The Warlock's Companion (23 page)

"Well, that, too," Fell admitted, "though in Ruthven's case, I fear another aspect of inbreeding may have become obvious."

"He's talking about a drop in intelligence," Rod explained. "Not always, mind you—but even now and then is bad enough."

Magnus spoke up. "Dost mean we are heir to all these ills?"

"Oh, you kids are safe, thanks to your mother."

"Aye, for that I married thee."

"Well, true, there was some inbreeding on your side, too," Rod said, with a glance at his collection of espers, "but you had the good sense to marry me. I mean, someone from outside the gene pool."

"Thou hadst first said it best."

"Well, thanks. Of course, you had a bit bigger pool; there were a few hundred thousand of you. But the good citizens of Maxima all stem from thirty-two-thousand-odd ancestors, and have been cheerfully marrying each other for five hundred years."

"Then all must have some aspect of this inbreeding," Cordelia inferred.

"Yes, even if it only shows up as occasional ugliness—or not so occasional, in the case of a good many of my—" Rod coughed into his fist, "—female compatriots."

"Yet surely this was not true of all the d'Armands!"

"Fortunately, it only became fully evident in Ruthven's case," Fess agreed. "Both his sons, as I have told you, reacted to his excesses by becoming much more reserved, and cultivating their artistic sensibilities—though, I must admit, neither was extraordinarily high in mental capacity."

"Not really necessary." Rod shook his head. "What counts is the goodness of the person. We don't all have to be geniuses." He noticed Gregory's eyes suddenly glazing, and knew his words were sinking in where they were needed the most.

"And their children?" Cordelia prompted.

"They were noble in every sense of the word, Cordelia," said Fess, "and most of your ancestors have deserved the honorific. Some were frighteningly bright, some were amazingly simple, and most were more intelligent than they needed to be. Your grandfather was a most excellent gentleman, a truly good human being, intelligent and sensitive, in addition to being highly responsible, and caring deeply for his wife and children. It was an honor to serve him."

"Was he truly such a paragon?" Geoffrey seemed surprised.

"He was indeed."

"Why then, 'tis no wonder that our father is so princely a man." Magnus turned to Rod with a glint in his eye. "Or was it simply that thou wast reared in a castle?"

"I wasn't."

The children stared in surprise.

Then Gregory coughed and said, "We had thought thou wast reared in the Castle d'Armand, of which we have spoken."

Rod shook his head, smiling. "Not so, kids. Your grandfather was the second son of the current Count—and I'm
his
second son."

"The Count's eldest son inherited the title," Fess explained, "and the castle with it."

"They were Viscounts, though." Gregory corrected, "Thou didst say so explicitly, Fess."

"Yes, Gregory, but the third Lord d'Armand so far surpassed his grandfather that he was able to be of major service to Maxima, in its relations with Terra, and was therefore created Count. Your grandfather could thus be given the rank of Viscount, and a third of the family estates."

"Then where didst thou grow, Papa?" Cordelia asked.

"We grew up in the Grange, dear—just a big house, but roomy enough for my parents, my brother, and my sister. And, of course, for me."

"Your father somewhat understates the issue," Fess advised the children. "The house had twenty-two rooms, and most of them were quite large."

"Still, 'twas not a castle." Cordelia was severely disappointed.

"Oh, it was adequate." Rod leaned back, stretching. "More than adequate, in fact—but only because Grandpa was living with us."

"Thy father?" Magnus stared. "Was he not the Viscount?"

"No,
my
grandfather," Rod amplified.

"Then he was the Count himself." Geoffrey was confused. "Wherefore did he live in the lesser house?"

"He, ah, found it more congenial," Rod explained.

"Your father understates again," Fess assured the children. "Inbreeding and recessive genes caught up with my old master in his seventy-third year…"

"Also the realization that he was never going to get away from Maxima," Rod reminded. "He finally admitted that to himself.''

"That is mere conjecture, Rod, bordering on slander," Fess stated.

"It's conjecture based on all the advice he gave me, mostly to leave home as soon as I grew up."

"He did seem to regret his youthful decision to stay and take care of the family business," Fess admitted, "though that was also his responsibility. He was, after all, the heir."

"And how did these regrets affect him?" Magnus asked.

"He became—somewhat foolish," Fess answered.

Geoffrey cocked his head to the side. "Thou dost mean he went mad."

"Most would say that," Fess agreed. "Certainly, from his conversation, he was no longer fully aware of the real world, and had escaped into a fantasy realm of his own devising. He spoke of knights and fair maidens, of wizards and dragons. He believed himself to be chronicler of a royal court in a fantastic land."

"He was lots of fun to be with, though," Rod said quickly.

"Unless he decided that you were a monster of some sort," Fess demurred.

Rod shrugged. "Even there, he had very good judgement. After all, the Duchess of Malcasa
was
an old dragon."

"What did he do to her?" Geoffrey asked, eyes wide.

"Oh, nothing. Never hurt a soul, mostly because Fess was always there. That's why his successor gave us Fess, along with the Grange."

"There was also some mention of being 'outmoded' and some claim, on the part of his wife, that the only antiques that graced a house were furniture," Fess said darkly.

"Which applied as much to Grandpa as it did to you," Rod said quickly, "and I think you've disproved the 'outmoded' part a few hundred times since then. Starting as soon as the two of you moved in, in fact—you became very good at calming Grandpa down."

"I merely accorded him the respect that was due him, Rod."

"Yeah, and couched everything in the terms he was using." Rod turned back to the children. "Me, I thought it was a fun game. What was I—six? So if he said a bush was an ogre, I was ready to play along."

"Thou didst take pleasure in his company, then?"

"Oh, yes," Rod said softly. "Always."

"What was this fantastic land he did see?"

"The kingdom of Granclarte," Rod sighed, gazing off into the years of a childhood made magical by a childish old man. "I used to sit and listen to him for hours."

"Well, for half-hours," Fess amended, "though in a child's time-sense, the tales must have seemed longer."

"Longer? They never ended!" Rod turned back to the children. "He wrote some excellent stories in the process. They became instant best-sellers, after he died."

"After?" Cordelia asked. "Wherefore not whiles he lived?"

"He would not publish them," Fess explained. "He was quite insistent on the point. It was perfectly compatible with his delusion, I assure you. He was writing for the glory of the Courts of Granclarte, not for his own aggrandizement.

"Mad as a hatter," Rod sighed, "but a wonderful old man." He gazed off into space, into the years of his childhood. "I used to sit on the floor in his study, listening to him tell me about the wonderful adventures of the knight Beaubras and his quest for the Rainbow Crystal. Of course, the voicewriter was picking up his every word. When I grew up, I found out that, after the Nanny-bot took me off to tuck me in, he'd sit up and edit it all. But it was wonderful to hear."

"What was the Rainbow Crystal?" Gregory demanded.

"In the story, it was sort of a master-key," Rod explained. "It could tie all the different sorts of magic together, uniting them to confound the evil sorcerer Maumains."

He smiled down at them. "Of course, in the real world, it was the big prism that hung in the middle of my mother's chandelier—but I liked it better his way."

"Aye," Cordelia breathed. "When may we read his books?"

"As soon as I can find a copy, dear. Unfortunately, I left them all about thirty light-years back."

Fess said nothing, but Gregory eyed him speculatively.

"Oh, why did he not endure till we could meet him!" Cordelia cried.

"I'm sure he wanted to," Rod sighed, "but he had a prior engagement. I hope he found Granclarte as he ascended. The Count was good enough to let us stay on in the Grange after he died, though—it was wrenching enough to be suddenly without Grandpa. Even made it pretty clear that my older brother Richard would inherit the place when Dad passes on, in his turn."

Magnus frowned. "And what wilt thou inherit?"

"Nothing." Rod smiled sadly. "There's nothing left over. All the houses are taken by my cousins, and all the family land, too—if you can call bare rock 'land.' Oh, there'll be a bit of money from my father—a goodly bit; he contributed quite a few designs to the family business, and invested the proceeds well and wisely, so he has made quite a sum on his own. But that's all."

"You did have an option, Rod," Fess reminded. "You could have taken a position in d'Armand Automatons, Ltd., and doubtless done quite well."

"Yeah, but a poor relation is a poor relation, no matter how cleverly it's disguised." Rod made a face. "Besides, Maxima was… boring."

"Oh, truly?" Magnus perked up. "In what way was it boring?"

Rod glanced at Fess out of the corner of his eye. Magnus caught it, and turned to the robot. "Wilt thou not tell me, Fess?"

"We have spoken of this before," Fess said, somewhat severely. "I will not betray your father's confidences."

Rod did a rapid mental balancing act. He and Fess had managed to distract the children, quite successfully, from their current, rather grim, surroundings. He compared the advantages of continuing that distraction, with the disadvantages of letting their minds return to the haunted castle around them, and made his decision. "Oh, go ahead and tell them!" He leaned back. "After all, there's nothing in my past that I'm
really
ashamed of. A bit embarrassed, maybe, but not really ashamed."

"As you will have it, Rod," Fess sighed, and Rod sat back to listen as the tale grew more and more lurid, and his ears grew more and more red.

"Look, Fess, just call me 'Rod' when we're alone. I know you can do it!"

"I cannot, sir master boss." Fess was looking better these days—he had gone through two body changes and an overhaul. He fairly gleamed with a metallic shine, and his arms and legs were much fuller than the pipestems he had worn when he first came to Maxima. They had to be—they were the storage places for his spares and tools, now. His torso had been enlarged enough to hold his computer/brain, and his "head" had consequently been reduced to a much more anthropoid size and form. He was virtually a metal android now, albeit a somewhat barrel-chested one. "I cannot change my terms of address," he explained, "unless my owner issues the command."

"And Dad won't do it, because he has too much respect for his. ancestors." Rod shook his head and went back to sorting through his revolving closet. "One more reason why I need to get off this provincial backwater of a planetoid.''

"I cannot understand your preoccupation with leaving, young master."

"Yeah, well, if I could have gone to college on Terra, as Cousin Rupert did, maybe I wouldn't be quite so antsy. But when you have to stay here on Maxima and let college come to
you
, via comm screen, and the only place you've ever visited is Ceres, you start developing a huge hankering to
see
some of what you're learning all about."

"Such feelings are consistent with my knowledge of the juvenile male of the species, Rod. But if you wish to leave home, why not ask your father's permission?"

"Oh, come on, Fess. If he could afford to send me to Terra and put me through college, he would have!"

"The support I had in mind was moral, not financial."

"He wouldn't give it, Fess. He'd think I was crazy, to go jaunting off into nowhere on a tramp freighter. He'd also be panicked out of his mind with worry."

"I think you may underestimate your father, boss master sahib."

"Are you kidding? It'd be one thing if it had never crossed his mind to get off Maxima when
he
was young—but it's entirely another, knowing that he actively decided against it!"

"You cannot know what your father's thoughts were when he was young, master boss raj."

"Fess, you remember how Grandpa used to tell me, every few weeks, that as soon as I was old enough, I should leave Maxima?"

"You did take into account that your grandfather was no longer of sound mind, did you not, young effendi?"

"Yeah, and now I know what drove him around the bend! Every time he told me to go, he reminded me that he'd given that same advice to Dad."

"Surely he had always had too great a sense of responsibility to act so selfishly, young master batyushka."

"Would it have done him so much harm, as long as he was home before Grandpa went off the tracks? Especially since he's spent the rest of his life just hanging around on this back patch of the estate, taking care of Grandpa and us, and waiting, just in case something happened to both Uncle Despard and Cousin Rupert—which it never has."

"May it never!" But your father's self-sacrifice should be a shining example to you, young master baas!"

"Oh, absolutely blinding—and I'm going to make damn sure it doesn't happen to me! That freighter from Mars is in, and the captain says they can use another hand. They're slipping orbit at midnight, outbound for Triton—and I'm going to be with them! Make sure my bag gets to the spaceport by 2300, Fess."