Sheri Tepper: King’s Blood Four

“It is said we are born to it,” I objected, wanting to stop his talk which was making me feel guilty. “Karl says he will be Doyen because father and grandfather were Doyens before him. Born to it.”

“What Karl may say or do or think is not important to you. What you are or may become should be important.” He seized me by the shoulders and turned me to stare out the tall window. “Look there. In ten years you must go out there, ready or not, willing or not. In ten years you must leave this protected town, this Schooling place. In ten years you will join the True Game.

“You do not know this, but it was I who found you, years ago, outside Mertyn’s House, a Festival Baby, a soggy lump in your bright blankets, chewing your fist. If you have anyone to stand Father to you, it is I. It may be unimportant, but there is at least this tenuous connection between us which leads me to be concerned about you,” He leaned forward to lay his face against mine, a shocking thing to do, as forbidden as anything I had ever done.

“Think, Peter. I cannot force you to be wise. Perhaps I will only frighten you, or offend you, but think. Do not put yourself in another’s hands.” Abruptly he left me there in the high room, still angry, confused, wordless.

“Do not put yourself in another’s hands.” The first rule of the game. Make alliances, yes, they told us, but do not give yourself away to become merely a pawn.

This is why they forbid us so many things, deny us so much while we are young and defenseless. I leaned on the sill of the high window where golden sunlight lay in a puddle. A line of similar color reflected from a high House across the river, Dorcan’s House, a woman’s house. I wondered if they gamed there as we did; learning, waiting for their Mistresses and peers to name them, being bored. I knew little about women. We would not study the female pieces for some years yet, but the sight of that remote house made me wonder what names they had, what name I would have.

It was said among the boys that one could sometimes tell what name one would bear by the sound of it in one’s own ears. I tried that, speaking into the silent air. “Armiger. Tragamor. Elator. Sentinel.” Nothing.

“Flugleman,” I whispered, fearfully, but there was no interior response to that, either. I had not mentioned the name I dreamed of, the one I most desired to have, for I felt that to do so would breed ill luck. Instead, I called, “Who am I?” into the morning silence. The only reply came in a spate of gull-scream from the harbor, like impersonal laughter. I told myself it didn’t matter who I was so long as I had more than a friend in Mandor. A bell tolled briefly from the town, and I knew I had missed breakfast and would be late for class. In the room below, the windows were shut for once to let the fire sizzling upon the hearth warm the room. That meant no models that day, only lectures; dull, warm words instead of icy, exciting movement. Gamesmaster Gervaise was already stalking to and fro, mumble-murmuring toward the cluster of student heads, half of them already nodding in the unaccustomed heat.

“Yesterday we evolved a King’s game,” he was saying. “Those of you who were paying attention would have noticed the sudden emergence of the Demesne from the purlieu. This sudden emergence is a frequent mark of King’s games. Kings do not signal their intentions. There is no advance ‘leakage’ of purpose. There may be a number of provocations or incursions without any response, and then, suddenly, there will be an area of significant force and intent — a Measurable Demesne. Think how this differs from a battle game between Armigers, for instance, where the Demesne grows very gradually from the first move of a Herald or Sentinel. Just as the Demesne may emerge rapidly in a King’s game, so it may close as rapidly. Mark this rule, boys. The greater the power of the piece, the more rapid the consequence.”

He rattled his staff to wake the ones dozing.

“Note this, boys, please. If a powerful player were playing against the King’s side, the piece played might have been one of the reflective durables such as Totem, or even Herald. In that case…”

He began to drone again. He was talking about measuring, and it bored everyone to death. We’d had measuring since we came into class from the nurseries, and if any of us didn’t know how to measure a Demesne by now, it was hopeless. I looked for Yarrel. He wasn’t there, but I did see the visiting Sorcerer leaning against the back wall, his lips curved in an enigmatic smile.

“Sorcerer,” I defined to myself, automatically. “Quiet glass, evoking but Unchanged by the evocation, a conduit through which power may be channeled, a vessel into which one may pour acid, wine, or fire and from which one may pour acid, wine, or fire.” I shivered. Sorcerers were very major pieces indeed, holders of the power of others, and I’d never seen or heard of one going about alone. It was very strange to have one leaning against the classroom wall, all by himself, and it gave me an itchy, curious feeling. I decided to sneak down to the kitchen and ask Brother Chance about it. He had been my best source of certain kinds of information ever since I was four and found out where he hid the cookies.

“Oh, my, yes,” he agreed, sweating in the heat of the cookfire as he gave bits of meat to the spit dog. He poked away at the Masters’ roast with a long fork. The odors were tantalizing. My mouth dropped open like a baby bird’s, and he popped a piece of the roast into it as though I had been another spit dog. “Yes, odd to have a Sorcerer wandering about loose, as one might say. Still, since King Mertyn returned from Outside to become Gamesmaster here, he has built a great reputation for Mertyn’s House. A Sorcerer might be drawn here, seeking to attach himself. Or, there are always those who seek to challenge a great reputation. It probably means no more than the fact that Festival is nigh-by, only days away, and the town is full of visitors. Even Sorcerers go about for amusement, I suppose. What is it to you, after all?”

“No one ever tells us anything,” I complained. “We never know what’s going on.”

“And why should you? Arrogant boy! What is it to you what Sorcerers do and don’t do? Ask too many questions and be played for a pawn, I always say. Keep yourself to yourself until you know what you are, that’s my advice to you, Peter. But then, you were always into things you shouldn’t have bothered with. Before you could talk, you could ask questions. Well, ask no more now. You’ll get yourself into real trouble. Here. Take this nice bit of roast and some hot bread to sop up the juices and go hide in the garden while you eat it. It’s forbidden, you know.”

Of course I knew. Everything was forbidden. Roast was forbidden to boys. As was sneaking down to the kitchens. As was challenging True Game in a Schooltown. Or during Festival. As was this, and that, and the other thing. Then, come Festival, nothing would be forbidden. In Festival, Kings could be Jongleurs, Sentinels could be Fools, men could be women and women men for all that. And Sorcerers could be … whatever they liked. It was still confusing and unsettling, but the lovely meat juices running down my throat did much to assuage the itchy feeling of curiosity, guilt, and anger.

Late at night I lay in the moonlight with my hand curled on Mandor’s chest. It threw a leaflike shadow there which breathed as he breathed, slowly elongating as the moon fell. “There is a Sorcerer wandering about,” I murmured. “No one knows why.” Under my hand his body stiffened.

“With someone? Talking with anyone?”

I murmured sleepily, no, all alone.

“Eating with anyone? At table with anyone?”

I said, no, reading, eating by himself, just wandering about. Mandor’s graceful body relaxed.