Mapping the Palace: Part I

Introduction

Here I will undertake the challenging task of constructing a blueprint for the palace in Amber. 

This has been attempted before, most notably with Neil Randall's 1988 Visual Guide to Castle Amber, with (as I will argue) mixed results. For Amber fans, the palace is a special place, and we all surely have different versions of it floating around in our heads. Perhaps that's what Zelazny would want. But with this article, I will dive deep into the text, sticking as close to it as I can. I will avoid taking liberties, and focus on the specific words from the books that give insight into the royal residence of the House of Amber.

Palaces & Reflections

We get our information about the palace in Amber from three different locations: the actual palace in Amber, the reflection of the palace in Rebma beneath the sea, and the reflection of the palace in Tir-na Nog'th. From these three distinct but overlapping settings, we can triangulate and extract common themes. 

We also get information from two different protagonists across ten books. Some books offer almost no insight into the palace; in TGOA, for example, Zelazny spends barely half a page in the palace, and we learn nothing new. In POC, no action takes place in Amber. But in SOTU, SOC, and KOS, a considerable time is spent in the palace. 

Here is a visualization of time spent in the palace, chapter by chapter, across the series:

Different Approaches: Corwin and Merlin

As discussed at length in The Geography of Amber and The City of Amber, we see differences in how Zelazny treats the world of Amber in the Corwin chronicles versus the Merlin chronicles. While Corwin's Amber is largely an emotional archetype, Merlin's Amber is a detailed living, breathing, realistic city, with rich and poor, working economies, traffic and trade, and so forth. And when it comes to the palace, we see a similar and parallel shift in the author's approach. 

Corwin's palace is also an emotional archetype ("bright architecture of the mind"), and the few details we get are often focused on rooms of grandeur and royalty: the Library, the Main Dining Hall, the Royal Suite, and the Throne Room. There is the occasional mention of the mundane; we are made vaguely aware of the fact that the royal family members have rooms where they live and sleep (though these are called "chambers" by Corwin, in contrast to Merlin's use of the word "apartments"). With the Merlin stories, we get a much stronger sense of the daily life in the palace. The curtain is pulled back, as it were. Merlin stops in the kitchen for a "glass of milk". We learn about "medical facilities", where ambassadors are received, and small dining rooms where the family eats daily.

In the eighth and ninth Amber books, in particular, the palace in Amber plays its biggest role of the series. If Blood of Amber is Zelazny's "love letter" to the City of Amber, then Sign of Chaos and Knight of Shadows are his "love letter" to the palace. Merlin spends considerable time in the royal residence across these two books. The Begman delegation visits the palace, new rooms are introduced (the Yellow Room, the Drawing Room, etc.), Merlin visits Corwin's and various uncles' apartments, we learn about the armory, and we get a highly detailed description of the 2nd floor in particular. 

There is another vector that runs through the Merlin chronicles that distinguishes it from the Corwin chronicles, and that is the element of magic, or the metaphysical. While Corwin's palace is, at once, a magnificent emotional archetype, but also a place that appears to follow the rules of physics that we, as readers, might recognize. We must travel to places like Tir-na Nog'th or Rebma to see magical forces at work. Indeed, Corwin tells us, "I have never been able to manipulate Shadow anywhere on Kolvir. There isn't supposed to be any to work with here." (SOTU, Ch. 11) Conversely, in Knight of Shadows, Merlin finds hidden spikards, and introduces us to places like the Corridor of Mirrors -- a fundamentally magical and shifting location within the palace that suggests the building holds mysterious and supernatural qualities that a Corwin chronicles reader might have previously reserved only for Tir-na Nog'th.

Nonetheless, let us bring the two series together under one holistic view, as we attempt to lay out the various locations in the palace.

Size and Scale

Before attempting a layout of the palace, let us grapple with scale. Is Amber's palace massive and sprawling like Versailles? Or more like Windsor Castle in London? The Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi? The Red Keep from Game of Thrones? Or something entirely different?

Though it is one of the most spectacular palaces on Shadow Earth, the French Palace of Versailles and its extensive grounds are probably too large to be a "comp" for the palace in Amber. Versailles lies on an impressive 30,000 acres (46 square miles) in the suburbs of Paris. It was constructed by Louis XIV as a deliberate alternative to the capital of Paris. 

For reasons discussed in depth in The Geography of Amber, we estimate the entire city of Amber to be a little over 5 square miles. This would, in fact, make Central Paris a better comp. If we imagine the Great Arch of Amber's eastern entrance as a kind of equivalent to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, then the 2 mile walk down the Champs Elysses, across , and toward the Louvre would roughly equate to walking the Main Concourse (or promenade) from Land's End up to the front entrance of the palace. 

In this sense, perhaps the Lourvre is a good comp for the palace in Amber. Now a world-famous museum, the Louvre was once a royal palace occupied by French kings, starting with Francis I in 1546. (It remained so for a hundred years, until Louis XIV moved to Versailles.) Focusing on the main structure of the Louvre, pictured below, the width across the front of the palace (from the north edge to the southern edge) is about 1000 feet. It takes an average adult 3-4 minutes to cover 1000 feet by foot, which feels reasonable given the descriptions in the Amber novels (as we will see). So let us use this rough guide -- 1000 ft x 1000 ft -- as a foundation for the palace footprint, and from this we can generate a basic concept of the main structure of the palace with wings and towers.

Number of Floors

How high is the palace in Amber? We know from Merlin's description of the Corridor of Mirrors in Knight of Shadows that the palace has at least 4 floors. Across the Corwin and Merlin novels, the vast bulk of the descriptions of the palace are of floors 1 through 3. There is only that single mention of the 4th floor, and no mention of any higher ... other than Corwin's brief visit to the Round Room atop the "highest tower in Amber", which -- from the description -- is clearly higher than 4 floors (more on this below). But for the purposes of this exercise, we will map floors 1-4 only. (Incidentally, this is consistent with the Louvre, which is 4 floors.)

Exteriors

The Front Entrance

The front entrance to the palace, despite the fact that it must be magnificent, is never actually used by either protagonist across the ten books. Corwin hints at it when he calls it "the front way" (SOTU). And Merlin refers to it as the "main doorway" (SOC), even as he avoids it and ducks out the side.

The Rear Entrance

Conversely, of the many locations in or around the palace in Amber, the Rear Entrance is perhaps one of the most familiar to readers. It is used repeatedly by both Corwin and Merlin, so much so that we are left with the indelible impression that Amberites do not much care for the front entrance to the palace. This may be because they do not wish to be seen by the citizens of Amber's city. (Although Merlin often seems more concerned with being seen by members of his family, and uses the side entrances/exits as well.)  This may also be because the Rear Entrance is simply convenient to the Stables, and the back trails of Kolvir, which lead to some of the more prominent locales of the story: the Grove of the Unicorn, the Heights, and Corwin's Tomb.

The first description of the Rear Entrance comes at the top of SOTU, as Corwin has taken up residence in the palace once again, for the first time in around 150 years, Amber time:

Stables and Exercise Area

The above sequence cements what will be a familiar route:  Trails of Kolvir > Stables > Palace.  Here, Corwin is signaling that the Rear Entrance is farther away from the Stables than the front entrance, but he chooses the Rear Entrance in order to be less noticed. The description suggests that the Exercise Area is south of the palace, as are, perhaps, the Stables, and that the "garden" (in this case, the rear garden) is off the back of the palace (west). 

We also get a feel for the rear staircase: probably centrally located along the palace back wall (he has to cross the garden to get to it), and the stair is wide and curving.

Toward the end of SOTU, we get another angle on the Rear Entrance, when Corwin visits the palace by foot in Tir-na Nog'th:

In this excerpt, Corwin is walking around the northern end of the palace, to reach the Rear Entrance, the opposite of his southerly route in Ch. 1. 

Things we learn from this sequence:

• There are balconies along the northern face of the palace;

  • We already know there are balconies along the western face (SOTU), and can assume there are on the southern face as well (and perhaps the front face too).

• "Back gardens" is used interchangeably with "rear gardens".

After SOTU, we will not get much from Corwin in terms of palace exteriors.

As we enter the Merlin chronicles, this "rear" region of the palace grounds gets further attention, especially the Gardens.

The Gardens

In addition to the descriptions of the rear Gardens above, we get some additional detail from Merlin on what the Gardens might be like:

All in all, the Rear Entrance and rear Gardens leave us with a sense of privacy, and I dare say intrigue. This makes perfect sense, given the themes of the novels. They feel magnificent, yet still fairly intimate.

And so we can imagine setting the palace into its surrounding exteriors accordingly:

Basic Layout

The Main Hall

In future parts of this article, we will dive into the individual floors of the palace, and the rooms and chambers within each one. Before arriving there, however, let us ground ourselves in a basic blueprint, which starts with the Main Hall. 

Though it is not described in much detail, the concept of a "Main Hall" that occupies the ground floor of the palace is touched upon throughout the series. For example:

The Main Hall is the location that is depicted on the "official" Trump of Amber, making it a kind of transportation hub. It is heavily implied that it runs east/west (or north/south, in the Merlin books), connecting the Rear Entrance (used often by Merlin and Corwin) to the Main Entrance (also called the "main doorway" in SOC).

Corridors and Hallways

Apart from the Main Hall, Zelazny gives us some sense of the system of additional hallways, wings, and corridors. We know there is an "eastern wing", and we can presume there is a western one as well. We learn there is an "eastern corridor" and a "north one [corridor]", as well as a "rear corridor" which is likely the same as the north one. (Remember, this the Merlin version of "north"; i.e., the sea is to the south.) And finally we know there are multiple side entrances, which Merlin uses twice to hike from the palace into town.

The Main and Rear Stairs

We can assume there is a Main Stair, centrally located in the palace, originating in the Main Hall, and that this is the stair that Corwin and Random take in TCOC, when they descend from the Library down to the Throne Room.

We also know from a number of sequences that there is a well-used Rear Stair in the palace, connecting the Main Hall (at its rear) up to the upper floors. And we know that this Rear Stair is used particularly by Merlin to access his (and other family members') apartments.

Exactly how far to the rear of the palace this Rear Stair stands is debatable. We will get two different versions of this:

1. All the way to the rear:  "...connecting up at the rear with a corridor I could have followed all the way from the stair." In this line from BOA Ch. 11, we are left with the impression that the Rear Stair dumps into a rear corridor, and that is likely at the back of the palace, or very close to it.

2. Partially to the rear: "He led the way down the back stair and turned left at its foot. We moved on past the kitchen and followed another hallway which turned off toward the rear [they end up at the Armory]. " This line from SOC Ch. 7 makes it seem like this "back stair" is not, in fact, at the rear-most part of the palace.

How can these two versions coexist? I will conclude that the Rear Stair is, in fact, at the rear of the Main Hall, near the Rear Entrance, but that there are "wings" of the palace that extend even further rear, in which Merlin finds the Armory.

The "Back Stair"

In SOC, Merlin describes this foot journey from the Main Hall up to his rooms:

Here Merlin indicates that a back hallway connects the Main Hall to "a number of stairs". And it seems likely that this is the introduction of a new "Back Stair" that is not, in fact, the primary Rear Stair, but rather some smaller staircase deeper in the rear of the palace. 

Footprint

Given all of these pieces above, let us now combine them to conceptualize the basic footprint of the palace:

To help us stress-test the above, we have this very interesting sequence from Blood of Amber:

This sequence is one of the more cryptic descriptions of walking through the palace that we will get in the whole series. It is at once very specific sounding, but at the same time, when attempting to interpret it for a blueprint, it ends up being elusive. Merlin is deliberately taking a circuitous route from his 2nd floor room, to explore some tapestries, and he ends up leaving the palace by a side exit. This makes it difficult to trace his steps. But there are a few good insights to be drawn:

• If nothing else, we are left with the feeling that the ground floor of the palace is full of rooms that one can navigate in various ways. This is reminiscent of Corwin's comment in NPIA Ch. 8: "I passed through rooms where we had played as children." 

• Is the "big hall" the Main Hall? Probably not. First, he says "a" hall, not "the" hall, as it is usually called. Also, since the rear staircase likely dumps near the back of the Main Hall, the fact that he has wandered away from that place before passing through this "big hall" means he's no longer near the Main Hall.

• There is clearly a rear corridor that connects the rear staircase (from Merlin's rooms) to a side exit.

• We learn there are side gardens in addition to the well-described rear gardens.

• And Zelazny invokes "postern" for the first time.

A "postern", according to Wikipedia, is "a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall. Posterns were often located in a concealed location which allowed the occupants to come and go inconspicuously ... Placed in a less exposed, less visible location, they were usually relatively small, and therefore easily defensible." 

The postern is invoked again in SOC:

And this sequence also reinforces some layout. Where exactly Coral is waiting is not clear, since we do not know where the Begman's are staying. We can reasonably conclude she would not be waiting at the bottom of the Rear Stair (which, as we will see, is commonly used to access the Amberite's apartments on the 2nd and 3rd floors), but more likely at the bottom of the Main Stair that would lead to more public areas, as well as the visitors' quarters. 

And since Merlin says "one of the side doors", we can safely presume that the path he and Coral take through the palace is different from the one he took by himself in BOA.

Taking a stab at the above, Merlin's two strolls through the palace in BOA (red) and SOC (blue) might have looked something like this:

Next up:  Mapping the Palace: Part II