“Perhaps,” I said. “Most things depend on other things. This thing is no different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Give me what I want, and we’ll see. I have even been known to be a nice guy on occasion.”
“What is it that you want?”
“The story, Flora. Let’s start with that. Of how you came to be my shepherdess there on that shadow, Earth. All pertinent details. What was the arrangement? What was the understanding? Everything. That’s all.”
She sighed.
“The beginning…” she said. “Yes… It was in Paris, a party, at a certain Monsieur Focault’s. This was about three years before the Terror —”
“Stop,” I said. “What were you doing there?”
“I had been in that general area of Shadow for approximately five of their years,” she said. “I had been wandering, looking for something novel, something that suited my fancy. I came upon that place at that time in the same way we find anything. I let my desires lead me and I followed my instincts.”
“A peculiar coincidence.”
“Not in light of all the time involved — and considering the amount of travel in which we indulge. It was, if you like, my Avalon, my Amber surrogate, my home away from home. Call it what you will, I was there, at that party, that October night, when you came in with the little redheaded girl — Jacqueline, I believe, was her name.”
That brought it back, from quite a distance, a memory I hadn’t called for in a long, long while. I remembered Jacqueline far better than I did Focault’s party, but there had been such an occasion.
“Go ahead.”
“As I said,” she went on, “I was there. You arrived later. You caught my attention immediately, of course. Still, if one exists for a sufficiently long period of time and travels considerably, one does occasionally encounter a person greatly resembling someone else one has known. That was my first thought after the initial excitement faded. Surely it had to be a double. So much time had passed without a whisper. Yet we all have secrets and good reasons for having them. This could be one of yours. So I saw that we were introduced and then had a devil of a time getting you away from that little redheaded piece for more than a few minutes. And you insisted your name was Fenneval — Cordell Fenneval. I grew uncertain. I could not tell whether it was a double or you playing games. The third possibility did cross my mind, though — that you had dwelled in some adjacent area of Shadow for a sufficient time to cast shadows of yourself. I might have departed still wondering had not Jacqueline later boasted to me concerning your strength. Now this is not the commonest subject of conversation for a woman, and the way in which she said it led me to believe that she had actually been quite impressed by some things you had done. I drew her out a bit and realized that they were all of them feats of which you were capable. That eliminated the notion of it being a double. It had to be either you or your shadow. This in mind, even if Cordell was not Corwin he was a clue, a clue that you were or had been in that shady neighbourhood — the first real clue I had come across concerning your whereabouts. I had to pursue it. I began keeping track of you then, checking into your past. The more people I questioned, the more puzzling it became. In fact, after several months I was still unable to decide. There were enough smudgy areas to make it possible. Things were resolved for me the following summer, though, when I revisited Amber for a time. I mentioned the peculiar affair to Eric…”
“Yes?”
“Well… he was — somewhat — aware — of the possibility.”
She paused and rearranged her gloves on the seat beside her.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Just what did he tell you?”
“That it might be the real you,” she said. “He told me there had been — an accident.”
“Really?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “Not an accident. He said there had been a fight and he had injured you. He thought you were going to die, and he did not want the blame. So he transported you off into Shadow and left you there, in that place. After a long while, he decided that you must be dead, that it was finally all over between you. My news naturally disturbed him. So he swore me to secrecy and sent me back to keep you under surveillance. I had a good excuse for being there, as I had already told everyone how much I liked the place.”
“You didn’t promise to keep silent for nothing, Flora. What did he give you?”
“He gave me his word that should he ever come into power here in Amber, I would not be forgotten.”
“A little risky,” I said. “After all, that would still leave you with something on him — knowledge of the whereabouts of a rival claimant, and of his part in putting him there.”
“True. But things sort of balanced out, and I would have to admit having become an accomplice in order to talk about it.”
I nodded.
“Tight, but not impossible,” I agreed. “But did you think he would let me continue living if he ever did get a chance at the throne?”
“That was never discussed. Never.”
“It must have crossed your mind, though.”
“Yes, later,” she said, “and I decided that he would probably do nothing. After all, it was beginning to seem likely that you had been deprived of your memory. There was no reason to do anything to you so long as you were harmless.”
“So you stayed on to watch me, to see that I remained harmless?”
“Yes.”
“What would you have done had I shown signs of recovering my memory?”
She looked at me, then looked away.
“I would have reported it to Eric.”
“And what would he have done then?”
“I don’t know.”
I laughed a little, and she blushed. I could not remember the last time I had seen Flora blush.
“I will not belabor the obvious,” I said. “All right, you stayed on, you watched me. What next? What happened?”
“Nothing special. You just went on leading your life and I went on keeping track of it.”
“All of the others knew where you were?”
“Yes. I’d make no secret of my whereabouts. In fact, all of them came around to visit me at one time or another.”
“That includes Random?”
She curled her lip.
“Yes, several times,” she said.
“Why the sneer?”
“It is too late to start pretending I like him,” she said. “You know. I just don’t like the people he associates with — assorted criminals, jazz musicians… I had to show him family courtesy when he was visiting my shadow, but he put a big strain on my nerves, bringing those people around at all hours — jam sessions, poker parties. The place usually reeked for weeks afterward and I was always glad to see him go. Sorry. I know you like him, but you wanted the truth.”
“He offended your delicate sensibilities. Okay. I now direct your attention to the brief time when I was your guest. Random joined us rather abruptly. Pursuing him were half a dozen nasty fellows whom we dispatched in your living room.”
“I recall the event quite vividly.”
“Do you recall the guys responsible — the creatures we had to deal with?”
“Yes.”
“Sufficiently well to recognize one if you ever saw another?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Had you ever seen one before?”
“No.”
“Since?”
“No.”
“Had you ever heard them described anywhere?”
“Not that I can remember. Why?”
I shook my head.
“Not yet. This is my inquisition, remember? Now I want you to think back for a time before that evening. Back to the event that put me in Greenwood. Maybe even a little earlier. What happened, and how did you find out about it? What were the circumstances? What was your part in things?”