My throat was dry. I could think of nothing to say to her, nothing at all. While I poured wine and drank it, she removed all of her clothing except a filmy thing which began halfway down her front and ended above her knees. It did little to hide the rest of her. Knowing my history, you will believe it when I say she was the first female person I had seen so unclothed. Silkhands the Healer, even when she traveled across the country with us, had never been so unclad. Now that she was bare, Sylbie seemed not to know what to do next. I offered her wine, and we gulped at it together, each as uncomfortable as the other.
“Have you had lots of women?” she whispered in a voice which seemed hopeful of an affirmative answer.
Imanaged to say, “Ummm,” in a vaguely encouraging tone.
“I didn’t want to be fumbled at,” she said through tears.
“Urnmm,” sympathetically.
“I think it might help if I knew your name.
“P-Peter.”
“Well, Peter, it’s a comfort that you know about … everything. My mother says that will make it much easier,” she said, then she threw herself sobbing onto the pillows.
I—was—am a fearfully stupid person. Until that instant I had not considered the Gamesmen of Barish which were in the pouch at my belt. Among them was the eidolon of Trandilar, great Queen, Goddess of beguilement and passion. I had taken that eidolon once before, outside the shattered walls of Bannerwell. I had not thought of it since, had rejected use of it, had tried to pretend it had never happened. Now, faced with the sodden misery before me, I could not in conscience ignore Trandilar longer. Peter, rude boy, would indeed “fumble at her.” Only Trandilar offered any hope for something less than agony for us both. My hand found the Gamespiece without trying, as though it rushed into my hand. I knew then what to do and how to do it as the lizard knows the sun.
“Come,” I said to the girl, laughing. “Let us have some of this good supper the matron has left us. Tell me about your family. Eyes like yours are too lovely to spoil with tears.” (Was this Peter speaking? Surely. If not Peter, then who? Nobody?)
Tears were wiped away. Wine was drunk and food eaten; fire allowed to warm skin to a roseate gleaming. Bodies allowed to huddle together for comfort when the howling came, to seek the softness of the mattresses and quilts, to burrow, explore, touch, wonder at, murmur at. Alone, I would have made all stiff, complex, and hateful, but with Trandilar all merely occurred. I seem to recall some howls from within the room, but I cannot be sure. It was of no matter.
When I awoke, I found her staring at me, the tears running down her cheeks once again.
“Why are you crying? What’s the matter?”
“They will arrange a marriage for me,” she sobbed, “with someone awful, and it will never be like this again.”
Oh, Trandilar. Is nothing ever as it should be?
Later that morning the Midwife came to the door of our room, as the matron had said she would. The dress of a midwife is red, with a white cowl and owl’s feathers in a crest. She stared at me, then laid hands upon Sylbie with an expression of fierce concentration before shaking her head and turning away without a word. At which Sylbie turned unwontedly cheerful, as suddenly as she had become teary before.
“You must stay another night,” she crowed. “Nothing happened.”
I replied, somewhat stiffly, that I felt a good deal had happened, at which she was properly giggly. I had not known before that girls were giggly. Boys are, young boys, that is, in the dormitories of the schools. Perhaps girls are allowed to retain some childhood habits and joys which boys are not. Or perhaps it is only that male Gamesmen are so driven by Talent—but no. The whole matter was too complex to think out. At any rate, the matron came again to give us leave to go into the market while she arranged for the room to be cleaned and food brought in. So the day went by and another night during which I had no real need of Trandilar, and another morning with Sylbie weeping, for this time the Midwife nodded, the owl feathers bobbing upon her head. A child would be forthcoming, it seemed, and the purpose of my being a nobody had been fulfilled. We sat in the window above the street as she shed tears all down the front of my tunic.
“There is no reason to believe you will not have great pleasure with your husband,” I said. Privately, I thought it unlikely unless he had been taught by Trandilar, until I remembered that Trandilar herself had been taught by someone. “Don’t cry, Sylbie. This is foolishness!”
“You don’t understand,” she cried. “They will marry me off to someone I don’t even know. Someone old, or bald, or fat as a stuffed goose. Young men don’t get wives with settlements as good as I have, or so my mother says. They have not the wherewithal. Only old men have enough of the world’s wealth to afford a wealthy wife. Oh, Peter, I shall die, die, die.”
She was such a pretty thing, soft as a kitten, warm as a muffin. I was moved to do something for her, saying to myself as I did so that the occasion for doing helpful things should not pass me by again while I mumbled and mowed and made faces at the moon. So much I had done when Himaggery asked my help. I would not be so laggard in the future.
“Shh, shh,” I said. “Be still. If I fix it so that you may marry whom you will, will you leave off crying? Sylbie, tell me you will stop crying, and I will work a magic for you.”
There were kisses, and promises, after which I went off to see the master of that place, a great fat pombi of a merchant Duke with more Armigers around him than any Gamesman needs if he is honest. It was not easy to get to see him. I needed all the Necromancer’s guise to do it. He greeted me coldly, and I resolved therefore to make the matter harder on him than I had intended.
“I am told that Necromancers have tried heretofore to rid Betand of its spectre,” I intoned. “Without success. I come to do what others have not done, if the price be to my liking.”
He shifted in the high seat, staring over my shoulder in the way they do. He would not meet the eyes behind the death mask, as though he were afraid I would take out his life and transmit it to another realm before time.
“What price would you ask?” His voice was all oil and musk, slippery as thrilp skins.
“One request. Not gold nor treasure. Merely that one of the people of Betand shall be governed according to my will. For that person’s lifetime.” I made my voice sinister. He would assume I wanted torture and death as my portion, being of that kind which would sooner kill anyone than give a woman joy. I know his kind—or Trandilar knew them. Yes. Perhaps that was the way of it.
“One of my people?” He oozed for a moment, thoughtfully. “Will you say which one?”
“Not one close to you, Great Duke. I would not be so bold. Merely an insignificant one who has attracted … my attention.”
He glanced at his counselors, seeing here a nod, there a covert glance. “What makes you believe you can do what others have not?”
I shrugged, let a little anger play in my voice. “If I do not, you will not give me my price. If I do, you will pay me. Or I will return worse thrice over. Is this reason enough?”
At which he gave grudging agreement. I insisted it be put upon parchment, signed before witnesses with the Gamesmen oath. I trusted him as far as I could kick him up a chimney.
Sylbie and I spent the day together. When evening came I went into the center of the city and called up Dorn, explaining the problem of Betand. There was deep, mocking laughter in my head, a sound as though I had my head in a bell which someone struck softly. When he had done laughing,I became his student once again. “Inside out.” He showed me. “What we would have done, inverted, so, tug, pull, twist so that it becomes this shape instead of that. Oh, this would be good sport if we were drunk. See, over there, under and through, down and over, and under once more—there is your unborn, Peter. It will be born in nine months in any case. Are you sure you want to let it rest? Ah. Well then, down and over and through once more, dismissing it thus: Away, away into time unspent. A way, away into life unused. Be still. At peace. In quiet. And done.” Indeed, when I let Dorn go and walked forth into the streets there was only stillness, peace, and quiet.