The End of the Game (6 page)

“Wait a bit, wait a bit. We’ve talked that over. No reason we have to stay here. An old pawnish dam is an old pawnish dam. Not much value, not much missed, isn’t that what they say? I figure two of us could go with you. Even Eller wouldn’t be so silly as to send you off to Xammer without servants. Most of the students have two or three housed in the town. Margaret could go, and Sarah. They’re the youngest. That’s two.”

“I would sneak away soon after,” said Tinder-my-hand, “with Cat. We’ll not be missed.” She sounded almost wistful, and I thought how boring it must be for her in the Demesne. Invisibility was all very well, but sometimes it must become wearing. “Since Murzy has been most useful around here and might be sought for, she might have to delay a bit. Perhaps she could take to her bed with a fever, down in town.

“Which will go on and on,” said Bets. “I would be needed to nurse her, of course. It’d be a season before anyone would come looking for us, wondering if we lived or died.”

“So,” I said, considering it. “Still, the time would come my Schooling would be done. Then the King might expect me to be ... available.”

“That’s later,” said Margaret Foxmitten. “Later we can worry about it. Now’s time to figure out how you’re going to get the King’s Negotiator to agree.” And they began a long session of quite specific instructions about that. Finally Murzy sighed and shooed all of them away.

“One way or another, chile. One way or another. Now, wash tha face, put on this pale dress, and let me comb that hair. Tha’ll never be a beauty, and that’s all to the good. Invisibility’s hard for beauties. In this case, though, tha’re on show, so we have to make the best of what’s there.” Which she did, with rouge pots and dark stuff on my lashes to make my eyes look greener, and a pumice stone to rub the brown calluses off my hands. My hair had never been so clean, and she brushed it until it gleamed like polished, ruddy wood. She was right: I was not beautiful, but on that occasion I was not difficult to look at.

She did a small spell casting, too. Inward Is Quiet was the spell, something very calming. Enough that I went down to dinner in full command of myself, intent on being graceful and quiet and well mannered. I sat beside the Negotiator, determined to be charming. Of course, Mother drank too much, got into a violent whispered argument with Mendost, and threw a tantrum you could have heard in Schooltown halfway through the soup, but Garz and Poremy covered it up and I pretended not to notice. The Negotiator’s name was Joramal Trandle, and he gave me several boring gifts and one nice one and some well-thought-out compliments. Margaret and Murzy had thought up a couple for me to return, and by the time they brought in the cakes, we were getting along very well. I told him then that I must speak with him privately, after the meal, in the gardens, and he agreed, though he did look puzzled.

So, later in the evening he insisted on talking to me privately in the garden—which Mendost did not like at all. After I thanked him for the third time for the scent bottle carved out of greenstone in the shape of a frog, I remarked that it would have been nice if Mendost had cared enough about me to ever be kind to me. It would have made me feel more secure in the current situation—more sure that I would be treated well in future. This was said rather wistfully while batting my eyelashes the way Margaret had showed me. Joramal turned a little pink, then white, and I knew he was trying to figure out how he was going to tell King Kelver that Mendost’s sister certainly wasn’t Mendost’s friend. Though if the King had any sense, he would already have figured out that Mendost didn’t have any friends.

“I am sure King Kelver will not want an unwilling wife?” I asked, smiling. “Unwilling allies are so dangerous to one during Game.” I had practiced this line twelve times in front of the mirror with Cat sitting beside me, coaching me.

“The, umm, King,” he ummed, “desires willing and, umm, enthusiastic allies. Umm. Of course.”

“As you have noticed, I am very young.” This was demure. It is not easy being demure. I had wanted to say, “I’m too damn young to get married, and I don’t want to,” but older heads had prevailed. Instead, I looked down, twined my fingers together, and tried to evoke pallor.

“Ah,” Joramel said. “Yes.”

“I do not feel that marriage—or even guest status within the King’s Demesne while he has yet a living wife—would be appropriate. It would be beneath the King’s honor. I am a mere child, after all. Without Talent. Or Schooling. No. It would not be honorable.”

“Ah, no,” he said.

I looked up. Now was time for the firm, friendly look. “However, if I were to attend School in Xammer for a few years—Vorbold’s House would do—then the King’s honor would not be questioned. Nor could I question his ... friendship.”

He smiled at me, really smiled, with a definite twinkle behind it. “Young woman, I would be happy to accede to this request on the King’s behalf. It would, quite frankly, ameliorate certain aspects of this alliance which neither the King nor his Negotiator have found ... becoming.” He gave me a long, level look, and I knew we understood one another. The King was playing some Game or other, and Mendost was an unsuspecting part of it, but the King did not wish to Game against me. Good. The dams had, as usual, been right.

I gave Joramal Trandle my hand, and we agreed. I told him I could not possibly go to Xammer without my two servants and my pony, Misquick—even though the pony was not a mount that lent me much dignity. He was very grave about this, agreeing only after an appropriate amount of consideration to show he took the matter seriously. I told him my servants were Margaret and Sarah, stressing that Mother some times forgot the proprieties. He made a note of their names, right there in the garden, so I thought we would have no difficulty about that.

And when Mendost came up to me afterward with a bloody word in his mouth, ready to smack me if things hadn’t gone his way, I smiled sweetly at him and told him I thought traveling with Joramal Trandle would be immensely enjoyable. Joramal was beside me, ears quivering as Negotiators’ always are. They must see and hear everything and use it for the benefit of their patrons. Mendost didn’t dare say anything at all, much less haul me heavenward by my left foot. I caught the Negotiator looking at me out of the corner of his eye, watching me and Mendost together, as though he wanted to know a great deal more about that particular relationship.

I continued to be charming throughout the evening, though I had begun to feel a little odd because of the wine. It had begun by making me warm and relaxed, but as the evening waned it gave me a sad, weepy feeling. Murzy’s spell was wearing off, and I felt a little sick. When the party ended, Mother went up the stairs just ahead of me, and I followed her as she turned along the corridor leading to her own suite, not out of any plan—after all, everything was said and done except the contract itself—but more out of that sadness, as though I were about to lose something ephemeral and wonderful that I could never have again. So I went after her, slipping into the room behind her, saying, “Mother ...”

I’m sure it was a whiny little voice. She turned on me, her hair billowed out around her head like a cloud, her favorite jewel held against her lips, her eyes lit up with a kind of bleary impatience.

“Well, and what is it now, girl! Have you some other complaint?”

“No,” I said. “It’s just that I’ll be gone. And we may not see one another again ...”

“No great loss,” she told me very cheerfully.

I could not let it rest. “I ... I think it is. I mean ... I know you haven’t been very satisfied with me. I know you like the boys better. But still and all, you’re my mother, and I want—”

“Out,” she said in a flat, toneless voice, as though she were ordering the fustigars from the kennels. “I’ve had enough of your maundering. Do you think I haven’t seen you all evening, playing up to that fool Joramal, trying to get out of it? Well, you’ll not get out of it. You’ll get in it and do as you’re told. Now out. The contract will be done after breakfast tomorrow, and you’re to be there. After which you’ll be no trouble of mine and I’ll need listen to no more whine of Mother this and Mother that. I would as soon have mothered a kitchen pawn.”

She shoved me out, not gently, and shut the door in my face.

I went up to my room, waking Murzy where she sat by my fire ready to undo my laces, and I said not a word to her about it. It came only as a confirmation, not as hurtful as one might think—at least not where I could feel it, though I had a sense something deep had been mortally wounded. No matter. The deep things stay buried unless one stirs them up. I had been feeling a little guilty about maneuvering Joramal the way we had, but there was no more guilt. There was only a kind of cold, hurt calm at the center of things which lasted me all night and on the following day throughout the reading of the contract. It let me enjoy the faces on Mendost and Mother when the matter of Xammer was read out. There was anger there, some large, private anger, and I knew covert plans of theirs had indeed been upset by my personal negotiations. It was too late for them to do anything about it, however, and the ceremony proceeded during which Mother—white-lipped and angry-looking—formally turned me over to Joramal Trandle as surrogate for the King. From that time on, by Game law, I belonged to King Kelver for at least the period of the alliance. My family no longer had any claim on me whatsoever. Then I went up to my room and cried for an hour. It was very refreshing. After which I considered fire for a while, then went to sleep wondering if travel with the Negotiator would be like traveling with the dams. In which case I would get very little rest.

We were making ready to leave the following day when someone realized I had no clothes. There was then a delay while the seamstresses outfitted me. I had been wearing some cast-off things of Poremy’s and had only the one gown. I think Murzy may have said something in Mendost’s hearing about Jinian being a laughing stock in Xammer because she had no clothes. At any rate, Mendost and Mother had a screaming match over it, but I did get some clothing. Except for the betrothal gown, they were the first things I had ever had made for me. I was amazed to learn that girls’ underdrawers are made differently, though when I stopped to think about it, it did make sense.

“What happens when I outgrow them?” I asked Cat. She was watching Sarah take the bastings out of my favorite suit. Red leather riding trousers and a gray-and-red-striped tunic top with a red half cape. “The way I’m going, I won’t be able to wear this more than three or four seasons.”

“I understand that Vorbold’s House provides,” Sarah said, rolling up bits of threads. “When the King pays your way there, he pays for everything, and they see that you’re properly clothed for any occasion. It isn’t just a School, Jinian. It’s—well, it’s a special place. Only for girls, you know.”

I hadn’t known. I wished I didn’t know. Something that was only for girls had a sound to it I didn’t like. “Why?” I asked. “Why only for girls?”

“Because it’s for young women of families who seek alliances,” Cat said in her tart fashion. “To get them out of Games’ way, for heaven’s sake. This Demesne could get involved in some Great Game tomorrow—and knowing your brother Mendost, that’s likely. It’s only we’re so remote from anything or anyone has kept us peaceful so long. If you were here during Game, you could be taken hostage, or killed, or set up in the Game some way. Xammer is neutral territory. No one Games in Xammer. Girls can grow up there, find their Talent—if any—and make some decent or useful choices when they’re old enough to do so.”

I didn’t know she was speaking prophetically, or I might have paid more attention. As it was, I only nodded and humphed. I still didn’t like the “girls only” aspect, but I had to admit it sounded sensible. Murzy had gone to some pains to describe Game to me in terms that were anything but attractive or exciting. Many Gamesmen—and women—seemed to end up dead very young, or worse.

“Besides,” Murzy interjected, “you’ll learn a good deal. Not the kind of thing we’ve been teaching you, but useful stuff nonetheless.” She held up the cape with satisfaction. “We’ll need to put a student’s knot on this.” She meant the green and purple ribbons that students or pregnant women or scholars wear to show they are on neutral business and should not be involved in Game.

“Don’t,” I begged. “We can put it on later, just before we leave. It will clash with the red, and I want to wear it to ride Misquick today.” I had it in mind that Grompozzle and Misquick had never seen me in new clothes, proud and Gamesmanlike, and it would be fun to ride out in something besides the tattered trews and leather shirt I always wore. I was far too big to ride Misquick at all. However, though our Demesne raised horses that were sold all over the world, I had never been given a mount other than the pony. I was allowed to work with the horses, but not to ride them. I think Mother and Mendost made that rule just to be annoying. At any rate, I would have a last ride on the poor pony, just to say good-bye. Joramal, after seeing Misquick, had carefully hidden a smile and promised me a more fitting mount. “When I get back,” I urged Murzy. She agreed. Well. How could she have known? How could I?

So, just before noon I packed a lunch, whistled up Grompozzle, saddled Misquick, and made off for the hills, waving to Murzy as I clattered through the courtyard. I didn’t intend to go far. There wasn’t time, and I didn’t really have the heart for visiting favorite places much. This was more in the nature of a nostalgic farewell, full of bitter-sweet memories, very self-dramatized and all. I had a mental picture of me in the new clothes that probably looked as little like the real me as Grompozzle looked like a real hunting fustigar. I noticed a horseman on the line of western hills as we set out, but I thought nothing of it. The forest east belonged to Stoneflight, or so we say, as far as the ridge line. North is the Old South Road City of the blind runners, and south is only badlands. But the forest west of the Demesne is open country and full of game, so riders are seen there often enough. I headed north. The Season of Storms was notime near, and if I encountered a runner, he would only give me honey cake and send me home. They and I had become fairly friendly over the past several years. Once I asked a runner how they got started on the road. He gargled at me for a long time, and I gathered some great-great-ancestor far back had been summoned to run the road, particularly the bad spots where it was all broken. That’s why they valued the footseeing so, to find the broken places between the stretches anyone could see. They were a very strange people.