I could not say anything. Sukey managed only to whisper Josine’s name.
“But I do not want to die,” she continued, still sounding as though she was discussing sandwiches. “No, I do not think that would suit me. And I do not think it would suit you. So we must find some better solution, do you not think, my lords?”
“How I wish you had been a little common bitch,” said the tenor.
Josine smiled. “So do I, for then I might know better how to put a knife in your eye when you were sleeping, and might have the bravery to do it. But I am not. I am me. And here is what I propose:
“You will have my services for one afternoon a month. One. It will last from high noon to sunset. You will not manipulate me to cause hurt to anything that feels, man nor fey nor beast. And in return, I will... do my trick for you.”
“One afternoon is not much.”
“Also,” Josine continued, as though the tenor had not spoken, “when Madame Lumiere rises against the lords of this city, your powers will be at her disposal. When the rich and the powerful need to come to rot and ruin, you will help them along the way.”
The tenor sounded interested. “Will such a thing come soon?”
“It will.”
“How do you know such things?”
I spoke then. “We know.”
“And you will permit us to... have our place in this?”
Josine and I looked at each other. She held a hand out to me, and I grasped it. Together we said, “We will.”
“Then it is done,” said the tenor. “One month from now at high noon, we will return for you.”
“To Madame’s front parlor,” said Josine. “I will be waiting.”
No one moved. After a moment, Sukey coughed and said, “Lucy. They will want releasing.”
Sheepishly, I pulled the spells back. The Rust Lords glared at me. They gathered themselves and stalked away, clichés of offended dignity, until we could see them no more along the river’s dark underground banks.
I looked Josine and Sukey over carefully. They appeared to be intact. “That was good thinking,” I said. “I don’t know how we would have saved you else, and we had promised. Madame had promised. It was a foolish mistake. I apologize.”
“They owed her more respect; I see that,” said Josine. “She is still Madame. I will keep learning from her. I have already started.”
“You have done our lady a service, and she will not forget it,” said Sukey. “You will find that loyalty to her runs both ways.”
“And to me,” I said, a bit gruffly.
Josine hugged me. I let her. Even with an unrusted heart of steel, there are times when it is best to give people their heads on such things. “I was glad to do it,” she said, “with all you’ve done for me today.”
“There is the rest of the season to think of,” I said. “And we must tell Madame the new arrangements. Josine will be the one to tell.”
“I think you should,” said Josine. “You are used to her ways.”
“Oh, dear child,” sighed Sukey. “No one is used to Madame’s ways. You just grow used to being unused to them.”
Of course you know the rest, how we took down the glittering lords of the city and freed the Wild Hunt. You know the chaos that ensued after, and the détente that only came when Madame retired. And you know, of course, what happened to Josine Valdecart, though she was Josine Surleau by then.
And now perhaps you do not think, as you may have done, that we were fools to bring the Rust Lords in, that there can have been no reason for it. There was reason. There was the revolution, true enough, but also there was one young woman. And it is in matters of one young woman where Madame’s skills have always been at their best.
And Sukey’s, and Josine’s, and mine after her.
Copyright © 2010 Marissa Lingen
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Marissa Lingen lives in the Minneapolis area with two large men and one small dog. Her work has appeared in Analog, Baen’s Universe, and Nature, among others.
http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/
THE ISTHMUS VARIATION
by Kris Millering
The message reached us in Tromili, where we had been making the rounds of the noble houses, playing at the summer parties. We were to go to the Impia’s summer estate to perform the Slow Game at his night banquet.
I was new to the Slow Game, only recently having regained enough physical and mental stamina to play through an entire night. I had been destroyed three years earlier, long enough for the pain to begin to fade, long enough to cleave myself to the discipline of the tableau art with all of the passion I had left in me.
For this one performance, we had been promised a sum that might have purchased several small towns entire—and besides, there was no company of players that would dare refuse a summons such as this. The Impia created and controlled all of the war magics that kept our borders safe, repelled the invaders that all knew resided beyond them. All did as he bid. Even though we were destroyed men and women, we were not fools.
We were called to perform the Isthmus Variation, the variation that is a secret shared only among players who have sacrificed their lives to the Slow Game. The magister who attains the office of the Impia learns of this variation from whispers that players allow him to overhear, when the time is correct.
Until two days before the company arrived at the Impia’s garden, all I knew was that the Isthmus Variation is a Slow Game with a blade in its sleeve, a performance without pity for the audience.
We are destroyed, we are players. We have no pity, either.
* * *
“Kothin, hold still.” Ila tapped the back of my head hard enough to sting. “Such an impatient young man. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I would swear you had no temperament at all for performance.” She was sweeping my hair up with wires for support and fixing it in place with wax. She paused, and I heard the light sound of a paint pot scraping open.
She stepped around to face me where I perched on the folding stool. I closed my eyes as I caught the scent of the paint we use on our hair, grease and chalk. Ila’s hands were trembling as she applied it, the cool of it seeping through to my scalp. I knew what she feared, what the tension in her shoulders foretold. I had overheard the darkest secret at the heart of the Isthmus Variation, as she and Unil had spoken of it in their wagon. Custom and respect kept my mouth closed, made me force it from my mind. I would not make this performance any more difficult for her by speaking of it.
Instead, I set my face in the smooth mask of the Tempter and opened my eyes as Ila tugged on my hair. “I can’t hold still when I’m thinking,” I said, “and I never stop thinking until the performance starts.”
“And here I would swear you had no thoughts in your head at all.” She pulled my hair again and I heard the soft snap of a clip. “There, you’re done.”
She patted my shoulder and moved on to minister to Unil. Her paint-stained hands were so delicate and so strong, and her unfashionably long dress showed off the curve of her lower back. That curve, and the one time I had glimpsed it uncovered, had haunted me for the last year.
Out of respect for her and Unil I had said nothing, showed nothing, tried to feel nothing. I had fallen into celibacy during my training. None of the other players had shown interest, and the only one I thought worth pursuing was married to the one man I most respected in the world.
I watched them out of the corner of my eye, as players do habitually. Unil played the Sufferer tonight and almost every night. His hair was cropped short, since he was of an age where he was starting to go thin both in hair and in body. Ila painted his face with a pad of cloth, covering the lines and weathering with blankness. Her hand faltered, and Unil caught her wrist. He said something too low for me to catch, and I turned my face away from them as my belly tightened. I heard them speaking in murmurs, and the rustle as Ila put Unil’s wig on for him. I could guess what words passed between them, and my mouth was dry with fea
r.
It was time for costumes. I went to get the robes that had been sewn specifically for this performance and the shapeless leather shoes I would be wearing. The mountain breeze pushed at my wax-set hair, its cool touch a great fortune for us and our comfort as the night went on.
The sky began to fade to lavender and all twenty of us presented ourselves at the gates of the garden. Beyond the garden stood the grand hulk of the Impia’s summer-house, windows glowing. There were nineteen characters in tonight’s performance, in addition to Ila, who was always the Shadow. She wore dark silks and would flow between tableaus, bringing news of the watchers and suggesting adjustments. There was always a tacit agreement between players and audience that the Shadow was backdrop or a sort of stagehand, invisible in her silks as she moved from darkness to darkness.
The tableau art, the lore of the players said, had origins in the art of statuary. As the Tempter, I would be making my way slowly through a series of poses, each of them a scene of tonight’s variation played for only a few of the audience. The magic would be in the gossip that spread amongst the audience, how the central mystery of the performance would blossom as they spoke of what they had seen.
The Slow Game had already begun. All of our faces were painted, even Ila’s, who was painted after the fashion of dark granite rather than our white marble. We held our mouths impassively, making masks of our faces. Relax the small muscles. Hold the eyes still.
Show nothing. Betray nothing.
* * *
Final preparations for the outdoor party were under way. Young women hauled buckets of fresh coldlights past us to fill sconces and to float in the fountains and pools. A man herded a flock of white peacocks into the maze that surrounded the central garden, and the birds’ mournful cries were muffled by the twists and turns of the maze.
As dark fell, lights in the hedge began to glow. Food was artfully arranged on long tables in the center of the garden, more food than I had ever seen in one place before. Vine-fruit spilled out of great bowls; what seemed like hundreds of squab were spitted on golden swords. Men and women in taster’s uniforms circulated about the tables. Their feet were bare, acknowledging their near-nobility.
My mouth filled with saliva and I turned away. Players in the Slow Game neither eat nor drink until the performance is over. We cannot afford to be distracted by the needs of our bodies, however mundane.
We took our positions in the maze as most of the servants departed the gardens. This was a place where the rich would come to be themselves among others of their kind, unfettered by the curious gazes and waggling tongues of their lessers.
Part of the magic of playing the Slow Game was to know when there were eyes on you, and to move swiftly only when there were none. As men and women began to arrive for the banquet, I took my mark atop a bench in the maze, my head down in the position of false penitence that was the Tempter’s trademark pose.
A young woman came around the corner and made a breathy sound of pleased surprise. The creature she had with her, a thing all slender legs and great liquid eyes and brindled fur, bounced forward and squeaked, stopped only by the leash attached to its heavy golden collar. I deepened my breathing and watched her without turning my head. Her short dress caught and tugged at the eye, studded with jewels that flashed in the light from the orbs hung in the hedge. Her feet were bare but for twined white ribbons. Utterly fashionable; we had seen very few women among the nobles of Tromili who were so richly attired. She is nothing, I told myself. Part of an audience.
“The Tempter,” she said. Her voice squeaked a little. She was younger than me.
I took a breath in; now for the reward. As I breathed out, I slowly raised my head, moving just quickly enough to catch her eye. I spread my hands a little, lifting them towards her, and gave her a smile full of wicked promises. She squeaked again and tugged on the leash of the creature that was staring at me, nostrils flared. They retreated.
My smile faltered as I was left briefly alone. I wondered if I should say something, call to the woman and her creature. Warn them of what was coming.
No. My tongue was bound. Let the Slow Game play.
* * *
“What about Emmiu?”
The two men had been talking to each other in low voices since they had happened upon our tableau. “She is in place,” the man with the lighter voice replied. “Her parcel went unnoticed. When the Impia comes out, we will be ready.”
I and the Judge were in repose. The Judge sat on one end of the stone bench, and I lay with my head in his lap looking up at him. It was a scene that required some art to play. In this variation, the Judge and the Tempter have a complicated relationship. The Tempter is powerful, but the Judge is more so.
At its heart, the Slow Game is a very simple story: the Sufferer has been wronged somehow by the Accused, or so the Sufferer believes. They each call witnesses to their side, the Judge decides the fate of both of them, and the Scribe records the judgment.
I breathed in. A cloying scent of flowers was competing with the chalky musk of our painted skin. The Judge’s chin trembled—Luca was so good as the Judge that he barely knew any of the other roles, but tonight he was not playing his best. I hoped he gained more control as the night advanced.
The true story the Slow Game tells is depicted in the scenes that are enacted as we players meet and move towards the central tableau where the Sufferer and the Accused wait. This scene was a pivotal one for the Tempter and the Judge. As the audience members met with each other, shared what they had seen and tried to decipher the overall meaning, this scene would be one of the keys. It happened so early in the Slow Game that only these two audience members would have that key.
It is physically impossible to see more than a fraction of the scenes in any performance, and each audience member cannot tarry long at any one scene. The Slow Game moves ceaselessly, a great beast that never seems to shift and yet is never in the same place twice.
Luca’s head bent down towards me. I turned my head as his hand rested on my throat, the blank mask of the Tempter slipping, opening my mouth and widening my eyes. I looked at the two men who watched us with terror on my face, my gloved hand opening towards them. A gesture of pleading. Please. Help me. Then we were still once more, frozen.
I could see now that one of the men was younger than the other. They wore loose trousers and tightly fitted shirts, and had cups in their hands. The older man took a half-step forward, his eyes widening. He stopped himself in mid-stride. I kept the fearful mask on, pleased. He would remember the look on my face, the secret terror in the heart of the Tempter.
The younger man put an awkward hand on the older one’s shoulder and they turned away. Ila approached, darting from one shadow to the next. The men fell in behind her. True devotees of the Slow Game consider it at least bad taste and at most cheating to follow the movements of the Shadow, but we make it very tempting to follow the black-clad player.
The eye is drawn to motion, after all.
* * *
I met the Heretic in the maze, and we froze in tableau as footsteps approached from the intersection ahead. I was crouched at his white-booted feet; he was looking down at my upturned face with his hand upraised. A peacock stalked past us, nearly glowing in the dim light. Perfect.
“The Heretic!” one of the people who approached us said. “And who’s that at his feet?”
I could hear their feet moving on the grass; both were unshod. It was a mark of pride among nobles that they did not have to wear shoes. Their feet were unblemished, pampered daily by young serving-women who lavished attention on those appendages as if they were worth more than sapphires. Innocent as the feet of babes were noble feet. Looking up at the Heretic, I imagined their toes, the pale moons of their nails against their flawless skin.
“The Tempter—can’t you see the hair?” The woman sounded as if she were rolling her eyes. “Let’s see. The Tempter has angered the Heretic, and he lifts his arm to strike. I’ve never seen the Hereti
c and the Tempter meet. I can’t wait to tell Emmiu.”
“What did I say about Emmiu?” the man asked. Anger lowered his voice. “Stay away from her. She’s out of favor, and I don’t want you tangled up in whatever plot she’s up to.”
The woman’s breath hitched, and when she spoke again, her tone was conciliatory. “She was invited, just as we were. I’m so tired of politics, Juma. I really am.”
I shifted my weight onto my back foot smoothly and let my upper body follow. My body changed in that moment from an attitude of cowardice to one of invitation, and I let my face change from near-fright to a dreamy, half-lidded sensuality. Above me, the Heretic also shifted, lowering his arm, softening his shoulders. I saw him turn his head to look at our small audience. The scene had just gone from one of violence to one ripe with the promise of sensuality.
Both of them gasped. I imagined the woman pulling herself close to the man, molding her body in its jeweled shift to his, the curve of her back accentuated. They departed without another word.
They would carry the news back to the rest that the Heretic and the Tempter had met in the maze. The shape of the Isthmus Variation would begin to form in the minds of the entire audience, as would the possibility that this performance bent the outline of the Slow Game, that the helix of Sufferer and Accused had been joined by a third thread that wrapped and tangled the other two.
The Heretic— one of our company named Kutum—turned his face back to me, and I saw just the ghost of a frown on his lips. I raised my eyebrows briefly and rose from my crouched position, cocking my head. “I loathe these people,” he said, keeping his voice low. He had been destroyed for over a decade, long enough for hatred to take root and blossom in his soul, choking out anything else that might grow there except the Slow Game.
“Tonight, I feel sorry for them.” I sweated under my robes, and my sides were unpleasantly damp. A movement attracted my attention. White flowers and whiter lights outlined a darkness next to the hedge.
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