Rock of Ages Read Online Free PDF Page B

left the card face-up on the table, a reminder of his prowess. He always possessed a certain sense of wonder himself at how the simplest effects produced the greatest reaction—the others assumed he’d performed some master sleight right in front of the Bubber’s nose, whereas in fact he’d merely had Roman bribe the footman to put a prearranged card in the Bubber’s dessert. Any actual skill lay in getting the Bubber to choose the three of crowns in the first place, but that was a fairly elementary “force,” as the jargon had it, and hardly a challenge.
    He’d worked for years on much more sophisticated tricks that never made such an impression.
    He turned to Roberta. “My apologies, once more, your grace, for reaching across you so rudely.”
    “You are entirely forgiven,” Roberta said. There was a glow in her violet eyes.
    “Still, by way of apology, I’d like to offer to perform a trick where you, not I, are in command. As soon as they clear away the last course.”
    She smiled. “One dessert on top of another, it would seem. I’ll strive not to bolt the first so as to get to the other quicker.”
    “Let the first add savor to the second, your grace.”
    Roberta gave him a graceful nod. “You are a master saucier , Maijstral. I shall trust your taste in dessert courses.”
    After the last of the dishes were cleared away, Maijstral broke the seal on the new deck and shuffled it. It was a matter of little moment to switch the new deck for the deck of identical pattern that he’d been carrying in his pocket.
    “Your grace,” Maijstral said, “I would like, by way of example, to deal each of us a hand of court-imago.”
    “I thought you said I was to be in charge,” Roberta said.
    “But I want you to know why you shall be in charge, and to that end—six cards, so.”
    The cards sped across the table. Joseph Bob and Arlette leaned forward in their chairs to peer at the action. Kuusinen watched with an expressionless face and an intense narrowing of the eyes.
    Roberta picked up her hand and sorted the cards.
    “Is it a passable hand, your grace?”
    “I would wager on it, were I playing court-imago.”
    “Please lay it down.” It was a Little Prough. Maijstral turned his own cards over, showing a Big Prough.
    “I win,” he said. “But it was unfair, was it not?”.
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you dealt the cards, and you are a card manipulator.”
    “True. Therefore, it would give you more of a chance if I were to shuffle, and you were to cut the cards, yes?”
    Roberta considered this. “I suppose,” she said.
    Maijstral reinserted the used cards into the deck, seemingly at random (but not randomly at all), and shuffled the deck with a theatrical flourish that served artfully to disguise the fact that the order of the cards was not altered in any way whatever. He placed the cards on the table.
    “Cut, if you please.”
    The Duchess obliged. Maijstral dealt her four tens and himself four princesses.
    “Was that fair?” he asked.
    “I think not.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because . . .” Her eyes narrowed as she considered the possibilities, “you could have nullified the cut in some way. Or somehow forced me to cut where you wanted me to.”
    Maijstral smiled. “Very good, your grace. I could have done both, had I wanted.” He swept up the cards and put them in his deck. “This time I will shuffle the cards, and then you will shuffle the cards. I will deal a hand to everyone here, and you may choose the best of them to go up against my hand.”
    The cards were shuffled and dealt. The others at the table compared hands, and Arlette’s crown stairway was chosen as the best. “I’m afraid that isn’t good enough,” Maijstral said, and turned over his own hand, six major powers in a row, a full council.
    Roberta’s ears flattened. “You promised that I would be in charge, Maijstral. All I have been doing is following your lead.”
    “That is true,” Maijstral said. “I’ve