"This is a pleasant world," he said. "One I have hardly had time to see. Now, with money, perhaps I shall enjoy it."
"Perhaps?"
"A doubt you could resolve, my lady. Turn from me and what has this planet to offer?"
An answer which pleased her even though she knew it for the flattery it was. One which salved her pride and reassured her that it would be she and not Dumarest who would end their relationship. But not yet; not when she enjoyed his company so much, not when others envied her so openly.
Tobol sighed as, again, she demonstrated her prowess on the board.
"You are too skilled for me, my lady. I must beg you to allow an old man to retain his pride. Perhaps a younger opponent?" He looked up to where Dumarest stood beside the board. "Will you take my place?"
"Can you play?" Fiona was direct.
"I know the moves."
"But can you play?" She gave him no time to answer. "You understand the object of the game? To move and force selected responses from your opponent. To trap the enemy king and so to win. A miniature game of war," she mused. "Combat reduced to the dimensions of a board and yet holding all the cunning and strategy of actual battle. Sit, Earl, fight with me, and for a wager?" She looked at him, the smile on her lips not matched by her eyes. "Double what you owe me if I win, the usual fees canceled if I am beaten."
"Fees?"
"As I explained; resident's, utilities, protection. All quite normal." She added softly, "And one-tenth of your treasure-mine by right as the holder of this sector. Shall we begin?"
Dumarest glanced at the monk and saw the almost imperceptible lift of the shoulders, the nod signifying she had the right. Above the vaulted roof reflected small sounds from the partitioned area outside the room in which they played; a scuff of shoes, a cough, the rustle of garments. Tiny murmurs drowned by the sharp rap of pieces on the board as she set them out for the new game. "Earl?"
"A game of war," he said. "Do I have it correctly? A game we play to win."
"With what you owe me as the fee-double or nothing." She extended both hands toward him, the fingers clenched, the pawns she held hidden by her flesh. "Your choice, Earl. Gold has first move." She smiled at his selection and opened her hand to reveal jet. "You lose, I win. An omen, perhaps?"
"If you are superstitious."
"Are you?"
"I hold certain beliefs."
"Such as?" She shrugged, again giving him no chance to answer. "We'll talk about such things later but for now let us concentrate on the game. My first move, Earl." She shifted her king's pawn two squares forward. "There!"
Dumarest followed her move.
Without hesitation she moved a cowled piece to a position four squares above its fellow. She smiled as, again, he followed her move, confident that, after the next, she would have him. Her smile vanished as, deliberately, he swept pieces from the board to leave it bare but for her checkmated king.
"My game, I think."
"You cheated!" She rose, quivering with anger. "A child's trick! Earl, I never expected it of you! Can't you bear to lose?"
"I won."
"No! You-" She appealed to the monk. "You saw what happened. He couldn't win and so ruined the game."
"A game of war," said Dumarest. "I asked and you agreed. A game we play to win. Well, my lady, that's what I have done."
"No! The rules!-"
"In war there are no rules!" His tone was harshly bitter. "There is only one aim-to win. To win no matter how. That is what I have done. Perhaps that is what you should remember to do."
A lesson she ignored as, eyes bright with anger, she pushed past him and from the room. As he picked up the scattered pieces Tobol shook his head.
"You play a dangerous game, Earl. She is not a woman to forgive a slight." He added quietly, "Does the money mean so much to you?"
"As much to me as to her."
"You could have won."
"No."
"Yet you have so much it seems unwise to risk losing all for the sake of a part." So unwise Tobol wondered if Dumarest had hidden motives. Setting the last recovered piece on the board he said, "You are under stress, something Fiona may have forgotten. And she tends to a certain willfulness."
A selfish disregard-but when had the rich been otherwise?
Dumarest said, "Doesn't it irk you having to live under sufferance?"
"Can you name a single world where men do not?" A rhetorical question and Tobol illuminated it. "Those who established this culture tried to make the best of an unhappy system. They used commercial strife in place of real war with its blood and pain and destruction. To avoid stasis and what it would bring they instituted rules enabling holdings to be gained and changed and set in new combinations. To avoid too great a measure of confusion they limited the number of holders yet insisted that the number not get too small."
"A game," said Dumarest. "But how limit the players? Can't anyone buy in?" He knew the answer. "Only the Orres, of course, the privileged. But they tend to concentrate."
"To gain maximum power. It is all so beautifully simple. The entire world split into holdings; counters to be used on a planetary board. Advantage gained by revenues and exploitation. Safeguards established against cabals and monopolies by the incentive offered to a single winner."
The Maximus. A form of stabilizing influence to prevent outright anarchy. A governor to slow down wildness yet always to stimulate ambition. The target for others to attack, themselves to be attacked in turn if they grew too strong or posed too great a threat. Selfish interest married to the overall welfare, for to neglect a holding was to diminish its value.
"It cannot survive," said Tobol. "No such system can. But what culture can guarantee anything more? How to wed bloodless violence with the stimulus of personal gain? The common good with a growing economy? To avoid stasis while maintaining stability? Yet the Orres did as well as most." He looked at the pieces neatly set on the board. "Don't blame her-Fiona Velen is a product of her society."
He found her standing before a carving depicting a distorted figure.
She did not turn as Dumarest approached, the sound of his steps a susurrating whisper which rose to be amplified by the groined roof, to fade in echoing murmurs. The day was ending, ruby beams streaming through the clerestory to make wide swaths and blotches on the opposing wall. On the floor shadows gathered, broken into fragments by reflected light, darkness which held the glow of colors, the golden cascade of her hair.
"Carmodyne," she said as Dumarest halted at her side. "I cried when he died."
"Fiona-"
"I know. I was being stupid and greedy and acted the fool. A family trait," she added bitterly. "Always we seem to act the fool. My father who took one chance too many, my brother who drowned, my mother who took her own life- did any of them think of me?"
Dumarest touched her shoulder, felt the small tremors running through her body, the emotion which roiled on the edge of eruption.
"Carmodyne took care of me," she said. "Did I tell you that? He was a father to me, a brother, a friend. He made me his heir. I think he gave me his love. Look at him, Earl. Do you think he was capable of love?"
The artist had been a genius, beneath the comic exterior Dumarest could see pathos. Had he yearned for the mother of the woman at his side? The brother he had lost? How often did laughter hide sorrow?
"Love," she said, turning to face him. "A word-what does it mean?"
"Caring, Fiona. Sharing. Doubling pleasure as it decreases pain."
"And who will share my pain? Who gives a damn about me? Earl! I-Earl!"
His arms closed around her as she pressed against him, the touch of her hair silken on his cheek. Beneath his hands he could feel the jerking movement of unleashed tears, of the venting of stemmed emotion. A time in which he did nothing but hold her within the protection of his arms. Then, as the dying sunlight crept with carmine glows over the wall, rising to the roof as the primary set, she sucked in her breath and straightened a little.