“Oh, I should have showed you our sitting room earlier, while there was still daylight!” Epiny exclaimed in sudden disappointment. “You can’t see our new glass curtains at all properly at night!” Despite this announcement, she went to a corner and drew the white curtains back with a pulley arrangement. Between the night and us a threaded fabric of tiny glass beads hung on thin filaments of wire. “When the sun shines, you can see that there is an entire landscape there worked in beads. Tomorrow perhaps you can see it better,” she announced, and swept the white curtains across once more.
Spink and I were still standing, for the room lacked chairs of any kind. My uncle folded his long legs to sink down on one of the immense cushions that littered the carpeted floor. Purissa was already sprawled on one, and Epiny returned to likewise ensconce herself on one. “Do sit down,” she directed us as she produced a brown wooden game box from a drawer in a low table. “My mother has followed the queen’s example in furnishing our sitting room. Our queen has been quite taken with Sebanese decor of late. After a court dinner, she retires with all her favorites to her own lounging room. Just sit down anywhere around the table and be comfortable.”
Both Spink and I settled uneasily. Our trousers had not been tailored for this sort of sitting, nor did our boots allow much bend to the ankles, but we managed. Epiny was setting out a game with brightly colored cards and ceramic chips and an enameled board. She seemed to delight in the musical clacking of the pieces as she arranged it all.
“I’m afraid I don’t know this game,” Spink said sociably as she assigned a color to each of us.
“Oh, never fear on that account. All too soon you will know it too well,” my uncle predicted with a wry grin.
“It is such fun, and terribly easy to learn,” Epiny assured him earnestly.
Such proved to be the case. For all its shiny and elegant pieces, the game was idiotically simple. It involved matching colors and symbols, and calling out different words if one had a red match or a blue match and so on. Both girls were constantly leaping to their feet and doing little dances of triumph when they secured winning pairs of cards. I rapidly tired of leaping to my feet to declare that I’d scored a point. Epiny insisted it was a rule and that I must comply. For the first time, my uncle interfered with her willfulness, and announced that neither Spink nor I nor he would leap up, but would merely raise a hand. Epiny pouted about this for a time, but the dreary little game proceeded anyway. Is there anything more tedious than a pointless pastime?
My uncle managed to escape with the excuse that little Purissa was not allowed to stay up late. Her nanny had come to the door to find her, and surely he could have sent the child off with her. I think Uncle Sefert insisted on accompanying them simply to escape the dreadful game.
With two players gone, the game proceeded even more rapidly, for the element of uncertainty as to who held what markers was greatly reduced. We played two more rounds of it, with Spink courteously pretending to enjoy himself before I could stand it no longer. “Enough!” I said, throwing my hands up in mock surrender. I tried to smile as I added, “Your game has exhausted me, Epiny. Shall we take a brief recess?”
“You tire too easily. What sort of a cavalla officer will you be when you cannot stand up to the demands of a simple game?” she asked me tartly. Smiling, she turned to Spink. “You are not weary yet, are you?” she asked him.
He smiled back. “I could play another hand or two.”
“Excellent. Then we shall!”
I had expected Spink to side with me. Deprived of my ally, I conceded, and we played another three hands. Midway through our second hand, my uncle looked in on us. Epiny immediately and enthusiastically welcomed him back to the game, but he firmly declined, saying he had some reading to do. Before he retired to that, he reminded us that the next day was the Sixday, and that we should all get to bed early enough that we could easily rise for the daylight services he always attended.
“We’re just going to do a few more hands,” Epiny assured him to my dismay, for I was very willing to retire from her and her game and seek a good night’s rest. My uncle left and we finished yet another round of the tedious game. Then, as Epiny gathered the markers to set them up afresh she asked us, “Have either of you ever been part of a seance?”
“A science?” Spink was puzzled, and then helpfully offered, “Nevare appears to enjoy geology as a hobby.”
“No. Not a science.” Epiny continued to set up the playing pieces for the game. She was sending us only furtive glances, gauging our reactions from under her eyelashes. “Aseance. A summoning of spirits, often through a medium. Like me.”