InWhichTheDuchessRevealsHerPastToAThouroughlyUnsurprisedDuke

From IMiA

"Juliana? Love? Are you unwell?" It is Phillip's voice.

She tries to get her bearings and snorts at that question. The child sent her back in time. Or she is insane. She will take the 'went back in time' option.

She nods, so he'll stop asking. She'll pull away from him once she's sure she can stand on her own and look up at him and tear up. He's alive! Then she'll remember why, exactly, she got this opportunity.

"Holy Mother," she whispers. "We've got to talk. Right now."

Phillip arches an eyebrow. He gently helps Juliana to a nearby couch and sits beside her.

"No, no," she says, and gets right back up. "Hold there," she tells him. She goes to the hallway, finds the secretary, and tells him to tell everyone under no circumstances, barring life and death situations, are they to be disturbed. Then she'll come back in, shut the door, shut all the windows, and sits back down. "What are the chances someone is using some means of sorcery to spy on us right now?"

"Slight," he replies. "However, there is some evidence that something is afoot."

"What evidence?"

"There is something in the air," Phillip replies. "I also have not yet eliminated the possibility of you being ensorcelled."

"Well, love, I'm definitely ensorcelled, but not by spies. Can't you put up some spell or something so no one can hear us?" she asks, biting her lower lip and looking like she anticipates and dreads this at the same time.

"I extensively reworked the house wards the other night," Phillip replies. "Listening should not be an issue. However, the effect I am noticing seems rather more widespread. As though it were a temporary change in the local ambient magicks."

"Is that bad? Would something like, say, time-travel, make that happen?" she grins.

"A change in Amber's ambient magicks could be quite bad. Something clearly happened. You, in fact, passed out briefly." He looks to her. "To the best of my knowledge, temporal magicks are purely theoretical. Like most magicks that alter the natural order of things, they do not function in Amber. The magickal laws of Amber prevent most of the truly spectacular magicks. Thus, it is rather difficult to create any truly destructive effects or teleport or the like. Though those spells will function away from Amber. The fleet makes extensive uses of combat sorcery when it is able to do so." He looks up. "Sorry. That was a bit boring, wasn't it?"

"No, not at all. I can understand basics. But, if somehow Amber's magical structure has been changed, even just momentarily, and someone in the future were to be able to locate the knowledge of exactly when that was, and some other event got set up in the past to allow that person to exploit what might me... a magical loophole, then all those things might be possible, for the duration of the change, correct?"

Phillip shakes his head. "It is unlikely at best. I won't bore you with the details. They bore me, frankly. Putting those aside for a moment, why the sudden interest?"

"Because 16 years from now our daughter just did it to me," she smiles. She shrugs, and adds, "...somehow, and I think with your help. Or I'm insane, but I prefer to take the road that presumes I am not insane, and rather have just returned to here from 16 years in the future. Can we work from that assumption, for the time being?" She's still smiling, because she feels incredibly silly, but can't think of any other way of dealing with things.

"Very well," Phillip says, "let us proceed from that assumption."

"I realize I'm smiling dumbly. Stopping would really be too much effort at the moment. And you really are wonderful, and being very patient, I'm sure. Hmm... let's see. Assuming I did in fact live approximately the next sixteen years in the future, and considering my odd time/memory loss of right about a day ago now, in that future, that's probably a better place to start."

That smile finally fades a bit, as she realizes already she's going to have to say things to him she'd rather not bring up. She sighs. "I'm going to refer to this future stuff as 'my time,' and time as you've experienced it as 'your time.' So this time last night, my time, I was on my way down to a Carnival gathering at the palace, looking for you, and I ran into Patrice. I asked what she was doing there, and she explained. Then she said Marlette was there."

"Needless to say, I was very thrilled, but surprised. When I exclaimed over this she referred to Marlette as her niece. This was my first clue something was not quite right, having taken the nice behavior of the castle staff I passed as my due, somehow. For Patrice to have a niece named Marlette could only mean I'd named a child that. So I told her I was having a memory issue. I was very concerned to say the least. Then I asked her where you were, because of course, the first thing I do when I feel vulnerable is want you."

"So when I asked this, I remembered where you were, and why I was at the palace, and all about our daughter, and some vague other things about the years between right now, your time, and then. I had to sit down and think. Patrice worried... I don't know what she thought was wrong with me, but I managed to get her to leave me and go take care of Marlette. Who is fifteen, and at a party at the palace."

She pauses a moment. She looks a little upset. She shakes her head.

"I'm not sure, if I were you, I'd want to know... everything I know. If it's true. Although I don't feel like any of this is predetermined. I am certain this is my chance to impact things in a different and perhaps more efficient way than I did the first time. That means I have to convince you to see things my way, and let me take a few more risks, which I know you are loath to do. I need you to trust me

• differently* than you do now. And it seems if this is what I really

want, I have to tell you everything, or how can I expect the same from you? So..." she takes a deep breath.

"I'm going to start reciting the 'facts' of the last sixteen years, my time, in as emotionally removed a way as I can manage, so I can get through this. Are you ready?"

He nods and looks interested.

"We finally had a baby, a girl, almost 16 years ago, my time. She's talented, artistically and in other ways. She remembers everything from the time she was born. Everything. She says you cast something when she was a baby, and she thinks she was the center of it, because it would be easier for you to cast on her because of the blood tie. Something like that. She also knows things she shouldn't know. She said she just 'knows things,' and that you did too. Do you?"

Phillip frowns. "It is a bit more complicated than that." He looks at her closely for a second. "What is the last thing you remember before you blacked out?"

"I don't remember blacking out. Marlette and I had been talking, on a bench. We were holding hands. Marlette said a phrase that was the exact same thing she'd told me you'd said to her right before you left to fight the war, which I have not gotten to yet. She was crying. I pulled her into my arms and told her I'd be happy as long as I had her. That's about when the vertigo started. She reassured me I'd always have her love. I put my hand down and opened my eyes and tried to get my bearings."

"It didn't help, and my vision was blurring. By then she was holding me more than I was holding her. She said, 'Be happy. Tell Dad I love him.'" Juliana starts crying, but she laughs. "I asked her if I was dying. She told me I wasn't, but that I was getting my wish. Half-joking, I told her she couldn't be that gifted. She ignored me and said, 'Dad is calling you. You better go to him. I love you.' Then light flickered, and she was gone, and you were holding me, asking if I was okay, which seemed very amusing right at that second. So, the last thing is either flickering light or her telling me she loves me, I guess."

Phillip frowns. "You were upset about the children at the House of Flowers. You were crying. I held you. You blacked out for a moment and came to a minute ago."

Phillip closes his eyes for a second. He reopens them. He has that look he has when pondering something.

Juliana closes her eyes and rubs her forehead, a left over reaction to thinking hard from childhood. (mother convinced her crinkling up her forehead would give her marks that would give away the fact that she can think.) "The House of Flowers. Damn. And I am still convinced that is part of a royal conspiracy, and it's just the beginning of events that are about to fall on us all. Oberon is going to disappear soon. But that's getting a bit ahead of myself."

"Oberon did not come down for breakfast yesterday morning," Phillip replies. "He missed several long scheduled diplomatic meetings and left no orders to be carried out in his absence."

"Oh, god. I suppose I was rather hoping I was insane. Had I known she was going to do this, I would have tried to recall more details. Something happening to the King might change the nature of magic in Amber, right?"

"Yes," Phillip replies, "Though I would expect a greater reaction. Also, the timing is questionable. His Majesty was last seen on the Eve of Carnival. I now believe today's event took place only a few hours ago. I suspect you might be experience some mystic backlash from whatever occurred. You should be quite sensitive to such things."

"Why?"

"You have many of the qualities possessed by an excellent sorcerer."

She snorts. "Wonderful. I should have my father strung up. But indeed, I've recently decided I'm never speaking to him again, unless it is to confront him about my mother's death. Okay. I'm going to try to keep going so I can get all this out. So you 'just know things' although it's complicated. How did Samuel Merrick die?" Her face is very still, but her eyes are pained. And she's saying to herself, 'especially when it is hard. especially when it is hard.'

Phillip is silent for a moment. "In every way that matters, he died of old age."

"Just once, give me a straight answer, love."

Phillip sighs.

He turns and walks to a wall and opens a safe Juliana never knew was there. He removes something small from it and closes the safe, which disappears as though it were never there. He walks back to Juliana and extends his hand. It holds something wrapped in black silk. The object is about the size of a tarot card.

She actually smiles. "You. Have you no respect for the rule of law at all? Withholding evidence from the crown is a crime, you know." She very carefully reaches for it, and holds it by the bottom corner, through the silk. She lets the rest of the silk fall down over her hand to confirm this is what she thinks it is. "You know, I never did really understand what the rose represented."

"I remain less concerned about Abigail than about others who were present," Phillip replies.

Juliana flips the silk back over it and offers it back to him. "How long have you known?"

Phillip takes the card. He walks over to the reappearing safe and returns it. "Long enough. Does it truly matter? It did not matter to me."

"Of course it matters," she whispers shakily and closes her eyes. Fighting off tears again. "I carry that around with me. I... I can't explain. And it could hurt us, were someone like a DCI actually go as far as exhuming him. Everything else is just speculation, because all the evidence is long gone. Except for Gavin, of course." She shakes her head. "I was going to talk about the future first, but maybe getting the past out of the way is more appropriate." The tears really begin to fall.

"I got a blackmail letter at Arbor House."

"I know," He says and takes her hand. With his free hand, he gently wipes away her tears. "I would not worry about the DCIs. Abigail almost certainly knows already. It does not matter to her. It would only matter to her if His Majesty told her it mattered. He has never yet done so."

"I had Janet copy it, reword it, and we sent it to Gavin. I had a number of reasons for doing that at the time. Now I... I think I should talk to him. Or visit, maybe after Carnival. I did tell him I was going to come visit. Or maybe invite him to visit." She sighs.

"Do you know everything I've ever done wrong?" she asks.

He smiles and gently brushes her hair away from her eyes. "It couldn't be a very long list, love. You are beautiful and compassionate and kind. How many sins could you possibly have committed?"

"You can not answer a question, can you? Beauty has nothing to do with goodness, and you know it. And I'm not always kind, and you know it. And only extremes get my compassion, and you know it. Damn, Phillip, I'm not a crimelord, but I could be. Had I been willing to take a few more risks, before we were married, I could have found a niche. If I had been willing to use people more than I was. But I wasn't, so I only have a long list of somewhat minor sins left to go. I've done blackmail. I've done forgery. Unicorn knows I've done adultery. I used to be very good at getting just the perfect rumors going to get other women out of my way. What haven't I done? Treason? I think I've done that." She's agitated. "I don't understand..." she gulps for air, "I do not understand how you can stand me."

"Because I'm in love with you."

"That was your second mistake," she says somewhat seriously, and still annoyed. "Ah, well, I guess that's the way it goes. I don't know how you can continue pretending there is no such thing as fate. And how did you find out about the blackmail letter?"

"It was intercepted," Phillip replies. "Don't ask by whom. It was then that I decided to retrieve your card."

"Don't ask by whom?" she says incredulously, eyebrows raised. "You have got to be kidding."

"It was seen. The person who saw it was concerned for your well being and came to me. It is really as simple as that."

"It was Reggie or Abagail, or maybe Frederick. Fine. I'm guessing Reggie." She smiles and sighs. "Can I have a drink? Even though I told you nothing but what you already knew, apparently," she says wryly, "this is just as hard as I expected it to be, but not as bad, but I really could use a drink. Damn, what a day. Forget about my life in the future, only to be sent back into the past. Having to fake my way through a party and with the King, although that wasn't that hard, but dealing with a young woman, gods! Something strong?"

Phillip walks to the bar. He selects a bottle and holds it up for Juliana's approval. "Will this be acceptable?"

She nods. "Oh, yes. That will do." She sighs again. She waits until he brings her a drink, takes a sip, takes a bigger sip, and smiles at him. "Well, now I've told you, and against all odds you are still here. Thank you," she says, and reaches out for his hand. She is very choked up that he really does not seem to care, that he loves her that much.

Phillip takes Juliana's hand, squeezes it gently and raises it to his lips. "I will always be here, love."

"One way or another, I know," she whispers. She leans up and kisses him. Then she says, "Can we talk about the future now, and then try to form a plan, together?"

"If you like."

"Do you think I'm experiencing a magickal delusion?" she asks suddenly.

"Delusion is a bit harsh," Phillip replies. "Though I suspect some sort of magickal effect."

She looks away from him, across the room, but really like she's remembering. "Do you think my mind has made up this time I've experienced and what I saw there out of my hopes and fears? Wait!" She pulls her hand away, and looks uncomfortable. "Don't answer that. I don't need to know that. I just need you to be sincere about planning with me," she says, looking back up into his eyes.

"There are a certain number of your activities I have always stayed out of, for if I'm really honest with myself there are some things I just don't want to know about. You are better at avoiding lying than I am, and that says a great deal, but I've gotten much better at reading between the lines too. I don't know that you have. So let me say this: if you are not able to take me a slight bit more into your confidence, and accept that I must have more involvement in averting what I knew before any of this magickal change happened was and is the impending disaster about to fall on this Kingdom, then you will find what control you had over my protection gone, because I will act without you, and I will sever any strings that get in my way." She stops, still breathing evenly, but her eyes are hard and pleading at the same time. She means what she is saying, although she is afraid.

He arches an eyebrow. "Continue."

She looks momentarily taken aback, but she has a strong hold over herself, and although she has just gone a little cold inside, she goes on in the same tone. "I'd think it's pretty obvious that I didn't just decide to spill all my hard-fought secrets out on the floor for the joy of it. I would never have done that if I'd thought for one moment you'd leave me; I would not have risked it. So what has changed from twenty minutes ago *your time*? My entire life."

She gets up and walks away. She sets her drink down at the desk and whispers, "I've got to stop drinking every time I need to talk." She rubs her forehead again, keeping her back to him, and continues.

"Something, real or not, convinced me you knew these things and have stayed anyway - it was true. You did know. You knew about Eric too, I presume, before I brought it up the other night." She stops rubbing her forehead and turns back around, leaning against the desk. She's a little angry. "Yet you've let me go on for, what, years, scheming to keep all these things from you, worried to death I'd lose you, when all the time you knew."

Her pitch rises, as she starts to lose control. "And what do I know? Nothing. I have no idea what you spend your time doing, who you see, or what kind of craziness you're caught up in. I'm happy if you come home at night! But I do know this - your daughter brought tansies to your grave. Tansies! For a moment, I almost knew what that meant, but it slipped away from me. I don't know you." She starts crying.

"I'm in love with you, and you are still a damn perfect stranger. We're tied together by a quarter century of pain and triumph we've gone through together, but I don't know who you really are. You have a mask you show the world, and I get the one underneath that," she throws her hands in the air, "damn, your family even gets a mask, and I don't know what's really there. No one does. I believe you when you say you love me. I believe you because there is no other explanation for your behavior these last fifty years. I want to help you, and not by staying out of danger's way, because that has not worked very well for me so far. We were partners, when we first started this. You told me more and showed me more than you do now. You changed after Valdis, and I did too, I suppose, because death was so close by those years. It was nice to be protected from everything for awhile, but I'm done with that now. You're going to die, and I'm going to be left alone with the knowledge that I didn't reallly know you, and I want to know you Phillip. Please."

"I want you to be happy," Phillip says. "I'll do everything it takes to ensure that. I love you Juliana."

Phillip appears calm, controlled, patient. He isn't rigid and motionless, but he does not fidget or make excessive movements. With the exception of the subject matter, this is probably a typical Phillip reaction. He's smart and a diplomat and a card player. He's not going to let emotions take over when the stakes are high-in this particular case, his wife is having a fit and on some level threatened him. He isn't going to overtly react as that could easily make matters worse. Rather, he is far more likely to remain very calm, let Juliana's emotions run their course, then do what he can to resolve the issue. This is archetypal Phillip as calm and attempting to be supportive and not say or do anything to further upset Juliana. There is no obvious indication that he has done anything magickal.

She looks somewhat crestfallen, heartbroken, almost. Tears keep falling. "That, my love, is the last thing your daughter said to me, basically. It is the last thing you said to her, too. I'm caught in this circle, right now, and I came back so the happiest years of our lives could be even happier. So you might live, by some chance, but at least if you had to die I wouldn't feel like... like I had fooled myself into believing we'd shared our lives when we hadn't. So I wouldn't have to repeat, again and again to my daughter, 'well, your father and I never really discussed that.' But I didn't come back here to fight with you. You don't want to budge, and I don't know why because I never did find out everything. I'll take what I can get, Phil, but in the end this is about more than us, too, but everyone in this place, and I'm going to do what I have to do too. I just thought we might do better together."

She whispers the last, and looks like someone who has really been through the emotional wringer, very close to admitting defeat.

Phillip sets his drink down. He walks over and puts his hands on Juliana's shoulders. "What can I do, love?"

"You can invite me in," she says, and she's dead serious, sounding much calmer, but has a distancing look in her eyes, like she's pulling away now.

"As best I can," he says. "But not every secret is mine."

Juliana is aware of movement in the house. Most likely, one of the staff is dealing with a messenger of some sort.

Her entire demeanor changes. Her eyes light back up, and the fear of rejection slips away, as she realizes what he just said. She nods and whispers, "Thank you." She reaches up to wipe the tears off her face, still trying to stop crying, but not succeeding very well.

Phillip pulls Juliana in closer and gently attempts to wipe away the tears. Juliana hears movement in the house as a servant moves about trying to locate her and Phillip.

"Someone must be about to die," she mutters darkly and with some fear, "because they would never interrupt us, otherwise."

"I suspect someone has," Phillip says.

-- Main.LizTrumitch - 21 Aug 2004