When Margaret had taught me the spell, she told me she had seen it happen. An Armiger came to a Wize-ard woman in the Northern Marshes—it was Margaret’s kinswoman, and Margaret was there at the time—saying he had found no maid to suit him in all his flights and wanderings, for none was so bright and pure and kind as his dream told him maids should be. So he paid well, in gold, and the Wize-ard laid out the Pattern on the doorstep of her place and summoned up who should come.
And there were noises in the wood of a horse, crippled and dragging a foot, and came from the wood a maid leading her mount, pure and pale and kindly as the sun. And it was the true love the Armiger had longed for, so that his heart started out of him and he turned blue as ice in the heat of the day.
But she was betrothed to King Froggmott of the Marshes, so said Margaret, and cared no whit for the Armiger’s pleas. And so he could do nothing but serve forever in sight of her and suffer; or go elsewhere in the wide world and suffer; or take his life and love to the world beyond, which he did, falling to his death from a great height upon her doorstep. “At which,” said Margaret, “she cared not at all except for the mess it caused the servants.”
Oh, she had used to tell me that story and we had giggled together at the foolishness of that Armiger. I did not now. I understood how the Armiger felt, and how evil a thing it would be to love in that way one who loved not at all in return. And yet, one would have to accept it at the end and do what one could to go on living.
Except, I vowed to myself as we jogged along, one could make a potion. A potion to guarantee he would love me, truly and forever. I vowed to do it if necessary, chanting to myself the list of ingredients of the love potion Murzy had taught me to make until I knew them as well as my tongue knew my teeth.
4
My thoughts on that trip home made me wonder why it was that Murzy and Margaret and the others were all pawns. When I asked Margaret, she said, “Jinian, Gamesmen are all panoplied up with their banners and helms, fringes flying and Heralds announcing them to all and his cousins. They attract a lot of attention and they die by the dozens. Stupid pawns stumble in where they’re not wanted or worse, where they are, and they die by the hundreds. But pawns who are never around when you’re looking for someone to do something dangerous; pawns who seem gray and dull and quite a bit boring, why, Jinian, no one even sees them and they live practically forever.”
I began to understand. Though I was Gamesman caste in the Demesne, there would come a time I could leave it and perhaps could become as hard to see as Murzy herself.
By the time we reached home, I had resolved to be a good student, to be invisible as the wind, and to get away from the Demesne as soon as possible. All these good resolutions merited me a great, joyous surprise. Mendost had gone away! He had gone Armigering for some Demesne north—Dragon’s Fire, Mother said—and was likely not to be back again for many long seasons. It was like Festival all over again. Without Mendost to put them to deviltry, both Poremy and Flot were fairly decent. Without Mendost to upset her, Mother was, if not exactly reasonable, at least unlikely to fly into screaming fits without any reason at all. She wandered about a lot, not seeming to see anything, and drank far more wine at table, passing into sodden sleep instead of into her rages. Garz left for some reason or other. Bram Ironneck was, as always, remote, and often simply gone. Elators have that habit, I’m told. If I could flick from one place to another, any place I had ever been or could see in my head, I would not stay in one place, either.
It was the best time I could remember in the Demesne. Everyone let me alone. I spent most of the days with one of the dams learning one or more of the magics or stories of the old gods or songs or verses or matters of practical value. At the end of a few seasons I had only dipped the tip of my tongue in the brew, as Murzy said, but it made me thirsty for great gulps of it. There seemed no end to the wize-art, and yet it went on all around us, all the time, as everywhere as air, and as little regarded.
Naturally, just when I was beginning to be really happy, something had to happen to spoil it all. Mendost came home. He came home, not alone, bringing with him a Negotiator from the Dragon’s Fire Demesne, seeking to ally our Demesnes through marriage between King Kelver and Jinian, the only sister Mendost had to offer. It did not seem to matter to him at all that I was barely fourteen years old.
Naturally, I said no.
Predictably, Mendost threatened to kill me painfully if I didn’t do what he and Garz and Mother were agreed was a good idea. Mother had a fit at what she called my “intransigent stubbornness’ and hit me hard across the face in front of the whole family and assorted hangers-on.
Murzy found me in my tower room, half-melted in tears, staring at the fancy dress I had been told to put on
