The Seduction of Chadwick: Behind the ThroneLarissa, wearing her usual black and seated to the left of the dais, seemed to be taking notes with an incongruous ballpoint pen, though if one were to circle behind her, it would reveal a sheet covered in intricate exploded diagrams of clockwork parts, and equations in a language that was not Thari. As the long discussion went on, and on, and on, Morgan slowly eased back against a wall, and then subtly began working his way around the throne room towards the side where Larissa sat. Using the hand away from Flora, and using his body to shield the motion from his aunt, he waved his fingers, trying to catch Larissa's attention. Once she noticed him, he pointed towards the door behind the throne room, and made a pouring motion with his hand. It took Morgan a few tries before Larissa, intent on her "notes," noticed him and looked up. She scowled at the interruption, but glanced at her wristwatch--an unfashionable accessory which she wore with sanguine disregard for the opinions of people willing to root around in their pockets when they wanted to check the time--and her eyes widened. She caught Morgan's gaze and nodded enthusiastic approval. With patience, skill, and no small amount of motivation in the continued speechifying of Flora's contingent, the two slowly worked their way around the perimeter of the Throne Room, at last arriving at the door to their refuge and piling through with greatly revived spirits. Behind the throne in the Great Hall of Amber, there was a small private room. Originally this had been no more than a small chamber used for assuming and later doffing the heavy robes of state, so that the king would not have to drag them across the castle before making his magnificent appearance. Merlin had, inevitably, ensured that it was reordered as a convivial little room where he could slip away from the arduous work of the throne room and revive himself with a drink - or several. Over the years, the room itself, with its wood panelling, had been so redolent of aromatic smoke and alcoholic fumes that those allowed entrance (Merlin's select few friends) could have the strange fancy they were conducting business within an unusually shaped brandy cask ... Great leather armchairs stood around the fire, and a pan stood ready for mulled wine to be heated (with all its attendant spices), when Merlin should be finished with the business of Court. "Merlin's going to be furious we abandoned him," Larissa said as she perused the bottles, seeming somewhat less than terrified at the prospect of the King's disapproval. "No, no, no," Morgan said, as he produced two brandy snifters and selected a bottle. "We have not abandoned him. We have gone ahead to prepare the way, pathfinding, as it were." He poured a hefty shot in one of the glasses, considered it, and then doubled it. He held the bottle over the other glass and looked at Larissa inquiringly. "Ah yes," said Larissa with a chuckle. "I shall brave the perils of an overstuffed armchair and glass of brandy" she held her thumb and forefinger a few inches apart to indicate how much Morgan should pour, "that my sovereign might be spared." She contemplated the mulling pan, sniffed one of the spice jars. "Should we bother? I think he's going to skip straight to the hard stuff tonight. Flora's on quite a stylish, color-coordinated rampage." Morgan poured the brandy and handed the snifter to her, and regarded the mulling pan with disfavor. "I still think it's worthwhile to get one of those clockmakers to try to make one of these things automatic. There's got to be some way to make it work." "Simple enough to design a mechanism that upends everything into the pan, but I wouldn't trust clockwork to uncork a wine bottle, or be able to pull something off the fire before it scorched," Larissa said, as she uncorked a bottle and upended ingredients herself. Morgan sighed. "I have a theory it's all about the observer effect," he said, settling down in a comfortable chair and taking a sip of brandy. He sighed again, but this time it was a contented sigh. He gestured expansively with the glass. "Chaos is built on solipsism. It's all about the individual, and the way will affects reality. So there always has to be an intelligence involved, or else things start to degrade. So machines only work when you're watching them. And physical laws that are too small to see get sort of..." he trailed off and took another sip. "I was going somewhere with that," he said. "I don't think that's entirely far-fetched," Larissa said, swirling the liquor around her own glass. "Initiates of one of the Great Powers do warp things around them. When using Pattern to find a Shadow, the Shadow is always--well, usually--what one is looking for...but the things one didn't think to specify can be immensely strange. So if Dworkin wasn't thinking about, say, steam power when he drew the Pattern, there's no reason it would work in Amber...the probabilities fall where they like when not attended to. "And think about it," Larissa continued, warming to her topic. "If the Pattern, and thus Amber, was to be the epitome of Order in the universe, it would make sense for it to be constant and simple. No social change, no technological change, no quantum effects or wild explosions of gunpowder or nuclear bombs, no complexities of time dilation or spacetime interval--oh, space it, I've just depressed myself," she said, falling back into the comforting, if leather-clad, embrace of the armchair. Morgan made a rude sound with his lips. "At least if you get bored you can wander off to some place with a final frontier. Think about poor me, stuck in Medieval-land unless a cousin feels like visiting someplace more interesting and takes me along." "If you really cared, you'd have learned Sorcery or Trump by now," Larissa said, not entirely unsympathetically. "There's still a Pattern out there, Morgan," she said softly. "And nothing stays lost forever." Morgan grinned at her over the brandy glass. "And we've got forever to find it. Right. Don't worry about me, cuz, I'm not about to start getting broody." He finished off the glass and stared at it in surprise. "How did that get empty so fast?" he asked. He made grasping gestures towards the bottle, which was closer to Larissa than to him. He was clearly not prepared to get out of his comfortable chair to get it. "Because you're trying to make your liver as hard as your head," Larissa said with a snort, nudging the bottle to within Morgan's reach. "That's all right, then," Morgan said complacently, seizing the bottle and pouring. "I thought the glass might have been a Chaosi spy, drinking my brandy while shapechanged into a glass. They do that, you know." "Lousy sort of a spy, drinking his camouflage like that," Larissa said, deadpan. He looked towards the door. "How long do you think it will be before his maj figures out a way out of Auntie Flora's torture session?" "Any minute now, I should think," Larissa said into her glass. "He applies himself at nothing so hard as he does at cocking about." "Toss me another brandy glass, will you? I want to have it ready and to hand when the hardworking monarch of all his brother surveys arrives." Larissa made a long arm and tipped a glass off the shelf and into her hand. She passed it to Morgan. "Did he give any hint to you as to what he wanted to do tonight? I've no interest in being used as a human shield in another bar fight. It ruined my blouse and I barked my knuckles on the bastard's teeth." She diplayed a beringed hand that showed no sign of having been hard used. Morgan chuckled. "Good times," he said fondly. Then he shook his head, "No, I haven't a clue what he wants to do. And even if we'd discussed it, several hours of Flora probably changed his mind. I wouldn't wear my good blouse tonight, if I were you. He's gonna want to hit something. Or, at least, watch us hit something." "I'm respectable. Stop dragging me to seedy bars where I end up having to beat seedy men with barstools covered in sticky residue," Larissa complained to her brandy. Morgan raised his hand to cover his mouth, and lowered his head, but the sound that came from behind his hand sounded suspiciously like snickering. "Re. Spectable," Larissa insisted, presenting her glass for a refill. "I only go along to keep Merlin from getting hurt. Purely a matter of familial obligation." She checked to see if Morgan was buying it. "You are so full of it," Morgan said as he poured. "The only respectable member of this whole family is Chadwick. And that's only because his mother is determined to keep him her sweet widdle baby-waby." "I'm more respectable than you," Larissa muttered. Morgan only smirked in response to that. She shook her head. "Chad worries me. That box of perpetual innocence Flora welded him into may be the creepiest thing I've ever seen out of a member of this family--and Brand scoped me out as a potential blood source a few years after I got here." Morgan took a long drink at the mention of his mother's co-murderer. Then, swirling the remaining brandy around in the glass, he said, "I don't know what she thinks she doing, but that boy is going to end up the most screwed-up member of this whole screwed-up family. Some day we're going to find a huge wooden chest full of bloody, mutilated teddy bears, one of them still alive and able to gasp out, 'It...was... Chaddy...' before it expires from the hideous torment it has suffered. And then there will be a long hide-and-seek chase through the castle, with Chad carrying a bloody hatchet, brightly colored and with little plastic feathers on the end, leaving a trail of dead maidservants, on each one of whom he has placed a mask of Flora...." Larissa slammed her drink onto the side table and bent double to smother her peals of laughter in the folds of her skirt, so they couldn't escape into the Great Hall beyond. "Morgan...you..." she said breathlessly between spasms, before giving up and simply quaking. Morgan smiled and sipped his brandy. Some time later, she straightened, still chuckling but no longer incapacitated by laughter. "I only laughed so hard because I could picture it happening," she said ruefully, wiping a tear from her eye. "Yeah, I know. He's gonna have to break loose from her someday, and the longer it takes the uglier it's gonna be when it happens." Morgan shook his head. "If this had happened to a relative back in the Nebula I would have kidnapped him off the planet and taken him to some world with a first-class brothel, and not brought him home till he was good and free of Mama's apron strings." "If you're trying to get me to suggest what I know you're thinking so you can blame it on me when Flora goes on the warpath...nice try." Though the vintage deserved better, Larissa knocked back her second glass of brandy. She looked sidelong at Morgan. "Merlin will go for it, after what Flora put him through today." Morgan looked at her with an innocent expression. "Why, whatever do you mean...?" Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh!" he said. "I get it! Yeah, that's a great suggestion, all right." "You are the criminal mastermind in the family," Larissa agreed amiably. "It's good to be appreciated," Morgan said At this point, the door swung open, and Merlin stalked in, looking murderous. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, glowering at his cousins. "Traitors," he said evenly. "Lily-livered, whey-faced cowards." Morgan was on his feet before the door finished closing, extending a glass of brandy to his cousin. "Here," he said. "You look like you need this. And you should hear the plan Larissa came up with; it's absolutely guaranteed to make Flora furious, while doing a vital service for a poor, oppressed cousin." Larissa didn't stir from her seat, and in fact folded her feet up underneath her, leaving a pair of most uncourtly tennis shoes on the floor in front of her chair. "Morgan is too kind. The brilliance was all his. I am merely his awed pupil in the art of chicanery." Merlin strode forward and threw himself with considerable force onto the sofa in front of the fire without relinquishing the brandy - or spilling a drop. Then he tilted his head back and didn't so much drink the brandy as pour it into himself. It was entirely possible that he had subtly shifted to ensure the alcohol hit the blood as quickly as possible. Then he sat up and held his glass for a refill. "The only poor oppressed person around here is me," he said. "And if your idea of revenge doesn't involve demonkind unleashed, I'm not interested." "Well," Morgan drawled as he poured, "Inner demons, at least. We were discussing Auntie Flora, and trying to develop a plan to get you out of her clutches, when Larissa mentioned how sorry she was for Chadwick, and how concerned she was about him. One thing led to another, and we started wondering if it might not be about time to teach him about the difference between little boys and little girls." "And it occurred to us that we have a cousin in a position to ease him along the path to adulthood in a style befitting his rank." Larissa had switched to mulled wine and was sipping it from a tumbler cradled in both hands. "We also thought you wouldn't object to spending a night cruising the harbor with congenial company after your brave stand at the Battle of the Ambassadors' Wing." Merlin accepted the glass from Morgan, his lips curling up into a smile. "I'm starting to like the sound of this plan. Are we planning for a short decisive battle here, or a deliciously long campaign, where we advance foot by decadent foot?" Morgan shook his head. "While the latter sounds like it would be the most fun, I don't think we can count on Princess Tight-@ss remaining oblivious that long. And once she figures out what we're doing she'll haul the poor boy back to the land of happy-happy fluffy-poo and lock him up there for the next hundred years. No, I think we need to plan on getting our hands on him, getting him to the Queen, and getting him laid before Flora even knows he's gone. It's our duty to the boy, a responsibility to him a his cousins, a..." he gestured with the brandy glass, almost but not quite sloshing some over the rim, "...a sacred trust!" he finished grandly. "I can think of no possible way this could ever go horribly awry," Larissa said dryly. "Well," said Merlin thoughtfully, "I don't see how it could. Not with you issuing the invitation, Rissa. He regarded her limpidly. "After all, Morgan or *I* could hardly ask him, could we?" "It's true, you both lack the guile," Larissa said, thoughtfully. "The trick will be peeling him off Flora without her suspecting anything until it's too late. Chad himself would walk into the dragon's lair if you told him there was a kitten in there." "And we need to be sure the right little pussy is waiting for him once he gets there," Morgan smirked. Lacking anything convenient to throw at Morgan, Larissa continued her musing. "Chadwick and I have a great deal of common ground on social justice issues, even though his views want for, er...nuance. He would likely accept a dinner invitation from me to meet somewhere respectable in Clifftop...though if Flora isn't too busy plotting her revenge and invites herself along, someone else will have to distract her. I'm sure you can manufacture a domestic crisis, Merlin? Spoil the supper roast, have the laundry ruin a few of Flora's gowns, that sort of thing? "Then, Chad and I run into you two, oh-so-coincidentally, and, delighted at the serendipity, you invite the two of us along on your evening plans, we three overrun Chadwick's objections, and we Trump to the Queen." Larissa finished her wine. "What say you, gentlemen?" "If you weren't my cousin I'd marry you," Morgan answered. He finished off the brandy remaining in his glass, then poured cold water into the glass from a shining silver container. "What do you think, your kingliness? Have we got a plan?" Larissa blew him a kiss. Merlin gave his sleepiest smile. "We have a plan. I'll handle the domestic crisis. And the restaurant should be the Fille Mal Gardée - they do things with truffles there that would make a pig weep. And the wine isn't bad either." "Then to the fray," Larissa said, rising. "I have prep work--a runner to the restaurant and another to Chadwick, and I have to change out of this dress lest the smell of smoke and brandy give me away. Morgan, you should reserve a table for the two of you separately to camouflage our complicity--or just show up; it would be in character for our liege, here." She looked at the liege in question. "Merlin, please let me know when you've set the fox amongst the chickens, so I can get to Chad unnoticed. "Oh, and someone who's not busy should warn Petra, or we all might end up swimming." She retrieved her shoes, but did not put them on, and made for the door. Morgan took a long drink of the water. "I'll make the reservations at the Mal Gardée. Merl, do you want to let Petra know that we're dropping by with a tender morsel, or do you want me to do it?" "You can," said Merlin indolently. "She promised me a special treat next time I called in - and I'm willing to give her ample time to prepare it." He waved a hand in airy dismissal to Larissa, too. Morgan tossed off the rest of his water in a single gulp, then set the glass down. "Then I'm off to fulfill the royal will," he said cheerfully. "Riss, I'll walk you out." Larissa ruffled Merlin's hair in passing, and slipped out the door before he could object too strongly. She peeked out past the tapestries that hid the door from the Great Hall to ensure that the coast was clear, and gestured for Morgan to join her. "Do we have clear flying out of here?" he whispered to her, trying to peek over her shoulder. "Here to the heliopause," she said automatically, in an old Trader expression that lost something in the translation to Thari. "At least, I don't see Flora or any of her coterie." "Well, we've got the Sun of Royalty at our back," he answed. "So spread the solar sails and let's get the mission underway." He pulled back the curtain and held it for her. "He must be a brown dwarf," Larissa said. She started across the Throne Room. "The saying originated from long-haul ships in interstellar space--between them and the heliopause there was nothing but free hydrogen and a few photons." Larissa looked back over her shoulder at her cousin the space pirate. "Space travel is dull when you haven't got faster than light drives." Morgan shuddered. "No wonder you were an honest trader," he said. "What's the point of space being so big if it takes you that long to get anywhere?" He waited for her to open the great doors to the throne room. "My people didn't tend to take much of a teleological perspective on the matter," Larissa said, and cracked the doors slightly to check for rampaging aunts without. "The distance isn't all bad. Keeps wars and collapses small and local. All right, clear." And indeed it was - the pair could make their escape unnoticed. "Right, then," he said. "If we want to be able to maintain deniability we shouldn't be seen together once we leave here. Let's split up, and I'll see you when we accidentally run into each other at the restaurant." "Clear skies, Captain," she said with a grin, and headed for her rooms, skirts swishing and sneakers dangling from her hand. After arriving at her chambers uneventfully one, Larissa dropped her shoes by the door as she made for the bedroom. She stepped out of her court dress, which crumpled into a pile before being kicked unceremoniously to join a larger pile consisting of a pair of boots, yesterday's court dress, and various unmentionables with pictures of rocket ships or cartoon ducks on them, all awaiting the day when Larissa would allow a servant in to pick them up--probably around the time the pile became unstable enough to topple into the right-of-way from the bed to the door, or she ran out of dresses. She continued through to the bathroom, where she filled the sink while removing her wristwatch and pulling pins out of her elaborate coif. In an unregal fashion that would doubtless have given her sister palpitations, Larissa submerged her entire head, dripped everywhere, groped blindly for the soap and gave her hair a scrub, and concluded by dunking her head again and shaking by way of a rinse. Wringing her hair in a towel, Larissa padded into her office, converted from what the designers had intended as a dressing room, where she retrived a lap desk from underneath a pile of broadsheets, and returned to the sitting room to perch in the windowseat, wearing lingerie, a towel, and an elegant mahogany writing surface. She considered briefly, then began to write in an angular hand. "Dear cousin, It occurred to me this afternoon while watching your presentation before the King that I have not had the pleasure of your company since last Fete Night. This is an oversight I could not but seek to remedy. If you have no other commitment for this evening, I would be delighted to have you as my guest for evenmeal at Fille Mal Gardée, at Kingswalk and Marblehead in the Clifftop Ward, at seven o'clock. Your loving cousin, She paused and regarded her work, then added a PS of slightly sloppier penmanship. "Do say yes, Chad. I'm considering making some improvements in the educational system in Whitecliff, and I would love to have your input. -L" She wrote a second note requesting a table for two at the aforementioned restaurant, sealed it, and remembered to don a robe before summoning a page to deliver her dinner reservation. The wheels set in motion, Larissa spread her hair out to dry in the afternoon sun that painted her sitting room in golds and eventually reds every day, falling lightly on heaps of discarded clothing and various unidentifiable machine parts. Waiting for Merlin's messenger or his Trump call, she dozed in the soft light, thinking of clockwork and plots.
Morgan grinned back and snapped her a salute, then headed towards the stables. On his way he found a page and ordered him to have a message sent to Fille Mal Gardée, letting them know that the king and a guest would be dining there that night. In the stables Morgan discussed which of the horses would be best for a trip into the city today, mixed in with some quiet joking and gossip with the grooms. The servants of Castle Amber had long since learned that Morgan consistently treated staff more as junior crewmembers than servants, and only the most stiff-necked and rigid of them seemed to object. Morgan had taken to horse riding with enthusiasm, and over the decades had more than made up for the lack of training in his youth. Today, after consultation with the grooms, he chose a chestnut mare called "Joy," who was noted for her calmness in crowds, and was due for some exercise. With a nudge of his ankles he urged her out of the stables, and then with a whoop he stood in the stirrups and slapped her flank with the reins, galloping her down the great stairs towards the city, and the distant private dock of the Ramblin' Queen. He let the sound of her hooves and his shouts warn anyone in the way that a noble of Amber was coming through, and not planning on stopping for anyone or anything. And people were happy - well, he could hope so - to leap out of the way of Joy's hooves, all the way down to the harbour - by which point he had built up a nice head of steam ... It was then that he saw, ahead of him, Mandor's personal carriage drawing up beside the gangplank to The Ramblin' Queen. "Hooooo!" he shouted as Joy closed on the carriage. With a wicked grin he kicked his heels into her flanks....
Chad was walking to his mother's room, (she'd sent him for a set of gloves), when the messenger caught up with him. He read it, as he set to opening her door, the messenger standing by. "Good heavens... an invitation." He was shocked. He quickly wrote the response on his mother's paper: I look forward to seeing you for dinner, barring any pressing duties. Thank you, The messenger bowed in response, and headed back to Larissa's chamber, leaving Chadwick to deliver the gloves.
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