The Well-Favored Man

by Elizabeth Willey

  “He never told me if he did,” I said, which was literally if not morally true, and I hurried on. “Or Gaston …”

  “Oh, well, he goes without saying, and usually does at that. —I’m going to ring for more food, you’ll like the smoked fish paté. —Where is Dewar, anyway, Gwydion? He’s been out of sight for years. Did he go back to Phesaotois, heaven forbid?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Josquin set down his glass and stared at me. “Really?” he said, in a tone of disbelief.

  “Well,” I said, and looked down, away from his grey-blue and unclouded gaze. I knew Josquin adored Dewar, his brilliant, dashing, exotic, and cavalier sorcerer cousin. There was a natural affinity between them; when they were together, one saw in the two duality and union at once, besides seeing two of the most elegant men in the three worlds. “I know he is alive. I know that. I do not know where he is. But he is alive, and he is well. Don’t tell anyone. He is keeping to himself.”

  Josquin nodded. “He’s in contact with you.”

  I shook my head. “Just once, recently. Same old Dewar, I promise you.”

  “Well,” Josquin said, and rolled his glass around moodily. “Tell him I’d bloody well like to hear from him myself. Damn it, I’d have looked after him after your poor mother died, if I could have, but he’d gone off by the time I heard. I know he’s—he was fond of her. I’ve been terribly afraid he’d … hurt himself.” He twisted his mouth in a pained grimace, a kind man rebuffed, and I thought his friendship deserved better recognition than it had gotten. I put my hands on his to stop him fidgeting with the glass. “I looked for him,” Jos said.

  “He’s a slippery fish, hard to hold,” I said. “I would tell you more if I knew it.”

  “But you don’t know more.”

  I shook my head and, after a few heartbeats, changed the subject. I had had a bellyful of Dewar, dragons, and worrying about Freia. This was my holiday. “Now tell me, what has Massila to offer?”

  Josquin tossed his head back, throwing off his mood or covering it again. “Everything and anything you want. Decent wine, indecent women, every kind of man there is, and fine weather; corrupt government and virtuous monks and duels of honor …”

  “I see,” I smiled, leaning back in my chair. “And cards …”

  “Hell, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ve just taken heavy losses, but I’ll win it back. I usually do. I can afford to take the long view … Are you here for a while?”

  “A few days,” I said, “during which I mean to not think about dragons.”

  The few days turned out to be twelve; I didn’t really dare let things go for much longer, and it is better to leave off before one is surfeited on that type of holiday anyway. And I can do quite a lot in twelve days, particularly with a companion like Josquin, who had been in town a while and knew where to find the best of everything. We renewed and re-cemented our friendship, and, my inhibitions lightened by my share of four bottles of wine we drank together one misty gold evening, I insisted he come over to Argylle for a visit.

  “Haven’t been there since I don’t know when,” Josquin said. “Since you were Gaston’s squire. Sure. Sure. Didn’t think you liked visitors.”

  “Some visitors I like,” I said. “The ones I don’t like I don’t invite. It’s my Dominion.”

  “That’s how I feel about it, but it’s harder for me to get rid of the ones I don’t want to have around,” he said. “They visit me anyway. Not you. You’re always welcome.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Walter too. He came around a while ago. Nice to see him. Happy days.”

  “Happy nights. He’s home now. Sitting in for me. You’ll see him if you visit.”

  “Sure. Sure I’ll visit you. Father’ll like that. Dip … Dimple … Dipple …”

  “Diplomacy.”

  “That. Yeah. He likes that.”

  “I like that too.”

  “I feel pretty damn dip … dippelmatic. Is that bottle empty?”

  “No. Here. Your health.”

  “Your happiness.”

  “Let’s negotiate something.”

  “Sure. Practice. Like what?”

  I thought about it. “Bet I can negotiate that earring off you,” I suggested. It winked, twinkled, bobbed teasingly against Josquin’s neck, just at the fringe of his fine fair hair.

  Josquin grinned. “It’ll cost you,” he said.

  Late in the afternoon two days later Josquin and I said farewell to one another. We agreed that I would call him when I was back in Argylle and we’d work out the details then of getting him there.

  “It will be springtime,” I added thoughtfully.

  “I love spring in Argylle! It’s better than any other season, anywhere else. I’m looking forward to this, Gwydion. Safe journey.”

  “Thanks.” We embraced and I mounted. Cosmo started off, eager to be going. I waved to Josquin, who waved back, and when I glanced over my shoulder at the corner I saw him still standing on the tavern’s porch, gazing after me.

  “That was fun,” I told Cosmo when we were on the Road again.

  He snorted.

  “I know, I know. I’m trying to think of a way to get you a date with Hussy.” And, perhaps because I hadn’t been overtaxing my brain for a few days, the solution appeared fully-formed in my thoughts. “Of course! I have it!”

  Cosmo’s ears were expectant.

  “I’ll ask Alex to lend her to my sister to ride back to Argylle. Simple. Then I can just take a while to get her home again. How about that? A de facto abduction. He won’t refuse her to Ulrike, I’m sure.”

  Cosmo whuffed, pleased.

  “I take care of my friends,” I said, patting his neck. “Wonder where Virgil’s gotten to.” I hadn’t seen him since coming to Massila; before that, he had ridden quietly on the saddlebags or flown along ahead and behind me.

  A couple of hours Later Virgil rejoined us as we passed through a half-seen, vaguely-substanced city on the Road. He hooted softly from behind me and thumped down on the saddlebags. I said Hullo to him and went back to thinking about sorcery.

  There had to be a way to locate Gemnamnon without him being aware of it. Conventional seeking spells would be too easily detected by the dragon. Simply riding around asking people was possible, but would take a long time. I didn’t want to confront him now; I only wanted to know where he was. Freia’s rapid disappearance had kept me from asking her, and possibly she could not have told me where the beast was anyway, if he were outside her Dominion.

  The obvious solution was to go to Oriana, who had a vast collection of Mirrors of Vision and who was the acknowledged authority on spells of seeing and seeking. If anyone could help me, she could. However, Oriana’s customary fee for her services—if she were in the mood to sell them—started at one year of service in her house and went upward from there. I did not like her enough to want to work for her for a year or more, though a dinner-party from time to time was tolerable. Perhaps I could invoke her vow to the Well, although I was the Lord of Argylle, and forestall her.

  When I had come to this conclusion, I was riding toward a certain large Nexus through a dense and dark-shaded wood. The Road was made up of large slabs of stone here, mossed over from disuse. The place had a muffled, damp feeling. I reined in and pulled out my maps and looked for a route to Oriana’s Castle of Glass.

  Virgil woke up and hopped up to my shoulder, peering at the map with me.

  “I’m going to ask Oriana to find Gemnamnon for me,” I said.

  Virgil clicked his beak.

  “I can’t stand her either. You have a better idea?”

  My familiar spread his wings and settled again, turning his head to stare straight into my eyes.

  “You’d go?”

  A nod.

  I thought about it. “I might find it inconvenient to be without you. And you might have trouble getting back to Argylle.”

  Virgil looked insulted. He half-opened his beak.

>   I chewed my lip. It would be good to avoid incurring the debt with Oriana if my diplomatic notion failed. I could under no circumstances bind myself in service. I cringed to imagine what she’d demand instead—I’d considered stopping somewhere and picking up jewelry and the like as a goodwill gesture—because she had demanded it once of Dewar and had made no secret of her interest in me. The idea didn’t appeal to me. Beauteous as Oriana is, I prefer to keep myself out of such entanglements with my peers in sorcery.

  “I’d head back to Argylle,” I told him, “leaving you here on your own. You’d have to cross the Border.”

  He clicked his beak impatiently.

  “If you really think you can do it, thereby sparing me a possibly very awkward situation with Oriana, then I’d prefer for you to do it,” I decided. “However, if you have any doubts—”

  Virgil screeched, an earsplitting derisive sound, and launched himself from my shoulder to swoop up to a branch overhanging the Road.

  “Dandy,” I said, rubbing my ear. “Fine. Do it and report back to me in Argylle when you’re done. Find Gemnamnon without being found or noticed yourself.”

  He hooted, uhuu, uhuu, and flew off down the Road toward the Nexus, moving far faster than any mortal owl. I sat looking after him. He was certainly eager to go. I trusted his ability and discretion, and he was right—this was just the sort of dirty work a familiar was kept for.

  Now I had nothing further to do with respect to the dragon, which felt strange. I checked everything over again as Cosmo cantered along the Road, trying to see what I had forgotten. I could find nothing. Prospero would certainly notice, whatever it might be. Was I running away again? It didn’t look like it to me. I had delegated a piece of work to my familiar. That was all.

  I wondered how Dewar was getting on. What would he be doing with Freia’s information? With these Clinic people? How in the world did one construct a body, and how long did it take? Bodies are complicated things. One doesn’t simply wire together spare parts. And how in the name of the Spring did one construct a mindless body?

  The very thought brought up zombies, corpse-dissections at midnight crossroads, grave robbery, and a whole branch of magic that had always roiled my stomach somewhat. Respectable sorcerers might have a nodding acquaintance with the concepts, perhaps even with a practitioner, of necromancy, but few would care to engage in it and those who do, do not move in many magical social circles outside that of their necromantic colleagues. Alchemists are less ostracized and more highly regarded. Necromancers are the knackers of the magical world. I heartily hoped Dewar was not going in for such.

  Cosmo and I passed the night in the barn of a dour farmer. He had me split wood and help him with a fence repair job in return. His wife was a bleached grey woman who packed me a generous bagful of food in the morning without saying a word to me. I wondered if they knew that the Road ran right past their house.

  I often wonder this about people who live in close proximity to the Road or a Ley: how can they possibly be unaware of it? Yet it seems many, or most, are. I mentioned this to my mother once and she said it was just as well.

  “Why?” I had asked, very surprised.

  “Imagine the riffraff we’d have trafficking here and there. I am an elitist where sorcery is concerned. If they can’t find it on their own, then they don’t need to know about it and probably couldn’t handle it properly if they did.”

  “I thought you were a democrat.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Except where true power is concerned.”

  Freia had opened her mouth to reply, stopped herself, and then smiled. “You may be right. Sometimes. What do you think, Gwydion? Would you open the Road to all?”

  I’d started to say Yes and then halted. “I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.”

  “Think about it then. Tell me what you think sometime.”

  “I will.”

  That was many, many years ago, a golden summer afternoon boating home on the Wye from a picnic and botany day. I was still thinking about it.

  Alexander was surprised to find me breakfasting in his house. I had ridden straight there, without stopping a night in the town of Montgard. His servants, accustomed now to me coming and going, had shown me to the table and served me without comment.

  “What are you doing here so soon?”

  “Eating.” I had another bite of the excellent kedgeree.

  He poured himself tea and looked at me with a certain irritation.

  “I came to take the lady home with me as planned,” I said.

  “We weren’t expecting you for days yet. Ulrike’s not going to like leaving already.”

  “My business did not prove so demanding as I anticipated. It was a pleasant surprise to be wrong that way.” And a pleasant business too, I thought. Just demanding enough. I grinned to myself.

  “Hunh.” Alexander served himself from the sideboard and sat down and ate also.

  I reminded myself to get Hussy for Ulrike to ride. A good excuse would be that she was a stable, calm, fast, experienced horse, unlike the unfortunate Daffodil. When we got home—

  A thought hit me between the eyes and made me sit up straight.

  “Something wrong?” asked Alexander.

  “I just thought of something …”

  Maybe it wasn’t a problem.

  “Bully for you,” he muttered, and put smoked salmon on his fork.

  I bit back my retort. “Look, how has Ulrike been?” I asked softly.

  He frowned. “Been? She’s been fine.”

  Now I looked at him, irritated.

  “You mean … socially?” Alexander asked.

  “Kind of.”

  “Fine. Getting along. I think she was put off by arriving there at New Year’s just in time for the carousing. Father seems to have been protective of her. Naturally—it’s understandable.” Alexander shrugged and drank tea.

  “Do you think she could bear meeting another relative?”

  “Depends. What, is Dewar coming back?” His expression became slightly pained and he began to shake his head. “He’s a real—”

  “Dewar’s a good man. No, he’s not back,” I said, to prevent the argument, though I wondered why he would have jumped to that conclusion. “I had meant to bring Josquin to Argylle for a visit.”

  “Josquin.” My brother set down his cup and looked at me.

  How could he object to Jos? “I like him,” I said, “and I think he’d find her amusing; she’s like all those cousins of his in Madana. He knows how to make a good impression.”

  “Yes. Josquin. She said she met Ottaviano at New Year’s.” Slowly, his eyes narrowing, a calculating expression came over his face and he nodded.

  I twisted my mouth ruefully. “I could have kicked Walt. Yes. I wish Avril had sent Josquin to negotiate, but he didn’t.” Otto, who was everything Josquin was not, was not exactly bad, but in comparison with his court-reared brother, he came off badly.

  He tapped the edge of his plate with his fork in two-four time. “I think she’d find Josquin very agreeable. He’s a gentleman, not overbearing, and he’s been in Argylle before.”

  “He wouldn’t mention her to anyone in Landuc, either, if I were to ask him not to. She should be able to choose when to go there herself. The rest of us did. Meeting Otto was an accident, and meeting Josquin will balance that out. He’s a far pleasanter representative of that side of the family.”

  “Yes. Yes. Gwydion, you’re smarter than you used to be. That’s a good idea, inviting him over to visit. She can meet him there, in a safe place, supervised … a good idea.” Alexander smiled. “I haven’t seen Josquin in a while.”

  “Same old Josquin as he ever was, I gathered.”

  Alexander nodded again, still smiling, and returned to his breakfast. I returned to mine, a bit surprised by his enthusiastic reaction. I had expected him to say it was a bad idea, that she should meet people in her own time. Our rare accord pleased me. If we two who saw things so d
ifferently agreed, it was certainly the right thing to do.

  Ulrike herself tripped in, squeaked with surprise, and gasped, “Gwydion!”

  “Hullo,” I greeted her. “Sleepyhead.”

  “I went for a walk,” she said with an air of conscious moral superiority.

  “Did you,” Alexander said.

  “Indeed I did. A lovely walk, because it’s going to be hot today and I prefer to walk in the cool. Gwydion, I didn’t think you … I mean—” She stopped and sat down.

  “My business took less time than I thought it would, so I am ahead of schedule.”

  Plainly she was disappointed by having to leave.

  “You need not leave if you prefer not to,” I said. “Alexander can send you home through a Way whenever you wish.”

  She reacted as I expected her to, fearfully. “Oh—no, n-no, I … I guess … I guess I should go with you …”

  I felt mean. It was cruel to tease her. She’d been badly frightened on the way to Montgard, and badly frightened going through a Way, and she had every excuse not to like either; moreover, I had toyed with the idea of killing her, and I wanted to make it up to her handsomely, if I could only think how.

  I said, “Ulrike, it is up to you. It is safe to travel now; the dragon is not going to bother us. It will be a pleasant trip, not like the last one. But it is up to you.”

  “Mouse, it’s spring in Argylle now,” Alexander said. “The prettiest time. It’s much nicer than winter.”

  “I haven’t been gone that long,” she said, her brows wrinkling together.

  “Time flows faster there than here, because it is at the Spring, the quick center,” I reminded her, pouring tea for us both.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, and sipped it.

  “When were you planning on going?” asked Alexander.

  “I rode all night to get here. Tomorrow morning, I suppose. The day after if you prefer.”