Zelazny What If: Deirdre as the villain in the Corwin Chronicles

Who:

Deirdre

I returned to the cards, and there was Flora in a gown green as the sea, just as I'd remembered her the previous evening; and then there was a black-haired girl with the same blue eyes, and her hair hung long and she was dressed all in black, with a girdle of silver about her waist. My eyes filled with tears, why I don't know. Her name was Deirdre. 


Why: 

Ambition? We see so little of Deirdre’s inner life that it’s difficult to speculate at what might move her.


How:

I see two paths for Deirdre as the baddie

Eric's collaborator

Consider the circumstances under which Deirdre is first encountered.

It was the better part of an hour before we struck the camp. There were four men seated about the fire and two sleeping off in the shadows. The girl who was bound to a stake had her head turned away from us, but I felt my heart quicken as I looked upon her form.
    "Could that be ...?" I whispered.
    "Yes." he replied. "I think it may."
    Then she turned her head and I knew it was.
    "Deirdre!"
    "I wonder what the bitch has been up to?" Random said. "From those guys' colors, I'd venture they're taking her back to Amber."
    I saw that they wore black, red, and silver, which I remembered from the Trumps and from somewhere else to be the colors of Eric.
    "Since Eric wants her, he can't have her," I said.
    "I never much cared for Deirdre," Random said, "but I know you do, so.." and he unsheathed his blade.
    I did the same. "Get ready," I told him, rising into a crouch. And we rushed them. Maybe two minutes, that's about what it took,
    She was watching us by then, the firelight making her face into a twisted mask. She cried and laughed and said our names, in a loud and frightened voice, and I slashed her bonds and helped her to her feet.
    "Greetings, sister. Will you join us on the Road to Amber?"

Okay, let's be as generous as possible. We'll say that the six men are the survivors of however many were dispatched to retrieve Deirdre. She wasn't overcome by six nobodies. Rather, she killed a bunch of soldiers until those remaining overwhelmed her. That makes it a little less incongruous when manhandles a werewolf like an extra in Mortal Kombat a couple pages later.

That's not even the weird part. She was walking out of Amber in order to escape. It's not enough to assume that she had no Trumps, because Corwin acquired a set easily from the library. Instead, we'll assume that she had no one outside the city she felt she could trust. She never shows any particular closeness to anyone in the family other than Corwin.  I’d like to think that Gerard would help her, but perhaps she was concerned that he would go to Eric and didn’t want to risk it.

The first chapters take place over the course of several days, so it’s not unreasonable that Tir na-Nog'th is unavailable in the timeframe. We never examine why Deirdre is in Amber in the first place or why Eric wants to keep her there. Who gives a shit? We’ll assume that Eric wanted as many siblings as possible on hand for the coronation.

That still doesn’t explain how Deirdre wound up in Corwin’s path. Notably it happened after Julian (and therefore Eric) was aware of Corwin’s presence.  So they set things up, maybe perform a little bit of shadow manipulation to place her in his path no matter what route he takes (as Oberon did with Lorraine) and they waited. Sucks to be the soldiers guarding her, though, who probably had no idea what they were in for.

So, she’s working with Eric. She teams up with Corwin and they head to Rebma. Deirdre is no longer able to keep tabs on Corwin after he teleports out after walking the Pattern, so does the only thing she can and fills Eric in on what she knows about Corwin. Then Corwin is captured and imprisoned and he never meets with Deirdre again while Eric is still alive.

Corwin's collaborator

This would involve a significant digression from the books, but I could see Deirdre as Corwin’s partner in his quest for the throne. We could play it relatively straight, with the pair as partners or we could get into Corwin’s yearnings and cast them as “partners”.  Despite its historical precedent, I find that more than a little squicky so I’m not going to dwell on it.