The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper part one

“Oh, truly you are very stupid, sir. Nobody will break the laws. Did they not say you were nobody? How can nobody break a law? It is manifestly impossible, so says my mother. We of Betand do not change our laws readily, so says my father, but we interpret them to our needs.”

“I see. At least, I think I see.” I was not sure, but it had begun to make a weird kind of sense.

“I hope so,” she said, wearily taking off her jacket. “You look far less dirty than the drover.” Removing her blouse, “That is, if one may choose among nobodies.”

My throat was dry. I could think of nothing to say to her, nothing at all. While I poured wine and drank it, she removed all of her clothing except a filmy thing which began halfway down her front and ended above her knees. It did little to hide the rest of her. Knowing my history, you will believe it when I say she was the first female person I had seen so unclothed. Silkhands the Healer, even when she traveled across the country with us, had never been so unclad. Now that she was bare, Sylbie seemed not to know what to do next. I offered her wine, and we gulped at it together, each as uncomfortable as the other.

“Have you had lots of women?” she whispered in a voice which seemed hopeful of an affirmative answer.

Imanaged to say, “Ummm,” in a vaguely encouraging tone.

“I didn’t want to be fumbled at,” she said through tears.

“Urnmm,” sympathetically.

“I think it might help if I knew your name.

“P-Peter.”

“Well, Peter, it’s a comfort that you know about … everything. My mother says that will make it much easier,” she said, then she threw herself sobbing onto the pillows.

I—was—am a fearfully stupid person. Until that instant I had not considered the Gamesmen of Barish which were in the pouch at my belt. Among them was the eidolon of Trandilar, great Queen, Goddess of beguilement and passion. I had taken that eidolon once before, outside the shattered walls of Bannerwell. I had not thought of it since, had rejected use of it, had tried to pretend it had never happened. Now, faced with the sodden misery before me, I could not in conscience ignore Trandilar longer. Peter, rude boy, would indeed “fumble at her.” Only Trandilar offered any hope for something less than agony for us both. My hand found the Gamespiece without trying, as though it rushed into my hand. I knew then what to do and how to do it as the lizard knows the sun.

“Come,” I said to the girl, laughing. “Let us have some of this good supper the matron has left us. Tell me about your family. Eyes like yours are too lovely to spoil with tears.” (Was this Peter speaking? Surely. If not Peter, then who? Nobody?)

Tears were wiped away. Wine was drunk and food eaten; fire allowed to warm skin to a roseate gleaming. Bodies allowed to huddle together for comfort when the howling came, to seek the softness of the mattresses and quilts, to burrow, explore, touch, wonder at, murmur at. Alone, I would have made all stiff, complex, and hateful, but with Trandilar all merely occurred. I seem to recall some howls from within the room, but I cannot be sure. It was of no matter.

When I awoke, I found her staring at me, the tears running down her cheeks once again.

“Why are you crying? What’s the matter?”

“They will arrange a marriage for me,” she sobbed, “with someone awful, and it will never be like this again.”

Oh, Trandilar. Is nothing ever as it should be?

Later that morning the Midwife came to the door of our room, as the matron had said she would. The dress of a midwife is red, with a white cowl and owl’s feathers in a crest. She stared at me, then laid hands upon Sylbie with an expression of fierce concentration before shaking her head and turning away without a word. At which Sylbie turned unwontedly cheerful, as suddenly as she had become teary before.