Sheri Tepper: King’s Blood Four

I galloped down the clattering stairs, past the nurseries, hearing babies crying and the unending chatter of the baby-tenders; down past the dormitories, smelling wet wool and steam from the showers; into the firewarm commons hall, thinking of what the Gamesmaster had said. It was true. Brother Chance said that only the powerful and the utterly unimportant lived long in the True Game. If you weren’t the one and didn’t want to be the other, it made sense to be a student. But it was still very dull.

At the junior tables the littlest boys were scaring each other with fairy tales about the lands of the Immutables where there was no True Game. Silly. If there weren’t any True Game, what would people do? At the high table the senior students, those about to graduate into the Game, showed more decorum, eating quietly under the watchful eyes of Gamesmaster Mertyn, King Mertyn, and Gamesmaster Armiger Charnot. Most of those over twenty had already been named: Sentinel, Herald, Dragon, Tragamor, Pursuivant, Elator. The complete list of Gamesmen was said to be thousands of titles long, but we would not study Properties and Powers in depth until we were older.

At the visitor’s table against the far wall a Sorcerer was leafing through a book as he dawdled over his food, the spiked band of his headdress glittering in the firelight. He was all alone, the only visitor, though I searched carefully for one other. My friend Yarrel was crowded in at the far end of a long table with no space near, so I took an open bench place near the door.

Across from me was Karl, his red, wet face shining slickly in the steam of the food bowls.

“Y’most got boggled up there, Peter-priss. Better stick to paper games with the littly boys.”

“Oh, shut up, sweat-face,” I told him. It didn’t do any good to be nice to Karl, or to be mean. It just didn’t matter. He was always nasty, regardless. “You wouldn’t have known either.”

“Would so. Grandsire and Dadden both told me that ‘un.”

His face split into his perpetual mocking grin, his point made. Karl was son of a Doyen, grandson of a Doyen, third generation in the School. I was a Festival Baby, born nine months after Festival, left on the doorsteps of Mertyn’s House to be taken in and educated. I might as well have been hatched by a toad. Well, I had something Karl didn’t. He could have his family name. I had something else. Not that the Masters cared whether a student was first generation or tenth. There were more foundlings in the room than there were family boys. “Sentlings,” those sent in from outside by their parents, had no more status than foundlings, but the family boys did tend to stick together. It took only a little whipping-on from someone like Karl to turn them into a hunting pack. Well, I refused to make a chase for them. Instead, I stared away down the long line of champing jaws and lax bodies. They all looked as I felt — hungry, exhausted from the day’s cold, luxuriating in warmth, and grateful night had come.

I thought of the promised Festival. I would sew bells onto my trouser hems, stitch ribbons into the shoulder seams of my jacket, make a mask out of leather and gilt, and so clad run through the streets of Schooltown with hundreds of others dressed just as I, jingling and laughing, dancing to drum and trumpet, eating whatever we wanted. During Festival, nothing would be forbidden, nothing required, no dull studies, the Festival Halls would be opened, people would come from Outside, from the School Houses, from everywhere. Bells would ring…and ring…

The ringing was the clangor of my bowl and spoon upon the stones where I had thrust them in my sleep. The room was empty except for one lean figure between me and the fire: Mandor, Gamesmaster of Havad’s House, teeth gleaming in the fireglow.

“Well, Peter. Too tired to finish your supper?”

“I…I thought you weren’t coming.”

“Oh, I drift here and there. I’ve been watching you sleep for half an hour after bidding some beefy boy to leave you alone. What have you done to attract his enmity?”

I think I blushed. It wasn’t anything I wanted to talk about.

“Just…oh, nothing. He’s one who always picks on someone. Usually someone smaller than he is, usually a foundling.”

“Ah.” He understood. “A Flugleman. You think?”

I grinned weakly. It would be a marvelous vengeance if Karl were named Flugleman, petty tyrant, minor piece, barely higher than a pawn.

“Master Mandor, no one has yet named him that.”

“You needn’t call me Master, Peter.”

“I know.” Again, I was embarrassed. He should know some things, after all. “It’s just easier than explaining.”

“You feel you have to explain?”

“If someone heard me.”

“No one will hear you. We are alone. Still, if this place is too public, we’ll go to my room.” And he was sweeping out the door toward the tunnel which led to Havad’s House before I could say anything. I followed him, of course, even though I had sworn over and over I would not, not again.

The next morning I received a summons to see King Mertyn. It didn’t exactly surprise me, but it did shock me a little. I’d known someone was going to see me or overhear us, but each day that went by let me think maybe it wouldn’t happen after all. I hadn’t been doing anything different from what many of the boys do in the dormitories, nothing different from what I’d refused to do with Karl. Oh, true, it’s forbidden, but lots of things are forbidden, and people do them all the time, almost casually.

So, I didn’t know quite what to expect when I stood before the Gamesmaster in his cold aerie, hands in my sleeves, waiting for him to speak. I was shocked at how gentle he was.

“It is said you are spending much time with Gamesmaster Mandor of Havad’s House. That you go to his room, spend your sleep time there. Is this true?”

He was tactful, but still I blushed.

“Yes, Gamesmaster.”

“You know this is forbidden.”

“Gamesmaster, he bade me…”

“You know he is titled Prince and may bid as he chooses. But, it is still forbidden.”

I got angry then, because it wasn’t fair. “Yes. He may bid as he chooses. And I am expected to twist and tarry and try to escape him, like a pigeon flying from a hawk. I am expected to bear his displeasure, and he may bid as he chooses…”

“Ah. And have you indeed twisted arid tarried and tried? Hidden among the books of the library, perhaps? Fled sanctuary from the head of your own House? Taken minor game vows before witnesses? Have you done these things?”

I hadn’t. Of course I hadn’t. How could I? Prince Mandor was my friend, but more than a friend. He cared about me. He talked to me about everything, things he said he couldn’t tell anyone else. I knew everything about him; that he had not wanted to leave the True Game and teach in a Schooltown; that he hated Havad’s House, that he wanted a House of his own; that he picked me as a friend because there was no one, no one in Havad’s House he cared for. The silence between the Gamesmaster and me was becoming hostile, but I couldn’t break it.

At last he said, “I must be sure you understand, Peter. You must be aware of what you do, each choice you make which aids or prevents your mastery of the Game. You cannot stand remote from this task. You are in it. Do you know that?”

I nodded, said, “We all know that, Gamesmaster.”

“But do you perceive the reality of it? How your identity will emerge as you play, as your style becomes unique, as your method becomes clear. Gradually it will become known to the Masters — and to you — what you are: Prince or Sorcerer, Armiger or Tragamor, Demon or Doyen, which of the endless list you are. You must be one of them, or else go down into Schooltown and apprentice yourself to a shopkeeper as some failed students do.”