The Well-Favoured Man

by Elizabeth Willey

Genres: Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure; Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

Welcome to Argylle, where the ruling family - a brilliant, flighty, civilized and occasionally dangerous clan of nearly-immortal warriors and magicians - are hoping for a few years of relative peace. True, their Father Gaston has vanished, leaving both throne and family while he pursues some unexplained errand. His absence has stretched into years. True as well that their powerful Uncle Dewar has also wandered off without leaving a forwarding address, and hasn't been heard from for a worrisome length of time. It's a bad habit of running off that this family's elders have. But now young Prince Gwydion's been stuck with ruling the Dominion of Argylle, and with any luck, life can go back to being a satisfactory mixture of intrigue, gossip and viniculture, periodically enlivened by amateur theatricals and the odd quest or two. Yet Gwydion is finding this arrangement uncomfortable. Strange things keep turning up. A plague of monsters appears out of nowhere, attempting to take up residence in the local barns and forests. These are trumped by the arrival of a ravenous Great Dragon - ancient, sorcerous, profoundly cunning - so big you can see it thirty miles away. Meanwhile, a mysterious young woman has shown up, claiming to be Gwydion's long-lost - indeed, quite unexpected - sister. And then there are the high-tech aliens, who say they just want to conduct a legal investigation. It's enough, Gwydion thinks, to make a ruler want to find some nice long errand that'll take him away from his homeland for a spell... The Well-Favored Man is a courtly, complex, bloody-minded fantasy for those who love Roger Zelazny's Amber, Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint and the fantasy adventures of Steven Brust.

Release date: November 27, 2018

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 410

Sample

THE MANTICORE HAD RUN, PURSUED BY the silent and deadly dogs, up the ridge through the rhododendrons. Trampled bushes marked its passage. I spurred my horse, Cosmo, and ducked branches as he scrambled up after it. Even I could smell the pungent stink of my quarry, which drowned the homelier scents of pine and soil in an unpleasant overlay of dung and ammonia. Ahead, there was a snarling and a roaring.

A sandstone outcrop at the top of the slope had forced the manticore along rather than down. I turned and followed it; the outcrop became higher and developed into an overhang. The sounds of the dogs and the beast grew louder. There were boulders scattered around, a narrow foot-track threading between them, and the trees were fewer, straighter, and taller. The overhang was quite deep now, almost like a cave; fire circles on the sandy soil and soot stains on the roof showed where hunting parties had sheltered in the past. There were large splotches of blood in the sand also, punctuating the tail- and footmarks, and the sounds of the fight were immediately ahead.

Abruptly the ground dropped down steeply, and there before me in a broad open place beneath the overhang, I saw the manticore set on by my dogs. One, apparently dead, was fastened to its near hind leg, jaws locked; several others dead lay about on the ground, crushed or disembowelled by swipes from the beast’s claws. The manticore was the biggest I had ever seen. I lifted my lance. Cosmo pranced and sprang forward at the touch of my spurs.

We call them manticores here in Argylle, but they are not the same as the manticore known more widely in Pheyarcet and Phesaotois. For one thing, they are more lizardlike; for another, they are less intelligent. The latter trait makes it possible for a single skilled hunter to kill one, rather than the usual coordinated group activity.

Cosmo stepped lightly and quickly around the beast, just out of its reach, as I whistled to my hunting allies. The dead dog on the hind leg had been trying to hamstring it. I decided that this was a good time to handicap my opponent further and whistled again piercingly. The manticore was annoyed by this and lunged toward me, hindered in its homicidal intentions by the overhang. Cosmo danced back out of range and I continued to urge him back and to one side, luring the beast out into the open. It swatted at dogs with its claws, but the remaining bunch were smart enough to avoid them and rush in for bites at the belly, harrying it after me, but hampering fast pursuit.

We emerged from the semi-cave area and the level ground dropped away steeply below me. I signalled the dogs to hold the manticore where it was now and whistled again. Before the manticore could snarl and bounce forward over the dogs, a black-and-gold war-hawk plummeted down onto its head and pecked at its left eye.

The moment for which I’d been waiting came. Screaming and flailing, the manticore reared back. Cosmo knew; he leapt when I kicked him and we raced forward. The hawk, as well-trained as the dogs for this work, disengaged and took to the air as we shot in on the manticore’s left. It snatched at the hawk and then turned, too late, to us; one claw ripped through my cloak and scratched Cosmo’s flank as my lance drove up beneath its chin into the brain.

I had developed manticore slaying to a fine art of late. They are somewhat more intelligent than a wyvern, but they have their patterns like everything else.

I let go of the lance and drew my sword as we circled away from the tail. No need, though; it was a good strike, and the animal was flailing about in death agonies. I called back the dogs and they collected in a pack nearby, out of range of the monster’s thrashing. We watched while it continued dying. Meanwhile, I took out a Key, a bell, and a candle stub and performed a Lesser Summoning in the shadow of the overhang. My sister Belphoebe, who dwelt here in the forest Threshwood and is in a way its guiding genius, should be informed at once of my success in the hunt.

“Phoebe,” I said, “I have made a kill.”

“Where are you? Is that Beza Ridge?” I saw her in the globe of light from my candle-flame. She squatted by a stream on a broad, flat stone. Her short straight hair, russet-brown and pushed back behind her ears, was damp, as were her brief leather tunic and her lean, muscular legs. Evidently she’d been swimming. A string of fish in various stages of gutting and cleaning were in front of her, and she had taken her arm out of its sling for the moment.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Hah, you will want me to come and help you clean up then.”

“No, I’ll fire the corpse myself. I wanted you to know, though, that I have never seen one so big.”

“Measure it,” she directed me.

“Very well.”

“Gwydion,” Phoebe said, stopping me before I disrupted the spell’s line from me to her, “these things oppress me.”

“They worry me also,” I said. “We’re seeing more of them these days, and they’re stronger. I don’t know why. I just don’t know.”

Phoebe nodded. “You said that you thought an Eddy might have ruptured.”

I folded my arms, relaxed my stance. “I still think that’s the most likely explanation, but it will take much work to test its soundness. We have not had such a rupture here.”

“Perhaps we did not notice.”

“I believe we would notice. Theoretically the natural state of the Spring—unlike the manipulated and unnatural Well of Fire in Landuc—should mean that we never see ruptures, because the Spring’s forces move liberally.”

“Yet it would account for the monsters intruding. And we have been, relatively recently, under great stress as regards the Spring.”

Belphoebe knows a little—more than most laymen do—about sorcery, but she’s no adept. I sighed. “I don’t know whether the stress on the Spring was so great that it made an Eddy or that an Eddy so created would rupture rather than disperse gradually.”

“The monsters are—” she began.

I interrupted her. “You know that I agree that the circumstantial evidence, the creatures intruding here, is strongly in favor of a nearby Eddy-world exploding very recently, but I don’t have any idea why that would have happened all of a sudden.”

I was frustrated by the problem. It certainly showed in my voice and expression. Everyone knows Eddies occur in Pheyarcet in the currents of Landuc’s Well because those currents have been dammed and channelled to benefit Landuc; they hold worlds in their swift-swirling grips, worlds which come into being and go out of it unnaturally rapidly. When an Eddy flies apart under its self-induced stress, the vitality of the Well which has been pent in it is released and the world or worlds in the Eddy are destroyed. Some things from those worlds always survive and are cast willy-nilly into the surrounding area. However, we of Argylle do not bind or force our Spring’s flow, and therefore the Spring does not spin such volatile Eddies, though they are common to the Well. Eddies from Argylle’s Spring are uniformly slow and stable.

“Gwydion,” said Phoebe, and her voice was like our mother’s in its gentleness and tone, “I do not think you are negligent.”

I blushed. “I don’t either,” I said.

“I have not felt any Eddy either. Yet I still deem it might happen without our noticing. I recall when an Eddy last ruptured near Landuc, the whole Empire was plagued by those horrid red long-clawed rats; none knew whence they came, for there was no other sign of the Eddy breaking.”

“Phoebe, we agree on that. I am sorry to blow a stale wind at you. Certainly the characteristics of the creatures we’ve seen—the distortion, the strength—they are like those of the Eddy-worlds.” We had reprised everything either of us had thought for the past half-year. Yet we might, sometime, see a new face in the old review.

“It is a canker-problem.”

“When your arm heals—”

“Yes. I will go out, along the Roads from here, and follow the Spring’s flow to see if there are any Eddy-like distortions. It seems that to go and see is all there is to be done.”

“Thank you, Phoebe. I would go myself—”

“You have much on your mind. This is work for me.”

“Enjoy your fish.”

She grinned quickly. “Hah, caught in my disobedience by the physician himself.” We nodded cordially to one another and I terminated the spell by snuffing the candle. I uncoiled a piece of rope from around my body and waited for the manticore to finish dying. It took a long time.

When the carcass had burnt out, foul oily black smoke rising high into the deep-blue evening sky, I started for home. The dog pack trotted around me, businesslike and satisfied and untroubled by the loss of four of their fellows. I chose to take the long way home, going through the forest and then along the Haimance highway; there was no convenient Ley or Road anywhere close, and I wanted to unwind and think en route.

A good day’s work. Phoebe, her arm broken, could not kill this one herself and had asked me to do so before it wandered from wild Threshwood to the nearby farmlands and really caused trouble. I had been more than happy to oblige. It is good to get out and kill something foul once in a while. It purges me.

The hawk circled over the trees; I could not see her now because of the darkness and foliage, but I knew she was there over the canopy. Little night noises began as the air cooled; the trees seemed bigger and darker, and their litter muffled our sounds until we reached the highway. It was a good five hours’ slow ride home through the wood and fields. I had plenty of time to consider the manticore, all seven-and-a-half ells of it. Phoebe herself would have had trouble with that one on foot, I suspected. It had killed six of my dogs altogether, and they were all experienced with such creatures. It was bigger and faster than the usual monsters we saw here.

Usual monsters. That was the real problem: there had been too many of the cursed things wandering around, and Belphoebe had soberly told me when I had set her arm for her that she was now perfectly sure not all of them were left over from the problem we had lately had with Tython, whose ill-nature had drawn such creatures to him en masse. There were new permutations on the old standbys appearing, she said, and the old standbys had acquired a heightened viciousness and boldness. Her arm had been broken by a wyvern which had taken a fancy to sleeping in a farmer’s stone barn in the south. Wyverns are usually shy and retiring creatures, occasionally nesting in abandoned buildings, but preferring caves, and shunning inhabited areas as much as possible—though occasionally a herd of goats or flock of geese will tempt them out of the wastes.

I resolved to spend the next day or so winnowing through the records and making a study of exactly what unusual things had been happening lately. I might find some pattern that eluded me now, discover some overlooked source besides that of a hypothetical Eddy’s unlikely rupture. And once I knew what had caused this I would be able to rectify it. That was what Mother would have recommended. Collect information, think, and act.

After I had done my collecting and thinking, though, I must consult my elders before acting—my siblings, uncle if possible, and grandfather. This was more than a courtesy; any action would doubtless require cooperation from them, for one thing, and for another, they might see things I did not.

The City was peaceful, smelling of cooking and smoke. Golden light glowed from windows, bluish from the streetlamps’ faceted balls, lighting my way from the Haimance gate to the Citadel’s Island. I cleaned up and fed Cosmo myself and settled the dogs in for the night. The hawk soared up to the top of the East Tower. I felt I had accomplished something; in reality, of course, the greater problem was still there, lurking in the forest with the uncouth things like manticores.

Behind the tall rose-and-lily decorated doors, the Citadel was quiet. Guards saluted me and a few domestic staff nodded politely. I climbed up the winding central stair, intending to go to my study, but took the long way around the residential wing instead of making the sharp left that would put me by my rooms. I passed my older brother and sisters’ rooms, Alexander and Marfisa and Phoebe’s (never used), my mother’s untenanted, locked bedchamber …

Gaston’s apartment, connected to hers, was closed and silent. He was travelling, or so we hoped. It had been long years since anyone had heard from him. My grandfather Prospero, whose rooms were beside his, was down the Wye, in the seaport Ollol, having gone there this morning to meet Walter and the envoy from Landuc. I was the only family member currently in residence at the Citadel. There were many other people there, there always are, but it feels a bit lonely when I’m on duty, as I think of it, by myself. I unlocked and entered my own rooms.

Lonely, but not alone; when I was very tired, I often felt as though someone else were in the room with me. I felt it now: a silent companion’s amiable, invisible presence somewhere just behind me or beside me in my blind spot, never directly intruding. Every family has its ghost, or ghosts. My siblings and Prospero had mentioned similar feelings. I had never dared ask Gaston when he was still here.

My foot hit something flat which had been slipped under my door: a concert advertisement from my brother Walter with a note on its reverse.

Gwydion, I’m home again. All went well. When I left Landuc about twelve days ago Avril asked me to give you this: personal, not official correspondence, he said. Come to the concert! You’ll enjoy it. I have new music to show you. Small-ensemble works—just what you like best. Come see me tomorrow or I’ll come see you and pry you out of here with true brotherly devotion. Walter.

There was an envelope folded inside the announcement, sealed in three places with substantial blobs of red wax and impressed with a familiar ring. I opened the concert advertisement first, standing in the hallway and leaning on the vine-carven doorjamb to use the hall light for reading. Hm. Something called a brandenburg concerto by one Bohk. What might a brandenburg be? I sounded the word out. A horn, perhaps? Walter had wandered into the ever-changing outlands of Pheyarcet in his recent travels before this errand, and the music and instruments he had brought back were getting a varied reception. My own feelings were mixed. Some of it certainly was garbage, but some was very good, at least when adapted to the taste and instruments of Argylle. The stuff from Faphata, played on twelve-tone glass-belled drums, was popular in Haimance now, I’d heard.

The heavily-sealed note was unaddressed. I broke the seals and opened it.

Unto Lord Gwydion of Argylle from the Emperor Avril his Uncle, Salutations. Walter’s visit to us has brought to our full realization how long it has been since last we spoke with you. We hope that all goes well and request the favor of speech face to face, that we might but change a few words between us and assure ourselves (and Her Serenity, who agitates at times) of the health and well-being of our kin. By our hand with all affection, Avril.

I didn’t believe a word of it, except perhaps the part about Her Serenity (the Empress Glencora) agitating to know how we all fared. Walter would surely have passed on to them any recent news when he was there. He had conveyed our cousin Ottaviano here from the Empire of Landuc at the burning heart of distant Pheyarcet. In addition to negotiating a trade agreement with Prospero and the merchants, Otto would certainly be absorbing as much information about Argylle as he could and transmitting it back to the Emperor. Avril wanted something else, and I thought I knew what it might be: something he could not ask of Walter.

I put the note on my desk and sat down on the bed. The City’s mellow lights studded the darkness beyond the broad river Wye which flows around the island on which the Citadel is built. The hour was now very late; there were only a few isolated windows lit, and no coachlights moved along the roads. The moon was bright, a white oval above the countryside, but I lit a candle anyway for the friendly flame. Then I pulled off my boots and socks. Taking the candle, I went into my workroom to do a little sorcery.

Lenticular glass, firepan, sand, water, flower-shaped crystal bell, Keys, and the antithetical forces: put them together in the right way, with all due respect, and watch.

It was doubly difficult because Avril was in Pheyarcet, beyond Argylle’s border. I had to call upon the Well of Landuc in my spell, but at this distance the power to be gotten was immeasurably small—the invocation served to expedite the process of getting across the Border and to ease my workings through Landuc’s demesnes. One balances the three Forces when casting spells which reach past the Border or the Limen. People who have not assimilated another force cannot cast such spells into that force’s domain.

My vision blurred slightly, as if a patch of mist had drifted into the room, and the mistiness clotted above the flame and thickened on the glass. Folding inward, but not moving at all, it began to make the image, full of color and brightness stolen from the fire. A soft bell sounded, sustaining itself, and took on other notes as the image formed, to become words, my words.…

“… Summoning seeming and speech reciprocally.”

Avril, the Emperor, looked back at me, settling down in a high-backed chair even as our eyes met.

“Ah, Gwydion.” He nodded to me, smiling. He was at a table with his implements around him in artistically calculated disarray. Also a tall, deep-blue vase of dusty-gold roses. His robes were gold-bordered scarlet, a bit ostentatious—but that’s Avril.

“Uncle Avril,” I greeted him, also smiling.

“How are things in Argylle lately?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary has happened since last we spoke,” I said. “And in Landuc?”

“Smooth sailing, as far as I can see. Yet you may guess that I didn’t merely wish to trade pleasantries.”

I nodded. “Not such smooth sailing, then.”

“It is about your father. We have not heard from him in years. I am a little concerned.” He sounded testy. “I suppose I do not need to know where he is; he’s a private man, he keeps to himself, that is all very well. But I would just like to know he is alive. If you are in touch with him …?”

I had guessed Avril’s intention aright: he wanted Gaston. I said, “I understand. I have not spoken to him in a long time. He has been incommunicado.”

“I know. How long a time has it been since you last saw or heard from him?”

“Years, I guess. At least …” I thought carefully. “Between twelve and thirteen years. I could make it more exact if it mattered … Yes, he came early in springtime thirteen years ago.”

“You are not worried.”

“Gaston has dropped out of sight for extended periods in the past, as I understand it. And he was … you know he was not happy. He said little before he left last time. He had not been here often anyway, just dropping in and out once or twice a year or sending a message.”

Avril nodded, then sighed and ruffled his hair, not disarranging it in the slightest. “I see. I hope he is all right.”

I debated within myself for a moment. Generosity won. “If you really need him, Avril, there are ways of finding him. But if it is not an emergency …”

“I know. Let us let the man grieve in peace. But his absence is felt here and, I am sure, there too.”

“He has been gone longer,” I repeated. “I am not concerned. The Wheel always turns, and it is best to let it turn in its own time.”

“All right. People talk of searching for him.”

That would probably be Uncle Herne and Prince Josquin, and perhaps Aunt Evote. “Tell them to hold off,” I said. “He would not be particularly grateful to be found, I am certain of it.”

“I suppose so. Very well, Gwydion. I shall bid you good night. And thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied, and snuffed the fire with sand, which broke the spell’s current and darkened the glass. I began putting things away.

Indeed it was as I had thought: Avril would not pry at Walter for news of Gaston, because Walter could not help him get it, but he would indirectly suggest to me that I set myself to discovering what he could not.

I wondered if Avril’s nudging inquiries about Gaston and the trade agreements could be related. There was no obvious connection. Gaston had never been involved with our government. Probably Avril would like it very much if I did take the hint and look Gaston up, but if there were no pressing need to do so, I wanted to leave him alone. Also, though I was my Emperor-uncle’s junior, I was not his lackey, and carrying out a request like this might make him think I was easily manipulated or dominated and inspire him to use me other ways. If I had believed him fonder of Gaston and sincerely concerned for his well-being, I might have heard his implicit request more sympathetically.

The Dominion of Argylle and the Empire of Landuc have stiffly polite relations. That two such different places, antithetical as the Fire and Spring that perpetuate them, have relations at all is a wonder, and it is unsurprising that we find it difficult to maintain them. There are historical reasons for the stiffness and also personal ones, and the politeness is mainly because we need each other and can’t really afford to be at odds—again for historical and personal reasons. My late mother, however, always maintained that they needed us more than we needed them and had made her point in blood by winning the Independence War—one of the historical reasons for the cool relations between the realms now. Prospero considers the Empire an evil we could probably do without but are better off doing with. In Landuc they think that we need them more than they need us, but the trade between us is largely one-way. Partly that’s intentional, because my mother didn’t want the Dominion becoming dependent on foreign goods, and partly it is just that Landuc has little to offer that we cannot get locally more quickly and cheaply. Trade is controlled by strictly-enforced (on our end, anyway) treaties, and Walter had brought our cousin Ottaviano here as the Empire’s representative to negotiate a new one, since the latest was due to expire.

My stomach growled, interrupting my meditation, and a sudden hollow feeling in my middle reminded me I hadn’t eaten since my late afternoon snack while riding. I left the workroom and found my slippers by the window.

The night was lovely. I opened the casement and leaned out, elbows on the sill, looking around, down at the autumnal gardens. The near-full moon, the lively air, the liquid restless feeling of the Spring pouring over everything revitalized me. I began to think of staying up all night, though I was tired, and going for a walk in the City or outside. I hadn’t done that in a long time: not going to bed because the world was too awake and exciting to leave … A shadow passed my head. I ducked, and something whumped onto my left shoulder.

“Ouch!”

“Prrrrt,” said my familiar owl, Virgil.

“That hurt,” I said coldly.

He bit my ear gently.

“Yes, it is a fine night. Why are you loitering here?”

Virgil fluffed and settled his feathers. He was feeling sociable, I supposed, and I pulled my head back in and straightened (the owl compensating for the change). My stomach growled again. It was time to raid the kitchen. Accompanied by Virgil, I went and did that, and then I went out and walked in the gardens for an hour or two, and then, as the night dew became cold and not just freshly chilling to my feet, I went in and climbed up to my bedchamber.

I turned in and dreamt of happier days, though I woke with tears in my eyes.

MY BROTHER WALTER HAS PICKED UP a bit of the routine drudgery of running Argylle. He really enjoys wandering around, talking to people, staying in touch with what they think. My forte is more in long-range planning, watching for changes, for potential trouble, for new opportunities. Accordingly, the next day I walked over to his tall stone-and-brick house, which is in the most densely populated part of town. There are always people around there, musicians, itinerant and settled peddlers, storytellers, carpenters (Walter is forever renovating or repairing), artists, all kinds of people, emphasis on creativity and good humor. It’s a happy place, noisy and lively day and night.

Walter was pleased to see me, as usual, and we sat on a balcony in the warm autumn sun to watch the world flow by below, drinking a light Northern wine. Above us, an open window poured the sounds of a jazzy trio over the street. “I’m glad I returned yesterday. It’s a song of a day,” he declared, beaming.

“It is gorgeous. Not many more of these this year.”

“Fine weather for hunting,” he said. “But there’s no one who knows that better than you.”

“Yes. You heard about my manticore?” Phoebe must have told him, I thought.

Walter tipped his head to one side. “Rumor has it there is a great dragon come to the wood.”

“It was just a manticore, but it was a big one. Seven and a half ells.”

Walter whistled. “The damned beasts breed ever larger,” he said.

“Yes. Walter, I came to ask you to start racking your brains. I am looking back to see if I can pick up any pattern in these monsters occurring. So if you could be combing your memory for talk about them—when did people start really noticing them?—and keeping your ear tuned for current news, I would be grateful.”

“Gladly, brother. And anything else curious, I’ll pass on as well. There is a certain—I don’t know, a tension—in the air. People laugh too quickly.” Narrowing his eyes, he stared into the bright sky, following a cloud’s shape changes.

“Hmph.” I tipped back my chair and watched an old woman making lace on the balcony across the way. Tension. People around the Citadel had been edgy lately. Utrachet, the Seneschal, had actually snapped at my secretary Anselm this very morning. Most uncharacteristic. “Yes. That is true. —Avril’s note was to ask that I Summon him for personal speech.”

“Speaking of tension …?”

“No, no. Nothing is wrong. He was wondering if we had heard from Gaston.”

Walter sighed and shook his dark head. “He has probably found an impossible but just war somewhere in a hellish stagnant backwater of the Well’s or the Spring’s Roads and is fighting nineteen hours a day to keep himself from getting insomnia. Burning himself out.” He became sad, wistful. “We were too happy too soon, Gwydion.”

“Not Gaston.”

“No. But the rest of us. Spoiled. Now the real work of life has begun and we must bend our backs and labor for our joys.”

I thought about this. “You think happiness has to be earned?”

“Not like that, no. Not as the payment due for suffering. But it does seem that every life has sorrow and joy, some more of one or another, and we had much joy first. Mother’s goal was joy for everyone all the time. I don’t know how possible it is. Fortuna’s Wheel does turn, as they say.”

“It may not be possible, but it is a good goal. And I work for it joyously.”

He smiled again. “As long as it is joyous work to you.… Are you going to look for Gaston?”

“No. I do not wish to intrude on him.”

“Of course not.” He looked down into the street, leaning on the balcony railing. “And our uncle?”

“What of him?”

Walter gestured loosely. “To find him …”

“Absolutely not,” I said firmly.

Walter squinted back at me for a moment and then nodded. “Sorry, Gwydion. I do not mean to goad you.”

“I know.” To prove it, I sat with him a while longer and we talked about the City and countryside. Walter is a gossip sponge, a travelling newspaper, collecting and reporting rumors and news faithfully. Tactfully, he circled back indirectly to the subject of our missing relatives.

“I was talking to the Empress in Landuc,” he said, watching me carefully, “and she said that she thought Gaston had perhaps gone off, as Prospero did, and found something … new.”

“No,” I said flatly.

“I do not know enough about it to say yea or nay,” Walter said diffidently.

I regretted my somewhat abrupt answer. “It is possible, theoretically, but to liberate such a force as Prospero did here with the Spring, as Panurgus did with the Well of Fire, cannot be done without creating certain perturbations which are not undetectable. We know now what those are like, and I would recognize them, I am certain. Neither he nor our uncle has done anything like that. Besides,” I went on softly, “Gaston … for one thing, he has never concerned himself with more than the quotidian applications of the most basic sorcery, what we use every day.”

“That’s so. He distrusts magic.”

“And for another thing, Walter, I cannot see him … I suppose I could have gravely misjudged his character, all these years … I cannot see him doing that alone. It might be possible that he would have done it with Mother, something for the two of them, but not alone, not as a solitary endeavor. It is not like him.”

“I suppose you’re right. People will do odd things when they are distressed, but they usually do them in keeping with their characters and past actions. Our uncle—”

“Again, I … I just don’t think he would do it eith