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Encounters with his faithful valet Gaston, and his mother Flora. Matters of health and style are discussed:
Lucas opens his eyes ... and closes them again rather rapidly.
'Pounding' is a good word for it. 'Throbbing' is far too mild. Besides, it has overtones of passion - and passion is the last thing Lucas is feeling right now - unless one counts a passionate longing for the pain in his head to stop.
He lifts a careful hand to ascertain the damage ... just above the ear it seems to be ... the left ... ear ...
The scream that Lucas lets out would do credit to the whistle of a small but powerful steam engine trundling coal up and down Welsh hillsides.
"M'sieur called?" says a gloomy voice.
Lucas opens his heavy-lidded eyes and regards the lugubrious face of Gaston, his faithful valet.
"Solace?" Lucas croaks, pulling himself up into a half-sitting position. "The children? My mother?"
"All is well, with them, m'sieur - although your lady wife and her Highness the Princess have been much concerned with your welfare. Lady Solace sat with you throughout the night and morning, and has only been persuaded to rest an hour ago by your Lady Mother."
Lucas nods and regards with distaste a tumbler of a luminously pale green liquid that fizzes faintly which is being held out towards him.
"Your Lady Mother," says Gaston simply, in a tone that carries a wealth of meaning.
Not feeling equal, for once, to the eternal struggle, Lucas accepts the potion with unusual meekness and downs it. His eyes widen slightly in shock ... and then he inclines his head in acknowledgement as the pain actually subsides somewhat. He hands the tumbler back.
"You will refrain, Gaston, from the cries of indignation and dismay that you will indubitably feel bound to utter when you behold the true extent of my injuries."
"Yes, m'sieur," returns the stolid Gaston.
Lucas lies back again, frowning a little. "One presumes that one's mutilation, shocking though it is, was not the only objective of these barbarians."
"Indeed, m'sieur."
"So ... their ... ah ... wider objective. Was it obtained?"
"Nobody quite knows, m'sieur."
"I see. As I am here in my bed with you to assist my toilette - I assume that is why you are here, old fox - then I can assume that nothing too catastrophic has occurred - otherwise I would have awoken to find myself bumping along in a cart filled with turnips.
"Believe me, even as an immortal, with a definite reservation made in my name at Hotel Infinity, the turnip cart is an experience that comes with the words 'once in a lifetime' stamped firmly on it."
Lucas does not attempt to sit up again, but one hand lifts to his head, thoughtfully tracing the line of his mutilated ear.
"Perhaps, Gaston, you might find it in yourself to give me a concise resume of the events that transpired after I was ... so unfortunately ... rendered unconscious?"
The faithful Gaston proceeds to relate the events of the masquerade subsequent to the attack on Lucas, who listens attentively, and with growing disapprobation. At last he sighs deeply.
"Yes, well this will look very good go in the emergency room of Amber General won't it?"
"'Hello, Prince Benedict, and what brings you here today?' 'Oh, I was fighting the Moonriders - fifty of them, or thereabouts, fighting them single-handed, despatched them all, of course, but I picked up the veriest scratch - perhaps you could have a look at it.' 'Certainly, your Highness ... and what can we do for you, Prince Julian?' 'Oh, I got into a bit of a tussle with a manticore over Arden. Brought the brute down of course, slew him single-handed and chopped off his head, but his confounded tail caught me a bit of a blow, compressed my armour into my ribs. Grateful if you could take a look.' 'Of course, your Highness ... and here is Lord Lucas. What dangerous conflict have you been in, my Lord?'
"'I was hit on the head. By a playing card.'
"It lacks a certain something, don't you feel? Even when I hastily add that this was a playing card of doom, wielded by a harpy from hell ... "
"It is commonly rumoured that Lady Cambina says you will eventually perish in some incident related to angry women or cards, m'sieur." Gaston says neutrally. "I suppose this counts as both."
Lucas looks at his faithful retainer with his heavy eyelids little more than half open ...
"It lacked the bottle of champagne that should invariably accompany such an end ... " he pointed out.
"M'sieur, has anyone mentioned the demise of Demond Harga'rel?"
"No," says Lucas, interested. "Is he dead then? An accident, a blissful suicide or a poetic murder? And do they know who's responsible?"
"Not yet, m'sieur. He was drowned in the champagne fountain."
"Oh what a shame," says Lucas. "Mother went to such trouble to get that special vintage. She must have been livid."
"So," he continues, "are you proposing to wear that funereal face all afternoon as you eke out the casualty list from the party one by one, or could you just give me a swift run down? Or else," he adds, "if it runs to several pages, the printed list."
"The broadsheets have not had time to print a complete list. I imagine that will be in a special edition in the next day or so, M'sieur.
"I do, however, believe you are the worst injured among the royal family. All the others left the hall under their own power, I'm told."
Lucas nods slowly, absorbing this, his eyes half closed.
"You will see, Gaston, that word is conveyed to the editors of all reputable and disreputable broadsheets - all etchings of Lord Lucas are to show him full face or right profile for the appreciable future." His hand lifts again towards his mutilated left ear. "On pain of my severe displeasure."
"Of course, m'sieur."
"Now ... bring me my silk dressing gown - the one with those rampant little unicorns prancing on the right breast pocket. And a silk stock for my throat - the dark blue. Some cigarillos, and some cognac. And none of that nonsense about being ill.
"If your mother or Lady Solace complain, M'sieur, I shall refer them to you."
"Indeed you may, Gaston," agrees Lucas genially. "Indeed you may. I feel refreshed, Gaston. I feel invigorated. Almost, one might say, a new man."
"Indeed, m'sieur," says Gaston, and goes to fulfill Lucas' commands.
As Gaston departs, Lucas' mind runs back over the events of the evening. He recalls most of the over-dramatic arrival of Dara and her friend, who managed to spoil the perfectly good introduction of waltzing into Amber. The last thing he recalls, and that uncertainly, was speaking with Cambina, and then the screams and cries and a sudden pain in about the place where his ear is missing.
Did he actually throw himself on Cambina to save her life? Or did she pull him down? It's not quite clear in his memory ...
His consideration of the matter distracts him enough that he fails to notice the other presence in the room until she clears her dainty throat to obtain his attention.
"Gaston advised me that you had awakened," says Lucas' mother. She is dressed in a becoming green that sets off her golden hair. If she has been awake all night nursing him, there is no consideration of something as gauche as showing it.
"Maman," says Lucas, deeply appreciative (as ever) of her style. "I trust my indisposition only deferred rather than removed whatever plans you had made for the later stages of the evening ... "
"He also advises me that you have some illusion that you will get up and have a drink and a smoke. Next you'll be wanting to toddle down to Red Mill for a tete-a-tete with Mistress Silken, no doubt. Don't even think of it. You will rest for a day or two, at least until your Uncle Gerard pronounces you fit."
The look of appreciation grows jaundiced. "If I am to rest, Maman, I would rather give the impression that it was my naturally indolent disposition that was the reason, and not the attack at the masquerade." His hand lifts to touch his ear again and he frowns. "You will note that I called for my dressing gown, not my riding boots. I will rest, but not in a recumbrent position. For one thing, it will be less disturbing to the children - well, to Hope. And it will allow visitors to focus on other topics rather than my injuries if I am seen to be sitting up and taking notice."
He watches her face thoughtfully, all too aware that he is reduced to the plea bargaining of the nursery. "If it pleases you, you may rescind the cigars and substitute a suitably coloured energy drink for the brandy. Only I shall insist upon a decanter and a balloon glass. One has appearances to maintain, after all."
"Very well," Flora says and leans over to embrace Lucas. "My poppet. You gave me such a scare. In the future, pray arrange to be out of the way of any sorcerous implements of death that are thrown at you. Or use your cousins for cover instead of letting them use you."
"I was hoping to be in a position to put a rather more glamorous twist on the affair - that it was I who for once took the more active role and nobly defended her with my own frail but exquisitely arrayed form. On the whole, my memory being somewhat unclear on the matter, I believe I shall preserve a modest silence on the subject ... I shall need to focus my efforts on confounding the scoffers." His hand lifts again to his ear. "And to devote my energies to devising something as rakish as an eyepatch that can be worn over the ear. I fear that even my considerable abilities are not equal to the task. The only garment that suggests itself is the ear muff, which really must be one of the most unedifying garments aesthetically ever devised. And somehow I feel that the Northern Trapper look is just not going to catch on. Besides ... plaid shirts." He shivers.
"They will be fashionable now that Prince Martin sets the tone for the younger set, I am told. But I trust you not to follow his guidance inmatters sartorial," Flora says.
"I will be kind, Maman," says Lucas, with a look that is decidedly frosty, "and assume that only the strains of nursing your only son through the long night and dismal morning could so distract you as to cause you to believe for one moment that =I= might defer to Martin in matter of style and taste. Unless, of course, it were to be the taste of Heerat cigars.
"But perhaps you can tell me something more of the attack and the implications," he adds. "Gaston is graphic - but rather in the manner of a penny dreadful. Something like this positively lifts him into Grand Guignol, which is highly entertaining, but a little sketchy on the political cut and thrust. I rely on you to fill me in.
"For example, is there any word on Brita? What steps is the King proposing to take?"
Flora sighs and seats herself on the edge of the bed. "The King is already gone, although after which miscreant I'm not certain. In fact, there's already been quite the exodus. Your friend Martin and his purple-tressed amour have also left. Corwin departed at noon with his son, Jerod, and Gerard's boy in tow. I'm sure the redheads will be gone within a day or so, and I'm told Random's order of knights was bustling about this morning, although that probably has more to do with the impending duel. There's no word on Brita yet, nor of when the King expects to return. Vialle holds the seal until then. What else would you like to know, my poppet?"
Lucas is quiet for a moment, his heavy lids drooping over his eyes. But only someone who knowa Lucas very little would assume this was because hewas sleepy.
"I must admit I didn't expect flocks of anxious relatives to be clustered around the door, awaiting hourly bulletins from stern doctors on my start of health," he says at last, "but this abrupt departure does argue a certain reluctance to help with the washing up in the wake of the party that is almost ... uncouth."
Flora nods in agreement. "Random always was a bit of a shirker. At least some of the others have had the good grace to protest their sadness at leaving."
He is silent again for a moment. "Perhaps you would do better to tell me who is remaining," he says.
"None of the redheads, elder or younger, have left yet," Flora says, with an emphasis on the last word. She begins ticking off various family members on her fingers. "Of my siblings, Caine, Llewella, myself, and Gerard. Julian is slated to take his rangers and his little hoodlum of a daughter back to Arden this afternoon. Random's new knights are all still here. Benedict's daughter will remain to guard the Queen, but the disposition of the others is uncertain. Of your Regency colleagues, Reid appears to be investigating the Harga'rel murder, Cambina is holding the fort for her brother and recovering from a lump on the head, Gerard's dutiful daughter has remained with her father, and that charming young artist Ossian has stayed behind as well.
"Lucas shoots a quick. speculative look at his mother at the adjective.
"Contemplating yet another portrait, Maman?" he says. "Or another dalliance?
"A lady never tells," says Flora with a hint of a smile.
""Vialle holds the seal, you say? Then Random showed some sense before his departure. I must see her ... Yes, yes, when I am stronger. And she will be quicker to read any weakness in my voice than anyone else. Apart from you, of course, most perspicacious of mothers." He allows her a smile, the little boy one that is reserved for a very few people (and almost entirely female).
Flora accepts the compliment as her due.
"Tell me about this impending duel," he adds. "I trust I did nothing so vulgar as to become involved with it? I do hope I can assume that I am not expected to be one of the participants, Maman."
"Not so far as I know, unless Martin is likely to call on you for the role of second," Flora says. "Apparently there's some squabble between him and that creature my brother dragged back from Chaos. He was in the process of calling her out when someone noticed he was injured, and his father dragged him out," Flora explains. "So the matter is left hanging for the moment."
Lucas hauls himself up in bed, and regards Flora with disfavour. "Maman, have you ever bothered to learn anything of the ettiquette of duelling, beyond considering how prettily the kerchief flaps in the wind when it drops? There is a reason for the name 'second' you know. It's not just doing the stern faced meetings, booking the doctor and trying to rig the weapons in your side's favour. It means if the favourite drops in the traps, the noble second steps up to take his place. And if Martin has done that to me and skipped out to Shadow ... "
"My poppet," says Flora patiently, "I know that rather unsightly bandage over one ear renders it difficult to hear me with it, so I hope you will do me the courtesy of giving me your complete attention with the other. The challenge was not, according to my sources, completed. Hence, there is no need for a second."
He regards his mother for a second in fulminating silence.
"Oh very good, Maman," he says drily. "Very good. You can put it down to my frail state of health that you managed to get the fish to rise to the fly.
Flora gives Lucas an indulgent smile.
"But the Chaosian creature ... what has happened to her ... it? Them? One is so unsure of the niceties of grammar in such circumstances. Let alone the social niceties. Would an invitation to tea necessitate calling in the food taster? Poor Gouteur still regards me with a jaundiced eye ever since those mushrooms in that rather sweet little Shadow along that Path from Kashfa. Well, unsurprisingly jaundiced when the effect of the antidote was to make him turn that rather bilious shade of yellow. It became quite an embarrassment taking him along to banquets.
"Still," he said musingly, "a real life Chaosian sitting beside my bed of pain. Or at least my chaise longue of pain. It seems delightfully perverse. I'll issue an invitation forthwith."
"I would have expected you to want the Queen to visit first, my poppet." Flora's smile takes on a tinge of wickedness.
Lucas moves his hand in a slightly dismissive gesture. "Bien sur."
"But in any case, you should wait until Solace has seen you. It would be quite declasse for your wife to rise to nurse you in your sickbed and find you with another woman. "
"Cela va sans dire. Really, Maman!"
"Or perhaps it will be wearing a man's body today. It has the servants quite upset."
Lucas's dark eyebrows lift. "How ... intriguing. One has, after all, had lovers who were both male and female - do you recollect that rather lovely willowy hermaphrodite in the Cygnus Shadow who used the 'it' pronoun? It was unbelievably fantastic in bed ... And it had this really stupid code of honour - it believed it could redeem the disgrace of its family by dying bravely. Such a waste ....
"But anyway, one could always be reasonably sure that what one went to bed with was what one was going to wake up with - only somewhat more tousled and infinitely more satisfied, of course. This .... Chaosite does open some rather intriguing possibilities ... "
"And you should certainly mention that in your conversation," says Lucas uneasily. "Do you have any notion of what this - something - was? I would have thought, Maman, that after I had been so grievously wounded by the Playing Card of Death, the last thing you would want would be some Chaosite playing Mr Sawbones with the helpless form of your beloved son. Or did 'Let's see if we can help Lucas' become some kind of party game to end the proceedings, like 'Stick the tail on the donkey' with all present lining up to take turns at curing me?"
The heavy lids droop over his eyes once more.
Flora adds, "It did--something--to help you after you were injured. You should probably mention that in your note."
"No, of course not. I don't know exactly what it did," Flora admits, adding "although I would certainly have stopped it if I believed it were anything but a boon to you, my poppet. But your uncle Gerard seemed to have some idea, and as he is Amber's chief physician, I did not see fit to argue with him. You may expect a visit from him sometime today as well."
"These treats you are holding out, Maman." murmured Lucas. "The joys of being poked and prodded by Uncle Gerard ... "
"I suppose you would prefer to remain in bed?" says Flora.
Lucas half-smiles.
"As an invalid," she adds, lest Lucas get the wrong idea.
"Spoilsport," murmurs Lucas.
He catches sight of Gaston, hovering at a safe distance (in other words, slightly out of throwing range, as Lucas' valet possesses the well-honed instincts of a cat who knows precisely how far the dog's leash will reach, and sits down to pull faces at him just beyond its limits).
"There you are!" Lucas says. "You can fetch me a pen - properly sharpened, please, and two pieces of note paper. One must certainly have my monogram.
"Of course, M'sieur, at once," says Gaston, leaving the tray with the decanter and glass on the dressing table.
Flora moves to pour some of the beverage for Lucas. It's brightly colored, somewhat translucent, and looks altogether too healthy for Lucas' taste.
He regards it with marked disfavour.
"A note to the Chaosite," he explains to Flora. "The message to the Queen I must ask you to deliver yourself, if you would be so infinitely kind. That I would be delighted to have her visit me later today, at a time of her convenience. If you can tactfully navigate that into being before tea, I would be infinitely obliged."
Flora hands Lucas his drink. "I shall handle the matter for you. The Queen is quite worried about you, and will be pleased to hear that you're already recovered enough to receive visitors."
He holds the drink in his hand as thought weighing it, lifts it to the light and squints through it critically, rolls the glass slightghtly, and then holds it to his nose to savout the bouquet.
He winces.
"I shall, of course, be delighted if the Queen will visit me," he says. "Convey, if you will, my apologies for troubling her - even in such a minor capacity when she has so much else to tax her mind."
With a fant shudder he drains the glass and hands it back to Flora.
"The other piece - I will sketch some designs for a piece of apparel I have in mind - a loose cap that should disguise this rather unsightly wound, and draw gasps of admiration from all beholders. Flat, loose, a little ruched perhaps. Velvet, I think. With a tassel - a long tassel to fall on the other side of my head and distract attention. But I shall show you - and you will have it made up for me, kindest of Mamans!"
"Of course, Lucas," Flora says.
His face softens a little. "Let Solace have her sleep out," he says. "She shall be my first visitor, of course. But she is still not strong - and seeing me injured, and the aftermath, will have tired her terribly."
"It has," says Flora. "When will you want to see the children? They're terribly worried. Well, Hope, at least--Philippe is hardly old enough to know what has happened other than that his mother is dreadfully upset."
"Let her help with the cap," he says. "Let her add a feather or some such thing, sufficient to give her a stake in the eventual object. Then, when she sees me wearing it, to her it will not be a sign that I've been injured, but that Daddy is wearing her gift. She can come to me once it's in place ... I think while Solace is with me. It will help her to see us together, too - with Mummy no longer upset."
He takes the pen and paper that Gaston has brought, and begins to write in a bold, confident hand.
"Most worthy Aisling,
Rumour leads me to believe that your intervention last night was of great benefit to me in ensuring that that injuries I have sustained were not considerably worse. Perhaps, later todays, at a time of your convenience - but after tea, you would care to visit me that I might express my gratitude in person."
He signs, with a flourish, Lucas St Cyr.
"There," he says to Gaston. "See that delivered ... and try not to wear that funereal expression, or the Chaosian will think you come to deliverMartin's challenge in person."
"Of course," says Gaston, with the sort of expressionless expression servants wear to signal their disapprobation. He takes the note with a flourish, and is about to depart when Flora stops him. "Have a note sent to my brother Gerard to advise him that Lucas is awake."
Gaston says, "Madam," and then he does leave.
Flora brings Lucas the second glass of the health drink and hands it to him." What did you have in mind for the cap? Velvet might be a bit much, since it is spring now. You'll want more than one cap. If you plan to wear it until the top of your ear regrows, you may be waiting quite some time."
She adds, "I remember when Julian sliced part of Brand's earlobe off in a sparring match. It took him a few months to regrow it, but that was just soft tissue. At least your ear doesn't have a bone in it."
"How very reassuring you are, Maman," says Lucas. "My plan is to wear a cap until my hair has grown long enough to cover the worst of the defiency. That shouldn't take too long - at least no-one was barbrous enough to shave my hair away when treating the wound. Clearly people reckoned that even if I did expire, such a solecism would drag me back from the grave, or the pyre ... Much better to leave the Lucan locks unshorn and enjoy peaceful nights without the horrid rattling of chains and gibbering which, I understand, is almost obligatory for the vengeful spirit ...
"And certainly I shall need more than one cap - would you have me wear a blue cap with green hose? I predict the early sixteenth century look is about to make something of a comeback ... "
He shows his mother the sketch - something a little like the cap worn by the boy king Edward VI*.
"There," he says. "That - with a nice fur trimmed robe shall be the new in-chamber apparel. By the time my vile gaolers see fit to let me pass these portals, I should be able to manage the complete outfit." He consider the effect on the sheet of vellum with a critical eyes. "I can see I am going to have to look into codpieces. That should keep me amused while I
convalsce."
He treats his mother to his most lizard-like smile.
"Bleys will be amused, at least. He thinks he cuts an excellent figure in doublet and hose. And your cousin Jovian was showing quite a leg here and there last night, mostly at Fiona. The boy takes after his father," Flora says with a touch of disapproval.
"Do drink up," she adds.
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Index | Log II: Letters to an invalid
