Empire in Black and Gold (5 page)

‘How much did you put out to catch him?’ Stenwold asked Paldron softly. The magnate smiled beatifically at him.

‘The poor lad misses his College friends, no doubt,’ he said dismissively. It was, Stenwold reflected, just another problem with the great and good of Collegium today. Give them a famine, a war, a poverty-stricken district or a child shorn of parents and they would debate the symbolism and the philosophy of intervention. Give them some competition or empty trophy and they would break every rule to parade their victories publicly through the town.

‘But fighting alongside Seladoris?’ Stenwold said. ‘
Alongside
Spider-kinden?’

Paldron glanced back at his team. There was indeed a pointed distance between Piraeus and the Spider youth, and neither acknowledged the other. Theirs was a racehatred with roots lost in the mists of time. It was remarkable that mere money had now built over it.

‘Not such a problem,’ Paldron told him. ‘Who knows, he might even end up contesting against your . . .
ward
.’ He said the word with a sneer barely disguised within the walls of polite conversation. Stenwold bore it stolidly, for it was hardly the first time. He glanced back at his team to see how they were taking the news. To his relief, rather than seeing them dispirited or alarmed, they were gathered in a close huddle, talking tactics.

‘I could take him,’ Tynisa was murmuring. ‘You know how good I am.’

‘We do,’ Che acknowledged. ‘And you’re not
that
good. We saw him fight last year. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘There’s more to fighting than jabbing a sword about, little Che,’ Tynisa said, casting another glance at the opposition. She had been pointedly staring on and off at Seladoris, and he was already looking ill at ease. In the cities of the Spider-kinden it was the women who pulled the strings and made the laws, and also the women who held the deadliest name in private duel, and he knew it. ‘Let me have a chance to work on Master Mantis over there, and I’ll have him,’ she added.

‘I don’t think so,’ Che said stubbornly. ‘Look at him. Look how he looks at you.’

Tynisa had indeed gained Piraeus’s attention, but he did not look at her in the way the spectators did. Instead there was a cold, bleak hatred there, dispassionate and ageless.

‘So who do we put up against him, if not me?’ Tynisa asked.

‘He’s really
that
good?’ Salma had not been in Collegium last year.

‘Better,’ confirmed Totho, the apprentice, gloomily. ‘He can beat any of us.’

‘Che should fight him,’ Salma decided.

‘What?’

‘With the best will in the world, Che, you’re our . . . you’re not our best fighter.’ Salma shrugged, but without real apology. ‘There it is. It means we can win by the numbers.’

‘He’ll go easy on you, probably,’ Tynisa told her.

‘He won’t,’ Totho said darkly.

‘Look, this is all assuming that we even get to choose,’ said Che hurriedly.

‘Quiet now,’ hissed Tynisa. ‘Look, they’re calling it.’

Kymon held out a fist from which projected the corners of two kerchiefs. Stenwold indicated that Master Paldron should choose first. The magnate squinted at the Master of Ceremonies’ hand suspiciously, and then tugged at one corner. The kerchief that he drew out had one red-stained end.

‘Now that’s a shame,’ said Salma, as the townsman waved the rag triumphantly at his team.

‘Golden Shell, the first match is your choosing,’ Kymon announced.

There was dissent in the ranks. Piraeus was arguing with his team-mates as to precisely who should have the honour of fighting him. From his jabbing finger it was clear that Tynisa would be his choice and, despite her earlier boasts, the Spider girl compressed her lips together nervously. The casting vote seemed to be with Falger, old Paldron’s nephew. When the Mantis-kinden stepped forward he looked sullen and dissatisfied, pointing at Salma.

‘Piraeus the Champion to fight the foreign prince,’ announced Kymon, stepping forward. Stenwold and Paldron hurriedly found seats out of harm’s way as the Master of Ceremonies strode to the very centre of the Prowess Forum. A circle of bare, sandy earth was there, raked level after every bout, contained within a square of mosaic whose corners boasted martial scenes picked out in intricate detail. No tile was greater than a quarter inch across and yet the vignette of a breach in an Ant city wall was as vibrant and clear as the two Beetle-kinden duellists that opposed it, forever saluting, across the circle. Beyond the mosaic, by a prudent distance, were the three tiers of stone seats, and beyond them the walls that, by ancient tradition, each had an open door. The roof above was composed of translucent cloth and wooden struts, as was the way with most of the public buildings in Collegium these days.

‘No worries,’ Salma said with an easy smile.

‘Do you even have real Mantids where you come from?’ Tynisa asked him. She seemed more worried for Salma than she had been on her own account. ‘The man is good.’

‘Oh, we have them,’ Salma confirmed, sending his opponent a grin. ‘We have more of them than you’ll ever see around here. Up to our elbows in them, back in the Commonweal.’

Piraeus and Salma stepped forward until they were just beyond the circle. There was an excited whispering amongst the small audience, the knowledge that this would be a spectacle to earn drinks with in the tavernas afterwards. Stenwold was struck with the similarity of the two. Dressed as they were, in padded arming jackets and breeches tied at the knee, in sandals and one heavy offhand glove, they looked as if they could almost have been relatives. Piraeus was taller, of the angular Mantis build. His long fair hair was tied back, but what should have been a handsome face was marred with ill temper and harsh feelings. His arming jacket was slit to the elbow to accommodate the spines jutting from his arms. Salma was dark, his hair cut short and his skin golden, and he had been the ache in plenty of maidens’ hearts since he arrived in Collegium from his distant homeland. He possessed a grace, though, that was not far short of the Mantis’s. The two of them stood quietly and sized each other up, one with a scowl and one with a smile, and there was nevertheless a commonality about them.

Kymon took a deep breath and held out the two swords: each of them mere wood covered with a thin layer of bronze, but there was nobody in that room who had not discovered just how hard they could strike home.

Kymon looked from one to the other. Stenwold knew that the old man was still a military officer of the city-state of Kes, which could call him back from his prestigious civilian position at any moment. It had been twenty years from home for old Kymon, however. Here he stood, in a Beetle’s white robes rather than armour, and he no longer missed the voices of his Ant-kinden people in his head.

‘Salute the book,’ Kymon directed. Piraeus and Salma turned to the north quarter of the room and raised their mock blades. The object of their salute was affixed to the wall: a great brass blade within the pages of a book carved from pale wood. On the open pages, one word to each, were scribed
Devotion
and
Excellence
.

‘Clock,’ said Kymon, and the mechanical timepiece hanging opposite the book groaned into life. The antagonists turned to one another as Kymon left the ring. The moment his back foot lifted from the arena they were in motion.

The first blow took place in the first moment of the match. Piraeus’s strike had come with blinding speed, aiming to break the nose of the foreigner, at the very least. Salma swayed backwards without shifting his feet, and the champion’s lash, at full extension, passed a few inches from his face. He had, indeed, seen Mantis-kinden fight before.

Then the fight proper was on and, to the thrill of the spectators, Salma was immediately on the offensive. He was fighting in proper Prowess style, leading with the edge of the blade, feet tracing a geometry of arcs and sudden straight advances. His free hand was up at chest height, leather gauntlet ready to deflect the Mantis’s strikes. There was nothing that was not book-perfect, from the prints in the fencing manuals, until every so often he threw in something else. A lunge, a sweep, a brief discontinuity of footwork, that was his alone, some style of his own people. Though he knew how Mantids fought, Piraeus had never duelled a Dragonfly-kinden before. There was an edge there that let him keep up the offensive long after Piraeus should have wrested it from him, but the edge was eroding from moment to moment. Soon the Mantis would get the measure of him.

And, without warning, without anything in his stance or movement signalling it, Salma was far too close, virtually up the other man’s nose, within the circle of his arms, and – they all saw it – there was a moment when Piraeus had his arm up, spines extended, about to gash across the foreigner’s face. It would have maimed Salma, perhaps blinded him, but it would have seen Piraeus thrown out of the fight, his team disqualified, and of all things he wanted to
win
. In that moment of hesitation Salma brought his blade up to lightly tap the back of the Mantis’s head.

They broke. Salma was at the edge of the circle, casting a bow to his team-mates. Piraeus stood, utterly still, with that anger peculiar to his kind that burned cold and forever. Salma and his team-mates would, everyone knew, regret what he had just done, and it might be now, or next tenday, or next year, but they would meet Piraeus again. Mantids were all about vengeance.

‘First strike to the foreign prince,’ Kymon declared impassively. ‘Salute the book. Second pass. Clock!’

Things went downhill from there, of course. Piraeus was not one to let anger get in the way of skill and he had Salma’s style now. Salma danced and ducked and swayed, but he never recaptured the offensive, nor could he hold his adversary off until the clock had wound down. The second blow of the match was a slap to his shoulder that he rolled with, barely felt, but it was a touch nonetheless. The third came when he blocked with his glove, and the Mantis dragged the rebound into a cut that bounced off his elbow and numbed his entire arm. Traditionally Mantis-kinden loved to fight, and loved a good fight too. They were supposed to respect a noble adversary, given all the old honour stories that they told. There was none of that in Piraeus, however. His look, as Salma clutched at his elbow, was one of sheer arrogance and disdain. None of it could disguise the truth. He might have won, but Piraeus winning a duelling pass was no news in Collegium. Instead, the taverna crowd would be telling each other how Salma had struck the Mantis
first
, and how the foreign lord had made the champion, for once, work for his fee.

Salma walked back to his comrades, still smiling despite the pain. ‘I’ve done better, I’ve done worse,’ he admitted. ‘So, you could have taken him?’ he added for Tynisa’s benefit.

For a second she grimaced, but then said, ‘It’s not my fault he was scared of me.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Totho said. ‘They’re waiting for us.’

‘Can you take Seladoris?’ she asked him. ‘Or Adax?’

‘Adax will choose me,’ Totho said glumly, ‘if he gets the chance. Frankly, I’d rather face him than the Spider. I’ve not got the speed for that.’

‘Settled then,’ Tynisa said, even as Che tried to get a word in. The Spider girl walked out to the edge of the circle and picked out her kinsman from the opposite team.

‘Tynisa the Maker’s Ward will now fight Seladoris of Everis,’ Kymon dutifully announced, passing them the two swords. ‘Salute the book.’

It was a short fight, half the length of the last bout. Since Seladoris had walked in, Tynisa had been working on him, fixing him with her stare, prying at his mind with her Art. All the while Piraeus and Salma had danced, Seladoris had never been free of her. Now, as he stepped forward, even Che could sense that she had unnerved him. It was not just Spider sexual politics – Spider-kinden made good duellists because they were so adept at reading others – but Tynisa was naturally quick, having quite a reputation amongst the little duelling houses. Seladoris was no novice himself and his technique was just as good as hers. What he lacked was her skill in disseminating a reputation. When he stepped into the ring he knew from her history that she was good and from her stare that she was better than he was. She had won even before their swords ever crossed.

Within two minutes she had scored two straight hits, the second of which jabbed his knee and toppled him out of the circle. Smiling a hard little smile, Tynisa bowed elaborately at Piraeus.
Look what you could have had
, she seemed to be saying. The spectators were vocal about her too. She was a favourite with the crowd.

Totho was already standing up as she returned, not even waiting for the Golden Shell’s second choice. There was a heavy, set expression on his face, which was a serious one at the best of times. Across the ring, the Ant-kinden was standing. It was said, with good reason, that the people of the Ant loved nothing more than fighting their own kind, their brothers from behind different city walls. In truth, there was one thing they took even more joy in, and that was punishing halfbreeds. Totho attended at the Great College on an orphan scholarship and there was Ant-kinden and Beetle-kinden blended in his ancestry. Even on Collegium’s cosmopolitan streets, a halfbreed had a hard life. In the harsher world outside it meant exile, slavery or, in the last resort, law-breaking.

‘Adax of Tark to fight Totho,’ Kymon noted, and even in his clipped pronunciation of the name there was censure.

‘Here we go,’ said Totho tiredly. ‘Time for me to take a beating.’

Che touched his arm as he made to leave. ‘You’ll be all right.’

He managed half a smile for her. Only when he had gone to enter the circle did Salma say, ‘He’s going to get a beating, no two ways.’

‘Oh surely,’ agreed Tynisa.

‘Can’t you two have a little faith?’ Che asked them.

Salma spread the fingers of his good hand in a lazy gesture. ‘Dear one, I’m fond of the little halfway and I’m sure he does his . . .’ Another vague gesture. ‘His tinkering like a master, but he’s not so good at this.’