I heard her humming a tune: “The Ballad of the Water Crossers,” the song of Amber’s great merchant navy. Amber is not noted for manufacture, and agriculture has never been our forte. But our ships sail the shadows, plying between anywhere and anywhere, dealing in anything. Just about every male Amberite, noble or otherwise, spends some time in the fleet. Those of the blood laid down the trade routes long ago that other vessels might follow, the seas of a double dozen worlds in every captain’s head. I had assisted in this in times gone by, and though my involvement had never been so deep as Gerard’s or Caine’s, I had been mightily moved by the forces of the deep and the spirit of the men who crossed it.
After a while, Vialle came in bearing a tray heavy with bread, meat, cheese, fruit, and a flask of wine. She set it upon a table near at hand.
“You mean to feed a regiment?” I asked.
“Best to be safe.”
“Thanks. Won’t you join me?”
“A piece of fruit, perhaps,” she said.
Her fingers sought for a second, located an apple. She returned to the divan.
“Random tells me you wrote that song,” she said.
“That was a very long time ago, Vialle.”
“Have you composed any recently?”
I began to shake my head, caught myself, said, “No. That part of me is… resting.”
“Pity. It is lovely.”
“Random is the real musician in the family.”
“Yes, he is very good. But performance and composition are two different things.”
“True. One day when things have eased up… Tell me, are you happy here in Amber? Is everything to your liking? Is there anything that you need?”
She smiled. “All that I need is Random. He is a good man.”
I was strangely moved to hear her speak of him in this fashion.
“Then I am happy for you,” I said. And, “Younger, smaller… he might have had it a bit rougher than the rest of us,” I went on. “Nothing quite as useless as another prince when there is already a crowd of them about. I was as guilty as the rest. Bleys and I once stranded him for two days on an islet to the south of here…”
“…And Gerard went and got him when he learned of it,” she said. “Yes, he told me. It must bother you if you remember it after all this time.”
“It must have made an impression on him, too.”
“No, he forgave you long ago. He told it as a joke. Also, he drove a spike through the heel of your boot — pierced your foot when you put it on.”
“Then it was Random! I’ll be damned! I had always blamed Julian for that one.”
“That one bothers Random.”
“How long ago all of this was…” I said.
I shook my head and continued eating. Hunger seized me and she gave me several minutes of silence in which to get the upper hand on it. When I had, I felt compelled to say something.
“That is better. Much better,” I began. “It was a peculiar and trying night that I spent in the skycity.”
“Did you receive omens of a useful nature?”
“I do not know how useful they might prove. On the other hand, I suppose I’d rather have had them than not. Have there been any interesting happenings hereabouts?”
“A servant tells me your brother Brand continues to rally. He ate well this morning, which is encouraging.”
“True,” I said. “True. It would seem he is out of danger.”
“Likely. It — it is a terrible series of happenings to which you have all been subjected. I am sorry. I was hoping you might obtain some indication of an upturn in your affairs during the night you spent in Tir-na Nog’th.”
“It does not matter,” I said. “I am not that sure of the value of the thing.”
“Then why — Oh.”
I studied her with renewed interest. Her face still betrayed nothing, but her right hand twitched, tapping and plucking at the material of the divan. Then, as with a sudden awareness of its eloquence, she stilled it. She was obviously a person who had answered her own question and wished now she had done it in silence.
“Yes,” I said, “I was stalling. You are aware of my injury.”
She nodded.
“I am not angry with Random for having told you,” I said. “His judgment has always been acute and geared to defense. I see no reason not to rely on it myself. I must inquire as to how much he has told you, however, both for your own safety and my peace of mind. For there are things I suspect but have not yet spoken.”
“I understand. It is difficult to assess a negative — the things he might have left out, I mean — but he tells me most things. I know your story and most of the others. He keeps me aware of events, suspicions, conjectures.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking a sip of the wine. “It makes it easier for me to speak then, seeing how things are with you. I am going to tell you everything that happened from breakfast till now…”
So I did.
She smiled occasionally as I spoke, but she did not interrupt. When I had finished, she asked, “You thought that mention of Martin would upset me?”
“It seemed possible,” I told her.
“No,” she said. “You see, I knew Martin in Rebma, when he was but a small boy. I was there while he was growing up. I liked him then. Even if he were not Random’s son he would still be dear to me. I can only be pleased with Random’s concern and hope that it has come in time to benefit them both.”
I shook my head.
“I do not meet people like you too often,” I said. “I am glad that I finally have.”
She laughed, then said, “You were without sight for a long while.”
“Yes.”
“It can embitter a person, or it can give him a greater joy in those things which he does have.”
I did not have to think back over my feelings from those days of blindness to know that I was a person of the first sort, even discounting the circumstances under which I had suffered it. I am sorry, but that is the way that I am, and I am sorry.
“True,” I said. “You are fortunate.”
“It is really only a state of mind — a thing a Lord of Shadow can easily appreciate.”
She rose.
“I have always wondered as to your appearance,” she said. “Random has described you, but that is different. May I?”
“Of course.”
She approached and placed her finger tips upon my face. Delicately, she traced my features.
“Yes,” she said, “you are much as I had thought you would be. And I feel the tension in you. It has been there for a long while, has it not?”
“In some form or other, I suppose, ever since my return to Amber.”
“I wonder,” she said, “whether you might have been happier before you regained your memory.”
“It is one of those impossible questions,” I said. “I might also be dead if I had not. But putting that part aside for a moment, in those times there was still a thing that drove me, that troubled me every day. I was constantly looking for ways to discover who I really was, what I was.”
“But were you happier, or less happy, than you are now?”
“Neither,” I said. “Things balance out. It is, as you suggested, a state of mind. And even if it were not so, I could never go back to that other life, now that I know who I am, now that I have found Amber.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you ask me these things?”
“I want to understand you,” she said. “Ever since I first heard of you back in Rebma, even before Random told me stories, I wondered what it was that drove you. Now I’ve the opportunity — no right, of course, just the opportunity — I felt it worth speaking out of turn and order beyond my station simply to ask you.”