Extracts from the Journal of

Chapter I
Amber, 113 PPF

Fama nihil est celerius (Nothing travels faster than rumour)

- Livy

ristan has some truly bizarre notions at times. I almost got the impression that he actually expected me to be glad. True, he was a little drunk at the time, but one might still have extended the not ill-founded hope that after all these years a simple, singular truth might have gained some purchase on his bureaucracy-wearied psyche. That if Bleys never returns to Amber, it will still be too soon. Jubilees are a time for parades, festivities, celebrations and high church mumblings. Hundred year jubilees all the more so. They are not infrequently also occasion for the sovereign to display his or her largesse and magnanimity. Thus, pardons and amnesties are not unheard of. What is worthy of note however is the sovereign, at the apparent behest of his chief minister, choosing to mark the centenary of his rule by donning a placard with the words "Depose Me" emblazoned across it. "We're offering him a twenty-four hour amnesty to begin with," Tristan confided in me, "That's just to negotiate the conditions for his permanent return." He sat back and regarded me benignly. My first thought was to bang my head against the nearest wall at this idiocy, my second was to adopt an expression of bland indifference, pour him another drink, and say "I see." It was the latter notion that prevailed. Barely. Tristan waxed enthusiastic about the plan - Bleys would be permitted back briefly to determine the conditions under which he might resume his place at Court, hopefully in time for the festivities to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the formal enthronement of Random and Vialle. Tristan didn't exactly wipe a tear from the corner of his eye at the thought of the family reunited in brotherhood and amity at this time of rejoicing, but I could tell that this was the direction in which his wild imaginings were tending. It all sounded like what Wilkes, the real Wilkes, would have called a "scurvy jest", a monumentally black joke heedless of its capacity for outrage and offense. Invite to the centenary celebrations of your reign the man who tried to kill you and your Queen and take your throne. Oh, I know what the prisoners are supposed to have reported concerning his objectives, but whether Random lived or died, Bleys would never have been secure on the throne. But a dead predecessor and a reputation for ruthlessness would have served him better than leaving the legitimate occupant alive, a rallying point for the rest of the Family. Having established the precedent either way that the throne was there for the taking, his only realistic option would be to rule by fear. You can't treat these things like a game, although I'll concede as an outside possibility that Bleys is an idiot. But that makes him just as dangerous, if for slightly different reasons. I suppose on reflection that in a way, Tristan's scheme was rather droll, if one viewed the jest as being directed at the expense of Bleys himself. Except that the message that would be received would not be "You don't matter enough to be afraid of", but rather "Try your luck again, sir?" I'm used to Tristan's madder ideas - he's been trying to get duelling banned in Amber for decades now - but what I wasn't used to was the King actually acceding to them. If I had known of this before Tristan first suggested it to Random, then I would have laid certain odds and subsequently lost rather a lot of money. "Oh," said Tristan, with a slightly guilty start, "By the way, these negotiations are meant to be secret." I managed not to laugh. This is Amber, I thought: cave quid dicis, quando, et qui. Beware what you say, when, and to whom. Poor Tristan. He means so well. There's something almost Wesleyian about his concern for moral well-being of others. Sometimes I think that if Random hadn't given him a job, he'd be handing out improving tracts on street corners. Or off summoning evangelists of desire to go with his velociraptors. I could have remonstrated with him. I could have made some attempt to advert him to the full extent of his folly. He wouldn't have understood. For Tristan, Bleys was a favoured brother who had erred and lost his way, and needed to be brought back into the fold. At least I assume that this is what encompassed the general tenor of his thoughts. Either that or his legal reforms had settled on a fixed penalty of sixty years voluntary exile for treason and attempted regicide. Nitocris, when I first met her, had wondered why I didn't seize Amber's throne for myself. If this had always been the judicial tariff for such trivial misdemeanours, then I would have had to join a queue. In short, I'd had this conversation with Tristan before, and had got nowhere. In his eyes, Bleys was salvageable, and he just could not comprehend why I had no time for the man. The oratorical skills acquired in the Upper House would avail me not. Not with Tristan, that was ... My first counter-move against the Welcome Home Committee was to make use of the discreet channel of communication I had established betwixt myself and Castle Arden. Originally intended to facilitate my intermittent attempts to win the heart of the cold but lovely Margot, it now bore anonymous tidings of the clandestine negotiations to the one person guaranteed to make the most forceful and strenuous protests. And indeed, the very next day, I espied Julian in his most ominous thundercloud guise, clanking his way up to Random's study. When he clanked out again, there were little metaphorical lightning bolts dancing across his brow. His representations had evidently fallen on deaf ears. That at least confirmed the unwelcome news that Random was serious about the whole ludicrous business. That was all right, because so was I. A man who causes innumerable deaths in his pursuit of the throne naturally makes enemies along the way. So I made sure that they were the next to know. The denizens of Amber, being long lived, have long memories. As far as they were concerned, the bitter fighting that had accompanied the attempted coup might as well have happened yesterday. And plenty of them remembered the carnage attendant on Bleys' previous attempt with Corwin to wrest control of the realm from Eric. Admittedly, Bleys had never actually sworn allegiance to Eric, and no-one seems to have come out of that particular debacle with much credit anyway, but there were still plenty of individuals - former supporters of Eric, members of the military, families who had lost loved ones - who still hated him with a vengeance. And of course there were those who had never really liked him much anyway. Soon they all knew. Everybody knew. The Daily News ran the story, and The Star and The Chronicle picked up on it. The Times eventually deigned to take note after about the first week. People talked about it in the taverns and the streets, in salons and at Court. And since the news had percolated out through those with little love for the exiled prince, the general tone of the debate was blissfully negative. The cat was out of the bag, and the campaign was under way. I settled back to see how obdurate the powers that were would be. Tristan came to see me, looking worried. Someone had leaked news of the covert talks with Bleys, and people were voicing objections. "So I gather," I said, nodding. He made the observation that only a handful of persons had knows of the negotiations, a number which coincidentally included myself. I commiserated with him on the porous nature of his arrangements. Tristan bit back. "You do realise," he said, "that Bleys is the expert when it comes to Pattern and magick. If anyone can bring back Beltaine and Owen, then he can. This campaign against him could be condemning them to being stuck in there forever. Doesn't that strike you as being rather irresponsible?" Somehow I kept my temper. He probably believed that this was truly the case, but I have never been particularly appreciative of moral blackmail, especially when applied with this lack of finesse. Frankly I considered this to be in execrably poor taste. If he'd tried the argument that the only way to help Beltaine and Owen was to get Fiona back, and that to get Fiona back required dealing with Bleys, then I might have been prepared to debate the practicalities of the matter, as well as the precise interpretation to be put on the phrase "dealing with". As it was, he was doing himself no favours whatsoever by attempting to use my affection for Beltaine as a lever against me. The next day, the crusade against Bleys intensified. Bills were stuck on walls, improving tracts of an anti-Bleys nature were handed out on street corners, public meetings were held, petitions were organised. Soon I found myself being summoned to Random's office. He made no accusations. I told him no lies. We both understood that he knew that I was behind the campaign, but we observed the formalities of the affair. In retrospect, he could have made some effort to explain just why he was embarking on this mad escapade, but he didn't. And I could have asked, I suppose. But unless the entire business was simply a ploy to lure Bleys into a trap - which I doubted, given that Tristan was the originator of the plan - the conversation would probably have done little to alter either of our positions. In the end he just asked that I use my good offices to try and calm the situation. "I'll see what I can do," I told him. As a gentleman, I was true to my word. I reviewed the current state of the campaign, and made careful note of all the things I might do to wind it down, to disperse the agitators, allay the heated passions and turn the deliberations of the disgruntled citizenry to less controversial topics. The movement had by now acquired something of a life of its own, but with a certain amount of effort I could indeed pull the rug from under it. And so, having done as I'd promised, I then began to feed and encourage my belua multorum capitum all the more. Two days later a pro-Bleys campaign started. Caine had sauntered into Random's study just as I had been leaving, so I knew precisely where its origins lay. I briefly amused myself by contemplating the irony of Caine being obliged to conduct a propaganda offensive on behalf of Bleys, before turning my attention to the best way of countering this escalation. I will admit to experiencing some mild concern at this new development. As long as the Anti-Bleys Coalition had been the only show in town, things had been peaceful. Now that there were two pressure groups with diametrically opposed agendas marching the streets, the situation became a little more volatile. I assumed that the spectre of public disorder was meant to intimidate me. Well, I wasn't going to fire the first shot. If Caine and I were going to get into a fire-juggling competition, then I was going to make damned sure that the flaming brand that got caught by the wrong end was going to burn his fingers and not mine. He may have had several thousand years more experience at this sort of thing than I, but I had learned at the feet of a true Master of the Art of Political Warfare. Not long after my parting of the ways with Nitocris, I had returned to Medmenham just long enough to restamp my seal firmly on the Mortlake name and estates, and to persuade the remainder of the pestilent Sir Tybalt's supporters to seek their fortunes overseas. While I was there, I had paid a brief visit to the aging John Wilkes in his hidey-hole on the Isle of Wight. He had been in his drawing room, surrounded by volumes of Latin poetry. The radical rabble-rouser turned government flunky was now living out his remaining years as a classical scholar. Unlike my mother, who had refused with revulsion all life-extending enchantments, Wilkes found himself in his dotage through the malice of the Earl of Sandwich, who now controlled all access to Cagliostro's Elixir, save for the occasional phial that wound its way into Dashwood's hands via St Germain. The former Honourable Member for Aylesbury was, however, his usual sardonic self. "No doubt when I'm dead Sandwich will just dig me up and elevate me to the Lords along with the rest of the ermined corpses he feeds though the division lobbies," he had said, "A reward for a lifetime of public service - another lifetime of public service, deliquescing on the government benches." "Wilkes and liquidity," I suggested facetiously. He snorted. "Not as good as the Atheist's Book of Common Prayer, Mortlake," he said, "Even Selwyn couldn't cap that one." "Wilkes and liturgy," I remembered. "Now that was a rallying cry," agreed Wilkes. He was silent for a moment as he mulled over past glories. And defeats. "You damned sorcerers," he said suddenly, although without any personal rancour, "If it hadn't been for you we could have had a real democracy in this country. Not much hope of that now. All that's left of the Whigs consists of Fox stuffing his face and inserting his tongue up fat Prinny's arse." This image of the Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition and the Prince Regent was indeed an arresting one. However ... "I resent the implication that anyone who can tell their cantrip from their cabbalah is automatically a Tory," I snapped. Wilkes sniffed. "Oh yes," he said sarcastically, "radical young Lord Mortlake used to sit on the Whig benches, didn't he? Before he buggered off to Fairyland. Well, you're here now." "And soon departing," I pointed out. The cockpit of Westminster made Amber look like a Methodist sewing circle, except that the sewing circle, although less fraught, was rather more interesting. "You could run this country," said Wilkes, now serious, "Dashwood could bring over enough Tories to vote Sandwich out of office ..." I held up my hand to silence him. "I'm not the country-running type," I informed him. A year of trying to introduce Nitocris to the concept of benign despotism had exhausted any remaining appetite I might have had for wrestling with the levers of power. Wilkes seemed to deflate slightly. "And I'd never have your common touch," I added modestly. Flattery seemed to enliven him a bit. "Common touch be damned," he said, "Do you want to know the real secret of a successful politician, Mortlake?" "I'm listening," I said. Wilkes grinned. The old wickedness was back. "Audacter calumniare," he said, quoting Bacon, "semper aliquid haerat. Spread libel boldly - some of it always sticks." And who was I to disagree with the Master? Now recalling this sterling piece of advice, I set about discrediting the Bring Back Bleys Brigade. Part of the propaganda that they were circulating was the claim that Bleys had saved the day at the Battle of the Abyss, bringing his forces into play just as Amber was being forced to retreat. This I had to deal with first. Soon the fashionable response in the clubs and salons was that Bleys had only been acting under Benedict's orders, and that it had been Benedict who had held back the final flanking assault until he had withdrawn to a position where it could inflict maximum damage. Bleys, in short, had merely been baby-sitting the reserves. On the streets and in the taverns different considerations were mulled over. Why had Bleys waited so long before intervening? How many good men had died because he had deliberately held back? Had it been mere self-aggrandisement, or had it been to establish himself as the front-runner for the soon-to-be vacated throne? And what, everyone was asking, could be the motives behind the pro-Bleys campaign? Why were they so keen to see a traitor and a would-be slayer of kings restored to a position of influence? What did they have to gain, unless ...? I was careful to foster no direct accusations of treasonous conspiracy. Just enough to nudge people's cognitive processes, and to permit them to draw their own conclusions. The Bleys supporters had little in the way of reply to this: they could protest their innocence, which only served to draw attention to the implicit charge of disloyalty, or they could just become more vociferous, which of course made people wonder about their motivation all the more. What they couldn't do was level similar charges of their own. The mainstay of my own little crusade was of course the notion of Bleys the traitor, rebel against the rightful King of Amber, Random himself. Having won this round, I then started preparing for Caine's next move. From the standpoint of the ongoing war of words, his was the weaker position. Indeed, the position of the pro-Bleys rabble was really so feeble that I suspected that the whole campaign was largely a feint, to draw attention away from the real counter-strike. It also raised the question why Random should permit a lobbying movement in support of his worst rival. I could only conclude that its purpose, as well as that of as distracting me, was to flush those still enamoured of Bleys out into the open, just in case the negotiations went poorly. This had certainly worked for me - I had already taken note of the fact that two of Bleys' more outspoken champions were also members of the Medmenham Club. When they brought me a petition to sign, I threw them out and made a mental note to have them blackballed. I rather got the impression that they had joined the Club primarily to associate themselves with the person they saw as Bleys' representative on earth, to whit, myself. Thus does one discover who one's real friends are, and doubtless Random was currently doing the same. But this still left the question of precisely what this outburst of Bleys-olatry was meant to distract me from. In Caine's position, I would have begun by suborning the editors of the broadsheets and the tabloids. Control the dissemination of information. This was indeed already underway, but I had by now over a dozen printing presses churning out posters and pamphlets, which could easily be turned to the production of a rival publication. The North Amberite, perhaps, in honour of my mentor. The next thing Caine would be doing would be to infiltrate the anti-Bleys lobby with agent provocateurs, ready to encourage extremism and incite violence. I accordingly made sure that my cohorts were inoculated with a healthy dose of paranoia. The agents of Bleys are perfidious and cunning, they reminded themselves, and may well seek to adopt the most underhand means to further their conspiracy - we must beware of attempts to provoke us. Of course, I then had to make sure that the paranoia did not turn into a witch-hunt. I could imagine Caine, having set the pro-Bleys campaign in motion, sitting at his desk with his feet up, waiting for me to do his dirty work for him by trying to second-guess a non-existent strategy. I've never particularly been one for moderation, but the necessity of covering all angles meant that I had to walk a particularly narrow and wobbly tightrope, whilst balancing a variety of forces. However, just as long as I could keep a close eye on things, I was confident that I could see this business through to a satisfactory conclusion. Naturally, this point had also occurred to certain other parties. Summoned again to Random's chambers, I was presented with a sealed scroll, a message to Bleys. Random wanted me to deliver it for him. I pointed out that I wouldn't know where to begin to look. Random wanted me to deliver it for him. I observed that Tristan had far more expertise in the necessary manipulations of Shadow than did I. Random wanted me to deliver it for him. Aquila non capit muscas, I noted - an eagle does not catch flies - but by then I was already out the door, scroll in hand. The idea was obviously to get me out of the way, with the intention of dismantling my political brainchild while I was away. If I couldn't get out of it, then I was going to have to expedite the wretched errand as quickly as I could. But then again, I might just be able to turn the situation to my advantage ... The first thing I did once I was far enough from Amber to shift Shadow, was to sit myself down beneath the bows of a shady oak, and to pick open the seal. I could always replace it later. The full text of the message read as follows:

Bleys Your idiot son is trying to stir up feeling against you in Amber. Negotiations are still on.

Random Damien, I know you're reading this

There are times when trying to protect Random from himself is a bitter and thankless task. Now, my promise to Random could easily be interpreted as a simple undertaking to deliver the scroll which he had pressed into my hand. I certainly had no recollection of making any promises at all about the arrangements of the letters on the page. And so I set off, shifting Shadow to reorganise the message along lines rather more to my liking. Something along the lines of:

Bleys The very idea of your return has led to outrage and protest from all quarters. Negotiations are off. Don't even think of coming back. Go to hell and die.

Random

On mature consideration, I decided to omit the "Go to hell and die", but otherwise this was the end result to which my efforts were directed. After a couple of hours I checked on my progress. No change at all. There was something damnably real about the paper that resisted my attempts to alter it. I tried a more subtle approach, concentrating not on the paper but on the ink itself. Again, Random had thought of this. The tenor and content of the missive remained just as he had set them down. I was thus possessed of an unalterable message which I had promised to deliver to Bleys, but which I could not in all conscience allow to fall into his hands. This posed something of a problem, and I was running out of time. Now that my back was turned, my carefully nurtured crusade could be unravelling even as I debated my next move. In the end I decided to leave it to the vagaries of Shadow. With a few careful nudgings in the desired direction, of course. I summoned a bird of my desire - a roc, in this case - and attached the scroll to its leg while it had its beak buried in an elephant, and then sent it on its way to Bleys' old haunts. Let me emphasise the "old". I wanted it to go to a Shadow where he had once been, but where he was no longer in residence. I was also careful to emphasise that "where he had once been" specifically excluded Amber itself. And if the bird should in fact encounter him, it was to attack. The message might reach him, or it might not. If it did, it would bear a large and taloned postscript of my own. It was the least worse compromise between duty and ... well, duty, that I could manage on the spur of the moment. Then I started back to Amber. I could have Trumped back, but too quick and eager a return might have prompted questions. I did however push myself quite hard on the return journey, so that by the time I had reached an inn about half a day's travel from the city, I was tired enough to acquiesce to the urgings of my body and seek lodgings for the night. There was a "No to Bleys" poster above the bar, which cheered me somewhat. If I Trumped to Amber first thing in the morning, then I would have been gone for a mere day and a half. Plenty of time to undo whatever damage my enforced absence might have permitted to occur. Naturally, as soon as my head hit the pillow, a much more satisfactory solution to my earlier dilemma eased itself into my consciousness. I had promised to deliver the message, that was true enough, but had given no guarantees concerning the distribution of any other missives of similar style and appearance. I could have deluged Bleys with a dozen different, contradictory messages, each of them attached to a bad-tempered avian the size of a house. Of course, I would have had to send a copy of the original rather than the original itself, lest its innate reality single it out for especial consideration by its recipient. But that wouldn't have mattered. I was sure that Random would have been happy for the words to be conveyed by any means. He had, by omission if nothing else, left the means of conveyance at my discretion. But of course this was now occurring to me too late in the day, and instead I had been obliged to bend a promise to the King in such a manner as to riddle it with stress fractures. Cursing myself, I drifted off to sleep.

Index   Chapter II

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