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At an inappropriately early hour of the morning, a time Lucas frequently reserves for nursing hangovers, he finds himself unexpectedly confronted with his mother-in-law.

"Good morning, Lucas. I see you haven't let your injuries keep you from your usual breakneck pace of industriousness."

She is carrying Hope, behind her Gaston looks dolorous.

"Belle mere," says Lucas flatly, with no emotion whatsoever in his voice. "But what a joy."

He is, for a wonder at this hour, dressed, in black jeans and black poloneck sweater (very existentialist), his hair tousled (but beautifully) from an early shower.

"Gaston," he adds. "I am sure you are longing to serve breakfast in the summer parlour to us all. And I am equally sure we can rustle up some extra kippers for my dearest belle mere. And Madame la Marquise. I depend on my wife to dispense my morning coffee.

"I have decided to make it my life's work," he informs Lady Vesper as they move towards the sunny breakfast parlour, "to find a good expresso machine that actually works in Amber. The simple principles of gravity permit one to draw an acceptable brew from a small cafetiere I picked up in a street market in a place called Tuscany, but it misses the evil darkness that the true afficiando desires."

There is a fair measure of evil darkness, however, in the gaze he shoots at her back as she proceeds him into the room. But when she turns, he is once more insouciant charm.

"Was that why you were so interested in the visitors from the Land of Peace?" asks Lady Vesper. "I was wondering if your fancy had turned to female pirates in pants. You have always been interested in....novelty."

"Indeed," agrees Lucas blithely. "I feel it keeps me young, you know. Always fresh and interesting. An amusing companion to confront over the breakfast table, as you have clearly decided yourself.

"Although those breeches were quite ... something, don't you think? One would look quite good in them oneself ... all that tight black leather."

He takes a sip of coffee. "Perhaps I should just buy Solace some for her birthday. I'm sure she would look magnificent."

Lady Vesper's facial expression would indicate that she may not be in full agreement.

She puts Hope down and sits with the sun pouring onto her back. "Just fruit for me, Gaston, I am not in the mood for kippers."

"Kidneys, then?" suggests Lucas, ever-helpful. "Devilled, perhaps?"

Hope runs across the room to hug the leg of Solace, who has arrived at the door. Solace's hand goes down to pet her daughter's hair. She stops at a look from her mother.

Lucas notes the exchange of gesture and glance but, for the moment, makes no response.

Instead he asks, "And to what do we owe this unexpected treat, belle mere? Is it simply for the pleasure of breakfasting en famille, or are there more pressing concerns that draw you into our happy little family circle once more?"

"While I, of course, consider it both a pleasure and a responsibility to see to my grandchildren as frequently as I can, I will admit to mixing business with pleasure. I believe that the castle is somewhat distracted, Lord Lucas. Lady Hardwind, who has suffered so, is being pressed by her awful step-daughter, Opal. It's an outrage, and ill-treatment of a widow and a friend of so many of us. Something needs to be done."

"Is she?" said Lucas sympathetically. "Solace did go the the funeral - have you enquired since, my darling?"

He selects a pain au chocolat from the warm napkins. "How is she being pressed, belle mere? I understood that an investigation is underway into Lord Hardwind's business details. Rumour has it that financial irregularities have been uncovered ... these family squabbles are always so dreadfully sordid, don't you think?

"What, precisely, do you think needs to be done? I hope you are not suggesting that financial improprieties should be overlooked ... I am sure dear Lady Hardwind is as anxious as any of us to have those cleared up.

"But if her step-daughter is bullying her, then steps must certainly be taken." He sips his coffee again. "I detest the sight of women bullying those they believe weaker than themselves. It makes them look so unattractive, don't you think, belle mere?"

She arches an eyebrow. "Is it then a commendable trait in men? Is it not considered the natural order of things when men impose their will on the weaker sex?"

Lucas looks mildly surprised that Lady Vesper is questioning this, as though she has suddenly started to deplore the fact that Rebmans breathe water or that the castle stands halfway up Kolvir.

[Maybe she read a book...]

[Surely not - not when she keeps an indigent poor relation to bully and have read aloud to her]

[Perhaps she's coming out in favor of the natural rights of the bully to his/her bullying...]

"Opal Hardwind is dictating to her poor step-mother what she can and cannot spend," says Lady Vesper. "She has suggested that her servants should take the place of the men who have so loyally served Felicity and the late Lord Hardwind for all these years. As if she should have any say in how poor Felicity runs her affairs."

"Shocking," agrees Lucas mildly. "I daresay the terms of her father's Will has given the wretched woman all sorts of mistaken ideas."

"He should've had the backbone to marry her advantageously, but I daresay he had trouble finding takers for her. She's no prize. She is a dreadful woman, really. I'm not surprised that you do not know of her, she is unwelcome in so many fashionable places."

"Trade," says Lucas dismissively. "Smells of the shop, sans doute."

"There are a multitude of flaws that one may have that do not make one unwelcome in society, Lord Lucas. However, flaws multiply and what might be forgiven in a cousin or considered idiosyncratic in the child of a dear friend may not be so acceptable in an outsider.

"Opal Hardwind has long considered herself her father's equal and acted the part. She has been known to speak ill of those who do not treat her as if she were Lord Hardwind and she generally blames Lady Felicity. She is unwelcome because she made herself so, long before her father's death.

"It is a pity, because she does so reinforce all the dreadful stereotypes about tradesmen who wish to rise above their station. She gives honest social climbers a bad name."

"Gold-plated bath taps," says Lucas with a faint shudder. "Colour co-ordinating the kitchen range."

"Lady Felicity needs our solidarity. She is, after all, one of us. I am sure you can determine the right course of action, Lord Lucas. I know that merely bringing this to your attention will prove adequate to provide a satisfactory conclusion to the whole affair."

"Of a certainty, belle mere," agrees Lucas. "Now that you have brought it to my attention, I find I simply must take notice. Solace, mon ange, invite dear Lady Hardwind to tea."

Solace says "Of course," she looks somewhat worriedly at her mother.

Lady Vesper neither says nor does anything. It's unclear if she is satisfied or not.

Lucas is serenely untroubled. If she were to be satisfied with her daughter and son-in-law it would, of course, be a notable first, worthy of record in the popular almanacs of Amber.

"So, belle mere," says Lucas, "what gossip wags the tails of the pedigree breeds of Amber these days? My lamentable injuries, you know, have abandoned me in the dry deserts of ignorance regarding the latest 'on dits'. I must depend on you to offer me at least the mirage of news."

She nods, as if she should be the only source he has for key news. "It's very difficult, as you can imagine. The Harga'rels are in an utter state of confusion, and it's a surprise that they haven't started burning down the city in their effort to find Demond's killer. The poor man. He was the kind of social climber all should aspire to be, and now his family is more intent on revenge than on keeping hold of what he made for them.

Lucas nods. "Perhaps, belle mere, they feel that noblisse oblige," he remarks. "Having attained such a position, you should protest all the more vigorously when the cruel hand of Fate yanks the rug of social acceptance from beneath your feet."

The look on her face suggests otherwise, but she does not contradict Lucas.

"People are complaining that it's impossible to keep the help: people are quitting or just disappearing every day. Some people, those whose tongues are too loose after some drink, for the most part, blame the King for paying the troops. There is concern about Royal favoritism, but most people are quiet, because they think we shall be going back to war."

"Oh," says Lucas, "who with? Revenge for the attack on the Masquerade, do you suppose? The War of Lucas's Ear has a ring to it, but only in the way that over-filled cash registers ring at sale time. Disproportionate for the effort involved by all parties."

"I'm sure your ear enters into it for some limited circle of outrage that is aware of the concern, but no one expects King Random to fail to respond to the attack upon his person and his son.

"Our friends from Garnath are concerned that they will be imposed upon by Prince Julian, but that's not new."

Lucas merely nods, and offers Hope a slice of bread and honey.

"Other than that, the gossip concerns who has fathered children upon whose wives and who shall be married at swordspoint and such. Terribly dull details that I shall not bore you with, Lord Lucas."

"Belle mere," responds Lucas reproachfully, "how could you imagine that you could possibly bore me? You know I just dote on every last detail."

"Sadly, dear Lucas, I have to depart. Perhaps your kept woman in town can fill you in on the more mundane comings and goings?"

"But of course," agrees Lucas. "However, she lacks your unique perspective on such matters, belle mere. But if other matters drive you away from the bosom of your family, far be it from me to interfere."

He rises, all politeness, and moves to kiss her on both cheeks. "Such a joy to see you as ever."

She stands, accepting the gesture. "I can always find time for my grandchildren and favorite son-in-law, Lucas. We should consider how we can improve their education in a more healthy atmosphere, come spring. Now that you have assigned the task to my dear daughter, I'm sure it will not fall through the cracks of good intentions."

"But of course," says Lucas. "I look forward, as ever, to hearing your ideas on the subject."

"Solace, would you see me out?"

"And come straight back, my sweet," says Lucas. "You know I depend upon you to add the cream to my third cup of coffee. No-one else," he adds to Lady Vesper, "ever manages to get it quite right. Not even Gaston, although, heaven knows, he tries. And is paid handsomely enough for his attempts."

Something in Gaston's expression suggests that he is about to be even more handsomely paid.

Lucas remains smiling until Lady Vesper has vanished - then the smile disappears. He reseats himself and addresses his attention to the broadsheets that have been left for his perusal and periodically discussing with Hope the greenness of grass, the blueness of sky, the changeability of the ocean and why cows give us milk until Solace returns. (Lucas' answers to Hope's questions are of a careful complexity designed to keep her mulling over thoughts for ten minutes between questions, so he gets to read the newspapers as well).

Hope is a perfect angel.

When Solace returns, Lucas looks up enquiringly.

"Well? What was it? Something about the children, or further demands that I exert myself about the Hardwinds? Or my shortcomings in general? Or did she find something else to bully you on?"

"Actually," Solace says, "it was about your mother."

"Mon Dieu," says Lucas. "They've officially incorporated as a coven."

"Lucas ..." Solace sounds like she'd like to throw up her hands, but restrains herself. "She's anxious for a family dinner."

"What a treat," says Lucas flatly. "You don't happen to know which of them came up with this hedonistic plan for our enjoyment? Is it your mother's sole plot, or has Maman thrown some ingredients into the cauldron too?"

He connsiders for a moment.

"On the other hand, watching our respective mothers together is indubitably one of my favourite spectator bloodsports. As long as we can keep them off the topic of the shortcomings of their children - a vanishingly small hope, I fully acknowledge. Are we expected to supply any other guests to be frozen with fascinated horror at the furore, or is this expected to be a cosy family occasion?"

"I think Mother just wants to have family dinner with your mother and us. And the children." Solace nibbles her lower lip in that way she has when she's worried something will displease Lucas. "I don't think it's your mother's idea, Lucas. I think she doesn't like my mother."

"I think the feeling is mutual, although your mother tries to hide her sentiments behind a painfully thin veneer of toadying," Lucas replies. "Why don't you ask Maman to choose an evening suitable for us all?"

Solace nods. Lucas can tell she's troubled by the business, but is burying it.

He reaches over, takes one of her hands and lifts it to his lips. "You know I rely on you to organise the prosaic details.

"One does wonder at your mother though. I suppose there is something admirable in insisting on the importance of family dinners when all about us is declining into anarchy. Rather like the captain going down with his ship.

"However, just to prove myself a dutiful son-in-law, I intend to poke my nose into the Hardwind estate business. Did you ever manage to make those condolence visits to the bereaved ladies, as I asked you to? What sort of reception did you get?"

"Yes, I did. You know I'm always glad to see Felicity. Felicity was very kind, and happy to see me, as happy as she could be under the circumstances. Admiral Worth, well, he's Lord Worth now, since the coronation, was there too. I wonder if he might not marry her in the end--since he and Paige seem to be over with. It's odd, once she and I talked about marriage, and I thought she might go as low as a life peer, and now the man she loved is one, and they're not together any more." Solace looks up at Lucas through lowered lashes, clearly not willing to speak of the other man Paige loves.

"Anyway," she says after a moment, "Felicity was very kind. Opal was a bit cold, but I don't think she likes people who were Felicity's friends first. I don't care for her. Everything was very proper, if a bit, well, she's not our kind, dear."

"Gold plated taps in the bathrooms and a colour co-ordinated kitchen range?" says Lucas sympathetically. "But, my angel, there are so very few people like us. And even if Opal Hardwind does smell of the shop, people do say she has a good eye for a bargain. So you see, even sows' ears might sometimes perform a useful function.

"I think I shall use that scrumptiously wide brief granted to me by her Madge and see if I can stick my proboscis into this affair. See what sort of ordure is flying and where it's sticking."

He looks at Solace thoughtfully. "Something about this dinner is troubling you, isn't it, my angel? What is it? It seems more than the prospect of enduring a hellish evening with our respective belle meres ... "

Solace flushes slightly. "It's nothing important, darling. I wouldn't want you to worry that I can't get on with your mother, or have a family affair with both our mothers in the room. It's just--some things she's said lately have me a little flustered, that's all."

Lucas plants a kiss on Hope's head, places an apple in her hand, and sends her off with an injunction to find Nanny Starch. Then he gives his full attention to Solace.

"You know better than to worry me with trivialities," he says. "Tell me."

Solace looks down for a moment, then back at Lucas. "She was suggesting that, well, that my father, isn't."

Lucas looks at her thoughtfully. He has never - to his recollection discussed with Solace the speculation about her parentage. That does not mean that he doesn't know about it - or that he doesn't have his own theories (one of which is appalled fascination with some of his uncle's taste in bedwarmers). He has never really known whether Solace too was aware of the rumours.

"So," he says slowly, "were you able to put her fears to rest? Or has she, rather, disturbed your own mind?"

"Well, I mean--it doesn't really matter to me. Daddy has always been my daddy, and it's not like any of the princes ever took an interest in me. And I don't think I could have been more warmly welcomed by your cousins if I'd been one of them. But the rumors, Lucas, they could hurt you."

Solace looks quite agitated.

Lucas frowns slightly. "Solace, you are the wife of the Marquis de St Cyr, a Lord of Amber. We've been married in a highly respectable fashion - which is more than can be said for many of my cousins - and their parents, for that matter. One can have too much respectability, you know. A whiff of a bar sinister in your background adds mystery and an interesting frisson. We are gossiped about without having to go to the fatigue of actually having to do something in order to be gossiped about. Money, you might say, for jam.

"As you said, Lord Vesper played a father's role with regard to you. If it were to prove that your biological father was indeed one of the Princes, I hardly see that as something that would disadvantage you, or hurt me. After all, the closest we could be is half cousins. You're not going to turn out to be my sibling ... "

He frowns again, thinking this over.

"Well, not unless Maman has taking some rather perverse decisions in the relatively recent past," he concedes. "And kept them very quiet."

"Lucas!" Solace squeaks.

Lucas laughs - a sound that Solace and the children are rather more familiar with than the rest of the family.

She recovers her composure after a moment. "I don't care what people say if you don't, of course." Perhaps that's prescriptive rather than descriptive.

"Well, that is not quite the point," says Lucas. "I do care what people say, of course. Otherwise would I reject six cravats in a morning just to make sure I have precisely the right degree of crease?

"But this particular rumour ... intrigues me. And that Maman is using it against you intrigues me even more. What exactly has she been saying to you?"

"I, I broached the subject of family dinner with her yesterday, my mother's been asking me to, and I just want everything to be well between them, and she asked whether my father would be attending, and it wasn't anything she said, just her tone of voice." Solace suddenly looks very distraught again.

"Solace, on a bad morning Maman can pack a withering critique into her tone when she merely asks if one slept well. Her words will imply that one has either slept too long, too little, kept the entire household awake with snores, or behaved with an impropriety in coming to the breakfast table fully dressed instead of in a fine silk dressing gown or vice versa. When she works up a good head of steam, Maman can find fault for little reason - or for no reason at all. All this you know. Why is it troubling you so much now?"

"I don't know," Solace says, and she frowns. "Perhaps it's just all the upheaval with the King coming and going, and everyone leaving or being out of sorts. Or that the Queen seems to depend on her so much."

Lucas' eyes narrow. "Solace," he says coldly, "if this is a long and convoluted way of asking me to have a word with my mother, you are wasting both your time and mine. If I want to engage in fruitless argument, I can take myself to the kitchens and deliver a monologue to the chef on how to make a decent cup of tea. Let it suffice to say that his methods are not mine - and until we can venture far enough into Shadow to hire someone with his skill with soufflés, I imagine we are to be stuck drinking ditchwater.

"Arguing with my mother, however, is an even more redundant form of intellectual exercise. If I go to her and whinge, "Why must you be so nasty to poor Solace?' then, like the scorpion on the frog's back, she will turn to me and say, 'It's my nature'. Well, she won't just say that. She will spend several minutes - possibly amounting to a half hour in total, giving me a meticulously precise point-by-point analysis of all that she objects to in my nature, my morals, my lifestyle and my marriage. But, in effect, it will all amount to no more than 'it's my nature'. And I have no wish to wallow in the flood-tide of her vituperation.

"On the other hand, I must agree that I am growing rather weary of seeing my wife treated as a verbal punching bag by our respective Mamas. You have a rapier of your own, my darling, but I understand your reluctance to employ it on those two.

"However, now that Philip is weaned, perhaps the time has come for you to step out of the shadows a little more. Perhaps to a more public role. The Queen might currently depend on my mother, but given the choice between someone who is gentle, kind and helpful, and a beautiful virago with inflexible Views on almost every subject relating to manners, morals and meals under the sun, I suspect that Vialle would welcome you to her inner circle as a lady in waiting with something like a howl of relief."

Solace ponders this idea, examining it from several different angles. Finally, she says, "I will see what I can do to offer her my help. I would anyway, of course, but a more formal public role will certainly have some advantages for us and for the children. They're in an excellent position to be playmates of Random's first child, which we can only assume Vialle is anxious to produce."

She takes Lucas' hand and squeezes it.

"Quite," says Lucas, returning the pressure, and clearly pleased by this. "I shall mention this too to her Madge.

"In the mean-time," he adds, rising from the table, "I shall leave you to organise this delightful soiree your mother desires. I think we should omit the conjurors and the marachi band on this occasion. Likewise the karaoke session. They never really enter into the spirit of things, do they, our respective Mamas?

"I presume your mother is being strict about - one hesitates to say intimate - close family only and depriving me of the innocent pleasure of deciding which of my hapless cousins I should subject to an evening of social torment." His expression momentarily becomes abstracted, as though contemplating this enjoyable prospect. Then he smiles, bends over Solace, and kissed the top of her head. "Well, my day begins. I shall see you later unless tedious problems keep me in town. If that's the case, I'll send word."

"I'll see you at dinner, then." And Solace smiles at him, her good nature and equanimity completely restored.

 

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VIII: After Dinner Drinks (and Considerations) | Index | X: Encounter on the Rooftops