“I do need you,” she said, beginning to tremble. “I said — I said I didn't want to change back, and I don't, but I want even more to be with you, to make you happy. If the only way I can do that is to change —”

“Shh,” he said. “No, you don't have to change for me.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 19 of 22

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Feel free to repost or mirror it on any noncommercial site or list. You can also create derivative works, including adaptations to other media, or new stories using the same setting, characters and so forth, as long as you mention and point to the original story.

An earlier version of this novel was serialized on the tg_fiction mailing list from December 2010 to March 2011. Thanks to the people who posted comments on that draft.

---

Launuru woke gradually, becoming aware of the darkness around her and Kazmina snoring softly next to her. She had dreamed of both Terasina and Verentsu; but though it had been an unusually intense dream, it hadn't felt like the dream-meeting spell that Tsavila had used six months ago to tell her about the arranged marriage. She hadn't realized she was dreaming until now, when she'd already been awake for a few minutes. But did that mean it wasn't a magical dream, that it wasn't a matter of Terasina linking hers and Verentsu's dreams...? Terasina hadn't been a wizard when she was alive; even if she was responsible for this dream, it was probably a different kind of magic than Psavian and Tsavila's dream-meeting spell.

She lay there awake until someone knocked on he door. She got up, put on the dress that seemed least dirty, and opened it; it was one of Psavian's slaves, saying it was nearly time for breakfast. She lit the room's lamp from the slave's candle and gave it back to her, then gently nudged Kazmina several times until she woke up and mumbled sleepily.

“Time for breakfast,” she said.

“Hmnhmn,” Kazmina insisted.

“All right. I'll ask one of the slaves to knock again every quarter hour or so.”

Kazmina replied by covering her head with the pillow.

Launuru entered the dining hall with a knotted feeling in her stomach. Everything depended on her next meeting with Verentsu, which would probably be... right about now.

“Good morning, Shalasan,” he said, rising from his table and gesturing invitingly at an empty seat beside him.

“Good morning.” She sat down with him, acutely aware of his nearness, and decided to be bold. “Did you dream well?”

He startled, and she was suddenly sure that her dream had been magic, if not the same kind as the one she'd shared with Tsavila six months ago. “I dreamed about a friend I hadn't seen in some time,” he said, after an awkward silence.

“Curious,” she said; “so did I.”

There was silence between them again, she wondering what else she could safely say in earshot of so many others and he probably wondering the same. Nuasila, sitting beside her husband across the table from them, shot her an encouraging smile.

“If it pleases you,” he said quietly, “I would like to speak with you apart, soon — I will have to find some excuse to get away for a little while between breakfast and my next task, and we may not have much time, but we need to talk.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell me when and where.”

“I don't know yet.”

They said little more until after they finished eating. Launuru was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she forgot to ask one of the slaves to knock on Kazmina's door again, but the enchantress straggled in to breakfast some while later, looked around blearily, and sat down with the wizards she'd spent most of the previous day with.

When Verentsu finished eating and got up, Launuru was at a loss. She chatted desultorily with Nuasila about the wedding, but Nuasila did most of the talking. After a while they got up and left the dining hall; Launuru wandered from room to room, but found neither Verentsu nor any quiet place. With the rain still continuing, nearly all the guests were crowded into the various rooms on the ground floor; she politely refused invitations to join in various games and conversations as she passed through the front parlor, the small parlor, and the back parlor and finally sat down in the library, which seemed to be the least crowded. She looked at the shelf, but decided against taking something down to read; she didn't want to reveal how fluent she was in written Ksiluri to anyone watching, and she was probably too distracted to focus on a book anyway.

After she'd sat in the window-seat staring at the rain for some time, she heard a voice: “Miss Shalasan?” She turned and saw a slave boy, maybe nine or ten years old, standing behind her.

“Yes?”

“Master sent me to bring you,” the boy said quietly.

“Lead the way,” Launuru said, rising. She followed him from the library down a corridor and up the stairs, then down two more corridors to a closed door. The boy knocked in a staccato pattern, and the door was opened just enough for Launuru to enter. She did.

“This is usually my room,” Verentsu said, looking nervous. He was fidgeting with a small square of paper — the note she'd left in his bed, she realized — twisting it round and round till it was probably no longer legible, if the rain hadn't made it so before he even got it. “My aunt who's staying in this room during the wedding is busy helping Tsavila dress for the ceremony, so she won't disturb us.”

“Good,” Launuru said. “I'm sorry I ran off yesterday — it was foolish — ”

“No, I was wrong to answer you so, and to push you away — you're my best friend and I failed you when you needed me.”

“I do need you,” she said, beginning to tremble. “I said — I said I didn't want to change back, and I don't, but I want even more to be with you, to make you happy. If the only way I can do that is to change — ”

“Shh,” he said. “No, you don't have to change for me. Tsavila convinced me that you're not under a spell — besides Father's geas, and she says it's not making you feel like this. So if it's really you who wants to stay a woman, and not some spell making you feel that way, then I won't try to argue you out of it.”

“Thank you,” she said. She moved toward him, but checked herself; he wasn't pushing her to change back, but that didn't mean he wanted her throwing her arms around him like yesterday...

Unless it did. He saw her hesitation and moved to meet her, laying a hand gently on her arm. “This is still very strange and it will take me some time to get used to it,” he said. “Can you be patient with me?”

“Of course,” she said. “If I ask you not to change me, I can't ask you to change for me.”

“But I will,” he said; “I have already, since yesterday. Only a little, but I can see where I'm going.”

She looked up at him. “And where is that?”

“To your father's house —” She drew in a sharp breath. “— to ask him for permission to court his daughter.” She threw her arms around him, and this time he didn't push her away.

After some time, he said: “This is pleasant, but we have other things to talk about. Do you wish to marry me under your own name, not as Shalasan?”

“Oh, yes.” She drew back just far enough that she could look him in the eyes.

“Then we can turn our foolish misunderstanding yesterday to good use. We'll have to remain distant for the rest of the day — perhaps until tomorrow, when most of the guests have left. Then — I think you said you were going to ask Kazmina to change your appearance after Father removes the geas?”

“Yes. I'll be whatever kind of woman you want.”

“You are quite beautiful enough to suit me, just as you are,” he said; “but we need her to change you enough that people who met you as Shalasan won't realize she was you. And it would probably be better if you look like a Viluri woman. Then we can go to your father's house and make arrangements.”

“That will be hard,” she said. “But I'm not afraid; I'll have you with me.”

“That you will.” He drew his arms tighter around her for a long wonderful moment, then let go. “We can't stay here much longer. You go first; I'll wait a few hundred heartbeats and come downstairs. If you can find Kazmina, now might be a good time for the two of you to go to my father and ask him to remove the geas.”

“I'll do that.” She embraced him again, this time kissing him long and hard; then tore herself from him and turned to go. As she glanced back, she saw Verentsu rubbing his lips with a foolish, astonished air.

---

Kazmina realized that she had made herself somewhat unpopular, in the course of the past day, by continually bringing the conversation around to slavery and the treatment of slaves here in Niluri. She spoke for a few minutes with her father's friend Setsikuno, asking her if she could come to stay with her for a while after leaving Psavian's house; the older enchantress gladly invited her “and your cousin, too,” to come stay as long as they liked with her and her husband Tetsivamo. Kazmina answered Setsikuno's questions about her and her father's recent history, and asked some polite questions about how Setsikuno and her family had fared recently; but she was too indignant about what she'd seen last night, and too worried about Launuru, to take much interest in other topics. Psavian again took special notice of her after Tsavila had left the table; she conversed distractedly with him about his plans to clear the weather for a couple of hours during the wedding ceremony, while thinking about whether and how she should speak to him about what she'd seen last night. He'd probably be angry about her changing into a mouse and spying on the men's wedding-eve games; of course she'd been a male mouse at the time, so there wasn't really any impropriety in her being there, but still. She also wanted to ask him when he was going to remove the geas from Launuru, but of course couldn't do so here or now.

As the slaves cleared away the dishes, Psavian invited her and several of the other wizards to come upstairs, where they would work on the spell to move the clouds aside for the wedding ceremony. Kazmina startled, realizing she'd missed something important in her distraction. “I don't know any weather magic,” she said.

“And I know very little,” Psavian rejoined, “but as I said, you won't need to — Tarwia will do most of it, but she can't displace such a solid expanse of clouds without a few other wizards contributing their energy and attention.”

“We'll actually work the spell about a quarter of an hour before the wedding,” Tarwia put in, “but I need to go over it with everyone who'll be helping, to make sure you know what to do when. Your part is pretty simple, but nonetheless mistakes could be disastrous.”

“Of course.” She followed the other wizards, nearly all of those who weren't busy helping Tsavila or Itsulanu prepare for the ceremony, upstairs to Psavian's workroom. As she followed them toward the stairs, she noticed that Verentsu and Launuru had already left the dining hall; she wondered if they'd found a chance to speak privately again, and if so, what they'd said to one another.

Tarwia instructed them in their parts, and they rehearsed the spell several times, inflecting all the charms in the hypothetical mode rather than the imperative mode of an actual spell. When Tarwia was satisfied, she told them all to meet in the back garden at half an hour before noon. “And don't wear oilcloths or use any kind of water-repellent spell,” she insisted. “We have to let the rain soak us before we can persuade it to leave us alone for a couple of hours. You can go back in the house and change clothes before we all proceed to the shrine.”

The various wizards made their way to the door; Kazmina started to go, but Psavian said, “If you would, please stay for a few moments.”

“Of course,” she said quietly. When the others were gone, she asked: “Are you ready to remove the geas from Launuru? I'll go find her —”

“Soon,” he said. He looked off into the distance for a moment and said: “There will be time for that after Verentsu and Launuru finish their discussion and before we meet to banish the clouds.”

“After they finish...? Then they're meeting now?”

“Yes...” He smiled and said: “I'll let Launuru tell you about it. There is something else I wanted to speak with you about now.”

“Oh?” she asked cautiously, double-checking her shield spell. Did he know about her spying? Was he displeased with her sounding out the younger wizards for their opinions on slavery?

“I invited you to stay here, or at my house in the city, for as long as things remain unsettled in your country — as long as it is not safe for you to return home.”

“That is very kind of you —”

“I would like to extend another invitation,” he went on, “not merely to make this your home of convenience, a stopgap while your original home is closed to you by the turmoil of war, but to make it your real home — to pass your life here.”

She was speechless. He went on again:

“I spoke with your father about this, the night we dreamed together, just after I connected his dream with mine and before I brought you into our shared dream. He gave me his blessing, saying that you were not betrothed and that he had made no definite plans for you.”

Was he proposing...? He was! And had her father really approved of this? She wanted to think he was lying, but he and her father were old friends; he must be a better man than he seemed from her short acquaintance with him, or have once been a better man, for her father to have such regard for him.

“Speak plainly, if you please,” she said. “Are you making a proposal of marriage?”

“Yes. Will you marry me?”

“I must respectfully decline. I could not marry a man who owns slaves and mistreats them, or allows his guests to mistreat them.”

He looked thoughtful. “Very well, then, will you marry me if I free my slaves?”

She was speechless for a long moment. He went on:

“As for mistreatment, I am not aware of it, but I will try to put a stop to it, whether you agree to marry me or not.”

She decided she might as well confess to her spying; if he threw her out, she would be free of his unwanted advances. “During last night's games in honor of Itsulanu,” she said, “I saw several of your guests fondling the female slaves serving them. One worse than the rest — I don't know his name, but he stuck his hand deep under her skirt while she was pouring his beer.”

“That was much too far, indeed,” he said. “But if you were watching the proceedings, surely you saw and heard me reprimand young Metsaunu soon afterward? And someone made him eat his own cooking, stinging him with a pain spell in the secret parts. I let him think it was me when I reprimanded him, but I don't know who... Oh. Was that you?”

“It was.” Her opinion of him went up slightly, but she wasn't satisfied. “What of all the other guests who fondled the young women as they passed? Did you reprimand them all? Did you warn them as they arrived that they must treat your servants and slaves with respect?”

“Do you regard this as mistreatment?”

“Let me change you into a girl, with an owner's mark on your forearm, and send you into your own dining hall to serve your guests tonight — then tell me if having men fondle your breasts is mistreatment or not.”

His eyes widened. “Oh. No, that will not be necessary. I can learn that the stove is hot without sitting on it.” He was silent for a moment, and went on: “It is an old and widespread custom, and it will take time to convince all my friends and associates that I am serious about abolishing it; but I will do as you ask. Freeing the slaves will be half the work, I suppose, but there may be times when some guest wishes to fondle a free servant; I won't let it pass unnoticed. Does this meet your approval?”

She stared at him in amazement. He wanted her badly indeed if he would promise to free his slaves and reform the treatment of his free servants to please her. It wouldn't do, of course, but her opinion of him rose considerably, and she reveled in the power she seemed to have over him.

“It does,” she said. “I do not say that I will marry you if you do this, but... I am now willing to consider it.” As she said this, she realized with a start that it was true. All her schemes to help a few of his slaves escape, which she'd discarded for want of a knowledgeable accomplice, would not have done half so much good as agreeing to marry him. And the fact that he agreed to it so readily, that he could learn and change his mind on such a matter at his age — he was clearly not the man she had supposed. She began to see why her father regarded him so highly.

“You are wiser than many young women,” he said. “Or young men. Tsavila, Launuru, Verentsu, Itsulanu — they think that the way they feel today they will go on feeling for fifty years. The passion-wind that gusts southward today will be calm air tomorrow and blow as strongly eastward the day after; but a house of stone will remain standing through every wind. Let us build a strong house, with stones of respect for one another mortared with plans to benefit our children.”

“Respect,” she said. “I respect you more than I did a quarter of an hour ago. Do I respect you enough to marry you? I am not sure. What of your respect for me? You know the sort of magic my father has taught me; do you know that I love transforming myself and others, and ordinarily do so more frequently than I have had the opportunity to do in recent days?”

“I do not object, so long as you transform no one against their will or contrary to law.”

“What of your own magic? How often do you use your geas spell, as you did twice with Launuru? That seems to me a terrible sort of magic, to be used only when nothing else will answer.”

“It is not inherently bad, as you suppose,” he said, looking hurt. “I confess that I acted hastily and in anger with Launuru; more careful, calmer thought would have shown me a wiser course. But seven geases of twelve I place on willing subjects, who wish me to strengthen their will against their baser desires. The day before you arrived at my house, I treated a man who was on the verge of ruin through a foolish excess of gambling, and a woman whose desire for strong wine was too strong for her. Now they do far more easily what they know they ought. Most of my other uses of the spell are on criminals, whom the magistrates wish me to compel to cease their thieving or cheating.”

Kazmina could not object to this; before the revolution, much of her father's business came from the magistrates of Vmanashi hiring him to turn highwaymen and pickpockets into beasts of burden for a month or a year.

“Well,” she said, “if I were to marry you, you must swear never to place a geas on me or on our children, or to look into our minds without permission.”

“If you insist,” he said, “but I hope you will reconsider — I found the geas spell useful to help Melentsu stop wetting his bed and Tsavila stop biting her nails.”

“No.”

“Very well. I think you began to say something about your transformation spell?”

“Yes — of course I won't transform anyone against their will, except convicted criminals at the behest of the magistrate. But you mustn't forbid or hinder me from transforming myself as often as I please.”

“Not from transforming yourself per se — but could you safely transform when you are with child?”

“Probably not; I won't risk it in any case. Not a whole-body transformation; a little adjustment to make my legs and back stronger during the last stages of pregnancy can't hurt the baby, though.”

“Then I suppose I can't object. I will trust your judgment not to transform unwisely.”

“Including into men.”

He looked queasy. “So you do not cause scandal by it, or ask me to lie with you when you're in such a form — I suppose so.”

“If you were a woman, you might enjoy it.” She certainly enjoyed the look on his face now.

He swallowed several times before answering: “I suppose I might. Shall we reconsider this some time hence, after we have learned one another's magic and I understand better how your transformations work?”

“There is no 'whether'; only 'how often'. If you are to learn my magic thoroughly, you must change yourself into a woman or girl at least once; and if once, why not again? In fact,” she said, wondering how far she could push him before he would finally decide she was ground too hard to plow, “let us agree to take turns bearing our children; I'll have the first and you the second, and so on.”

To her surprise, he didn't balk even at this, but said, after a long pause to think or to gather his nerve, “That must depend on whether you have learned Ksiluri well enough to impersonate me for six months or more, while I assume your form and bear your child — I suppose I must learn to speak Tuaznu like a native as well, and we must both learn enough about one another to convince most or all of our friends and relations...”

“Why? Do you fear the opinions of others if your changing into a woman, whether for a few hours or as long as it takes to bear and nurse a child, becomes known? My respect for you has increased since you showed yourself willing to reconsider old habits and learn new things; but this scotches it. We are wizards! Why should we care what the foolish and mundane think of us? The wise will not be disturbed at us taking turns being mother and father to our children, and the foolish will blame you for marrying a foreigner, or for freeing your slaves, or for some other reason, whether or not you ever transform.”

As she spoke, he lost his worried look, and after a moment of open-mouthed shock, he smiled and his eyes sparkled. When she finished, he said: “You are magnificent! I had thought myself no longer susceptible to the passion of youth, that I could marry again with pure motives, determining that a joining of your magic with mine would make our children strong and capable... But you will turn my respect for you into passion. Let us speak with your father in a dream tonight, and announce our betrothal tomorrow morning before the guests depart.”

So even that wasn't asking too much. “Wait,” she said; “I said that I respect you more than I did a little while ago, but I haven't yet agreed to marry you. We should speak with my father tonight — I need to tell him that I'm going to stay with Setsikuno after I have given Launuru her permanent form, and I wish to speak with him about your proposal.”

“Very well. My offer will remain open for some time. Your father made no objection to my courting you, and I think it right that you should speak with him before accepting me. And if we are betrothed, it would indeed be best that you stay with someone like Setsikuno until we are wed.”

“Good morning. We will speak again soon, when you remove the geas from Launuru.”

“Ah, yes...” He looked distant again for a moment, and said: “She is looking for us now. Please step out into the corridor and invite her in.”

---

The full novel is already available from Lulu.com. I'm serializing it here in twenty-two parts, at least one chapter per week if I can manage it.

I've finished that short novel in the same setting as "Butterflies are the Gentlest" which I mentioned here a while ago, and have started serializing it (under the provisional title "A House Divided") on the tg_fiction mailing list.

I've started writing a sequel to Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes. It seems to be going fairly well so far, though it's too early to tell how long it's going to be or how long it will take to finish it.