The End of the Game Read online

  And there were noises in the wood of a horse, crippled and dragging a foot, and came from the wood a maid leading her mount, pure and pale and kindly as the sun. And it was the true love the Armiger had longed for, so that his heart started out of him and he turned blue as ice in the heat of the day.

  But she was betrothed to King Froggmott of the Marshes, so said Margaret, and cared no whit for the Armiger’s pleas. And so he could do nothing but serve forever in sight of her and suffer; or go elsewhere in the wide world and suffer; or take his life and love to the world beyond, which he did, falling to his death from a great height upon her doorstep. “At which,” said Margaret, “she cared not at all except for the mess it caused the servants.”

  Oh, she had used to tell me that story and we had giggled together at the foolishness of that Armiger. I did not now. I understood how the Armiger felt, and how evil a thing it would be to love in that way one who loved not at all in return. And yet, one would have to accept it at the end and do what one could to go on living.

  Except, I vowed to myself as we jogged along, one could make a potion. A potion to guarantee he would love me, truly and forever. I vowed to do it if necessary, chanting to myself the list of ingredients of the love potion Murzy had taught me to make until I knew them as well as my tongue knew my teeth.

  4

  My thoughts on that trip home made me wonder why it was that Murzy and Margaret and the others were all pawns. When I asked Margaret, she said, “Jinian, Gamesmen are all panoplied up with their banners and helms, fringes flying and Heralds announcing them to all and his cousins. They attract a lot of attention and they die by the dozens. Stupid pawns stumble in where they’re not wanted or worse, where they are, and they die by the hundreds. But pawns who are never around when you’re looking for someone to do something dangerous; pawns who seem gray and dull and quite a bit boring, why, Jinian, no one even sees them and they live practically forever.”

  I began to understand. Though I was Gamesman caste in the Demesne, there would come a time I could leave it and perhaps could become as hard to see as Murzy herself.

  By the time we reached home, I had resolved to be a good student, to be invisible as the wind, and to get away from the Demesne as soon as possible. All these good resolutions merited me a great, joyous surprise. Mendost had gone away! He had gone Armigering for some Demesne north—Dragon’s Fire, Mother said—and was likely not to be back again for many long seasons. It was like Festival all over again. Without Mendost to put them to deviltry, both Poremy and Flot were fairly decent. Without Mendost to upset her, Mother was, if not exactly reasonable, at least unlikely to fly into screaming fits without any reason at all. She wandered about a lot, not seeming to see anything, and drank far more wine at table, passing into sodden sleep instead of into her rages. Garz left for some reason or other. Bram Ironneck was, as always, remote, and often simply gone. Elators have that habit, I’m told. If I could flick from one place to another, any place I had ever been or could see in my head, I would not stay in one place, either.

  It was the best time I could remember in the Demesne. Everyone let me alone. I spent most of the days with one of the dams learning one or more of the magics or stories of the old gods or songs or verses or matters of practical value. At the end of a few seasons I had only dipped the tip of my tongue in the brew, as Murzy said, but it made me thirsty for great gulps of it. There seemed no end to the wize-art, and yet it went on all around us, all the time, as everywhere as air, and as little regarded.

  Naturally, just when I was beginning to be really happy, something had to happen to spoil it all. Mendost came home. He came home, not alone, bringing with him a Negotiator from the Dragon’s Fire Demesne, seeking to ally our Demesnes through marriage between King Kelver and Jinian, the only sister Mendost had to offer. It did not seem to matter to him at all that I was barely fourteen years old.

  Naturally, I said no.

  Predictably, Mendost threatened to kill me painfully if I didn’t do what he and Garz and Mother were agreed was a good idea. Mother had a fit at what she called my “intransigent stubbornness’ and hit me hard across the face in front of the whole family and assorted hangers-on.

  Murzy found me in my tower room, half-melted in tears, staring at the fancy dress I had been told to put on for the betrothal feast. Mendost must have brought it with him, for I had no such garments. Since I had no Talent yet and was a virgin girl, it was a pale ivory dress trimmed with green and purple ribbons at the waist and wrists. “Do not Game against” colors.

  “I’d like to know what colors mean “Do not marry”,” I sobbed, wadding the dress into a bundle and throwing it under the bed.

  Murzy dragged it out, brushed it off, and hung it neatly on a hook in my guardarobe. “Marrying tomorrow, are you?”

  “Nooo,” I bellowed, sounding like a waterfox cow. “Nooo. Never would be too soon.”

  Margaret Foxmitten came in behind Murzy, an expression of pain on her face. “Do be still, Jinian. You’re behaving pawnishly.”

  Well, that set me up. “Pawnishly,” I said dangerously. “Well, you ought to know.”

  “Stop it,” demanded Murzy. “You’re upset. Don’t compound the difficulty by insulting Margaret. You are behaving pawnishly, just when you need the wize art. Now hush. Breathe deep. Consider fire.”

  Considering fire—or water—was something they often had me do when I was in a state. It didn’t mean anything, but it was very quieting. So I considered it for a while. “I’m sorry,” I said to Margaret. “But hardly anyone gets married except pawns. Why does this stupid King want to get married? And why me!”

  “That’s all right, Jinian. I would probably be very upset, too, but you really haven’t time for a tantrum just now. I don’t know why the King chooses to marry, but he seems to prefer it. In fact, he has a wife now!”

  “Now? Can he have more than one? I didn’t know that was ever done.” I found the idea very surprising.

  It wasn’t done, at least not often, and not by Gamesmen of good repute, Margaret told me at great length. “And not without some overriding purpose. So, in order to find out what all this is about ...”

  “We’ve been cosseting the Negotiator’s servants with drink and baked goods,” said Murzy.

  “Nutpies.” Sarah giggled, most unlike her shy self. (I think she’d been drinking as part of the cosseting.)

  “It seems King Kelver already has a wife,” continued Margaret. “Queen somebody or other. A Seer, however, has told the King she will not have a long life. She sought to keep her children by her rather than send them to a School somewhere, but the King was in one Game after another and all his children were lost but the youngest. It’s true, says one of the grooms, that she isn’t well and the Healer has told the King it is her mind that is ill, not her body. Which, since no one knows where Mind Healer Talley is, means nothing much can be done to help her. So perhaps the King looks far ahead. Far ahead, Jinian. Years, perhaps.”

  “It doesn’t explain why he would want me,” I snarled.

  “That’s true,” said Tess Tinder-my-hand, who had come in while I was having my tantrum. “I wonder what lies Mendost told him about you?”

  Now that was a thought, one that opened my mouth and put no words in it. Murzy laughed, and Cat Candleshy actually snickered, rare for her. She was usually humorless as an owl. What had the King been told about me?

  “Now that we have your attention,” said Murzy, “let’s think this out a bit while tha dress thaself.”

  “We have learned the details of the contract,” said Cat. “Mendost offered you in return for ten years’ alliance. One thing we may be sure of, Mendost believes he can continue to dominate you no matter where you are ...”

  “Dominate me,” I sputtered. “He can not!”

  “He thinks he does,” Cat went on calmly. “Mendost is not long on thinking, but he has a clear picture of himself as he believes he is. He believes he dominates you, and your mother, and Garz. He in
tends to continue doing what he believes he already does. We understand why Mendost might want an alliance -any alliance. He fears King Prionde of the High Demesne, as who does not ...”

  The High Demesne was southeast of us, a goodly distance by foot, but no distance at all for an Armiger or Elator. King Prionde was known as a suspicious, narrow man, who went so fearful through life he would attack first and determine enmity later. Worse, so it was said, was his sister-wife, Queen Valearn. Some years before, she had lost her eldest son, Valdon, a boy she much doted on, and this loss drove her to become an Ogress, a strange, reclusive creature from whom no child in all the southlands was safe, a beast more raging than the King himself. Oh, the nursery tales told about Valearn made the blood stop in your veins. Yes, Mendost’s desire for an alliance could be understood.

  Cat was still explaining. “But the Dragon’s Fire Demesne is far to the north. Why it should want an alliance this far south and west, we do not know. Perhaps it is some Great Game King Kelver has planned—in fact, we think it likely. Nonetheless, he is willing to take you, but he already has a wife. So, you have a bit of bargaining room if you are wise ...”

  “Bargaining room?” I asked doubtfully. I had never had much luck bargaining with Mendost, and as for Mother …

  “With the Negotiator,” said Cat in her firm, seldom used scholar’s voice. “We all know it would do no good to talk to Mendost or Garz. We believe ...” She gestured at the gathered dams, all of whom were in my room by now, having sneaked in invisibly, by ones and twos. “We believe the King does not want you, not now. We believe he does want the alliance, and takes this way of getting it. We believe he would consider allowing you to do something else for the next few years. Perhaps School? In Xammer?”

  “Xammer! It would cost a fortune!” Everyone knew that Xammer was terribly expensive. Most Schools were, of course, but Xammer!

  “Not only Xammer,” Cat continued calmly, “but Vorbold’s House.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said, forgetting to be respectful. Cat glared at me, and Murzy moved in with a quieting gesture.

  “Now, now. Cat’s right. If tha think to ask for some thing, always ask for the best. Tha may not get it, but tha never will if tha don’t ask. And tha’ll have to be firm about it, Jinian.”

  “I don’t know anything about Vorbold’s House,” I said sulkily. “It’s probably awful.”

  “Well, for one thing,” said Bets, “Mendost would not be allowed to get at you there. Not ever. Which would neatly eliminate that part of his scheme, whatever it is. And Eller wouldn’t be likely to make the trip, as you well know.”

  It was true. I didn’t think Mother would bother. “Neither would you,” I argued. “And my Schooling’s being done by you dams, by us seven.”

  “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.