Sorcery Rising (26 page)

Yet Tanto seemed entirely unconcerned by the forbidding appearance of his opponent. Everything about him was insouciant as he soaked up the admiration of the crowd. A woman cried out, asking if he had a wife.

‘Today I am single!’ Tanto declared, throwing his arms wide as if to embrace them all. ‘But tomorrow?’

The women all seemed to flower beneath his gaze. Saro noticed a well-made girl with a flag of blonde hair dragging her companion, a creature with thin arms and a huge chest with her to gain a position at the ropes; how some nomad women with shaved heads and jewel-studded teeth whistled at his brother. Two Eyran beldames in homespun dresses and garish scarves remarked loudly on the fine length of Tanto’s legs, so well displayed in the violet hose he had chosen to complement his bright-green embroidered tunic; his white teeth and glittering eyes so bright against the darkness of his skin. He looked, Saro had to admit, like a fine-bred colt turned out for a state parade: all sheeny and agile. But if Tanto was coltish, then the older man was a desert stallion, Saro thought, and went to place his own bet. When he got to the bet-collector he was surprised to find that the odds had shortened on Tanto, four hits to three. It was the work of the women, he realised.

It had taken Jenna and Marin longer to reach the sword-ring than Jenna had planned, since there had been so many distractions on the way. Marin had been particularly fascinated by the boulder-throwing competition, in which giants of men – almost without exception Eyran, it seemed – were hefting enormous rocks and casting them with huge, explosive cries only inches away from their own feet. A man with a measuring rod then marked the distance each man had achieved, but it did not seem to Jenna – whose taste did not run to the massy or muscle-bound – to be much of a spectator sport.

The horse-fighting, in the next enclosure, was too bloody for words. They had hurried past quickly, averting their eyes from the shrieking beasts, from the ripped flesh and thrashing hooves; and then past the wrestling rings, where it had been Jenna’s turn to want to stay and watch: for where else would you have the chance to stare at men’s unclothed bodies so freely and for so long – except maybe at the swimming contest, and they were now at some distance from the beach. Besides, she reminded Marin, grabbing her arm as if it had been the younger girl’s idea to tarry at the wrestling, there was betting to be done, and her tip to be followed. And in fact they barely had time to place their coins on their chosen swordman and find their places before the officials called the contestants together for the examination of their weapons and the reading of the rules.

‘He’s very handsome,’ whispered Marin to her companion as Tanto flexed and stretched. ‘But I think he has a cruel jaw. I quite like look of the desertman, though.’

Jenna looked at her askance. ‘What do you know of men? A cruel jaw, indeed! If my heart was not given to King Ravn, I would cast it down at Tanto Vingo’s feet without a second thought.’ She laughed recklessly. ‘Because other than the King, he is the handsomest man I ever saw. Besides, what can you see of the desertman? Nothing but his eyes and hands. That’s hardly enough to go on, is it?’

‘It’s more than the Istrians have to see when they choose their brides,’ Marin pointed out with a certain petulance, ‘for they see only their lips and hands. And when King Ravn chooses the Swan of Jetra, that’s all he’ll see of her, too, until the wedding night.’

Jenna looked furious. She stared wildly about the crowd in case anyone had heard their conversation; but the folk who surrounded them were intent on the contestants, as the blue-cloaks patted them down for any concealed weapons.

Marin spotted Sara, and took pity on the blonde girl. ‘Look,’ she said quickly, to turn the subject. ‘Look at that one there, behind the man with the huge beard.’

Jenna followed Marin’s gaze. There was certainly something about the young southerner on the far side of the enclosure. Like the man in the ring, he was well made and darkly complexioned, but his features had a less delicately chiselled look to them, and his hair was longer and less sleek. She marked how he moved carefully out of the way of the spectators, without ever once taking his gaze – black and intense – off Tanto Vingo. Perhaps they were lovers! She’d heard, from the sort of scurrilous gossip you picked up from the court-servants in Halbo, that in the southern states sometimes men lived with men as they would with wives. There was even a version of the story of the mage Arahai which told how he had quarrelled with his lover, himself a powerful magician, and been forced to entomb him beneath the earth, in a cave all of crystal and gold, and that every day for the rest of his life he had visited him there, and mourned; how his magic had fled him, leaving his heart like ashes. It was all very poetic, she thought. And then there were the ancient hero tales which told of how lovers would go to war together – both men and men, and men and women; and sometimes, unimaginably to Jenna, even women and women – fighting back to back, each protecting the other or dying in the attempt, but no one she had asked in Eyra would even speak to her of such things, as if it was in some way shameful, a subject to be avoided. She was visited by a sudden, wonderful vision of herself as a shield-maiden, like the Fyrnir of Slitwood, in shining mail and helm, a gleaming sword in her hand, standing back to back – she could almost feel the warmth of his sunny skin through the layers of cloth and leather and mail – to defend her lord and lover, King Ravn . . .

The clash of metal brought her sharply from her reverie, and suddenly the crowd came alive with shouts and whisdes.

The Phoenix, having made the first move, appeared to have driven the young Istrian back against the ropes to their left with his first charge, so that the lad was forced to step quickly away, turning and countering as he went, his feet dancing neatly over the ashy ground. As he came round to face them, Jenna saw that the southerner nevertheless was grinning wildly and his face was flushed with excitement. Her betted silvers seemed suddenly very safe. ‘Come on, Tanto!’ she called, and heard the shout taken up all around her. The desertman, for all his mystery and expertise, was not, it seemed, popular on this side of the ring.

Again, the turbaned man came at him, and again Tanto turned him. The thick northern sword the desertman wielded sliced through the air with all the finesse of an abattoir axe. Tanto caught it on the dagger he held in his left hand and flicked it upward, then ran beneath the man’s upraised arm and swept his fine Forent sword around in a gleaming arc, tapping the front of his opponent’s breastplate as he passed.

‘A hit!’ cried the arbitrator, and ‘A hit! A hit!’ echoed the crowd.

Jenna clutched Marin’s arm excitedly. ‘You see?’

The desertman watched Tanto withdraw to the opposite side of the ring. He scythed his sword from side to side, shouting as he did so, in some guttural version of the Old Tongue: ‘I’ll cut you down to size, pretty boy! I’ll take those purple legs home with me and feed them to my wolves.’

In response, Tanto flicked his dagger at the man in a gesture that in any culture was clearly insulting.

The Phoenix roared an oath and charged across the ring. Again, Tanto side-stepped; but when he tried the same manoeuvre that had won him the point, the desertman, quicker and lighter on his feet than Jenna could believe possible, feinted and dodged, so that Tanto over-balanced. A snaking foot helped him on his way, and all at once the young Istrian was face down in the dust. The desertman’s eyes became bright with feral cunning. His sword came rushing down as if – had the edges not been blunted in line with the competition rules – he would slice Tanto in half; but he pulled it short at the last moment, stepping back a half pace so that the flat of the blade smacked the Istrian sharply on the buttocks. It must have stung, for Tanto yelped like a kicked dog.

A hit!’ cried the desertman’s swathed supporters.

‘A hit,’ conceded the arbitrator.

Tanto threw himself upright. Every line of his body spoke of fury, and when he turned, the excited flush with which he had begun the bout had become an ugly, livid purple. Not so handsome now, Marin thought, feeling somewhat vindicated.

Tanto ran at the Phoenix, sword arm as stiff as a spar. Even with the button on the point, Saro thought, disquieted, such a charge, met head-on, could run a man through; but the Phoenix merely brought his guard-hand up and pushed the slim Forent blade off his dagger as if it were a meat-skewer. Again, Tanto rushed him, and again the older man caught his sword and turned it neatly. This furious charging and rebuttal went on for some minutes, until the crowd were screaming themselves hoarse.

And then the tide turned.

The Phoenix, in the guise of passing off Tanto’s assault onto his dagger, now stepped smartly within the Istrian’s range and, allowing Tanto’s sword to pass harmlessly under his arm, turned, brought his shoulder up so that it met squarely with Tanto’s chest, and nicked the lighter man over and onto the ground.

Had Katla been watching, she would have recognised it as an Eyran wrestling manoeuvre, one of her favourites, designed to use an opponent’s weight and momentum against them, so that they hit the floor with twice the impact.

The crowd howled. ‘Unfair!’ screamed a woman to Jenna’s right.

‘Unfair!’ cried the Istrians watching.

The Phoenix stepped back with a shrug. He looked to the arbitrator, but the man’s mouth was pursed in disapproval.

Tanto, glimpsing his chance, vaulted to his feet and charged the desertman with all his might. Despite his exhaustion, Tanto’s training had not gone to waste. He crossed the ring in three vast, leaping strides, arm extended, and his swordpoint – button and all – drove itself between the discs on the older man’s breastplate before the Phoenix could even think of countering. The desertman roared and leapt backward, but Tanto’s blade was firmly lodged; as the man stepped back, he had no choice but to go with him. The brutal northern sword came sweeping down at Tanto’s head. It was a blow that – had it landed – would have split his skull in two: competition edge blunted or no – but Tanto’s reactions were extraordinarily fast. His left hand came up in a blur of motion, catching the big blade in a life-saving parry. There were sparks, the ear-splitting screech of metal on metal; and then Tanto’s dagger shattered. Pieces of it hurtled away from the impact like a shower of falling stars, raining out across the ring. One shard caught the desertman in the face, between the folds of the headcloth. Blood spurted, but Tanto, with his dagger hand numbed and his swordpoint still wedged in the other’s breastplate, stood shocked and motionless. The desertman hurled his own dagger away and brought his swordpoint up to Tanto’s throat.

‘A win!’ his followers bellowed.

‘A win.’

The arbitrator stepped in to separate the combatants, and the crowd erupted. It took two of the blue-cloaks to extricate the Istrian’s weapon from the overlapping iron rings of the Phoenix’s breastplate, and when it was released, Tanto tore it angrily away from them, slammed it back into its sheath and stormed from the ring without bothering to retrieve the jewelled hilt of the broken dagger. He did manage, however, to gracelessly grab the purse his second place had earned him. A Footloose lad, quick-eyed, slipped beneath the ropes while everyone else’s attention was still on the two contestants, and pocketed the hilt with a triumphant smile. A few moments later, a scuffle broke out between him and a big Eyran man, who was then confronted by a group of angry Istrians.

The Phoenix wiped blood from his eye-slit and, holding a wad of loose material against his face, claimed his prize and silently disappeared into the crowd.

Marin went to collect her winnings. Annoyed by Jenna’s manipulations, she had backed the desertman. The bet-collector paid out a stream of silvers into her hand. Behind her, Saro was the only Istrian in the queue. When he got to the front, the bet-collector regarded him curiously, then tapped the side of his nose and winked at Saro. Saro had no idea what he meant by this, but he took the money the man paid carefully into his hand, pocketed it and made his way to the enclosure where he had left Night’s Harbinger. Now he would have to win the damned race.

As he was walking through the crowds, his eyes focused on nothing in particular, he was hailed by a familiar voice.

‘Saro, wait!’

When he turned around, he saw his uncle running to catch up with him. Saro’s heart sank, but he needn’t have feared for all Fabel said was: ‘I just came to wish you luck, lad.’ And he reached out with a grin and tousled Saro’s hair.

A bizarre mix of sensations flowed through the skin of Saro’s scalp: anxiety and despair; concern that he would lose the race, for it was hard to have confidence in the lad, who was not a natural athlete, and not hard enough on the beasts, and Night’s Harbinger, which had little respect for anyone, would surely just kick up its heels and send the boy sailing out over the ropes in seconds; fear that they would never raise the bride-price if he failed; and Falla knew what Tanto would do then, for the boy was clearly unstable, for all his handsome looks and physical abilities; and Favio, Favio would be disappointed, too, and he bore enough guilt not to wish his brother further cast down. All this Saro felt in the time it took for the flat of Fabel’s hand to ruffle his hair, and withdraw; and as the fingers abandoned his head, he was left with a single, discomfiting image: a woman’s eyes, widened with surprise and some delight as a man mounted her. He heard her voice, like a whisper through time: ‘Oh, Fabel, Fabel.’

It took him all the time from arriving at the enclosure, to saddling Night’s Harbinger and leading him into the starters’ pen, to realise – through the low-level nervous anticipation of the horse – that the voice he had heard had not been his aunt’s, but his mother’s.

‘Fezack! Fezack! Look – I can see the horserace!’ The boy was gleeful, his grin stretched from ear to ear. ‘Look, Gramma, in the rock.’

‘Child: don’t be foolish, the race is not to run for an hour or more.’ Fezack Starsinger was weary: it had been one long round of customers today: men wanting potions to give them prowess they were unable to earn by other means; women wanting beauty they could never naturally achieve; those who sought knowledge of the future, interpretations of omens and dreams; a blight on a neighbour or competitor. These last she turned away angrily. ‘The Wanderers never do harm: it is not our way, know you better than to ask!’ The last two customers to have knocked on the sun-and-moon door were those who had bought charms from her that had inexplicably worked too well, and were now seeking another potion to reverse the effect of the first. The girl, she had remembered, though her poor chest was unrecognisable. It had been a chastening experience, for both of them.