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In the receiving room Solange and Lucas find Martin and Cambina. Martin has changed clothes and is now formally enough dressed to receive visitors. Cambina looks a little dusty, as if she came in from the trail to somewhere.
Martin rises to greet Solange and Lucas. "Solange, Lucas. I'm glad you're here. I brought Caine and Cambina in. Caine and Bleys are securing the castle with Venesch's help, and Fiona and Merlin are dealing with the remains of the possessed victims in Paige's quarters. We all think the emergency is over, but I don't want any of us alone until I get the all-clear on both the military and the magical ends."
Cambina is examining Solange with some disapproval. "Martin, have you even let poor Solange get out of her armor?" She turns to Solange. "Would you rather walk down to your quarters while the boys here watch each other's backs, or shall I call a page to fetch a change of clothes from your quarters? I can squire you out of all that in the side room while we wait."
Solange sends a small, grateful smile in Cambina's direction.
Martin nods. "That's a good idea, Cambina. I think we're all in shock or someone else would have thought of it first. Solange, why don't you let Cambina help you, since she seems to be the only one of us with any sense right now, and Lucas and I can discuss a couple of things." He gives Lucas a rather flat look. "And when you've had a chance to change, we can call Julian and--tell him."
"Yes, sir," Solange nods, recognizing a dismissal when she see it. She glances at Cambina, then starts off for the side room.
Martin smiles at her to soften the dismissal, but she knows him well enough to see that he's worried and upset. It's the kind of expression she'd have expected to see him wear going into an ugly session of the Regency Council.
She gives him a small, encouraging smile back, then turns away.
Cambina nods at Martin and follows Solange into the side room, closing the pocket doors behind them.
Lucas lets them depart, then glances at Martin before taking the trump card and placing it down on on a table between them.
Many years ago, Lucas was trained in the protocol of one of the most exacting courts ever known - where every element of of the minutae of human life and interaction was rigidly defined and regulated - the pointless painstaking of a culture that had elevated art over substance to a preposterous degree. While peasants sweated in muck and children starved in filthy hovels, the exact positioning of a silken patch upon a powdered face could excite courtly gossip for a week, a month, a lifetime.
Since those times, Lucas has lived in many and varied cultures, with protocols and procedures ranging from the absurdly formal to the ludicrously relaxed. But breeding shows. No calling card set on a silver salver, placed with exact nicety between the opposing edges of curved fluting of the rim, could have be set with such careful exactitude as Lucas set down the trump between them, with a faint, polite smile.
"My thanks," he says. "And don't blame the boy. He was the victim of manipulation - I took shameless advantage of the fact that he is so lately come to the family that he might be motivated by human frailty such as a desire to protect the innocent. Speaking of which, I find myself in the embarrassing position of having to ask you to grant a further favour."
Martin says, "Let's finish discussing my brother first. There are two things you need to know about him right now." His eyes narrow. "First, you got lucky. I've taken his measure and I've taken yours, and if he wanted to, he could have pounded you into the dirt, Lucas. Next time, he probably will. And second, and more importantly, until the boy comes into his birthright, he's under my protection. If there is a next time, if you trifle with him again, you'll answer to me. Don't pick that fight, because you won't like what I'll do."
For all that he wears a workman's garb by choice, Martin's hands show only evidence of his noble heritage: swordsmanship and music. He takes the trump from the table and glances at it, looking back up at Lucas and smiling, a baring of the teeth that someone other than Lucas might perceive as friendly, but that Lucas can see doesn't quite make it to his eyes. "And all for a Trump that didn't even get you where you needed to go." Martin tsks as he takes his well-worn card box from a side table and slides the Trump into it. "You could have just hitched a ride with me and been inside the gates, and I could have gotten here faster, maybe in time to help save our cousin's life." The lid of the box snaps shut under his fingers.
His expression relaxes a little. "Now, what was that favor you needed to ask me, Lucas?"
"I need my mother's trump," says Lucas. "I'm taking the children to Paris."
He reaches into his jacket and withdraws his cigarette case, flicking it open with a practised fingernail (he keeps it slightly long - probably for no other purpose). He offers it to Martin before taking one himself and lighting it.
Martin, unusually, shakes his head, once.
"I want them in a place where ascertaining their safety figures higher than about Number 35 on the Urgent Questions to be Asked in a Crisis list - slightly behind 'Do we get any dinner tonight?' and just ahead of 'Has someone checked the horses?' My mother will have them rather higher on her list, probably straight after 'Is my hair all right?' and that, for Maman, is high priority.
"Xanadu may well be their eventual home - but for the next few years it's going to be a building site. Including the house I'm proposing to build for my family. I thought about a Shadow home as a temporary measure - but this has shown me - that won't be good enough. They need to be at a centre of reality. Protected. As does Solace.
"As you have so forcefully pointed out, I'm no warrior. No sorceror either. And you appear to have those options admirably covered here - Caine, Bleys and Venesch. Cambina and Merlin. My skills lie in talking. Someone needs to take the news to Corwin and discuss the implications with him. Paris intersects with Rebma. It might be worth finding out what lurks in its forests too - and letting Random know."
He takes a thoughtful draw on his cigarette. "There's another thing. Your brother feels a great loyalty to his other family - understandly. While they are here, and vulnerable, he will worry and be distracted from his new life. Random is hardly going to want them in Xanadu where he or Vialle could be tripping over them at every opportunity. If they - and you - agree, I can take them to Paris and see them respectably established - either in my service or in the King's. Or see them established independently if it seems to you more in keeping with their status.
"I told the boy I'd do my best to see them safe."
Martin's jaw has set. After a moment, he says, "My father and I will consider it when the time comes."
Lucas nods in acknowledgement.
Martin turns his attention back to the trump case, drawing a card from it. He hands the card, face down, to Lucas. It is Flora's card, but Martin is using the correct protocol among Trump users. "Fiona has told me the emergency is over, so there's no need to keep you. Return the card to my father or Bleys when you're done, and they'll arrange to get it back to me. You have leave to depart."
There are a lot of things Martin isn't saying, and he's using formality to keep his anger in check.
"Thank you," says Lucas.
He does not reach for the card immediately, but watches Martin's face, his own seemingly urbane and relaxed as ever. Finally he speaks - and his voice is calm, low and - as he begins - without passion.
"Listen to me, Martin - for I would have you understand exactly what is at stake here.
Martin cuts him off, sharply. "Lucas, you're at six feet. Stop digging." He starts to say something else, but then his expression changes and his eyes are looking beyond Lucas. "Who is it?" He holds his hand up to Lucas to signal that he's no longer entirely in the room.
[pause]
"No, Dad, but there's not going to be a better one. Looks like it's all over."
[pause]
"I've got Caine and Bleys for that. Who's wounded? Brita, Conner, Paige, the kids? Solange told me about Adonis."
[pause]
"No. Lucas is removing his children to Paris." Lucas and whoever is on the other end -- presumably Random -- can hear the anger in his tone about that. "Everyone else can wait, I think."
[pause]
"I don't know yet. I haven't got a final on what happened yet to address them."
[pause]
"Solange. She was a witness. She said she tried to get through to him, but he wasn't answering. As soon as she's out of her armor, we'll probably try again. You stay there. There's nothing you can do now and it's not safe here."
[pause]
"Don't f**king argue with me; I have my cousins for that."
[pause]
"Not on my end."
"I'll see if I can shake free, or send someone. Be safe, Dad."
[pause]
"Will do, Dad."
Martin's eyes come back into focus on the receiving room again.
Lucas, having been dismissed, has left, taking the trump with him.
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VLV: Dealing with the Consequences | Index | XLVII: Making Arrangements for the Family
