De Male in PeggioIndex | Time Under Chaos | Game Logs | De Male in Peggio
A bit over dressed for this time of day in this place when a party wasn't going on, Petra appeared in a West wing hallway and checked to make sure she was alone. Smoothing her gown, she walked purposefully towards the main part of the castle. Not having the faintest idea where Larissa might be, she had to track down a servant to show her where the other woman made her home in this mausoleum. She paused outside the door and took a breath. If it wasn't one thing around here, it was something else. Petra rapped sharply on the door and waited. "What?" came Larissa's irritated voice. There was a bang, as of something being dropped or a book being slammed shut, and a few moments later, the door was wrenched open. "This had better be good--Petra?" Larissa went instantly from annoyed, on the border of rage, to curiosity at the sight of her cousin. "What is it? Come in, sit down. Has something else gone wrong today?" Petra's eyebrows went up at all the commotion heralding Larissa's appearance. It sounded disturbingly familiar. Petra shook her head and smiled pleasantly when the door opened. Her one response to the barrage was "Yes." Larissa's sitting room was, to be blunt, a disaster area. There was free space enough on the floor to move, as long as one stayed in the cleared-out paths that were lined on either side with precarious piles of crumpled clothing, stacked and yellowing paper, and less identifiable things. Petra noticed a toolbox (half the drawers hanging open) and a dressmaker's dummy (draped in a cloth of a strange weave and luster) among the odder items scattered about. Wedged in by the table in the center of the room was a cart of the style used in libraries, half full of books. Still more books had displaced an array of clockwork parts, which were shoved into a heap on one corner of the table, barely holding their own. Some of the gears and springs had, in their retreat from the army of books, tumbled from the edge of the table, where they glittered in a sea of black cloth that was probably a dress. Beneath a portrait of Eric, however, there was an armchair miraculously free of clutter. Petra wasn't quite sure what to make of things as she slowly took it all in. Larissa always struck her as, well, organized. This... was not. She silently sat the wine bottle down in a clear spot on the table. It was really a very impressive collection of ... stuff. The fabric on the dressmaker's dummy drew her eye and almost her attention before she pulled herself out of it and turned to her cousin. "I'm afraid we have a much larger concern on our hands then we thought. Information has been brought to my attention concerning a Duke Helgram. He has recently been appointed by the Emperor to some official capacity to come here and ... destroy all manifestations of the Pattern." Larissa's face immediately went blank, and she blinked, twice. "I have a corkscrew around here somewhere," she said, voice far too calm. She set out two wineglasses from their incongruous location in a curio cabinent, and rooted around in the top drawer of the sideboard. "Should we send Swayvill back this Duke's entire body, or merely pieces of it?" she continued conversationally, over the rattle of things being turned about in a disorganized drawer. "Ah." Larissa turned around, brandishing a corkscrew. "Does it need to breathe?" "No... well, it would be better if you let it breathe a few moments, but it is drinkable now, and after the day this has been..." Petra waved a hand and shrugged. Petra finally sat down in the clear spot. She looked up at Eric's portrait over her shoulder and shook her head. What a loss. She turned to watch Larissa with a slight wariness. "Duke Uther Helgram is a fanatic that thinks the Serpent works through him. He is one of those that believe allowing Amber to continue to exist is a mistake, and that by destroying the Pattern manifestations, he is doing the will of his god. His skills with sorcery and the Chaos arts are said to be legendary and dangerous, and he doesn't give a damn about any lives lost in his quest. He is an altogether humorless man who, as an added creepy factor, is surrounded by a dark, animate mist at all times." As Larissa listened to Petra, she peeled back the foil from the mouth of the bottle and worked the cork out, more attention on her cousin than on her task. She repurposed a handkerchief that had been serving as an ersatz bookmark, folding it around the wine bottle with a few deft motions, where it could catch the drips. "I did not need to hear that someone is going to try to kill me," she said as she poured. She handed a glass to Petra. "I mean, one always assumes that someone is trying, but it tends to get lost in the background." She took a sip of her wine, and some of the tension left her frame. "Oh, I didn't realize how much I needed that," she said, sniffing appreciatively. "I thought you might." Petra rolled the glass back and forth between her hands, watching the brick-orange liquid slide around the rim. "I do not like being the bearer of bad news, but it seems that has been my assignment for today. It did occur to me to wonder if by manifestations of the Pattern, he may have meant more then just any surviving reflections of the True Pattern." Petra leaned back, letting one arm dangle over the arm of the chair while she sipped her wine. "And then I thought 'oh, surely not', but then I remembered he was a religious fanatic, and needed to be put down. She eyed Larissa. "Have another drink. There's more." "If I wanted to gulp, there's a couple of fifths of grain alcohol in my bedroom," Larissa said, taking another sip. Petra shrugged. "I've been drinking all day. Not that it's helped." "'Manifestations of the Pattern' does very much include Pattern Initiates," she continued tiredly. "If he's as much a fanatic as you say, probably everyone descended from Dworkin, as well, though I assume you lot would be lower on the priority list. The Pattern is writ in our Blood, but the traces are faint until one walks the Pattern itself and burns them in." "Oh, well, that's..." Petra sighed. "Festive. So we will need to warn everyone. He is supposed to go to Rebma in two days. I doubt they are aware of the impending visit, as not even the Embassy here was aware of his arrival until he came calling." "The Embassy?" Larissa repeated, now with a good idea of the source of Petra's information. "Hmm. Yes, someone needs to warn Llewella. Islain," here Larissa grew cool, "has a Trump of her mother. Was she in Arden when you visited this morning?" Larissa's nails clicked rhythmically against the bell of her wineglass. Petra raised an amused eyebrow. "Islain's mother? No, I can't say as I recall seeing her. Islain, however, was. As you know. Just as I know she called you from my bedroom to get here." She smiled. "But that is your story to tell, not mine." Meaning that far be it from her to tell anyone that the two were on speaking terms. "I will risk getting word to Arden, as Islain's position here is somewhat precarious at the moment, and I always have a business excuse to hassle Julian." Larissa's lips twitched, though any budding smile was quickly snipped. "I'll watch my antecedents in the future." She took a longer drink. "Julian needs to know, regardless, and he'll have a way to contact Llewella. And," she gazed levelly at Petra over the edge of her glass, "I trust Caine will find out. There will be plenty of opportunity to pass it on to the others--though I'm tempted not to tell Damien." Petra didn't bother to hide the sneering curl of her lip at the mention of Damien's name. "If you must," she said distastefully. "But he won't be prancing onto my list." She took a long sip, as if the mere mention of the man had left a bad taste in her mouth, before continuing. "I am certain Julian will contact Caine. Which is just as well; the handful of Trumps I was given upon my arrival had a shocking lack of rebel leaders." "Mmm," Larissa said into her glass. "Mandor will actually be on our side, for once. I have no idea how that will play out." She finished her wine and refilled the glass, offering to top Petra's off with a slight shake of the bottle. "The Deigans had a curse...it went, 'May you live in interesting times.'" "Really? It is a Venecian curse where I come from," Petra responded as she held out her glass. "Based on my information, I believe that part of the reason Helgram is set to destroy the Pattern and all its manifestations is because they feel Jurt and Mandor made an mistake by not destroying the place when they got here, and it embarrasses them. Allowing Helgram leave to do this serves two purposes; it punishes Mandor-and his House, and permanently gets rid of this pole of Reality. Even if it doesn't destroy it and take all of Shadow with it, it will be nothing more then another place they can ignore, of no importance to Chaos, and Mandor will have lost his power base. So Mandor has two very good reasons to make sure this plan fails." Petra leaned forward, one elbow resting on her knee and her glass dangling from her hand. She smiled a Mona Lisa smile. "And I want to be the one that tells him." Larissa's answering smile was a wicked one. "I wouldn't dream of depriving you of the pleasure...at least partly because I don't think I could resist doing a mocking little dance after I told him." Petra laughed; an honest and delightful laugh. "Oh, I do like you. Pity it took un catastrofico to find that out, si?" "It will get worse before it gets better," Larissa said, but she was still smiling. "But I have you now!" Petra claimed with a broad smile. "Oh. In the 'worse' column: you and several members of your staff are being called to testify at Johann's show trial tomorrow. It begins at dawn." She grimaced. "I would have preferred to sleep tonight, really, I would." "Dawn?" Petra groaned. "We don't even dock until dawn. Who do you need? And whose idea was this atrocious time, so that I may know whose grave to dance on." "Add it to Mandor's tab," Larissa told her. "I've subpoenaed Goran, Vincenzo, the lad who drove the carriage, Dawn, and the three who were on the deck with you and Vincenzo -- two women and a man." "You want Ramon on the stand?" Petra looked amusedly dubious. "I will speak to him before hand and make sure he understands that you do not need his usually colorful narrative. Vincenzo is not going to be happy about pulling that many of the staff away before the passengers are gone, but fortunately, his damnable dedication means that most of the staff can double as security and we can leave at the last possible moment, assuming you will call me right before the trial begins and can bring us all through at that time. Also fortuntely, he likes you, so he won't grumble too long." "Small mercies," Larissa said. "The entire thing is a farce, so I don't know that any of your people will even end up having to testify. But I'm in a terrible mood and it's making me petty, so if I have to be awake and in Court dress at dawn, so does everyone else." She sipped her wine. "Portia, Alex, Ramon, Vincenzo, Goran, are not a problem. Allegra was on deck for the very beginning. But once the action started, Vincenzo shoved her inside. I am not certain who you mean by the lad who drove the carriage. The one that Vikund commandeered to transport Johann?" Her look turned sour. "You may need to speak with Vikund about Dawn. She resigned as soon as she returned from dealing with Johann, and her first loyalty has always been to him, not me. Alex escorted her from the ship. I will send him to see if she is where he left her and let her know." "Yes, the driver of the carriage that took Johann away," Larissa confirmed. "And if Alex can't find Dawn, I can contact her through Vikund." "Alex was the driver, so you can kill two birds with the one stone. I'll let you know if we are unable to contact the girl," Petra replied testily, taping her fingernail against the rim of her glass. The whole thing with Dawn still had her quite vexed. "We've been pretty convinced that if he got a trial all at, it was going to be just for show." She sighed. "What a mess. But since you seem to be the Defense in this, and just in case it does happen, there is something you should know. There's no way it won't be brought up. "Johann found one of my staff when they were on vacation in Shadow after he left Amber. I knew about that. But what we didn't know until this morning, was that Johann had discussed with her his plans to off Mandor while Mandor was on board the Queen at some point in the future. He implanted suggestions. Then he messed with her head so she wouldn't remember it until the suggestions were triggered. Vikund inadvertently triggered the breaking of the memory block when he was questioning her this morning about why Johann would have a Trump sketch of her." Larissa groaned. "First, the boy tries to burn down the waterfront. Now you tell me this? Was he trying to fail?" She took a drink that was something less than a gulp, but still more of a mouthful than the wine deserved. "No one could blame me for letting him hang," she muttered. "I certainly would not," Petra replied tartly. "He was going to use her as a shield to get past security. It would have pained him to do so, but Vincenzo would have killed her if he had to in order to bring Johann down to keep anyone else from being in danger. Johann would have been a pin cushion moments after the signal was given, and I promise you, he could have bled to death on my carpets and I wouldn't have lifted a finger. Any good will I may have had lingering for him was destroyed with Ornella's tale this morning. Blood relative he may be, but the people on that ship are Family. "Don't get me wrong, Johann was very obviously set up. Once the bullets from the guns pointed straight at an unmoving, and unsurprised, Mandor impacted towards my ship, and the staged crime of passion occurred, it was obvious even to Lily that it was a setup. But he endangered my people this morning, and the staff that was watching the dock clean up this afternoon reported that bodies were being removed from the rubble. Innocent people going about their lives were burned to death, Larissa. It's a horrible way to die. No one deserves it. I know you did what you could, as soon as you could, but people still died." "On that note, I would very much appreciate it if you could dig a couple of the bullets out of the Queen and pass them on to me, after Vincenzo has satisfied himself," Larissa said. Petra took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I think he should pay for the crimes of which he is guilty, and no more. But now that they have him, they aren't going to let him go. I'm surprised he hasn't met with a tragic 'accident' already." "Mandor is not a kind man," Larissa said darkly. "I suspect Johann has already paid far in excess of any debt he owes -- or owed. I'm not convinced he's still alive, though I intend to satisfy myself on that score soon." "Si," Petra agreed grimly. "I will be surprised if he is still breathing. Gino's odds are running 94 to 1 in favor of additional damage having been done to him since his incarceration. Speculation on what kind of damage was very short. They do not wish to think about it too long. "I will see about collecting your bullets. Vincenzo is sure to have thought of that even if I did not. Then again, he is used to dealing with firearms, and I tend to avoid them for more then skeets." She drained her glass and set it aside. "I have to get back soon, so I believe I shall go play coy with Mandor now. Sadly, it may be the high point of my entire day." Petra stood and smoothed the front of her skirt. "If our cousin manages to escape by death or desperation, please let me know. My security chief is going to be snippy about having to leave his post, and I hate it when Vincenzo gets snippy." "I shall keep you in the loop. Thank you for the information, and the wine...though the latter was more welcome." Larissa half-smiled. "Since I'm not speaking to Islain, I would have no way to know that she has already headed to see Mandor, about 15 minutes ago, and may still be with him." The corner of Petra's mouth quirked up. "I'll be sure and do at least one dance step in your honor. Good luck, Larissa, and ... you know where to find me. Don't be a stranger." With a parting smile, Petra showed herself out and hunted down someone to show her where to find Mandor.
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