Chapter 2 - The Discussion with Benedict

When at last she was ready, she focused on her uncle, visualizing that long, fuzzy tunnel as she had been taught.

"Benedict," she spake.

The lean man's face swam, and his visage came into view.  He was in a chamber of sorts, his hair falling to one side in shadows that mixed with the gloom of his background.

Blood was on a rapier held before him, and he was cleaning it with a rag.

"What is it?" were his only words.

"I..." she said, allowing herself to falter slightly as she took in the blood, the sword, the rag.  A rather curious expression possessed itself of her eyes, as if she longed to hear some heroic tale.

But, "I have the book," she said, returning to her planned script, and she smiled openly, as if hoping for approval.  "Will you bring me through?"

She was good at that: feigning innocent curiosity, feigning that desire for approval.  And it was quite charming on one so young; disarming, even.

What made her so skillful a manipulator was the fact that she was intelligent enough to realize it was unwise to completely feign something... she only magnified what she did feel.... or twisted it... changed the subject... told half of the truth...

Now, she extended her hand to him confidently.

Benedict placed his sword to one side, and took Desiree's hand.

Rainbows danced at the edge of her vision, and in a moment the young Rebman was at Benedict's tall side in a dimly lit bedchamber.  A lamp was lit on a writing desk, and beyond the window next to it, darkness was falling over the land.

Her hair immediately fell heavily about her shoulders, no longer buoyed by the current, and she dripped salt water upon the floor.

"Oh," she said, looking up at him helplessly.  In the Rebman fashion, she was nude from the waist up, and her hair now fell in a tangle covering-- for the most part-- her left reast, leaving the right one bare.

Benedict averted his eyes to watch the wall or floor, and turned his back a moment later...

"Bother," she said weakly, without self-consciousness.  "I forgot to change."

She looked around a bit.  "Where should I stand," she asked, "so I don't-- you know, get everything all wet?"

"Dampness I do not worry for," the tall Prince replied, taking a step to a nearby wardrobe.

"You found what you were looking for."  It was a statement, not a query.

"Yes..." she said, hesitantly. "Yes, it was what I was looking for, but... but..."

She stopped.

"Well, they were all just being really stupid," she said finally. "I just didn't want Christophe to be able to hold all that above everyone's head, you know, when we were in such trouble and all."

Removing a great fur coat from the wardrobe, Benedict walked back to Desiree, his eyes still averted, and held the thing out to her...

"Thank you," she murmured, and obediently wrapped it around her, the hair of it sticking to her wet skin.

"Of course," he said simply.

"So if you say I trumped to you with the book..." she trailed off. "See what I mean? I had Christophe fooled, but Dworkin said there was only one copy, and Fiona will be, oh-- she'll know for sure," said Desiree.

"But I've had an idea about that, and it's probably... well, probably it's stupid," she said.  "But I want to have like a back-up plan, 'cause  I still don't trust Christophe or Bleys, do you?" she asked.

As soon as Desiree covers up her nudity, Benedict again meets her eyes with his own hazel ones.  "No.  I do not.  What have you in mind?"

She smiled charmingly, as if she had already received his implicit approval.

"Well, just because there's only one Eisman's Nine," she said, "hardly means that's the only place those pages are found."

She set her book, Poetry of Eldre Landes on the writing desk, and opened it up, fanning through a few pages.  "See here?" she said. "This is a collection of the works of different authors, and it includes some bits written in the same runes that Eisman's Nine was written in..."

She looked up, bruised-orchid eyes meeting his.  "'Cause I did really see it, and I did really talk about it with Fiona.  I only made up the bit about knowing where Rebma's copy was..."

She looks down again, fingers running absently over the pages.

"So if we say that we have the right collection, you know... with the right bits in it... the missing bits..."

She shrugged.  "Well, originally, I said it just to defuse Christophe's threat.  I mean, maybe I did manage that... at least he stopped threatening for some reason or other.  But now... I don't think we should just trust that he'll give us those pages.  I think we should,
you know, pretend... until we're safe."

She looked at him, her large eyes shadowed in the dimness of the lamplight.  "What do you think? You won't tell anyone that I lied, will you?"

Benedict merely gave a slight smile.  "Why would I give away a cunning strategy, my lady?  That was very clever of you.  I hope it gave Christophe reason to pause in his own self-pretention."

The sudden brightness of her smile on her normally rather melancholy features was a lovely change, and her laugh was clear and high.

The rest of them didn't think her so clever, however.

She thought of Martel, and his calling her a liar... stupid.  Stupid Martel.

Better a liar and a heroine-- for she had grand ideas of herself just now-- better that, than stupid, she thought.

The battle-worn prince stirred the fireplace with an iron poker, and encouraged a frenzied cloud of sparks to ascend up the fireplace in response.

He placed the poker carefully in its rack and poured two glasses of warmed cider, before returning to Desiree.

He handed one glass to her, before speaking.  "I assume you chose another reason to speak to me other than affirmation of your earlier verbal feint, yes?"

"Thank you," she murmured in response to the cider.

Wrapping her fingers around the warm glass, she paused, trying to reason what he was getting at. "Well," she said.  "If we did have the book, it would have to be protected.  Is that what you mean? Sometimes I jump ahead in my thinking, and I don't explain very well.

"Like... pretend this was the book.  Then what would you have to do? Why you'd have to keep it safe from Fiona, that's what! You could use it to bait a trap... or bargain with her... or, oh - whatever," she shrugged. "I was all afraid that someone would be listening to me trump you, after... well, someone said that was possible in the meeting.  Maybe Caine, or someone."

"So I had to act like it was real, you know.  And I brought it to you above the others... because you're so good with... with battle, and things. You would know what to do."

Benedict let the firelight play across his features, then shook his head.  "You rate me too highly, niece.  Using the book as a playing piece is one thing...but to understand it, that is hardly my domain."

She blinked into the flickering light, and shook her head as well. The rather tangled mass of her hair made an unpleasant, wet sound on her skin beneath the fur.  "No, I don't mean understanding it; I just mean that if it were real, then you would know how to protect it... or who to take it to... or what-have-you.  And now you can pretend, too. Just do, like... I don't know.  Whatever you would do if you really had it, only without anyone else being able to verify, you know? Unless you think you'll need to tell someone else; I mean, that's up to your judgement."

"I was more sure of you, I guess," she added more quietly. "When I was growing up, I liked reading about your battle with the Moonriders. Well, all your stories.  The ones I could get my hands on."

"Ah.  I was unaware there was anything written on that subject beyond mere historical notes," he replied.

She nodded. "Yes, that was the problem.  All I had were notes and things. How I got them was that Martel used to bring me presents from Amber when I was little and mother wouldn't let me come here.

"Sometimes jewelry and different sorts of things... and he knew I loved to read, but he didn't really have much... much - idea, I guess when it came to what a little girl really would like to read, and I was always trying to explain it to him." She smiled in remembrance.

"I told him once that I wanted something heroic, and he promised." She was silent for a moment, and pursed her lips.

"But when he came back, he had just brought books and books of... well, historical notes, like you said.  I'm sure he thought it was wonderful reading, but really, it was rather dry for me. But I appreciated it later, when I was older."

She had appreciated it then, when she was seven. It had not been what she was asking for, but she could hardly believe her good fortune...

She looked at him, a small, facile smile quirking her lips.

~Here was one,~ she thought, ~that didn't immediately treat her like an imbecile.~

Well, it was true she never much bothered to hide her intelligence behind more than a mask of youthful gibbering and clumsiness... and the occasional mad, screaming tantrum.  That was all that was needed, for the most part.

If Benedict saw past all that... she supposed it would be fine...

She was suddenly struck with the idea that if she had Benedict's approval for her plan to free Martin, it would be much less risky...

But if she revealed her plan, and he didn't approve, all would be lost.

She looked down at her cup, considering.  Obviously he meant her to stay at least through a glass of cider.

She took a sip, and felt it hot and tart in her stomach. She hadn't eaten, of course; she'd forgotten again.

She looked up at him. Perhaps she could turn the subject a bit, and take a cautious tack, especially since she'd already brought up his skill in battle...

"Can I ask you something?" she queried fetchingly. "I mean, I don't understand strategies and things like you do.  But there's something I always wondered about, that the book I had didn't explain very well," she said.

Benedict stopped carefully aligning classes on the service table nearby, to regard Desiree.  "And what would that be, my lass?"

"When you were fighting the moonriders," she said seriously.  "The particular battle where you took that small contingent into one of their outlying territories... you killed everyone in that village while their army was elsewhere engaged.

"Everyone," she repeated.

"And I'm not really clear why that was all... needed. From what I read, it sounded bloody... and vicious... and sad.  Must one really take drastic measures like that sometimes?  I mean, how do you know when its necessary, and when it's just too risky?"

Benedict set his drink aside.  "One develops an instinct on these things, dear Desiree.  By utterly showing the might of our armies I forstalled any further attacks, precipitating a peace.  Had I not done so, the Moonriders may well have lost much more than a village.  They understood their vulnerability."

She nodded thoughtfully, and looked into the fire.  "Yes.. I see that's the effect it had.  It would just be so hard without trained instincts like that... to know what to do..."

She trailed off.  "I would think we'd do well to trust your instincts, now, as well," she added, looking at him.  "That is, if we want to be able to find Fiona in a timely fashion."

She chose her words carefully. "Do you really think it would be wise, what you suggested this morning? Or were you just tossing out, you know... a possibility?"

Benedict settled himself in a chair by the fire, with his good hand, he indicated the other for Desiree.

She sat, and pulled the fur up further around her.  It would be telling for her to avoid his gaze now, so she did not.  She merely waited for his answer, and watched the play of shadows across his face.

"You wish to release Martin and set him to catch Fiona for you, am I correct in this assumption?" he said with directness, his eyes catching Desiree's own.

She pursed her lips, casting aside, for the moment, the desire to obfuscate her meaning by the sort of direct means in which she was accustomed.  She had the overwhelming instinct that her Uncle Benedict would not be fooled by childishness, and she did not cling to her usual methods unnecessarily.

"What I want," she said, leaning forward, "is to... to use the most direct, effective means possible to-- you know.  Fix it.  Fix... everything."

She found her mouth was inordinately dry, and resisted licking her lips.  That, too, would tell.  She took another sip of the cider, and found that her throat was dry as well.

~'Tis the air,~ she realized in dismay.  ~The miserable, dry air.~.

Benedict settled back in his chair.  "We fight a hydra, my dear...many deadly heads.  I am afraid I can offer you no suggestion for a quick fix.  But attaining Fiona's whereabouts and the Jewel do rate rather high on the list of needs.  That...and finding the puppetmaster who works the Darke's will here in the world."

She considered his words, leaning back in her chair.  ~Tacit approval for her plan, perhaps?~ she mused.  ~He would hardly want to admit support for such a scheme should something go wrong ... sometimes alliances were safer left unvoiced...~

After a few moments of silence, she offered, "They all say they want to kill her-- kill Fiona.  And I... I just wonder, you know, how wise that is... what with the possibility of a blood curse, and all. It seems so ... risky. Seems like it could get worse that way-- do you think? Goodness! I don't want it to get any worse.

"And now, you say-- that is, it sounds like you think she is not the only threat we face. 'Puppetmaster'... do you think there's someone else?"

Benedict nodded.  "Of course.  Martin is a tool.  And I don't think the master is far...they would need to be close to direct their agents. Call it a gut instinct, my dear, but I have my disbelief that Fiona is as much in control of these events as some believe.  She acts as if she has another to fear besides family. Now why would that be?"

Desiree was feeling strangely comfortable with Benedict - a function, perhaps, of his treating her with a certain amount of regard - and she considered his question carefully.

She felt he had only his own suppositions in answer to the question he posed her, and that the question was not entirely hypothetical. Perhaps she flattered herself.

"Fiona said something of the sort to me," Desiree said slowly.  "That she feared someone. I wish I had been thinking of the problem from this perspective when I spoke to her; perhaps I could have gleaned more than I did.  At the time, I was quite certain that she and Bleys were both culpable.

"I still believe Bleys is involved," she added.

Her gaze, unfocused, roamed over the fire.  There had been Brand, and his two compatriots had disassociated themselves from him in the end... but apparently, their scheme had continued... And now Bleys disassociated himself from Fiona, laying the blame at her feet.

Did the plotting continue with him? It seemed likely... seemed to fit the pattern...

At last, her eyes found purchase within Benedict's own, once again.

"It is hard," she said, "to dislike Bleys.  He is so... so charming. And so handsome.  And witty."

Benedict merely let his face fall flat.

"Even so, I feel he is still involved.  If there is another behind it all, mustn't Bleys know who he served, or serves? For I doubt, for some reason, that he is himelf the... the 'Puppetmaster,' as you call it. Something, to me, does not ring true..."

She paused.  "All the redheads..." she began, and stopped.

"Whatever happened to Clarissa?" she asked suddenly.

"Oberon said after the divorce he was sending her out to her home shadow." Benedict wore the face of one who was repeating something he never believed.  "She was a harridan...one hardly missed her presence in the castle."

"She's alive, then," Desiree mused.  "Or was. I thought she was something of a sorceress, and that her children followed in her footsteps. Is that right?"

She paused again, and tried to read Benedict's expression... tried to see if he thought she had, perhaps, hit on something, or if he found her hypothesis to be way off base.

No-- it wasn't even a hypothesis.  Merely a thought... with interesting possibilities.

Clarissa would certainly know the castle. She would know where to hide, close by.  She would have sway over all of them, all three of her errant children.

"I'm sure it would be difficult," she said slowly, "to completely ignore the pleadings of their mother, especially if she and they both had a... you know-- resentment for Oberon. For the things he's done. Like that affair with Grandmother. You know."

"I'd rather not discuss that." Benedict stiffened.

Desiree concealed the surprised curiosity from her face. ~He's taking it a personal insult,~ she thought.

Then, ~Oh...~

Of course, Oberon had been just as cruel with Benedict's mother.  What had her name been-- Clymnea? Cymnea...?

She hesitated a moment in indecision, before concluding it would be best... to show some reaction, lest he thought she was prodding him. She allowed one eyebrow to raise minutely... questioningly...

Benedict continued, "Clarissa is well aged...and infirm.  I doubt either of her children have seen her in decades...none have had a special love for her as adults."

She remained sitting there a moment with that same, slight expression on her face, making it seem as if she was still considering his earlier reaction.

But her thoughts raced, and multitudinous possibilities played themselves out in her mind in the blink of an eye.

That final pronouncement had such a ring of falseness to it... that her children had not seen her...

For hadn't he said, just moments ago as if he never believed it, that Clarissa had
been sent to her home shadow? Why would he believe she wasn't there? If he hadn't been to check on her, and if her own children hadn't, Benedict can't have had any believable reckoning of her condition from someone else...

It was as if he wanted to throw Desiree off the track...

She felt that tight knot forming in her throat again.

If Benedict was lying, who was he covering for?

Click, click, click... scenarios whirred past, and she settled on two that were immediate.

Surely he was just sensitive about his mother... did not want to speculate about Clarissa's brood because he felt it would reflect upon him. He just wanted to close the discussion. Surely, that.

Surely not that he was involved with Clarissa, not that.

Desiree was missing something, she was sure of it-- if only she had more time to think! But now she must react, move on, lest he read her hesitation as fear.

Perhaps it was.

~Let this be a lesson to me,~ she thought, as outwardly, she shifted in her chair.

"Really, I should be afraid to ask Bleys about it," she said matter-of-factly with a shrug.  "If I do ask, and it's true she has something todo with it, why then he'll be onto me in a minute, won't he?"

She sighed, and leaned slightly forward toward the fire, taking a drink of the cider. "I wonder that I'd even be allowed to talk to him, anyway. I wonder if they've got him in a dungeon, or a tower."

She shifted in her seat again, as if uncomfortable, and pushed the drying, rather tangled tresses back from her face. "I hope there won't be dressing for dinner tonight; I look a wreck," she said.  "There aren't any special plans, are there?"

"With Florimel," Benedict replied, seemingly pleased to be on another topic, "there is always a modicrim of protocol.  If you fear to set your fashion sense against our airy world, I'll be more than happy to set a good tailor I know of round...provided he is still alive. I have been gone a long time.  I hardly knew how much I should miss Amber so..."

She gave a little gasp. "Would you really do that? Oh, I hardly have... I mean there's one-- for today.  It used to be so big, but maybe I've grown enough," she said, half to herself.

"Dresses, I mean.  We don't, you know, wear them..." she indicated her present state vaguely, and tried to adjust the sticky wet fur against her skin.

"But I do really need some help.  He could maybe dress me in - Oh, I don't know. But if I looked better - you know, more sophisticated - maybe they would all like me better.  They wouldn't be all snappy,and yell at me," she said, rather foreshadowing the unfortunate incident at dinner later, and events – sadly - even later than that.

"... and you said it was Flora, seeing to it? She's almost always nice, I think. At least on the outside, right?"

Desiree stopped her rant, lost in thought, and then suddenly stood up in alarm. "My hair!" she cried. "Goodness sakes - oh! Will I have enough time to get ready? What time is dinner - I mean, how long?" she asked anxiously.

The minutia of feminine concerns over appearance seems to quickly dull Benedict's flagging interest, and politely he gives a tight smile.

~Perfect,~ she thought.

"Lady Desiree...I've some business to conclude.  I shall have my man find the tailor and see to your needs.  Until dinner then?"

"Yes," she replied hastily, half on her way out the door, trying to hold up the fur (which was quite too long for her) so that she didn't trip on the dragging hem.  "Yes, thank-you so much, Uncle Benedict I'll see you at dinner..."

And she set the mug down on the table with rather a clang, picked up her book again, and headed to her chambers.

 

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