He rattled his staff to wake the ones dozing.
“Note this, boys, please. If a powerful player were playing against the King’s side, the piece played might have been one of the reflective durables such as Totem, or even Herald. In that case…”
He began to drone again. He was talking about measuring, and it bored everyone to death. We’d had measuring since we came into class from the nurseries, and if any of us didn’t know how to measure a Demesne by now, it was hopeless. I looked for Yarrel. He wasn’t there, but I did see the visiting Sorcerer leaning against the back wall, his lips curved in an enigmatic smile.
“Sorcerer,” I defined to myself, automatically. “Quiet glass, evoking but Unchanged by the evocation, a conduit through which power may be channeled, a vessel into which one may pour acid, wine, or fire and from which one may pour acid, wine, or fire.” I shivered. Sorcerers were very major pieces indeed, holders of the power of others, and I’d never seen or heard of one going about alone. It was very strange to have one leaning against the classroom wall, all by himself, and it gave me an itchy, curious feeling. I decided to sneak down to the kitchen and ask Brother Chance about it. He had been my best source of certain kinds of information ever since I was four and found out where he hid the cookies.
“Oh, my, yes,” he agreed, sweating in the heat of the cookfire as he gave bits of meat to the spit dog. He poked away at the Masters’ roast with a long fork. The odors were tantalizing. My mouth dropped open like a baby bird’s, and he popped a piece of the roast into it as though I had been another spit dog. “Yes, odd to have a Sorcerer wandering about loose, as one might say. Still, since King Mertyn returned from Outside to become Gamesmaster here, he has built a great reputation for Mertyn’s House. A Sorcerer might be drawn here, seeking to attach himself. Or, there are always those who seek to challenge a great reputation. It probably means no more than the fact that Festival is nigh-by, only days away, and the town is full of visitors. Even Sorcerers go about for amusement, I suppose. What is it to you, after all?”
“No one ever tells us anything,” I complained. “We never know what’s going on.”
“And why should you? Arrogant boy! What is it to you what Sorcerers do and don’t do? Ask too many questions and be played for a pawn, I always say. Keep yourself to yourself until you know what you are, that’s my advice to you, Peter. But then, you were always into things you shouldn’t have bothered with. Before you could talk, you could ask questions. Well, ask no more now. You’ll get yourself into real trouble. Here. Take this nice bit of roast and some hot bread to sop up the juices and go hide in the garden while you eat it. It’s forbidden, you know.”
Of course I knew. Everything was forbidden. Roast was forbidden to boys. As was sneaking down to the kitchens. As was challenging True Game in a Schooltown. Or during Festival. As was this, and that, and the other thing. Then, come Festival, nothing would be forbidden. In Festival, Kings could be Jongleurs, Sentinels could be Fools, men could be women and women men for all that. And Sorcerers could be … whatever they liked. It was still confusing and unsettling, but the lovely meat juices running down my throat did much to assuage the itchy feeling of curiosity, guilt, and anger.
Late at night I lay in the moonlight with my hand curled on Mandor’s chest. It threw a leaflike shadow there which breathed as he breathed, slowly elongating as the moon fell. “There is a Sorcerer wandering about,” I murmured. “No one knows why.” Under my hand his body stiffened.
“With someone? Talking with anyone?”
I murmured sleepily, no, all alone.
“Eating with anyone? At table with anyone?”
I said, no, reading, eating by himself, just wandering about. Mandor’s graceful body relaxed.