Folly moves to part ways with Martin, Edan, and the rest as they approach the stables. It is almost but not quite time for Soren to call her so they can enact the king-napping plan, assuming the set-up on his end has gone smoothly.
She closes her eyes and listens, feels, letting her intuition guide her on the best path to her goals -- find the king, avoid Vialle. But before she even takes a step, her mental senses tingle with a prickling energy... as if she's being observed.
She opens her eyes and turns, somewhat warily, toward the stables.
Stepping from the shadows as if he hadn't been there a moment ago is Corwin, his black cape furled behind his back. His silver accessories are shiny enough that he can never hide in the darkness. "Folly. Bleys told me you plan to rescue Random. Good."
She nods. "I have no guarantees it will work, but I will do what is in my power to do." She seems to consider and reject several clarifying details that she might reveal about her plan, settling on, "And I hope he also filled you in on our hypothesis of what, precisely, the problem is?"
Corwin shakes his head, but doesn't seem to want the explanation. "No. It was Bleys. My main takeaway was that I should find out afterwards how he'd cleverly averted the crisis. I know it has to do with the Queen of Air and Darkness, which means that I need to stay far away from whatever is going on because I bear Greyswandir, at least once it all starts going.
"This is an odd request, but beware me if you see me during your ritual. Especially if I have the sword out. It is mine by right of conquest, but it could try to act in her interest."
Folly purses her lips as she considers the implications of that. "And what's my best play in that case? Run? Try to snap you out of it somehow? Or is this mostly uncharted territory?"
Corwin doesn't have a good answer, either. "Yeah, go with your gut is my best advice there. I would've expected to be immune due to the Pattern, but I would've expected Random to be immune, too. Which brings me to the reason I came." He holds out a small black leather pouch with silver-tipped drawstrings, about the right size for tobacco or coins. "Don't open this until you're away from here, but we think you need this. Don't... let it do too much, though."
Folly regards him quizzically as she accepts the pouch. She weighs it in her hand, trying to get a clue to its contents without disturbing them too much. She looks to Corwin for more clues, or instructions on what to do with it.
Could be a hard boiled egg, or a rock. Or something made of metal. It makes metallic noises as she shifts. It. "It will all make sense when you open it. Later." Corwin looks over his shoulder, at the shadow he just stepped out of, making sure they are alone. "If it all goes sideways, go to Avalon. Rebma is Vialle's home, and it's fragile. Paris has me but also Greyswandir. Benedict can protect you from her, or should be able to."
Folly nods. "And I know how to find my way there. Thank you for this," -- she holds up the pouch -- "and for the warnings." She hesitates, and then on impulse reaches out to give his hand a light squeeze. "Let us hope they don't come to pass -- but know that if they do, I will hold you blameless. Although," she adds with a faint twinkle in her eye, "if we all come out the other side intact, you may have to endure my teasing about thinking with your sword. May you master it, rather than the other way around."
"If we come out on the other side and don't have to fight a war against Random and the Moon Riders at the same time, you can tease me all you want." He squeezes back, briefly. "Also if we get through all this, Random and I need to think about having Weyland make us pattern swords. This is exactly the kind of thing they're supposed to prevent. At least I hope so."
Folly nods. "I almost hesitate to say this given the joke I just made, but you may also want to let one of us with the interest -- and eventually, I hope, the skill -- and whom you trust, study your swords to try to understand them better. And perhaps extrapolate other methods of defense. But first things first." She gestures with the pouch again, and gives a little bow of thanks and farewell. "See you on the other side."
Corwin bows, perhaps to cover a smirk, "We'll talk more after you save my brother." He slides back into the shadow and out of sight.
Folly slips into the castle, favoring side doors and less-used passages where it is easy to slip into an empty nook to avoid unwanted attention. Soren should be calling her soon, ready to ride along on standby for the hand-off through the contact as soon as Folly secures the target.
Secure the target. Folly shakes her head, though no one else is there to see. Such a rational, impersonal goal. But it keeps her mind clear in the way that her real goal -- rescue Syd -- does not, quite.
She takes a moment to listen, to feel the castle and its inhabitants and their comings and goings, and to find a path toward her goal -- without running into Vialle. With her intuition as her guide, she moves carefully toward the family wing.
Folly takes a moment to feel the city and castle and all the life. It's not that she's more alive here but she's more in tune with this place and these people. Even if they've changed in the time she was gone, she knows them and it feels right to be here. She could never be lost in Xanadu, not truly. And if she didn't end up where she wanted to go, at least she'd end up where she needed to be. She was sure of it.
She was also sure that the city was not itself. It should be more itself, somehow.
Folly's path to the family wing took her past the portraits in the hallway, including one that had once captivated Lark. The woman in it looked like Folly's pattern-projection of grown-up Lorelei. The painting used to be lower on the wall.
Folly frowns in thought, realizing that it has moved since last night. assuming time is working the way it's supposed to do. It occurs to Folly that an invader with power over time is interfering with their chief beat-keeper, and her frown deepens. She touches the picture's frame lightly and looks toward the spot a little down the hall where she and Lark first noticed the smell... feel... of horrible encroaching off-ness.
She's got to fix this before it gets any worse.
The door to the suite is ahead, but Folly thinks it might be possible to enter more discreetly by going into a storage chamber and entering by the servant's entrance.
She takes a deep breath... two... three... four... and slips into the storage chamber. She pauses, looking and listening for anything amiss -- or anyone else in the passage.
There is a servant in the stairwell, and her eyes widen as she sees Folly come in to the back hall, but she doesn't say anything. She's carrying a tray with dirty dishes on it. Her name is Cello, and she was a chambermaid in Amber before she was here. She shakes her head slightly at Folly, and holds up 2 fingers. It's probably some sort of servant-code for telling her who is in the room, but she doesn't quite know the meaning. She points at another door, down the hall. It ... should be empty. It's technically the nursery, but maybe it's been converted.
Folly bows her head slightly and makes an open-palmed gesture from her heart toward Cello, a sign of thanks. It occurs to her that if Cello -- or one of the other servants who helped develop their shared code -- is even semi-literate, the warning could also be a "V" for "Vialle".
Cello moves to take the stairs and depart from whatever is going on next.
Folly slips down the passage to the indicated door, listens carefully for a moment -- and, if it sounds empty, she slips inside.
Folly slips into the small room. It's definitely a nursery. The furniture looks like nursery furniture. Or maybe the furniture someone would make if they'd seen pictures of a nursery, but not of a child and were also bad at carpentry. This is near the heart of the wrongness, and it's nearly unbearable.
She notices two more things, immediately.
The first is the lack of a sense of Syd in this room.
The second is the circle of magical sigils in the center of the floor.
Folly's breath catches in her throat, but she is careful to remain silent -- silent as a mouse, or a servant.
She picks her way cautiously across the room, careful not to touch or even get too close to the sigils -- or anything else for that matter, mindful of other traps, trip-wires, or wards of warning. When she reaches the next door, the one that should open into the royal suite, she pulls out the little notebook she always carries and scribbles a hasty but carefully legible note while she listens intently for sounds on the other side of the door. Then she pulls out a trump and concentrates.
It takes several long moments -- it always does, even when he's not actively engaged in something else -- before the image begins to move. Folly holds a finger in front of her lips to indicate silence, and makes a slow half-turn to show the room -- the odd furniture, and especially the sigils. Then she holds up the note:
NURSERY NEXT TO ROYAL SUITE.
MAGIC CIRCLE THING. CAN'T BE GOOD.
KILL IT WITH FIRE.
That last could be a bit of family in-joke hyperbole, but she might also mean it literally: Martin is, after all, traveling with the God of Fire at the moment.
Martin nods slightly and runs his hand through his hair. Before she can close the conversation, he speaks, probably to someone else in the room. "Yes, please take us to the Lady Fiona."
She waits a moment to make sure he has comprehended, then blows a silent kiss and closes the contact.
The door is thin, and looks to be a recent replacement. Perhaps it's meant to allow the Royals to hear noises in the nursery. That certainly doesn't sound like anything Random would've thought of, but he does have a blind wife. Or did.
There are two distinct voices in the next room. Fiona's and Vialle's. Vialle is speaking continuously and perhaps rhythmically, as if she's chanting. Fiona occasionally interrupts. She sounds, somehow, not herself. It's not clear what the words are, or even if there are words.
After a moment, she also hears Random's voice. It's got that not-quite-here tone to it that he had at the proclamation.
Folly closes her eyes, not daring to take another deep breath lest she be heard. She'll need to be patient for now, and trust that the distraction plan will draw the other two out of the room, even for a few moments. If not, she may need to set something on fire herself.
She debates for a moment whether to slip out and look for a match... and also whether to listen at or slip out of the third door to the room, the one leading into the main hallway of the family suite, to be ready to warn Martin and Edan about Fiona... but decides against it, for the moment. They've already heard the warning that those too near the Queen might fall under her sway, and Fiona has been with Random and Vialle nearly constantly for days, at least. Folly trusts Martin's well-earned sense of paranoia around the Elders, and to a lesser extent Edan's ability to tell whether his aunt is acting a bit... off... to keep them safe. Safe-ish. For now, she remains at the door, listening for changes and for a sign of the planned distraction.
On the plus side, it's meant to be a distraction, so it should be pretty obvious.
Folly feels the mental stirring that heralds a trump contact. It's both familiar and not. She'd guess it might be someone's first experience using a trump.
Folly opens herself to the contact, cautiously at first and then fully once she's sure it's really Soren. As she had done with Martin, she holds a finger to her lips, then adds the sign for "still waiting for the cue to take the stage".
Mentally, she projects, "Can you hear me? He's not alone yet, but a distraction should be coming."
Soren nods and whispers in response. She can hear him clearly. "They can't hear me, can they? When Syd does this, I only ever hear his side of it."
Folly shakes her head in the negative. "They can't hear you, but they're likely to hear me as soon as I make a move, if I don't time it right. The grab will probably need to be quick, so be ready to pull him through once he's in the contact."
Soren looks grim. "We're ready. You grab him, I grab you and yank you through, Trick and Ash put the boot in on anyone else who joins the party, and we get him on stage. I feel like I need one more rehearsal before this goes down." It wouldn't be the first time Soren wanted to rehearse and Syd said "we're winging it."
"So, I've got a draft of a set list," he says. "Opener is 'Demented', 'cause it has that great double drumming bit where Syd and I both go at it. Unless you want something else. Want the rest of the list?"
"That's a great opener," Folly says. "I do have one request, though, that will surprise you not one bit: Quick band huddle before we take the stage. I want to try to... recalibrate our drummer."
"Same as every gig," says Soren. "Maybe this one is higher-profile than most brothels we've played."
Folly hears some commotion in the room, and the sound of male voices arguing with Vialle. One of them is Martin's.
Edan turns to Martin when they split off from the group. "You want to ride in to the castle carrying the doppelgänger baby or babies from outside? Announce without announcing, as it were. The farther away from the Pattern I do this sorcery, the better it will be."
"That's a good idea. Lark's not a baby, though," Martin explains. "She was almost ready for youth school in the Shadow we were living in. Not half-day parent's day out kind of thing, either, actual lessons, if early ones. Not that Lark wasn't already learning everything she could, just--don't think of her as an infant. Do I need to do anything to help you?"
Edan shakes his head slightly. "I mis-spoke," he says. "Sorry. I've met her. My son was on my mind while I was talking, it's been like that the last day or so."
He looks around -- and in the general direction of the castle -- for a good place. "Ideally, I could use a place that we could start a fire without panic. And have some privacy."
"We could get a little way out of town, up toward the castle, if it wouldn't be too close for sorcery. Otherwise we're going to have to requisition a barn or something," Martin offers. "As for your son--we can still ask Hannah to go to Rebma with him. He'll be safer there."
Edan shakes his head. "She does not want to go, and we have arranged the best protection we could. At some point, even in the face of the unknown, we have to trust in our efforts. And speaking of..." He points out of town, towards a likelyspot. "Let's try up there."
"Let's do it," Martin, who is also a believer in trusting to his precautions, says.
Edan has no doubt he has a few hairs or other material to replicate the babby, but he could use his own hair or blood if not. Similarly, what exactly he does depends on the spot they find, but the gist of it is burning the reagents and sculpting a solidified copy out of the smoke which will resolve into a near-perfect simulacrum. The copy can move and act (preprogrammed with Edan's memories of them) and can follow simple directions.
Edan casts, feeling very confident, and finds he's made two excellent simulacra. It's actually somewhat disturbing how accurate they are, and Martin says so. "Don't let Lark see it or she'll want one of her own."
Edan can tell the difference: these are made of fire and will dissipate, but he doesn't expect anyone else to be able to do so, without a third eye. To the third eye, they are not there at all.
Edan tries not to look smug. "Lucky cast," he says. "A sorcerer would be able to tell, I'll say that now, but your father doesn't like magic in the castle. What do you think, move around the gates and bottom floor, then disappear? See if we draw Her out?"
"Yeah, I think that's a good first approximation," Martin says. "There are too many variables in operation to do the math on it even if there's nothing we can do to influence it. We're gonna have to play it by ear."
Edan makes a final check, then leads the group to the castle. He intends to go through the front gate, interact with the sentries, then hurriedly into the castle. He is not chatty with either Martin or others, cultivating an air of discomfort, like they had rather not be here but had to retrieve something important.
As they make their way into the castle, a guard stops them with a message. "The Lady Fiona has a message for Prince Martin."
Martin stops with obvious reluctance, nods once, and says, "Whatever it is, you can say it in front of Sir Edan."
"She has information you should know before you act, and requires your presence as soon as possible."
Edan is looking more intent than surprised, mostly because he's checking out the guard with his Third Eye to make sure the man isn't ensorcelled to lie about the message sender. Otherwise, he's ready to agree. "I don't know how she does it, and I'm a redhead."
The Third Eye is hard to use in the castle, but there is no evidence of sorcerous compulsion on the servant that Edan can see.
Martin looks at Edan, looks back at the messenger, and looks back at Edan. Then he nods, once. "Okay," he says. "Let's do it."
Edan nods agreement, shifts the decoy baby to a more comfortable position, and gets ready to head to what he remembers to be Fiona's rooms, but then stops. "Where is she now?" he asks the guard.
The guard says "In the family wing, Sir Edan. Please follow me."
Martin puts out his hand and then drops it. He looks grim, and runs his hand through his hair, pushing it back. "Yes, please take us to the Lady Fiona," he says. Edan thinks he may be talking in a trump as well as to the guard.
Edan nods and follows behind the guard but before Martin and the ersatz children. In other words, 'take point so Martin can bail if needed'.
Martin follows Edan. "As I was saying, your father finished his story by saying 'So I sprung it. It was the only way to know who set it.' I think it's his favorite story."
The guard walks them up the main stairs and to the family wing, past the portraits and hallways where family members have quarters, to the royal area. Edan notices Martin nod his head at one of the portraits, briefly.
The guard arrives at the door and opens it. "Prince Martin and Sir Edan to see Princess Fiona!" he calls in. The antechamber is empty.
Edan is ready to step in, and he engages his Third Eye again; fully expecting Fiona to have set magical wards in her own chambers, even here, what he's looking for isn't protective Sorcery but rather the opposite: some entrapment or enchantment that shouldn't be here. At least, not something that he would consider using himself in his own rooms.
It's always difficult to use the Third Eye this close to the Pattern, and Edan is wise enough not to look too directly at anyone. Even the guard, at this proximity, is brighter than any shadow dweller. Those of the blood are almost blinding, and the King would be too much to bear.
Still, Edan knows his strengths and those of his family and doesn't actually go so far as to blind himself. But it means he is limited.
Edan can't tell exactly what is happening, but the reflected glow has a different characteristic somehow. It's like the light from different fires is all firelight, but the wood that is used matters.
Fiona is standing at the inner door, her small frame failing to fill the space.
"Your Highness," says Fiona to Martin. "Edan. That was a very impressive display this evening. You and your troops are to be commended."
Martin nods. "It was, wasn't it? Is my father within? We must see him."
Fiona loses some of the timbre in her voice. "He is unwell, and isn't seeing anyone."
"You seem unwell yourself. We must see the King." He's speaking perhaps louder than necessary, but instead of summoning Random, Vialle appears behind Fiona in the inner doorway. "He is unwell," she protests.
She places her hand on Fiona's back and the two women form a very low barrier to entry.
Martin looks as if he will argue further, and takes a deep breath.
Edan, being significantly taller than both women, can easily look over them to see Folly appear behind them as she comes through a side door from some other room in the suite. She seems to be moving as quickly as she can without making any noise. As she goes she casts a glance toward the women in the doorway, catches Edan's eye, and makes a quick gesture, pointing at the women with her index and middle finger, then crossing one finger over the other like the top one is pushing the bottom one down. It's probably not a coincidence that the finger pointing to Vialle seems to subdue the one pointing to Fiona.
Then she disappears from view deeper into the suite, presumably to find the king.
Folly enters the royal chambers and Syd is sitting there, not looking up. He's tapping a reasonably complex drum pattern on his knees, but Folly knows it something he could do in his sleep. Has done in his sleep, if she remembers correctly.
While Folly doesn't have her mother's perfect awareness of her own body in space, she does know his body, and his rhythms, and how to weave her own through the spaces in between. In one, two, three steps she moves to him in time with his rhythm, arriving behind him just as he raises his elbows a little away from his sides to start the next part of the pattern. In one fluid movement she slides her arms firmly under his, presses her cheek against his hair, and whispers "I've got you" almost inaudibly against his ear as she grabs the unseen hands waiting to pull them elsewhere.
Just before Soren pulls them through, Random cries out, as if someone has kicked him in the privates.
Soren pulls on her arm and Folly, Random, and Soren fall backwards into a heap.
In this place, with these people, it's impossible to tell if his illusion is still effective; Edan assumes for now that it is. If he's seen Folly's gesture, he doesn't acknowledge anything. Rather, he edges to the left, separating himself from Martin as a target, right side to the doorway, illusory baby on his left. "I thank you for your praise. I am confused, though: does this mean the Family conclave is cancelled? If he is well enough to sit the meeting, we must see him beforehand. If it's all cancelled, well..."
There was no way the Queen would want to postpone such a political victory, not when She was so close to it. Edan was betting on that. But this was all a line of patter, anyway. For his eyes are brilliant gold from his own internal flame, and he is drawing warmth to himself from the room, and he is ready to test this foul alien burning creosote glow with interfering waves of radiance from himself. But first, he's trying to give Folly the chance to do her thing before he throws a metaphorical wrench into the bicycle spokes.
Vialle looks stern. "He's unavaiable, Sir Edan. I can't interrupt him, on his healer's orders. You mustn't disturb him."
Fiona is looking at the smoke babies, perhaps with her third eye.
Vialle turns to where Martin is standing. "Martin, take Sir Edan and stop disturbing the King!" She turns her head.
"Random? What --". She turns and starts back towards the part of the suite where Edan last saw Folly.
Martin doesn't seem very inclined to obey; in fact he does quite the opposite and advances, abandoning the simulacrum of Lark to start to grab at Vialle.
Fiona moves to do what looks to Edan like the beginnings of Parting the Veil in the direction of the impending fight between Martin and Vialle.
(Edan can tell it's the Parting of the Veil by movement and the swell of power but that doesn't tell him where the other side of the part would be.)
Slight... change of plan. The first of many, likely. Alas, Edan's first hope is quashed; if Fiona is under the Queen's thrall, she obviously still has her Sorcerous abilities. Then again, it would be just like her to pretend ensorcellement and save the day with this Parting the Veil. But he couldn't risk the worst case scenario. Trust Martin can take care of himself for a few critical seconds. Save the mission.
So, Edan abandons his own illusion and bows at the waist, arms spread wide, fingers in a contortionist shape, like some marionette at the end of a play. And he summons a wall of fire and plasma, hot as he dares, in between this scrum and the king and Folly beyond. Block the Queen from crossing or seeing Random. Keep the fight on this side. And while stone melts and tapestries catch aflame, he starts to move to counter what comes through Fiona's Veil... or else grab Martin and bug out through this new Veil of his own making.
Fiona changes her spell in mid-cast, which takes some skill. It's still parting the veil, and Random screams when it happens. Instead of capturing Martin, the spell opens a portal so some place hellishly cold, during a blizzard. Perhaps Brita's Asgard. Edan's firewall is being cut down by by the melting snow and it's getting hard to see or hear over the roar. Edan doesn't think he can keep the wall going for the duration of the spell, with her interference.
Vialle is struggling towards the inner room and Martin is struggling towards Vialle, but it's not clear if he can stop her. Edan thinks he hears muffled curses, but it's hard to be sure.
No, not going at all to plan. Instead of addressing the real problem, Fiona is forcing him to counter her and lose the initiative. Time to go the other direction.
Edan moves his arms back together, fingers in a claw shape, and he throws his arms and hands upward, slowly, like lifting a great weight. Whatever is left of the purloined heat gathered to his hands, he throws that up and out and above Fiona like a trail for the cold to follow. The Veil is essentially just a hole to someplace cold and wet, and he multiplies that to the nth degree; he pulls more cold out of that blizzard place using his spell, freezing the air solid like an ice plug at the Veil itself, creating a glacier of ice that grows and multiplies and reaches back towards Fiona while at the same time creates a second wall of ice behind the remnants of his wall of fire. He loses a few feet of space to Vialle, trading that for a second barrier to her movement. And if the glacier threatening Fiona has the appearance of a pouncing sand tiger, well, that was why Sorcery is an art.
"Fiona, snap out of it!" he yells. "Please!"
Fiona's glance is hard to interpret, but Edan is convinced she's not as possessed as she seemed. The veil is dropped and the ice tiger, no longer supported, falls and sends ice crystals flying like melting daggers. Everyone will have cuts and bruises, but no one was seriously injured.
Martin rushes through the remnants of the fire wall and slams at full speed into Vialle, who was trying something at Edan's icewall. She goes down, with Martin on top of her. If she was hit or landed harder than she might have, it's not clear that Martin intended to cause her harm.
And yet she goes down like a queen caught between an immovable wall of ice and an unstoppable onrushing Prince.
"Very clever Edan. I liked the bit with the extra cold." Fiona doesn't seem controlled at all now, nor does she look like someone who was just in a sorcerous duel. "We'll have to spar sometime when we're not trying to save the King."
Martin puts two fingers on Vialle's neck. "She'll live." Because he is who he is, it's hard to tell how he feels about that.
"Thanks, I'd like that." Contrary to Fiona, Edan looks very much like he's been in a sorcerous duel. He plunks down onto the floor, grimaces, picks a shard of ice out of his forehead, then wipes the smear of blood off on his shoulder before it reaches his eye. He then jams his hands under his armpits to try and warm them.
"I'm glad my hunch was right. When you made it all about moving heat around instead of a charm or poisonous tentacles or Time or Space, I dared hope you were either out of the geas or nearly so." He stares hard at Vialle's prone form. "So, what's the verdict? Possessed body, or Queen of Air and Darkness with an illusion? If it's the latter, we're going to have a hard time turning her into a newt."
Martin shrugs. "Faustian bargain? I dunno, we should ask a redhead." He gives Fiona a look.
Edan smiles a little at that.
Fiona nods towards the de facto regent. "I was not entirely lost to the power, Edan, and I kept myself close to keep her attention on suppressing me, and not on the King. Your father would've pulled me out if I had been unable to resist her." She sighs.
"I don't know either. I wonder if she ever really came back from Tir when Random and Garrett rescued her."
Edan looks like he's about to say something -- a lot of things -- but he swallows it and nods instead. Now is not the time, but later will be different.
Martin nods once and runs his fingers through his hair, ignoring the cuts and ice crystals. "For now, we need to keep her from ordering a search for the King."
Fiona gives him a sharp look.
"For now," Martin repeats. "The floor is open for suggestions."
Edan looks up at Martin from where he sits, the color draining from his face. "There are too many questions I have without answers. Is the Queen really pregnant? Is it even really Vialle? If it's... I don't even know her real name. If it is the Queen of Air and Darkness, is she Chaosi? I'm prepared to add kidnapping or transmutation or suspended animation to my list of crimes. I'm not adding infanticide or murder."
"We do not name her here, even if we believe she is rendered nominally insensible," Fiona says, perhaps a bit more sharply than usual.
Martin shakes his head in the negative to all the questions. "I don't know. I don't know any of it. I don't want to kill her but we definitely need to keep her quiet for a while."
Fiona looks at Martin, and Martin explains: "Folly's going to try to shake him out of it. She's taking him back to Texorami, or at least faking it. She's trying rock'n'roll, drugs, and sex, in about that order. So we have to buy some time." He looks at Fiona and Edan. "How do we keep her out of action? Do we have some sorcery for that? Or do we just take her somewhere that time passes slowly and keep her unconscious."
Edan sighs. "That last sounds safest. We run. We were going to run anyway, and draw her into pursuit. Instead, we take her along and be ready if she has her own guardian that might pursue."
"Have you got something that will keep her down?" Martin asks Edan.
Edan, in turn, glances at Fiona. "If you mean Sorcery, well, yes. The problem is overcoming her Real-ness." He claps his hands once, then spreads his hands, and some random piece of furniture in the room burns to ash immediately without spreading or making smoke. The fire is in Edan's hands now, and his face glows with reflected yellows and reds. "Aunt Fiona, would you assist me in enchanting the Queen? For the irony, if nothing else. Your Highness, be warned. No matter what I do, it probably won't last."
Fiona bows, a bit. "In the end, few things last. If she's father's peer, then we're likely to annoy her at best, but even father had vulnerabilities. If we need her gone for more than a day or so, and especially if we don't want to find ourselves under attack by her within the week, we need help.
"I'm hesitant to suggest it, but perhaps we should contact your grandmother," she says to Edan.
Martin looks at Fiona with a skeptical gleam in his eye. "What's she going to do?"
"Mother might decide it's time to remarry," replies Fiona, tight-lipped.
Edan slides the palms of his hands over his eyes. "I thought I had wild ideas," he says. "But in this case, the only thing I thought of was the City of Brass. Again. Married. Pregnant. But maybe Grandmother would have a way to keep her quiet for a while. I'm for this idea."
"There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where I could have said no. But somehow I missed it," Martin misquotes. Then he looks at Fiona and Edan. "All right, let's do it. Are we riding out or are we--how do you even get hold of her?" There's a strong emphasis on the word 'you'.
"I know where she lives," Edan says, "but she's been watching us the entire time. Grandmother happened upon my existence when I sent a message to Fiona while at sea. If there's not a Trump, I could hijack that spell she uses to make a connection. We'd have to keep the Queen unconscious until we got some distance from the Pattern."
"I think I can manage that much, though I hate to do any more sorcery so close to the center of things," Fiona says. "But I am needed here. Once I bind her and you go, you two will be on your own."
Edan glances at Martin and back. "We were prepared for that. Same chase, different rules. I pray you have good fortune with the King."
"And may you have equally good luck with the Queen, whichever one you have," Fiona says. She kneels in front of Vialle and wipes some blood from her mouth and nose. Fiona runs her hands over her hair and casts some sort of spell like a net over her. Then she comes to her feet and hands Edan something that looks like an egg. "This is your father's. If things get too far out of control, it will stop time long enough for the two of you to get away. It was my last holdout."
Martin picks up Vialle and her net and hoists her over his shoulder, fireman's carry style. "All right, let's do this. I hope we've got two hellriding horses in the stable. Fiona, until we meet again." He salutes her with his free hand.
Edan isn't the furtive spy-type, but even he can see this doesn't look good. He looks for a blanket, anything, to cover the Queen as they run. Then, with some of the heat he purloined from burning, he makes it look more like Martin is carrying a rug or something similar. All they need is to deflect the casual glance.
With a smile to Fiona, they're off. Vialle with Martin, magic time-egg safely stowed with Edan. He knows where the stables are, knows how they were led up here, so the main thing is avoiding the guards at the front gate. Edan tries to lead them to another exit, something closer to the horses, but will certainly listen to the Prince if he's taking a bad direction.
Edan leads Martin to the kitchens. The back door for throwing out slop is close to where the stables mucks out stalls. It's unguarded, but Edan and Martin pass a number of serving staff. They look alarmed, but no one will interfere with Prince Martin and Lord Edan. Many of them saw Edan's sword work and nobody wishes to see it from the wrong perspective.
The two men carry their burden across the darkened yard to the stables. Edan hears people talking inside. Probably the stable master and his assistants.
They've already been seen, and if anyone is looking for them, the stables are the obvious place to go. Speed is the most important thing here. Edan leads them around to the main doors and inside. If it is the stable master he calls out (by name, if it's Donovan), "We need two strong horses saddled. We must hurry." He's already looking for where they've likely already unsaddled Aramsham for a grooming.
"Hellriders," Martin, who expects the Amber-experienced grooms to know what he means, adds by way of clarification.
Donovan is not present; he has been taking reduced hours since his injury. But the grooms are familiar with the whims of princes, and with Martin and Edan, so they rush to bring forward two of the best horses, in the best shape, in the castle.
They're both pretty ugly, but Edan, who has a good eye for horseflesh, can see good bones under there and suspects they were left because they weren't handsome mounts. But they should do nicely for travelling in Shadow where they don't want to be followed or recognized.
While Edan is looking at the horses and Martin is loading his up, as if he were going to carry that "empty" carpet out into shadow with him, Marius appears in the doorway to the stable. "Cousins," he says, "I've been looking for you."
Edan turns and smiles a little. "Marius. You are feeling better, yes? Does the Ruby have need?"
Marius shakes his head. "Not right now. I came up to be sure that Gerard was all right and assure the safety of the castle if we got another wave of Moonriders." He takes a look at the carpet Martin is putting over the back of the horse. "That doesn't look suspicious or anything.
"Are you two headed out? Should I ask?"
"We are," Edan says. Not knowing just how perceptive Marius is, he decides to stick to literal truth. "Fiona and I had a disagreement, and I'm going to keep a little distance. I've said for a while now that I need to check on my troops in Broceliande."
Martin adds, "And I'm escorting Edan to the forest so I can tell Fiona it's done and bring Paige back," falling right into Edan's story as if they'd agreed to it in advance. "Can you give me a hand with this, Marius? I need to make sure this is tight on both sides."
Marius moves over to inspect the burden Martin's tying to the horse. Out of Marius' sight, Martin curls one hand into a fist and makes a slight punching gesture. He catches Edan's eye and raises his eyebrows.
Edan gives Martin a sharp look; he looks remarkably like Fiona when he does so. At least, blessedly, Martin is positioned so that Edan doesn't hit the horse or Martin's face if he misses.
Edan is stronger than a human, but of course Marius is more resilient, so it balances out. While Marius is coming to some unpleasant realizations, Edan punches the back of Marius's head at ear level, hard as he can. If he does it right, Marius should have a "white out" and crumple at the knees with minimal damage.
Edan moves to punch Marius but the quarters are too tight and it's not a stunning blow, though it would have felled a lesser man, one who wasn't a son of Amber. Marius turns, looking betrayed, and cries, "Edan, what?", and Martin is hauling back to finish things if he can get across the horse to do it.
"I'm sorry!" The exclamation is heartfelt, but Edan doubts Marius is going to care later. At least, when this is all over, he hopes his cousin will understand.
So he puts a shoulder down and body blocks Marius, ready to take a hit if it gives Martin an opening from the other side. Weapons or sorcery simply are not going to happen, not if he can help it.
Marius could, perhaps, take one of them straight on, but between Edan and Martin they manage to drop him with no real injury to either of them, just some bruising where Marius tries to get out of the stall.
Martin curses. "Do we take him with us, or what? Can we send him somewhere, to someone who can hang on to him? I don't want to leave him here but I think having him with us when he wakes up, or when she does, would be worse."
"Are you ready? We're going to have to go quick to avoid the guards after this noise."
Edan has precisely one Trump at the moment, and it sounds like a winner to him. Leaving Martin to manage their charges, he thumbs out Merlin's Trump and concentrates.
"Merlin? It's Edan."
"Yes," Merlin says. He is in Rebma, in the air chamber. "It is Edan," he tells whoever is with him.
"I need your help, if you would give it," Edan says. "In a nutshell: Martin and I are in Xanadu, about to hellride out because, well, we have to. Marius happed on us and we knocked him out. The circumstances were... less than honorable. I can't leave him here, it's not safe. Would you be willing to watch him until he wakes? He'll be mad at me when he gets up, and I deserve it, and I'll accept the consequences when we're done."
"I needs must ask Celina, but I believe we can arrange that," Merlin says. "Celina, Marius has come upon our cousins in their business at the castle, and he is now unconscious. Can Edan send him through to ensure his safety?"
Edan bows his head slightly to recognize Merlin putting the best possible spin on the question; otherwise, he waits.
Merlin says, "Send him through and we will care for him. The business you are about goes well?"
Edan bows his head again when he sees Celina enter the connection. He looks like he's been burned and then frozen and then scratched multiple times and only had the energy to wipe the blood from the worst one. "It's gone poorly so far," he says as he passes Marius through. "Thank you. Thank you both. It's not going to be safe here for a while. And I think the family meeting is cancelled."
Celina hefts Marius into her arms easily. One hand cups his head. She speaks on the heels of Edan news. "Come to me if you can find no safe paths. Remember all mirrors lead to Rebma."
Merlin says, "Travel safely. Use my Trump if you cannot find a mirror."
(Martin is carefully staying away from Edan and out of the trump contact. Bleys would call this "plausible deniability".)
Edan bows his head lower this time, in acknowledgment and thanks. "I will see you both when I can."
When the connection is finished, he turns back to Martin, expecting to see the horses far along if not completely ready. He doesn't quite meet his cousin's eyes. "Let's get out of here before the hue and cry reaches us. Pity I've forgotten to bring a scorecard- I need to keep track of all the people I've betrayed today."
"You've only answered to my authority, and I do what is needful for the good of Amber." Martin shakes his head. "Which is a filthy business sometimes. Let's get out of here." He mounts up and leads the way out of the stable.
Hannah is rested, fed, re-bathed and in her third... forth outfit of the last... day? It can't have just been a day. "Pourtant, je vois un corbeau et son 'oiseau grand-père'. Attendez que sa tante rouge-gorge vole ses oiseaux de lézard." ("Yet I see an infant raven and his 'grandfather bird'. Just wait until his aunt robin flies her lizard birds.")
Hannah swings the cradleboard over her shoulder, and carries the baby in her arms. She offers Heckle the high view from the top of the board.
She hums something like a french national anthem, and then sings to her son as she works her way to Gerard's room.
"Oiseaux de lézard, oiseaux de lézard,
ils vont mordre et ils vont brûler
et qui sait
ce qu'ils vont faire
quand confronté à le tyran Heckle.
Baiázaza,"
She swings the little tiger,
"Baiázaza
Oiseaux de lézard, oiseaux de lézard,
Leurs yeux tourbillonnent
et les queues se contractent
et Rouge-gorge, ils vont demander,
pouvons-nous manger le noir?
Oh non, oh non, dira Rouge-gorge,
l'indigestion, oh, la douleur de Seering.
Baiázaza
Baiázaza
Oiseaux de lézard, oiseaux de lézard,
ils vont tordre et ils vont siffler
et nous savons
Heckle va essayer
faire un marché
et manger un oeil."
("Lizard birds, lizard birds,
they will bite and they will burn
and who knows
what they will do
when confronted with
the tyrant Heckle.
Rock-a-bye,
Rock-a-bye
Lizard birds, lizard birds,
Their eyes swirl
and tails twitch
and robin, they will ask,
may we eat the dark one?
Oh no, oh no, robin will say,
the indigestion, oh, the seering pain.
Rock-a-bye,
Rock-a-bye
Lizard birds, lizard birds,
they will twist and they will hiss
and we know
Heckle will try
to make a deal
and eat an eye.")
Hannah makes a popping sound, says "Ummm, magnifique", and then makes munching sounds, grinning at the baby.
The baby makes spit bubbles in response.
Heckle laughs from his perch behind her.
"Vous avez trop d'oiseaux dans votre famille. Corbeaux, merles, alouettes. Quel type d'oiseau est une 'Hannah'? Êtes-vous une fauvette?
"I have more ambition than you might think. I might not be satisfied with just un oeil."
"Ew. I am a shadow swift, perhaps. Raised in a hidden nest, it took a unicorn to find me. Preditors can't eat what they can't see."
She reaches for a call button before she remembers that they don't have those in Xanadu, then knocks at Gerard's door.
A servant opens the door. "Please come in," she says. Gerard and Corvis are discussing things. "Hannah! Shouldn't you be resting?" says Gerard.
Hannah just smiles at him. "Ladies first." Corvis gets a kiss on the cheek and then the baby. "Thank you so much for being with me. I would have known no better from my own mothers, and such a difference it makes, having the solace of a woman's wisdom on that journey."
Corvis takes one of Hannah's hands briefly. "It was good to stand with you. I don't get to help mothers as often as I like."
"And I am very well uncle. This new one and I saw the unicorn in the grove today. Or... yesterday, perhaps. And this is Heckle, who has agreed to stand as a guardian to my son." She gestures to the Raven as she gently pulls off the cradle board and balances it against her leg.
Heckle blinks at Gerard like he's really a dumb bird and not the creature he actually is. Gerard tilts his head and one of his eyebrows crawls toward his hairline as he tries to work this out.
"Heckle is a spirit," Corvis explains to her husband. "And a good protector for the child. Have you given your son a milk-name yet?" She asks Hannah.
"I have been calling him little tiger, mostly. So... not exactly. Have things been quiet up here since the, uh, first attack force didn't?" Hannah wonders.
Gerard nods. "Aye."
"Yes," Corvis says at the same time, "but I think there is a magical battle of some sort going on in the castle. I can feel the edges of it even here. The forces must be titanic for it to happen in this castle. You and the little tiger should stay here where it's safe."
"You can feel it? What about you, Uncle?" She spares Gerard only a glance as she asks this, far more interested in observing Corvis.
Gerard shakes his head. "I'm no sorcerer, lassie. Not a drop of Clarissa's blood in me. Corvis is the magician in this house." Corvis is smiling fondly at her husband, in the way that wives sometimes do with husbands when they're going on about something they know nothing of.
Hannah glances at Heckle, looks between Corvis and Gerard, and again asks Gerard a question. "So, you're comfortable just hiding out while the Queen is compromised, there is an almost-war, and someone is having a titanic magical battle in our home?" While this is clearly a challenge to Gerard, it is Corvis that gets her final, accusing expression.
"I am doing something," Corvis says calmly. "I am guarding the Regent, lest whatever battle is happening out there affects him. My magic isn't as strong as that of Amber, certainly not here, and if I were to join in that duel, I'd be squashed like a fly. But I can keep Gerard safe from the shock of it, and your child, and you and your familiar spirit. And I can help with whatever happens in the aftermath: if you need to fly, or we need to bundle my husband out of here, or if we win but the victors are injured.
"Not all wars are won by warriors. You know that as well as I, Hannah."
Hannah sighs and lets the fear, and the very efficient hormone drop she's experiencing make her cry. She pulls up the cradleboard and with dread efficiency secures her son back into it. If this displaces Heckle, all the better.
Heckle springs into the air and flaps, hovering near the infant.
"Of course," she says, and wipes her face dry. She lays the cradleboard close enough that she can keep a hand on the side of her child's face. "So long as you understand this man," she gestures with her free hand to the baby, "is Mine, then you can drop the pretense and we could have an actual conversation. You're very good at infiltrating women's lives and improvising your way along, but you're not very good at puppeting these princes. You have chosen to commit horrific acts for... your people? I don't know much of the history. Could you tell me why you have chosen this path? Or can you be bothered to convince me you are the proper owner of that body, and something else is wrong with my Uncle?"
A chorus of "What!" in three different intonations arises from three different nmouths: Gerard's, Corvis', and Heckle's.
Gerard and Corvis are staring at each other in confusion, but Heckle turns to Hannah. "Can't you see what you need to know with your Third Eye?"
She begins to reply sarcastically to Heckle, but stops herself and takes a breath. "I don't trust that I couldn't be fooled, even so."
She looks back at Gerard, consideringly. "I just want your wife to prove to me she hasn't been cleverly possessed by the same creature that has seemingly done so with Vialle." Corvis then gets her eyebrow. "I have no idea how you do that."
"If you don't trust your Third Eye," Corvis says, "there's no way to prove anything. I'm not even sure I'd know if I were possessed as you say." She looks down at her own hands, horrified. "I feel like myself, I don't have any periods of blacking out."
Gerard, if he could, would be out of the chair and quite possibly in Hannah's face. As it is, he's rolling to put himself between Hannah and Corvis. "There's no way she's possessed! Unless she's been possessed all along, and--I can tell you she's not. She's not!"
Gerard's anger makes Hannah relax, just a little. She holds her hands up in a gesture that's more acquiescence and calming than defensive.
Heckle is flapping to stay in the air, close to Hannah's son. "She doesn't look possessed to me," he tells Hannah, considering, "but you can't prove a negative. Can she possess two people at once, hmm?"
"I don't know. Why not? And there are many ways to prove a negative using scientific principles," Hannah science-splains, not being able to help herself. "But settle somewhere, would you?" she asks the raven.
She turns her attention back to Corvis, tapping Gerard's arm impatiently if he doesn't let her see her good-aunt. "I'm sorry, Corvis, I'm being paranoid. Perhaps she can't, or perhaps she needs cooperation to possess, or perhaps she's too short-sighted to see how useful Gerard would be. And I'm still not used to seeing my uncle under such a calming influence, so it reads very wrong to me. This," she gestures at him, "is the protective personality I'm more familiar with.
"Sorry, Gerard," she adds. "Can I hear what it is the two of you think is happening, exactly, with Vialle?"
"We don't know, exactly," Corvis says. "I think it's a possession but Gerard thinks it's not possible, or shouldn't be, here. But she was taken away from Tir, so there's no reason she couldn't have been taken over while she was away from the safety of Xanadu."
Gerard grumbles, "I suppose."
"She's not one of you," Corvis says. "Anything is possible."
Heckle is still hovering near the baby, but less closely. The bird could still pick up the swaddling and flee if needed, maybe.
"I dinna ken the fighting with magic, though. How is that even possible? Random wouldna allow that." Gerard is still grumbling and bewildered.
Corvis shakes her head. "I don't understand it either, but it's--it was happening. It's over now. And I don't know who won."
Hannah shrugs. "Can't control what you can't control. What would happen if you claimed the regency right now, Gerard? I mean, I'm ignorant on how any of that works... so explain it to me like I'm an uneducated child. Could you take the Seat? Would Random forgive you if something was found later to be wrong with him now? Would he forgive you if nothing was wrong with him later and you were just being cautious because it seemed like he'd lost control of the reins? Would one of your siblings panic or try to take your place? Would it matter if I went and tried to get a collation of my generation to back the move? I mean, is it treason if you mean well?" She grins because she knows better.
"It's treason, but it might be forgiveable treason. And if the King decided I was wrong, I'd take my punishment. Better me than you children." Gerard sighs. "I won't let you take the blame if it's needful."
Hannah shrugs again. Getting in trouble isn't really what she's worried about. "You're fit to do it, and you've proven you'll give it back. You've protected a throne for this King before. And us children, we trust you. You. If anyone else did it, I fear it could start splitting us up into groups. I mean, I haven't taken a census, but I am fairly confident on this point."
Corvis suggests, "We should find out what's happened before we make any final decisions. Who can we send to find out?"
Hannah considers this. "I like our current plausible deniability. I think we should just go hang out in the throne room - uh, is there a throne room? - well, wherever, order up a bunch of food, and let Gerard do the job until Random shows up to stop him, or someone else thinks to try. Don't even need to declare anything. Just fill the void until Random is better, or says to stop. Keeps anyone else from taking advantage, gives the poor staff a sense of order. Anyone asks, we can just say Gerard is picking up the work since there is so much happening right now. This is a bad plan, this is basically how I became the damn Indian Agent when they sent us an opium smoker. But, you protect the people. You sign the orders. You do what you have to do.
"So I guess I'm saying, if no one is currently invading the palace, let's just go take care of business. Then the answers will come to us anyway. I'll play secretary." She raises her eyebrows at them in question. "We don't make a decision until we have a no choice. I'm sure Solange will help as soon as she's done trying to strangle me for suggesting this madness."
"If the castle is under threat, and no one else steps up, I will stand as Regent once more," Gerard says with a sigh. "Let's go to the throne room. There is a throne room. Random doesn't use it much but it's there. Let's go, all of us. Solange can join us, and anyone else who needs to. And we'll see what's happening."
There's a squawk from Heckle. "About time!"
Hannah smiles at the bird, but it is her uncle that gets a peck on the cheek. She gives him the baby, and, one supposes, the raven too.
She will help Corvis up, gathers up the items she knows Gerard likes to have with him, asks after anything Corvis needs, and on their way out will look for a page.
There are several pages that Gerard usually has with or around him. Hannah has no trouble finding one as the little procession heads out to the Throne Room, Gerard in the lead and Corvis walking with him.
Hannah frees Gerard of the baby once they arrive. She sends the page off to tell Solange where they've relocated to.
Signy waits with the troops at the stairs, making sure those who were sent out come back, and that there's no flanking of her cousins who returned to from the meeting. As the sun rises, she heads back to Xanadu to attend the King's meeting. The troops have been reinforced or sent back until night falls again.
She heads into the woods, taking the shorter path along the stream towards the upper Xanadu falls.
Signy makes her way back towards Random's city, moving with purpose through the woods. Her breath plumes faintly in the early morning chill, and she wonders how many of her new-found cousins had quiet and uneventful nights as well.
She hears the stream making its usual faint noises, and her lips quirk in a fleeting smile at some things apparently not overly bothered by the events of the past hours.
She turns with the stream, and the ground starts to rise slightly as she nears the falls.
Over the rise she comes to the clearing of the grove of the Unicorn, still a ways from the falls. A lone man and horse are here, and she immediately notes that they are not of Xanadu. His helmet and shield are of a type with the Moonriders and his horse seems unnatural as well. But the horse drinks quietly from the pool and the man waits, quietly.
He probably knows she's there, but he hasn't made any moves, either offensive or defensive.
Signy's pulse quickens slightly at the sight. She's not entirely sure what he's doing here -- last night at the Stairs was quiet, and for a second she worries if they missed something and there's a group coming up from behind, though now that it's daylight that doesn't quite seem to fit.
Not bothering to try and be stealthy she enters the clearing as well.
"Greetings. I apologize, if I'd known you were waiting I would have tried to get here quicker," she offers in a wry tone.
"There's no need to apologize, I came back to just before you arrived." He moves smoothly, more like flowing than walking. "I am The Marshall's Shield. He wishes to know your King's terms for the ransom of his daughter."
Signy's initial double-take at the casual time travel is replaced by an unconcealed one at the thought that the Marshall's daughter being taken captive. Apparently the action was much more interesting elsewhere. However diplomats, no matter how unexpected their adoption of the role, do not do fist-pumps in the middle of negotiations.
Signy gives an apologetic shrug of her shoulders. "Unfortunately you have me at a slight disadvantage, I was unaware of that particular development. I can bring your initial terms to him, and see if he will continue the discussions with you, if you'd like?"
"The returning pickets reported to His Grace that his daughter had fought a duel to contest the right of passage to our home and lost, closing this route for the moment. She was taken prisoner. Your King will know of it, now or soon, from his vassals. I can give you a token that will cause any of our war parties to bring you to me, and I will guarantee your safe passage into and out of our camps.
"I can propose terms for your King, but I suspect he will be looking for more than mere material gain."
He steps to his horse, and pats it reassuringly. It is the most human gesture Signy has ever seen from a Moonrider. Reaching into his saddlebag, The Marshall's Shield pulls out a medallion of a full moon. It matches the one on his crest. "Ask any of our people to take you to me when you have an answer for us."
Signy nods her head graciously at the offer. She quickly opens her Third Eye to glance at the object to see how much further investigation she'll need to do on it.
It is unique and possibly harmless. It seems to use a precise factor of fractal dimensionality near to and approaching 3 to act as a signature. She might be able to duplicate it. Weyland certainly could.
"Where are your people at, when I need to find them?" she asks, to cover the moment's hesitation before starting to reach her hand out.
"What sort of man is the First?"
"First to the Fray? She is also first of her generation, and was raised as a prince of the realm in exile. She is chivalrous, brave, and a lover of justice. The bards already sing of her as the paragon of the princely virtues.
"If ever I think she has made a mistake, I find I was misconstruing her goals."
Signy gives a smile at this as she pockets the coin. "She sounds quite subtle -- do you often misconstrue her goals?"
"Not as much anymore, but I've become more cautious. It's wisest to let other people underestimate her.
"She has often been First, even before she was First to the Fray. Is this your first encounter with her?"
Signy offers a wry smile at this. "Yes, this is the first time that I've encountered First, or the rest of your people. It seems a shame that we can't find common ground.
"This token of yours looks quite interesting. If we can find common ground between us, I would love an opportunity to talk to whoever made it."
He smiles. "Each token is a craftwork of the creator, and acts as signature and identifier. And it is a scandal to lose in battle, but can be given. If not returned, then it is a causus belli. It's possible to repeat the rough pattern, but individual artisans impart personal deviations, and those are not so easy to manufacture.
"Sadly, I am one of six practitioners of the art that I know, so even amongst my people, these are rare.
"And I think you and I have just found some common ground, which I take as a good sign."
Signy gives a smile at this. "I think we may well have. I'm sure that everything else will be just as simple as this was." The wry tone of voice and amused gleam in her eyes underscores the overstatement of that last thought.
Her hand slips into a pouch and pulls out a torc, cunningly wrought of a braided, rainbow-like metal that gleams and shimmers in the early dawn light. A pair of dark silvery pearls cap either end.
"I fear I don't have anything like what you've given to give in return, but hopefully you'll take this in return, until I come back with word from the King?"
The Shield reaches out and takes the jewelry. "I would be honored." He inspects it. "What is the metal? It has a interesting aspect to it."
Signy gives a pleased smile. "It's a mixture of a couple of different metals, alloyed in a fairly specific manner. My father Weyland taught me how to do it when I was younger. I could teach you as well, if you're interested. It's not a terribly practical alloy, but it does make impressive jewelry."
The Shield raises an eyebrow. "I know of Voland. I was unaware he was of the royal line. Do you know of his parents?"
Signy's mouth purses slightly, as if she's just tasted something slightly sour. "I...don't. I didn't know that I was of the royal line until very recently. How do your people know him?"
"The tale of his righteous revenge on King Nithad of Cimbria and all his children is well known to us. These days, the descendants of Bodil are known as Waylanders."
Signy nods more to herself. "Yes, his temper certainly is the thing of legends," she muses. She gives her head a slight shake. "This has been a very welcome meeting, I think. I should go and see if I can reach the King and discuss matters with him, and bring his reply to you."
She pauses, before adding "And I look forward to getting to spend some time with you and your people."
"That can be arranged. We are quite good at finding time," he says, "Until then," he says, "peace between us." He mounts his horse in a fluid gesture and rides into the forest. Signy looks and it's as if he was never here.
Signy raises a hand in farewell as he mounts and rides off, before resuming her trek back to the city. Her hand slips into the pouch with the token, now the only tangible sign of her encounter.
Once she sees Gerard settled Hannah heads for the kitchens, baby on her back so her hands are free to nick some food.
"Good morning!" she greets with projection worthy of her uncle. She has smiles for everyone, and is doing her best to recall the names of people she met in the birthing chamber, and is happy to pull the baby around and explain the bird as needed. "Prince Gerard has moved his offices into the throne room just in case there is any coordination needed between the palace and the city and the wood. Though I understand the little incursion has withdrawn from the area, may as well be cautious. I don't know if the big meeting is still going to happen, but I came back to have food brought out." She grins at the food. "I feel like I've earned a feast, at least."
Hannah takes a moment to assess how tired the staff are, if there has been a shift change or if everyone has been up all night. She bites down on her lip so she doesn't offer to help - they don't need a fumbling amateur in their way, eating half her work.
The staff is all nerves and elbows, and they look like ve been up all night after attending an enormous festival in the city the previous evening.
The cook, Mistress Eyes, nods and looks the the footmen, or whatever the young men who carry the food in are called. They are pulling large trays down from shelves and the undercooks begin putting dishes on them.
"To the family dining room or to the throne room, Lady Hannah? And do you or the bairn need anything special? We did not prepare food for the child."
Kyril comes in from a side door, and looks at Hannah, waiting for her to be done talking to Mistress Eyes.
Hannah glances at Kyril, and then back to Mistress Eyes. "Oh, I'm going to keep him on the breast for as long as he'll have it. No need to worry about us at all. It's the throne room for now."
She looks back to Kyril. "Did you go through? How many are we feeding now?" she asks. "Maybe they should hold some food back."
"Solly sent me here while she headed to the meeting. I'm not family. Or maybe 'Family'. Anyway, I think it's just a handful so far. There aren't many banners on the castle walls for Princes in residence. I'm worried that Solly is in there alone and will do something rash. Again."
She nods. "You're think she learned nothing. Understood." Hannah looks back to Mistress Eyes. "Let's start with food for a dozen."
He looks at the kitchen staff. "I have Willlow Bark powder for anyone whose head is pounding," he announces.
"Good man," Hannah smiles. "I will go back in so you can worry Solly will do something rash right in front of me, like she did last time." She gives him a wink and heads back into the throne room.
Last modified: 7 January 2020