by Laura Powell
“Indeed. And since the intervention in the case of Wands versus Pentacles is unresolved, I would like to propose the allocation of one knave to each court,” said Ahab. “They will remain by our side, doing our bidding, until such a time as we see fit.”
“Agreed,” said Odile. “Lucrezia?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“But you cheated us,” Flora was saying furiously. “We were about to go to the Hanged Man and you blocked our way. You intervened. You—”
“The courts respect the rules of the Game,” Alastor’s voice cut in, cold as steel. All his indolent charm was gone. “Here and now you had the opportunity to complete your venture. Yet you failed to act. Fortunae te regendum dedisti, dominae moribus oportet obtemperes.”
The doorkeeper stepped up to the wheel, set it spinning and pronounced, “The courts have ruled. Fortuna’s Wheel turns. These fools are forfeit.…”
Time slowed. Cat saw the others frozen in disbelief: white-faced and staring-eyed. When the Wheel stopped spinning, they would be bound to the courts. No longer fools, but slaves.
Elsewhere, the audience buzzed with anticipation while the Game Masters lounged and yawned. Above them, the apple blossom ruffled, as if moving to a wind that only it could feel. A man at the front of the crowd tipped his hat at Cat, mockingly.…
Ta-da!
Round and round whirled the wheel, faster and faster, building to the moment of reversal.…
As above, so below …
The shadow of a greater tree …
Return to Yggdrasil, and plant each root …
What if the King of Swords was right? What if they had been given the opportunity to complete their task after all? What if—
It was like the other time at Mercury Square: her voice had rusted and her gestures dragged clumsily, as if she was moving underwater. “The tree,” she croaked, fumbling with the catch on the birdcage. “As above—the tree—it’s the same one—as below—”
Toby was the first to understand, and the first to act. As the wheel spun into a blur of speed, and the world around them seemed to revolve, too, he took the clay disc from his pocket and crushed it in his fist. Lurching past the table, he hurled his handful of dust beneath the tree.
At once, the ground began to shake. A mound of earth buckled, sending the wheel crashing down. As the crowd, tumbling into disorder, cried out in fear, the tree groaned and swayed, its roots exposed by the heaving of earth. The tremors subsided. It was crippled, but its slender trunk stood firm.
The kings and queens were standing also, although their table had been toppled with the wheel. Their faces blazed but they did not move or even cry out in protest. Alastor had spoken the truth when he said that the courts obeyed the rules.
Cat could feel a roaring in her ears. A fierce delight surged through her; the blood sang in her veins. She flung her head back and laughed as Flora stepped forward, grasping her shard of ice over the twisted roots so that the water dripped from her hands. As the roots shriveled, the blossoms turned dirty brown and the bark oozed with the stench of decay.
Blaine flicked open the lighter and touched it to a branch. For a moment, every twig, every petal bloomed rosy-gold before the tree burst into a crackling, spitting inferno that burned and burned but did not die.
Only one thing remained.
Cat had opened the door of the cage. For the last time, she held the Root of Air, warm and soft within her hands, before she launched it into the sky.
The bird flew straight into the heart of the blaze, where it came to rest and opened its throat in song. As if in answer, a great wind came and roared through the tree of flame, blowing its sparks everywhere and nowhere, until they were nothing but ash; soft white ash, thick as blossoms, as snow, that drifted all around.
A man emerged from the blizzard of whiteness. His face was both old and young, his eyes shone innocent blue. “Ave Fortuna. Behold, my deliverance has come!”
The spiraling flakes were as hot as embers, but in a very little while their sting became the coldness of snow. The wind had scoured away the spring leaves and rosy light, leaving winter and darkness in its wake. And an ordinary apple tree. But Mercury Square still flickered between the two sides of the threshold as the players thronged around. They were in far greater numbers than before, although now their presence was as quiet and shadowy as ghosts. Among them, Cat thought she glimpsed faces that she knew: the costumed revelers from Hecate’s, a muscular athlete, a ragged tramp.…
The man advanced toward the chancers. “My four wise fools! What marvels you have worked! And so together we embark on the final play.”
They looked back at him, uncomprehending, past the power of speech, movement, thought … anything.
“Now is the round of new turns and reversals, as the Lady of Fortune sports with the Lord of Misrule.” He turned, exultant, to where the kings and queens were standing. “You have had a fine run, but the Wheel has turned and your hand is played out. Will you renounce your mastery?”
The Queen of Pentacles answered through bloodless lips, “We abide by the rules of the Game—as always.” All four were already curiously diminished: bleached of color, their faces showed new lines and hollows. Their shoulders shivered in the dark.
Meanwhile, the man’s dark clothes were flooded with all the color and glitter of the triumph deck. His smile had triumph in it, too. “Well, there are new rules now. New fates for you. You were common players once, and in exile you will be again. I return you to the past moves of your knighthoods. This time, though, you will taste defeat, not victory.”
Somewhere in the rush and roar of the wind, the wheel had righted itself so that it stood in its former position beneath the apple tree. “Sum sine regno,” said the King of Swords, with a ghost of his old smile as, of its own accord, the wheel began to spin. I am without reign … There was a great sighing from the crowd; in one revolution the kings and queens had vanished.
Their vanquisher raised his hands. “Let every card be free to turn, every die to roll and every move to be completed. My friends, it is time to play freely and fairly. Pick your card and make your move. Claim your prize if you are able.”
Cat looked down at the crumpled card in her hand. The card she had carried out of the Hanged Man’s tomb, with its promise of justice. The card that was still blank.
“I—I have one,” she faltered.
“Of course you do!” He laughed delightedly. “It is yours for the playing. The right card for the right venture, as I promised you all beneath Yggdrasil’s shade. Behold!”
At this, four metal objects came rolling across the grass toward their feet: a die each, this time with a silver wheel on every side, ready to create a threshold for their next moves.
“But remember, a card has two faces, a die four or six. A man, even more … And each has its place in the Game.”
As if on cue, the audience broke into applause, the rippling thunder of a thousand thousand clapping hands. The sound seemed to come from very far away. And suddenly Cat’s card was flooded with shape and color, until she was once more looking at the stern-faced woman with her sword and scales.
The Game’s new Master fixed her in his shining gaze. “Justice! A noble goal. Play well, and your parents will be avenged.”
He turned to Blaine. “The player you brought into the Game remains within the Arcanum. The Knight of Wands card will take you to him; do with him what you will.”
The man gave Flora a benevolent smile. “Your sister awaits you in the Eight of Swords. The move is open for you to find her.”
Finally, he turned to Toby. “And you, my young champion! Yours is the card that rewards all risks, and makes all games worth playing. The Chariot is the hero’s prize. I know you will be worthy of it.”
Flora, Cat, Toby and Blaine looked at each other and smiled. Cat felt Blaine’s arm brush against hers, and was flooded with warmth. Her heart trembled. After such a dark and perilous journey, this moment of victory shone as radian
t as a dream. She was half afraid she might blink and find her triumph was just another illusion. And so, although she wanted to shout and sing and laugh until she had no voice left, Cat held still. She held completely still, hardly breathing, and clutching Justice in her hand. Around the four one-time chancers, the shadow of the Arcanum began to whirl … then fade.…
“At last,” said the Lord of Misrule, as his smile slanted and his eyes burned with blue fire. “At last, the true Game of Triumphs may begin.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Playing cards are believed to have arrived in Europe from the East at some point in the fourteenth century. There are many theories about the relationship between our modern deck and Tarot cards, and I have touched upon some of the most colorful in my story. One of my inspirations for the Game came from reading about the trick-taking game of Tarot, where using the Fool card (“the excuse”) exempts one from the rules of play.
The Rider-Waite Tarot deck is probably the best known of the classic Tarot designs. Its illustrations of the Major (Greater) Arcana are based on early Renaissance playing cards, which themselves drew on mythological, religious and heraldic themes; the scenes on the Minor (Lesser) Arcana derive from traditional divinatory and occult symbols. This is the deck that most closely resembles the cards dealt in the Game of Triumphs.
I Trionfi, a poem by the fourteenth-century Italian scholar and poet Petrarch, describes the triumphs of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time and Eternity in similar terms to the Allegory of the Triumphs in Temple House. Scholars still debate the connection between Petrarch’s poem and the early Tarot decks.
Fortune and her Wheel are an enduring motif throughout history. The Latin epigrams quoted by the Magician and the King of Swords, and inscribed in the Triumph of Time, are taken from speeches given to Fortune in a sixth-century work by Boethius, De Consolatine Philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy). The verse at the beginning of this book is from the Burana Codex, also known as Carmina Burana, a thirteenth-century collection of poems and songs that was set to music by Carl Orff in 1937. Among the literary and mythological sources I have used, the Hanged Man’s account of the origin of the Game owes a particular debt to a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, “The Lottery in Babylon” (1941).
The writer Italo Calvino described the Tarot as “a machine for telling stories”; when all speculation and superstition is put aside, this is, of course, their true magic.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Contrary to popular belief, books aren’t written in isolation. These are the people I would like to thank for helping me make this one.
My agent, Sarah Molloy, for her unflagging good humor, patience and enthusiasm.
My editors, and Band of Triumphs: Kirsty Skidmore and Sarah Lilly at Orchard Books; Nancy Siscoe, Cecile Goyette, Katherine Harrison, Marianne Cohen and Janet Frick at Knopf.
All the people—you know who you are—who endured my ramblings about the Wondrous World of Tarot and listened politely.
My sister, Lucy, who read the first few chapters and said, “More, please.”
My parents, for everything.
