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"How long ago did all this happen?" I asked.
"Mm. Thirty-four days," he replied. "That was when Random showed up. A week later, Vialle made her request."
"She must be a strange woman, If she really loves Random,"
"Those were my sentiments," he replied. "I can't think of a more unusual combination."
"If you should get to see him again, give him my regards and my regrets."
"Yes."
"How fare my sisters?"
"Dierdre and LIewella remain in Rebma. The Lady Florimel has been enjoying Eric's favors and stands high in the present court. I do not know where Fiona is presently."
"Has anything more been heard of Bleys? I am sure that he died."
"He must have died," said Rein, "His body was never recovered, though."
"What of Benedict?"
"As absent as ever."
"How about Brand?"
"No word."
"Then I guess that covers the whole family tree, as it stands at present. Have you written any new ballads?"
"No," he said. "I'm still working on ‘The Siege of Amber,' but it will be an underground hit, if at all."
I reached my hand out through the tiny gate at the bottom of the door.
"I would clasp hands with thee," I said, and I felt his hand touch mine.
"It was good of thee to do this thing for me. Don't do it again, though. It would he foolish to risk Eric's wrath."
He squeezed my hand, muttered something, and was gone.
I found his CARE package and stuffed myself with the meat, which was the most perishable item. I ate a lot of the bread. to accompany it, and I realized that I had almost forgotten how good food can taste. Then I grew drowsy and slept. I don't think I slept very long, and when I awoke I opened one of the bottles of wine.
It didn't take as much as usual, in my weakened condition, to get me kind of high. I had a cigarette. sat down on my mattress, leaned back against the wall, and mused.
I remembered Rein as a child. I was already full grown by then and he was a candidate for court jester. A thin, wise kid. People had kidded him too much. Me included. But I wrote music, composed ballads, and he'd picked up a lute somewhere and had taught himself how to use it. Soon we were singing with voices together raised and all like that, and before long I took a liking to him and we worked together. practicing the martial arts. He was lousy at them. But I felt kind of sorry for the way I had treated him earlier, what with the way he had dug my stuff, so I forced the fake graces upon him and also made him a passable saber man. I'd never regretted it, and I guess he didn't either. Before long, he became minstrel to the court of Amber. I had called him my page all that while, and when the wars beckoned, against the dark things out of Shadow called Weirmonken, I made him my squire, and we had ridden off to the wars together. I knighted him upon the battlefield, at Jones Falls, and he had deserved it. After that, he had gone on to become my better when it came to the ways of words and music. His colors were crimson and his words were golden. I loved him, as one of my two or three friends in Amber. I didn't think he'd take the risk he had to bring me a decent meal, though. I didn't think anyone would. I had another drink and smoked another cigarette, in his name, to celebrate him. He was a good man. I wondered how long he would survive.
I threw all the butts into the head and also-eventually-the empty bottle. I didn't want anything around to show that I had been "enjoying" myself, should a sudden inspection be held. I ate all the good food he had brought me, and I felt surfeited for the first time since I had been in durance. I saved the last bottle for one massive spell of drunke
And after that time had passed, I returned to my cycle of recriminations.
I hoped, mainly, that Eric had no measure of our complete powers. He was king in Amber, granted, but he didn't know everything. Not yet. Not the way Dad had known. There was a million-in-one shot that might still work in my favor. So much so, and so different that at least it served to grant me my small purchase upon sanity, there in the grip of despair.
But maybe I did go mad for a time, I don't know. There are days that are great blanks to me now, as I stand here on the brink of Chaos. God knows what they held, and I'll never see a shrink to find out.
There are none of you, good doctors, could cope with my family, anyway.
I lay there and I paced there, within the numbing darkness. I grew quite sensitive to sounds. I listened to the scurry of rats' feet through straw, the distant moaning of other prisoners, the echoes of a guard's footsteps as he approached with a tray of food. I began estimating distances and direction from things like this.
I suppose I became more sensitive to odors also, but I tried not to think about them too much. Aside from the imaginable nauseating ones there was, for a long while, what I would swear to be the odor of decaying flesh. I wondered, if I were to die, how long would it be before someone took notice? How many chunks of bread and bowls of slop would go uneaten before the guard thought to check within after my continued existence?
The answer to that one could be very important.
The death odor was around for a long while. I tried to think in terms of time again, and it seemed that it persisted for over a week.
Though I rationed myself carefully, resisting the compulsion, the handy temptation, for as long as I could, I finally found myself down to my final pack of cigarettes.
I tore it open and lit one. I had had a carton of Salems and I had smoked eleven packs. That was two hundred and twenty cigarettes. I had once timed myself with one, and it had taken me seven minutes to smoke it. That made for a total of one thousand five hundred and forty minutes spent smoking, or twenty-five hours and forty minutes. I was sure I had spent at least an hour between cigarettes, more like an hour and a half. Say an hour and a half. Now figure that I was sleeping six to eight hours per day. That left sixteen to eighteen waking hours. I guessed I was smoking ten or twelve per day. So that meant maybe three weeks had passed since Rein's visit. He had told me it was four months and ten days since the coronation, which meant that it was now around five months.
I nursed my last pack, enjoying each one like a love affair. When they were all gone, I felt depressed.
Then a lot more time must have passed.
I got to wondering about Eric. How was he making out as liege? What problems was he encountering? What was he up to right now? Why hadn't he been around to torment me? Could I ever truly be forgotten in Amber, even by imperial decree? Never, I decided.
And what of my brothers? Why had none of them contacted me? It would be so easy to draw forth my Trump and break Eric's decree. None did, though.
I thought for a long while upon Moire, the last woman I had loved. What was she doing? Did she think of me ever? Probably not. Maybe she was Eric's mistress by now, or his queen. Did she ever speak to him of me? Again. probably not.
And what of my sisters? Forget it. Bitches all, they.
I had been blinded once before, by a ca
I moaned softly and continued to pace.
There was absolutely nothing I could do. That was the most horrible part of the whole thing. I was as helpless as an embryo. To be born again into sight and fury was a thing for which I would give my soul. Even for an hour, with a blade in my band, to duel once again with my brother.