Ennui's father tried, but his knowledge that she was the product of another man's embrace of his wife generated distance between them. He could not love her equally. That diffidence spread across to her mother. The child was correctly treated, but the emotion was emulated rather than genuine. She felt the lack, but didn't know how to deal with it, so pretended not to care.
Her associations with other children were not much better. Some children were pretty; she was not. Some were smart; she was not. Some were athletic; she was not. She was absolutely ordinary in every apparent way. Boys were not eager to play Tickle & Peek or Touch & Touch with her; girls did not invite her to share confidences. She was dull, and everyone knew it.
She sank slowly into indifference. Her typical answer to any question of preference was “I don't care,” or “It doesn't matter.” Thus in due course the others named her Ennui, the one who didn't care. But she did care, in her secret heart. She just didn't care to show it.
When she came of age and the other youths paired off for sex and marriage, she was the last girl left single in her village. She had to marry the last single boy, another fourth and a dullard. They did belatedly discover some interest in sexual merging, and did have three babies. Ennui didn't even try to ask another man for the fourth; they adopted a baby no one else wanted. And both lavished unusual affection on that fourth, for a reason they did not care to express. But as a family they remained dull.
She worked, of course. She took the first job that was open, knowing nothing about it: research clerk. She was one of a number of dull women who delved into the voluminous royal files for information when the king required it. Planet Charm was governed by the one group of people who lacked magic: the nonChroma. There were a dozen Chromas, regions colored by their local volcanoes, each completely magical. Each Chroma had many zones, for the volcanoes of any particular color were scattered randomly across the planet. Seen from space, they formed a pretty patchwork of colors. Hence the planet's name: Charm. Residents were the colors of their Chroma zones, as was everything else. Those of the Blue Chroma did blue magic; those of the Red Chroma did red magic, and so on. But blue magic did not work in a red zone or any other, so a blue person who traveled was at a disadvantage. Brigands knew this, and lurked on the trails between Chroma. So few folk traveled; they did not like being magically naked and helpless. Except for the nonChroma folk; they never had magic anyway, so did not miss it when traveling in or out of Chroma zones. They depended on purely physical and mental skills, like swords and wit. They went everywhere that magic wasn't, between and around Chroma zones. This gave them global power. They were also inherently impartial about magic, having no brief for any one Chroma over another. Thus nonChroma became the ruling group, and Triumph City was the capital of the world.
When there was trouble between Chroma, the king settled it. When there was a natural disaster, the king arranged for relief. When something strange occurred, the king investigated. For these services, all Chroma answered to the king, and paid taxes to him. But it was essential that the king be well informed before he took action. He had advisers, and they had assistants, and the assistants gave directives to their clerks and researchers, who did the dull work of finding what was relevant. If there was trouble between a Blue Chroma zone and a Green Chroma zone, Ennui might be one of the ones who dug out the entire thousand-year history of those two zones and filtered out what was relevant. She did not get personal credit for this; it was her job. She was anonymous.
Thus her life proceeded for twenty years. The children grew up and found their own abilities and commitments, and Ennui's marriage was little more than a shell. They had done their job, perpetuating the species in the prescribed manner. And she was bored to oblivion. She knew too much about planetary affairs, and not enough about personal satisfaction.
She had dreamed, once, as an isolated child, of somehow finding her ideal ability and situation, and becoming a person to be envied. But she had always known that she lacked any qualities to make that happen. She had always been dull, and would remain so. She was a creature of the lower levels of the city, and would never be anything else.
Her husband suffered an unsuspected malady, was ill two months, and died. Suddenly Ennui had no marriage. It wasn't that she valued it, but neither had she wished her husband any ill, and it was a shock. The laws of society didn't care: she had one month to find a new husband, or one would be assigned.
Then King Deal died in an accident. She didn't know that at the time; it wasn't publicized immediately. Instead a competition was announced, open to anyone, whose winner would achieve phenomenal notoriety. The losers would not be heard from again; they would disappear. This appealed to her; she had never been visible, so disappearance was no problem. And if by some weird chance she won—maybe it would make her life interesting at last. She knew that something significant was occurring, because the excitement of it filtered down through the echelons. This competition surely related.
Ennui had no life, and it promised to get worse. She didn't want to remarry. Her situation seemed hopeless. She realized that this was the one time in her existence that she could truly afford to gamble. What did she have to lose?
So she entered the contest. She found herself in a chamber with every sort of equipment or pleasure: food, weapons, clothing, amenable young men and women. There were a number of other contestants, who found this delightful. Until the first acid wash coursed through.
They leaped for high pedestals that rose from the floor to get clear of it. Ennui was lucky enough to get one, so she survived the first wash. But now the dark nature of the contest was apparent: there was one fewer of the stools than contestants. It was musical chairs, with the loser apparently being dissolved by the acid.
One of the contestants was a big barbarian man. He approached her, asking her help. But she demurred, and told him why: “I am afraid of you."
“I mean you no harm. How can I convince you?"
“Then make me an oath of friendship.” She knew about barbarian oaths from her researches; sometimes the king had to deal with outlying nonChroma villages. This man was deadly, but he would keep his given word. In some ways barbarians seemed more civilized than big city folk.
Finally he did it, and they became oath friends. And that was the act that changed her life, and gave her all that she had dreamed of, and more, though she did not know it then.
The game continued, and barbarian Havoc was true to his oath. He protected her from others, and guaranteed her a pedestal for each wash.
Between washes they talked. She acquainted him with the likely nature of this competition; it could be for some high position or special mission for the king. She had entered it voluntarily, but it seemed that he had been abducted from his distant home village of Trifle to the north and put in unaware. That was why he needed the advice and guidance of someone familiar with the city. He was, it turned out, ignorant but amazingly sharp minded.
There was a lovely young woman in red who had rejected Havoc's first approach. Now, seeing the way of it, that woman came to him, reconsidering, offering sex, but he rejected her. She then fomented an alliance against him. Two men charged him with sword and spear. Ennui screamed, but he dispatched both with a knife—and it was evident he could have done it barehanded, because he didn't stab them, he knocked them out with the hilt. Ennui realized that though he had chosen her for an alliance, she was the one who was profiting most. She had a warrior on her side.
Now they were three: Ennui, Havoc, and the woman in red, named Futility. Futility stripped her cloak and stood naked on her pedestal, offering her dancer's body again to Havoc. She was an ice maiden: desirable but heartless. But the barbarian was on to her, and refused to touch her.
Ennui, knowing that very soon the end would come to two of them, and that the survivor would be Havoc, found her personal restrictions loosening. She told him her secret: that she was depressed, and saw little value in life. He was her oath-friend; he understood.
r /> Then came the wash. Ennui went to her pedestal. Futility ran to push her off. Havoc intercepted Futility, who wrapped her bare legs about him, pressed her torso close, and kissed him avidly. Ennui saw him trying to pry the dancer loose as the acid surged toward them, but she clung desperately. Then he tickled her and she screamed and let go. Ennui would have laughed, had the situation not been so desperate.
Futility drew a knife from her hair, but Havoc disarmed her and threw her down as he got on the second pedestal. The acid swept over her. Futility was gone.
Now they were two. Ennui knew it was over for her; Havoc was the rightful winner. She would not take the pedestal again. She bid him thanks and parting, and asked him to knock her out so that she would not suffer as the acid took her. She had known him only briefly, but he had brought her a marvelous termination, far more interesting than her life.
But as the acid surged again, Havoc swept her off her feet and held her in his arms as he mounted the last pedestal. She had seen him in action, and knew he was fast and strong, but as his easy strength took her she was amazed. She protested, asking him to put her down, because this was surely breaking the rules, but she also loved him for his power and his conscience. “Oh Havoc,” she murmured as the awful sea of acid surrounded them. This was a dreamlike way to die, in the arms of a handsome young barbarian.
The acid receded. A door opened, and the king's herald came, presenting Havoc with the fabulous ten-spiked gold crown. “King Deal died yesterday morning. You are the new king. All power to you, King Havoc."
Havoc thought it must be a joke, but Ennui knew it wasn't. She assured him that this was the prize he had won.
And Havoc surprised her again. He didn't want to be king. He just wanted to return to his home village.
But he didn't have a choice. Archers appeared, their bows drawn, orienting on him. It was plain that he would be killed if he did not take the crown. Ennui pleaded with him, and because she was his oath friend, he took her word. One had to trust an oath friend, however recent, and an oath friend had to be trustworthy. It was the barbarian way. He donned the crown, and all present bowed down to him, calling him Sire.
“Stay with me, Ennui,” he said. “I need you.” And it seemed he did, because she knew the ways of civilization. In this manner she ceased being a lowly peasant woman and became the Lady Ennui, the king's advisor.
He asked her to give the men whatever directives were needed, since he had no idea what to do. But she, overwhelmed by the excitement of recent events and their phenomenal conclusion, fainted. Some help she was! The last thing she felt was his arms around her again, as he caught her and picked her up. She felt marvelously safe.
When she recovered consciousness, they were on an elevator. Havoc didn't know what it was, and didn't trust it. He really was a barbarian. When it moved, he wanted to leap to safety. She had to grab his arm and hold him, reassuring him about the nature of the mechanism. But they wound up climbing a spiral ramp instead. When she got too tired to continue, he picked her up a third time and carried her. Oh, that muscle!
She explained things to him as they went. There was an enormous amount to cover, because he knew almost nothing about the city, let alone about being king. He made her stop calling him Sire; she was his oath friend.
The herald advised Havoc that all the prior king's staff were awaiting word of their dismissal, so he could install his own people. Baffled, as he had no people, he asked Ennui. All she could think of was to suggest that he keep the old ones, until he had more information. He did that, and thereby won the instant devotion and loyalty of the entire establishment. It was the kind of naïve thing no civilized king would have done. But apart from that, there was something about Havoc. Ennui was one of the first of many to realize that.
First they talked to the majordomo, the head of the palace household staff. He introduced them to the assembled staff. There was awkwardness, until Ennui stepped in and gave them sensible guidelines in Havoc's presence, therefore at the king's bidding. She was surprised to find herself reasonably competent at this, and it was clear that he really did need her. He had saved her life; now she was saving his stature before those who had known the old king.
Then she had to persuade him to honor another royal custom: being bathed by three lovely young women. He saw no need of a bath just because he was sweaty and smelly, but he took her word. She persuaded him to think of it as a game of Statue, where he was blindfolded and subjected to being Peeked and Touched by girls, losing only if he moved or protested. She knew he feared getting a masculine reaction, but that was part of the point of such a game; the girls could safely test their power to arouse the victim. In this manner he was thoroughly cleaned and garbed for his next interview.
When he saw the royal outfit he was wearing, he said he felt like a clown. He wanted to leave all this and go home. Ennui managed to persuade him that he couldn't do that. She found his sincere diffidence charming.
“Ennui, I think I am coming to love you,” he said, giving her an illicit thrill she struggled to suppress. “Do not leave my side.” She promised not to, except when protocol required it. Now she was quite certain that he needed her, and she reveled in being needed. She had made him make the oath of friendship because she feared him; now she was coming into the full significance of the oath. He was the king, but she was like a mother to him, guiding him, being trusted by him. There was no way she would ever betray him or let him suffer any avoidable embarrassment.
She joined him in a meal, being the only one he felt comfortable with, and that was just as well, because he did have the manners of a barbarian. Then they met the Chief of Staff, and Ennui helped smooth over the awkwardnesses. They agreed that she should be designated the king's social secretary, serving as liaison between him and others.
Then they went to met King Deal's widow, the Lady Aspect. She was in the process of packing her things to move out. She had been widowed only a day and a half, and had not expected it. Now she had to vacate, and remarry within a month, as no women were allowed to be single. She was a handsome woman of Ennui's age, and by all accounts a good person, intelligent, accommodating, and decent.
Havoc was blunt in his barbarian way. First he ascertained the limits of his social authority: members of the king's staff were exempt from the marriage requirement, the better to serve the king. Ennui realized that her assignment as his secretary had freed her from the need to remarry, a more than incidental blessing. Now he made the Lady aspect his household organizer, let her keep her residence at the palace, and asked her to let Ennui board with her. He wasn't aware that such a request by the king had the force of command; he thought he was being polite. Then he lay down on the floor and slept.
And that was my introduction to you, Ennui concluded. My best friend, next to Havoc.
* * * *
The Lady Aspect did not pause in her scrubbing, for she did not want to give away the fact that the two of them had been in intimate mental contact. Instead she responded with her own personal history.
I was a creature of the nobility from the first, she thought.
She was the first child, and favored from the outset because she was pretty. She was well cared for and was provided with excellent education and life experiences. She grew up in the upper sections of the city of Triumph, and her parents had responsible positions in the king's hierarchy. On occasion they were invited to royal parties, and once when she was sixteen King Diamond danced with her. She was utterly thrilled, and in that moment dreamed of becoming his mistress. But of course he already had a wife-approved mistress, and was loyal to her, and there were hundreds of lovely maidens eager to get into the king's bed. So there was no realistic chance, but she dreamed for weeks.
When she approached eighteen she was required to marry, as all folk were. She had played Tickle & Peek with a number of boys when she was a child, and explored sex with several when her breasts developed, as was normal. She never lacked for male interest, so could afford to be c
hoosy. She liked one boy especially, and wanted to marry him, but one disadvantage of her class was that social connections were often more important than private preference. Her parents selected a man with excellent prospects, and they married on her eighteenth birthday. He was a thirty-year-old widower. She despaired of her life.
His name was Deal, and he was handsome, smart, and connected. For an older man. There was something magnetic about him that she fought to resist, without perfect success. From the start other married women asked him for their fourths, and he was of course obliged to accommodate them. Aspect could have no legitimate objection, but privately she seethed. She was his wife; she wanted him all to herself, even though he was of another generation. She did not like being alone at night, knowing that he was in the bed of another woman, getting her pregnant. Her pride was taking a beating.
Deal was sensitive, and picked up on her mood. “Statement,” he said seriously. “We married not by our own choices. It was political and expedient. But you are the prettiest and finest woman I know, and I love you, and would rather be in your embrace than any of theirs. I do not wish to cause you to suffer. I will tell them no henceforth."
Something tore inside her. She had been determined not to love the man she had not chosen for marriage, but his statement burned that away. “I would rather have your love than your penis,” she said. “I love you too, and would not have you be known as unsocial. Do not tell them no."
He was taken aback. “You do not want—"
“Misunderstanding,” she said quickly. “I do want you in my bed, always.” As of that moment, it was true.