When Brennan finishes his chess games and conversation with Paige, he retreats back to his own quarters for a while. He considers looking up Cambina, knowing that he should do that, but the hour is late enough and he has procrastinated long enough that he decides against it.
Restless, he forces himself to sit down and pen a few letters. One to Lord Nickel, outlining the situation with Prince Garrett and Xanadu, enquiring after his interest in the matter.
One to Ambrose, congratulating him on the success of his Walk, informing him that he intends to travel to Paris for a time, and that they should really get some Trumps made up; he suggests Brita. He thanks Ambrose for keeping silent regarding Ossian, but releases him from that pledge since Ossian is informed.
One to Cambina setting up a breakfast the next morning. That the invitation comes by note will be strange enough.
The rest of the night is spent divided among too many ongoing projects to do any possible amount of good. He continues working through the undeciphered papers from Brand, applying what he and Ambrose have already learned. He toys with the application of Entropy to encryption. He works on the higher order poetry that Brand devised, even in areas not applicable to the decryption project. He notes down what he's learned about his new opening in chess in one of his notebooks. In another, more warded notebook, he consolidates what little he knows about the Dragon and the Patternblades, in preparation for his upcoming conversation with Corwin. He adds Ossian and Edan to the large annotated family tree he keeps-- the one with all the information he knows, not just the information the comes out in polite conversation.
What he does not do is sleep. That, too, he procrastinates until it's effectively too late to be worth bothering. He does make an unusually early morning trip to the public baths, then dresses fresh to meet Cambina.
He arrives at the appointed place-- somewhere Cambina particularly likes-- slightly early so that he can be waiting for her. He will, in fact, scry to make sure this happens.
[GMs, note, I don't expect responses to those letters. I think the Lord Nickel stuff can be handled in extreme summary at best, and Ambrose and Cambina will continue to show up as they please, I'm sure.]
The room is a balcony, facing away from the fashionable side of the castle. From here, one could see the stairs to Tir, if stairs were going to Tir.
Cambina shows up at the doorway, just as he's sitting down. She's wearing a split skirt and a rather severe black blouse. "Good morning, stranger. I heard you were back in town."
Brennan catches himself just before touchdown, and hoists himself back up. Despite his mood, he finds himself smiling as he bends to kiss her on the cheek and escort her back to the table.
"And then back out, to Xanadu, for my brother. And then back in, to teach the young Prince how not to hurt himself or others while fencing. And then, and then," he gestures to describe the frenzied pace of the past few days. He grunts as he sits down again. "Hell of a past few days. I wish I'd been here the whole time." With you. "Good morning."
"So how is the young accessory to murder?" she says, sitting. "Do you have him turned back towards the path of truth and beauty and goodness and light?"
Brennan gives a tight smile, and says, "He made it to the center alive, and is presently the object of one of the King's gambits of goodwill. He's as close to reformed as he can be without doing something drastic to prove it."
Brennan looks down, hesitates, then, "He made a discovery, recently." Pause. "Would you like the awkward news, first, or the planned romantic diversion?"
She smiles. "What makes you think I don't already know? I choose the diversion, just to see if you can do it while you think about that."
"Sail with me to Paris, because I'd like to think you'd have mentioned it if you knew Ossian was my son," he says.
"What, when you came and left and didn't have any time for me? It might've slipped my mind." Her nostrils flare, just a bit. She looks at the table. "Is there juice?"
Brennan moves to pour some of the juice. "As soon as you knew, I'd have thought," he says, too casually. Then the tone changes: "Sail with me to Paris, so that I can spend time with you, alone."
"A romantic sea voyage for two with the promise of Uncle Corwin at the end? You certainly know how to make it easy on a girl."
"In comparison to which, my image can only prosper," Brennan says lightly. "And of course, a chance to see your brother."
When Brennan picks up the juice pitcher, Cambina will be able to see the rose behind it.
[color?]
Red of course, to match her lips, the bloodfruit juice, and the blood she's taking from him.
[I think you're just angling for make-up nookie.]
"Very well, Brennan Ossiansfather, I will accompany you on two conditions. First, we depart from Xanadu. Second, we leave on the sixteenth day of the month of the Tower."
She sips her juice.
Brennan does an imperceptibly quick mental calculation, then looks at her with some small amusement: "Timing constraints? On a Chronomancer? Very well, my Princess, it shall be as you say.
"How is Jerod, these days? Keeping busy in Corwin's Court?"
"All I have is secondhand news. My brother is likely to take me for granted, forget that I'm here, things like that. I'm a forgiver, but not a forgetter." She pauses. "Perhaps he's the one making Aunt Flora smile these days."
"I assure you, dearheart, that you are unforgettable in every way. I can only assume that he's been kept fantastically busy with tasks of the state for Uncle Corwin. I look forward to seeing him again."
"Yes, that would be the polite lie, wouldn't it?" She smiles, sweetly, and sips her juice.
Brennan does not contradict; she'll obviously think what likes anyway.
"What are you plans between now and departure? Are you staying in Amber?"
"No. No point, really. I may help move the library. I may help with the Rebman problem. Or perhaps I'll simply be a social butterfly, flitting from tea to tea, entertaining. What are your plans?"
"For the time being, I expect to stay put here in Amber. I expect there's going to be a great need for someone to coordinate things on this end, and fairly few people to do it. I can leverage the Knights and the Army, if need be. Beyond that, if Brita or Garrett stay put, they still need training. And I will continue my own studies, of course. Long term? Almost certainly Xanadu.
"Which Rebman problem is this? I can think of several, although for all I know they're all parts of a bigger one."
Cambina grins savagely. "The one where they spy on us. I'm thinking of using the Weir. It'll be nice for them to get back to work, you know. I believe my father got the idea for them from seeing Tritons in Rebma."
"Bite a chunk off their flanks for me on principle, spymistress," he says. Cambina will long have noted that Brennan observes a keener awareness than most (except for Rebmans) of shiny surfaces in his presence, and that his room is always dark and stiflingly warm because he won't keep mirrors there. "I've heard of the Weir, of course, but mostly through Brand. I wouldn't trust what he said to have more than a glancing acquaintance with the truth."
"They were a long-term project of my father's. His idea was 'we can use our monsters to fight their monsters.'" She pauses. "They're not for subtle missions. One of the first time he used them was when he was trying to keep your father prisoner."
"Exactly what you need when you're dealing with a spy-ring," Brennan says. "If you're planning on teaching someone a very violent and painful lesson." An eyebrow serves as a question mark on that one. "Or you're worried about Tritons." There's a question in there, too, if Cambina wants to address it.
She frowns. "Oh, we couldn't use the Weir against Tritons. We'd never get the wet out of their fur." She pauses for a moment. "If their sorcerers ever figure out how to get the tritons to breathe and move on land, we'll have to utterly lay waste to Rebma out of preemptive horror."
"Wet doggy fur not so much fun when scaled up to Weir-size? Scratch that Garnath Shepherd puppy idea for your birthday, then. Never seen a Triton, either, but from what I've heard I'm perfectly happy to keep it that way. Any chance this plays into the power games that are going on down there, revolving around Celina?"
"I'm not sure what they revolve around, but I bet it's a lot older than Celina."
"Right family, wrong scion, is my guess," Brennan says.
Brennan will also take a look around to see if there are any particularly likely Rebman spy devices about. First he'll glance around with his mundane senses, then if nothing seems obtrusive, take the chance of cracking open his third eye and looking that way.
There are none available to any of Brennan's senses.
If Cambina doesn't react when he does that, he'll ask, "Can you feel it when I do that?"
"Apparently not. Tell me about what you're doing. Have you ever done it in Tir?"
"Something I intend to be passive. Just looking around with other senses," he says, wiping his mouth with a napkin at a strategic moment. It's a natural enough gesture for anyone with facial hair who doesn't fancy saving a snack for later. "And, no. Of all the places of Ordered strength, Tir is about the last place I'd try that.
"Does the name Khela mean anything to you?"
She nods. "Since we're talking about old power games in Rebma, I assume we're talking about a certain shadow magician who Moire doesn't like. The word has a number of meanings in a number of languages, including 'Game' in the near eastern dialects of Shadow Karime. I always assumed it was a false name."
"Isn't that interesting," Brennan says slowly. "Game like chess, go? Or game like politics, war? I had no reason to suspect that was a false name. Did you know she's a cousin?"
"That would explain the whole 'not really dead' part. I assume you mean that she's Llewella's, although it would explain her dislike of my father if she was my sister. My father did have an unfortunate taste for other people's spouses..." Cambina smiles sharply.
Brennan nods when Cambina lays out Khela's lineage. "We all have our foibles," he says with a hard smile, "but I have no idea who the father might have been. It does imply, though, that she's more than a simple magician, and almost certainly a true Sorceror," he says with some small concern. "I hadn't heard that there was bad blood between hers and yours, though. What little information I had was that she was tied up into an unpopular position on the care and feeding of Tritons. Did Eric have a position on that, or is it something less explicable?"
"By 'her' I meant Queen Moire. Apparently Martin's grandmother kept lists of which Prince of Amber she hated most, and Father and Random were vying for first spot. Which is very impressive performance on Father's part, since Random was implicated in the death of Moire's daughter." She smiles. "It was part of how they bonded when Father had Random under house arrest as a captive dinner companion. And a definite part of Father's plan to marry me to Martin." She makes a face.
The teeth in Brennan's false smile tell Cambina all she needs to know about that particular notion. "I should have guessed," he says, "But I barely know enough about Rebman politics to speculate intelligently, which is why I tend not to. Are they looking for anything in particular, do you know? Or is it just opportunistic? Do you think they're watching Paris and Xanadu, as well?"
She shrugs. "I think those two came harrying after Conner the Murderer and the only person with their off switch is Valeria and she won't use it for some reason. My guess is that there's some history between them and Vialle or Martin, and it's bad blood.
"Again, knowing that my grasp of Rebman politics is thin, I'd guess Martin. He seems just as able to win friends and influence people as I am, with the added benefit that if the Crown is still harboring grudges or ambitions, then all of the antics and shennanigans at that angle could end up being officially sanctioned. Before or after the fact."
"Rebman politics are a veneer of decency over a deep, deep history and culture of violence and threats. So it's not different from most places."
"True," he says, "but the particulars are important, and those I lack.
"But I keep coming back, in my mind, to Rebma's amazing efficiency at inserting herself into the royal lines. Jerod. Celina. Martin." Brennan wants to complete that pattern. "You're the celebrated historian-- did Osric, Finndo, or Benedict have particular ties to Rebma?"
"Do you know what the hardest part of being an historian in and of Amber is? It's the inability to get away from people who remember but don't want you to know. Ask Nestor, sometime when he's not being petulant. There are parts of so-called ancient history that living people would kill to keep secret."
"I would have thought it was Family members always bugging you for trivia," he muses.
"There are trade offs. I keep myself amused by selectively omitting important details."
She frowns and changes the subject.
Brennan neither contests it nor smirks while letting it pass.
"I wonder if Valeria was in Paris long enough to sleep with Corwin?"
Brennan exaggerates a harmless choke on his grapefruit juice. "How fast do you think she'd need to move for that not to happen? Question is, how fast will she try to bed Merlin?"
"Can you move that fast when you're running slowly? I can't decide if I'd rather be a fly on the wall for that seduction attempt or far, far from the epicenter of the explosion."
"Oh, I think I'd want to watch, if only to see Valeria's counter-reation to Merlin." He grins evilly. "There's always Young Prince Garrett, though."
She snorts with amusement. "But not really, if Moire wanted that, she'd set him up with Celina. But I think she's counting on Vialle to produce an heir there.
"Perhaps," he says, "And perhaps. If Celina's innocent in wonderland attitude isn't an act, she's hardly the type I'd send for that sort of business. She'd revolt, rebel, and generally mess things up. And doubly dangerous to try that with an Initiate, who can take herself far beyond your reach for a hundred years, just to underline the finer poionts of ability and mobility. See also, Martin. The Queen's a fair point, though, if it happens that way."
She shrugs. "You aim innocents by telling them not to fall in that briar-patch, and they do. I don't doubt that Moire has a pretty good idea what Celina would do and she wanted it to happen."
"This spy business," he asks, eventually. "Something you want to do? Something you've been asked to do? Or just something that needs to be done?"
"Um. Yes?" She waits for a moment, then tries again. "Some of us run the Justiciary, some of us lead armies, some of us paint, and some of us create inter-shadow diplomatic crises. I'm good at what I do."
Brennan grins, "How do I get that job? Isn't planning mayhem and death enough? I'd be good at it, too."
More seriously, with a hand on hers, "Cambina. I don't say it often, because the words don't do it justice, but this is how I tell you: I care about you. I will worry about you when you do what you do, even though I know you're good at it. And because I know it, I won't try to convince you to just bury your head and stay home. Do you understand?"
She looks him in the eyes and doesn't let go of his hand. "Is this the part where we say things that if we heard other people say them we'd say to each other 'kill me if I'm ever like that?'"
"Maybe," he says, massaging her hand. "But we have the decency to indulge rarely, and in private. Here, this will help," then he continues the previous thought, and concludes it with a twinkle in his eye: "...But if they hurt you, I will burn Rebma down to the cold soggy ground." He's joking, very seriously. "I can do that, you know."
He gives the smug grin that comes only with centuries of tyrannizing the laws of physics.
She looks serious herself. "Don't. The image of corpses floating in Amber harbor so close that you could walk across them is not the memorial I'd prefer."
Brennan looks upward and inward for a moment, briefly planning. "I could take care of that, too, if worse came to worst," he says, still with a bit of the smirk. "But then, some lessons need to be made public, I think."
She smiles in spite of herself. "So you'd give me a self-cleaning apocalypse as a send-off? You're too kind."
"Anything for you. I'm details-orietned."
Her brow furrows. "You know, they say that every city, every shadow place of human and inhuman gathering is a reflection, distorted howe'er it may be, of Amber, or of something primal, anyway. I know of legends of places destroyed; not a single stone left atop another, the earth salted, the people scattered or killed. What is that a reflection of, Brennan?"
"I know. I've seen some of them." He pauses to rub his beard, dark memories fleeting behind his eyes. "And I don't know. I don't think Paris and Xanadu are reflections of Amber, but they may be primal. But so is Chaos."
She interrupts here. "Bleys is the mathematician, not me, but I always got the impression that Chaos wasn't."
That gets an eyebrow raised. "A definitional thing, perhaps? It was my understanding that Chaos existed before any Pattern." The sound of a question to press against Fiona, or Bleys, or even Dworkin being scratched into Brennan's memory is almost audible.
She nods. "Father thought that the Chaos we--he knew of was an artifact of Order and there was something that was Chaos beforehand, but there's a discontinuity in the graph.--that's how he put it."
Brennan has no opinion on this, but is obviously very interested. It's not something he'd heard of or considered before. "It would explain the hostility," he says.
She nods, lightly.
Brennan says, "I always thought of destroyed cities as... warnings. Signs and portents of the price of failure."
"I'm not sure," she responds, then changes the subject.
She smiles. "I'll give you a pass on the killing for sappiness. This time."
He smiles back, and draws her hand to his lips, briefly. "All right. I needed to know you understand. Mission accomplished," he says. "We now return you to your regularly scheduled biting sarcasm."
Alas, they probably won't get too far into actual biting, as Brennan still needs to catch Brita and Conner after this, and then Fiona after that. But after that....
Garrett awakens at daybreak after a twelve-hour dreamless sleep, weary and stiff from his workout the previous afternoon. He stretches to get the kinks out, wishing he could take a hot Xanadu shower to relax his muscles. In spite of the aches, however, he hopes to do it again today. There's no better way to get past the pain than to get used to the exercise.
First, though, there are a couple of other things to do. He dresses and makes his way out of the castle, once again through the back door. He breathes in the fresh, earthy scent of the dew-coated gardens and smiles sadly. It's like going to work, back in the old days. But not quite.
The sun has crept above the horizon by the time Garrett emerges from the tree-lined path between the castle and the stables. He had hoped to be here a little earlier, before most of the grooms arrived, but his weariness had blown that plan. Instead, he walks purposefully to the stable office, eyes straight ahead, steeling himself to the reactions of his former peers.
Nobody says anything, but there's a lot of whispering and rustling as the grooms and stablehands recognize who has come back among them. A half-dozen or more pair of eyes bore into Garrett as he heads across the stable.
The office door is closed.
As he approaches the closed door, Garrett considers the proper entrance, which of course is different now than it used to be. Posture, tone, attitude - so many things have to change. The worst part is that he doesn't really want to change any of them.
He draws his shoulders up and opens the door slowly, to minimize the interruption if anyone happens to be meeting within.
As Garrett comes closer to the door, he can hear his father's voice and another one that he knows he's heard before but he can't quite place within the office. The door is open and Garrett pushes it inward slowly, revealing his father speaking with another man, garbed in green. The other man turns, and once he has the profile to look at, Garrett recognizes him at once.
His uncle, Prince Caine.
"Your highness," Caine says. "Good morning."
Donovan lets Garrett take the lead here, as if he doesn't quite know what to say.
"Good morning, Uncle," Garrett answers with a polite but formal nod. "What brings you to the stables?" He keeps his shoulders level and voice steady, determined to carry himself like a prince. Donovan, however, would probably recognize this as Garrett's card-playing face.
"Crown business," Caine says. He smiles, thinly amused, at Garrett.
Garrett suddenly feels like the mouse watching the cat's tail twitch. He tries to remember which of Martin's or Brennan's lessons covered standing your ground with difficult elder Princes and, drawing a blank, falls back on common courtesy. "I see," Garrett replies coolly. "I have some as well. However, you arrived first, so please continue. I'll wait outside. Uncle," he nods to Caine, then to Donovan, "Horsemaster." He meets Donovan's eyes with the nod, then moves toward the door.
"No, no, that's all right," Caine says, straightening from his lounging position against the Horsemaster's desk. "I'm finished for today. Don't let me intrude on your highness' affairs."
Garrett pauses next to the door as Caine speaks. "I appreciate that, Uncle. Thank you," he responds, then courteously opens the door as his uncle takes his leave.
Caine nods at the Horsemaster and is on his way. Donovan closes the door behind him when he's gone, but waits silently for Caine's footsteps--if he could hear them, which Garrett can't--to fade.
Garrett visibly relaxes when the door closes. "Sorry about that," he says quietly after allowing some time for Caine to leave the area.
There's a moment of awkward hesitation, then Garrett looks Donovan in the eye and gets to the point. "Are you all right?" he asks with concern. "What happened here after they took me away?"
"Me? I'm fine." Donovan replies. "Your ma, I'm not so sure about. When she found out Prince Martin had taken off with you, she finally overcame her reluctance to speak to the King about you. She'd been bottling it up for a long time, so you can imagine she had a lot to say."
Garrett winces. "Yeah, I heard about that. I wanted to tell Mum I was all right, so she wouldn't worry, but there was no way to get a message back. Or so they told me." The last phrase drips with sarcasm, as if he doesn't believe a word of it.
He pulls a straight chair out of the corner and turns it around to straddle it. As he gets comfortable, he indicates Donovan should do the same.
Donovan gives Garrett a long-suffering look as he sits down at his own desk chair.
"What about your chat with the King?" he asks his former father. "He had you up there all day. What did he say?"
"Everything's fine, Garrett. The King and I had a good long talk, that's all." A frown crosses Donovan's face and he adds, "There was just a lot of things that needed talking about. And before you get your head swelled any further, not all of them are about you."
"I wasn't saying that," Garrett counters a little defensively. Even so, Donovan can tell he's relieved by the news. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't gonna get your head lopped off for even talkin' to me," he smiles.
His joking tone fades. "Some things Mum said when I saw her the other night made me wonder," he explains.
Donovan looks at his feet. "Your mother has her own feelings about the King and what he's likely to do. It's a subject I leave her be on."
"Yeah. That's all you can do," Garrett nods in understanding.
"I reckon I botched it big with her the other night." He shakes his head ruefully, staring at some point in front of Donovan's desk. "I never realized how bad it must've been for her...all those years...to make her the way she is now. And here I come along and tell her I want to go back, I've got work to do."
He sighs. "I hated doing that, Dad." He looks up at Donovan. "But I had to. I couldn't just run --," Garrett cuts himself off with another head shake, not sure if his father was even aware of his mother's intentions that night.
His father nods. "Your mum's been scared someone would come and take you away. From where she sits, her worst fears have all come true. And you don't hate it enough to leave. Not that she can see any reasons why you might not that she'd approve of," Donovan explains.
Garrett shakes his head sadly. "No. She'd never understand it. Even if she wanted to," he agrees.
Garrett smiles wryly as he looks around the office. "Ironic, isn't it? You taught me too well. I'm too damn responsible."
He shifts in his seat and looks back at Donovan. "Speaking of which, have Steward Vent or Gilt Winter told you the reasons I have to go back yet?"
Donovan purses his lips and shakes his head. "I've heard all kinds of crazy rumors, but I put no credit to any of them. Moving the whole castle to some strange country? That's insane."
Garrett's expression turns grim. "I wish it were," he says solemnly, then hesitates, weighing his words.
Finally, in a low voice meant to deter prying ears, he says, "I'm gonna try to explain it because in your capacity as Horsemaster, you're gonna need to know, but I don't know how much is general knowledge as of yet. There is a new castle. I've been there. And we are moving - as many people as we can. Everyone eventually."
His father's mouth falls open.
He chews his lip as he considers how to explain this to one with no knowledge of Pattern, Trump or Shadow. "As I understand it, the trade routes we used to have here were ... damaged... back during the Great Storm. Apparently, no one been able to retrace them. Amber is essentially cut off from its suppliers and has been for years now.
"Remember right after the Coronation, when all the royals left? That's what they were doing. They established a new trading hub and started building there. I reckon they figured if you can't bring the trade to Amber, bring Amber to the trade." He pauses with a look that invites questions.
"You can't move all those people. Do you know how big Amber is? D'you know how many people you're talking about? What about all the people who won't go? What happens to them?" Donovan objects. Unlike Garrett, he's not taking much care for volume, perhaps because of the shock.
Garrett waits him out calmly. "Yeah, it's a huge undertaking, I know. It'll happen over time. We don't have enough ships to take everyone at once," he explains in a reassuring tone. "And as for the ones who won't go, there'll still be a royal presence here for a while, though smaller than it used to be. We'll see how the holdouts feel when there's no one left to talk to. They might change their minds.
"What I need from you, though," Garrett continues, leaning forward, "are grooms who also have some building skills to go along in the first wave. Some of the ones who rebuilt this place when it collapsed would be great. There's no royal stable there yet and I'd like to get some actual horse people there to make sure it's done right and the builders don't just slap something together.
"I'm thinkin' Canter, Sorrel, Horn and Gait," Garrett suggests, quirking an inquiring eyebrow to invite Donovan's opinion. "They're all unattached and prob'ly open for an adventure. Gait's a little young, but he can be a runner." As an afterthought, he adds with a shake of his head, "Too bad Lunging's gone. He was a decent carpenter."
"What'll we do here for men to work the stables if we send all those?" Donovan objects. "We're down two already with you and Lunging."
Garrett thinks for a second. "Yeah, I reckon you're right. How 'bout just two - Canter and Sorrel? That's only one from each shift. You'll need some here to transport the horses, too, when the time comes."
"I'll still have to train more people. There are too many horses here," Donovan mutters, and Garrett knows it's true. Then he leans in and lowers his voice. "What did you hear about Lunging? The Sheriff himself came and asked a bunch of questions about him. Said Lunging was dead and that he was looking into it. That means more trouble, and we've got enough already."
Garrett runs a hand over his face wearily as he decides how much to say. "Let's just say he got himself involved in something he shouldn't have. It's something Prince Martin is looking into personally. I'd advise you to cooperate with him if he asks you anything. What kind of questions was the Sheriff asking? And has anyone else been nosing around here?"
"Other than Prince Caine, and the King himself asking me about it?" Donovan asks. "I'm not fool enough to argue with the royals, and neither should you be."
"I'm not arguing, just asking," Garrett replies calmly. Donovan's warning reminds Garrett of Martin's warning not to get involved, but... one more question couldn't hurt. "Did anyone ever come for his things?" All the grooms had lockers, of a sort, at the stables. Garrett had been wondering for a couple of days now what might have been in Lunging's.
"Sir Archer Halfhand himself." Donovan says the name heavily. "His presence alone would have been enough to tell me that the royals have taken an interest in the case."
"Hmmm," Garrett nods as he files that information away. "I reckon it would."
His business being pretty much finished, Garrett rises with a reluctant sigh and places the chair back in the corner. "I reckon I'd best go check in," he says half-heartedly.
Then, for a moment, Garrett the boy, not the prince, returns. "I might have to leave again soon, but I wanted to tell you I'm sorry for everything that happened. And, um..." his cheeks redden, "and thank you for all you did...y'know, for me."
Donovan rises too. As Garrett finishes speaking, he crosses the space between them and throws his arms around Garrett. "You're my son, no matter who sowed the seed that grew you. I couldn't have done any less."
Garrett returns the embrace fiercely. When he backs away, he claps his only true father on the shoulder affectionately. "You might have to call me Highness, but you're my Better, Dad. Don't you forget that." As he leaves the office, he turns back and nods with a grin, "Give my love to Mum."
"I'll do that," Donovan replies, and hugs Garrett one more time before the younger man departs.
The next morning [Meg] wakes early, and before she breaks her fast, goes to join the sisters in morning prayers.
She hurries through the corridors to the room the nuns were assigned, cultivating a sense of briskness as she does.
She knocks on the door. "Good morning, it's Meg Carper."
"Come in, Mistress Carper!" The sisters are in good spirits and are happy to see Meg. She is invited to accompany them in their morning devotionals.
Meg happily joins them, falling into the words and sense of routine and taking comfort from their realness in this crazy place.
When their prayers finish, she sits and smiles.
"Thank-you, I have been feeling lost in this place, but now I remember Her again.
"How are you coping?"
Sister Courage smiles. "Oh, quite well. That nice Sir Marius made sure we were comfortable and had everything we needed." Her brows furrow. "People here don't speak of the Goddess." Sister Prudence makes what can only be described as a disapproving cluck.
"They don't know Her here," Meg sighs. "They'd be better off if they did. But be careful," she takes Sister Prudence's hand, and squeezes it. "They are very powerful people, not just rich, but with strange magics. Cards they can talk through across scores of miles, and somehow they travel to other worlds. Some of these royals are going to help me get back to Abford and fix what is happening there, but I do not trust them."
She drops Prudence's hand and clasps her own together. "Sir Marius is in charge of the expedition back to Abford, but I can't find him this morning. What did he say when he spoke to you?" She glances from Sister Prudence to Sister Courage.
Sister Courage seems alarmed. "Isn't he back yet? He asked us about the bracelet you had, and then he said something about going to see if it had something to do with his mother, and he said he wouldn't be gone long enough for anyone to notice."
Sister Prudence adds, "Oh, dear. I could tell he was nervous about his mother, poor dear, but I believe he did mean to come right back. Do you suppose he's gotten into trouble?"
"I don't know," Meg frowns. "How did he know about it? And what was he going to do?"
Sister Prudence beams. "Oh, I told him about it. He wanted to know why we'd been in the treasury." She pauses. "That was alright, wasn't it? Telling him?"
"No, that's fine. These people reckon that I'm related to them somehow, but nobody's put their hand up to leaving me at St Trista's so far, so I might end up wandering around with it later on seeing if anybody recognises it," Meg shrugs.
Sister Courage says "I don't think he meant to be gone long."
"Did he say where he was going? Or what he was going to do?" Meg clasps her hands tightly in her lap. "Was he going back to Abford?"
Sister Courage looks thoughtful for a moment. "I didn't think he was going to their city, much less Abford. It had something to do with a bracelet one of his Uncles gave his mother. I assumed he was going to her quarters."
Meg's final questions for Courage and Prudence are: Did he say anything else about what he was doing that they can remember? What was it about the mention of the bracelet that caught his attention in their view?
He wanted to go look at something of his mother's. His Uncle gave his Mother a bracelet. They think it might have either been that bracelet or another one from the same Uncle.
She quickly addresses any concerns they might raise with the general approach that things are confusing, but she'll know more when she's been back to Abford and seen things there, so just stay cool and cautious.
Meg then goes to Marius' quarters herself to confirm he's not there, and see if she can learn any details that may indicate where he's gone and how long he expected to be gone, either from her own observation or questioning staff.
Not there. His valet says he went in and didn't come out. He doesn't think that's odd. Sir C.E. went with him. They didn't seem to pack or take any personal goods. His sword isn't in the closet.
After a short stop there, she gets directions to Deirdre's quarters to see if he's there, and quickly asks any staff she finds in the vicinity about Marius, when they last saw him, and if anyone's been in Deirdre's rooms recently.
Deirdre's room in the castle was destroyed in an Earthquake about 5 years ago and that part of the castle wasn't rebuilt. That's also about when Deirdre died.
Assuming all that confirms Marius is missing, she'll send a note to Caine alerting him of this, and asking if he knows where Marius is.
Caine sends back a note saying (basically) 1: thank you, 2: no he doesn't know. and 3: why?
He gets a dryly toned return note saying that the mention of an item of jewellery left by whoever deposited Meg at the orphanage seemed to make Marius wish to check his own mother's jewellery, then he appears to have gone to his room and vanished from within, presumably through those magic cards. And that Meg was hoping Marius would come to a meeting she's just about to have with Brita and Ambrose about the possibility of them helping with the trip to Abford, which is what's preventing her from telling him in person.
There is no answer before the meeting.
Last modified: 31 January 2006