Launuru said little in the carriage on the way back to the wizard's house. She was thinking about her reaction when Kazmina had suggested that she change back into the man she'd been when she hired the room. It had been as appalling to her just now as the idea of becoming a woman had been when Kazmina suggested it two days ago. If that were so, how could she ask Tsavila to marry her, promising to become a man again soon?

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 7 of 22

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.

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.

“Hello again, Shalasan,” Verentsu said with a smile that went a considerable way toward lifting her spirits after Tsavila's mysterious remark. “Itsulanu and I were talking about the Temple Game of a few days ago.”

“Tell me about it,” Launuru said, genuinely curious.

“Well, how much do you know about our customs?”

“My parents took me to one of those games when we lived in Nesantsai, but I don't remember it well.”

“Well, on certain holy days the priests of one god play games against the priests of another, as... proxies, I suppose, for the gods they champion. On the first of Autumn, nine days ago, the priests of Kalotse played tsekiva against the priests of Psunavan, at the Temple of Psunavan, and the priests of Kalotse won by seven points.”

Launuru thought quickly. He had actually thought about that game, briefly, while convalescing at Kazmina's house — the geas hadn't allowed him much leisure to think about all the other holy day games he'd missed during his journey, still less the informal games for practice and fun that took place on ordinary days and between non-priestly teams. What she wanted to know was who had led each team, and who had scored the most difficult shots, and whether it was won within the usual three rounds or took extra time — the seven-point margin made extra rounds unlikely, but not impossible... But a foreign lady like Shalasan wouldn't know enough to ask those questions.

“What is tsekiva, please? Is seven points a very good victory or about average?”

Verentsu warmed to the subject, eventually answering most of Launuru's silent questions. Itsulanu and Tsavila joined in explaining the rules and customs; Launuru found that she didn't mind the roundabout way of finding out what she wanted to know, as it was such a pleasure just to hear Verentsu and Tsavila talk, after all this time, even if she couldn't yet reveal what she most needed to talk about. After a few minutes of this Psavian asked them if they were hungry; when most of them said yes, he asked Verentsu to go and tell the kitchen staff they were nearly ready for dinner. The conversation about tsekiva continued during his brief absence, and he rejoined it when he returned.

“But you haven't explained the most important thing,” Tsavila admonished her brother, after a long description of Lakinu son of Tevaupsu's amazing shot into the smallest, leftmost goal across more than half the field. “The priests of Kalotse winning means a mild Autumn and Winter, a good harvest, and prosperity to young lovers.” She smiled at Itsulanu as she said that, and they kissed.

Which young lovers?, Launuru thought with a pang. She turned away from Tsavila and Itsulanu to face Verentsu and asked, what she knew perfectly well, “So is Kalotse your name for the goddess we call Znasan? She rules pleasant weather and love and childbirth and growing things?”

Verentsu looked momentarily abashed. He had never paid as much attention in the geography and language classes as Launuru. “I think so,” he said cautiously. “I mean, Kalotse rules those things; I don't know about, uh, Tsenasan?... Tsavila, do you know?”

But it was Omutsanu who answered, evidently having been listening at least as much to the young people's Ksiluri conversation as to Psavian's Rekhim monologue. “The best philosophers do seem to think that Kalotse and Znasan are local names for the same goddess, known as 'Sunhama' in Harafra and by various unpronounceable names in the islands and the hill country. Psolempi of Nesantsai argues further that Tsaumala was originally a local name of Kalotse as well, but came to be considered a separate goddess with a different realm when the various Viluri tribes unified into one nation...”

Psavian interrupted him with: “Let us not discuss these matters with foreign guests, however distinguished.” He then said something in Rekhim, to which Omutsanu replied shortly; he apparently disagreed, but wasn't going to argue with his host in front of the other guests. Kazmina looked puzzled; Launuru wondered if she should speak to her in Tuaznu and fill her in, but thought it better to apologize first. “I'm sorry if I spoke too freely of things you don't speak of here,” she said.

“Don't mind Father,” Tsavila said in a low voice; “it wasn't your fault, and there was nothing wrong with it anyway. It was I who brought the subject up.”

“Thank you,” Launuru said.

The conversation turned to the upcoming game between the priests of Tsaumala and those of Kensaulan, and continued in that vein after the servants summoned them to dinner. During dinner, Psavian arranged them with Verentsu at his right hand, Launuru next to him, and Kazmina next to her; Tsavila, Itsulanu and Omutsanu faced them across the table on Psavian's left. Kazmina ending up mostly speaking with Omutsanu in Rekhim, and Psavian mostly with Tsavila and Itsulanu, leaving Verentsu to continue expounding on recent and upcoming tsekiva games to an enraptured Launuru.

Kazmina's conversation with Omutsanu during dinner was more interesting than the highly technical conversation she'd half-listened to in the previous half hour, but not much more. He asked her a few questions about the recent political history of her country, and her father's involvement in the revolution. She answered some of them honestly, others less so — she didn't think anything her father had told her was a military secret, but she preferred to be most cautious here, knowing scarcely anything about Omutsanu or his connections. She asked him similar questions about Niluri politics, half-listening to the answers while she tried, without success, to come up with a plan to get Launuru and Tsavila together without Psavian's knowledge.

After dinner, Psavian said to her: “Would you like me to send a servant to your inn for your things now?”

“We have an errand we must attend to in person,” she said; “we commissioned some formal clothes from a tailor on arriving in the city — I mentioned to you that we'd sometimes traveled as birds, abandoning our luggage and acquiring new things at our destination? And while we're out, we'll retrieve our rough travel garb from the inn. But we'll return as soon after that as may be.”

“Very well,” he said. “I shall appoint a servant to escort you; he will drive you in my own carriage.” He spoke to one of his servants, while Kazmina told Launuru what they had decided.

“All right,” she said. She looked unhappy, whether at another missed chance to talk alone with Tsavila or Verentsu or simply at the prospect of being away from them for a few hours (Kazmina suspected it was Verentsu she regretted more to be parted from); but Kazmina couldn't do their errands alone, not knowing Ksiluri. And leaving her here, if it were possible, would only lead to more frustration if she did contrive to be alone with one or both of her friends and found herself still unable to tell them who she was.

Once Launuru had given the driver his directions and they were in the carriage, Kazmina asked: “What did you say to Tsavila when she showed you to the garderobe?”

“I didn't have time for much,” Launuru said pensively; “first she asked me what I thought of Itsulanu — wasn't he a wonderful man, and so forth. I could see then she wasn't just pretending contentment in front of her father — she really loves him, if she told me so when we were alone. And then I started worrying about whether I might hurt her if I told her I was back and I still wanted to marry her...” She paused, looking troubled. “So I decided to try to find out what she thought of me, without telling her outright who I was. I asked if she'd ever loved anyone before Itsulanu, and she got mad — I thought at first it was because I'd asked too prying a question, she thinks we just met today — but then she said that he wasn't, but he was the first man who'd ever loved her! Why?” She was starting to cry.

“Shh,” Kazmina said, laying a hand on Launuru's arm. “We'll figure it out.” Of course she knew exactly why Tsavila would think that; but she couldn't tell Launuru what she knew or how, or Psavian might see it in her mind the next time they met. “So, something must have happened to make her think you never loved her. What might it have been?”

“I don't know.” Launuru was sobbing now, her face in her hands.

“I suppose... Oh. How many people around here know how you disappeared? I mean, all the circumstances — your love of Tsavila, Psavian putting the geas on you, everything?”

Launuru looked up at her. “I'm not sure...” After a pause, rubbing her eyes with one hand, she said: “Only Tsavila and Verentsu knew about the elopement, or so I thought until Psavian caught me... Maybe no one except Psavian knows how he exiled me.”

“So as far as Tsavila knows, perhaps, you just disappeared. And that was just after you made plans to elope, right?”

“The very next night. I arrived at their house and found myself, with no control of my limbs, climbing in Psavian's window instead of Tsavila's...”

“And you didn't see Tsavila or Verentsu or anyone but Psavian that night?”

“Maybe a servant, but I don't think so. Verentsu was back at the academy; he'd made a diversion to cover for my sneaking out.”

“So as far as they knew, you just disappeared?”

“I suppose so.”

“What about the part of your geas which made you tell people you met not to trifle with wizards? Did that make you stop several times here on your way out of the city, or only later on?”

“No... That didn't kick in until I ran out of money and had to start traveling slowly while I earned my bread for the day and bed for the night.”

“And you never tried to send a message to your family or to Verentsu, to pass a message on to Tsavila for you?”

“No... ah, the geas must have been keeping me from thinking of it! How could I fail to see it after the geas was lifted, though?”

“You were busy; we both were. Well, I think that explains what Tsavila said, about Itsulanu being the first man who's really loved her — you disappearing like that, with no warning or explanation, right after promising you'd marry her secretly if necessary — ”

“But why would she assume I ran away from her? Something bad might have happened to me — I mean, even if she didn't suspect her father of making away with me, I might have met a cutthroat or been run over by a carriage on my way from the academy to her house that night...”

“I don't know,” Kazmina lied. “Perhaps that's not a full explanation, then. But either way — whether she thought you were dead, or thought you had run away once the dalliance got too serious — it's clear that she's seriously enamored with Itsulanu now.”

“I know... Perhaps it isn't wise to tell her who I am, to make her choose between us. But I hate deceiving my best friend like this!”

Kazmina wondered whether, by “best friend,” she meant Verentsu or Tsavila? Probably the latter. “She knows me,” Kazmina said; “I mean, not so well as she knew you, as she would know you if she knew who you were... ouch. Anyway, perhaps she would talk to me. I'll sound her out about what she knew of your disappearance, what it looked like to her. That may give us a clue what to do next, how best to undeceive her without hurting her again.”

“Would you? Oh, thank you!” Launuru threw her arms around Kazmina and embraced her.

They were soon obliged to dry their tears and deal with the tailor. Kazmina watched and listened with only the faintest comprehension as Launuru examined the new dresses briefly, handed one of them to Kazmina, and started to pay for them. “Aren't we going to try them on?” Kazmina asked.

“Oh, I suppose we must,” Launuru said; “I just want to get back to Verentsu as soon as possible.”

To Verentsu. Interesting.

Launuru spoke to the tailor again, who nodded, and left the women alone in a room to try on the new dresses. They fit as perfectly as the previous ones. Soon they were in the carriage again, on the way to their inn.

“I just realized,” Kazmina said as they arrived; “when we hired the room, you were a man.”

“Oh,” Launuru said. “You're right. I suppose when we came and went before, the innkeeper recognized you as the woman who was with me when I paid for the room, and didn't concern himself that he didn't see the man who hired it too, or wonder who the second woman was... But now?”

“Shall I change you back, to look the same as you did when we hired the room...?”

Launuru looked queasy at this suggestion. Without waiting for her to answer, Kazmina quickly suggested: “No, that's not necessary, is it? I can just return the key after we retrieve our things.”

“Would you?”

So they did, making their way through the common room to the back hall; the common room was full of people eating and drinking, the innkeeper and his servants coming and going with mugs, dishes and money. Psavian's carriage driver came in with them to help carry their things, but though he looked surprised when all they handed him to carry was a small bundle of cheap clothes, he said nothing. On their way out, they patiently waited for a minute or two to get the innkeeper's attention; then Kazmina handed him the key. “We are leaving,” Launuru said. “We had the last room on the left of that hall there.”

“Oh,” the innkeeper said. “Wasn't there a man of your party as well...?”

“He's gone ahead to secure our lodgings at our next stop,” Launuru improvised.

“Very well. I hope you'll stay here if you visit Nilepsan again?”

“Very possibly. Thank you.”

So they returned to Psavian's house.

Launuru said little in the carriage on the way back to the wizard's house. She was thinking about her reaction when Kazmina had suggested that she change back into the man she'd been when she hired the room. It had been as appalling to her just now as the idea of becoming a woman had been when Kazmina suggested it two days ago. If that were so, how could she ask Tsavila to marry her, promising to become a man again soon?

Part of it, of course, had been a dread of the transformation itself, and of going through two such painful and disorienting changes in a short time just to discharge their obligations at the inn. She was glad that hadn't been necessary. But the idea of becoming a man again at all, permanently even more than temporarily, seemed dreadful. She wasn't sure whether it seemed worse or less bad than returning to her family in this form, or telling Verentsu and Tsavila that she had become a woman and was planning to stay that way... both options seemed horrible, and continuing indefinitely to masquerade as Shalasan worst of all. She had to make up her mind.

When they arrived again at Psavian's house, they found that Itsulanu's mother and sister had arrived in their absence. They, Itsulanu, Tsavila and Verentsu were all in the parlor when the carriage driver led them in the front door, carrying their bundles of clothing; Omutsanu and Psavian were somewhere else.

Tsavila greeted Kazmina in Rekhim; after a short conversation, she said to Launuru in Ksiluri, “This is my fiancé's sister, Tsaikuno, and his mother Lentsina. I present Shalasan daughter of Ndeshisan, cousin to Kazmina daughter of Znembalan.”

“I'm pleased to meet you,” Launuru said. Tsaikuno was a shy girl of fourteen or fifteen; she said little as the conversation turned again to the wedding preparations. Lentsina looked not much younger than her husband, but in good health; she was apparently also a wizard, as she conversed from time to time with Kazmina in Rekhim.

Launuru found no opportunity to speak with Tsavila alone that day, or, indeed, to talk with her much at all. With Verentsu she had more opportunity to talk, for which she was grateful, but she still had no chance to be alone with him. She saw that Kazmina had several opportunities to speak with Tsavila, but always with one or more of the other wizards in earshot and often joining in the conversation. Psavian and Omutsanu came and went during the afternoon, and once Tsavila disappeared somewhere with her father and Itsulanu's mother for a short time.

She felt hurt and rejected, and tried to push those feelings away, knowing they made no sense; Tsavila still had no idea who she was, and there was no reason she should treat “Shalasan” with any more courtesy or attention than she was actually doing. She was spread thin, with so many guests to divide her attention among; and this became only worse as the evening progressed and her older brothers, Iantsemu, Riksevian, and Melentsu, arrived with their wives and children. Launuru had met all of them before, except for Melentsu's bride Nuasila and Iantsemu and Psilina's new baby.

Their arrival shifted the balance of conversation again; from most of those present conversing in Rekhim, to mostly in Ksiluri. Psilina's baby, a girl of four months named Miretsi, was passed from one woman to another, bawdy remarks about the motherly potential of the unmarried and childless women being made intermittently all the while. When Launuru took her from Tsaikuno, she had not held a baby since her youngest sister learned to walk, but she hadn't forgotten how; indeed, she found it easier and more satisfying than she remembered.

“How long till you hold your own child?” Psilina asked her. “Are you betrothed?”

“No,” Launuru replied, mentally rehearsing her fictitious history. “The man my parents planned for me to marry was killed early in the revolution; then my father decided to wait until the war should be over to arrange another match. When the opportunity came for me to leave the country with Kazmina, he thought that safer than staying at home.”

This turned the conversation toward her own fictively sad history, the other women expressing commiseration for her misfortune. Launuru thanked them demurely, saying that she'd barely known her intended before his untimely death. After dandling Miretsi for a while, she reluctantly handed her to Kazmina.

After cooing and gurgling at Kazmina for a minute or two, however, Miretsi began to fuss, and Kazmina handed her back to her mother. “Her swaddling isn't dirty,” she said to Launuru; “I suppose she's hungry.”

Psilina had already figured this out before Launuru had time to decide whether she ought to translate Kazmina's remark; she said nothing as Psilina opened her blouse and began to nurse.

As Nuasila and Tsavila asked Psilina how often the baby was wanting to nurse, how long she was sleeping, and so forth, Kazmina said to Launuru: “Ask the baby's mother — what's her name?”

“Psilina.”

“Tell her that, if she wants a break at the next feeding, I can nurse the baby. Or I can enable any of the other women here to nurse her.”

“I'm not sure... she might be offended...”

“Well, use your judgment.” Kazmina smiled. “You know you want to.”

Launuru startled, and blushed. Kazmina had obviously noticed the way she was looking at the baby and her mother.

Some of the other women turned to look at Kazmina and Launuru. “What did your cousin say to make you turn so red, Shalasan?” Psilina asked.

“She — ah, she suggested, if it please you, that if you want a rest from nursing...”

“What?”

“She could use her magic to fill her own breasts with milk, or those of one of us other women. The next time Miretsi is hungry, perhaps.”

To her surprise, Psilina was delighted with the prospect. “She may do so, with my blessing. Especially when Mitsi cries for hunger in the darkest part of the night, yes?” She shifted the baby to her other breast.

No sooner had Launuru translated this for Kazmina than Nuasila, Tsavila, and even Tsaikuno spoke up, wanting a turn at nursing. Psavian broke in, saying something in Rekhim — something admonitory, Launuru guessed from his look and his tone. Tsavila and Kazmina both spoke at once, then paused, and Tsavila went on. After some further argument among the wizards, Tsavila said in Ksiluri: “Kazmina says the spell will not by itself wear off faster than a mother's breasts normally dry up when her child grows old enough for solid food, but she can reverse it as easily as she cast it, and she will do so before we part. Psilina, if you give your permission, we will each take a turn, and relieve you to get a good night's sleep tonight.”

Launuru surprised herself by saying, “I'd like a turn as well.”

“Very well, — I'll go first, then Kazmina, then Shalasan, then Nuasila, then Tsaikuno...?”

Psavian spoke sharply in Rekhim again. Tsavila looked at him directly and said calmly, not in Rekhim but in Ksiluri: “This is women's business, Father.”