All Demesnes have some pensioned-off oldsters about, Gamesmen or pawns useful for running errands or watching babies. There was one old woman—Murzemire Hornloss, her name was—who had come to Stoneflight Demesne from someplace to the north when I was a babe. She pulled me over to her after Mendost put me down that first time, wiping my hot face with a bit of rag and patting my hand. “Th’art a Wize-ard, chile” she said. It was the first time I had heard the word, the first time anyone had said anything to me indicating I was more than an unnecessary impediment to the business of the Demesne. I never forgot it.
Mendost was the oldest of us children, all of the same mother but with varying inheritance from male progenitors. Mother, Eller of Stoneflight, was scarce more than a child, fifteen or so when she bore him. One father begat Mendost and me—first and last, as Mother used to say (and I had my doubts about it, even then)—but Garz had been absent for many years in between and at least two other men begat my three brothers, Jeruval, Poremy, and Flot. I don’t believe we ever knew which man begat which brother, and since both Gamesmen had gone elsewhere in the lands of the True Game, it didn’t much matter. Mendost’s father, who was also supposed to be mine, was an Armiger, a Flyer, as Mendost was. The other two had been an Afrit and a Pursuivant. Mother, though of Gamesman caste, seemed to have no Talent of any kind. She was so beautiful she did not need to be anything else. I hid sometimes behind hangings or in the orchard when she was sunning there, just to look at her. I thought I would look like that when I grew up, and did not much consider that she had no Talent else. I fully expected to become an Armiger in my time, like Garz. It seemed a logical expectation. Though I was the only girl in the family, it never occurred to me that the matter of sex would make any difference, and I made no separate prognostication on that account.
There were many other children in the Demesne. Bram Ironneck, Mother’s oldest brother, and her other brothers had fathered a number of them. Their mothers occupied various apartments in and around the place, and I had plenty of opportunity to observe them and the children. I formed the conclusion that while most mothers behaved with remarkable similarity toward their offspring, that is, with a certain baffled forebearance masking a persistent affection, this rule simply did not apply to my own mother.
Mother had very limited forebearance and seemed to have no affection for me at all, though her attitude toward Mendost bordered upon idolatry. As younger siblings sometimes do, I attributed this to the fact he was oldest. Oldest, and a son, and Garz’s child to boot. Though I was supposed to be Garz’s child as well, and that fact earned me no rides on the Festival Horse. Even Garz seemed unaware of it, never calling me “chile” or” Jinian”. I was always “her” or “thingy” to him. “Send thingy down to the stables with a message for Flitch.”
“Tell her to get out of here with that mess.” On the few occasions he addressed me directly, it was likely to be with a kick and a pointed finger. “Out.”
As a result of this treatment, I learned early to escape the Demesne whenever things looked to get stormy among the inhabitants. I had a pony, Misquick, so called for her habit of stumbling when she tried to hurry, and a long-legged, neutered fustigar named Grompozzle, Grommy for short. Both of these creatures were mine by virtue of the fact that no one else wanted them, and looking back upon their propensities, I can quite see why. It was our habit when the day’s schooling was done—Bram insisted we know written language and calculating in addition to cartography and the Index, one of the few sensible things he insisted upon—and when not otherwise occupied or forced into uncongenial labors by older relatives, to take ourselves as far from Mendost and Jeruval as possible.
Poremy and Flot were never as pernicious as the older boys, but at that time I never sought their company, though much later we were to become fairly good friends. If departure seemed prudent and there wasn’t time to ride away into the hills, there were other places where one could hide successfully.
If I wasn’t going off somewhere by myself, someone else might take me. It was almost a season after Mendost stopped tormenting me that the same old woman, Murzemire, came to me one evening as I was hiding in a rainhat bush along the stream, listening to the water and throwing windfall berries to hear them splash. She asked if I would come with her on an errand to the village. I recall going along happily enough. There was a sweet-shop in the village, and also the house of a wood carver who made toys for children. Even if it were not a Festival day, one could watch him carving the toys and think about receiving one, perhaps, when a Festival day came along, though that had never happened to me in the past.
The village was part of the family Demesne, of course, but quite outside the walls of the family place. It was not a fortress. It was a strong Demesne, since mother’s three brothers were all in residence and Garz lived there as well. Bram Ironneck, an Elator, had recruited still others to our banner, making the place secure and well founded. We had plenty of pawns on the land and in the village and had never felt the need for
