“Thanks,” I said, and another question occurred to me but I decided against asking it at that moment. For the benefit of the others, I closed off by saying, “So do you think he needs any more blankets? Or anything else?”
Gerard raised his glass to me, then took a drink.
“Very good. Keep up the good work,” I said, and I passed my hand over his card.
“Brother Brand seems to be doing all right,” I said, “and Gerard does not recollect Dad's saying anything that would directly connect Shadow slippage and his departure. I wonder how Brand will recall things, when he comes around?”
“If he comes around,” Julian said.
“I think that he will,” I said. “We have all taken some pretty bad beatings. Our vitality is one of the few things we have come to trust. My guess is that he will be talking by morning.”
“What do you propose doing with the guilty party,” he asked, “if Brand names him?”
“Question him,” I said.
“Then I would like to do the questioning. I am beginning to feel that you may be right this time, Corwin, and that the person who stabbed him may also be responsible for our intermittent state of siege, for Dad's disappearance, and for Caine's killing. So I would enjoy questioning him before we cut his throat, and I would like to volunteer for that last part also.”
“We will keep it in mind,” I said.
“You are not excluded from the reckoning, Corwin.”
“I was aware of that.”
“I have something to say,” said Benedict, smothering a rejoinder from Julian. “I find myself troubled both by the strength and the apparent objective of the opposition. I have encountered them now on several occasions, and they are out for blood. Accepting for the moment your story of the girl Dara, Corwin, her final words do seem to sum up their attitude: 'Amber will be destroyed. ' Not conquered, subjugated, or taught a lesson. Destroyed. Julian, you wouldn't mind ruling here, would you?” Julian smiled.
“Perhaps next year this time,” he said. “Not today, thank you.”
“What I am getting at is that I could see you-or any of us-employing mercenaries or obtaining allies to effect a takeover. I cannot see you employing a force so powerful that it would represent a grave problem itself afterward. Not a force that seems bent on destruction rather than conquest. I cannot see you, me, Corwin, the others as actually trying to destroy Amber, or willing to gamble with forces that would. That is the part I do not like about Corwin's notion that one of us is behind this.”
I had to nod. I was not unaware of the weakness of that link in my chain of speculations. Still, there were so many unknowns... I could offer alternatives, such as Random then did, but guesses prove nothing.
“It may be,” Random said, “that one of us made the deal but underestimated his allies. The guilty party may now be sweating this thing as much as the rest of us. He may not be in a position to turn things off now, even if he wants to.”
“We could offer him the opportunity,” Fiona said, “to betray his allies to us now. If Julian could be persuaded to leave his throat uncut and the rest of us were willing to do the same, he might come around-if Random's guess is correct. He would not claim the throne, but he was obviously not about to have it before. He would have his life and he could save Amber quite a bit of trouble. Is anyone willing to commit himself to a position on this?”
“I am,” I said. “I will give him life if he will come across, with the understanding that it will be spent in exile.”
“I will go along with that,” Benedict said.
“So will I,” said Random.
“On one condition,” Julian said. “If he was not personally responsible for Caine's death, I will go along with it. Otherwise, no. And there would have to be evidence.”
“Life, in exile,” Deirdre said. “All right. I agree.”
“So do I,” said Flora.
“And I,” Llewella followed.
“Gerard will probably agree too,” I said. “But I really wonder whether Brand will feel the same as the rest of us. I've a feeling he may not.”
“Let us check with Gerard,” Benedict said. “If Brand makes it and proves the only holdout, the guilty party will know he has only one enemy to avoid-and they can always work out their own terms on that count.”
“All right,” I said, smothering a few misgivings, and I recontacted Gerard, who agreed also.
So we rose to our feet and swore that much by the Unicorn of Amber-Julian's oath having an extra clause to it-and swore to enforce exile on any of our own number who violated the oath. Frankly, I did not think it would net us anything, but it is always nice to see families doing things together.
After that, everyone made a point of mentioning that he would be remaining in the palace overnight, presumably to indicate that no one feared anything Brand might have to say in the morning-and especially to indicate that no one had a desire to get out of town, a thing that would not be forgotten, even if Brand gave up the ghost during the night. In that I had no further questions to put to the group and no one had sprung forward to own up to the misdeeds covered by the oath, I leaned back and listened for a time after that. Things came apart, falling into a series of conversations and exchanges, one of the main topics being an attempted reconstruction of the library tableau, each of us in his own place and, invariably, why each of us was in a position to have done it, except for the speaker. I smoked; I said nothing on the subject. Deirdre did spot an interesting possibility, however. Namely, that Gerard could have done the stabbing himself while we were all crowded around, and that his heroic efforts were not prompted by any desire to save Brand's neck, but rather to achieve a position where he could stop his tongue-in which case Brand would never make it through the night. Ingenious, but I just couldn't believe it. No one else bought it either. At least, no one volunteered to go upstairs and throw Gerard out. After a time Fiona drifted over and sat beside me.
“Well, I've tried the only thing I could think of,” she said. “I hope some good comes of it.”
“It may,” I said.
“I see that you have added a peculiar piece of ornamentation to your wardrobe,” she said, raising the Jewel of Judgment between her thumb and forefinger and studying it.
Then she raised her eyes.
“Can you make it do tricks for you?” she asked.
“Some,” I said.
“Then you knew how to attune it. It involves the Pattern, doesn't it?”
“Yes. Eric told me how to go about it, right before he died.”
“I see.”
She released it, settled back into her seat, regarded the flames.
“Did he give you any cautions to go along with it?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“I wonder whether that was a matter of design or circumstance?”
“Well, he was pretty busy dying at the time. That limited our conversation considerably.”
“I know. I was wondering whether his hatred for you outweighed his hopes for the realm, or whether he was simply ignorant of some of the principles involved.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Think again of Eric's death, Corwin. I was not there when it occurred, but I came in early for the funeral. I was present when his body was bathed, shaved, dressed-and I examined his wounds. I do not believe that any of them were fatal, in themselves. There were three chest wounds, but only one looked as if it might have run into the mediastinal area—”
“One's enough, if—”
“Wait,” she said. “It was difficult, but I tried judging the angle of the puncture with a thin glass rod. I wanted to make an incision, but Caine would not permit it. Still, I do not believe that his heart or arteries were damaged. It is still not too late to order an autopsy, if you would like me to check further on this. I am certain that his injuries and the general stress contributed to his death, but I believe it was the jewel that made the difference.”