Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves (14 page)

Didn't you need a memory for a memento to mean anything? "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Keep it safe."

From what? "Is this the help you wanted me to give you?"

"Safeguarding the stone is in your own interests. As to what you agreed, the time of that promised service remains in the future. For now, you must remain here, learning and readying yourself for your new life."

"I thought you were in a hurry."

"Time passes, but not so swiftly that you cannot ready yourself properly. Shahotain says your skills develop steadily."

"Not what he says to me."

Bennett chuckled. "No. He would not. Still, I am pleased with your progress." He said more, praising John. When a sprite came to fetch Bennett, his parting words to John were, "When you are well grounded we will go up to the high court, and you will claim what is yours."

John just said farewell. Bennett's continued promises of an inheritance to come when John completed his studies did little to convince John of Bennett's sincerity.
When you are
well grounded. We will. You will. In the future. But not now.
The constant deferment rankled like a days-old cut; like such a cut, the pain of "not yet" had lost its sharpness. John had grown less anxious about time, immersed as he was in his studies. Such relaxed acceptance of the rhythm of the other-world was a change in him, and in its own way a marker of the passage of time. Surely a fair bit of time must have passed since he had come to this place, but what measure of time mattered in a world of eternal twilight? And how important was time after all? Any true student of magic knew that the Way was a journey with no end, and that a magician's studies were a lifetime adventure. Hours and days were but petty cycles within the All of the World.

Time might not be important, but timing was, and Bennett a master of the art. All John had to do was heft the weight of the gift Bennett had brought him to know Bennett was playing games again. He felt the hardness of the gift beneath its wrapping of soft silk, his fingers tracing where the roughness of the ornate silver mount gave way to the smoothness of the crystal. Just what string did Bennett think this thing would pull?

For the moment, John didn't care. He wasn't going to let Bennett intrude on him. There were other, more important things to care about. If he'd been wearing his leathers, he would have had a pocket into which he could slip the package. The doublet and hose, which Fraoch said looked so good on him, didn't offer any place to stash the gift, so he'd have to carry it in his hand. He wouldn't just throw it away; even if it had come from Bennett. The crystal had intrinsic interest, not least its faint residue of old, faded magic. But that was something for later thought. Now he was expected elsewhere.

Despite his early misgivings about his fellow students, John had grown fond of their company, and more than fond of one in particular. The trials of learning the Way had forged a bond between them. The other elves were a lot like his friends from the college fencing team, but better. There, he had shared mutual interest in the sport but little else. Here, too, his companions shared a fascination with him: magic, a far more absorbing study than anything John had ever encountered. But there was more than shared art. Here his comrades were all elves, like him. They shared the heritage of Faery. True, John still knew little of that heritage, but their kinship was something he felt in his bones. It was sort of like being in a frat—or so he imagined—or a gang; like what he'd known during his time with Bear and the Downtown Dons. But this was better. Far better.

And when John thought about things being better, he naturally thought about Fraoch. He wasn't sure what he had done to earn her favors, but whatever it was, he was glad. The first time they had made love had been—well, John wasn't sure he had the words to describe it, but just remembering it got him excited. He was going to have to make sure that she and he did some private "studying" again soon.

It was amazing to have such thoughts come so casually. After John's first tryst with Fraoch, Duwynt had told him that Gentiano, originally the least friendly of the bunch, had been Fraoch's lover. John had feared the start of some jealous rivalry, but his apprehension had been unfounded. "Time for things to change," Gentiano had said when he next saw John, and had actually offered John tips on how to make love to Fraoch. When John had tried the advice in his next session with Fraoch, he'd been surprised to find that Gentiano hadn't been setting him up. John had been amazed. Gentiano certainly had not acted the way any of the Dons would have if John had ended up with one of their honeys. For all his haughty manner, Gentiano was okay when life got real.

In fact, Gentiano was the first to greet him when John arrived at the hall. The music was already rolling, a lively twilit take on
700 Elves
played by a crew of Faery folk in motley. For all the wild dissonance of their looks, the musicians played well together. John especially liked the bongo beat under the pipes: very danceable. But Gentiano preempted John from joining the sprites and goblins frolicking on the floor, steering him around the crowd and through the hogies rushing about to attend on the revelers toward a quirt er corner in the back where the elves hung out. Fraoch and I Hiwynt were already there, deep in an argument about esoteric applications of the Law of Similarity. They dumped the discussion and met him with smiles and questions about what had kept him, so he told them he'd seen Bennett.

"He give you a present?" Duwynt asked, indicating the package John carried.

"Something like that."

"So what is it?" Fraoch asked.

"Later. The music's too nice to spoil."

Being friends, they let it ride and talked about other tlrings.

A bogie came up with refills, and Duwynt insisted that John try a new liquor that Duwynt had added to the refreshment stocks. The stuff had no smell that he could discern, but it had a kicky, smoky taste that lingered. He liked it. Fraoch said she liked the taste, too, but she hadn't drunk any, only taken the flavor secondhand from John's mouth. He liked that too.

Still, curiosity was powerful. As John knew it would, the talk kept coming back around to Bennett's visit. John was on his third shot of Duwynt's liquor before he let his friends convince him to talk about his visit with Bennett. To have a hand free to unwrap the package, he tossed his glass away, confident that a bogie would snatch it before it smashed against the floor. The bogies were good at catching glasses; they didn't like what happened to them when they missed.

"He gave me this," he said, unveiling the silver and crystal trinket. Seeing it again reminded him of how angry he was with Bennett. "He said it belonged to my mother. My real mother."

The others exchanged glances. There was some kind of undercurrent in those glances, something to which John was not privy.

"You're sure that's what he said?" Duwynt said.

John felt a little peeved by the question. He tucked the crystal back into its wrappings. "My ears work."

"What about your brain?" Fraoch asked. "Are you sure he is not just trying to see how you react?"

"How am I supposed to react? I never knew my mother."
My
Faery
mother. Whoever the hell she
was! "Bennett still won't even tell me her name! Just gives me a gimcrack that might or might not have belonged to the woman and tells me to guard it carefully."

"Looks like he's getting some reaction," Gentiano said.

"Be kind, Gen. Jack's having a hard time." Fraoch ran a sympathetic, soothing hand up John's arm and onto his shoulder. "All the same, Jack, I think that Gen is right. Bennett likes to make people dance to his tune, especially when he thinks that they can't hear the music."

"So you think Bennett's scamming me?"

"There must be some value to the object, why else tell you to guard it?" Gentiano asked.

"More scam," Duwynt said with a shrug.

Fraoch didn't look convinced. "Perhaps. From what Jack has told me, it wouldn't be the first time his father has done that to him."

"Definitely a scam. That's what I'd bet," Duwynt said.

Fraoch hummed thoughtfully. "On the other hand, perhaps it's an honest gift and there is some other reason to guard the object. Perhaps it really did belong to John's mother."

Duwynt looked sharply at her. "You don't think..."

"Why not?" she said.

Gentiano laughed. "Yes, indeed, why not?"

"Why not what?" John didn't like being left out of their secrets.

Fraoch gave him a solicitous look. "Names, Jack. Names are worth guarding."

"Names? You've seen it. There's no name on it. There's nothing written on it at all."

"Not all records are written," Gentiano said. "Don't tell me you didn't feel the residue?" "Don't say it if you didn't," Duwynt said mock-seriously. "We'd have to tell Shahotain that he's a failure. He wouldn't like that."

"I felt it," John said defensively. John still wasn't good at handling it when he was the butt of his friends' humor. "Suppose it does hold my mother's name." Suppose it did. The thought was a little unsettling. So long without knowing and now to have the answer in his hand. "Why would Bennett give it to me?"

Fraoch looked a little surprised, as though he was missing I he obvious. "You're Bennett's heir. Who, besides himself, would have a better interest in seeing your mother's name safely guarded?"

"A cheap, naive guardian," Gentiano said.

"But only if he believes the story," Duwynt said. "Do you believe Bennett's gift worth guarding, Jack?"

"I don't know."

"See, Bennett's plan is not working," Duwynt said.

"Jack said he wasn't sure, not that he was unconvinced," Fraoch said.

"He ought to be unconvinced," Duwynt insisted. "Bennett never gives away anything of worth."

"He could have reasons," Fraoch suggested.

"He usually does," said Duwynt.

"Maybe he just means for Jack to have a memento of his mother. Or maybe he intends Jack to puzzle it out, you know, like a
shemiten
puzzle."

Gentiano frowned. "If he'd intended it as a puzzle, wouldn't he have told Jack that the thing had a secret without revealing what the secret was? It can't be
shemiten.
Jack knows what the prize is."

"What's a
shemiten
puzzle?" John asked.

Fraoch answered, "A riddle for an elf child. It's a way to learn about the use of magic and wits to uncover secrets. A
shemiten
is supposed to be a paradigm for life; you know,
a,
search where you don't know what you are looking for, and where you only realize that you were looking when you find the answer to the puzzle. For a child, there is always a prize for solving the puzzle."

"A prize, eh?" John didn't feel like jumping through hoops for anyone, especially Bennett.

"Fraoch, my dear, I hate to say it, but I begin to think that you may be right," Duwynt said. "Bennett loves
shemiten.
If the puzzle is exceptionally difficult, he would find revealing the nature of the prize to be gained a wonderful tantalizer."

"So the prize is supposed to be my mother's name? That doesn't seem like much." Not on the face of it, but John knew that it meant a lot to him. Bennett would know that. So John had recognized the carrot, so what? There'd probably be a stick involved somewhere.
That
was like Bennett, too. And in between? Just what was he supposed to do with Bennett's gift? What was the puzzle? How was he supposed to achieve this prize?

And when he did, then what?

Gentiano nodded knowingly. "Learning your mother's name would give you knowledge you didn't have before."

"Knowledge fuels power," said Duwynt.

"And power fuels magic," said Fraoch.

"And magic rules the world," said Gentiano.

Fraoch chuckled.
"Fuels
the world, Gen."

"Shahotain has his version, I have mine," he returned.

Duwynt sighed and said, "My, but wouldn't it be nice to be a step ahead of Bennett for once?"

"Sweet," Gentiano agreed.

"So very." Fraoch got a dreamy look in her eyes. "We could—what's the phrase from the sunlit world?—give him some of his own medical."

"Medicine," John corrected absently.

Was there a chance here to give Bennett some of his own back? John wasn't sure he could see any way that knowing his mother's name would hurt Bennett. Or her, for that matter. Hadn't Bennett said that she was dead? Whatever his reasons, Bennett was withholding John's mother's name. What a petty, spiteful thing to do. Who was helped by keeping the name a secret? No one, that's who. Who was hurt? John. It seemed a simple situation. Learning his mother's name shouldn't affect Bennett one way or the other, yet the learning was something that Bennett clearly didn't want. Well, hell,
that
was enough reason to find out all by itself.

Or did Bennett
want
John to know? If the gift was a
shemiten
puzzle, as his friends thought...