Magic's Pawn

He planned his entrance to the Great Hall with care; waiting until one of those moments that occur at any gathering of people where everyone seems to choose the same moment to stop talking. When that moment came, he seized it; pacing gracefully into the silence as if it had been created expressly to display him.

It worked to perfection; within moments he had a little circle of courtiers of his own flocking about him, eager to impress the newcomer with their friendliness.

He basked in their attentions for nearly an hour before it began to pall.

A lanky youngster named Liers was waxing eloquent on the subject of his elder brother dealing with a set of brigands. Vanyel stifled a yawn; this was sounding exactly like similar evenings at Forst Reach!

'So he charged straight at them - '

'Which was a damn fool thing to do if you ask me,' Vanyel said, his brows creasing.

'But - it takes a brave man - ' the young man protested weakly.

'I repeat, it was a damn fool thing to do,' Vanyel persisted. 'Totally outnumbered, no notion if the party behind him was coming in time - great good gods, the right thing to do would have been to turn tail and run! If he'd done it convincingly, he could have led them straight into the arms of his own troops! Charging off like that could have gotten him killed!'

'It worked,' Liers sulked.

'Oh, it worked all right, because nobody in his right mind would have done what he did!'

'It was the valiant thing to have done,' Liers replied, lifting his chin.

Vanyel gave up; he didn't dare alienate these younglings. They were all he had -

'You're right, Liers,' he said, hating the lie. 'It was a valiant thing to have done.'

Liers smiled in foolish satisfaction as Vanyel made more stupid remarks; eventually Vanyel extricated himself from that little knot of idlers and went looking for something more interesting.

The fools were as bad as his brother; he could not, would never get it through their heads that there was nothing 'romantic' about getting themselves hacked to bits in the name of Valdemar or a lady. That there was nothing uplifting about losing an arm or a leg or an eye. That there was nothing, nothing 'glorious' about warfare.

As soon as he turned away from the male contingent, the female descended upon him in a chattering flock; flirting, coquetting, each doing her best to get Variyel's attention settled on her. It was exactly the same playette that had been enacted over and over in his mother's bower; there were more players, and the faces were both different and often prettier, but it was the identical seript.

Vanyel was bored.

But it was marginally better than being lectured by Savil, or longing after the Bards and the Gift he never would have.

' - Tylendel,' said the pert little brunette at his elbow, with a sigh of disappointment.

'What about Tylendel?' Vanyel asked, his interest, for once, caught.

'Oh, Tashi is in love with Tylendel's big brown eyes,' laughed another girl, a tall, pale-complected redhead.

'Not a chance, Tashi,' said Reva, who was flushed from a little too much wine.

She giggled. 'You haven't a chance. He's - what's that word Savil uses?'

'Shay'a'chern,' supplied Cress. 'It's some outland tongue.'

'What's it mean?' Vanyel asked.

Reva giggled, and whispered, 'That he doesn't like girls. He likes boys. Lucky boys!'

'For Tylendel I'd turn into a boy!' Tashi sighed, then giggled back at her friend. 'Oh. what a waste! Are you sure?'

'Sure as stars,' Reva assured her. 'Only just last year he broke his heart over that bastard Nevis.'

Vanyel suppressed his natural reaction of astonishment. Didn't - like girls. He knew at least that the youngling courtiers used 'like' synonymously with 'bedding.' But - didn't 'like' girls? 'Liked' boys?

He'd known he'd been sheltered from some things, but he'd never even guessed about this one.

Was this why Withen –

'Nevis - wasn't he the one who couldn't make up his mind which he liked and claimed he'd been seduced every time he crawled into somebody's bed?' Tashi asked in rapt fascination.

'The very same,' Reva told her. 'I am so glad his parents called him home!'

They were off into a dissection of the perfidious Nevis then, and Vanyel lost interest. He drifted around the Great Hall, but was unable to find anything or anyone he cared to spend any time with. He drank a little more wine than he intended, but it didn't help make the evening any livelier, and at length he gave up and went to bed.

He lay awake for a long time, skirting the edges of the thoughts he'd had earlier. From the way the girls had giggled about it, it was pretty obvious that Tylendel's preferences were something short of 'respectable.' And Withen -

Oh, he knew now what Withen would have to say about it if he knew that his son was even sharing the same quarters as Tylendel.