The End of the Game Read online

  And, surprisingly, we had a class in babies. I hadn’t thought of such a thing at all until I came to Vorbold’s House, but it made as much sense as many of the other things we learned. Queen Vorbold got the babies from the town around. I very quickly adopted one for myself whom no one else wanted. He reminded me of Grompozzle in a way—that same sad-animal look to his eyes. I think his own mama whapped him entirely too much for his good, but we got along quite well. It was expected we would all have babies as part of whatever alliance we had, so we were taught some few useful things about that—including an absolute prohibition against using midwives. Midwives can see into the future of the babies they deliver, and those who will not get a soul, they do not allow to live. The great Demesnes do not care much for souls; they care more for power. I marked that down to ask Murzy about. If I had a child who would never have a soul, I think I’d not want it to go on living, contract or no contract. I determined to use a midwife if the need arose, prohibition or not.

  None of it was very ... well, intellectually challenging. I wanted to know about the dangerous new alliances, and who Huldra was, and what we might choose to do if we didn’t make an alliance for ourselves. I was politely hushed and told none of that was relevant to my future. It was no wonder the girls occupied themselves with silliness. There was certainly nothing very serious for them to talk about. None of it was the kind of thing the dams were teaching me. That had reach to it. Even the easiest kinds of magic have oddly curled edges to them, places where the understanding goes away into some other dimension and one has to intuit meaning and draw similarities from complexity. This is called simply “connecting”, and it is anything but simple.

  Some of the girls, whatever they may have heard about my arrival, offered me politeness, which I respected. None offered friendship, which I understood. Most of these girls had been in school since they were four or five. They had no experience of the world at all. Their ideas of reality were oddly at variance with the world I knew, sometimes more romantic and notional, other times more brutal. All their opinions were formed by others, not by themselves, and so they suspended their attitudes toward me, waiting for someone to tell them whether I should be accepted or not. None of them decided for themselves. They were in Xammer to remove them from the Game until some good alliance could be made, and each of them would take her own positions eventually through some Gamesman or other. So, all their intelligence was bent on capturing or holding the interest of a major Gamesman, and the talk of the powers of this one or the Talents of that one and the wealth of some other one occupied all their time and attention. Some of them had Talents of their own, which they were forbidden to use in Xammer and discouraged from making much of wherever they might be, for most Gamesmen would value them as subject allies or breeders but would reject them as Gameswomen. Still, many of them had Talents. I had none. It did not make me feel any more secure.

  I didn’t realize all this at once or even very soon after arriving. Much of it I did not put together until much later when I was older. It was all strange, this place, and I knew nothing at all. I was gauche. I broke the custom every time I opened my mouth or took a step. I asked “why” in class instead of “who”. I said things were “interesting” rather than “potent”. (That was a favorite word at Vorbold’s House that year, “potent”.) I ate because I was hungry, whether or not the foods being served were in fashion. I refused a taste of a dream crystal that Banila of Clourne offered me—she had a case of them, all colors, which had been given her by a kinswoman. It seemed to me then, and now, a dangerously stupid gift for a girl, but then, Banila was a dangerously stupid girl. And once the novelty of having clothes of my own wore off, I couldn’t maintain much interest in the narrow distinctions of dress that the girls occupied themselves with. I couldn’t make myself believe it was important to wear stockings that were embroidered with names of prominent Gamesmen! Or draggle my hair over my ears in rattails. I thought it made them look like fools, but they all did it.

  I might have been considered merely an oddity who was not worth cultivating. However, my gauchery was not the reason—or not the whole reason—the first half year in Vorbold’s House was very lonely.

  That was occasioned by the arrival, soon after my own, of Dedrina-Lucir, daughter of a Demesne I must have passed closely in approaching Chimmerdong Forest. It lay just east of the Tits (which were called, according to Dedrina-Lucir, Mother Massif) and a little north of the route I had taken. I had never heard of it before. Daggerhawk Demesne, it was called. Its device was a flitchhawk impaled by a blade. The manner of my arrival came to Dedrina-Lucir’s attention early—I had some reason to suppose that she had arrived already aware of it—and she remarked that in Daggerhawk they saw fit to make flitchhawks the prey rather than the other way ‘round. “Rather than be dangled like a dead bunwit,” were her exact words. This led to some interesting nicknames for me, ending at last in the one everyone adopted, “Dangle-wit”. My place of origin was called “Dangle-wit Demesne”, and my betrothed’s place was known as “Dangle-fire Demesne”.

  Needless to say, Dedrina-Lucir never put a foot wrong. She knew instinctively what utensil to use at table, which wine to praise and which to deprecate—or, if she did not, everyone preferred what Dedrina preferred, so it made no difference. What Dedrina wore became the fashion, and what Dedrina said became the rule. Dedrina, I soon learned to my anger and confusion, had ruled that Jinian was to be the butt of all their little jokes and pranks. Jinian was the enemy. They were “us”, and Jinian was “her”.

  It was more or less the same kind of treatment I’d had at home, but that didn’t stop my crying into my pillow. Thank all the gods old and new that Vorbold’s House set a premium on privacy and we all had rooms of our own. My room had no visitors; it was mine alone. I preferred it that way, and as I settled into it and became quieter in my mind, I realized Dedrina was making it necessary for me to do what I should have done anyhow: follow Murzy’s advice and become truly invisible.

  To go about one’s business, Murzy had said, in such a manner that no one notices.

  Simply not to hear the nicknames and hawk calls. Simply not to notice the mimicking behind the back, the faces and sneers. Simply not to react …

  To dress so that no one notices. To arrange one’s hair so that no one notices. To study the classroom matter so that every answer could be calm, correct, and without any excitement whatsoever. To show the Gamesmistresses precisely the right shade of deference to prevent resentment without one jot more to provoke fondness. To eat whatever was offered, without comment. I could hear Cat Candleshy reading off the recipe for invisibility, her low, calm voice going on and on, repeating; never tiring, never moving as she spoke. I could see Bets Battereye’s hands gesticulating, her rubbery face showing me proper facial expressions as she told me how, when, under what conditions to wear each one. I could hear Murzy saying, “There, there, chile. ‘Tis only a time, and a time. Nothing permanent.”

  And I worked at it. The first month or two were very hard, for there were falsities presented as truths and idiocies got up in the guise of facts, both by the girls and by the Gamesmistresses. I kept wanting to shout or argue or bite someone, but as I worked at it more and more intensely, it became easier. Not only easier, but fascinating. There were shades to it, like shades of green and blue and gray in water, shifting, none one could put name to. So there were shades to my invisibility, nameless shades, varying states of unnoticeability. And success, as well.

  I knew the first success one day at midday meal. We were always seated with some ceremony at the daised tables in the great hall in order to learn to eat gracefully in public, since most of us would have to do that in our future lives as hostesses to some Demesne or other. I was looking across the room with a pleasant, meaningless expression on my face, one that would attract no eye, evoke no response from anyone. There was a tight feeling at the back of my neck, and I looked up to catch Dedrina-Lucir’s eyes fixed on me, her face blind with fury.
Not merely ill-temper or the spitefulness I had noticed among many of the girls. No. Fury. Rage.

  I had done nothing to her to occasion such anger; therefore she had brought it with her when she came. Later that evening, I asked one of the Gamesmistresses, casually, as though it didn’t matter, if Dedrina-Lucir were not related to Porvius Bloster. Oh yes, I was told. Dedrina was his sister’s daughter. His thalan.

  “Daggerhawk Demesne, then,” I said, “is Bloster’s place?”

  Oh, yes, yes, indeed it was.

  So. Mendost had slipped the Game of Dedrina’s thalan, Bloster. Then the girl had come prepared to fight me, but through acting invisible, I was slipping her Game. Or more accurately, I had slipped her Game thus far. I wondered how far this magic of invisibility would take me and was not such a fool as to imagine there would be no further challenge. There was no mistaking the intent on her face. Though Gaming was forbidden in Xammer, Dedrina-Lucir would Game when it suited her. Loneliness, I thought, had been spiced with danger.

  However long the danger might go on, my time of loneliness was at an end. At the supper hour shortly thereafter, I was given a visitors chit. The visitors rooms were off the courtyard, and we might meet there with women relatives or friends. You can imagine my feelings when I found the room occupied by Margaret Foxmitten, her beautiful face glowing in the lamplight, and Sarah Shadowsox, looking up when I entered with her alert, startled expression which always reminded me of some small forest creature. They were there! They had arrived! Little got said and less decided. All they did was hold me, pat my shoulders, and say “There, there.” All the tears I had bottled in half a year came out.

  Thereafter we managed much talk. Cat and Tess Tinder-my-hand were on their way to Xammer. It was expected that Murzy and Bets Battereye would manage to get there before the Season of Storms. Margaret and Sarah had already found a house in the town; both had informed Vorbold’s House that they were the servants of Jinian. As such, they could come to me—or I to them under certain circumstances—privately and without trouble. Some such fiction was necessary. Best of all, I was no longer alone.

  “Joramal Trandle was furious that Mendost left you to Bloster that way,” said Margaret, her eyes sparkling at the memory. “He said things to Mendost which would have burned your ears to hear. Mendost, of course, was scarcely troubled by it, but it did many of the rest of us good. Joramal has offered us a stipend to stay in Xammer to serve you, and he will visit you in due course to see that all is well with you. And now, you must tell us the truth of how you came to Xammer!”

  Which I did. Which they disbelieved.

  So I told it again, in exhaustive detail. I don’t think they really believed it then, either, though there was something about the tale that implied something to them it didn’t mean to me. They asked over and over about the giant flitchhawk, and I told them.

  “Why?” I said at last. “What do you think it means?”

  Margaret shook her head. “Too soon to say, Jinian Footseer. The story of Little Star and the Daylight Bell is a wize-art story, a seven-dam story, passed down and passed down, and to have it come true in that way, well ... Murzy may have some idea about it. If not, we may be told.” But they would not say when, or by whom.

  Margaret and Sarah had brought a horse with them, a horse for me. A real horse. A better horse than the one I had borrowed from Porvius Bloster. Joramal Trandle had sent it. It did not trip or stumble, and I immediately named it Surefoot. Having the animal meant I could ride out through the town of Xammer, even into the surrounding area, which was beneath the Game ban. School servants were always within sight whenever the students rode, but they were there for our protection. Dedrina, seeing me enjoying myself, sneered that I must take care: Basilisks were said to frequent the fields where I had been riding. I smiled and thanked her, promptly reporting her remark to Queen Vorbold, together with a quiet comment concerning the School’s negligence in tolerating vermin in the area. She took me to mean Basilisks, which in one sense I did. I had been careful to attribute the rumor to its originator, so for a time after that, Dedrina was quieter, and angrier.

  At last, coincident with the first storms of the season, Murzy and Bets arrived, Murzy with her gray hair in tangles and her shawl every which a way, Bets as busy and bustling as ever, and we were seven once more. We celebrated my fifteenth year with a cakes-and-wine party, and Murzy demanded a strict accounting of the year I had been without her. She did not seem displeased when she had heard it.

  “Well, chile, we will believe that bit about the flitchhawk until someone proves it not so. I feel it was not a Gamesman in Shifted shape, though we may not discount that idea entirely. Some great Shifter could have done it. I’ve heard of those that could.”

  “What about the Schooling?” said Bets. “How does it go?”

  So I told her what I had learned, and they made faces at most of it. I told them about Banila’s dream crystals, and they were horrified, so I talked about classes. We did have a good Gamesmistress to teach cartography, mannish and gruff though she was, and I had learned much about the world of the True Game, and even some things—though no one would vouch for their accuracy—of the world beyond. When I spoke of Dedrina, however, Murzy gave the others a cross look and said, “This isn’t necessary, now is it, dams?”

  “It’s all right, Murz,” I said. “I can handle her. Truly. I just get quieter and quieter, and she gets madder and madder.”

  “I know,” said Murzy, frowning.

  “Such increasing anger is dangerous, Jinian,” said Cat. “Dedrina-Lucir comes from a line of Basilisks. The one you saw in the forest was probably near kin. All the females of that line have been Basilisks of great power for seven generations. We have reason to think she has come into her Talent long since.”

  I thought it over. She had certainly Beguiled the girls and mistresses in the School. She had not done any Reading of others’ minds that I knew of, but Reading was both forbidden in Xammer and easy to detect, whereas simple Beguilement was often impossible to tell from natural attractiveness. “She warned me to be careful where I ride, for Basilisks roam the fields outside the town.”

  “Ah,” said Murzy thoughtfully. “So she warned you, did she? And I suppose some at the School have heard of this warning.”

  “The girls before whom it was said, and Queen Vorbold,” I said, wondering now whether I should have told the Housemistress.

  Murzy merely nodded. “The fields outside the town, but still inside the ban?”

  “Oh, yes,” I replied. “Still inside the ban.”

  “Then I think we may expect an attack,” said Murzy, not seeming greatly troubled. “Dedrina-Lucir was announcing covert Game against you, Jinian Footseer.”

  “She’s been Gaming against me ever since she arrived,” I complained. “Without announcement.”

  “Well, perhaps. And perhaps what she has done up till now could be considered only girlish temper? Ah? Or mere human nature? But if she does as I expect she will, then it is truly Game, and knowing her people, I doubt it will be done in accordance with honor. She will Game you to death, but she will not tell you why, and I think Bloster’s quarrel with Mendost is not sufficient reason. Well and well, Jinian Footseer. Let me think on it a bit more.”

  Then is when I should have told her of Bloster’s words in Chimmerdong, but to tell the truth they had slipped my mind. What had come immediately after had been so wildly strange as to drive other thoughts away, so I did not remember. Instead, I left her to her cogitations, and went back to my classes, a good bit more secure and happy than I had been in some time, though somewhat troubled, too, remembering that look in Dedrina’s eyes.

  9

  When next I met with the six dams, they told me their considered opinion: Cat, laconically; Margaret, calmly; Sarah, shyly; Bets, at some length and in great detail; Tess Tinder-my-hand, with homely examples and memories of ancient times—well, older times, to be sure—nodding her white head and losing track of what she was sa
ying; and Murzy, firmly, expecting no nonsense. The sense of all their talk was that I must bring matters to the boil. Nothing would be served by delaying tactics. We needed to find out why Dedrina-Lucir and the whole of Daggerhawk Demesne seemed intent upon the demise of one insignificant girl.

  So, we plotted a bit, and I went back to the School, riding my gift horse and feeling kindly about King Kelver for sending him, though I knew it was probably Joramal’s idea. When I arrived, I went straight to my own Gamesmistress—each of us had one assigned to assist us with personal matters; mine was Gamesmistress Armiger Joumerie, the geographer—and told her I would like to be reassigned at table.

  “And why is that, Gameswoman?” she demanded. “Have you suffered some fancied slight at the mouths of your table mates? It so, we can resolve the matter.”

  “Not at all, Gamesmistress,” I said, staying as cool and unemotional as possible. “I have become aware of an unGamesmanlike tension between Dedrina-Lucir and me. As is natural, the students are taking sides. This distracts them from their studies, and needless to say, it distracts me from mine. During the day, we have no reason to meet. It is, rather, avoided between us. Thus we have little chance to work out whatever the difficulty may be. I thought if we were forced into close proximity at a time when honorable and merely social discourse is—”

  “Stop, stop,” she shushed me, waving her hands. Gamesmistress Joumerie was a very large woman, with great shoulders and breasts. I have never been able to imagine her as an Armiger, Flying, and perhaps she had grown too heavy for it. She was very formidable, however. “Stop. You go on and on with this eloquence, which all boils down to what?”