After Merlin left, it took me a while to get Russell and Rebecca calmed down enough to be willing to go to bed.  I suspect that they hadn't had anything to do to expend energy except worry.  That left an awful lot to come out in their relief.  I hadn't realized how much they cared; I think it actually goes beyond just feeling that they need me to survive here.
     Tevis had sort of wedged himself into a corner during the after dinner discussion.  His attempts to efface himself didn't work very well.  Russell wanted to know all about him and about how being a warrior worked.  Rebecca kept sneaking admiring glances at him.  I wonder how Tevis would deal with a crush?
     I fidgeted a bit, moving the picture of my mother to another shelf, straightening Rebecca's library books, anything to put things off.  I wasn't at all sure I could actually manage this.  I'd gotten used to one way of relating to Tevis, but that wouldn't work now.
     I could hear Tevis moving behind me.  I suspected that he was heading for the window.  I was between him and any other exit.  I didn't think he'd like the window as a way out since he hadn't appeared actively suicidal yet.  Still...
     "I think we're at the point when you have to decide what you're going to do next."  I didn't turn to look at him.  I could feel the muscles across my back tense at my fear regarding how he might respond.  He stopped moving but didn't say anything.
     "Before we talk about options, there are things you should think about.  The first is that people are going to want to know more about things on the other side of the Wall.  Some of them may start wondering how someone I knew ended up there, and that will lead to other wondering.  Eventually, somebody's going to connect you to the Wall Guard and your past."  I turned to look at him.  He was standing behind one of the chairs gripping its back.  I met his eyes for a moment.  He nodded a little and looked at his hands.
     "If you decide to leave, your survival may depend on giving me as complete a picture as possible of what you heard and saw and did.  If anybody thinks you still know something that you haven't revealed...  Well, they've noticed you now.  The Crown Prince is dead, and the Queen of Kashfa is a prisoner on the wrong side of the Wall.  I don't get the impression that any of my relatives are of a forgiving disposition."  I stepped forward a little bit and found a chair of my own to grip.  Funny how furniture can serve as a defensive barrier for emotional confrontations.
     "If you stay, we'll need to bring out the whole Wall Guard business in the best light we can.  I think that will count against you more than anything you did as a mercenary unless you're the one who actually stuck the sword into Robert.  If you delivered the sword, that may also be a problem, but I don't think it's insurmountable.  The whole kidnapping thing is probably only as big a deal as I choose to make it."
     He still hadn't spoken, hadn't even made any sound.  I stopped speaking for a while.  The next bit was going to be hard.  I didn't want to say it, but I didn't see any way around it.  I moved my chair a little, aligning it with some imaginary floor plan.
     I stood a little straighter and turned away slightly.  I didn't think I could look at him while I said this.  "Basically, you can leave and go back to the life you've been leading, killing your soul slowly."
     I heard a strangled sound from the other side of the room as if he'd tried to say something but couldn't quite manage it.
     "You can leave and try to repair yourself.  It wouldn't be easy."  I snuck a look at him.  He had that odd look that he gets when I startle him, sort of stunned like he's been hit between the eyes.  I looked away again.  "You'd be trying to build something new because there's no going back to what you were before."
     Another sound of protest.  I looked straight at him and willed him to understand.  "Not because you're unworthy or anything silly like that but because you know more now.  You can't just drop all of that even if you wish you could."  He looked upset and then thoughtful.  I like to think he understood, but only time will tell.  I think he's seen a lot but tried not to see it.  At least he seemed to be listening.  I'd sort of expected him to stop me before this point.
     "If you want to stay...  Well, I'm not Amanda.  I'm remembering more about being her, but I'm never going to be her again.  I remember being other people too, and I'm going to have to find places for all of them.  You may not like who I am now.
     "I don't love you the way Amanada did.  I'm just getting to know you, and you're not the same man she knew any more than I'm the same woman you knew.  You've worked at destroying yourself."  I paused and gave him a challenging look, daring him to disagree with me.  Then I looked at the floor.  "Others have worked at altering me.  Also..."  This was hard to say, hard for me to even understand.  "Also, I may not be able to love that way...  My experience with... physical interactions... has not been pleasant.  I was a slave, and a slave endures whatever she has to in order to survive."  I felt my slave face sliding on.  I couldn't afford to let those emotions out.  "Those men were not kind."  His face showed sudden anger.
     I couldn't even bear to face him any longer.  I turned my back to him and wrapped my arms around myself.  "If I ever do get to the point where I can love that way instead of pretending or manipulating, I can't promise that it will be you.  I'm still discovering who I am, and you're going to have to figure out who you are now.  I'm willing to help as much as I can, and I'd be honored if you'd consider me a friend, but...  I can't offer you more than that, not if I'm being honest.  If that's not enough, you may be better off leaving.  I don't know."
     I could hear him moving behind me, coming toward me.  I couldn't bear the thought of being touched just then.  I spun back to face him and kept the chair between us.  His expression changed from pity to shock.  I couldn't help it; I snarled at him as I moved the chair.  He backed off.  I took a moment to calm myself before going on.
     "I think Uncle Luke could use your help when he tries to make plans to free Aunt Gen.  You'd still have to see me from time to time when I visit, but it wouldn't be constant or often."  I hesitated.  I really didn't know how to go about this.  "It's at least another option," I said softly.  "Kashfa's not Amber.  I don't know what sort of agreements they've got, but the King of Kashfa rules in Kashfa."
     Tevis had backed off.  He was back on the other side of his chair.  He just looked confused.
     I was feeling tired.  This was harder than I'd expected, and I wasn't even sure how I wanted things to come out anymore.  I wanted him to have choices.  I hadn't given him choices before now.  I moved around the chair and sat down.  I didn't think I could do the rest of this standing up.
     "If you're willing to stay here with me...  Well, I thought maybe we could say that you're my bodyguard.  It's obvious that I need one after the kidnapping.  Since they weren't interested in me as Cordelia, Marquess of Amber, but rather as Cordelia, Princess of Rose Amber, or Cordelia, whatever I am in the Courts, it makes sense to take you on as bodyguard to Princess Cordelia of Rose Amber.  I can't pay you because the only money I have comes from the Amber treasury.  I'm not sure how to work out all of the details of that yet, but I'm sure we could come up with something.  Anyway, Merlins says that he's Crown Prince of Rose Amber, and I'm his only known child.  I think that gives me a short chain of command, and I don't think that Corwin's going to come out to complain.  That leaves Merlin."  I couldn't look at Tevis.  I also couldn't stop the words that were pouring out.  I'd meant to be more restrained, more dignified.
     "It's all fiction anyway.  I'm one person with the memories of being at least four others.  I'm one person with ranks and roles (at least potentially) in three political structures.  I'm really the  same person all around, but...  I'm not if someone chooses to look at me from a different angle."
     I stopped speaking for a moment and picked at the cloth covering the seat of the chair.  If I pulled on that bit...
     "Anyway, do you want the job?  I think doing it right probably involves oaths from both of us and ceremony and all sorts of stuff that I don't know how to do.  I'm willing to do whatever you think is necessary that way."  I looked at him.  I couldn't gauge his reaction.  His face had gone still.  His body had gone still.  He wasn't showing me anything to help me along.
     "I'd planned to do this before we got to the Wall, but...  The time never seemed right to talk about it, and...  I was afraid.  I'd told you that I'm not Amanda, but I wasn't sure you actually understood that.  I wasn't sure how you'd feel about helping Cordelia who used to be Amanda as opposed to helping Amanda.  When i saw you in the keep and talked to you while we were alone, I did try to manipulate you.  I didn't tell any lies, but I did try to make you feel guilty.  I was alone and afraid.  I thought it would take a lot longer and probably verbal and physical lies...  I couldn't remember what you were like.  All I knew was that you were working for Dara.  I didn't think my chances of success were very good.
     "Then you rescued me.  Without pleas.  Without promises.  Without lies.  I'm willing to trust your word regardless of the path you choose to take."  I couldn't stop the tears.  They weren't part of what I'd planned to say.  They gave too much away.  I covered my face.  Whatever he decided, Tevis knew more about me now than I'd planned to show him.
     He just looked at me for a long moment, very serious, almost somber.  Then he turned away to look out the window.  Neither of us spoke for a while.  I'd said my piece; now it was his turn.
     He didn't turn back when he began to speak.  "When I first came into the employ of Dara's cause, I was unaware of it.  I was hired by a woman named Selene, who was later killed.  Her second, Miles, took up the banner of command.  It was he who planned and later led the capture of the Lady Genevieve.  I thought perhaps it was involved somehow in Mavillar's plans to invade and conquer Begma, but it soon became apparent that my employers were from Chaos.  And by that point...  well, I had already sold my sword.  My soul didn't seem that much more important.
     "I had no hand in delivering the sword, though I had seen it after we moved into the keep at Corwin's Pattern.  I knew it was being sent back to Amber as a message, but not that the message would take the form it did.  I am... was  not among Dara's closest advisors, but I know some things that might be of use to Amber."
     At that point he turned to face me again.  His facial muscles had relaxed.  He looked calm, almost at peace, for the first time since I asked him about Ygg.  He made a little gesture of tossing something away, and his expression changed to one of resignation.
     "Even with your sponsorship, my position here will be precarious once I have imparted whatever useful information I have.  My actions have branded me a traitor twice over now, Cordelia, and I'm not sure I will ever escape the stigma.  I will take the offered job as your guardian, but I think, in some ways, my survival here will depend as much on you as your survival there depended on me."
     He walked slowly across the room, taking care not to startle me.  He offered me his hands to help me rise from my seat and did not release his grasp once I was standing.  Our eyes met.
     "Which brings us then, to us," he said calmly.  "Let us call all debts as even.  We have each saved the other.  And let us call our acquaintance a beginning, that will lead whereever it may, with no expectation on either as to what direction it may go.  You are not Amanda, and I am that Tevis only in name.  So let us be Cordelia and Tevis, who, I hope by now, can call each other friend."
     I managed a smile; though I had to blink away some tears.  "Friends, then," I said.  "It's likely to get complicated, you know."  I hesitated, but he needed to know.  "Mythos killed Selene.  It was just before Jared and I joined their group on the way to Amber."
     I pulled away and went to the cupboard where the maid stored her things.  I found her sewing kit and pulled it out.  I looked back at Tevis.  "It's a good thing I know how to sew," I told him.  "I don't think we can put together anything really nice before tomorrow, but I should at least be able to manage a badge of some sort."

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