The Well-Favored Man

by Elizabeth Willey

  … well, but he might, I thought, sitting up. I wasn’t his student any more. I was a colleague, a peer. My problems were mine and his were his. We happened to have a common area of concern just now in the problem of Freia’s ambiguous state.

  Nobody was going to hold my hand, I reminded myself. The Lord of Argylle had to come up with his own solutions.

  And an idea toward one of them came to me.

  I bounced up and went into my workroom, opened the curtains, and started a Lesser Summoning at a Mirror of Vision. I used the second-best one in case it broke, which seemed possible considering the power I was playing with this time.

  The flame rose up; the glass fogged; the Key was hot in my hands, almost unbearably hot. I concentrated and murmured the spell half-inaudibly.

  It took a long time, until “Gwydion …” I heard softly. “Gwydion?”

  “I have a question. You did say you’d answer questions.”

  “Answers of a sort, at least.” Freia’s voice became stronger. It seemed to come from behind me, not from the apparatus.

  I did not turn around. “None of that riddle crap, if you please.”

  “Dear.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said, embarrassed by my testiness. I had no reason to be rude to my mother.

  “You’re upset about something …” she prompted me. “Ulrike?”

  Why was she so worried about Ulrike? Ulrike was being feted and entertained by Alexander. “This dragon, Gemnamnon. Is he in your Dominion now? Or the Border?”

  She actually laughed, low and rich. “Oh, no. No, no, no. He won’t be back here, I don’t imagine. Don’t worry about him.”

  “Really?” I said, not believing it. “How? Why?”

  “I took care of him, dear. He has a lot of thinking to do. He’ll not be in Argylle any time soon, if ever.”

  “You took care of him? May the Lord of Argylle ask what you did?”

  “I sent him packing with a flea in his ear,” she said, not laughing now but audibly smiling. “He knows better than to return, the great bully.”

  “But what did you do, Mother?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she repeated, and her voice faded away from me rapidly with that phrase, so that the last word was more something I filled in than something I heard.

  “Freia!”

  The Mirror cracked as I yanked at the forces in the spell, and my sorcery came apart around me.

  I made a loud, rude, exasperated noise, and then I laughed at myself. How typical of rulers and sorcerers both, to get an answer and demand more than the oracle was ready to give. I had an answer, which was more than I had had half an hour ago. I had a reassuring answer at that.

  Quickly, while it was fresh in my mind, I transcribed the conversation in my notebook and then looked at it, considering the nuances. Mother, apparently, had expelled or pursued Gemnamnon from her Dominion, with a few tart words to speed him on his way.

  “Don’t worry about it.” She’d said that twice. But what had she done?

  Could I, should I just take this at face value and not worry about it? A dea ex machina solving my problem for me—

  I caught my breath, eyes widening, catching my own glance in the cracked looking-glass and staring at myself in the act of revelation. Had I seen Mother getting rid of Gemnamnon? Had that been a manifestation of hers there in the pass? The gryphon is our realm’s emblem, after all. A golden gryphon on blue is our flag. Why not conjure a gryphon to counter an enemy of Argylle? It made perfect, beautiful sense, and if I’d been doing something besides running in circles lately I might even have guessed it myself, knowing what I did. Could Mother, controlling all the power of the Spring as she did, project or invent or create a gryphon capable of damaging a dragon as I’d seen that one do? And the Gryphon had said “These are mine,” and called us children of Argylle. Perhaps it had been meant more literally than I had interpreted it.

  What else could she do? Or rather, what couldn’t she do? Very few people would be dissatisfied by such power. Yet, as Thiorn had pointed out, there were many things a disembodied sibyl couldn’t have: her lover, the taste of her apple-trees’ fruit, and all the pleasures a body can feel.

  “Wondrous convenient,” I said to the broken Mirror, “but how do I explain this?”

  I looked out the window. Water was dripping from the roof, a thin rivulet sparkling as it plunged past to splat in the courtyard below. The sound of thawing—early, but optimistic.

  A slow smile curled over my lips. I went into the bedroom and picked up the picture beside my bed. “Thank you, Mother,” I said softly.

  No answer. I didn’t expect one. She had told Dewar that she was paying more attention to what she was supposed to be doing. If keeping dragons at bay was part of that, it was entirely to my advantage that she do so.

  Prospero had reminded me last night that I had a grace period. I still had it. I couldn’t blurt out at once that the dragon was apparently scourged out of Argylle for the nonce; that would inevitably lead to explaining Freia’s state. To keep trust with her and Dewar, I must think of an airtight explanation. I reckoned that I had until late spring, because Gemnamnon had been out of sight for months after the fight on Longview.

  I could, in fact, take a holiday from the whole business, while pretending to do something about it. Did Prospero think I should leave town? Fine, I would. When I conveyed Ulrike to Montgard, I had originally planned to be away for a couple of months, and Walter had agreed to substitute for me then. Let us simply hold to the original agreement.

  Lunch felt like a good idea. I left my rooms and went downstairs, meeting Anselm on the stairs. It occurred to me that I’d been rather curt with him this morning. Rude, even. I turned around and followed him to his office, which was unusually messy—unusual for it to be messy at all.

  “Sir!” said Anselm, turning; he was arranging a slipping pile of rolled papers in tubes on a shelf.

  “What is all this?” I asked, looking around.

  “You had asked,” he reminded me, “for maps and architectural plans—”

  “Oh. This is all that?”

  “Yes.” He wiped a look of vindicated injury off his face and replaced it with ready-to-help-you.

  I looked at the books, the scrolls, the blueprints, the model …

  “Put it in the Cabinet Room,” I said. “There’s that big table there. Put it all there, sort it out a bit, and I’ll go in and play with it. I had no idea there was this much.”

  “Neither did I. The Archivist did ask several times if you wanted everything. I thought it best to have everything.”

  “It usually is. Sometimes minor things show up in only one place.”

  “It was little trouble for her to find, because she had kept it together after the … after her late Ladyship had asked for it.”

  Oh, yes. Mother had done a similar roundup, trying to find maps of the Catacombs and the Maze. “So it’s all indexed and so on. Hicha is indispensable. Get Villon to move it for you.” I turned to go and remembered why I had come there. “Anselm,” I said, turning back, “I was rather short-tempered this morning. Sorry. It wasn’t you, it’s the dragon.”

  Anselm shrugged slightly, smiled slightly, and picked up one of the books and looked at it. “No offense taken, Sir,” he mumbled.

  I started to go again.

  “Uh, m’Lord,” he began.

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing. Never mind …”

  “Spit it out.” I tried looking at him the way Prospero had looked at me yesterday. It worked.

  “Uh. While you were away, I … The other day, I … it was very odd, Sir … Is it possible that there is a ghost in the Citadel?” he asked, his voice cracking.

  “Why do you ask?” I inquired.

  “Just a … a sort of a … a person who … who wasn’t there when I looked twice …”

  “If we have a ghost,” I said after a moment, “I’m sure it’s a friendly one.”

  “Sure, Sir?”
<
br />   “Certain. Don’t worry about it.”

  He nodded, relieved.

  “Where?” I asked, turning around again.

  “On the Citadel.”

  I nodded thoughtfully and left. I didn’t ask what exactly he’d seen. I was certain I could have guessed.

  The sun was still low, but bright as new silver. I took myself for a thinking walk that afternoon, up the muddy paths beside the watery-iced Wye to Threshwood, along a pleasant path there, and back. It was dark when I returned to the Citadel, lamps flaring up along the streets and ways of the City, barges passing the Wye with sidelights hung out. I felt wonderfully relieved. I could take the trip I had planned on when I’d ridden out with Ulrike, with the ultimate goal of locating Gemnamnon, and just knock around. Return Hussy to Alexander. Drop in on my cousin Josquin, perhaps. He’s always glad to see you when you come for an hour or a year, and his country is nearly as agreeable as Argylle.

  I talked to Prospero and Walter over dinner, indicated that I thought I should hit the Road and finish the investigations I’d started, and they nodded. Prospero looked approving and Walter cheerfully agreed to sit for me. My conscience twinged again about this fresh lie, but to tell them what was really going on was just impossible. There was no way to do so and preserve the confidences of Freia and Dewar, who did not want him informed as to what was afoot. If either had wanted him to know, she or he would have told him.

  I took comfort in the knowledge that all would be told in time, when Freia was with us again, and that surely a blur of secrecy over such an undertaking would be forgiven.

  Virgil gazed on me and closed his eyes, expressing no opinion when I told him we were travelling again.

  The next morning I packed my bags, saddled Hussy and Cosmo both, and left. I tried not to look too cheerful as I did it.

  “Be careful,” Prospero said in the stable-yard, clasping my shoulders.

  “I will.”

  “ ’Tis no empty courtesy, Gwydion: I mean it.”

  “I do too.”

  His eyes searched mine and then he nodded. “I wish—”

  “What would you wish if you could?” I asked him.

  Prospero’s hands tightened. “I wish that moonstruck son of mine would show himself here. ’Tis no slight on your ability—but we’d be stronger with than without him.”

  “I know. The more f repower we have the better. I’ll keep an ear to the ground for him too.”

  His mouth thinned, grew taut. “O’ course. I daresay you’ll hear nary a footfall.”

  “Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

  “You’ll have need of more than Luck, Gwydion. Don’t rely on Fortuna.”

  “Fickle bitch. Never, I’ll be in touch.”

  He smiled, just a twitch of his lips, and let go of me. I hurried to mount and rode out without looking back, riding Cosmo this time, leading Hussy.

  Guilt choked me, and a little voice railed at me: I ought to tell him, I ought to turn back and tell him right now. Everything. Mother couldn’t mean to leave him hanging like this.

  I closed my eyes, reminding myself that Prospero didn’t know Dewar was all right, his same self as he ever was, grinning and screwing around and cooking up sorcery that would astound the ages and baffle the adepts. And he didn’t know Freia was practically looking over his shoulder. As far as Prospero knew, his daughter was dead and his son was as good as dead.

  But I didn’t turn back, and so I didn’t tell him.

  21

  COSMO AND HUSSY LIKED ONE ANOTHER. I never got to the Border so fast before, for one thing; they raced all the way there. For another, she kept following him around, and he did the protective act when we stopped for the night.

  “You’re just like your great-to-the-twelfth-grandsire or whatever he was,” I told Cosmo the next day.

  He snorted.

  “I mean it. They say half the horses in Argylle are descended from Hurricane. That doesn’t happen by accident.”

  Cosmo whuffed. We were cantering across the Valley. He was letting Hussy set the pace.

  I had a thought, a silly one, and started chuckling. Wouldn’t it be a coup, a good joke on Alex, to return a Trojan horse—so to speak? I’d have rights on the foal, and thus Ulrike would get a horse of impeccable bloodline and, no doubt, superb performance as a gift from both of us brothers—a family present. Hm. I’d have to find out when Hussy would be in season and arrange to visit or to borrow her again or something. It was feasible. Unless Alexander was intending to breed her with one of his handsome bays, which was what I’d be planning if I owned her.

  Good idea, I decided, but unworkable.

  My first stop in Pheyarcet would be Montgard. There I’d leave Hussy and see how Ulrike was getting along. Then I would go as the wind blew me. I deliberately made no plan. It seemed pointless; something would come up, an omen, a sign that would push me on the right Road.

  My inclination was to visit Josquin for ten days or so. I had been more disappointed than I had wanted to show that Ottaviano and not he had come to Argylle in the autumn; of the two, Josquin was far more to my liking, lighter of mood and a brighter companion, quick-witted, easygoing, and affectionate. We had always intended to take a holiday together—Josquin was a keen swimmer and diver and knew any number of good places for the sport—and I had ever been prevented by one circumstance or another from accepting his oft-repeated standing invitation to come visit.

  I was curious about Gemnamnon’s exact whereabouts, and if possible I wanted to locate him without sparking him. Although Freia had chased him off, I was sure he’d be back yet again. His pride would demand it, at the very least; I was sure he could not accept defeat. Finding the dragon would be my task after I’d visited Josquin. I had no itinerary other than that: two stops and a bit of work.

  No sendings, summonings, or spooks imposed themselves on me. I arrived at Alexander’s house, having followed the Ley up from Montgard town, late in the evening; my pass-letter had stood me in good stead there with the watch. Hussy recognized home and perked up; Cosmo had managed to wear her down over the past couple of days. I suspected my brother would be annoyed with me for returning a tired horse, but there was no help for it. I had kept them both tighter-reined on the Ley from town, but one could see that she’d been worn out thoroughly. No harm done. She’d taken no injury from it.

  Alexander’s servants were startled to see me again; however, they recognized Hussy and took the horses off to be cared for while a maid led me to a waiting room and another trotted off to bring Alexander from his dinner.

  “Gwydion! You’re the last person I expected to see.”

  “You did say you wanted your horse back.”

  “I did, but I thought it would be a few months rather than a handful of days.”

  “Then I’ll take her and begone.”

  He laughed. “If you’ve not yet eaten …”

  “No.”

  “… and if you hurry upstairs to the room Clodia is turning out for you and have a quick scrub-up and change your clothes, you will be in time for the fourth course.”

  “How’s the lady I left here in your care?”

  “At dinner.”

  “I see. I’ll be along then. Put the pretty girl to my right, please.”

  “I’m afraid she’s taken,” he grinned, and the maid rushed in with a curtsey—Clodia, obviously, and rather pretty herself—and brought me to my room.

  I had a fast wash and changed my clothes, beating the fourth course by several minutes and thus having a taste of the third, tender little roasted birds baked in a tangy sauce. Alexander’s guests were a few young men of the local nobility and their sisters or lady cousins, with a smattering of the more experienced of both sexes. Alexander did have the pretty lady for himself, too, a stately auburn-haired woman somewhat older than most of his other guests.

  Ulrike smiled at me from the hostess’s place at the end of the table. I would hardly have recognized her. She wore a modestly-cut but flattering gown o
f shimmery blue silk decorated with seed-pearls in a diamond pattern and had more pearls in her hair and at her throat. The gentlemen to either side of her were obviously dazzled. She said little during the meal, and that in her soft, diffident way, but they fell over one another to agree with and buttress her slightest opinion.

  It was an excellent meal; I was glad I’d made it in on time for part of it.

  “You did very well,” Alexander said to her approvingly later, when his guests had departed to disperse through the neighborhood.

  “I hardly knew what to say,” she said apologetically.

  “You said it well nonetheless, Mouse,” he assured her.

  Ulrike looked at me. “Did you mail my letter?”

  “Anselm did,” I assured her.

  “Thank you. Was there … was there any mail for me?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t think to ask for it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” she said, looking down and then up. “Have you come to take me home?” my sister asked.

  “No, not at all. Perhaps on my way back. I have business here and there and if you need an escort I’ll provide it. I can come by on my way to Argylle and collect you.”

  “Oh,” she said. “But … but is it safe? To go?”

  “Of course it’s safe!” I said, exasperated.

  “You have taken care of your dragon then?” Alexander asked.

  “He will not be bothering Argylle for a while. I have yet to find and act on a permanent solution. That is somewhat of my business now.”

  “Ah.”

  Alexander obviously thought I was either dilly-dallying or running away from the fight. However, I’d seen what had happened to his and Marfisa’s direct approach.

  “Have you talked to Walter lately then?” I asked Ulrike, to leave the dragon.

  “Yes,” she said. “He said you came home and left again at once.”

  “Nothing unusual in that,” I shrugged.

  “When would you be honoring us with your company once more?” Alexander wondered.