“Something you said didn’t really register properly at the time,” he stated, “because I was more interested in other aspects of the situation. You say that you and Luke actually made it up to the finals for the Olympics and then dropped out?”
“Yes.”
“What area?”
“Several different track and field events. We were both runners and-”
“And his time was close to yours?”
“Damn close. And sometimes it was mine that was close to his.”
“Strange.”
“What?”
The bank grew steeper, and we crossed on some stepping stones to the other side where the way was several feet wider and relatively flat, with a well-trod path along it.
“It strikes me as more than a little coincidental,” he said, ”that this guy should be about as good as you are in sports. From all I’ve heard, you Amberites are several times stronger than a normal human being, with a fancy metabolism giving you unusual stamina and recuperative and regenerative powers. How come Luke should be able to match you in high-level performances?”
“He’s a fine athlete and he keeps himself in good shape,” I answered. “There are other people like that here-very strong and fast.”
He shook his head as we started out along the path. “I’m not arguing that,” he said. “It’s just that it seems like one coincidence too many. This guy hides his past the same way you do, and then it turns out that he really knows who you are anyhow. Tell me, is he really a big art buff ?”
“Huh?”
“Art. He really cared enough about art to collect it?”
“Yes. We used to hit gallery openings and museum exhibits fairly regularly.”
He snorted, and swung his stick at a pebble, which splashed into the stream.
“Well,” he observed, “that weakens one point, but hardly destroys the pattern.”
“I don’t follow . . .”
“It seemed odd that he also knew that crazy occultist painter. Less odd, though, when you say that the guy was good and that Luke really did collect art.”
“He didn’t have to tell me that he knew Melman.”
“True. But all of this plus his physical abilities . . . I’m just building a circumstantial case, or course, but I feel that guy is very unusual.”
I nodded.
“I’ve been over it in my mind quite a few times since last night,” I said. “If he’s not really from here, I don’t know where the hell he’s from.”
“Then we may have exhausted this line of inquiry,” Bill said, leading me around a bend and pausing to watch some birds take flight from a marshy area across the water. He glanced back in the direction from which we had come, then, “Tell me-completely off the subject-what’s your, uh, rank?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the son of a Prince of Amber. What does that make you?”
“You mean titles? I’m Duke of the Western Marches and Earl of Kolvir.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not a Prince of Amber. Nobody has to worry about me scheming, no vendettas involving the succession” ‘
“Hm.”
“What do you mean, ‘Hm’?”
He shrugged. “I’ve read too much history. Nobody’s safe.”
I shrugged myself. “Last I heard, everything was peaceful on the home front.”
“Well, that’s good news, anyway.”
A few more turnings brought us to a wide area of pebbles and sand, rising gently for perhaps thirty feet to the place where it met an abrupt embankment seven or eight feet in height. I could see the high water line and a number of exposed roots from trees that grew along the top. Bill seated himself on a boulder back in their shade and relit his pipe. I rested on one nearby, to his left. The water splashed and rippled in a comfortable key, and we watched it sparkle for a time.
“Nice,” I said, a bit later. “Pretty place.”
“Uh-huh.”
I glanced at him. Bill was looking back the way we’d come.
I lowered my voice. “Something there?”
“I caught a glimpse a little earlier,” he whispered, “of someone else taking a walk this way-some distance behind us. Lost sight of him in all the turnings we took.”