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Outside the salle, Garrett pauses to shove the trump deck deeper into Martin's shoe, then dashes off toward the Family Wing. On the way, he repeats Bleys's instructions in his head, determined not to get the message wrong.
He skids to a stop in front of Martin's door and shoves the shoes under his arm. He pounds hard on the door with his fist, shouting "MARTIN!" loudly. When several shouts bring no answer, he opens the door and bellows, "Martin, are you here?!"
Silence. Garrett curses and closes the door. After thinking a moment, he mutters "Folly" under his breath. He starts to jog back down the hall, then curses again. He doesn't know exactly where Folly's rooms are. At a juncture of corridors, he stops and peers down them, frustrated.
Then he remembers. He has Martin's trumps. Martin must have a trump of Folly. Garrett leans Martin's sword against the wall and digs the trumps out of the shoe. He fans them like a seasoned card-player, wishing briefly that he had the leisure to study them all. Right now, though, he looks only for a petite girl with purple locks.
As he fans out the cards, he becomes aware of someone coming down the corridor towards him. It is Lucas, who he last saw escorting Brennan to the infirmary.
Lucas is frowning slightly - at what Garrett is holding in his hands.
Garrett looks up quickly, then returns his attention to the cards.
"Where did you get those trumps?" he asks - and then, seeing Garrett's expression, his tone changes. "What's happened? Where's Martin?"
"Amber's under some kind of magical attack," Garrett answers somberly without looking up from the trumps. "Bleys sent me to find him." He looks up at Lucas intently. "Do you know where Folly's quarters are?"
"No," says Lucas. And then, "Amber?"
His dark eyes are suddenly almost black.
"Give me Fiona's trump," he says curtly. His voice is almost an octave lower than his usual social drawl - if Garrett heard his voice without seeing him, he might not even recognise it as Lucas. "Or one of the Castle."
As Garrett thumbs through the deck, he finds a set of well-made Fortunes mixed with Trumps of his aunts and uncles. There is no card of Folly, and none of Martin, but both Fiona and a trump of the entry gate to Castle Amber are included, as well as some people Garrett doesn't recognize.
Garrett regards Lucas silently. He understands the reasons for his cousin's concern because his own are similar. He shakes his head slowly. "Don't go alone, Lucas." He speaks carefully, trying to hold Lucas's gaze as he squares the trumps and shoves them back in the shoe. "We don't know the situation and you're no good to your family dead. Bleys already went back. He said to send Martin to him."
But even as he is beginning to speak again, Lucas' shoots out his left hand - hard, aimed at shoving Garrett back against the wall and pinning him there. At the same time his right hand clenches into a fist - but not to strike Garrett. Instead his fist shoots up, under the shoe, aimed at hitting it hard, and knocking it from Garrett's grasp.
At the same time he snarls, "My children, damn you."
Lucas swings, but Garrett is young and grew up dodging hooves and sees it coming.
Lucas does, however, shove Garrett back against the wall. Garrett doesn't think Lucas is as fast or as strong as he is, unless he's holding back.
With his right shoulder against the wall, Garrett squeezes the shoes tight against his body under his left arm and grabs the dangling laces with what little mobility he has in his right hand. Lucas ends up hitting Garrett's left elbow instead of Martin's left shoe.
The defensive manuever leaves Garrett in the perfect position to shove Lucas like a football [American version] linebacker. Protecting the trump-laden high-tops against his body as if they were the game-winning ball, Garrett tucks his head and rams his left shoulder hard into Lucas's chest. After the impact, he keeps up the pressure to try to free his right shoulder as well. Through gritted teeth, he snarls, "There's bairn in my family too, you b*st*rd, now ... LET ... ME ... GO!"
Garrett shoves, but Lucas' arm was extended, and he is too far physically to receive the full force of the thrust. He gives a slight jerk, but doesn't fall back - although his grip is momentarily weakened. But he doesn't let go. Instead he speaks.
"And they've have parents to protect them, yes? Hope has no-one - Phillippe has no-one!" For a second he simply stares at Garrett - all his intensity in that gaze. "Give me the card - the courtyard."
Maybe it's appeasement so he can complete his own mission or maybe it's the thought of two young children home alone. Whatever the cause, Garrett stops struggling, but remains tense, his arms still tightly wrapped around the shoes. "Lemme go so I can dig it out," he growls angrily.
Lucas holds his hand in place a moment more, but the pressure is eased. Then, as if satisfied that Garrett is not going to run, he releases him, raising his other hand to in a gesture that says as clearly as words, "See? I'm backing off."
Keeping his eyes on Lucas warily, Garrett shrugs the tension out of his shoulders. He reaches into the sneaker and pulls out the trumps, clutched tightly in his fist. He shows no sign that he intends to bolt, but at the same time, his arms and hands are tense, ready to defend if needed.
Once he's satisfied that Lucas is staying put, Garrett looks down at the trumps and turns slightly toward the wall. Lucas can still see what Garrett's doing, but he's in a position to fend Lucas off with an elbow if he makes a grab for the cards. As he shuffles for the requested trump, Garrett says in a voice more tense than angry, "When I find Martin, I'll tell him you've gone."
"Thank you," says Lucas, with the faintest touch of irony. "You can add that I'll return the trump as soon as I can."
Garrett nods as he finds the Castle Trump and hands it to Lucas.
Lucas nods in acknowledgement, glancing down at it. But he doesn't move to activate it immediately. Instead he looks up again at Garrett, dark eyes still intense.
"And ... Garrett?"
"Yeah?" Garrett answers while replacing the trumps in the shoe.
"I'll do my best to see your family safe too," says Lucas quietly.
Garrett blinks with surprise. A small smile of gratitude cracks the tension on his face and he nods. "Thank you. I appreciate that," he says sincerely.
Garrett reaches over and retrieves Martin's sword. As he trots up the hallway to continue his search, he calls back, "Be careful, Lucas." The words have the feel of a "Good luck."
Lucas nods - but already he is looking down at the trump card and studying it intently. He doesn't draw his sword - it has never seemed to him that stepping through a trump with a drawn sword is a wise thing to do - but his other hand is ready to draw it at need.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lucas focuses on the courtyard (and hopefully Martin has chosen a relatively innocuous spot for sudden arrivals and departures) and then steps through, looking around to see what is happening.
If things seem relatively calm and he is not grabbed immediately by half a dozen people seeking advice*, information**, or reassurance***, he will be heading straight for his own suite. But he will seize any guard who looks as if he might know what's happening on the way (lightly wounded for preference), and snap out, "What's been happening? How many injured? What of my children?"
(* Those shoes definitely don't go with that hose
** Green won't be the new black this season
***No, your btm does not look big in your guard uniform)
The card doesn't show a courtyard. It shows one of the gatehouses from the outside.
[OOC note: This is the standard Castle trump: the same one Solange used, the one Benedict brought Lilly through, etc. etc.]
When Lucas steps through, he finds the gate is closed and the tocsin is ringing. A voice calls from above, "Halt! Who goes here?"
"Lucas, son of Flora!" Lucas responds, loud and clear. With a slight toss of his head, he flicks his dark hair away to reveal the identifying mark, his mutilated ear. "Let me pass, in the Name of the King!"
All the considerable force of his will is in his voice.
There is a long pause during which Lucas is sure that the guards are weighing his considerable force of will against their training and the possibility of being hung for treason if they raise the portcullis during an attack on Amber.
The guard calls down, "We've sent to the Queen!"
Lucas draws a breath, prepared to curse long and loud. But even as he inhales, his mind is turning over the possibilities. Cursing will not help, may even serve to alienate the guards. And they stand between him and his children. Berating them might assuage his own anger; but it will do nothing to help Hope and Phillippe. His son is too young to respond to the noise of the tocsin but Hope ... Hope, bright as a new penny, she will understand something is wrong and be afraid without Maman and Papa, however valiantly she will try to hide it. His people ... they will protect her, reassure her, won't they? Nanny Starch, Lucas' bete noire, will hold Hope in her arms, unyielding to all but Solace, her nursling, and her nursling's children. Solace ...
Lucas slams his hand against the sturdy wooden support of the gate in frustration.
"Send to my quarters too!" he yells up at the guards. "My children - see that they are safe!"
Safe ... a relative term. He should have taken them away before this. He should have done as his mother did - as most of that generation did - taken the children and hidden them deep in Shadow, allowed them a chance of life where the dangers would be normal ... or controllable or ...
He slams his open hand on the wooden support again, and walks away a little distance, so that he can absorb something of the perspective of the Castle and the walls.
No sounds of generalized battle within the walls. If this is an attack on the scale of Corwin and Bleys' attempted invasion, there would be sounds to hear even this side of the walls. The clash of armour, the hoarse shouts of command, the screams of the wounded and dying. But nothing. The tocsin - a few shouted orders as people ... do whatever is needed.
A raid then, and not an invasion. Yes, this makes more sense. Like Dara's attack, our enemies come now not in battalions, but as single spies. Or small groups of spies.
But who? Who? Dara? Her Chaosians? His hand lifts and touches the mutilation that he bears as a sign of the lady's last visit. Is this her work again? And Ambrose ... what if he deceived Brennan? It's possible - Brennan is shrewd, but he has shown a degree of recklessness in trusting Ambrose ... with Lucas' trump, no less.
"Nom de Dieu," he murmurs, his eyes sliding closed in exasperation at the memory. And if Ambrose is false ... is Dara to have an easy way into Lucas' very brain? More to the point - is she now in the castle, eyes gleaming, prowling the corridors in search of prey. And Hope and Phillippe, such little morsels, such sweet little morsels for a panther in her rage ...
He can stay still no longer. He begins to pace along side the walls. Perhaps there is a way in. Perhaps, after the Sundering, there is some jutty, frieze or coign of vantage that he can use to climb in. Admittedly, he's no mountaineer but what of that? He has common competence - he has scaled a few mountains in his time; a noted Alpinist in those far off days before he became involved in the Year of Revolutions on Shadow Earth - and that was all thanks to that little witch, Lola Montez - ah, Dieu, are women always to be the ruin of him?
Not now. Not like then. The lady who holds his heart in her hands now scarce has fingers long enough to encompass it.
"Papa ... "
He shakes his head. The wall, the wall. Concentrate on that. He scans it with the eyes of some experience - for he's climbed enough walls in his time - well, he's climbed down them. Usually with irate husbands or deceived lovers of either gender shouting imprecations after him as he scrambles down, no artistry but sheer exhilarating flight, with the blood pounding and the adrenalin racing ...
What was the name of that oaf with the elephant gun and the handlebar moustache. Eh bien, Lucas had been laughing so hard that ...
There! A place he could manage, perhaps ...
No. A cloud crosses the sun - and he sees the shadows shift. Perhaps, if he had crampons, mattocks, a wealth of those tools with strange names some cumbersome and heavy on the tongue. But he has nothing. A rapier. A dagger in his boot. And no authority here to demand admittance - no power to save his children.
Hope ...
How her face glowed with pride as she recited her poem at the Children's Concert! And Solace's long slender fingers, tightening on his hand - he had not noticed till that night, it seemed, how slender those fingers were, how very fragile. And how slight her form under the silken shawl he had spread across her. Scarcely more substantial than Hope when he lifted her and set her on the sofa ...
Perhaps he should have demanded another trump from Garrett. But which? Fiona ... she must be at the heart of this. Trumping her would be tantamount to tapping her on the shoulder as she fights and craving a moment of her time. Benedict ... he would have the skill to fight and bring one through, perhaps, but was he even still in Amber?
Caine?
No - this way madness lies. He made his choice. He chose the best trump he could. He gambled, and the cards have fallen against him.
The cards ...
He is against the wall, both hands lifted above his head, pressing, palms flat against the wall, his forehead resting on it, as though he would force his way through.
Phillippe ... his son knows him now. The vagueness of those early months has gone; those yes - so like his own - have intelligence and focus. And there is a special smile for Lucas, a special look which Lucas fancies he can read as intelligence, a questing intellect that is groping to stack the building blocks of this strange new world.
Why didn't he realize he would care for them? Why did no-one tell him this simple, basic truth - that they would wind into his heart like greedy little vines, that they would twist his way into his very soul ...
He straightens and paces back down towards the gate impatiently. Mon Dieu, what are they doing? Have they decided to crawl to find the Queen like penitents of some harsh religious sect? Or have they encountered resistance within the castle itself? Is Vialle under attack - or worse, dead? Dam' it, they got word to Xanadu - couldn't they have got the Queen there too?
And then he realizes, and turns, his back against the wall. Yes, yes. Of course they did. Open a trump, and bundle the Queen through, out of harm's way. The guards will search all day and never find her. The irony of it holds him for a moment. If he had stayed in Xanadu - if he had sought out the King, or Martin ...
Martin ... He holds Martin's trump of the Castle still. Will Martin understand?
He has no children.
Bleakest of all words.
The trump - he forced Garrett to give it to him. There will be a price to pay for that. But ... what of it? At that moment, at this moment, it seems supremely unimportant. If his children are alive, he will pay what he must. And if his children are ...
He will pay the price.
His face is still, almost like a carving. A death mask. Death. There are fates worse than death, he knows. There are things that could be done to Hope and Phillippe that would make death seem merciful. He knows this. He has seen it. Even, he has ...
"Let my children be spared," he whispers.
Spared ... but who from? Like a wolf circling wounded prey, his mind comes back to this again and again.
Who?
Who?
If not Dara, if not Chaos ... the Rebmans?
If it is the Rebmans, and they harm his children, he will dine upon their hearts. He has held his hand back - has passed the responsibility to Martin. If he was wrong, if this is now a vicious blow aimed at him ... but why? Why?
He has passed the gate, he realizes. He is moving down the far side of the wall ... towards the town. He can look over the roofs from here, as he has done so many times before. If he walks briskly, he can be at the Red Mill within ... what ... forty minutes? And Silken's arms ... her purring voice, soothing him. Her dark eyes gleaming in the firelight as they lie together and he traces his fingers over her impossibly smooth skin ...
Solace's eyes ...
Solace, looking at him. That expression of trust. The unconditional adoration ...
How can he look at her and tell her that ...
Another room. Rich and ornate. Heavier than the rooms he knew, the wood unpainted, the furniture massive. In time he'd come to know it as comfortable, familiar, but now, at first, his soul revolted. He wanted the delicacy, the elegance of the things he loved, even in this alien land.
"You should wait," the major domo. "You should change ... you cannot come before her like this!"
"I cannot wait," he said. "My news ... cannot wait."
The major domo was shocked - an appalling, pompous little man - what had his name been? Clairveaux, that was it. He was used to the ways of the aristos, but this was beyond his ken - the Marquis' own son, his hair unpowdered, loose, the dust of the roads on his boots, his riding coat stained with mud - and worse, did Clairveaux but know it, standing in the Great Hall of this strange new manor, and demanding to speaking with his mother.
And then she was there, gliding down the staircase, as lovely and remote as ever, each golden curl perfectly positioned, her silken dress swaying as she moved. A world, a universe away from the madhouse Lucas had left, with the blood matting the straw they threw down in the Place de la Concorde. At the time he thought he would never have the stench out of his nostrils. But now ... now it was his mother's perfume that sickened his stomach.
When he told her, before he had told her, she had turned her head. He never saw her face as she heard his stumbling words, his account of what he had done - too little! And what he had seen.
Too much.
Too much, at seventeen. Too much, perhaps, at any age. And the helplessness as he stood in the crowd and heard the creaking of the heavy tumbrel wheels, nearly drowned out by the fetid roar of the mob, the sans culottes. And the creak and swish of the guillotine ...
He had wanted to convey all that. But her head was turned - her face was hidden. Afterwards it tormented him that he never knew how she looked - whether there was pain, regret, bored indifference, or even that little half smile of satisfaction.
Had she cared that his father was dead?
He is before the gate again now, facing it. Stern, unrelenting, challenging him. And he stands before it, helpless, insignificant. Powerless, as he promised himself he would never be powerless again. But his children are in danger, and he can do nothing. All the horror of those long lost years is rising up again to choke him, to smother him. His eyes should be burning the gate - it should set it on fire ...
Lessons learned, over the centuries. Lessons learned with anger, with pain. They told a story of the young Catherine de Medici on Shadow Earth. A ruler of vast power and cruelty, she had nevertheless once been a child, had once loved her pet dogs. And when one of them had died, she had wept and cried until her stern guardian, knowing what she must one day become, must one day face, had sat her down on a cushion and made her watch as her remaining pet had been fed poison and had died, after half an hour, in hideous pain. And Catherine was allowed to show not one sign of grief, not one flicker of emotion.
Lessons learned.
Lucas closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Slowly. Each beat of his heart he is aware of. He seems to feel the blood throb in his veins. Somewhere in the Castle close at hand, his children are in danger. Somewhere, in a castle far away, his sick wife sleeps, unaware that he might bring her waking news that will be her death blow.
So.
Then he turns from the castle and wakes away. A few yards, and then he slides his hand into his jacket and withdraws a long, slim golden case. His thin fingers work for a second of the catch, and then he flicks it open and stares down at the contents.
So.
From the right side he withdraws one of his favourite cigarettes - black, tipped with gold. As he lights it, some distant part of Lucas, some part that watches and jeers at everything and everyone, is quietly amused by how very steady his hands are.
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XLIII: Catastrophe in Amber | Index | XLV: Dealing with the Consequences
