I grinned. “Come over and meet her, Walter.”
He had ice and snow in his beard and hair and, with a broad smile, stuck out a sopping mitten. “Hullo!”
“Ulrike, this snow-covered abomination is your brother Walter, which you might not be able to descry,” Prospero said drily. “Walter, Ulrike, your younger sister.”
Walter stared at Prospero, at me, at Ulrike, dumbstruck. That was something, indeed. Ulrike stared up at him. “Is Gaston back?” he asked Prospero finally, and suddenly took off his mitten and extended his ruddy hand to her, smiling warmly. She took it shyly and he kissed her on both cheeks. Ulrike blushed again and ducked her head.
“No,” I answered.
“How …” Walter gestured and looked from me to Prospero and back.
“A long story,” Prospero said, “and ’tis a short wintry day.”
“I am a poor host indeed,” exclaimed my brother, and shepherded us into his house, which was full of children in theatrical costumes, including a three-part purple dragon, and musicians tuning up and madrigal singers rehearsing and wonderful cooking smells and people moving furniture around and wistful accordion music. Walter explained over his shoulder something about the grammar school theatre, old friends from out of town, and a dance, most of which was drowned in the general racket. The second floor had a ceilidh warming up. We climbed to the third floor, which was relatively peaceful (a harpsichord player was feeling his way through formal dances), and Walter closeted us in a sunny room with flowering plants in the windows, a fire in the stove, and overstuffed furniture arrayed in conversational groups.
Ulrike was overwhelmed.
Walter grinned at her happily. The more the merrier, is his philosophy. “Let me take your cloak,” he offered, and lifted it neatly off her shoulders. He laid it on top of his own, a beautiful new one in shades of brown and touches of green—unquestionably Shaoll’s New Year’s gift to him, given a day or so early. He went on, “Pray be seated. A bite? A drink? Lunch!”
“We breakfasted not long ago,” I said. “Let us toast the Old Year.”
He rang for a servant and sent for wine. “Now,” he said, “I would hear this tale.” He sat down across from Ulrike, brushing the melting snow from his hair and beard carelessly.
She didn’t quite know how to start. “You mean, who I am?” she said.
“Heavens! Yes! And where is Gaston if you are here, and where has he been, and where have you been all this time, and why didn’t anyone know!” he exclaimed.
She looked around at me. “I did tell Gwydion last night …”
“Walter is a bard, as Gaston may have mentioned,” I said. “Let him hear it from your own lips. He’ll pass the news to the rest of the family.”
“Walter’s news service and hotel,” he agreed with a chuckle. “Famous from Here to There and Back.”
The servingwoman returned with two bottles of dark ruddy-brown wine—Corydol—and glasses.
“Aaaaah,” said Prospero, smiling in his beard, and he nudged the cork from one and poured.
“Gaston’s favorite,” I said, sniffing. Walter must have opened a few bottles, decanted and breathed them, for the day’s libations.
We inhaled appreciatively for a few moments.
“That was a good year,” Walter said, eyes closed, his smile fading. “I remember that summer. Gaston kept saying it couldn’t last. Perfect weather. It lasted and lasted and lasted. He was beside himself when picking began. Just enough sun, rain, and fog. We knew it would be good. And it has only gotten better.”
“Someday it will lose the edge,” I said.
“And we’ll lose that summer. So let us enjoy it now, while we may.” My brother rose. “The Old Year.”
“The Old Year,” and we drank. My nose and taste buds performed a happy sensory duet.
Walter swallowed. “And may the New be dragon-free. Now, madame. I plague you once more, having allowed you to organize your thoughts and whet your palate with the very finest wine in Landuc or Argylle or between.”
She smiled tentatively. “I wish Father were here. He could probably explain things better than I. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you. I am sorry—”
“Young lady,” Walter said gravely, “never apologize for your existence. Continue.”
“But it seems to be such a shock. I wish I knew more. But Father never told me.” She looked around at Prospero, standing by the white-tiled stove. I had sat on the arm of the sofa Walter was on. “He said that I would learn what I needed to know in time. He told me of the history of Argylle, how it was made,” and she looked quickly at Prospero, “the two terrible wars and why they happened, and how Mother shaped it. And he told me of Landuc …” She paused.
“Where did you live?” Walter asked gently.
“In a fortress, Fenshuyan, in the Wenshay mountains. There is always war there, one petty noble against another, but Father keeps peace in the lands he holds. It is always wet and misty there; everything is very green in summer, very snowy in winter. Fenshuyan is a pass, and travellers come through, many because they hear that Father does not rob people and that the roads that he commands are safe.” This sounded very like Gaston. “But I never saw much of them; I stayed away. Nanna and Father did not like me to talk to people, or even to see people much. I have never seen anything like this place,” Ulrike said, looking around.
“It is New Year’s,” Walter said. “What did you do in this fortress?”
Ulrike thought and said, slowly, “When Father was there he would teach me, and when he was not Nanna taught me or I played. He brought me books. We would fence—”
Walter grinned.
“—or ride together in the summer. And I played with my dolls that Nanna made, and my kitten. Nanna taught me to weave and sew. In the winter there was not much to do but fence and read and sew. That was what I did.”
“No music?”
Ulrike nodded, wide-eyed, eager to please. “Oh yes! He taught me the notes and the fingering on a harp, a lap-harp he gave me. Nanna taught me songs. Sometimes I would play and sing, but I preferred reading. I don’t care for fencing, but he said I must. And we’d play chess and turnstones too. I never liked those very much—”
Walter chuckled.
“What is funny?” she asked, confused.
“Gaston’s daughter disliking fencing and chess,” he said. Prospero laughed as well, and I smiled.
“Why is that funny?”
We looked at one another. “Why is that funny?” Walter repeated. “Good heavens, girl! Many would give their eyeteeth, and an eye too, to spend a few years playing chess with Gaston, just as they’d pledge their souls to study sorcery with Uncle Dewar.”
“Oh.”
“Gaston is modest,” murmured Walter. “So you lived in this place Fenshuyan with Gaston managing your education. And Nanna. Is Nanna your nurse?”
“Yes. She … three years ago she died, in the winter when it was so cold … I miss her.” Her childish face took on a look of sadness. “Father and I did more things together after that. He made me learn to use the bow.”
Gradually, Walter pulled out of her the tale of how she had been brought to Landuc and sent to Argylle, and he lifted his eyebrows when she said Gaston was left behind.
“Left behind?” repeated Walter.
She nodded. “He wasn’t there.”
“But home, to you, meant Fenshuyan.” Walter picked this up too.
“Yes, it was very odd. I do not know how it happened. I went from the Well to the front door here, in the Citadel, or just inside, but I didn’t know where I was. There were guards who were as startled as I. Then Gwydion came and talked to me and I understood where I had come.”
Walter looked around at me. “I suppose you have tried the obvious.”
“The obvious, and now I am onto the not-so-obvious,” I said.
He nodded and turned back to Ulrike. “So Gaston seems to be missing …”
“I don’t know …”
> He tipped his head to one side, lifting his eyebrows. “Isn’t he going to be worried when he gets home and you’re not there?”
She nodded. “I’m afraid he will be, yes, but—but couldn’t you use a spell to find him? Doesn’t magic just find people for you?” she said.
“It could, but Gaston has been hiding for years and still is,” I said. “We have tried Summoning him already.”
“You didn’t plan anything for when you had been to the Well,” persisted Walter.
Ulrike seemed puzzled. “I—No. I thought we would just go home. Has something happened to him?” She looked at me.
“No idea,” I said. “As I said, your story is the first certain indicator we have had that he was even alive.”
“Landuc,” Walter said.
“Possibly,” I replied. “I’ll sound Avril later, perhaps.”
“The Emperor?” she asked. “Surely he knows where Father is.” She looked from one to the other.
Prospero’s mouth twitched. Walter snorted. “Not necessarily,” I said. “Gaston is a private man, and he has never taken kindly to Imperial interest in his life beyond the duties he owes the Empire and Emperor.” Less than kindly.
“Hmph,” said Walter, drinking his wine. “So. Young lady, unless you care to set out to find Fenshuyan along the Road—wherever it is—you are here for now, and who knows where under the Sun Gaston is. He will turn up when he is ready.”
“People usually do,” I said, thinking of Mother and Dewar and Prospero, who all had that habit.
We spent the rest of the day at Walter’s house. I liked the noise and bustle; it kept me from sliding into the endless circle of my own thoughts about Freia and her death and what I could or should do about it. There was an elaborate buffet replenished continuously downstairs; we lunched off that, and Prospero, Walter, and I took turns introducing Ulrike.
“Gwydion,” Walter said to me as Prospero acquainted her with Hicha and a pair of Archive assistants, “Ulrike is a very ghost.”
“What?” I exclaimed, a little too loudly, and people glanced at us and away.
“She’s so like Mother … I admit the dress is much of it—Why is she wearing Mother’s gown?—but there’s something about her that’s purely Mother.”
“She looks like her,” I agreed, “and, well, she didn’t bring any luggage and needed something to wear.”
“Oh. I thought perhaps you were making a point of some kind …” He lifted his eyebrows.
I shook my head.
“Phew. Hah, there’s Shaoll’s brother—I have to talk to him,” Walter said, and began wading through the crowd toward one of the doors.
I watched Prospero and Ulrike. Yes, she did look like Mother, especially from here; and clearly she was giving people a turn, because they would start when they first saw her, stare a moment, and then smile. She was the hit of the day, despite her shyness and tongue-tied embarrassment at all the attention.
I was very, very startled when, as I was telling her in an undertone the names of three notable people—two painters and a bookbinder—who had just come in, a finger tapped on my shoulder and a familiar voice said softly, “The seated Lord of Argylle is famous for his fine taste in all things.”
Ulrike did not hear it, but she looked at me, surprised, as I spun around.
“Otto!” I exclaimed.
“Heya!” Ottaviano grinned as we clasped hands. He was cleanshaven now; it made him look very young. His eyes, blue and shrewd, flicked over me and Ulrike quickly.
“What brings you here?” I temporized, interposing myself between sister and cousin.
His grin was unabated. “I was invited. How could I be here otherwise?”
Ah. I guessed that Ottaviano had cannily touched Walter when the latter, normally distrustful of him, was in his most hospitable and benevolent frame of mind owing to the New Year, and Walter had impulsively invited him here. Doubtless he’d forgotten to mention this in his excitement over acquiring a younger sister. Under other circumstances, it might be diplomatic. Now it was awkward. “Good to see you again,” I said. We hadn’t met since that breakfast before I’d attacked Gemnamnon.
“It’s good to see you, too. Until I talked to Walter, I thought you might be a dragon’s kebab, spitted on your own lance and roasted in the flames from his muzzle. But Walter told me otherwise, in glorious and probably fictitious detail. You look sound enough.”
I smiled. “I should have told you the end of the tale, I guess. Walter did mention that I did not exactly come off unscathed.”
“Yes, he told me, and I understand Marfisa convalesces in eastern Madana … Anyway, cousin …” and Ottaviano glanced past me at Ulrike, smiling.
“Yes?” I said.
“They say you can’t hide the sun under a bushel basket.”
“They’re right. It would burn up.” Besides Otto’s sterling efforts to stay on Mother’s bad side over the years, he was presently an emissary of the Emperor. I had not thought beyond introducing Ulrike to our sisters and brothers and friends here in Argylle; was she ready for the Empire too?
“You could save me a lot of sleep,” he said, watching me.
I smiled. “What is it worth to you?”
Otto laughed. “Let’s see. What have I got? Nothing new on dragons, unfortunately. Hm. Might be able to give you a pointer toward a missing person.”
“Oh?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Interested? Of course, this is really a freebie on my part, isn’t it?”
I laughed.
“Murder will out,” he intoned, grinning.
I supposed he was right. I had not considered splashing Ulrike into the family so suddenly and abruptly, but I could not walk off and refuse to introduce her. For one thing, he would easily find out who she was from someone else—in fact, he probably knew already and was just angling for the introduction.
I cleared my throat as all this passed rapidly through my thoughts.
“Ulrike, this is Ottaviano, Baron of Ascolet. Ottaviano, allow me to introduce Ulrike …”
Ottaviano bowed gracefully.
“You are first and second cousins,” I said.
Otto nodded slowly, getting the point.
Ulrike blushed, finding his close examination disconcerting.
“Pleased to meet you, my lady,” he said less forcefully than he’d spoken to me.
“Thank you,” said she, barely over a whisper, and belatedly offered him her hand, “cousin.”
He smiled brilliantly, taking her hand and bowing again, catching and holding her gaze as he straightened, his smile fading slightly. “Cousin,” he said, “I am at your service.”
Ulrike looked down, up, and down again, clearly unsure what to say now. I thought “Hullo” would have been appropriate, at least, but she said nothing.
I cleared my throat once more and raised an eyebrow.
Otto released Ulrike’s hand; she had stopped blushing, which was an improvement.
“Ah,” he said, still looking at her. “I should caution you that this is not real recent news.”
“All right.” Worth what I paid for it, no doubt.
“When Dewar first disappeared,” he said, finally facing my gaze, “I was worried, as everyone was, that he was going to do something … outrageous. He … you know how he … But nothing happened. I wanted to get in touch with him, but he’s been making that difficult. So I settled on the simple expedient of leaving a note in his apartment in Landuc.”
“A note?”
“Right. I figured that eventually he’d drop in for one reason or another. I left it on his desk in plain sight, just a single sheet of paper with my message, and locked the door behind me. Fine. I checked it periodically and not long after I’d first put it there—less than half a year—it had been moved.”
I was skeptical. “How could you tell?”
He grinned foxily. “I had written it with lead pencil and broken the pencil as I wrote. Left the snapped-off tip on top of it.”
<
br /> “Ah.” Simple, but effective. “How do you know it wasn’t the charwoman?”
“They won’t touch his rooms.”
“Why?” I was taken aback.
“Afraid of the mad magician’s ghost or something. He’s got a wild reputation over there, you know. The place is a mess. He’s going to be furious. Probably is.”
I laughed and shook my head. Yes, it was old information, very old: I had had hard evidence of Dewar’s good health and good frame of mind personally on Longview. “I think that one was worth what I paid for it. But thanks. It means he was alive. Maybe he still is. The Wheel turns.”
Nodding, Otto smiled, oddly wistful. “We can hope. I miss the bastard. It’s too quiet without him.”
“Yes,” I agreed. They had been close friends. Why, I had never quite grasped; in many ways they were antithetical. But Dewar liked flirting with danger, playing with fire, and Otto was certainly that, treacherously unreliable. His position as second, natural son of the Emperor was insecure, and improving it must always be his first care. It was Otto who had unkindly pried into my parents’ lives and blazoned their marriage to the Emperor, which discovery had caused great difficulty for everyone. Otto had subsequently apologized to Mother and Gaston for the deed, blaming and excusing himself, but although Gaston had coolly accepted his repentance, Mother never did.
Ulrike had listened silently, clearly not understanding most of the conversation. Ottaviano turned to her with a smile. “But your word means little, Gwydion. Argylle’s dark lord keeps his secrets to himself.” He looked from her to me.
“So he does,” I concurred. “And so shall they be kept.”
We stared each other down.
“Does being a monarch always turn people into such hard-asses?” he asked.
“It requires one to think much,” I said.
“You always thought too much,” he said. “It’s well-known that’s dangerous.” He glanced at Ulrike again. “My lady, it is good to meet you, good to know I have another cousin.”
She smiled shyly and blushed rosy again, looking down, peeking up at him and then looking down again. She slipped her hand through my elbow.
The Well-Favored Man Page 19