Gerard could feel a headache coming on. He'd been staring at Caine's Trump for nearly a half-hour with no response. He'd just about decided to give up and try again after dinner when the picture moved.

"This'd better be good," it said, glaring. Caine looked as though he'd gotten dressed in a hurry, and Gerard caught a glimpse of an unmade bed in the background.

Gerard let Caine glower for a moment before he said, "I think you need to get back up here. Your daughter is here."

This got Caine's attention. "Daughter? What the hell are you talking about? I don't have any daughter. And even if I do, I don't want to know about it." He ran his hands through his hair in annoyance. "A hundred to one, it's all a scam cooked up by some whore who needs money and is trying to get me to pay up for someone else's bastard. Well, I'm not playing. Get rid of her." He turned his back and prepared to break the contact.

"I don't know, Caine," said Gerard hesitantly. "This seems legitimate."

"...so-to-speak," added Random's voice from the background.

"Stay out of this, Random," Gerard bellowed.

On the card, Caine scowled. "You're not going to let this rest 'til I do something about it, are you?" He rose, tossed a few coins on the bed, and collected his jacket from the bedpost. "Fine, pull me through."

Gerard extended a hand, pulling Caine from that dockside dive and into a sitting room on the second floor of Castle Amber. Caine reeked of booze and sex, and he seemed even angrier in person than he had through the Trump. "Well, where is she?" he snapped.

Gerard gestured toward the open door. Out in the hall, Random sprawled on the floor, playing cards with a ball of matted black hair and rags. The hair, it seemed, was winning. "Go fish," it said.

"You, girl!" Caine said. The ball of hair looked up with eyes as black as his own. She couldn't have been more than five years old.

"Eve," Random said calmly. "Her name is Eve."

Caine ignored him. "Where's your mother?"

"Six feet under," replied the girl coolly, with the air of one who'd received the same answer when she'd asked the same question.

"Who was she? What was she called?"

The girl fixed him with the sort of gaze usually reserved for the extremely slow of wit. "Mommy," she said matter-of-factly. Random chuckled. Caine did not.

"What did other people call her?" Caine asked, struggling to contain the urge to shake the story out of her and be done with it.

The girl thought about this for a while, searching for the right memory. Finally, she said, "Rosie."

"Rosie," Caine repeated. "Rose. The redheaded wench at the Piss and Vinegar." The girl nodded and turned her attention back to the cards.

"So," Gerard ventured, "she is yours, then?"

"Oh, she's his, all right," Random replied from the floor. "She's got his eyes -- and she cheats at cards." To the girl, he added, "-- but I'll teach you how to play so you won't have to, OK?"

Caine regarded the girl through narrowed eyes. Yes, it was possible. Likely, even. His hair, his eyes, her mother's milk-white skin. Rose had had such white thighs -- or maybe they'd just seemed so against the dirty linens. Too bad she was dead -- he always appreciated a pretty woman who knew when to shut up.

"She could be mine," he conceded, which for him was as good as a confirmation. "But so what if she is? What the hell am I supposed to do with a daughter? Take her to sea with me? She'd fall overboard and drown the first day."

He paused, his lips twitching into the faintest hint of a smile as he considered this possibility.

"Caine," Gerard said sternly, "if she's kin, we've got a responsibility to look after her."

"Fine," Caine said, "so look after her. I'm going to the pub."

Gerard laid a hand, huge and powerful, on Caine's shoulder. Instinctively, Caine's hand went to the hilt of his dagger. If he'd faced any but Gerard, he might've drawn. He could never beat Gerard in a fair fight, though, so he stayed his hand.

"How the hell did she get up here, anyway?" he asked.

Gerard shrugged and withdrew his hand. "We're not really sure. None of the guards noticed her come in. She may've slipped in with the procession for the Heerat delegates. One of the pages found her sleeping under a chair in the Great Hall and brought her to me. She had this pinned to her dress," he said, retrieving from his pocket a crumpled piece of paper, which he handed to Caine. On it was scrawled, in a hand obviously not accustomed to writing:

Kane u bastird this is ur dotter. Her mother is ded. Luk after hur.

Caine read it, crumpled it, and tossed it into the fireplace. "At least they're not looking to blackmail me," he said. "I guess they're not completely stupid."

He looked again at the child in the hall. The game, he saw, had changed: Random had dealt out a game of Three Card Monte and was now sliding the cards around on the floor.

"Were you paying attention?" Random asked the girl. "Where's the Queen?"

"Up your sleeve," she said calmly, then ran a grubby hand up his sleeve to retrieve the missing card.

Random laughed. "Good girl! I think you're ready to learn Poker."

"I've got an idea," Caine muttered, withdrawing a pack of cards from his own pocket. After one more glance at the little urchin, he stepped back into the sitting room and shut the door.

Eve sat very still, practicing her Poker Face. She couldn't tell whether the yelling on the other side of the door made it easier or harder.

"They're talking about me, aren't they?" she asked the man who called himself Random. What kind of a silly name was that, anyway?

"Yes, pumpkin, I think they are."

"That man is even meaner than my uncle," she said with obvious distaste. "Do I have to live with him now?"

"I really doubt it," Random said, "but I don't know for sure. Now let's see what cards you're holding. I've got a flush, see? All my cards have little hearts on them. What've you got?"

"Five Of A Kind," Eve declared.

Random grinned. "You can't have five of a kind, love, there's only four of each card."

Eve scowled. "I do, too!" she said crossly. "See?" She laid her cards out one at a time. "Boy, boy, boy, boy, boy."

"Ah, yes," Random said, and his eyes twinkled as he struggled not to laugh. "But these three are Jacks -- see the little 'J' here? -- and these are Kings. That's a full house, though, which is very, very good. You're catching on." He reached over and tousled her matted hair.

Just then, the door to the little room beside them burst open. The loud smelly man emerged into the hall and pointed at Eve. "Here she is," he said roughly.

A thin, pretty woman whom Eve felt certain hadn't been in the room when the door closed followed him out. Her blue-green dress rustled softly as she walked. "Hello, sweetheart," she said as she bent down. "Let me get a look at you."

She looked paler than a person ought to, Eve thought, like she'd just been sick, or maybe spooked.

The woman put a finger under Eve's chin to tilt her face up toward the light. Eve caught the barest hint of disgust flash across those delicate features, as if the woman suddenly wanted to wash her hands.

"You're pretty," Eve said matter-of-factly, and it was true: she had the sort of classic good looks that defined 'beauty' almost empirically. The woman smiled, a calculated smile meant to show off her perfect teeth and sparkling eyes. She suddenly seemed less concerned about the grime on her finger.

"...but you smell funny," Eve concluded.

The woman's features fell like a sandcastle hit by a particularly vicious wave. "I most certainly do not," she said sharply.

Random, laughing heartily, said, "Oh, c'mon, Flo, how many people do you know who sweat violets?" He winked at Eve.

"I told you never to call me that," the woman snapped.

"Sorry," Random replied, sounding anything but. "Florimel."

The lady gave Random a haughty look and turned her attention back to Eve. "And what's your name, sweetheart?"

"Eve."

A fresh look of distaste flashed across those blue eyes. "Eve," she said. "How... common." She wrinkled her nose prettily. "Is that, perhaps, short for something?"

Eve stared at her blankly, not comprehending.

Impatiently, the woman tried again: "Does anyone call you anything besides Eve?"

Eve furrowed her brow in deep concentration, wondering just what this strange woman was getting at. Finally, she hit upon what must be the right answer. "My uncle calls me Booger," she declared triumphantly.

Random broke into a fresh round of laughter.

"I can see why," the woman said, examining her own somewhat sticky finger. "But we'll have no more of that. Your Auntie Flora is looking after you now; I'll see to it that you become a proper lady who commands proper respect."

This declaration stopped Random in mid-guffaw. He turned to Caine with a pole-axed stare. "This is your great idea?"

Caine shrugged. "You got a better one? I'm going to the pub."

This time, no one stopped him.

"Let's get you cleaned up, all right, sweetheart?"

Flora almost held out her hand to the poor little thing, but thought the better of it at the last minute. This was, after all, one of her favorite dresses, and she wasn't about to risk it to the grubby paws of a dockside urchin. There'd be time enough for maternal affection once the girl had had a proper bath, and perhaps a de-lousing.

The girl looked at Random, who nodded. Without a word, she stood and stared at Flora.

"Right, then," Flora said, none too pleased that the child seemed to be taking direction from her fink of a little brother. "Follow me."

Flora bustled away down the hall, head held high, looking for house-wenches to do her bidding. She finally found one on the landing over the Great Hall, dusting.

"You, there," Flora called out.

The woman, plump and florid, jerked to attention. "Yes, m'lady?"

"My good woman," Flora said in a conspiratorial tone, "I have need of your services. This unfortunate child" -- she gestured to Eve -- "is my niece, only just rescued from her life of drudgery and come to live with us. I am entrusting you with the task of getting her cleaned and combed and dressed so that none will mistake her for anything but the young lady she is."

It hardly seemed possible, but the woman's face flushed even redder as she eyed Eve in appraisal. She might as soon have chosen to dust every chandelier in the Great Hall while suspended from the ceiling by her ankles, a task far less daunting than finding the "young lady" under those layers of grime and matted hair. She pressed her lips together in a thin line, though, and said, "Yes, m'lady."

"When you're done, bring her to my chambers." Flora turned and dismissed them both with a wave of her hand, her first task accomplished.

Her second task proved much more challenging. Flora retreated to her room to begin work on it.

She'd already run through five drafts of her letter to Miss Chatelaine's School for Girls before she finally hit on just the right tone: polite, shimmery, subtle, pulling strings gently but unobtrusively, the vague references to future favors veiled beneath overt mention of the great prestige afforded a school chosen to educate a daughter of the Royal Family of Amber. Never mind that the girl in question was, technically, still too young to enroll; she's strong and bright, of course, being of the Royal Family, and the school would benefit from her shining presence almost as much as she will benefit from the fine education she'll receive there.

Perfect. Flora wrote out the words in a neat but unadorned script, then set the paper aside to be re-copied in a more elegant hand later, once she'd cleared up this business of the girl's name.

Eve. What a dreadful, blunt, unoriginal name. But the girl was old enough to answer to it, so Flora would have to be clever about replacing it -- perhaps something the girl could ease into. "Evelyn," of course, would've been perfect, were Flora not already using that one.

She eyed the neat rows of leather-bound books on the shelf by her writing desk: histories and romances, mostly, with a bit of poetry thrown in for good measure. Flora pulled a volume at random and thumbed through it, looking for suitable names.

Ah, yes, one of her many versions of the 'King Arthur' legends, this one in French. Flora smiled. She held a special place in her heart for folklore influenced by her siblings, never mind that Corwin had once dared insinuate to Flora that Guinevere had been prettier than she. Curse Corwin, anyway. What did he know about beauty?

She slammed the book shut in disgust.

But then some part of her brain -- the masochistic part, perhaps -- grew curious, and she flipped the book open again, looking for the parts about Guinevere. In this translation, she was called "Genevieve," and yes, the author did go on for a dreadfully long time about her profound beauty -- her hair like a sunrise, her skin like ivory, her eyes like violets. Trite, Flora thought, and felt better. She herself had inspired more original poetry from common New York street vendors -- although, granted, usually they didn't get much more poetic than "tits like ripe casabas, ass like a really nice ass."

She smiled and re-shelved the book.

She'd already thumbed halfway through "The Tragical History of the Montagues" before it hit her:

Genevieve.

She'd never find a more perfect name for the poor little wretch. "Eve" could easily be a nickname for it. Thanks to the cross-Shadow popularity of the Arthurian legends, the name carried a certain cachet of royalty almost universally -- or in every Shadow worth visiting, anyway. And if the girl insisted on shortening it, she could always use "Jenna," which, while also woefully inelegant, at least sounded a bit more interesting than "Eve."

A sharp knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Flora rose, re-shelved "The Tragical History of the Montagues," and answered.

"I'm sorry, miss, uh, m'lady...." It was the servant, terribly flustered. "We tried, but there weren't much we could do with that hair. Katie, who does the mending, finally had to take a scissor to it, but the girl was squirming something awful, miss -- between you and me, I don't think she's had many baths...."

The servant stepped aside to reveal a squirming, scowling little girl in a starched white dress. Flora let out an audible gasp.

"I'm sure it'll grow back in no time, really," the servant added hastily.

"Oh, no, you misunderstand," Flora said, smiling sweetly as she admired the servants' handiwork. "You've done a remarkable job, really. She's hardly the same girl."

She meant it, too, although she could understand the servant's concern. Most young girls in Amber wore their hair long -- some mothers never took scissors to their daughters' hair 'til the girls reached marriageable age, if at all -- and Eve's hair now hung barely to her chin. But the look suited her: it framed her face nicely and made her dark eyes seem even bigger. She looked like a little pixie. Like a malevolant pixie in dire need of a nap, perhaps, but a pixie nonetheless.

Flora looked up again to offer her thanks to the servant. The woman was edging her way backwards down the hall, perhaps fearing that Flora would discover some other "important" task for her; so Flora dismissed her with a simple thank-you and then turned her attention back to the girl.

"What do you think of 'Genevieve'?" she asked.

"Who's Genevieve?" the girl replied.

Flora smiled. "Well, you are -- or you will be. Isn't that a pretty name?"

The girl shrugged, unimpressed. "This dress is itchy," she said. "I don't like it."

"Well, you look lovely. Did you enjoy your bath?"

For the look of loathing she got in return, Flora might as well have asked, "Would you like me to give you a root canal with a rusty screwdriver?"

"Well, you'll get used to them soon enough," Flora said, making a mental note to put a servant in charge of bathing the girl. She certainly couldn't be expected to do everything for the girl herself.

She held out her hand, then, and the girl took it, though not before eyeing her with deep suspicion.

Flora smiled. "Don't worry, sweetheart, there'll be no more baths today -- that is, assuming you can handle a fork properly without making a mess of yourself. Are you hungry?"

The girl nodded. She still looked wary.

"Well, we'll fix that soon enough. It's almost time for dinner." With that, they set off toward the dining room.

Much to Flora's chagrin, Random caught up with them a few minutes later. He might've elbowed his way past without a second thought -- he was always in a hurry for meals, it seemed, no matter how much he'd eaten the sitting before -- but the sight of Eve, freshly groomed, stopped him in his tracks.

"Eve? Is that really you?" he teased. "My goodness, what've they done to you? You look like a girl."

Eve made a very un-girl-like face. Random laughed, scooped her up, and carried her, walking alongside Flora. This pleased Flora not at all; he smelled of smoke mixed with that strange damp-farm-animal smell peculiar to adolescent boys -- she wondered fleetingly whether he'd ever grow out of it -- and it put her off her appetite. She was at least gratified to see that she'd been right about little Genevieve needing a nap: the girl immediately laid her still-damp head against Random's shoulder and closed her eyes.

For the first time, it occurred to Flora to wonder about the girl's home life. She suddenly could picture, vividly, the ramshackle one-room hut by the docks; the aging, unwashed, uncaring relatives arguing loudly over what to do with the extra mouth to feed, heedless of whether the girl overheard their schemes; the cold hearth, the empty plate, the hard bed. No wonder the child was tired and cranky.

Well, no more: Flora would see to it that the girl would never want for anything. The best schools, a soft bed, fashionable clothes, healthy meals -- everything money could buy. In no time, little Genevieve would be a proper young lady of Amber, and Flora would have the makings of an ally. If the girl proved as cunning as her father, this could be a real asset.

And the simple pleasure of having someone to shop with was not to be underestimated, either.

Random interrupted Flora's thoughts in the most unpleasant possible way. "So what did Caine promise you -- or threaten you with -- to make you look after his get?" he asked.

Flora could feel the color leaving her face. She had no desire to replay that conversation, and even if she cared to, she certainly wasn't going to tell Random about it.

"Has it ever occurred to you that some of us might do things purely out of the goodness of our hearts?" she responded coolly, hoping he'd drop the subject.

"Oh, come off it, Flora," Random said, and laughed. "We both know there's a lot more to it than that. After all, you're not exactly the parental type."

"Well, that hardly stopped you, did it?"

Random's expression remained fixed, but his voice chilled Flora to the bone: "Mention that again and I'll kill you."

But he dropped the subject.

He turned his attention to the girl dozing against his shoulder. "Still awake, pumpkin?" he asked.

"Mmm-hmmm," she responded without opening her eyes.

"I think we're having peas for dinner. Doesn't that sound good?"

The girl made a face so unpleasant that Flora almost laughed.

"Don't you like peas, Eve?" Random asked.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. "I don't like how they feel in my mouth," she said. "They pop like bugs."

Now it was Flora's turn to make an unpleasant face. At this rate, she'd have no appetite left by the time they reached the dining room.

Random chuckled. "And I suppose you've eaten a lot of bugs in your time, then, have you Eve?"

"Sometimes they get in the oatmeal."

Yes, that did it. "Why don't you two go on ahead?" Flora said. "I just remembered something I wanted to take care of before dinner."

Random nodded a slight acknowledgement. Flora wondered why she'd even bothered excusing herself -- it's not like he actually gave a damn or anything. Well, she wouldn't let that keep her from having proper manners, even if he didn't. After all, now she had the little one to set a good example for.

She hesitated to leave the child with Random, but she did have to admit, grudgingly, that he seemed up to the task of looking after her needs. And how much damage could his bad influence do in just one evening? As she headed back toward her room, she listened to their voices fade into the distance behind her:

"Maybe we can get the cook to make you something else, then. Do you like eggs?"

The girl must've nodded, because Random's voice continued, "How do you like your eggs?"

"Yellow."

Random laughed, and Flora smiled. Yes, with the right encouragement, Genevieve would surely grow into a lovely, proper young lady -- the daughter Flora never had.

Still smiling, Flora returned to her room to re-write the letter to the girls' school. With luck, she'd have the girl enrolled and well on her way to ladyhood within the week.

Last modified: 29 Apr 2002