Genevieve promised, though she had no idea why she would ever speak of them? Nine-tenths of them, she did not understand at all.
“Mama, what are harbingers?”
“Those who sing the song.”
“Mama, what is the song?”
“You’ll know it when you hear it.”
“Mama, if the scrutator says I have a soul, and the covenants say I have a soul, why . . . ?”
Though Mother always answered the questions, Genevieve did not always understand the answer, for Mother often seemed to live in a different world. At breakfast times, her eyes sometimes were focused on something far, far away rather than being cast down in holy resignation as they should have been, even while the Marshal ranted over the latest letters and promotion lists, bloody bedamn this, bloody bedamn that.
Though perhaps Mother had chosen to take no notice of the Marshal’s ways, for he cultivated angers like garden vegetables until each was well ripened and firmly rooted. These habits served him so well on the battlefield that he had never thought to leave them there, neither the hot fury that led him off on daily rants nor the cold wrath that stirred in him seldom but was more fearsome for its rarity.
Genevieve had felt it first on the night of her eighth birthday. There had been guests invited to dinner, and when the guests departed, one neighbor had stayed behind to play a game of chess with the Marshal. He was an elderly and kindly gentleman, familiar enough that Genevieve did not feel shy around him. That day she had been much indulged by mother and the servants, and when the men sat down in the shadowy room with the firelight glinting from the shelves of leather-bound volumes that stood forever at attention, even the Marshal had not sent her out of the room as he customarily did.
Genevieve was curled on the settle with a new book, though when the two men started playing, she looked at the game board instead of the pages. At first it was only a drowsy watching, but gradually she began to see the why of the moves and her gaze became intent.
The pieces were interesting. She had seen them before, but without really paying attention. Now she had a chance to watch them in action on the board. The little ones, she decided, were like the housemaids. They could not do much or go very far, and they were always in danger of being snatched up, as she had seen the Marshal snatch one up, a pretty one that Genevieve much liked but did not see again after that time. So did the little pieces disappear when they were snatched up, back into the box.
The horsemen were more powerful, able to jump fences this way and that way. Along with the horses, each side had two pieces much like the Marshal, she decided, for they could go all the way across the board on the slant, while the fortresses, which were like her father’s battle wagons, had to stick to the roads.
The last two pieces were the Lord Paramount and his Queen. Even if father hadn’t said their names, that is all they could be, sitting there quietly, depending upon the marshals and battlewagons and horsemen to protect them while their little serving maids ran this way and that way, screaming, with their aprons over their faces.
In the end, if it was necessary, the Queen would sacrifice herself for the Lord Paramount. Genevieve saw exactly how it happened. The Queen did not show what she could do. She moved only when she had to, never bustling about, but if the Lord Paramount was threatened, she moved to save him. If necessary, she died for the Lord Paramount. As this was in accord with covenantal behavior, Genevieve was not surprised. Lives of service to their lords and masters was the lot of womankind.
The particular night was blustery, but as it was cozy before the fire the two men played for a long time. When father’s old friend went home at last, Genevieve climbed down from the settle and eagerly asked her father if he would play the game with her. He, softened by wine and an indolent evening, felt momentarily indulgent. It was her birthday, after all. “Well, my child, that shouldn’t take long, now should it. Shall I help you set up the pieces?”