“You said you were not betrothed to any man back home; do you hope that Verentsu will ask you to be his bride?”

“Yes,” Launuru said shyly. “But I am afraid...” The geas wouldn't let her complete the sentence.

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 15 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.

“My cousin begs your pardon,” Launuru said as she sat down next to Verentsu, her heart pounding with anticipation. “She wishes to breakfast with the other wizards, with whom she can speak more freely.”

“I understand,” Verentsu said. “Here, the cornbread is very good this morning.”

“Thank you... What are your plans for the day?”

“That is just what I was impatiently waiting to tell you,” he said. “Just an hour ago my father told me that I'd been working hard enough, preparing for Tsavila's wedding for so many days while my brothers were busy with their own business and their wives and children — he wants Iantsemu and Riksevian to take over my responsibilities for a few hours and give me a break. So I'm free until early evening. Would you like to go for a walk around the estate? We could bring lunch with us...”

“I would love to,” Launuru said. This must be what Psavian had promised, giving her a chance to speak with Verentsu alone.

“Tell your cousin,” he said, “when we're done eating — perhaps she'll want to come, though I shouldn't be surprised if she prefers to do something with the other wizards. Probably some of the other young people will join us, though — my cousins and Itsulanu's, maybe Tsaikuno. Tsavila will be busy for a while, there's a rite she and Lentsina have to perform at the shrine, but perhaps she can join us afterward...”

Or maybe not.

“I would prefer,” she said in a low tone, “if there were fewer people present — perhaps just one other, who can attest that we did nothing unseemly, but sometimes walk at a distance and give us time to speak quietly...” Even as she spoke, she worried he would think her too bold.

“I shall see to it,” he said, just as quietly. “If your cousin is not inclined to come, perhaps,” and here he raised his voice, as Melentsu and Nuasila arrived and sat down next to them, “Melentsu and Nuasila would like to join us?”

“Indeed, here we are,” Melentsu said. “You needn't shout.”

“I meant, join us for a long walk and a picnic lunch,” Verentsu went on, “not only for breakfast. Father has asked Iantsemu and Riksevian to take over my preparation tasks for a few hours, and Shalasan and I were making tentative plans to walk out to the tombs and the waterfall.”

“That would be fun,” Nuasila said. She sat very close to Melentsu.

During much of breakfast, Verentsu was busy speaking with his oldest brothers about the things they needed to do in his absence. Launuru half-listened, eating and conversing intermittently with Melentsu and Nuasila. She could see wisdom in Verentsu's plan: the newlyweds would probably be so absorbed in each other that it would be easy to walk gradually further ahead of or behind them, and thus obtain space to speak privately.

After breakfast Verentsu said he had to meet briefly with his father and older brothers, and obtain their lunch fixings from the kitchen servants; after that, he would be free to go. Launuru looked around the room and found Kazmina still in conversation with some of the other wizards; Tsavila, Itsulanu and his parents were gone from the table, but Psavian and most of the other wizard guests were still there. Launuru approached and said quietly to Kazmina, “Verentsu has invited me to go for a walk.”

“Do you need me to chaperon?” Kazmina asked. The older woman she'd been talking to looked on patiently.

“I don't think so,” Launuru replied. “He's invited Melentsu and Nuasila. If it were anyone else I'd ask you to come along and distract them with a magical entertainment so Verentsu and I can talk aside, but with them, I don't think any external distraction will be necessary.”

“Good luck,” Kazmina said, and squeezed her hand.

Half an hour later, they left the house. Melentsu and Verentsu carried bags of food and other supplies; Nuasila was entrusted with a tall tallow candle, already lit though it was broad daylight. Melentsu led the way down a path through the garden, where his sisters-in-law were watching their children play, to a trail that passed between a cornfield and a walnut orchard. At a distance, they could see slaves working in the cornfield.

At first, Verentsu and Launuru stayed close to Melentsu and Nuasila. Melentsu wanted to tell “Shalasan” about his father's estate, and the place they were going.

“Father bought this place, and the slaves with it, from a second cousin of the last owner, who died with no close relatives. I can barely remember when we got it — it was when Verentsu was a baby. Father has made some improvements to the house, and last year we built a tomb for our mother, but otherwise it's much like it was when I was small.” Launuru had heard most of this years ago, but she contrived to look interested.

“Over there,” Melentsu went on as they reached a wooden bridge across a broad, shallow creek, “built into that hill, there are several tombs belonging to the old owners of the place, and then off to the left there's our own family tomb. Our mother's the only one buried there so far.”

They crossed the bridge and approached the tomb hill. They passed the walled-up entrances of the previous owners' tombs, and came to a newer one, its white marble showing hardly any weathering; carved over the entrance was the name “Terasina daughter of Merusina,” and below that, in smaller letters, “Wife of Psavian son of Iantalan.”

“You will excuse us for a moment,” Verentsu said to Launuru. She nodded. He took sticks of incense from his satchel, and Melentsu took the candle from Nuasila; they entered the vestibule of the tomb. Nuasila and Launuru stood outside, a little distance away. Launuru wondered if she would hear or see Terasina's ghost again; could she appear here, as well as in the room in the city house where she died? Perhaps not in broad daylight... but still, so close to her tomb, Verentsu's mother might be able to help her in some way. Launuru spoke silently, asking for her help, but heard no reply.

“My brother-in-law seems very taken with you,” Nuasila said, interrupting her thoughts.

“Oh,” Launuru said. “I... I hope you are right.”

“You said you were not betrothed to any man back home; do you hope that Verentsu will ask you to be his bride?”

“Yes,” Launuru said shyly. “But I am afraid...” The geas wouldn't let her complete the sentence.

“I suppose it might be difficult, arranging things with your family while your country is at war. But if Verentsu loves you he will wait as long as it takes for messages to go back and forth... perhaps his father can speak with yours at a distance by magic?”

“Perhaps.”

“Or do you fear that though he enjoys being with you today, he won't care to tie himself to you forever?”

“Yes.” The geas allowed her to say that much, now that Nuasila had asked a suitable question. She was trying to figure out something else she could say that that would be both true and allowed by the geas, when Melentsu and Verentsu emerged from the tomb.

“Be bold,” Nuasila said quietly, and then walked toward her husband. “What next?” she asked.

“We could walk down the creek to the pond and eat our lunch,” Melentsu suggested; “there are benches there.”

“Are you growing hungry, Shalasan?” Verentsu asked. “As for me, it's not so long since breakfast; if you ladies aren't growing tired or hungry, I suggest we walk up the creek to the waterfall before we return downstream to the benches by the pond and eat.”

“That suits me,” Launuru said, and Nuasila agreed. As they walked upstream, past the walnut orchard which gave way after a little distance to pine forest, Nuasila engrossed her husband's attention; Verentsu and Launuru fell behind the other couple little by little. When they were more than sixty yards behind, Verentsu said quietly:

“So, my sister told me this morning that you had something to tell me. Do I guess rightly that it has to do with your pretending to be Kazmina's cousin, 'Shalasan'? If that is your name...”

Launuru took a deep breath. “No,” she began; “I mean, Shalasan isn't my real name. I didn't mean to deceive you, or Tsavila — I meant to tell you as soon as I had a private moment with either of you, with your father not around — but... Let me start over, please.”

“As you like.” His face showed curiosity tinged with suspicion. Her nerve almost failed her, but she braced herself and said: “I am your friend Launuru.”

Verentsu stopped in his tracks; Launuru reacted a moment later, having stepped a pace beyond him. “Launuru son of Rusaulan? How...? Why...?”

“The rumors you heard after I disappeared are false,” she went on hurriedly, turning to face him. “Horrible slanders — I never laid with that servant at the academy, much less got her with child — I didn't even — ”

“Why are you disguised as a girl, and traveling with that foreign enchantress? Where have you been? — If you're really Launuru... How do I know...?”

“Let me start from the beginning, please? And perhaps we should keep walking...”

“I suppose so...” He went on up the trail, and she followed; they kept Melentsu and Nuasila just barely in sight.

“So, Tsavila and I made our plans to elope, just after your father told her that he was arranging this match with Itsulanu. I told you the next morning, after she spoke with me in a dream — then that evening I snuck out of the academy, and you covered for me.”

“All right,” he said, “if you're not Launuru, you've spoken with him and know things that nobody else knows...”

“So I got to the city and inside the walls just before they closed the gates for the night, and then made my way to your house. I found the rope Tsavila had set out for me and climbed the wall, then crept through the garden — but I found myself going right past Tsavila's window, and realized I no longer had control of my body. I crawled to the window of your father's study, which was open, and climbed in as quietly as I could — he was sitting there, smiling. I closed the window and said, 'Here I am.' Then he told me he'd known for several days about me and Tsavila; he'd set a magical trap for me that would make me come to his window instead of hers, next time I came to visit her secretly. And then he worked another spell on me, and told me what I had to do. I crept out again as quietly as I'd come, walked straight to Northgate, and left the city as soon as it opened the next morning. I spent the next six months traveling on foot, working menial jobs here and there to pay for food and lodging, and telling everyone I met how dangerous it was to mess with wizards.”

“Psunavan's bow!” Verentsu swore. “How could he...? How did you get free? Did the spell wear off, or did Kazmina break it...?”

“I finally I came to the place he'd sent me, way up in northern Netuatsenu — Kazmina's father's house. I was supposed to tell him who had sent me and why, and let him do whatever he wanted with me — Psavian said he would probably test new spells on me. But he had gone off to war, and left Kazmina in charge of his affairs. And when I told her my story, she said she would help me elope with Tsavila — ”

“Did she!”

“Well, she said it would depend on what Tsavila wanted, of course, once we got here. And it turned out — you know. But anyway, she said she would help me get here quickly, before the wedding, and find a chance to meet with Tsavila secretly without Psavian knowing.”

“Thus the disguise.”

“Yes, only it's not exactly a disguise. We told you how Kazmina turned us into birds, and we covered a lot of distance by flying? That part was true — only we didn't say that was almost the entire voyage, flying hundreds of miles a day for four days and then covering the last few leagues on foot... And then once we got here, Kazmina used the same kind of spell she'd used to turn us into geese to turn me into a woman.”

“To turn you into... Oh. Not a disguise, you said.” His face showed just the sort of fascinated revulsion she'd been afraid of. What else to say? Kazmina had suggested —

“Right. It's real, inside and out... At first I didn't want to, it seemed — I don't know — unnatural? Even more than turning into a bird.” She decided not to mention that she'd been a female goose, and Kazmina a gander; she was confronting Verentsu with enough unnatural strangeness without that. “But Kazmina convinced me it was the surest way to get a chance to speak privately with Tsavila. We weren't thinking in terms of meeting you or your brothers — if I'd thought it through, I could have guessed that you might be around, but I didn't know you'd taken over managing your father's household since I left.”

“But why didn't you tell me or Tsavila who you were as soon as Father was out of the room?”

“I didn't know myself, until yesterday.” True if vague; she wasn't sure if she should tell him about his mother's ghost — not just yet, perhaps. One strangeness at a time. “But your father detected me almost as soon as we arrived, in spite of Kazmina's magical protections, and he put another spell on me, to keep me from telling you or Tsavila who I was. I didn't realize he'd enchanted me again, I just kept finding excuses why it wasn't the right time to tell you yet — and hating myself more and more for being such a procrastinator and coward — ” She choked off a sob, and her steps faltered; he paused and turned his face toward her for the first time in several minutes. She wanted to bury her face against his chest and cry, but the look on his face discouraged her; she started crying anyway.

“How could he — I can hardly believe — ”

“Ask him; or ask Tsavila — he admitted it all when she confronted him about it. And he bribed that servant at the academy to tell people I was her baby's father, too — ”

“I'm sorry, I don't like to disbelieve you, but I hate to believe that about Father — ”

“Ask Tsavila,” she repeated, and started crying again. “She looked into my mind, didn't she tell you?”

“She did — now I understand — she told me that she couldn't tell me yet what she'd learned, and then this morning she said you'd tell me yourself. And then Father told me he was giving me leave for most of the day, and he suggested I take some of the young people — he mentioned you specifically — out for a walk around the estate...”

“We talked last night — him and Tsavila and Kazmina and me. I told him I realized Tsavila was in love with Itsulanu, and I promised not to make trouble or disrupt her wedding, and he promised to take this geas off me so I wouldn't have to keep pretending to be Kazmina's cousin, once the wedding was over — ”

“So you can go back to yourself then?”

Now was the deciding moment. “I can. But I'm not sure I want to — I told you how I felt when Kazmina proposed this plan? Imagine how you would feel if she suggested that you turn into a woman for a few days — ”

“Gah!” he exclaimed. “Surely you could have — there must have been another way — ”

“Maybe there was, but we couldn't think of one. But you have to understand how it worked — within a few hours after she changed me, it all felt natural. And my feeling and thinking changed to fit my new state — instead of being a man passionately in love with your sister, I was a woman, friendly to her as women are friends with one another. And — ” She hesitated, and decided to slow down. Instead of telling him the corollary, how her feelings toward Verentsu himself had changed, she said: “And the same repugnance I felt for becoming a woman, I feel now about becoming a man.”

“You're really a woman, then... You said you were no longer in love with Tsavila?”

“Yes — which is just as well, now that I know about her and Itsulanu. He seems like a good man. And — well, another reason I hesitate to ask Kazmina to change me back into a man is that I'm afraid I would be hopelessly in love with Tsavila again.” Why couldn't she tell him the main reason?

“But — but you'll get over that, with time. You have to — you're a man, Launuru!”

“Not now. I know I could be a man again, if — but I don't want it, any more than you want to be a woman.”

“Kazmina's magic is that strong? Oh — ” He stopped short, then spoke again, slowly and reluctantly: “Are you sure this isn't part of my father's enchantment, the same way he made you procrastinate about telling us without realizing why?”

Launuru considered that. “I don't think so,” she said, “but you can ask Tsavila to look into my mind again and see. He's supposed to take the spell off sometime before the wedding, probably later today — she'll watch and confirm that he doesn't leave any compulsions or tricks in place.”

“If she can — he's far more experienced than she is. Kensaulan's scales! — I hate to think of him tricking you like that, but if he's done it once, he might do it again, to keep you from making trouble for Tsavila and Itsulanu after they're married.”

“I don't think that part of it is his fault,” she said. “Kazmina warned me about some of this — I think she knew I might be reluctant to change back and she'd have to convince me again, the way she had to convince me to let her change me the first time — ”

“Then let her convince you. Let me convince you! If you got used to being a woman within a few hours, surely you'd get used to being yourself again in a few minutes?”

Knowing that didn't make it easier or more attractive. She had to tell him the real reason, with no more delay.

“Don't make me, please. Don't send me away. I love you, Verentsu!” In spite of the horrified look he gave her, she threw her arms around him, leaned her head against his shoulder, and sobbed fierce sobs.

Verentsu had heard his old friend's story with a certain amount of skepticism, at first, which gave way to pity and anger when he — or she? — told how his attempted elopement with Tsavila had gone wrong. As far as Verentsu had known until now, no one but he, Launuru, and Tsavila had known of the planned elopement; certainly if this woman or quasi-woman wasn't Launuru, she knew things that she could only have learned from him. This pity gave way to revulsion when she told how the foreign enchantress had turned him into a woman. Verentsu's involuntary physical reaction to this account was not unlike his reaction when he first heard how the people of northern Mezinakh punish convicted rapists. He cringed, and it was all he could do not to cover his crotch in an irrational protective gesture. Revulsion gradually receded, giving way to a resurgence of pity as he came to suspect that Launuru's mind was being magically manipulated in more ways, and perhaps by more wizards, than she suspected. He felt instinctively that she was telling him the truth, but was equally sure that the Launuru he had known would not think or say or act as she was doing. But this recurrent pity was almost entirely driven out again by a redoubled revulsion when she suddenly embraced him and started sobbing.

He pushed her away roughly, almost immediately regretting it, but still feeling more revulsion and anger than remorse. “Get a hold of yourself, man!” he cried — too loud; Melentsu and Nuasila might have heard that, if they were still anywhere nearby... He realized that he and Launuru had been standing here for several minutes. “Think of what you're saying! I don't know who's been manipulating you with what magic, but whatever they did can be undone — and maybe you can resist it by your own power; you have to try!”

She turned away and buried her face in her hands, still sobbing too hard to speak. If it were the Shalasan he thought he'd just met and rapidly grown fond of who were sobbing so, he would take her in his arms to comfort her, but... Oh, no. How quickly he'd fallen for her! Were his own emotions being magically manipulated, by Kazmina or his father or Tsavila, or some enemy of his father's who was using Kazmina and Launuru against them...?

“Launuru,” he said, forcing himself to be calm and speak more quietly, “please, control yourself. We'll go to the shrine and wait for Tsavila and Lentsina to finish the rite, and we'll ask Tsavila to look into your mind and see — ” He stopped. Could he trust even Tsavila? What if she, fearful of her wedding with Itsulanu being disrupted if Launuru became himself again, a jealous lover, had (on her own or conspiring with their father) manipulated Launuru to find reasons to remain a woman? “Or someone. We'll leave the estate, I'll take a couple of horses, and we'll go to the city and find a wizard who is neither Father's friend nor his enemy — someone neutral we can trust — and get them to undo whatever Father and Kazmina did to you...”

“No,” Launuru said; “you don't understand. I love you — if it were a spell making me love you, it would stop working so subtly once you told me about it, like the spell your father used to keep me from telling you who I was. This is real. It's who I am now. Can you love me?”

“I...” He looked at her, thought of his old friend, and imagined the hidden changes in his body concealed here and revealed there by the silk dress — and involuntarily cringed. “I'm your friend, Launuru. I want to help you.”

“No,” she said, “you want to change me;” and she turned and ran back down the path. After standing there astonished for a moment, he followed her. With his longer legs and greater familiarity with the trail, he should have caught up to her quickly, but as he rounded a bend he tripped on an exposed root and and went sprawling. He was stunned for a moment. As he picked himself up, he heard Melentsu's voice:

“What happened to you? Where's Shalasan?”

Nuasila said “We heard you yelling — we thought we'd better come — ”

They had come up behind him and were looking down in concern as he sat up, then stood, his right hip aching where he'd hit the ground. Verentsu decided against telling them everything Launuru had said — maybe Melentsu alone, sometime, but not Nuasila, not here and now. “Come on — she can't be too far ahead — she's probably going back to the house, and the trail is pretty clear, but there's a chance she could get lost...” He started jogging briskly down the trail toward the tombs and the bridge.

“What happened?” Melentsu asked, chasing after him. “Did you make too bold with her, and she knocked you down and ran off?”

“No — other way around — ” He devoted his breath to running rather than talking, and left Melentsu behind — his brother didn't care to leave his wife alone. When Verentsu reached the bridge and the tombs, he looked around, started to call out “Launuru!,” and checked himself. He called “Shalasan! Shalasan?,” as he climbed the hill for a better view. No sign of her downstream toward the pond or across the creek on the trail toward the house — perhaps she'd gotten farther ahead than he expected. Had he been unconscious longer than he thought, when he fell?

Melentsu and Nuasila caught up with him as he was looking around and shouting for her.

“Explain!” Melentsu called. Verentsu scrambled back down the hill.

“Let's go back to the house,” he said, and started across the bridge. “It was the other way around, as I said — she threw herself at me, and I pushed her away, told her it was unseemly. Then she broke down and cried, and after a few moments she ran off. I started to follow, but I tripped and probably knocked myself out for a minute — she got a good way ahead of me somehow.”

“There must have been something more than that,” Melentsu said. “What did you say to her before? What do you mean, 'threw herself at you'?”

“Never mind,” Verentsu said, impatience mingling with guilt. “I wasn't making advances to her, if that's what you're thinking, much less improper advances — she was telling me about her past, things I won't repeat now and probably never, and then — we've got to find her.”

But when they reached the house, and first looked for her discreetly, then asked the slaves and servants about her, and finally the guests, no one had seen her.

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.