comfort and pleasure. It was a lovely palace built of big yellow sandstone blocks, with white windowframes and a slate roof. Andreas was filling the big, airy rooms with art and furniture.

Well, that’s human nature for you, isn’t it? Roads and jobs and commerce are nice but do not capture the imagination. A gorgeous palace is something to be proud of, even if you are never going to see the inside. Servants and visiting nobility would spread the stories of its beauty. Inspired, I started another promising project: the Carth Opera House.

Carthagenans are great lovers of song. In Amber, the nobility teaches its children to play various musical instruments. In the Carth Islands playing the piano is a good second choice for girls and boys who have no singing voice. The Carth Opera House had been in falling into disrepair ever since the demise of Finndo, who had been Duke of the Carth Islands ages ago. It would take a lot of time and effort to repair the building, and of course it would not be able to compete with the Grand Opera of Amber, but it would be a place worth looking at.

All these improvements and repairs, -- the palace boasted a good, old library that after decades of neglect needed the constant attention of two book restorers-- had cost a lot of money. Most of it I paid for with the taxes I raised and also out of my personal account in Amber. The latter, I had been assured, was inexhaustible, but I had applied for a grant for underdeveloped areas just to be sure.

. . . _ . . .

Under the document confirming my application I found another old report. Again, it was something I had ordered long ago and had not got around to reading. It was about Mardoc’s family and dependants. Mardoc had been my secretary and manservant until the fixing of the Logrus. The last time I saw him, he was lying in a hospital bed in Chaos. For a while I thought he had died. Later, Jurgo Chartin told me Mardoc had become Trisha Chartin's personal attendant.
Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
I even saw them at Emall Grice’s masked ball: Mardoc and Trisha. They were all over each other. Officially, this enquiry into Mardoc’s family life was to grant his dependants a widow’s and orphan’s pension. Besides that, I wanted a way of putting pressure on Mardoc should I see him again. "How could you do this to me, after I have been so good to you and your family." And if the worst came to the worst, it would be useful to know where they lived.

I sighed and wondered if Gran knew about Mardoc and Trisha. Then, I smiled. If Mardoc was still alive, I guessed he would be very annoyed that his mistress had gone back to her old husband. Mardoc had always been opposed to my relationship with Gran. He thought that Gran was a wuss and not good enough for me. And now his new mistress had re-married that same wussy! In fact, --my smile deepened--, it would hurt even more because I never had been his, and Trisha had been, for a time.

Trisha... No, she would tell Mardoc that her family forced her into this marriage. Mardoc would believe her. She would keep him on the side, for her amusement. I still disliked her, but --so I realised behind my desk in my office in my palace in my dukedom-- I no longer hated her. She was married to a man who did not love her and used her body to breed a child that was more needed than wanted. In fact, she was making do with my leftovers.

No, that was not true. She got exactly what she wanted. She took from me that which I wanted to keep. But she was a cold woman, unloving and unloved, and I felt sorry for her. Gran had done me at least as much wrong as she had. First he strung me along with promises of marriage and then he cheated on me with the woman he knew I disliked and was afraid to lose him to. He said he loved me but he did not back it up. I should take pains not to end up as pitiable as either of them.

I should take a lover and find some happiness (or at least fun) without Gran. But who? Someone nice, discreet and with a sense of humour. Someone who knew he was the transitional guy and didn’t mind, and who did not intend to sleep his way up. Perhaps sir Vandemar, Random's secretary? He was high born so he knew about discretion, did not need any of my political influence and he was interested. He wasn’t young anymore and he had a big nose, but perhaps he had a nice personality? Hmm, I guessed not. No, I decided I was not that desperate. I would ask Bleys to help me find a new lover. Uncle daddy would know hundreds of nice, eager young men and would be more than pleased to introduce me to some.

Perhaps... Yes, I should visit to Mardoc's relatives myself. I could tell them of his 'death' and their new pension in person. According to the file before me, Mardoc’s only family were his widowed elder sister and her four children. Yes, I would pay them a visit.

. . . _ . . .

For the second time that day I went to my dressing room to change my garments. Their duchess would come to their house looking like the immortal noblewoman she was. They would expect her to wear a silk dress sown with pearls but I compromised on luxurious practicality. I put on a beautiful bright blue embroidered tunic, velvet breeches and thigh-high boots of the finest leather. The gold buckles on the boots matched the gold clasp on my dark blue mantle. Two soldiers and a clerk accompanied me as I rode through Carbona Town on a fine horse with silver bells on its bridle.

Mardoc's sister's house was high up the hills on the west side of town. This was the ‘poor but decent’ neighbourhood. To my satisfaction I saw flowers in window boxes and chickens pecking in the refuse on the streets: signs of prosperity. These had not been there when I first came to the islands. The house was on the edge of the neighbourhood and overlooked the harbour. A child playing in the dirt by the front door fled in terror when it saw us dismount. It disappeared behind the house. A moment later a woman opened the door. The first impression I had of her was of her hair, pulled into a tight bun and as blonde as her brother’s. The hair was all I saw of her the next couple of moments because she dropped into a low courtesy and would not get up until I had assured her I meant no harm. When she got up, I saw her thin, pinched face. Her name was Ann and she introduced her children to me; two young boys: Thomas and Leo, a thin blonde girl not yet into puberty called Frea and a toddler named Emmeline. The youngest boy was the one I had seen in the street. It looked like his face had been hastily scrubbed down with damp cloth before being presented. The boys hid behind their mother's skirts but in the eyes of the eldest girl I saw a flash of pride that reminded me of Mardoc. They were poor and honest and embarrassed about their poverty. Nevertheless, they let me inside when I asked. The room was bare but tidy and their clothes were often mended but clean. Ann hid her hands beneath her apron. Too late: I had already seen that they were raw and red, the hands of a washerwoman.

Carefully, I brought them the bad tiding that their uncle and brother was dead. I praised his bravery and the ultimate sacrifice he had made for his country and his duchess, and explained that except for my gratitude they were also entitled to a widow's and orphans pension. Ann was shocked and sad and could at first not believe it. She asked me to tell her where her brother was buried. I lied and said that I thought he had a sailor's grave. Ann sobbed and rubbed her eyes.
“And he even sent us a letter from Chaos! He wrote his career was going well and that he had a new girlfriend.”
I asked if I could see the letter.
“May I see it? We had no chance to say goodbye.”
She produced the letter from a drawer.

It started with a couple of descriptions of Chaos, the things you write to relatives to describe a strange place: tables with no legs to keep them up and rooms with a different view from every window. He also wrote about the new employer he had found.
"That must be lord Grendel Escallwyn he is referring to," I said. "The lord paid his salary when I could not access my funds in Amber.”
"I talked to the other one and suddenly I realised things could be very different," Ann read from the letter, "and now I am happy and sure I made the right decision."
I raised my hand and asked her to stop. 'suddenly I realised...' This sounded very much like a change of mind that was made by someone reaching into your mind and changing it for you. I made Ann read it again. Yes, it was almost conclusive. Mardoc had not betrayed me; Trisha had altered his mind to take him from me. And then she took him into her bed. How pathetic is that?

When I left Ann and her family, leaving them an allowance that would raise their income to comfortable middle class, I was happier than I had been in a long time. I had done some good, Mardoc had not betrayed me and I might even get him back if I could undo the damage Trisha had done to him. Poor Mardoc, would he feel used!

. . . _ . . .

While riding back to the palace –I wanted to change again before I trumped Rinaldo and started negotiations about the black and white trump– I was trumped myself. It was Gran and he was more than agitated.
"Boadice," he said, "I need you to come to me right now!"
"What, to Chaos? Where are you?”
"Never mind!" Gran said and he pulled me off my horse and through the trump contact.
"It's Trisha!"
Gran was pale and sweaty and his hair was dishevelled. We were standing in the central hall in Escallwyn Ways. I was impressed: he had pulled me from the lands of Amber all the way to the Courts of Chaos without my cooperation or even my consent. Usually it's next to impossible to establish even a weak trump contact over that distance.
"Tell me you didn't do it!" Gran said while he pulled me to a side door. There had been a couple of dead guards on the floor.
"You must do something, anything!"

Behind the door a disgusting, wildly shifting mass that only vaguely resembled Trisha was thrashing on the floor. In the centre of her changing body still stood the mount of her belly. There were a couple of crossbow bolts embedded in the wall above her and someone whispered 'poison'. Old grandpa Escallwyn mumbled incantations that were meant to restrain Trisha, but he was old and weak.

Yes, I would try to help Trisha, not only because I pitied her but also because she had not yet given birth.
"Do something!" Gran shouted. "Prove you didn't do it."
I gathered my strength. When I first learned magic, I researched a couple of healing spells on general principle, and one of them was tailored to Chaosites with no Pattern in it. Gran had once had trouble with excessive shapeshifting himself. The spell was only partly beneficial against poison but when you lack time to refine you make up for it with brute force. I took a deep breath and let rip.

For a moment it seemed to work. Trisha stopped thrashing and her shifting steadied. Through blurred vision, I saw Gran's grandfather take a knife and cut into her belly, opening it up and removing something. It was plunged into my arms with a cry of "hold this" and he was back to tending Trisha. I looked down. It was a baby; spasming and trashing like its mother. The tyke was silent but its mouth was open as if to cry. The poor thing was in pain and changed colour every time I moved, just like those miniature roses I gave to Mylor the magician. When it started to shapeshift like its mother, I cried to Gran for help.

"I don't know what to do! Nothing helps." My lover’s hands were stained with yellow slime. His grandfather looked older than time. I was too weak to try the healing spell again. Until I find a better way, my magic is fuelled by my own energy.
"You know about how Amber blood is said to have special properties?" I asked. It was a wild idea but it might even work. "That could also go for milk. Mothers milk is said to impart characteristics to the child, so if you could make me lactate, I could help--"
"There's no time!" said his grandfather. "But I like the idea of the blood."
I tried to insist. What sort of start would a baby have in life if its first meal came from a slit wrist? In the end we compromised; I made a cut under my collar bone and the child would drink what dripped down. In a haze of exhaustion --I had forgotten to have breakfast that day-- I fed the baby my blood. Behind Gran and his grandfather, a pale slime made the floor slippery. My rival was gone.

. . . _ . . .

The next twenty-four hours went by in a daze. The baby fought for its life but it had been poisoned with the same toxin that killed its mother. With so small a body, even a little drop would be too much but we could not let it die. I fed it my blood while Gran put food in my mouth and slapped my face to keep me going. He and his grandfather forced the baby to shapeshift to make it purge the poison and all of this we backed up with our magic. I think I remember seeing Frewar and Thron, Gran's brother and father, but I'm not sure. Perhaps they helped. I fainted several times and it seemed to last forever. The baby was a marvel; so much will to live in such a small body.

I must have fainted one last time. When I woke up, I was lying in bed. Two candles put the room in a soft light. That was nice of them, I thought, most of Escallwyn Ways was lit with magic but they put candles by my bed to make me feel at home. My body felt heavy but at the same time I felt incredibly comfortable, almost as if I floated in bed. This why some doctors bleed their patients: it hardly ever helps but it makes you feel good. I tried to move, and found something lying beside me. With effort I turned and joy, beside me lay the baby. It slept peacefully and seemed to have settled on green for a colour. Smiling with anticipation I opened the soft white cloth it was wrapped in. It was a girl, a beautiful green misshapen girl. Her sex had been indeterminable when she was still fighting the poison. I counted her fingers: one two three four… ten. Check. Then her little toes: one two three four… eleven. Close enough. And that tiny third nostril was just cute. She woke up and looked at me with large green eyes. Weren't baby's eyes supposed to be blue? I didn't know much about babies; I was better with foals. I did know that it would take her longer than a couple of hours to learn to walk, it would take... months, I guessed. And I didn’t have to lick her clean unless I wanted to.

She was beautiful, really beautiful even if her limbs were not made quite right. Her spine was twisted, one shoulder was higher than the other, her hips were crooked and one foot stood at a right angle to the other. It did not matter. When she grew up and learned to shapeshift she would be fine, and as long as Llewella was part of Amber, no-one would dare to make fun of her colour. What would be your name, then, little one? I always liked Elanor as a name for a girl. Invidia maybe? Elizabeth, Liz? It would have to be a name that sounded good in both Amber and Chaos. Raven was nice, Madeline, Meera, or Lisa. Sur, after her famous great-grandmother? She didn’t look like a Sur. Diana? Ginger is nice. Maybe. We would have to ask her father.

The baby and I were getting acquainted when I felt a very weak attempt at a trump contact. It opened almost immediately and I saw Yaslin, running. A part of me worried about my lack of mental defences but the rest of me couldn't be bothered. My little girl's face was crooked too.
"Sis, he's going to kill me!" I heard Yaslin say.
"He mustn’t do that," I told her.
Was this urgent? I guessed so and held out my hand. I remembered some thoughts I had earlier: Yaslin could have been the one who murdered Trisha. Trisha had been killed with the same poison that almost did Monias in. But Yaslin wouldn’t have, would she? It would have been too obvious.

Yaslin came through and fell to her knees beside my bed, panting. Perhaps she was wounded. Smiling, I showed her the baby.
"Look, a little girl."
I felt another trump contact and without conscious thought, I let it trough. It was Adrian.
"Hi Adrian."
He did not smile at me.
"Is Yaslin with you?"
I told him yes. I should be worried but for the life of me I could not remember why.
"Look, I've got a baby. Isn't she beautiful?"
Adrian said she was.
"I'm holding you personally responsible for Yaslin."
The part of me that was not zonked out from loss of blood saw he was angry and frustrated. That part also tried to warn the rest of me that in my current condition, he could force his way through and then we would have a fight in the room and they would make the baby cry.
"Can you hand her over to me?”
I thought about it. Adrian and I had spoken about this before. How inconvenient it was to have to rely on old thoughts, but I was too tired too think up new ones.
Oh yes, now I remembered.
"You said you wouldn't ask that of me. You take care of Sherwyn and I would look after my sister. That was the deal."
Adrian nodded.
"Okay."
I smiled and waved at him. "Bye bye."
"Bye bye," said Adrian, and he was gone.

A couple of servants had come and left in a hurry. Was this bad? There was something I had to know.
"Yas?" I asked and Yaslin looked up. Her clothes were scorched. I pointed at the baby.
"You didn't do this, did you?"
"What?" Yaslin said. "I don't know who that is, Boadice."
"No, with Trisha. It wasn't you, was it?"
"Trisha? If you want her dead you only have to say so. It works very well, this poison."
I shook my head.
"She is already... puddle. But it went in the same way as... Oh, I've got to wake up. It went just like with Monias."
I slapped my face and drank some water. That made me feel better; much less bleary, but my limbs were still heavy. I managed to sit up in bed. The baby had gone to sleep and I re-wrapped it. Would changing a nappy be difficult? No, think about the problem at hand.

"Yaslin, you've got to swear to me that you didn't do this." I pointed at the baby.
"I didn't mean to kill Monias," Yaslin said, "It's Adrian we've gotta have."
"We're talking about Trisha, will you listen to me!"
"Who is Trisha?" My sister looked genuinely innocent.
"Good. So you didn't kill her?"
"Of course not. I don’t know her."
"Will you swear this to me? Because it's very important."
Yaslin said she would and swore, and I smiled. I knew she didn't do it.
"Look, a little baby. She hasn't got a name yet, we've still got to give her one."
I held the baby out to my sister. Yaslin looked at the girl as if she wasn't very interesting, but nodded.
"Hmmm. You can name her after her mother. It's not yours, is it? You weren't pregnant, were you?"
I shook my head, suddenly overwhelmingly tired.
"No no. It's Gran's. Gotta go to sleep now."
I lay down my head.

Before I could sleep a lot of guards stamped into the room, took Yaslin by the elbows and marched her away.
“What's this," I called out. “Don't do that. Gran!"
Frantically I pulled on the bell cord until my boyfriend came.
"It was the right thing to do Boadice," Gran said. "I am glad you saw it too."
"What are you talking about?!"
"The murder of Trisha of course."
"She swore to me she didn't do it. Really. That the crossbow bolts that killed Monias were poisoned is widely known and my sister is not so stupid as to kill twice in the same way. Everybody could have framed her and she swore to me she didn't do it. Now you let her go this instant or I won't be able to sleep."

Gran sighed, shook his head and started to leave but I called out his name and dragged myself out of bed. The baby I took with me. In my head an echo from a half forgotten past shouted at me to support the head, and somehow I managed. Together we made it to the door. Gran and I faced each other in the doorway.
Gran sighed.
"I don't know what I should believe."
"Hm?"
"You threatened to kill Trisha so often..."
"I did not! I fought her a couple of times and both times I won and both times I let her live. I really did. And I promised you I wouldn't, and now you won't believe me." I had to steady myself against the doorframe.
"Everyone knew you wanted to. And now those crossbow bolts, the same poison as with Monias, the same murderess as with Monias is here, and you tell me there's no connection at all?"
I shook my heavy head.
"She just trumped in, there's no connection and she swore to me she hasn't done it." Grammar was getting harder too. "Now will you let her go or won't you? You can keep her in Escallwyn ways, I would even prefer that, but don't hold her prisoner."
Gran turned his face away.
"Even Yaslin would not attack a pregnant woman and endanger a child. I am sure of that."
Gran said:
"I have to speak to father about this. Wait here."
I went back to bed and piled up the pillows to lean against them. The baby slept against my shoulder.

After a while, Gran came back and sat down on the edge of my bed. In the candlelight I saw the rings around his eyes.
"Politically," he said, "It does not even matter if she is guilty or not. Appearances are against her. If we let her go, it will seem as if we are too weak to punish Trisha’s murderess. This will give us a vendetta with the house Chartin and we can't afford that at the moment."
I nodded. The political situation in the courts was still volatile and the Escallwyns were not as strong as they should be.
"I will have enough on my hands protecting you, don't you understand? Everyone will think you did it."
"Even if I did," I said snippily -I was feeling a bit better- “I still have a vendetta against the Chartins so they can't get me there."
"Everything points at Yaslin."
"She swore to me she didn't do it. And anyone could have framed her, no problem. Perhaps I can even prove her whereabouts at the time of the murder." I didn't think I could but it was worth a try.
"It’s not that simple," said Gran. "If we can’t prove she did not kill Trisha, I will have to have her executed, if only to make a gesture and keep the situation stable."
I considered telling him he could not execute an Amberite without serious consequences, but Yaslin was no Amberite anymore and the Family would not act on her behalf.

"That's the way things are," Gran went on. "And I will help to try and prove her innocence but if that can't be proven, she is guilty by default."
They are good at this in the Courts of Chaos; there is no 'innocent until proven guilty' here. Evidence against her is circumstantial but it was the only evidence there was.
"Let's analyse the crossbow bolts first, see if they are the same as those that killed Monias."
I protested nothing had been proven about Monias' killer. All evidence in that case was hearsay and rumour. Gran looked deadly earnest.

"Seriously," I said, "I did not want Trisha dead. I fought her, I won, I kept her alive. We weren't on friendly terms but... I think it must be possible to find out who did murder her. Yaslin didn't even know who she was."
Gran turned sarcastic.
"And she wasn't interested at all in what happened to you?"
"O yes she was!"
"And you never told her about Trisha, about me and the situation here?"
"Since you and Trisha got back together, very little time has passed in Amber. Only a week or so, or less. And Yaslin has her own problems. I was in Galoria and she was banished from Amber. She has other things on her mind than her sister's rival."
Gran hung his head.
"It's all too much of a coincidence and I don't like it. If she didn't do it, who did?"
I was sure Trisha had other enemies. Gods, I was tired.
"You know you brought me here yourself. I didn't do it. Neither did Yaslin, she swore this to me and now I'm going back to sleep."

Gran nodded, kissed me and got up. I pulled him down again.
"By the way," I asked, "did you think of a name for your baby? Had the two of you decided what to call her if you got a girl?
To my dismay, Gran said they had not. Did they even want this child? I dropped the subject.
“When I saw the crossbow bolts and heard about the poison, I thought the same things as you. But my sister would not do such a thing and I made her swear she didn’t do it.”
Gran asked how I knew she spoke the truth. We Amberites weren’t really known for being honest to each other. I compared my relation with my sister to his relationship with Frewar.
“You would trust him too, if you asked him such a question at a moment like this.”
“That is different,” Gran said.
“Yaslin and I don’t have a typical Amberite sibling relationship,” I said.

Gran hung his head again. He looked as tired as I was.
"I'll have to keep Yaslin behind lock and key for the moment," he said with a sigh. "She's much too dangerous."
I agreed.
"First, we must determine if she's innocent or not. If we don't, it's over. If the Chartins have any doubt, if they think for a moment that I would allow a daughter of theirs and the child she carries to be murdered in my Ways, it's over. They will do anything to destroy us."
"But I saved her child," I said and held his daughter up for him to see. "Look, she is very much alive." The little girl was peacefully asleep and looked like a little green malformed angel.

"And besides, you can blame it on me if there's no other way. I have, when I'm not in Amber or Chartin Ways or in the Thelbane, every right to kill a Chartin."
I have mentioned before that the Chartins and I still had a vendetta going. Ironically, it was about Trisha. The Chartins accused me of murdering her and when they could not prove it, they registered a vendetta against me. Amber, the Thelbane and Chartin Ways were the only places where the vendetta could not be acted upon. When I proved Trisha was alive and well (by fighting her until she was K.O. and showing her around,) neither the Chartins nor I had taken steps to officially end the feud. I rather liked being allowed to kill any one of them without too many consequences. They had abused the justice system of the Courts by calling the vendetta when secretly they knew Trisha was alive, but as long as there was no king in Chaos I could not sue them on that point. Anyway, justice is only for the powerful and well connected, I had learned that much.

They did owe me a favour though, the Chartins. Just after my stint in Hywara, they had molested me but had done so on the soil of the Thelbane, which was in violation of the law. Later, Escallwyn had tried to cash in on that favour on the grounds that I was as good as married to Gran. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that I had to disentangle myself from my involvement with the Escallwyns.
And now they as good as tied me to them with this little baby... The Escallwyns had no female members. Gran's aunt Illea was born male and was only a woman for fun. I loved this little girl and she needed a mother figure.

Gran woke me from my thoughts.
"Are you sure you want to rekindle the vendetta? You haven’t registered a counter vendetta and this was clearly not self defence."
He was right. Not registering a counter vendetta gave me the right to get help from my family. It had seemed a good idea at the time. We decided we couldn't. My feud with the Chartins would not excuse Yaslin’s behaviour anyway; it would only provided a motive and give them an excuse to point the finger at me and my sister. Life stinks and there is no justice except what you create yourself.

Gran kissed me, got up and left, and I was alone with my thoughts again. What could I do? First I should start the investigation into Trisha’s death. She could have been killed by any of the enemies of Escallwyn. This was not a large family, if they were eliminated there would be a seat available in the Major Council. Any minor family that thought it could fill that gap would have a motive to kill Trisha. A major family that wanted to relieve pressure or give a seat to one of its allied houses could have done it. Killing Trisha when she was still pregnant cut short the Escallwyns first step towards growth and strength. Doing it in the way it was done had increased the chance that the Chartins would mop up the remains. So almost every family in the Courts had a motive. Besides that, there were Trisha’s personal enemies. I was sure she would have had some. I would have to examine the scene of the crime. Were there any clues? How did the assassin enter Escallwyn ways? Did Trisha invite him or her in? How did the guards die, did they die defending Trisha or did they die trying to catch the murderer?

And then there was the poison. Gran knew how Monias was assassinated (or almost assassinated, Adrian still seemed to have doubts about that). Adrian spoke freely about it, so I could assume it was public knowledge. How did Yaslin get the poison anyway? It is a Chaos thing, and as far as I knew she had no contacts in Chaos. It was good that they were keeping her here, now I could talk to her and she would not be able to run away from the things she did not want to hear. I would speak to her tomorrow. After that, I would trump Rinaldo and open negotiations about the black-and-white trump prison he had. Why? Because justice is for the powerful and well-connected, and I knew someone who was very powerful and extremely well connected. I would speak to Ornach.

. . . _ . . .

To be continued…

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