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AMBER
Boadice’s diary,
Session 88
Played on April the 29th, 1999
Written by Jopie Schekkerman, based on a campaign by Astrid Tops.

First you prophesy, then you have lunch.

    lanor looked at me with big green eyes while I sketched like mad. This was the day I would take her away from the Escallwyn ways and find her another home in shadow. That was why I was drawing a picture of her; so there was a reminder of her in Escallwyn Ways when she was gone. She was smiling, a thing I had not seen her do before. She was also making happy noises. Another baby would have said ‘gaga’ instead of ‘kah kahr’ but who cared; she was happy. I wanted, needed her father to remember her. Gran can love deeply and truly, but under pressure he takes the easy way out and chooses duty over love. Yes, I know, he has to make his own choices, and loyalty to house and family is a great virtue. But in the end he hurts himself as much as the ones he loves and he has to learn the consequences. I just wished he learned them quickly.

Elanor blew spit bubbles and tried to grab my earring while I carried her back to her father. She got it too, and pulled so hard tears sprang into my eyes. I pried her little fingers loose and gave her my pinkie to hold instead.
“Carhcab”, she said.
Gran was in the study where I had left him. This time I knew the passwords. He looked up from his papers when we came in and I put the baby in his arms.
“I called her Elanor.”
Elanor smiled her crooked smile at him and made jackdaw noises. Gran held her close and smiled back at her. Thank the Unicorn, he cared. After what he said in our last conversation, I had been afraid he wouldn’t. I looked down on father and daughter and cast my mind back several years.
Gran and I used to be so happy together. That was a long time ago, in a shadow called Pieck. I could tell Gran about things that interested me, and he would listen and grow enthusiastic too. He would tell me what he had done that day: interesting stories. We could fight and make up and be the wiser for it. I know and love the way all the different parts of his body smell. But if I cleave to him it will destroy me.

I stood beside his chair while Gran rocked Elanor. He looked like he regretted that he could not keep her but I was afraid to ask.
“I like it, it’s a good name,” Gran said after a while. “Elanor. It suits her.” Elanor had gotten hold of the pen he had dropped and was getting ink on her wrappings. Gran tenderly took the pen from her and gave her a piece of blotting paper instead. He sighed.
“I am sorry Boadice, I can’t tell you what this means to me. I want her to be happy.”
“None of us can guarantee her that, not even if she were a normal baby,” I said.
“It’s better this way.”
Gran held Elanor against his shoulder while I told him I was going to take her to Li-tin Two. Gran liked the idea.
“It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “Intellectual. I don’t know if she…, yes, I think she’s smart.”
“She should be,” I said, thinking of her mother. If Elanor could have her mothers intelligence and cunning and her father’s kind nature, she would be a wonderful person.
“I can’t go there myself,” Gran said to me, “but could you visit her sometimes, discretely?”
“You can do that yourself,” I said, and added “But not now. Later,” before he could protest that he couldn’t.
Gran held his daughter until she fell asleep.

. . . _ . . .

I wrapped Elanor in several layers of cloth before I trumped away from the Courts. The only trump I had of a shadow halfway between Amber and the Courts was as one of Ygg. Although the bloody tree has never said a single damn word to me, this time it might just start blabbing: “Boadice came by and she was holding an ugly green baby,” to every soul who passed by, so I hid her well. I had made her a silver locket with small portraits of Gran, Trisha and me inside. It had been difficult for me to include a picture of Trisha, and even more so to have it facing Gran, but I told myself I had to do it. I should not inflict my dislike of Trisha on her daughter. Elanor deserved a clean start.

From Ygg I walked to Li-tin and from there to Li-tin two. This time I took Gran’s advice and tried to make sure I was not followed. To my surprise I found I had an extra sense for it. If I walked carefully, I could feel the shadows behind me close smoothly and seamlessly. I never knew I could do this, but then I had never paid attention to that part of a Pattern walk. For most of my life I had thought I was the only one who could walk between shadows, and since I met the Family there had been no time for experimentation. Of course, I think I felt the shadows close cleanly behind me. There was no way to be sure without a fellow shadow master to test the theory. To be doubly sure, I occasionally traced my own footsteps and used trump sketches to hop backwards and forwards.

When I came to Li-tin Two, I made a tiny shift to add more women to the monastery –let us call it a temple complex from now on—, and there I was, Li-Tin Three. The cherry trees were in full bloom, they carry rich blue blossoms for eight months of the year. The sky was pink and the air was cool and fragrant. I went to the orphanage and knocked, and a monk with kindly brown eyes opened the door. He looked down to the baby in my arms and said:
“Ah.”

The monk had a short purple tentacle for a nose that wriggled when he spoke.
“Her father is an important man in a far away country,” I said. “There is a war over there, it killed her mother. He sends her here to keep her safe.”
The monk looked at me questioningly.
“I am her… godmother,” I said.
On the way here I had considered calling myself her nurse. It was a humble job, a servant’s occupation, but stories were full of faithful nurses waging heir lives for their charges. But when the monk asked his question, I changed my mind and called myself Elanor’s ‘godmother’ because it sounded better. The monk nodded and gestured for me to follow him.

As we walked down the whitewashed corridors of the orphanage, I thought about myself as a godmother. I liked the title; it felt right. Being a godmother was as good a role as any and better than most. Would I dress her in white and glass and change a pumpkin into a coach so she could go to the ball? No, not my little demon-frog. If there was one fairy tale for her it would be ‘beauty and the beast’. My poor girl, even in this shadow her life would not be easy.

“True love will save her,” I said, trying out the thought. It sounded very final, very real to me. I thought I had spoken softly but the monk turned around and nodded.
“That is true,” he said. “If that is her birth wish, it will come to pass.”
His words sent a shiver down my spine. Had I made a prophecy? It happens sometimes, in some shadows. I am very Real, in some shadows magic and fate home in on this. It could come to pass.

I fed Elanor one last time and left her in the care of the monks and nuns. Then I left the shadow and searched for a quiet place to have a good cry.

. . . _ . . .

When I had dried my tears I sat down to think. Was being saved by True Love a good thing? The love between Gran and me was real but it was making neither of us very happy. At least the prophecy, if it was real, meant there was hope. One day she would learn to shapeshift and be able to take up her birthright as heir of the house Escallwyn. Or would she be ‘saved’ in some other way? The trouble with real love is that you can’t plan for it or make it happen.

I should instead concentrate on the problem at hand: finding the black and white trump that held Ornach’s daughter Bihaye. To keep Ornach happy, I had to find it and bring it to him, and if Ornach was happy he might help me save my sister. On the other hand, Random was right when he said that the children of Ornach were dangerous and powerful and we didn’t know where they stood in the battle for this reality. To put my thoughts in order I reviewed what I knew: who were Ornach’s children, where were they and what did I know about them?

- Taureth was the eldest of Ornach’s children. Taureth was an amiable scientist who resided in Ornach ways and did research, some of it for Dorian. If I was any judge of character he would be on ‘our’ side. Taureth was just plain nice.

- Then there was Samal, youngest one of the bunch. Samal was a real bastard; sinister in that oh-so-attractive sort of way and a fitting partner for Murlas. His was the only trump I ever made that I did not enjoy painting. Samal played with me the whole time I was working on it. Samal recently got disowned and I didn’t know why. Since then he lived in Sherwyn.

- Malketh, I knew well. She was the one who was caught the trump with the white orchid. Her prison was an overgrown garden but when I got there, she had already escaped and set up house in Overshadow under the alias of Orchid. She was friends with one of the Sisters; the green, vague one, I keep forgetting her name. Together, Malketh and I searched for Malachie.

- Bihaye was the one who ‘lived’ as a disembodied spirit in the halls of Ornach Ways. Dara tricked me into leaving my body so Bihaye could occupy it for a while, and I had to be a djinny in a bottle for that time. Ornach swapped our spirits back, so that I had my own body back and Bihaye became a djinny. As far as I know, she still lives my old bottle.

These were the children I knew personally. Dorian told me there were seven, and he described their trumps to me. Bihaye’s trump was a black mask against a white curtain. Dorian said she was a demagogue and skilled in diplomacy. I hoped this was of use to her in the Djinn society. Malketh was a rebel, a contrary person with unorthodox tactics and a love for plants and growing things. Samal’s trump was a white pillar bound by a black chain. Dorian called him a degenerate pervert, without scruples and a bit unpredictable but with great charisma. That description was spot on, let me tell you! Dorian never told me what Taureth’s trump looked like, but he didn’t have to because when he told me about Ornach’s children, Taureth had already been found.

So, four children were found, saved or saved themselves, which left three for me to find.

- The first was Tiphane, the one I was looking for now. Her trump showed a black spider on a white ball. I had been told she had the mindset of a spider in a web; she liked to know things about other people. I believed she was the second oldest.

- Then there was Geron, in a trump that looked like a black glove on a white and black chequered floor. I didn’t know very much about him except that he was supposed to have an ice-cold personality. It is said that no one ever caught him showing any kind of emotion. I wondered if a near-infinity of captivity had changed him at all.

- The last brother was Seren. His trump was a half white-, half black sword stuck in a black stone. Dorian described him as the Benedict of the family, commander of Ornach’s armies.

That was it: four accounted for and three still lost. That sounded better than it was because of those four, only Taureth was of any use to Ornach. Samal was disowned and entirely on Murlas’ side and Bihaye’s body had been destroyed. Being a djinn is fun but the limitations it puts on you are crippling. Malketh had barely seen her father and was going her own way.

Where did this leave me? I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to fetch Tiphane’s trump for Ornach. If I had a choice, I would stay with Elanor until she was eighteen, teach her magic and how to ride a horse, but that would do this reality no good at all.

I should also not forget about Yaslin and Monias. Damn! Now Elanor was officially dead, I could not offer Galoria my help in healing Monias; I had no example of what I was able to do. And perhaps Monias did not want to be fixed with Pattern and lose his shapeshifting ability. Or perhaps he did, being alive and non-shapeshifting always beats being in stasis and ready to die. Damn! I could barely make it through a day without a new crisis popping up. I had to concentrate on the task at hand: finding Tiphane’s trump. If only I was sure I really wanted to find it…

Random was right to have misgivings about Ornach’s children, but they and their father had done infinitely less damage to this reality than the Enemy had. And I needed Ornach’s support to save my sister. On a whim, I wrote Yaslin a short letter to her describing the improved situation in Sherwyn. That should please her, her confinement would be driving her up the walls. I sent the letter to Escallwyn Ways by trump, they would read it but give it to her anyway.

Thinking about Elanor, I put some distance between myself and Li-tin Three. Whatever happened, her sanctuary should not be found.

. . . _ . . .

I had just started thinking about trumping Rinaldo when I received a trump call myself. I could not tell who was calling me, none of the trumps in my deck were active. But that could mean the caller was Gran’s father, as I had no trump of him. Wary, I took the call without the visuals.

“This is Boadice,” I said, “who is this?”
I really should have taken the time to finish that spell rack; I should have magic to protect myself against a mental attack.
“Who is this?” said the caller. After a couple of moments I recognised the voice. It was Delwin! He said:
“There’s something wrong with the image.”
“I turned it off,” I said, “for reasons of vanity.” I had not checked my face after crying over Elanor. I probably looked a mess.
“O, you’re not dressed?”
“Perhaps…” I said. A dirty mind is a joy forever.
“I thought,” Delwin said, “I should trump my daughter again. Maybe we could have a drink. It has been so long since we last saw each other. I heard all sorts of interesting things are going on.”

“Have you got a moment?” I asked. I found a clear stream, washed my face and pulled a comb through my hair. ‘Trump my daughter again’, indeed. More like ‘Trump my daughter for the very first time’. Nevertheless, my heart was a-flutter. My father wanted to speak with me! With me!

I carefully strengthened the contact until I saw my father’s face appear, all in shades of grey. Delwin was standing beside a small table outside a café, near a cobbled square lined with trees. It looked so inviting. It was a chance to chat and relax and get to know Delwin better. Nobody in the Family ever spoke about him, there wasn’t even a trump of Delwin in the standard deck. This was my chance, if I passed up this opportunity it might never come again. The sun was out in the shadow he was in, it looked like spring and people were strolling by. I made up my mind. Delwin held out his hand and I let the picture take on colour and depth, changing Delwin’s hair from grey to sandy and his clothes to black and brown.

“Am I calling at an inopportune moment?” Delwin asked.
He was, but I asked if he minded if I verified his identity. Delwin agreed.
“Finish this sequence: a castle on a glass mountain, a picturesque street in a city…”
“A stony landscape with ravens and a beach by a purple sea,” Delwin said. These were the trumps depicted on the aces of a deck of cards I found in his study when I was sixteen. It was him, and not someone posing as my second father.

. . . _ . . .

“How kind of you to think of me,” I said as I pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him.
Delwin waved my concern away.
“Well, it has been so long, I thought I’d ask and see how my daughter was doing.”
I caught the waiter’s eye and ordered a cup of coffee. Delwin dismissed him and poured me a glass of wine. Had he been speaking with Adrian? Did he know that when I’m drunk, I spill the beans? Wonderful, that’s just the reputation I want.
“How about a nice salad?” Delwin said. I played along and ordered a big lunch: salad with cheese and melon with thyme and honey dressing, and buttered toast on the side.

“I’m doing fine, how kind of you to ask,” I said, eating but never touching more than a drop of my wine. I was not dressed for this shadow. The men walking by wore light coats and low shoes, and the women wore thin pastel dresses. My thigh-high boots, velvet mantle and deep blue doublet made me stand out like a kingfisher among doves.
Delwin saw my glances and offered to take me shopping. I shrugged and declined.
“No need,” I said, “If anyone asks, I just came from the dress rehearsal of a play or something.”
Costume parties are also a good excuse, as are being foreign or being a fashion freak. All you really need is attitude, so I threw my mantle over a nearby chair and leaned back.

“Come on, let me buy you a pretty dress,” Delwin insisted. How kind he was.
“Thanks, but shall I finish my salad first?” I smiled. “And how are you, by the way?”
Delwin said he was fine, nothing out of the ordinary.
“And whence this sudden resurgence of fatherly love?” I asked. “Not that I don’t appreciate it…”
“O well, it’s been so long... I wanted to see you again. I heard you made quite a career for yourself in the Courts. Secretary of Ornach and so on...”
“A girl’s got to keep busy,” I said, nibbling on a piece of toast.

This was fun! Delwin was obviously trying to get me talking, but he was being far too non-committal to start a real conversation. I wanted him to speak to me, not buy me a new dress!
“I thought you’d want to stay in Amber, do things there...” Delwin said.
“You know how it is in Amber,” I said, warming up to the conversation, “There is no room to grow. It’s all fixed there, you can’t—“
“Can’t Bleys arrange something for you?”
I guessed Delwin wanted to keep me safe in Amber while all the action and adventure were happening somewhere else.
“Well, if he does, I’d be too close to an elder. In the Courts you can carve out your own niche. In Amber you’re always someone’s child.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Delwin said. “That’s true.”

He had a strange, faraway look in his eyes, so I took a chance:
“May I ask why you left Amber?”
“You never knew Oberon, did you?”
I shook my head while Delwin topped up our glasses. The wind rustled through the leaves of the trees overhead. In the distance children were playing tag.
“No,” I said.
“Yes, well, that’s the answer.”
“Come on,” I said, “tell me about my illustrious grandfather.”
Delwin told me some horror stories while we ate our lunch. Oberon used to be a terrible father, perhaps he would have been better as a grandfather but Delwin doubted it. Delwin’s mother used to be queen in Amber for a while. Oberon treated her badly and cheated on her.
“I really hate that,” I said.
“It was just that… We -Sand and I- took our mother’s side and Oberon did not appreciate that. She and Oberon fought more and more, and after a while he put her aside and disposed of her as queen. Some time after that, she left Amber. Sand and I came with her.”

“My goodness.”
He was not telling me the whole story, not by far. You don’t get your trump removed from the standard deck for having an argument and leaving. When anyone mentions Sand and Delwin in Amber, people narrow their eyes and clam up. No-one ever speaks of what they did.
“That’s about it,” Delwin concluded.
“So he cheated on your mother,” I said. “I really hate that sort of thing. You heard what Gran did to me?”
“No, what?”
“He married Trisha! When I still thought I was pregnant! And he cheated on me with her before that too.”

“But wasn’t he already married with Trisha?” Delwin asked and I leaned back to study his innocent look. Gran and Trisha’s marriage had been annulled a long time ago, and I knew Delwin knew about that. Okay, let’s pretend he didn’t know.
“The marriage had been annulled during the Patternfall war because Gran was too much pro-Amber, or anti-war I should say.”
Delwin knew this. Gran had been in the employ of ‘the red Magician’, my father, while in exile.

Delwin did not look surprised enough when I told him about Gran and Trisha. I pretended not to have noticed.
“And then came that other crisis in the Courts, and I thought I was pregnant and went to Amber, but time in the Courts went insanely fast and when I got back he had re-married her, I mean the annulment had been annulled.”
I pouted.
“But he cheated on me before that.”
“With Trisha,” Delwin said.
“With Trisha,” I sobbed, rubbing my eyes laying it on thickly. “Men…!”

“What kind of woman was Trisha, what was so special about her that she’d…?“ Delwin asked, not finishing his sentence.
I took an eye pencil and sketched a quick portrait of her on a napkin.
“She was a blonde bimbo,” I sniffled. “Look at her.”
“But what exactly happened?” Delwin asked. “I heard some vague rumours…”
I sniffled a bit more and dried my eyes.
“Well, she came to a bit of an unpleasant end,” I said. “But let’s not talk about that, on a fine day like this.”
“Well…,” Delwin said, and I could see that he did want to talk about her. “It’s a sign of… how things are in the Courts. And… I mean, were you personally involved? Or something?”

I was getting tired of this. Delwin was pretending to be out of touch, and if he wanted me to speak about Trisha, he should bloody well ask me about her directly. This was an insult to my intelligence. I did not like pretending to be an airhead, and this was not how I had imagined my first real talk with my (second) father.

“Daddy-uncle?” I said.
“Yes?”
“Shall we stop playing and get down to business?”
“What do you mean?”
“I tell you what happened and you tell me why you want to know.”
Delwin thought this over.
“Let’s take turns asking questions,” he said. “I answer one of yours, you answer one of mine, and we stop when we’ve heard enough.”
“Very good,” I said, pouring him a glass of wine in turn. I had been very careful with the booze and was glad I had been; for this game I would need every bit of wit I had.
“Cheers. But I’ll expect us to be honour bound to give each other the full truth, and not sin by omission—“
“We’re family, aren’t we?” Delwin interrupted, smiling charmingly. I glared at him over my glass.
“Yes, that’s why I’m saying this. It’s much too easy to lie with half-truths and by picking your facts.”
“Come on,” Delwin said again, “You’re my daughter! You owe your old father at least a little respect.”

No dice, daddy! You left my mother when she was pregnant with Yaslin and I was just a toddler, so you can forget about the freebies.
“About as much respect as the average Amberite has for her father,” I said, softening my words with a smile
“Aww, come on!” Delwin exclaimed, “I’m not like Oberon! I mean, if you’re used to… Let me put it this way: I could have done nothing better than leave your mother alone. I never bothered you, admit it, and I didn’t give you half as much baggage as Oberon gave me. You grew up into a happy and talented young woman, didn’t you?”
“O daddy,” I said, pretending to blush. He had made me a compliment. “But if you don’t colour the truth or leave out essential things, I won’t either.”
Delwin sighed and smiled.
“There’s no such thing as the truth, there is only one’s vision of it. But I will do my best. It depends on what you ask.”

I let Delwin ask the first question, and he wanted to know how Trisha had met her end. I gave him the short story: the assassin, the shapeshifting poison and the trace of Pattern in the hall. I left out nothing except Elanor’s survival, and that only because I was protecting her life by keeping her a secret.
“There was nothing we could do. What was left of her body, we sent back to her family.”
“I hear a lot has happened,” Delwin said, thinking about what I said. It was my turn to ask a question.
“What was your relationship with Trisha?”
Delwin rubbed his chin.
“We knew each other.”
I shook my head.
“No Delwin: honest and undiminished. I gave you an honest and complete answer.”
“You don’t understand,” Delwin said. “We knew each other.”
I got it. He used the term like it was used in Verdiga, the world where I was born. He knew her in the biblical sense of the word. They had been lovers, probably in secret.
“That was quite some time ago, I must admit,” Delwin continued. “We didn’t keep in touch. I would like you to be discreet with this, it happened when she was still married.”
“Still married to Gran?”
I took the copy of the love letter from my pocket. Delwin saw the folded paper and shook his head.
“No, my turn. Have you found things in her, err, inheritance that could point my way?”
I smiled, unfolded the copy of the letter and gave it to him.

Delwin expression darkened when he re-read his own words.
“Yes, that’s the one,” he mumbled. “Hmmm. Thank you.” He looked up, folded the paper and put it in his pocket. I protested, but Delwin said:
“These are not things that should be left lying around, Boadice.”
“I will take good care of it.”
“There’s nothing of interest in it.”
I wanted to take the letter back but Delwin wouldn’t let me, so I said:
“There was another one.”
I did not show him the second letter until he had returned the first.
“This one isn’t mine,” Delwin said while he read it. “Mist, did you say? So she’s behind this. I was afraid of that.”
I studied his face. He was not happy at all. Delwin asked:
“How are things between you and… Err, o, was it my turn?’
It wasn’t. I asked:

“Who or what, is or are: Mist?”
“Dara.”
“Thanks. Your turn.”
That fitted with what I knew. Dara would be powerful enough to have an Overshadow alias, and was active enough to have it in for my father. Now I also knew why she had duped me with the whole Bihaye situation. Her goal might not have been helping Ornach’s daughter, but instead she had been trying to get at me. Possibly, maybe, perhaps.

“How’s your relationship with the Chartins at the moment?” Delwin asked.
I thought about that.
“Well, the vendetta still stands, but that was because I was accused of murdering Trisha, and people saw her alive after that, so they also owe me a favour for the false accusation.”
That was a bit of a farce, that. The Escallwyns had been negotiating with the Chartins, trying to cash in the favour for themselves, arguing that I was all but married to Gran so Chartin could deal with them as easily as with me. Well, Gran didn’t marry me and the favour is still mine.
“I’m friendly with Yurgo Chartin. For the rest, I have nothing to do with them. Except that Yaslin is the main suspect for Trisha’s murder.” I told Delwin about the incident in Sherwyn, thinking it time for some free information from my side.

“You should realise that the danger to you will come from another direction from now on,” Delwin said. “Now Trisha is dead, there could be another one, a replacement. The Chartin vendetta will not be enough for this.”
“I assume you are referring to me being a nail in your coffin?” I said, careful not to frame the sentence as a question.
“O yes. Dara is of course out to get me. Don’t doubt that for a minute!”
“You assume Dara is still alive.”
“I do.”
“How about I give you a nice piece of information I know you would like to have, and you tell me something you think I would like to know.”
“I don’t know what interests you.”
“No? You can guess.”
“Let me put it this way, I know a couple of things that could be of interest to you but I don’t know if you want to know about them.”

I played with my empty salad bowl.
“Take the chance,” I said. “I’ll start. The last time I saw Dara, she was in Ornach Ways, slightly gaga and small like a child.” I described her behaviour and what little Dara had done with talcum powder in order to communicate with Bihaye.
“So that’s where she was… I knew she was still alive but didn’t know what…”
I wished Delwin’s thought processes would allow him to finish a sentence.

As compensation, Delwin told me Gran had been in his employ while he was banished, so our meeting in Pieck was not an accident. I already knew that, and had decided it didn’t bother me. Nobody ordered Gran to fall in love with me, and that was that.
“Maybe you’d best ask a question again,” Delwin said. So I did, and asked what he was working on now.
“I am working on so many things.”
This was not enough, so I asked him to tell me his thoughts on who would have murdered Trisha, as neither I nor Yaslin had done it.

“I know it wasn’t me,” Delwin laughed. “Sorry, my joke. Why should I kill her? Let me put it this way: I heard only vague rumours, through the grapevine, that someone was after Trisha. That is why it’s plausible to the Chaosites that it was you who did it. You are a relative outsider. If a Chaos house had been involved, it would have leaked out. Things like that are done… semi-officially. It benefits a house if it becomes known that they are strong enough to strike at the heart of another house. And this just smells of Amber. But who in Amber would want Trisha dead?”
I nodded and agreed that I was a likely candidate.
“So everything points at you and that may be the key. It was not about Trisha but about weakening you. And that would point at someone who wants to strike at me.”

I thought Delwin was being either paranoid or vain, but kept that to myself. Instead, I told him my theory about how the attack on Trisha was indeed aimed at weakening me, but not to get at him but at Ornach, to make sure I could not do my job for him. So my guess was that it had been the Enemy from Outside, who had a beef with Ornach. While I told him this, I kept studying his face. How much of this was new to him? I could not tell, it almost seemed as if Delwin was not interested.
“What would disprove that theory is that there was Pattern used. As far as I know Pattern is specific to the Amber Family.”
I thought that perhaps other family members beside Flora could be working for the Enemy. Or maybe the Enemy took a trump off Yaslin when she was in the Universal Democratic Movement and used it in Escallwyn ways to lay a false trail.

“And then there is Rhiane; she is still missing. What if they found her and indoctrinated her like they did with Yas—“
Delwin interrupted and said that he could put my mind at ease; he knew where Rhiane was. He could tell me if I promised to keep it to myself.

“You know how she blundered around when she was in Amber?”
I nodded. I had been there when she made a fool of herself by chasing Murlas through the hallways of Amber Castle with a sword.
“She did things that harmed her reputation, and it was clear she was not ready to deal with the Family yet. Gerard took her away from the family and he is re-educating her, teaching her to be more responsible. And he is taking his time with it.”
“Is it like the training camp Bleys put me through?” I asked, remembering six months of weapons- tactics- and etiquette classes. Bleys put me through the training just after the Chartin vendetta had been established, and it had mainly been aimed at improving my warfare.
“You don’t know Gerard, girl. Bleys puts in half a year and thinks that is enough. I wouldn’t have given up so quickly. You are lucky you got Bleys and not me, otherwise you would still be in there.”
I nodded and counted myself fortunate. It’s just as well Bleys values his free time.

“But it could have been Rhiane,” I said, getting back to the subject at hand. “Yaslin swears she didn’t do it. Flora could have been involved. Who knows, Flora might secretly be a trump artist.”
Delwin didn’t know if Flora would let herself be used that way. It would mean she had been forced into it, and Flora would have a problem with that. Handling little details like personally disposing of an enemy would be beneath her dignity, according to Delwin. But I didn’t mean that Flora would have killed Trisha herself, I had been thinking of her making a Pattern device to lay a false track, or maybe someone used a Pattern trump. That would be enough. There are plenty of Pattern trump decks unaccounted for. My trump deck is still in Galoria and it contains a trump of the main hall in Escallwyn Ways. Delwin wasn’t convinced.

. . . _ . . .

For a while, we sat in silence. Our plates and bottle were empty and I felt my conscience tugging at me. I was on my way to speak with Rinaldo. I had sworn to myself that this time nothing could keep me from my mission. Yet, here I was, having a leisurely lunch with my second daddy. So, even though there was much I still wanted to know, I had to be off.
“Daddy-uncle, I really enjoy this conversation but I am actually in a hurry and should be on my way. Do you mind if we break off here and meet up again at some other time? I’ve got plenty more good gossip, but no more time.”
“As you wish,” Delwin said.
“Do you mind if I do something that allows me to draw your trump later?”

I intended to do that surface-scan thingy Gran had done to identify me in Escallwyn ways. I tried it, but it didn’t work on Delwin. Maybe I wasn’t good enough yet. Scanning Delwin was like trying to pick a needle from the floor without using your nails. It didn’t work, and Delwin didn’t like me trying.
“Why don’t you just make a sketch of me? I’ll order more wine, I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t like being scanned.”

While I sketched, I told Delwin what Malachie had told me about Ornach and the Enemy from Outside. I knew I was telling him more than I had to, but I felt the question and answer game had gone on for long enough. The Enemy-from-Outside story explained my theory about Trisha’s murder, and why the Enemy would be interested in keeping me busy.
“Are you sure you want to keep working for Ornach,” Delwin asked, “when you know it is dangerous to be openly associated with him? I’m not happy about that. I myself prefer to work behind the scenes. The less people know about you, the better.”
“The truth is,” I said, colouring in his hair, “I’m not very good at the sneaky stuff. I wish I was, I really do. But being Ornach’s secretary means I’ve got a finger in the porridge of Court politics, and being so close to him is a powerful tool.”
“It is also a dangerous position to be in.”
“Everything has its price.”
“O yes,” Delwin nodded. “That is true.”

He took a breath, but let it go again. I sensed a question hanging in the air.
“Tell me, what is it?”
“What is it that you want me to do, exactly?” Delwin took up his glass but did not drink.
“Keep me informed about things that could help me, things that could be useful to keep this reality on its feet. I am assuming you are on our side, on the side that does not favour the army from Outside.”
“Of course I am,” Delwin said, and I realised I had framed that question rather clumsily. I looked up from my paper and saw his amused expression.
“You know you can’t ask that of someone until everything is over and out in the open,” Delwin said. “You never know: next year things could be very different and you’d chide me that I did not join them sooner.”
I told him I meant he would not want this reality, including me and him and everything in it, to go to the dogs. Delwin said that he could wholeheartedly agree with that, “Especially since you include myself.”

Then I made the mistake of asking if he had any social contacts in Amber, and if he’d know a nice new lover for me. Delwin said he didn’t know and suggested I find amusement in shadow. I didn’t like that, finding someone to love you in shadow is even sadder than paying someone for it. At least a gigolo has a choice. I don’t know why I brought it up. I had meant to ask Bleys; of course Delwin couldn’t help me there. But finding a lover in shadow is a lot less pathetic than mind-altering a free man into being your lover, I thought, remembering Trisha and Mardoc with guilty pleasure and a childish sense of superiority.
“I can’t help you there,” Delwin went on. “I could introduce you to my sister, perhaps she knows someone.”
“Sand,” I said. “I haven’t met her yet. Never mind. I will ask Bleys, he probably knows every eligible man in Amber.”
Delwin nodded.
“Yes, Bleys is very shallow in those things. Not a grain of commitment.”

I let the comment about commitment pass. Delwin wouldn’t know commitment if it bit him in the ass. He could have married my mother; it would have meant nothing to him but all the world to her. She wouldn’t have had to withdraw from society when Yaslin and I were born. I studied Delwin’s face while I sketched him. I was getting some insights into his character, now that I was paying attention. Delwin liked to pretend he was like Bleys, but he wasn’t. I realised Delwin was a man of doubts, of dilemmas. He was much more insecure than he let on. His comments about commitment said more about himself than about Bleys. Drawing his trump in peace and quiet gave me time to study him, to get to know him better. I got the impression Delwin found it hard to make decisions, he would keep weighing the pros and cons of a situation and when he’d be done, it would be too late and the moment would have passed. Delwin puts things off until it is no longer necessary to take action.

All this I saw in him while making the sketch. I am really Bleys’ daughter and not his: I rush in where angels fear to tread. On the other hand: I kept putting off going back to Verdiga, telling myself I could not go until I found Yaslin. When I found my sister, 80 years or more had passed and our mother had died of old age.

I put hose thoughts aside and looked at Delwin again. What did he think of me? He found me charming but didn’t know how to treat me; we had not established a father-daughter relationship yet. Perhaps that would grow over time, but my childhood had passed and his chance to be a real father was lost forever. I decided I would kick Gran’s butt until he visited Elanor in shadow, danger or no.

When the sketch was finished we said goodbye and took our separate ways: into different alleys, down different roads into different shadows.

. . . _ . . .

I found myself smiling while I shifted shadow. I had lunch with my father, with my daddy. My father had wanted to speak with me! Sure, he had been after information about Trisha, but he had approved of me. He actually seemed to like me! l really wanted to get to know him better. I smiled when I thought about Trisha and Delwin. So my dead rival had had an affair with my dad! I was sure Delwin did not like to hear his ex-lover had plotted against him. It was interesting that he wanted to know what I thought of her. He must have been starting to suspect that she wasn’t the person he thought she was when they were lovers. Good! In my opinion, Trisha had been a first-grade bitch.

Perhaps later, after I had gathered solid evidence about Trisha’s crimes and character faults, I could tell Delwin and Gran about them. Once I had finished Delwin’s trump I could call him whenever I wanted. While walking, I looked at my trump sketch. It was good, but it was also proof of a connection between me and a man whom the rest of my family distrusted and disliked. I studied my work for one last moment and tore up the paper, scattering the pieces over several shadows. Drawing it had been an exercise, I knew enough to draw his real trump from memory.

That sketching Delwin’s trump had given me such an insight into his character had been something of a surprise. I never noticed this before, but then I had never made a trump sketch of someone I knew so little of. Okay, Delwin and I had met once before, just before the Logrus was damaged, but there had been no time for us to get to know each other. It would be nice if I could draw trumps of the entire Family. I could memorise their trumps but it would also be nice to get to know them better. And maybe, someday, I will learn Fiona’s trick of duplicating trumps. This would be useful if I want to found Amber’s first trump museum. But that is a distant dream.

I had a good idea about how to go about copying trumps like Fiona does. When I draw a trump, I need a good psychic impression of the subject so that the picture I paint gives the one who uses the trump a good idea who or what they are looking at. While I paint the trump, I put Pattern into it. So for trump you need a picture that’s good enough and a certain amount of Pattern. What if I used magic to quickly copy the ‘picture’ of the trump, while at the same time channelling Pattern into the card I was bespelling? I believed I could make a spell that put paints and dyes onto cardboard in an exact copy of, well, another trump. I would need to channel a huge amount of Pattern in a short time, though, if I was to save time and effort. All the Pattern that I would normally use in the two days that it takes to paint a trump would have to be gathered and distilled and put into the trump in minutes, or even seconds, and that multiplied by the number of copies I was making. Fiona can make two dozen trump-copies at a time but she is Fiona. Perhaps I could make a couple of copy-trumps at a time, maybe four or five, or six? When I draw a trump, a sizable part of the work is mixing the paint and preparing the canvas and cardboard, and then we’re not even talking about deciding on colour and composition. And I always make a life-size draft version of the subject before I dash off the trump. I would like to give trump-copying a try. Perhaps Fiona could give me a hint how to go about it.

Thinking of Fiona made me feel a bit remorseful. I had not seen her in ages. Here I was, telling all sort of important things to Delwin, writing reports for Random and running errands for Ornach, all without informing her! I should visit her and lay everything scrap of knowledge I had at her feet. Then I should beg for forgiveness, and if she forgave me, and if she had nothing better to do, maybe I could ask her opinion on my theory of trump copies. Perhaps, perchance and if. But she would want me to finish my work for Ornach first. Fiona always liked to hear what my employer was up to. So I should hurry up and trump Rinaldo.

. . . _ . . .

I walked further into shadow until I found a park bench under a shady tree. There, I sat down and shuffled through my trump deck. As luck would have it, before I found Rinaldo’s card, both Murlas’ and Alexander’s trumps grew cold at the same time. Eavesdropping on Murlas’ trumpcalls is always edifying. So the regent of Galoria and the head of the house Ysarn were talking, eh? Let’s see what they had to say to each other.

“—a short announcement,” Alexander said. “Because you indicated you could most likely not on short term acquire the information I needed, I asked about and have been able to contact the aide-the-camp you spoke of. But your efforts were much appreciated.”
“O.” Murlas said. “Well. Congratulations.”
“Should you require any help in the current situation, you can always contact me.”
Alexander is often this pompous.
“You know enough of the situation to know that I can’t do that.” Murlas said. He sounded a bit weak, not his usual self. Perhaps he got hurt in the semi-civil war that was being waged in Chaos?
“Like I said, if you require it. It doesn’t need to be done publicly.”
“Hrm,” Murlas grumbled. “In the Courts you can’t do anything out of the public eye.”
Alexander said he could praise Gran in a press conference.
“Yes,” Murlas said, “But I would not think it very kind of you if you did. No, we’ll survive this on our own. But thanks for the help.”
“It was just an offer. Keep it in mind.”
“I prefer to keep those things in mind for personal use, later.” Murlas said. “The House will take care of itself.”
“That’s no problem either.”
The cousins exchanged greetings and closed the contact.

Now that was a disappointment! I had no idea what that had been about. Had Murlas caught on to my snooping? He had been much more communicative in his trump-talks with Samal. No, it was Alexander who was aware of the possibility of trump spying, and Murlas was responding by being as oblique as Alex was.

I thought about this until Murlas’ trump grew cold again. Was he trumping someone else so soon, or was this a slow shadow, or was time in Chaos going fast again? I listened in.

Murlas was speaking with someone who wasn’t in my trump deck. Judging by his tone of voice it was Samal.
“But that is…” Murlas said, “that doesn’t sound like the Sherwyn I know! … No, I don’t know what it’s about. You’re closer to the fire than I am in this matter. But this sort of thing is typical of Adrian: just when you think you’ve got him figured out, he does something out of the ordinary. You can’t count on anything.”

There was a moment of silence.
“Yes, ehm, I’m sure of it. We did something like that before. I’ll let you know.”
Samal said something and I would have given my left arm to know what it was.
“There was someone…” Murlas said, “Someone went about his assigned task a bit too enthusiastically. … Yes: Bodwin.”
Bodwin belongs to the house Ysarn, a younger cousin, member of a radical group called the Scales. He was a promising swordfighter but didn’t seem too bright. Murlas said:
“Well, a little initiative can’t do any harm. Okay, I can’t condone this sort of thing, but—“
A silence.
“He can do that, he’s good enough.”
Then, defensively: “I don’t think I was ever really at risk. I have disciplined him, but he’s got to learn to trust his own judgement. I’m not happy with the choices he made but I don’t want him to be a mindless slave.”

Interesting! So Bodwin had done something bad, and my guess was this was the reason for Murlas’ bad health.
“But I trumped you for a reason,” Murlas said.
Then my cousin explained, tactfully and patiently, that he was looking for a wife, to strengthen the house Ysarn and its position in the Courts of Chaos. He needed the house to be able to stand on its own two feet and Arran, (his cousin and second eldest male of the house) was just not good enough. Ysarn needed Murlas to take a strong woman as his wife, not some girl who looked good but did not have anything substantial to offer to the house. Murlas said he understood that Samal was hurt and angry now that the wedding they had planned could not go through.

It almost broke my heart to hear Murlas speak of this with such delicacy of feeling. If Gran had consulted me when his family forced him to remarry Trisha, and if he -like Murlas- had given both his house and his lover a chance to give their opinion or even to veto his decision, how different everything would have been! I would most certainly have veto-ed Trisha, and then Gran would have a living spouse and a healthy heir. Damn Murlas! Why would a man who is without doubt a miserable pervert be more reasonable and kind than a good man like Gran?

“If you don’t like her, I don’t like her,” Murlas said. “But I understood she isn’t exactly on the straight and narrow either. … Yes, we will have to keep up appearances in public, but— … You probably heard of her: Margot Baccaran.”
I hadn’t heard of Margot but Baccaran is a large family.

“You know who Jaill wanted to set me up with?” Murlas said. “A poisoner. … Yes, but she has buried a few husbands already. … No, and I don’t mind taking initiative in that. … Yes, interesting, I must admit. … Blonde, a bit brazen.”
I gathered they were speaking about Margot again.
“I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.”

They talked a little more about the king finding procedure. Murlas said he intended to be on the winning side, whichever that might be. Then he apologised to Samal for trumping at such an inopportune moment, and said:
“Soon there will be a king again and I will have time to spend with you. Can’t you do something to speed things up here?” A moment of silence. “Only if you’re bored.” More silence. “No, I don’t want that. Maybe Jaill is so content with what I did, he keeps me on as a candidate. He can do that. … No, I’m not happy with it, seeing how the House is doing. But okay. … Goodbye.”

The contact ended and I was left on the park bench with many questions and quite a bit of heartache. Damn Murlas, and damn Gran and all the Escallwyns together! Work, Boadice, don’t think, just finish the tasks you set for yourself. Moping about your love life won’t get you anywhere.

I took Rinaldo’s trump from my deck and concentrated on it.

. . . _ . . .

To be continued…

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