It didn't take them long to get out of their wet things, but it took them a lot longer to get into dry ones.

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Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 20 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.

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Launuru had not gone ten steps from Verentsu's room when she heard a door open behind her. Even as she turned to look, someone called out “Shalasan!”

There was Kazmina. “There you are,” she said, and approached her. She realized that she had a silly grin on her face; she must school herself to look glum, before she met anyone else. “Have you seen Psavian?” she asked.

“Come in,” Kazmina replied, gesturing to the door of the room she'd just emerged from. Launuru took another step closer and looked in; Psavian bowed to her. She entered the room and Kazmina followed her, closing the door behind them.

“Good morning,” Psavian said. “Are you ready for me to remove the geas?”

“Very much so.”

“Let us review our agreement first, shall we? You give your word to never tell anyone who does not already know about your dalliance with Tsavila, my exile of you, the true manner of your return, or your impersonation of Kazmina's cousin. I, in return, allow you to marry Verentsu, and ask no dowry of your parents.”

“Two other things,” Launuru added; “one, you must tell the scullery maid from the academy to say she was lying to protect her baby's true father. I guess you'll have to help him get a new position, too, because he'll be dismissed from the academy when they find out.”

“I have said I would, and I will.”

“All right. Also, you were to pay me a thousand kings as indemnity for the exile geas.”

“Tsavila proposed that, but it formed no part of our agreement.”

Launuru asked Kazmina in Tuaznu, “What exactly did he and Tsavila say about paying me a thousand silver coins? Refresh his memory if you think it will help.” Kazmina spoke to him in Rekhim. Psavian smiled wryly and replied to her, then said to Launuru: “Very well, a thousand kings indemnity for the exile geas. Have we overlooked anything else?”

“I think not.” She spoke to Kazmina again: “Can you tell if he's really removing the geas, or do we need Tsavila to witness it?”

“I couldn't tell when he put it on you when we arrived — I didn't know what to look for — but I saw when he adjusted it the night before last. I think I'll be able to understand better now what he's doing. And we can get Tsavila to verify it later.”

“Go ahead,” Launuru said to Psavian.

She felt nothing, only saw Psavian and Kazmina staring intently at her for the space of a hundred heartbeats. Then Psavian said: “It is done. Remember your promises, and I will remember mine.”

The women bowed, and Launuru said: “Good morning.” Kazmina said something longer in Rekhim, and after Psavian briefly replied with a bow, they withdrew.

“What did you say to get him to agree so quickly to pay me a thousand silver coins?” Launuru asked as they descended the stairs.

“It seems that I have more influence over him than I realized,” Kazmina said. But her smile did not seem one of unmixed pleasure.

As they entered the front parlor, Launuru tried to calm her expression, to hide the joy she felt. She thought she succeeded pretty well, though now and then it would be too much for her, and she would have to hide a broad grin behind her sleeve as though it were a yawn. She joined in a game of psanalem with some of Tsavila's cousins, while Kazmina stood in another corner talking with Omutsanu and an older female wizard whose name Launuru couldn't recall. After half an hour or so, Verentsu entered the room, but only for a moment: his eyes and Launuru's met, and with only the faintest smile, he turned and left again. It would be hard to pretend indifference until after all the other guests had left.

---

Verentsu counted heartbeats after Launuru left the room. He figured his heart was pounding faster than usual, so perhaps he'd better allow her a hundred and twenty heartbeats instead of a hundred. But he heard voices in the hall, mere moments after she left, and started over. When there'd been silence for two hundred heartbeats, he left the room and went downstairs.

He found his brothers in the dining hall, and sat down to talk with them, — or mostly to listen. His share of the frenetic preparations was done; until the ceremony itself there was nothing more for him to do. He had scarcely settled down when Melentsu asked him, “How are things between you and Shalasan?”

“Oh,” he said. “We talked. I apologized, and she apologized, and we explained... but it's no good. We'll part on friendly terms, but we'll part nonetheless, when she continues on her travels with her cousin.”

“I'm sorry,” Iantsemu said. “She seems like a sweet girl, but I'm sure you'll find someone more suitable; if not someone local, at least a Viluri.”

If they only knew. “You're probably right,” he said.

He listened distractedly as they resumed their conversation about how bad the revolution in Netuatsenu was for business, thinking of Launuru and of his dream that morning. He couldn't remember much of it now, though it had been clear and sharp when he first woke. His mother was in it, and Launuru, first as his old self and then as a woman. And he couldn't remember exactly what they had said, only that when he woke, he was sure that encouraging Launuru to remain a woman, and courting her, was the right thing to do. It was, he thought, the answer to his prayer of the morning before, when he'd knelt before the altar in his mother's tomb just before confronting 'Shalasan' with her deception. He vowed to offer his mother's spirit a better sacrifice than just incense, probably tomorrow after most or all of the guests had left.

His musings were interrupted when his cousin Tepsunam walked in and asked, “We need a fourth player for a game of psanalem. Do any of you want to join?”

“All right,” Verentsu said, and got up. But when he followed Tepsunam into the front parlor, he saw Launuru sitting at the smaller table, playing psanalem with three of his cousins. He allowed himself a quick smile, but suppressed it; they needed to maintain the appearance of being cool and distant, and that would be easiest if they weren't together too much. “Sorry, Tepsu,” he said, “I just remembered something — maybe we can play after the ceremony.”

He wandered restlessly into the library, then into the back parlor, and got slightly involved in a conversation with some of Itsulanu's cousins; they were still there when his father and seven other wizards came trooping through. “Make way for sunlight,” his father called, and the men in the back parlor gave a cheer. They gathered by the window to watch the wizards as they marched out into the garden, getting rapidly soaked, and formed a circle with Tarwia of Nemaretsu in the center.

---

Launuru was studying the arrangement of psanalem tiles, waiting for the player to her left to place a tile and figuring out what she would do when it was her turn, when someone called, “It's time.” She looked up; people were moving toward the door leading to the library and back parlor.

“Let's go,” someone said. Launuru rose from the table and followed the other players down the corridor.

As they entered the back parlor, which was so crowded there was barely room for them, she saw that Psavian and some of the other wizards were coming in from the garden, dripping wet. But it was no longer raining; bright sunshine shone through the open door. She saw Kazmina among the group of wizards; the enchantress waved to her and called out “I'm going to go change into something dry — save a place for me.”

As soon as the wizards had filed out, presumably heading for their rooms to change clothes, Verentsu stood up on a footstool and called out: “We're ready to process to the shrine; the bride and groom will meet us there in a quarter of an hour.”

Launuru let the movement of the crowd carry her through the back door and down the path through the garden, which was the same up to a point as the path she and Verentsu had followed with Melentsu and Nuasila. It turned off to the left between the garden and the walnut orchard, and led to a small hill with a ring of tall stones at its summit. Verentsu and his brothers guided people into places on the lower slopes of the hill, leaving the path clear for those yet to arrive. There were a few benches for the older people, but Launuru and the other young people stood.

The sky, which had been solidly overcast since yesterday afternoon, now had a broad clear patch overhead, but in every direction there were still clouds at the edge of the horizon.

Shortly after the guests had settled into their places, Itsulanu came up the path, accompanied by his father and mother. They passed between the guests and into the stone circle. Several of the wizards who had cleared away the clouds arrived just after them; Kazmina looked around, then squeezed between several other guests to find a place next to Launuru.

“That was fun,” she said. “I want to learn more weather magic!”

It was perhaps a fifth of an hour before Tsavila arrived, accompanied by her father and her aunt Nantsuno. They passed up the hill and into the circle. Psavian and Nantsuno stood back near two of the stones, opposite Omutsanu and Lentsina, while Itsulanu and Tsavila advanced into the center.

At first Launuru couldn't hear well what the wedding party were saying; but after a few minutes of cupping one hand or another to her ear, as several of the people around them were doing, Kazmina winked at her and whispered, “Don't yell.” Before she could ask why she would yell in the middle of Tsavila's wedding, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her ears, and then Tsavila's voice got a lot louder — as did everything else around her. The faint breeze, the distant drizzle of rain, the murmurs and whispers of various guests, her own heartbeat and those of the people standing near her drowned out Tsavila's voice at first; but soon she managed to distinguish it, and Itsulanu's when he made his next response.

As the wedding continued, the expanse of clouds on the horizon encroached more and more on the patch of clear sky overhead, spreading from the east at first and then, seemingly, striking a glass wall just around the house and garden and shrine but continuing to spread around them and move on westward until the whole sky in that direction was solid clouds as well, with only a narrow patch of blue sky overhead. This circular patch of blue sky got smaller and smaller, and the wedding party started making their speeches and responses a little faster. Finally drizzling rain was falling on the wedding guests, sparing only those in the stone circle. Fortunately, the ceremony was almost over by that point; before the guests were really soaked, Tsavila and Itsulanu came to the edge of the circle and raised their hands together, and were acclaimed with four ragged cheers. Then they dashed through the rain to the house, followed by Psavian and Nantsuno, Omutsanu and Lentsina, and a rout of wedding guests, with a preponderance of laughter and cheers over curses even as the rain fell harder and harder.

---

It was over. Tsavila looked sidelong at her new husband, aware of her father and aunt coming up close behind her and Itsulanu's parents approaching him to his left. The crowd of guests, being gradually drenched by the rain that stopped abruptly just outside the ring of stones, cheered as she and Itsulanu raised their joined hands.

“Can you teleport us back to the house?” Itsulanu whispered to his parents.

“Certainly not,” his mother rejoined. “The recession is an important part of the wedding.”

“Great,” Tsavila said. “Let's recess, then.” And with a wild grin at her, Itsulanu grasped her hand more firmly and they dashed into the rain, to renewed cheers from their guests. She had brief glimpses of Kazmina and Launuru among the crowd to her left, and Verentsu to her right, before they were past.

They ran faster than her father and aunt or Itsulanu's parents; moments later they stood in the back vestibule, laughing and wringing water out of their clothes. “Let's go change into something dry,” Itsulanu said, “before the others arrive.”

“Let's.” They went down the corridor to the stairs and up to Tsavila's bedroom. “I'll go change and meet you back here,” Itsulanu said, making as if to go on to the bedroom he'd been sharing with his father and uncle.

“Silly,” she said, “get something dry to put on and come back here to change with me.”

“All right,” he said with a smile. She went in and started looking for something suitable. Before she had made up her mind, she heard the door open again behind her, and turned: Itsulanu was back.

“Did you miss me?” he asked.

“Ever so much. I've been waiting for months to say, 'Come help me unlace this.'” He complied.

It didn't take them long to get out of their wet things, but it took them a lot longer to get into dry ones.

“We should go,” he said, after a little while.

“Yes,” she said, but didn't hurry.

“They'll all be expecting us downstairs.”

“I'm sure they are.” But it was several playful minutes before they seriously turned their attention to getting dressed again. Before they were quite finished, there was a knock at the door.

“Almost done,” Tsavila called.

“Very well, ma'am,” Kurevila said through the door.

There was a great bustle in the hallway, as all the guests who'd gotten soaked by the rain hurried to their bedrooms to change into something dry before the wedding feast. It took Tsavila and Itsulanu a quarter of an hour to go from her bedroom door to the top of the stairs, being stopped and congratulated now by Aunt Nantsuno, just changed into a dry gown, now by Itsulanu's Uncle Saitsomu, still in his dripping wet formal clothes, now by Tarwia of Maresh, dripping on the floor and apologizing profusely that her weather-control spell hadn't held as long as promised.

“Don't fret,” Tsavila said with a wink, “it gave us an excuse to change clothes before the feast — I'll have a hard time convincing my father I didn't bribe you to make it rain at the end.” Itsulanu blushed.

But with all the euphoria of being new-wedded, Tsavila hadn't forgotten about poor Launuru. She'd been sitting next to Verentsu at breakfast, but they hadn't seemed to be talking much if any. Tsavila hoped they'd had a chance to talk privately sometime during the hours when she was busy preparing for the wedding rite, but the fact that they'd been standing so far apart during the ceremony wasn't an encouraging sign.

Tsavila and Itsulanu entered the dining hall to a loud cheer from those already assembled. She looked around for Launuru and Kazmina, but didn't see them; perhaps they were still changing clothes? Verentsu was there, with her older brothers and sisters-in-law, at their usual table.

The newlyweds took their seats on the dais as more guests straggled in after changing into dry clothes. The slaves began serving drinks. Tsavila, looking around the room almost as often as at her husband (at last!) by her side, finally saw Kazmina and Launuru enter; but they sat together at one of the tables in the southeast corner of the room, far from Verentsu.

“What's wrong, sweetness?” Itsulanu whispered.

So perceptive. “I'm worried about Verentsu and Shalasan,” she said, managing not to hesitate over Launuru's false name. “I hoped they were going to patch things up — but you see they're sitting on opposite sides of the room...”

“I noticed that. You've spoken with them both, right? There's not much else you can do — they must do the rest.”

“I know.”

After the meal, and speeches and songs by several of their friends and relations, they rose from the dais and circulated about the room talking to various guests. They soon came to where her brothers were sitting.

“Congratulations!” Iantsemu said, clasping Itsulanu's hands and then Tsavila's. “May you live a hundred years and have a score of children!”

That wish would have seemed excessive were it not so traditional. “And may they all mind their mother better than this little varmint,” Psilina said, tickling Paukuno and making her giggle.

“Mommy!” Paukuno said indignantly, “I was good during the wedding.”

“Yes, you were. I was talking about this morning.” Paukuno looked suddenly bashful, and artfully changed the subject.

“Aunt Tsavila, can I come visit you and Uncle Itsulanu at your new house?”

“You'll have to ask your mommy and daddy,” Tsavila said, “but I expect so.”

“Later on,” Psilina said. “Aunt Tsavila and Uncle Itsulanu want to be alone for a while first, right?” She winked.

“That's right, little owlet,” Itsulanu said, tousling Paukuno's hair. “You can come for a month or so next year when we have a new little cousin for you to help us take care of.”

While they talked, Tsavila was looking at Verentsu, and he was looking at her. He looked happy, but was was he happy for her and Itsulanu in spite of his own and Launuru's troubles, or...? Why weren't they together?

“You look radiant, Tsavila,” he said.

“Thank you. Ah... have you had a chance to speak to Shalasan?” Itsulanu squeezed her hand as she spoke.

“Um,” Verentsu said, his expression saying clearly: I would tell you if they weren't around. Seeing him apparently at a loss for words, Melentsu spoke up:

“They talked, but they decided it didn't suit for them to be together. Shalasan's leaving with her cousin tomorrow.”

“It's... I don't think I should talk about the things she told me,” Verentsu said finally. “We're friends, but...”

Tsavila thought about taking the expression on Verentsu's face as implicit permission to look into his mind, but she resisted the temptation. They'd probably have a chance to talk sometime this afternoon, before she and Itsulanu went into their hermitage, and if not... she'd learn what had happened eventually. As Itsulanu said, she'd done all she could.

They circulated around the room, receiving congratulations and good wishes from all their guests and bawdy suggestions about how to pass the time in their hermitage from several. Finally they reached the corner of the room where Launuru and Kazmina were sitting. Kazmina rose and embraced Tsavila as she approached.

“It was a beautiful wedding,” Kazmina said, “but your father should stick to mind-magic, and leave the astrology to professionals.”

“How do you mean?”

“The rain, silly.”

“The date was selected to be propitious for our marriage, and the health of our children,” Itsulanu put in; “not to have clear weather.”

Launuru was quiet and subdued, but she didn't look miserable as she had last night. Something was up.

“Itsi,” Tsavila said, “I've got to go to the garderobe.” She looked significantly at Launuru, and of course Launuru said: “I'd better do the same.”

“Hurry back,” Itsulanu said. He kissed his bride again and turned to talk to Pautsanu, who'd been standing nearby.

The three women left the dining hall. Tsavila didn't wait until they were at the garderobe to ask, “What happened between you and Verentsu?”

Launuru gave her a mischievous look. “He's not going to marry Shalasan.”

“What...? Oh. I see. I should have thought of that.”

“He said yes, Tsavi! He said he'd go to my parents and ask them for permission to court me. And he won't have to court me long.”

“That's wonderful!” She impulsively embraced Launuru, feeling tears starting to well up. “So you're just going to change her appearance a little...?” she said to Kazmina in Rekhim. She realized, as she turned to her old friend, that she didn't look as happy as Launuru. Well, no, of course there was no reason she should be that happy, but still... “Is something wrong?”

“Yes, I'll modify her appearance — make her look like a sister of her old self. We still need to work out the details of her story. And — I watched your father remove the geas, but I want you to double-check; I'm not so familiar with his magic that he couldn't have slipped something by me.”

“All right; give me a few moments.” Tsavila turned to Launuru and said: “I'm going to check that Father took the geas off you, like he promised.”

“Thanks.”

But even as she studied Launuru's mind, looking for any remaining traces of a geas or other compulsion spell, she was thinking about how worried Kazmina looked.

“You're fine,” she said to Launuru. “The geas is all gone.” Then in Rekhim, to Kazmina: “She's clean; no geas or minor compulsions or anything. But fess up; you're worried about something other than not having a good cover story for her yet.”

Kazmina took a deep breath. “Your father asked me to marry him.” When Tsavila, too astonished to speak, didn't reply, she said: “Don't tell Launuru. I haven't made up my mind yet whether to accept, and that scares me — I shouldn't even be considering it.”

Tsavila finally found her voice. “I don't know what to tell you. It would feel weird having you as my stepmother, but you shouldn't let that stop you — not that by itself, anyway... You might know that his marriage to my mother was not a happy one, but I think that was mostly because she wasn't a wizard. That's no reason you couldn't be happy with him, if...” She couldn't find a way to end that sentence.

“If I could be happy with the man who exiled Launuru? I don't know. Look into my mind, see if he's manipulating me in some way... Obviously not very effectively, or I would have said yes already, but it disturbs me that I can even consider it.”

Tsavila said to Launuru: “This is going to take a little while.”

“What are you...? Never mind. I really do need to use the garderobe, if you don't...” She opened the door, stepped in and closed it behind her. Tsavila started looking through Kazmina's mind for evidence that her father might have broken through her shields and influenced her feelings by magic. She hated to think he might do that, but after learning of what he'd done to Launuru, she no longer felt sure what he would or wouldn't do. Launuru was a mundane, though; her father wouldn't treat a fellow wizard like that, would he...?

Apparently not. Kazmina's thoughts and feelings on the subject were a muddle, but as far as Tsavila could tell, they were all her own. She was astonished at how much her father had offered Kazmina to marry him, how far he was willing to go to meet her. She didn't understand Kazmina's attitude toward slavery; there were deep memories with strong emotional affect about the slaves Kazmina's father used to own and how he had recently freed them. Tsavila didn't have time or inclination to figure them out, but it was clear that her father offering to free his slaves had made a deep impression on Kazmina.

“No, he's not manipulating you. Not by magic. If I didn't know much about your own magic I'd ask if you'd been manipulating him — I'm surprised he was willing to concede you so much.” Surprised, and a little squicked, by the proposals that her father had apparently, after only a little hesitation, agreed to.

“Yes, it's made it hard to know what to think about him. Don't take this wrong, Kazmina, but when I first learned what he'd done to Launuru, I hated him. It was all I could do to be civil to him when we got here and I met him for the first time in so many years. But he's been much more reasonable in the last few days than I could have expected — he can do terrible things when he's angry, but he can also be wonderfully generous when he feels like it.”

“That's him exactly — that geas he put on Launuru is the worst thing he's ever done in anger, as far as I know, though it's not the only time he's been mean. But what do you want?”

“I want his slaves freed. I want a rich and powerful spouse who respects my using my own magic in my own way. I'm not a romantic, like you and Launuru; I haven't wanted to marry for love since I was thirteen. But do I want to marry a person with your father's temper?”

“Don't say yes unless you're sure.” Tsavila noticed Kazmina's careful use of the word “spouse” instead of “husband,” and drew her own conclusions, but didn't press the matter. Time for that later.

Launuru emerged from the garderobe. “I really do need to use it too,” Tsavila said, and stepped 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.

The sequel is now 31,000 words; I've gotten to a point where I didn't have it plotted out in much detail, and progress has slowed down, but I expect I'll keep working on it steadily, if slower than in the past couple of weeks (which have been among my most productive writing periods ever).