The Well-Favored Man

by Elizabeth Willey

“Gaston,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Gaston came to me via a Way; we arranged it so. He looked rigid, absolutely stone-faced, as he does when he’s very angry. You know. And I thought he was angry at me but no, he was calm, just wanted to see Freia at once. And these therapists—picture Gaston, armed as he customarily is, mail and a helmet, Chanteuse du Mort sheathed and longer than one of the nurses is tall, looking at these soft people in white and telling them he would see Freia now, thank you. Now. What matter that she is asleep, he has seen her sleep before. And so on. Oh, you should have seen it. Gratifying, really.”

  “I take it they were the ones keeping you out too.”

  “Yes. I was intimidated … I confess I was not entirely sure what would happen afterward, and they knew what they were about … and Thiorn seemed to be backing them up, so I accepted the ban—not to jar anyone’s elbow, as it were. Not Gaston. Thiorn came in when it looked ready to get unpleasant—I was arguing for him, contending he had more right than anyone to see her, to talk to her, and Thiorn walked in and smoothed everyone’s tempers. They’re very impressed by her. Hell, I’m very impressed by her. Gaston went off with Thiorn.

  “Perhaps an hour and a quarter later there’s a tremendous hue and cry, a clanging damned klaxon and people running around madly. I immediately thought he must have killed someone. They’re physically nonviolent, but good at mind-games, and he has no patience with that. Thiorn came in holding her sides and laughing. ‘He’s wonderful, wonderful, I love that man so,’ she kept saying. It turns out that Gaston said he would like to be alone with Freia. The nurses wanted him to disarm. He picked one nurse up in each hand, put them out, and closed the door, blocking it somehow. Thiorn shrugged and sat outside to wait; the nurses scurried off in a tizzy. Some doctor came by after a while to ask Thiorn what was up. Thiorn said, ‘Conjugal visit.’ The doctor didn’t understand and opened the door with a special key before Thiorn could stop her. There was nobody there but the embers of a fire in the corner by the window, and the fools threw water on that and set off their own smoke-detection system—that was the alarm, a fire-warning thing.”

  I started laughing too.

  “They’ve told me Freia is conscious and can speak now,” he said. “I’d guess she told Gaston to get her out. He burned a table, opened a Way and picked her up and left. What I like about him is that he knows what he wants, and he goes and gets it. No politics. No maneuvering.”

  “It will be a while before we hear from them,” I said.

  “Yes. Pity. I would’ve liked to talk to her for a minute myself.” He found a cigarette-case in his pocket, lit one, and chuckled softly. “Life is back to normal, I think.”

  “Something like it, anyway.”

  Dewar came to breakfast with me. Prospero and Ulrike were stunned to find him there, comfortable as if he had never been anywhere else, sitting at table greedily eating apricot pastries and drinking cup after cup of dangerously dark tea. He told his tale with a wicked gleam in his eye. Prospero smiled. Ulrike appeared to have mixed feelings.

  “Why didn’t they come here?” she asked. “I would like to see Mother. And Father.”

  “Ulrike,” I said, “it is a hard truth we have all had to learn, every one of us, starting with Alexander and Marfisa. We come second. For either of them, the other comes first.”

  “True,” Dewar murmured, “quite true.” Prospero nodded.

  Ulrike looked at Dewar. I wondered what Gaston had told her about him. “But I have never met her. And it is more than half a year since I saw Father.”

  Prospero lifted an eyebrow and leaned back, saying nothing.

  Dewar stared at her, shocked. “Ulrike, my niece,” he said, with not inconsiderable condescension, “Twenty-three years is a long time too, isn’t it?”

  She frowned a little. “But …”

  Dewar shook his head slowly. “Gwydion was right. And so it should be. Ties of blood are strong, and important too, but the ties you choose are even stronger.” He looked at her through narrowed eyes, assaying her. “How old are you?”

  “I guess—I guess I must be eighteen or twenty. Time felt different—swifter—here, when I came.”

  “They spent ten times that falling in love,” he said in a tight voice. “They spent fifteen times that concealing their relationship and their children from all Landuc and Argylle, and not one of us suspected a thing. Including me, and I’m popularly supposed to know everything about my sister. A year is nothing. Twenty is something. Especially when you’re unhappy. I bet we won’t see them for five years, minimum, Argylle time, and we won’t hear much from them either.” Dewar shrugged. “So what? They have their lives and we have ours.”

  “I have a right to know my mother!” she cried.

  He leaned forward, holding her eyes, shaking his head again. “You have years to know your mother. It’s not that she doesn’t love you, kid. She spent all twenty-three years beating at the Border between Pheyarcet and the Dominion, trying to find you and Gaston. She’s found him. She knows you’re safe, happy even. She’ll get hold of you when she’s ready. He comes first.”

  Ulrike looked ready to burst into tears.

  “Talk to Phoebe about it,” Dewar said, slumping back. “She might be able to explain it more clearly.”

  I thought he’d made things very clear; Belphoebe would only say the same thing in slightly different words.

  After breakfast, I tagged after my uncle as he went to examine his workroom. Ulrike had obediently ridden off to find Belphoebe in Threshwood.

  Dewar still seemed slightly amazed at Ulrike’s naiveté. “What does she think they’re going to be doing,” he asked me rhetorically, “playing cribbage?”

  He puffed a cloud of dust off a row of glass jars. I coughed and opened a window.

  “I think she had a very sheltered childhood. —Dewar, you need to clean up in here …”

  “Sheltered is one thing. Oblivious is another. Sea and stars. I bet she found social customs here a bit shocking. —Yes, I guess I do.”

  “She did. She has made an effort to get used to them. —If you didn’t leave it locked up so, the staff would do it.”

  “Hmph. I’ve got to go bail Thiorn out from the righteous wrath of the regenerative profession. I’ll be in touch. I’d like a holiday. —I don’t like people mucking around in here when I’m away. I ought to look up housekeeping magic. Freia has some sort of charms around her rooms that keep things from getting this … funky. Pheugh. You still mixed up with those twins?” He grinned knowingly.

  I cleared my throat of dust and sat on a three-legged stool by his black-marble-topped workbench. “How did you know about … Never mind. —No, the staff cleans Freia’s rooms. —I want to ask you a question you won’t like.”

  Dewar studied me for a moment and nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Did Prospero really free Ariel?”

  He studied me another moment. “He told him to go where he list and do what he would, that he would make no further calls upon him. Verbatim. I had pleaded with Father not to fully release him; I thought he might come in handy someday. As he has. Let’s keep that very, very quiet, all right? If Prospero knew …” His voice trailed away. He looked down at the workbench and drew a swirl in the dust, eyed it critically, shook his head.

  “Of course. I just wondered.” I pushed a dusty pencil aside. It left a clean spot beneath it. “Come back sometime … sometime soon. Josquin’s sailing bug has bitten me too. We could go around the Isles. Catch up a bit.”

  Dewar set down a round, polished chunk of crystal in which something blue and distorted floated, a slow, brilliant smile coming over his face. He nodded. “That would be very nice. Yes. I’ll call you and we can arrange something like that. It’s been a long time, Gwydion.” We gazed at each other until I smiled too. “It’s good to see you,” he said very softly, and then he looked away.

  With his sleeve, he wiped dust from a silver-framed Mirror of Ways and began setting up the apparatus to perform th
e spell. “By the way,” he added, after he kindled the fire with a word and lifted his hands to gesture, “if it’s not too much trouble, would you be so kind as to have this place cleaned?” And he lifted an eyebrow as he grinned again.

  Dewar and I didn’t sail around the Isles; we didn’t have time. Instead, when he returned to Argylle a week later, we went on a coasting trip down to Errethon and spent days exploring the fjords and fishing and swimming, the sort of voyage we had often made when I was his student. We returned just ahead of the first of the autumn storms, slipping into Ollol’s snug harbor as the waves got bigger and bigger and the wind more and more powerful.

  In pouring rain, we made our boat fast to the dock and decided a pub crawl was the only way to celebrate. Hours later we were skidding along the water-slick pier back to the boat to recover, lit by a blue-green ignis fatuus that was having trouble tracking us. Dewar laughed like a maniac as he slipped on the dock planks and fell into the pool of water in the boat’s cockpit. I did slightly better and was actually standing and trying to open the cabin door when he sat bolt upright and yelled, “Hello, beautiful!”

  I looked around. Nobody there.

  “Oh, just fine!” he said. He lost control of the ignis fatuus and it winked out, doubtless relieved to be shut of us. I ineptly conjured a new one, which was dimmer and smaller, reflecting my own dimmed mental state.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  He grabbed my ankle. I lost my balance and toppled, clutching the boom to let myself down on one of the benches. A moment later a Lesser Summoning fastened on the ignis I’d just conjured up, and it glowed softly and expanded to a round haze, feeding on the energy of the Summoning.

  “Dewar,” my mother was saying, her expression pained, “You are drunk.” She paused a moment and added, smiling now, “But you always were a cute drunk.”

  Dewar chuckled. “And you’re a fun one. How the hell are you. You look gorgeous, gorgeous.”

  “Mother!” I said, and pushed my hair out of my eyes.

  “Gwydion! I should have guessed either you or Otto would be handy.” Freia was shaking her head ruefully, laughing. Her hair was short and curled around her face and neck softly. She was wearing loose indigo robes, lined with white and bordered with silver, and she seemed to bend toward us, toward the flame she used for her Summoning.

  I caught my breath. I had forgotten how beautiful Freia was, or perhaps I had never really noticed, seeing her constantly.

  “I presume things are calm in the Citadel, since you two are three sheets to the wind at the docks,” she went on in a teasing tone.

  “Oh, they’re fine,” Dewar said. “Everything’s fine. Fine. You’re fine too.”

  “I shall call again when you’re capable of a straight conversation.”

  Dewar grinned. “Come find out how straight a conversation I’m capable of.”

  Freia laughed again, shaking her head, and vanished with a gesture.

  “Awww, shit,” he moaned. “She’s mad at me now.”

  “Let’s get inside, Dewar.” I knew that if I stayed sitting down much longer, I’d be in the bilge beside my colleague.

  He swayed to his feet and leaned, actually half-draped his body, on the boom. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  I splashed over to the cabin door, broke the latch to open it, and dragged Dewar in.

  “I’m always saying the wrong thing,” he mourned. “Stuffing my big feet in my fat mouth. Ought to cut my tongue out.”

  “She thinks you’re cute. She’s not mad at you.”

  “I think she’s cute too. I’ll be damned if I don’t. Actually I’ll be damned if I do, right? No, that’s not it. Already damned. Shit!” He sat on his bunk with his head in his hands.

  I tried to dry myself off and realized that I was still clothed. I undressed and threw my soaked clothing out onto the deck with a vague idea that it would dry faster outside.

  “Gwydion,” said Dewar, suddenly getting an idea, “I’m sleeping up forward tonight.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Don’t fall off.”

  “I mean in the bow berth.”

  This could be used as extra sleeping quarters if necessary, being fitted with cushions. “I don’t care where you sleep.”

  “You’re a gentleman,” he told me. “A real gentleman. You make me proud. Where’s my stuff got to?”

  “Breadbox,” I reminded him, falling onto my own bunk and fighting with the blanket.

  He rattled around in the tin breadbox, spilling everything, and then retreated unsteadily to the sail-locker by way of the head. I dismissed the ignis fatuus, which had followed me in. Dewar thumped into something and swore blue in three languages and then called for Ariel.

  I fell asleep rapidly. Hours later, I woke. My head was beginning to throb. The rain had stopped; the storm, typically, had swept past. I decided I needed more rest and turned over to get it. I thought I heard laughter, but it might have been water against the hull, and I dropped off to sleep again.

  Coffee smell. It woke me. I sniffed at it, enjoying it, and then noticed I felt very bad. Dewar was cussing quietly.

  “Damn it, no. Red and white stripes. Try again, Ariel.”

  I moved my head carefully. He was sitting on the bunk and had a collection of corked brown glass pill bottles in front of him.

  A sharp, headache-jarring pop followed, and another bottle fell into Dewar’s lap.

  Dewar inspected it briefly. “Come now. This is not it. I cannot read the label.”

  “You’ve given me scant guide,” complained Ariel.

  Someone chuckled softly.

  “Wha’?” I said thickly.

  “It’s a lousy morning,” Dewar said. “I’m Summoning her. I’m sorry, but this is an emergency.”

  “Send Ariel,” the person who chuckled suggested.

  He frowned. “All right. Ariel?”

  “Yes, Master.” Ariel sounded put upon.

  “Go find Freia. Tell her I want those great red and white capsules she had. She’ll know the ones. Make sure she’s alone before you talk to her.”

  “Yes, Master.” He popped out with a gusty martyred sigh.

  “Whozzat,” I said.

  “Hi, Gwydion. Coffee?” Thiorn bent to look in my face.

  “Yeah.”

  “No,” said Dewar. “Coffee is out. No.”

  “What?” she said. “But you wanted it.”

  “Not until I get those pills.”

  “What are these pills?” she asked.

  “They’re great.”

  Dewar was clearly still feeling the effects of last night.

  “You do not need to pollute yourself any further. You’re barely managing what you have.” Thiorn was half-laughing.

  Dewar growled something I didn’t catch. I put my face back into the pillow and noticed that the rocking of the boat was nauseating. I tried to forget I had noticed that.

  Ariel reappeared. “Her Ladyship told me exactly where to seek: in the Citadel pharmacy.” A concussive bang, and a bottle plopped on the bunk. “Here. Anything else?” he added sulkily.

  “No. Thanks, Ariel.”

  “She said one per twenty kilos of body mass. She was laughing.” Ariel whisked out, hissing through the door.

  “Arrrgh. I’ll never hear the end of this one. Heigh-ho. Down they go.” Dewar swallowed his and handed me five. “Eat your vitamins, dear boy.”

  I leaned on my elbow and looked at them. “What is it.”

  “Hangover cure. Freia invented it, I think. Used it to finance her research down the Road early on. Long story.”

  “Water,” I said. Thiorn handed me a cup. I took the pills, drank, and lay down again, closing my eyes.

  “Good idea,” my uncle said, and from the sound of it retreated again to the sail loft.

  Thiorn followed him.

  Oh, I thought, and went back to sleep.

  When we had recovered—about an hour and a half later—Dewar helped me clean up the cabin and deck and t
old me he wanted to take the boat out again with Thiorn. “We’d like to try a fairly long trip.”

  “Have fun,” I said, nodding.

  “I was think—” He stopped and held up his hand, then moved away, pulled a candle stub out, and lit it. He opened one of the brass running lights quickly and lit that from the candle, sitting down before it. “Good morning,” he said, and made a dismissing gesture behind his back at me.

  I went below. “Where’s Dewar?” Thiorn asked, looking up from the green-covered bunk. She was examining the contents of Ariel’s collection of remedies and specifics.

  “Someone has Summoned him.”

  “Ah. I think these won’t kill you. Any of them.”

  “I’ll pass, I think,” I said.

  She shrugged. “What’s life if you don’t experiment once in a while, I say. It’s not an inconvenience if we steal your boat?”

  “I’ll not be using it.” I shrugged and kept the regret from my voice.

  She smiled. “I’m playing hooky, as I threatened,” she said. “Let them stew. I checked back in, said I had resolved the theft satisfactorily, and disappeared with Dewar before they could pin me down.” She laughed quietly.

  “They? Who are they?”

  “The others. The Battlemaster. Now I’m out of it, myself again, and I’m finding is as good as it ever was. I owe Dewar much for giving me the chance to escape.”

  “Will they not pursue you? You can simply … leave?” I said doubtfully.

  “Let us say, they cannot pursue me. I was the one who was able to reach and find you, because I knew things the others did not—things I had learned about you, about the way the Road and the Well and the Spring work, from your mother. I had kept it from them and took all of it with me, you see.” She grinned, feral and intense.

  I thought about this for a moment, frowning. “Like the volumes in a library …” I said after a moment, half-aloud.

  Thiorn nodded once. “Not a bad analogy. They know they knew, but they no longer know. Live volumes. They crosscheck, cross-reference to one another, and pulling one out doesn’t cripple the rest—but it removes what was in that volume.”

  “But you’ve done this before, haven’t you? During the Independence War,” I said.