Only a ghost could have beaten Benedict or Benedict's ghost with that maneuver. We stand too close for him to block my blade, but his countercut, perfectly placed, would have removed my arm, had there been an arm there to meet it...
As there is not, I complete the stroke, delivering the blow with the full force of my right arm, high upon that lethal device of moonlight and fire, blackness and smoothness, near to the point where it is joined with him.
With an evil tearing at my shoulder, the arm comes away from Benedict and grows still... We both fall.
“Get up! By the unicorn, Corwin, get up! The sun is rising! The city will come apart about you!”
The floor beneath me wavers to and from a misty transparency. I glimpse a light-scaled expanse of water. I roll to my feet, barely avoiding the ghost's rush to clutch at the arm he has lost. It clings like a dead parasite and my side is hurting again...
Suddenly I am heavy and the vision of ocean does not fade. I begin to sink through the floor. Color returns to the world, wavering stripes of pink. The Corwin-spurning floor parts and the Corwin-killing gulf is opened...
I fall...
“This way, Corwin! Now!”
Random stands on a mountaintop and reaches for me. I extend my hand...
CHAPTER 11
...And frying pans without fires are often far between...
We untangled ourselves and rose. I sat down again immediately, on the bottommost stair. I worked the metal hand loose from my shoulder-no blood there, but a promise of bruises to come-then cast it and its arm to the ground. The light of early morning did not detract from its exquisite and menacing appearance.
Ganelon and Random stood beside me.
“You all right, Corwin?”
“Yes. Just let me catch my breath.”
“I brought food,” Random said. “We could have breakfast right here.”
“Good idea.”
As Random began unpacking provisions, Ganelon nudged the arm with the toe of his boot.
“What the hell,” he asked, “is that?”
I shook my head.
“I lopped it off the ghost of Benedict,” I told him. “For reasons I do not understand, it was able to reach me.”
He stooped and picked it up, studied it.
“A lot lighter than I thought it would be,” he observed. He raked the air with it. “You could do quite a job on someone, with a hand like that.”
“I know.”
He worked the fingers.
“Maybe the real Benedict could use it.”
“Maybe,” I said. “My feelings are quite mixed when it comes to offering it to him, but possibly you're right...”
“How's the side?”
I prodded it gently.
“Not especially bad, everything considered. I'll be able to ride after breakfast, so long as we take it nice and easy.”
“Good. Say, Corwin, while Random is getting things ready, I have a question that may be out of order, but it has been bothering me all along.”
“Ask it.”
“Well, let me put it this way: I am all for you, or I would not be here. I will fight for you to have your throne, no matter what. But every time talk of the succession occurs, someone gets angry and breaks it off or the subject gets changed. Like Random did, while you were up there. I suppose that it is not absolutely essential for me to know the basis of your claim to the throne, or that of any of the others, but I cannot help being curious as to the reasons for all the friction.”
I sighed, then sat silent for a time.
“All right,” I said after a while, and then I chuckled. “All right. If we cannot agree on these things ourselves, I would guess that they must seem pretty confused to an outsider. Benedict is the eldest. His mother was Cymnea. She bore Dad two other sons, also-Osric and Finndo. Then-how does one put thesethings? —Faiella bore Eric. After that. Dad found some defect in his marriage with Cymnea and had it dissolved-ab initio, as they would say in my old shadow—from the beginning. Neat trick, that. But he was the king.”
“Didn't that make all of them illegitimate?”
“Well, it left their status less certain. Osric and Finndo were more than a little irritated, as I understand it, but they died shortly thereafter. Benedict was either less irritated or more politic about the entire affair. He never raised a fuss. Dad then married Faiella.”
“And that made Eric legitimate?”
“It would have, if he had acknowledged Eric as his son. He treated him as if he were, but he never did anything formal in that regard. It involved the smoothing-over process with Cymnea's family, which had become a bit stronger around that time.”
“Still, if he treated him as his own.. ”
“Ah! But he later did acknowledge Llewella formally. She was born out of wedlock, but he decided to recognize her, poor girl. All of Eric's supporters hated her for its effect on his status. Anyway, Faiella was later to become my mother. I was born safely in wedlock, making me the first with a clean claim on the throne. Talk to one of the others and you may get a different line of reasoning, but those are the facts it will have to be based on. Somehow it does not seem quite as important as it once did, though, with Eric dead and Benedict not really interested..., But that is where I stand.”
“I see-sort of,” he said. “Just one more thing, then...”
“What?”
“Who is next? That is to say, if anything were to happen to you... ?”
I shook my head.
“It gets even more complicated there, now. Caine would have been next with him dead, I see it as swinging over to Clarissa's brood-the redheads. Bleys would have followed, then Brand.”
“Clarissa? What became of your mother?”
“She died in childbirth. Deirdre was the child. Dad did not remarry for many years after mother's death. When he did, it was a redheaded wench from a far southern shadow. I never liked her. He began feeling the same way after a time and started fooling around again. They had one reconciliation after Llewella's birth in Rebma, and Brand was the result. When they were finally divorced, he recognized Llewella to spite Clarissa. At least, that is what I think happened.”
“So you are not counting the ladies in the succession?”
“No. They are neither interested nor fit. If I were, though, Fiona would precede Bleys and Llewella would follow him. After Clarissa's crowd, it would swing over to Julian, Gerard, and Random, in that order. Excuse me-count Flora befare Julian. The marriage data is even more involved, but no one will dispute the final order. Let it go at that.”
“Gladly,” he said. “So now Brand gets it if you die, right?”
“Well... He is a self-confessed traitor and he rubs everybody the wrong way. I do not believe the rest of them would have him, as he stands now. But I do not believe he has by any means given up.”
“But the alternative is Julian.” I shrugged.
“The fact that I do not like Julian does not make him unfit. In fact, he might even be a very effective monarch.”
“So he knifed you for the chance to prove it,” Random called out. “Come on and eat.”
“I still don't think so,” I said, getting to my feet and heading for the food. “First, I don't see how he could have gotten to me. Second, it would have been too damned obvious. Third, if I die in the near future Benedict will have the real say as to the succession. Everyone knows that. He's got the seniority, he's got the wits, and he's got the power. He could simply say, for example. The hell with all this bickering, I am backing Gerard, and that would be it.”
“What if he decided to reinterpret his own status and take it himself?” Ganelon asked.
We seated ourselves on the ground and took the tin dishes Random had filled.
“He could have had it long before this, had he wanted it,” I said. “There are several ways of regarding the offspring of a void marriage, and the most favorable one would be the most likely in his case. Osric and Finndo rushed to judgment, taking the worst view. Benedict knew better. He just waited. So... It is possible. Unlikely, though. I'd say.”