Blood of the Fold

Chapter 24

Phoebe plopped down the reports in a narrow vacant spot on the polished walnut table. “Verna, may I ask you a personal question?”

Verna scrawled her initials across the bottom of a report from the kitchens requesting replacements for the large cauldrons that had burned through. “We’ve been friends for a good long time, Phoebe; you may ask me anything you wish.” She again scrutinized the request, and then above her initials she wrote a note denying permission and telling them to instead have the cauldrons repaired. Verna reminded herself to show a smile. “Ask.”

Phoebe’s round cheeks flushed as she twisted her fingers together. “Well, I mean no offense, but you’re in a unique position, and I could never ask anyone else but a friend like you.” She cleared her throat. “What’s it like to get old?”

Verna snorted a laugh. “We’re the same age, Phoebe.”

She wiped her palms at the hips of her green dress as Verna waited. “Yes . . . but you’ve been away for more than twenty years. You’ve aged that much, just like those outside the palace. It will take me near to three hundred years to age to where you are right now. Why, you look like a woman of almost . . . forty.”

Verna signed. “Yes, well, a journey will do that to you. At least mine did.”

“I don’t want to ever go on a journey and get old. Does it hurt, or something, to so suddenly be old? Do you feel . . . I don’t know, like you’re not attractive and life is no longer sweet? I like it when men view me as desirable. I don’t want to get old like . . . It worries me.”

Verna pushed away from the table and leaned back in her chair. Her strongest urge was to strangle the woman, but she took a breath and reminded herself that it was a friend’s sincere question asked out of ignorance.

“I would guess that everyone views it in their own unique way, but I can tell you what it means for me. Yes, it hurts a bit, Phoebe, to know that something is gone and can never be recovered, as if I was somehow not paying attention and my youth was stolen from me while I was waiting for my life to start, but the Creator balances it with good, too.”

“Good? What good could come of it?”

“Well, inside I’m still myself, but wiser. I find that I have a clearer understanding of myself and what I want. I appreciate things I never did before. I see better what’s really important in doing the Creator’s work. I suppose you could say I feel more content, and worry less about what others think of me.

“Even though I’ve aged, that doesn’t diminish my longing for others. I find comfort in friends, and yes, to answer what you’re thinking, I still long for men much the same as I always did, but now I have a wider appreciation for them. I find callow youth less interesting. Men need not simply be young to stir my feelings, and the simple hold less appeal.”

Phoebe’s eyes were wide as she leaned forward attentively. “Reeeally. Older men stir longings in you?”

Verna checked her tongue. “What I meant by older, Phoebe, was men older like me. The men that catch your interest, now? Fifty years ago you wouldn’t have considered walking with a man the age you are now, but now it seems natural to you because you’re that age, and men now the age you were back then seem immature to you. See what I mean?”

“Well . . . I guess.”

Verna could read it in her eyes that she didn’t. “When we first came here as young girls, like the two down in the vaults last night, novices Helen and Valery, what did you think of women who were the age you are now?”

Phoebe covered a giggle with her hand. “I thought them impossibly old. I never thought I’d be this age.”

“And, now, how do you feel about your age?”

“Oh, it isn’t old at all. I guess I was just foolish at that young age. I like being this age. I’m still young.”

Verna shrugged. “It’s much the same for me. I view myself in much the way you view yourself. I no longer see older people as simply old, because I now know that they’re the same as you or I; they view themselves the same as you or I view ourselves.”

The young woman wrinkled her nose. “I guess I see what you mean, but I still don’t want to get old.”

“Phoebe, in the outside world you would have lived nearly three lives by now. You, we, have been given a great gift by the Creator to be able to have as many years as we do, living here at the palace, in order to have the time necessary to train young wizards in their gift. Appreciate what you were given; it’s a rare benevolence that touches only a handful.”

Phoebe nodded slowly and behind the slight squint Verna could almost see the labor of contemplative reasoning. “That’s very wise, Verna. I never knew you were so wise. I always knew you were smart, but you never seemed wise to me before.”

Verna smiled. “That’s one of the other advantages. Those younger than you think you wise. In a land of the blind, a one-eyed woman could be queen.”

“But it seems so frightening, to have your flesh go limp and wrinkly.”

“It happens gradually; you become somewhat accustomed to yourself growing older. To me, the thought of being your age again seems frightening.”

“Why’s that?”

Verna wanted to say that it was because she feared walking around with such an underdeveloped intellect, but she reminded herself once again that she and Phoebe had shared a good part of their lives as friends. “Oh, I guess because I’ve been through some of the thorn hedges you have yet to face, and I know their sting.”

“What sort of thorns?”

“I think they’re different for each person. Everyone has to walk her own path.”

Phoebe wrung her hands as she leaned over even more. “What were the thorns on your path, Verna?”

Verna stood and pushed the stopper back into the ink bottle. She stared down at her desk, not seeing it, “I guess,” she said in a distant tone, “the worst was returning to have Jedidiah look at me with eyes like yours, eyes that saw a wrinkled, dried-up, old, unattractive hag.”

“Oh please, Verna, I never meant to suggest that—”

“Do you even understand the thorn in that, Phoebe?”

“Why, to be thought old and ugly, of course, even though you are not that . . . .”

Verna shook her head. “No.” She looked up into the other’s eyes. “No, the thorn was to discover that appearance was all that ever mattered, and that what was inside”—she tapped the side of her head—“didn’t hold any meaning for him, only its wrapping.”

Even worse that returning to see that look in Jedidiah’s eyes, though, was to discover that he had given himself over to the Keeper. In order to save Richard’s life as Jedidiah was about to kill him, she had buried her dacra in his back. Jedidiah had betrayed not only her, but the Creator, too. A part of her had died with him.

Phoebe straightened, looking a bit puzzled. “Yes, I guess I know what you mean, when men . . .”

Verna waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “I hope I’ve been of help, Phoebe. It’s always good to talk to a friend.” Her voice took on the clear ring of authority. “Are there any petitioners to see me?”

Phoebe blinked. “Petitioners? No, not today.”

“Good. I wish to go pray and seek the Creator’s guidance. Would you and Dulcinia please shield the door; I wish not to be disturbed.”

Phoebe curtsied. “Of course, Prelate.” She smiled warmly. “Thank you for the talk, Verna. It was like old times in our room after we were ordered to be sleeping.” Her gaze darted to the stacks of papers. “But what about the reports? They’re falling further behind.”

“As Prelate, I cannot ignore the Light that directs the palace and the Sisters. I must also pray for us, and ask for His guidance. We are, after all, the Sisters of the Light.”

The look of awe returned to Phoebe’s eyes. Phoebe seemed to believe that in assuming the post, Verna had somehow become more than human, and could somehow touch the hand of the Creator in a miraculous way. “Of course, Prelate. I will see to the placement of the shield. No one will disturb the Prelate’s meditation.”

Before Phoebe went through the door, Verna called her name in a quiet tone. “Have you learned anything yet about Christabel?”

Phoebe’s eyes turned away in sudden disquiet. “No. No one knows where she went. We’ve had no word on where Amelia or Janet have disappeared to, either.”

The five of them, Christabel, Amelia, Janet, Phoebe, and Verna had been friends, had grown up together at the palace, but Verna had been closest to Christabel, though they were all a bit jealous of her. The Creator had blessed her with gorgeous blond hair and comely features, but also with a kind and warm nature.

It was disturbing that her three friends seemed to have vanished. Sisters sometimes left the palace for visits home, while their families were still living, but they requested permission first, and besides, the families of those three would all have passed away of old age long ago. Sisters, too, sometimes went away for a time, not only to refresh their minds in the outside world, but also to simply have a break from decade upon decade at the palace. Even then, they almost always would tell the others that they had to leave for a time, and where they were going.

None of her three friends had done that; they had simply shown up missing after the Prelate died. Verna’s heart ached with the worry that they simply couldn’t accept her as Prelate, and had chosen instead to leave the palace, but as much as it hurt, she prayed it was that, and not something darker that had taken them.

“If you hear anything, Phoebe,” Verna said, trying to hide her concern, “please come tell me.”

After the woman had gone, Verna placed her own shield inside the doors, a telltale shield she had devised herself; the delicate filaments spun from the spirit of her own unique Han, magic she would recognize as her own. Should anyone try to enter, they probably wouldn’t detect the diaphanous shield, and would tear the fragile threads. Even if they did manage to detect it, their mere presence and the act of probing for a shield would still unavoidably tear it, and if they then repaired the weave with Han of their own, Verna would know that, too.

Hazy sunlight filtered through the trees near the garden wall, infusing the quiet wooded area of the retreat with a muted, dreamy light. The small woodlot ended at a clump of sweetbay, their branches heavy with hairy white buds. The trail beyond meandered into a well-tended patch of blue and yellow flowering groundcover surrounding islands of taller lace-lady ferns and monarch roses. Verna broke a twig off one of the sweetbays and idly savored its spicy aroma as she surveyed the wall while striding along the path.

At the rear of the plantings stood a thicket of shining sumac, the ribbon of small trees placed deliberately to screen the high wall protecting the Prelate’s garden and give the illusion of more expansive grounds. She eyed the squat trunks and spreading branches critically; they might do, if nothing better could be found. She moved on; she was already late.

On a small side trail around the back side of the wild place where the Prelate’s sanctuary stood hidden, she found a promising spot. Once she had lifted her dress and stepped through the shrubs to reach the wall, she could see that it was perfect. Sheltered all around by pine was a sunlit area where pear trees had been espaliered against the wall. While they were all trained and pruned, one seemed to be particularly suitable; its limbs to each side alternated like the steps of a single-pole ladder.

Just before Verna hiked her skirts up and started to climb, the texture of the bark caught her eye. She rubbed a finger along the top edge of stout limbs, seeing that they were callused and rough. It would appear she was not the first Prelate to want to surreptitiously depart the Prelate’s compound.

Once she had climbed atop the wall and had checked that no guards were in sight, she found there was a convenient abutment to a reinforcing pilaster to step down on, and then a drain tile, and then a decorative stone sticking out, and then a low spreading limb of a smoky oak, and then a round rock not two feet from the wall and an easy hop to the ground. She brushed off the bark and leaves and then straightened her gray dress at the hips and ordered the simple collar. She slipped the Prelate’s ring into a pocket. As she draped her heavy black shawl over her head and tied it under her chin, Verna grinned with the thrill of having found a secret way to escape her prison of paper.

She was surprised to find the palace grounds uncommonly deserted. Guards patrolled their posts, and Sisters, novices, and young men in collars dotted the paths and stoned walkways as they went about their business, but there were few city people to be seen, most of them old women.

Every day, during the daylight hours, people from the city of Tanimura poured across the bridges to Halsband Island to seek advice from the Sisters, to petition for intervention in disputes, to request charity, to seek guidance in the Creator’s wisdom, and to worship in the courtyards all over the island. Why they would think they needed to come here to worship had always seemed odd to Verna, but she knew these people viewed the home of the Sisters of the Light as hallowed ground. Perhaps they simply enjoyed the beauty of the palace grounds.

They weren’t enjoying it now; there were virtually no city people to be seen. Novices assigned to guide visitors paced in boredom. Guards at the gates to restricted areas chatted among themselves, and those who glanced her way saw only another Sister going about her business. The lawns were empty of reposing guests, the formal gardens displayed their beauty to no one, and the fountains sprayed and splashed without the accompaniment of astonished gasps from adults or delighted squeals from children. Even the gossip benches sat vacant.

In the distance, the drums beat on.

Verna found Warren sitting on the dark, flat rock at their meeting place in the rushes on the city side of the river. He was skipping stones out onto the swirling waters prowled by one lone fishing boat. Warren jumped up when he heard her approach.

“Verna! I didn’t know if you were ever going to come.”

Verna watched the old man bait his hooks as his skiff rolled gently beneath his steady legs. “Phoebe wanted to know what it was like to get old and wrinkled.”

Warren brushed dirt from the seat of his violet robes. “Why would she ask you?

Verna only sighed at his blank expression. “Let’s get going.”

The journey through the city toward the outskirts proved as strange as the palace grounds. While some of the shops in the wealthy sections were open and doing a bit of trade with a scattering of people, the market in the indigent section was vacant, its tables empty, cook fires cold, and shopwindows shuttered. The lean-to shelters were deserted, the looms in the workshops abandoned, and the streets silent but for the constant, grating presence of the drums.

Warren acted as if there were nothing unusual about the ghostly streets. As the two of them turned down a narrow, deeply shadowed, dusty street lined with dilapidated buildings, Verna had had enough and finally erupted in fury.

“Where is everyone! What’s going on!”

Warren stopped and turned to give her a puzzled look as she stood, fists on hips, in the center of the empty street. “It’s Ja’La day.”

She fixed him with a scowl. “Ja’La day.”

He nodded, the puzzled frown deepening. “Yes. Ja’La day. What did you think happened to all the . . .” Warren slapped his forehead. “I’m sorry, Verna; I thought you knew. We’ve become so accustomed to it I just forgot you wouldn’t know.”

Verna folded her arms. “Know what?”

Warren returned to take her arm and start her walking again. “Ja’La is a game, a contest.” He pointed over his shoulder. “They built a big playing field in the bowl between two hills on the outskirts of the city, over that way, about . . . oh, I guess it must have been fifteen or twenty years ago, when the emperor came to rule. Everyone loves it.”

“A game? The entire city empties out to go watch a game?”

Warren nodded. “I’m afraid so. Except a few—mostly older people; they don’t understand it and aren’t too interested, but most everyone else is. It’s become the people’s passion. Children start playing it in the streets almost as soon as they can walk.”

Verna eyed a side street and checked behind, the way they had come. “What kind of game is this?”

Warren shrugged. “I’ve never been to an official game, yet; I spend most of my time down in the vaults, but I’ve delved into the subject a bit. I’ve always been interested in games and how they fit into the structure of different cultures. I’ve studied ancient peoples and their games, but this gives me the chance to observe a living game for myself, so I’ve read up on it and made inquires.

“Ja’La is played by two teams on a square Ja’La field marked out with grids. In each corner is a goal, two for each team. The teams try to put the ‘broc’—a heavy, leather-covered ball a little smaller than a man’s head—in one of their opponents’ goals. If they do, then they get a point, and the other team gets to pick a grid square from which they begin their turn at attack.

“I don’t understand the strategy, it gets complex, but five-year-olds seem to be able to grasp it in no time.”

“Probably because they want to play, and you don’t.” Verna untied her shawl and flapped the ends, trying to cool her neck. “What’s so interesting about it that everyone would want to go crowd together in the sun to see it?”

“I guess it takes them away from their toil for a day of festivity. It gives them an excuse to cheer and scream, and to drink and celebrate if their team wins, or to drink and console one another if their team loses. Everyone gets quite worked up over it. More worked up than they should.”

Verna thought it over a moment as she felt a refreshing breeze cool her neck. “Well, I guess that sounds harmless.”

Warren glanced over out of the corner of his eye. “It’s a bloody game.”

“Bloody?”

Warren sidestepped a pile of dung. “The ball is heavy and the rules loose. The men who play Ja’La are savage. While they must of course be adept at handling the broc, they’re selected mostly because of their brawn and their brutal aggressiveness. Not many a game goes by without at least some teeth getting knocked out, or a bone broken. It isn’t rare for a neck to get broken, either.”

Verna stared incredulously. “And people like to watch that?”

Warren grunted a humorless confirmation. “From what the guards tell me, the crowd gets ugly if there isn’t blood, because they think it means their team isn’t playing hard enough.”

Verna shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t sound like anything I would enjoy watching.”

“That isn’t the worst of it.” Warren kept his eyes ahead as he strode along the shadowed street. To the sides, shutters so faded it was hard to tell they had ever been painted stood closed over narrow windows. “The losing team is brought out onto the field when the game is over, and each is flogged. One lash with big leather whip for each point scored against them, administered by the winning team. And the rivalry between teams is bitter; it isn’t unheard of for men to die from the flogging.”

Verna walked in stunned silence as they turned a corner. “The people stay for this flogging?”

“I think that’s what they go for. The entire crowd supporting the winning team counts out the number of lashes as they’re laid on. Emotions run pretty high. People get really worked up over Ja’La. Sometimes there are riots. Even with ten thousand troops trying to keep order, things can get out of hand. The players sometimes start the brawl. The men who play Ja’La are brutes.”

“People really like rooting for a team of brutes?”

“The players are heroes. Ja’La players virtually have the run of the city, and can do no wrong. Rules and laws rarely apply to Ja’La players. Crowds of women follow the players around, and after a game there’s usually a team orgy. Women fight over who will be with a Ja’La player. The spree goes on for days. To have been with a player is an honor of the highest order, and is so highly contested that bragging rights require witnesses.”

“Why?” was all she could think to say.

Warren threw up his hands. “You’re a woman; you tell me! When I’ve been the first in three thousand years to solve a prophecy, I’ve never had a woman throw her arms around my neck, or want to lick the blood off my back.”

“They do that?”

“Fight over it. If he’s pleased with her tongue, he might pick her. I hear the players are pretty arrogant, and like to make the eager women earn the honor of being under him.”

Verna looked over and saw that Warren’s face was glowing red. “They even want to be with the losing players?”

“It’s irrelevant. He’s a Ja’La player: a hero. The more brutal, the better. The ones who have killed an opponent with a Ja’La ball are renowned, and are most sought after by the women. People name babies after them. I just don’t understand it.”

“You’re just seeing a small sampling of people, Warren. If you were to go into the city instead of spending all of your time down in the vaults, women would want to be with you, too.”

He tapped his bare neck. “They would if I still had a collar, because they would see the palace’s gold around my neck, that’s all; they wouldn’t want to be with me because of who I am.”

Verna pursed her lips. “Some people are attracted by power. When you have no power yourself, it can be very seductive. That’s just the way life is.”

“Life,” he repeated with a sour grunt. “Ja’La is what everyone calls it, but its full name is Ja’La dh Jin—the Game of Life, in the old tongue of the emperor’s homeland of Altur’Rang, but everyone simply calls it Ja’La: the Game.”

“What does ‘Altur’Rang’ mean?”

“ ‘Altur’Rang’ is from their old tongue, too. It doesn’t translate well, but it means, approximately, ‘the Creator’s chosen,’ or ‘destiny’s people,’ something like that. Why?”

“The New World is split by a mountain range called the Rang’Shada. It sounds like the same language.”

Warren nodded. “A shada is an armored war gauntlet with spikes. Rang’Shada would roughly mean ‘war fist of the chosen.’ ”

“A name from the old war, I guess. Spikes would certainly apply to those mountains.” Verna’s head was still spinning with Warren’s story. “I can’t believe this game is allowed.”

“Allowed? It’s encouraged. The emperor has his own personal Ja’La team. It was announced this morning that when he comes for his visit, he’s going to bring his team to play Tanimura’s top team. Quite an honor, from what I gather, as everyone is beside themselves with excitement at the prospect.” Warren glanced around, and then turned back to her again. “The emperor’s team doesn’t get flogged if they lose.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “The privilege of the mighty?”

“Not exactly,” Warren said. “If they lose, they get beheaded.”

Verna’s hands dropped away from the points of her shawl. “Why would such a game be encouraged by the emperor?”

Warren smiled a private smile. “I don’t know, Verna, but I have my theories.”

“Such as?”

“Well, if you have conquered a land, what problems do you suppose might present themselves?”

“You mean insurrection?”

Warren brushed back a lock of his curly blond hair. “Turmoil, protests, civil unrest, riots, and yes, insurrection. Do you remember when King Gregory ruled?”

Verna nodded as she watched an old woman far up a side street draping wet clothes over a balcony railing. It was the only person she had see in the last hour. “What happened to him?”

“Not long after you left, the Imperial Order took over and that was the last we heard of him. The king was well thought of, and Tanimura prospered, along with the other cities under his rule in the north. Since then, times have become hard for the people. The emperor allowed corruption to flourish and at the same time ignored important matters of commerce and justice. All those people you’ve seen living in squalor are refugees come to Tanimura from smaller towns, villages, and cities that were sacked.”

“They seem a quiet and content lot for refuges.”

An eyebrow lifted over a blue eye. “Ja’La.”

“What do you mean?”

“They have little hope of a better life under the Imperial Order. The one thing they can have hope for, dream about, is to become a Ja’La player.

“The players are selected because of their talent at the game, not because they have rank or power. The family of a player need never want for anything again; he can provide for them—in abundance. Parents encourage their children to play Ja’La, hoping they will become paid players. Amateur teams, classed by age group, start with five-year-olds. Anyone, no matter their background, can become a paid Ja’La player. Players have even come from the ranks of the emperor’s slaves.

“But that still doesn’t explain the passion for it.”

“Everyone is part of the Imperial Order now. No devotion to one’s former land is allowed. Ja’La lets people be devoted to something, to their neighbors, to their city, through their team. The emperor paid to have the Ja’La field built—a gift to the people. The people are distracted from the conditions of their lives, over which they have no control, and into an outlet that doesn’t threaten the emperor.”

Verna flapped the ends of her shawl again. “I don’t think your theory casts a shadow, Warren. From a young age, children like to play games. They do it all day. People have always played games. When they get older, they have contests with the bow, with horses, with dice. It’s part of human nature to play at games.”

“This way.” Warren caught her sleeve and pointed with a thumb, turning her down a narrow alley. “And the emperor is channeling that tendency into something more than natural. He need not worry about their minds wandering to thoughts of their freedom, or even simple matters of justice. Their passion, now, is Ja’La. Their minds are dulled to everything else.

“Instead of wondering why the emperor is coming, and what it will mean for their lives, everyone is aflutter because of Ja’La.”

Verna felt her stomach lurch. She had been wondering just why the emperor was coming. There had to be a reason for him to come all this way, and she didn’t think it was just to watch his team play Ja’La. He wanted something.

“Aren’t the people worried about defeating such a powerful man, or his team, anyway?”

“The emperor’s team is very good, I’m told, but they don’t have any special privilege or advantage. The emperor takes no affront at his team losing, except, of course with his players. If an opponent bests them, the emperor will acknowledge their skill and heartily congratulate them and their city. People long for that honor—to best the emperor’s renowned team.”

“I’ve been back for a couple months, and I’ve never seen the city empty out for this game before.”

“The season just started. Official games are only allowed to be played in the the Ja’La season.”

“That doesn’t fit with your theory, then. If the game is a distraction from more important matters of life, why not let them play it all the time?”

Warren gave her a smug smile. “Anticipation makes the fervor stronger. The prospects for the upcoming season are talked about endlessly. By the time the season finally arrives the people are worked up into a fever pitch, like young lovers returned to the embrace after an absence—their minds are dull to anything else. If the game went on all the time, the ardor might cool.”

Warren had obviously thought long and hard on his theory. She didn’t think she believed in it, but he seemed to have an answer for everything, so she changed the subject.

“Where did you hear this, about him bringing his team?”

“Master Finch.”

“Warren, I sent you to the stables to find out about those horses, not to gab about Ja’La.”

“Master Finch is a big Ja’La enthusiast and was all excited about today’s opening game, so I let him ramble on about it so I could find out what you wanted to know.”

“And did you?”

They came to an abrupt halt, looking up at the sign carved with a headstone, shovel, and the names BENSTENT and SPROUL.

“Yes. Between telling me how many lashes the other team was going to get, and telling me how to make money betting on the outcome, he told me that the missing horses have been gone for quite a time.”

“Since right after winter solstice, I’d bet.”

Warren shielded his eyes with a hand as he peered into the window. “You’d win the bet. Four of his strongest horses, but full tack for only two, are gone. He’s still searching for the horses, and swears he’ll find them, but he thinks the tack was stolen.”

From behind the door in the back of the dark room, she could hear the sound of a file on steel.

Warren took his hand from his face and checked the street. “Sounds like there’s someone here who isn’t a Ja’La enthusiast.”

“Good.” Verna tied the shawl under her chin and then pulled open the door. “Let’s go hear what this gravedigger has to say.”