I sat smoking for a time.
Then, “I guess I had better have a talk with them,” I said. “Won’t have a chance tomorrow, though, and something should be done soon. I think they should be moved — to a bivouac area in the Forest of Arden. Tomorrow, yes. I’ll locate it for you on the map when we get back. Tell them it is to keep them close to the black road. Tell them that another attack could come that way at any time — which is no less than the truth. Drill them, maintain their fighting edge. I’ll come down as soon as I can and talk to them.”
“That will leave you without a personal force in Amber.”
“True. It may prove a useful risk, though, both as a demonstration of confidence and a gesture of consideration. Yes, I think it will turn out to be a good move. If not…” I shrugged.
I poured and tossed another empty into my tomb.
“By the way,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“I just noticed that I am morbid and drunk and bitter. I don’t need that.”
He chuckled and clicked his glass against my own.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
So we sat there while the moon fell, till the last bottle was interred among its fellows. We talked for a time of days gone by. At length we fell silent and my eyes drifted to the stars above Amber. It was good that we had come to this place, but now the city was calling me back. Knowing my thoughts, Ganelon rose and stretched, headed for the horses. I relieved myself beside my tomb and followed him.
Chapter 5
The Grove of the Unicorn lies in Arden to the southwest of Kolvir, near to that jutting place where the land begins its final descent into the valley called Garnath. While Garnath had been cursed, burned, invaded, and fought through in recent years, the adjacent highlands stood unmolested. The grove where Dad claimed to have seen the unicorn ages before and to have experienced the peculiar events which led to his adopting the beast as the patron of Amber and placing it on his coat of arms, was, as near as we could tell, a spot now but slightly screened from the long view across Garnath to the sea — twenty or thirty paces in from the upper edge of things: an asymmetrical glade where a small spring trickled from a mass of rock, formed a clear pool, brimmed into a tiny creek, made its way off toward Garnath and on down.
It was to this place that Gerard and I rode the following day, leaving at an hour that found us halfway down our trail from Kolvir before the sun skipped flakes of light across the ocean, then cast its whole bucketful against the sky. Gerard drew rein as it was doing this. He dismounted then and motioned to me to do the same. I did, leaving Star and the pack horse I was leading there beside his own huge piebald. I followed him off perhaps a dozen paces into a basin half-filled with gravel. He halted and I came up beside him.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned and faced me and his eyes were narrow and his jaw clamped tight. He unfastened his cloak, folded it, and placed it on the ground. He unclapped his swordbelt and lay it atop the cloak.
“Get rid of your blade and your cloak,” he said. “They will only get in the way.”
I had an inkling of what was coming, and I decided I had better go along with it. I folded my cloak, placed the Jewel of Judgment beside Grayswandir, and faced him once again. I said only one word.
“Why?”
“It has been a long time,” he said, “and you might have forgotten.”
He came at me slowly, and I got my arms out in front of me and backed away. He did not swing at me. I used to be faster than he was. We were both crouched, and he was making slow, pawing movements with his left hand, his right hand nearer to his body, twitching slightly.
If I had had to choose a place to fight with Gerard, this would not have been it. He, of course, was aware of this. If I had to fight with Gerard at all, I would not have chosen to do so with my hands. I am better than Gerard with a blade or a quarterstaff. Anything that involved speed and strategy and gave me a chance to hit him occasionally while keeping him at bay would permit me to wear him down eventually and provide openings for heavier and heavier assaults. He, of course, was aware of this also. That is why he had trapped me as he had. I understood Gerard, though, and I had to play by his rules now.
I brushed his hand away a couple of times as he stepped up his movements, pressing nearer to me with every pace. Finally I took a chance, ducked and swung. I landed a fast, hard left just a little above his middle. It would have broken a stout board or ruptured the insides of a lesser mortal. Unfortunately, time had not softened Gerard. I heard him grunt, but he blocked my right, got his right hand under my left arm, and caught my shoulder from behind.
I closed with him fast then, anticipating a shoulder lock I might not be able to break; and, turning, driving forward, catching his left shoulder in a similar fashion, I hooked my right leg behind his knee and was able to cast him backward to the ground.
He maintained his grip, though, and I came down atop him. I released my own hold and was able to drive my right elbow into his left side as we hit. The angle was not ideal and his left hand went up and across, reaching to grasp his right somewhere behind my head.
I was able to duck out of it, but he still had my arm. For a moment I had a clear shot at his groin with my right, but I restrained myself. It is not that I have any qualms about hitting a man below his belt. I knew that if I did it to Gerard just then his reflexes would probably cause him to break my shoulder. Instead, scraping my forearm on the gravel, I managed to twist my left arm up behind his head, while at the same time sliding my right arm between his legs and catching him about the left thigh. I rolled back as I did this, attempting to straighten my legs as soon as my feet were beneath me. I wanted to raise him off the ground and slam him down again, driving my shoulder into his middle for good measure.
But Gerard scissored his legs and rolled to the left, forcing me to somersault across his body. I let go my hold on his head and pulled my left arm free as I went over. I scrambled clockwise then, dragging my right arm away and going for a toehold.
But Gerard would have none of that. He had gotten his arms beneath him by then. With one great heave he tore himself free and twisted his way back to his feet. I straightened myself and leaped backwards. He began moving toward me immediately, and I decided that he was going to maul the hell out of me if I just kept grappling with him. I had to take a few chances.
I watched his feet, and at what I judged to be the best moment I dove in beneath his extended arms just as he was shifting his weight forward onto his left foot and raising his right. I was able to catch hold of his right ankle and hoist it about four feet high behind him. He went over and down, forward and to his left.
He scrambled to get to his feet and I caught him on the jaw with a left that knocked him down again. He shook his head and blocked with his arms as he came up once more. I tried to kick him in the stomach, but missed as he pivoted, catching him on the hip. He maintained his balance and advanced again.
I threw jabs at his face and circled. I caught him twice more in the stomach and danced away. He smiled. He knew I was afraid to close with him. I snapped a kick at his stomach and connected. His arms dropped sufficiently for me to chop him alongside the neck, just above the collarbone. At that moment, however, his arms shot forward and locked about my waist. I slammed his jaw with the heel of my hand, but it did not stop him from tightening his grip and raising me above the ground. Too late to hit him again. Those massive arms were already crushing my kidneys. I sought his carotids with my thumbs, squeezed.
But he kept raising me, back, up over his head. My grip loosened, slipped away. Then he slammed me down on my back in the gravel, as peasant women do their laundry on rocks.
There were exploding points of light and the world was a jittering, half-real place as he dragged me to my feet again. I saw his fist —
The sunrise was lovely, but the angle was wrong. By about ninety degrees…
Suddenly I was assailed by vertigo. It cancel
ed out the beginning awareness of a roadmap of pains that ran along my back and reached the big city somewhere in the vicinity of my chin.
I was hanging high in the air. By turning my head slightly I could see for a very great distance, down.
I felt a set of powerful clamps affixed to my body — shoulder and thigh. When I turned to look at them, I saw that they were hands. Twisting my neck even farther, I saw that they were Gerard’s hands. He was holding me at full arm’s length above his head. He stood at the very edge of the trail, and I could see Garnath and the terminus of the black road far below. If he let go, part of me might join the bird droppings that smeared the cliff face and the rest would come to resemble washed-up jellyfish I had known on beaches past.
“Yes. Look down, Corwin,” he said, feeling me stir, glancing up, meeting my eyes. “All that I need to do is open my hands.”
“I hear you,” I said softly, trying to figure a way to drag him along with me if he decided to do it.
“I am not a clever man,” he said. “But I had a thought — a terrible thought. This is the only way that I know to do something about it. My thought was that you had been away from Amber for an awfully long while. I have no way of knowing whether the story about your losing your memory is entirely true. You have come back and you have taken charge of things, but you do not yet truly rule here. I was troubled by the deaths of Benedict’s servants, as I am troubled now by the death of Caine. But Eric has died recently also, and Benedict is maimed. It is not so easy to blame you for this part of things, but it has occurred to me that it might be possible — if it should be that you are secretly allied with our enemies of the black road.”
“I am not,” I said.
“It does not matter, for what I have to say,” he said. “Just hear me out. Things will go the way that they will go. If, during your long absence, you arranged this state of affairs — possibly even removing Dad and Brand as part of your design — then I see you as out to destroy all family resistance to your usurpation.”
“Would I have delivered myself to Eric to be blinded and imprisoned if this were the case?”
“Hear me out!” he repeated. “You could easily have made mistakes that led to that. It does not matter now. You may be as innocent as you say or as guilty as possible. Look down, Corwin. That is all. Look down at the black road. Death is the limit of the distance you travel if that is your doing. I have shown you my strength once again, lest you have forgotten. I can kill you, Corwin. Do not even be certain that your blade will protect you, if I can get my hands on you but once. And I will, to keep my promise. My promise is only that if you are guilty I will kill you the moment I learn of it. Know also that my life is insured, Corwin, for it is linked now to your own.”
“What do you mean?”
“All of the others are with us at this moment, via my Trump, watching, listening. You cannot arrange my removal now without revealing your intentions to the entire family. That way, if I die forsworn, my promise can still be kept.”
“I get the point,” I said. “And if someone else kills you? They remove me, also. That leaves Julian, Benedict, Random, and the girls to man the barricades. Better and better — for whoever it is. Whose idea was this, really?”
“Mine! Mine alone!” he said, and I felt his grip tighten, his arms bend and grow tense.
“You are just trying to confuse things! Like you always do!” he groaned. “Things didn’t go bad till you came back! Damn it, Corwin! I think it’s your fault!”
Then he hurled me into the air.
“Not guilty, Gerard!” was all I had time to shout.
Then he caught me — a great, shoulder-wrenching grab — and snatched me back from the precipice. He swung me in and around and set me on my feet. He walked off immediately, heading back to the gravelly area where we had fought. I followed him and we collected our things.
As he was clasping his big belt he looked up at me and looked away again.
“We’ll not talk about it any more,” he said.
“All right.”
I turned and walked back to the horses. We mounted and continued on down the trail.
The spring made its small music in the grove. Higher now, the sun strung lines of light through the trees. There was still some dew on the ground. The sod that I had cut for Caine’s grave was moist with it.
I fetched the spade that I had packed and opened the grave. Without a word, Gerard helped me move the body onto a piece of sailcloth we had brought for that purpose. We folded it about him and closed it with big, loose stitches.
“Corwin! Look!”
It was a whisper, and Gerard’s hand closed on my elbow as he spoke.
I followed the direction of his gaze and froze. Neither of us moved as we regarded the apparition: a soft, shimmering white encompassed it, as if it were covered with down rather than fur and maning; its tiny, cloven hooves were golden, as was the delicate, whorled horn that rose from its narrow head. It stood atop one of the lesser rocks, nibbling at the lichen that grew there. Its eyes, when it raised them and looked in our direction, were a bright, emerald green. It joined us in immobility for a pair of instants. Then it made a quick, nervous gesture with its front feet, pawing the air and striking the stone, three times. And then it blurred and vanished like a snowflake, silently, perhaps in the woods to our right.
I rose and crossed to the stone. Gerard followed me. There, in the moss, I traced its tiny hoofmarks.
“Then we really did see it,” Gerard said.
I nodded.
“We saw something. Did you ever see it before?”
“No. Did you?”
I shook my head.
“Julian claims he once saw it,” he said, “in the distance. Says his hounds refused to give chase.”
“It was beautiful. That long, silky tail, those shiny hooves…”
“Yes. Dad always took it as a good omen.”
“I’d like to myself.”
“Strange time for it to appear… All these years…”
I nodded again.
“Is there a special observance? It being our patron and all… is there something we should do?”
“If there is, Dad never told me about it,” I said.
I patted the rock on which it had appeared.
“If you herald some turn in our fortunes, if you bring us some measure of grace — thanks, unicorn,” I said. “And even if you do not, thanks for the brightness of your company at a dark time.”
We went and drank from the spring then. We secured our grim parcel on the back of the third horse. We led our mounts until we were away from the place, where, save for the water, things had become very still.
Chapter 6
Life’s incessant ceremonies leap everlasting, humans spring eternal on hope’s breast, and frying pans without fires are often far between: the sum of my long life’s wisdom that evening, tendered in a spirit of creative anxiety, answered by Random with a nod and a friendly obscenity.
We were in the library, and I was seated on the edge of the big desk. Random occupied a chair to my right. Gerard stood at the other end of the room, inspecting some weapons that hung on the wall. Or maybe it was Rein’s etching of the unicorn he was looking at. Whichever, along with ourselves, he was also ignoring Julian, who was slouched in an easy chair beside the display cases, right center, legs extended and crossed at the ankles, arms folded, staring down at his scaley boots. Fiona — five-two, perhaps, in height — green eyes fixed on Flora’s own blue as they spoke, there beside the fireplace, hair more than compensating for the vacant hearth, smoldering, reminded me, as always, of something from which the artist had just drawn back, setting aside his tools, questions slowly forming behind his smile. The place at the base of her throat where his thumb had notched the collarbone always drew my eyes as the mark of a master craftsman, especially when she raised her head, quizzical or imperious, to regard us taller others. She smiled faintly, just then, doubtless aware of my gaze, an almost clairvoyant fa
culty the acceptance of which has never deprived of its ability to disconcert. Llewella, off in a corner, pretending to study a book, had her back to the rest of us, her green tresses bobbed a couple of inches above her dark collar. Whether her withdrawal involved animus, self-conscious in her alienation, or simple caution, I could never be certain. Probably something of all these. Hers was not that familiar a presence in Amber.
…And the fact that we constituted a collection of individuals rather than a group, a family, at a time when I wanted to achieve some over-identity, some will to cooperate, was what led to my observations and Random’s acknowledgement.
I felt a familiar presence, heard a “Hello, Corwin” and there was Deirdre, reaching toward me. I extended my hand, clasped her own, raised it. She took a step forward, as if to the first strain of some formal dance, and moved close, facing me. For an instant a grilled window had framed her head and shoulders and a rich tapestry had adorned the wall to her left. Planned and posed, of course. Still, effective. She held my Trump in her left hand. She smiled. The others glanced our way as she appeared and she hit them all with that smile, like the Mona Lisa with a machine gun, turning slowly.
“Corwin,” she said, kissing me briefly and withdrawing, “I fear I am early.”
“Never,” I replied, turning toward Random, who had just risen and who anticipated me by seconds.
“May I fetch you a drink, sister?” he asked, taking her hand and nodding toward the sideboard.
“Why, yes. Thank you,” and he led her off and poured her some wine, avoiding or at least postponing, I suppose, her usual clash with Flora. At least, I assumed most of the old frictions were still alive as I remembered them. So if it cost me her company for the moment it also maintained the domestic-tranquility index, which was important to me just then. Random can be good at such things when he wants to.
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