The season wore on to the time of the song competition at Xammer.
The song competition is a tradition in Xammer. There are contests at all the Houses, though Vorbold’s is probably the most prestigious. It goes on for ten days. Each of the first seven days there is a topic assigned, and all the songwriters must come up with something on that topic to be sung at banquet. During the last three days, the entrants sing their own selections. Students participate by choosing the topics or by submitting songs.
The final three days are most interesting—both musically and for the content of the lyrics—as the best songs are sung then, old or new, including some the musicians have written. Those who receive the prizes are those who please the audience most each night at banquet—and the judges, of course. Old Vorboldians, all of them, brought back through what they call the “old girls’ net”.
So, since it was a splendid affair, I chose to wear my fringed dress and was not out of place to do so. There were those present who wore ten different dresses, one each night of the gala, but they were the girls who were being approved by some Negotiator or Diplomat or even by the Gamesman who was seeking alliance himself. I remember Lunette of Pouws being very nervous at competition time. Her brother was trying to make an alliance with the Black Basilisks of Breem—though I understood that no Basilisks had been born in Breem for fifty years. It was mostly a Demesne of Elators, now, though there was a strong strain of Tragamorians running in the people there. Lunette seemed well content with the idea of alliance, so I did not speak against it. There was a hard-faced man representing Burmor of Breem who came to dinner each night and stared at her.
I had no such worries. Silkhands had told me we would leave for the north soon after the competition was over. There was nothing I could do about that, not at the moment, so I was extraordinarily relaxed and amused by the whole thing.
The final night came. The favorite singer, Rupert something or other, was to present something entirely new that no one had heard before. There were many giggles and little squeals from the younger girls, who talked of him as though he had been some major Gamesman rather than a mere pawn, however skilled. I was to be at Silkhands’ table.
See it, if you will. The great arched doorway is carved all about with leaves and fruit, two stories high, and the massive doors that swing in it are carved also in massive forms that shine like oil in the light of the chandeliers, crystal and silver, holding one thousand candles when they are filled. During the competition they are filled and every candle lighted. Great fat candles, too, to last out the evening. A long balcony runs around four sides of the hall, and on three sides of this are guest tables, laid in white cloths and silver, with crystal shining and more candles. Eight steps down from this to the floor, where the daises are raised up five steps again, each with its table. And between the tables the servants go, below the level of our eyes, so we do not see them.
The great doors open on the fourth side of the balcony, where no tables are. So the guests assemble and are shown to their tables on the balcony. Then the great bell rings, and a trumpet sounds, and a Herald shouts, “All present give ear, all present give ear.” Drums, more trumpets, and we come in, glittering like frangi-flies, all jewels and draperies, to descend the stairs to the floor, then up once more to the proper dais, where we sit on backless chairs in order that the view of us not be impeded.
I had done it hundreds of times.
That night I did it again, remembering my train and draperies, which weren’t normal attire with me, but it was the tenth night I’d worn the dress and I was getting used to it. The guests were assembled at their tables. Ordinarily, I paid very little attention to them. Their voices were only a low, masculine rumble under our usual sounds. Mostly I was thinking about the dinner because I was very hungry.
He was sitting directly across from the entrance, only two tables away from Silkhands.
I stopped at the top of the stairs, all my breath gone in one explosion of disbelief, and was pushed from behind by Lunette, who said, “Will you move it, Jinian? I’m standing on your train!” So I moved, in shock, not breathing, somehow getting around the dais and into my chair. He had not seen me. He was looking at Silkhands, who was now coming into the room, lovely as a flower. It was all there in his face: fondness, affection, lust. I wanted to cry. I had known him at once. The hair was the same, and the eyes, though he was taller now, taller than I, and with broad shoulders and narrow hips.
“Whom are you staring at?” whispered Lunette. “Your mouth is wide open.”
I snapped it shut. “The young Gamesman at the middle table,” I said. “The ruddy-haired one. Ah, I think I knew him back in Stoneflight.”
“You think you did?”
“Ah, we were children. He’s grown.”
“Well, do you or don’t you?”
“I don’t know. Lunette, would you go over there during the interval? Find out who he is?”
“What’ll you give?”
“Friendship, Lunette.”
“I’ve already got that.” She giggled. “What else?”
I didn’t have much. “My scent bottle shaped like a frog that King Kelver sent me,” I said at last. I loved that bottle, but the other was more important.
Lunette looked at me with her weighing expression. “That’s all right, Jinian. If it’s that important, I’ll do it for nothing.”
After the interval, Lunette returned. “His name is Peter,”
