Read Singer from the Sea for Free Online

Marshal’s ways, for he cultivated angers like garden vegetables until each was well ripened and firmly rooted. These habits served him so well on the battlefield that he had never thought to leave them there, neither the hot fury that led him off on daily rants nor the cold wrath that stirred in him seldom but was more fearsome for its rarity.
    Genevieve had felt it first on the night of her eighth birthday. There had been guests invited to dinner, and when the guests departed, one neighbor had stayed behind to play a game of chess with the Marshal. He was an elderly and kindly gentleman, familiar enough that Genevieve did not feel shy around him. That day she had been much indulged by mother and the servants, and when the men sat down in the shadowy room with the firelight glinting from the shelves of leather-bound volumes that stoodforever at attention, even the Marshal had not sent her out of the room as he customarily did.
    Genevieve was curled on the settle with a new book, though when the two men started playing, she looked at the game board instead of the pages. At first it was only a drowsy watching, but gradually she began to see the why of the moves and her gaze became intent.
    The pieces were interesting. She had seen them before, but without really paying attention. Now she had a chance to watch them in action on the board. The little ones, she decided, were like the housemaids. They could not do much or go very far, and they were always in danger of being snatched up, as she had seen the Marshal snatch one up, a pretty one that Genevieve much liked but did not see again after that time. So did the little pieces disappear when they were snatched up, back into the box.
    The horsemen were more powerful, able to jump fences this way and that way. Along with the horses, each side had two pieces much like the Marshal, she decided, for they could go all the way across the board on the slant, while the fortresses, which were like her father’s battle wagons, had to stick to the roads.
    The last two pieces were the Lord Paramount and his Queen. Even if father hadn’t said their names, that is all they could be, sitting there quietly, depending upon the marshals and battlewagons and horsemen to protect them while their little serving maids ran this way and that way, screaming, with their aprons over their faces.
    In the end, if it was necessary, the Queen would sacrifice herself for the Lord Paramount. Genevieve saw exactly how it happened. The Queen did not show what she could do. She moved only when she had to, never bustling about, but if the Lord Paramount was threatened, she moved to save him. If necessary, she died for the Lord Paramount. As this was in accord with covenantal behavior, Genevieve was not surprised. Lives of service to their lords and masters was the lot of womankind.
    The particular night was blustery, but as it was cosy before the fire the two men played for a long time. When father’s old friend went home at last, Genevieve climbed down from the settle and eagerly asked her father if hewould play the game with her. He, softened by wine and an indolent evening, felt momentarily indulgent. It was her birthday, after all.
    “Well, my child, that shouldn’t take long, now should it. Shall I help you set up the pieces?”
    She shook her head, all eagerness, and set them up herself. He let her move first, and she sent one of her maids out into the world. The Marshal moved, and then she again, letting her horsemen jump where it was right to go, and her marshals move to stop an advance, and so on, until suddenly her father was staring at her with a kind of fire in his eyes. She looked back at the board, not to miss anything. He moved again, slowly, watching her. She moved. “Check,” she said, as she had heard him say. “And mate.”
    And then she really looked up, excited and proud, only to see that fire burning in his eyes. And she knew it for what it was. Cold wrath. She had done something