I lay back on my mat and slept. When I awakened, there was food, and I ate once again and paced. My fingernails and my toenails had grown long. My beard was very long and my hair fell across my eyes, constantly. I felt filthy, and I itched all the time. I wondered whether I had fleas.
That a prince of Amber could be brought to this state drew a terrible emotion from the center of my being, wherever that may be. I had been reared to think of us as invincible entities, clean and cool and diamond-hard, like our pictures on the Trumps. Obviously, we were not.
At least, we were enough like other men to have our resources.
I played mental games, I told myself stories, I reviewed pleasant memories-there were many of these. I recalled the elements: wind, rain, snow, the summer’s warmth, and the spring’s cool breezes. I had had a small airplane on the Shadow Earth, and when I flew it I had enjoyed the sensation. I recalled the glistening panoramas of color and distance, the miniaturization of cities, the broad blue sweep of sky, the herds of clouds (where were they now?) and the clean expanse of the ocean beneath my wings. I remembered women I had loved, parties, military engagements. And when all was done, and I could help it no longer, I thought of Amber.
One time, when I did so, my tear glands began to function again. I wept.
After an interminable time, a time filled with blackness and many sleeps, I heard footsteps which paused before the door to my cell, and I heard the sound of a key within the lock.
It was a time so long after Rein’s visit that I had forgotten the taste of the wine and the cigarettes. I could not realty estimate its span, but it had been long.
There were two men in the corridor. I could tell this from their footsteps even before I heard the sounds of their voices.
One of the voices I recognized.
The door swung open and Julian said my name.
I didn’t answer right away, and he repeated it.
“Corwin? Come here.”
Since I didn’t have much choice in the matter, I drew myself erect and advanced. I stopped when I knew I was near him.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Come with me.” And he took my arm.
We walked along the corridor, and he said nothing and I’d be damned if I’d ask him any questions.
From the echoes, I could tell when we entered the big hall. Soon after, he guided me up the stair.
Up, and into the palace proper we went.
I was taken to a room and seated in a chair. A barber set to work cutting my hair and my beard. I didn’t recognize his voice when he asked me if I wanted the beard trimmed or removed.
“Cut it off,” I said, and a manicurist set to work on my nails, all twenty of them.
Then I was bathed, and someone helped me to dress in clean garments. They hung loose on me. I was loused also, but forget that.
Then I was led into another black place filled with music and the odors of good food and the sounds of many voices and some laughter. I recognized it to be the dining room.
The voices subsided a bit as Julian led me in and seated me.
I sat there until the trumpet notes, to which I was forced to rise.
I heard the toast called out:
“To Eric the First, King of Amber! Long live the king!”
I didn’t drink to that, but no one seemed to notice. It was Caine’s voice that had called out the toast, from far up along the table.
I ate as much as I could, because it was the best meal I had been offered since the coronation. I gathered from conversation overheard that today was the anniversary of Eric’s coronation, which meant I had spent an entire year in the dungeons.
No one spoke to me. and I didn’t make any overtures. I was present as a ghost only. To humiliate me, and to serve as a reminder to my brothers, no doubt, as to the price of defying our liege. And everyone had been ordered to forget me.