Exiled: Keeper of the City

by Peter Morwood

  “And I thought the other crowd, at the Play House, was rough,” she said softly, watching a brawl start a ways across the crowd. “Half these mrem look like they want to be in a fight ... the other half look like they want to bet on it.” For betting had indeed started on the fringes of the crowd, mrem circling in for a better view, exchanging odds and small money on the two mrem who were scrapping. The fight had not yet got to claws-out; the two were only boxing, but Reswen saw two of the constables routinely assigned to gate work at the Games watching the situation closely. Claws-out fighting, or fighting with weapons, was theoretically forbidden in the city streets, but false arrest was also a problem, and Reswen had more than once cautioned his people to be careful about how they broke up fights.

  Then suddenly blood flowed, and the constables moved in, and so did the crowd, yelling at the sight, changing the odds, passing more money back and forth. Reswen was grimly amused to hear odds being laid on his constables, and better ones than on the two who had originally started the fight. But abruptly the gong went off that signified the opening of the gates, and the mob dissolved away as quickly as it had appeared, except for the two mrem who had started the fight. Reswen turned from his place in the ticket line to see that the constables were already taking them away, ignored by the rest of the crowd, many of whom were hurrying in past the gate-guards in the usual rush for the cheapest viewing areas. Others, able to afford better, headed in more slowly.

  Laas looked around her with interest as they got their tickets and went in. “Do we have to ask for chairs this time?” she said as they went up the stairs to the first level.

  “No, they come with, for once,” Reswen said. They came, out on the landing. The place was a short oval, with tiered seats close to the “field” at the bottom, and fences between the seats and the much larger standing areas behind them. “Standing” was filling up rapidly, as usual; the seats tended to take their time, since they were expensive enough to be mostly affordable by the slumming wealthy, or by middle-class mrem who didn’t care to mix much with the brawling unders “up among the gods.”

  They seated themselves in one of the better areas, along the wide side of the oval. “Not quite the best,” Reswen said, a bit apologetically, “but then I can’t afford those.” He indicated the boxes at the ends of the oval, large cordoned-off areas that contained actual chairs rather than benches, and tables on which food and wine were being laid out in preparation for the arrival of guests.

  “Is that where you think the Lloahairi will be?” Laas said quietly.

  “More than likely. Those boxes are mostly the Arpekh’s, and some of the richer families. They’ve probably lent them out to our friends.” Reswen grinned a little. “A ‘business bribe,’ as you say.”

  Laas glanced at him, bemused. “If this—sport—is as plebeian a thing as you make it sound, I wonder that such people have seats here at all.”

  Reswen smiled. “A consortium of them owns the place,” he said, “and they also own some of the better players’ contracts. Oveuw, for example, and Aele. They like to see that their investment is making money as it should. And believe me, this place makes money. Some of the worst corruption in the city has centered around it, at one time or another. Mostly before my time, of course, but every now and then some merchant lord gets it into his head to fix a Game, or to try to get control of someone else’s interest by way of blackmail or some such. Very nasty.”

  Laas nodded. “Yes, I would expect that. Gold always draws such, sooner or later....”

  “But as for plebeian,” Reswen said, “it’s nothing of the kind. Some of the original players were noble. But that alone has nothing to do with its nobility. This isn’t just a game; it’s an art in itself. It’s a matter of great strategy and skill, of nicety in judgment. One must kill the beast, but one must also dance it. And the beast doesn’t care about the dance, of course. That’s one of the things that makes it a beast. The player must mind his weapons, and not kill too soon, or too late, or too brutally, or with too much ease; he’s not a butcher, or a torturer. The beast has its own priorities, its own tactics and graces, that have to be respected and properly exhibited before it dies. Otherwise the marks are bad.”

  Reswen looked across the oval. “See there, the judges are here already.” Six or seven of them were seated behind their long table; several others were conferring off to one side, holding open parchments, rolled ones tucked under their arms. “They have to make sure that the players are properly matched to the available beasts,” Reswen said. “If a beast hasn’t been sufficiently evaluated, it’s not played at all—”

  “ ‘Evaluated’?”

  “Oh yes, they test them carefully for skill and strength and ferocity and so forth,” Reswen said. “There’s a whole list of qualities, and a point system for rating them. Apprentice players dance the beasts in rehearsal time, during the day, so that the judges who manage evaluations can see how they perform. Those dances aren’t to the death, naturally. Except sometimes for the apprentices ... but it’s rare that we lose one. They’ve gotten very clever with padding and armor and so forth for the players who haven’t had sufficient experience in the Enclosure.”

  Laas looked at him with mild amusement. “I see,” she said, “that I have made the mistake of going to see a sport with an enthusiast. I knew I should have let you be; you looked like trouble from the start, but orders were orders—”

  “Hush, my kitten. I’m pontificating.”

  “You certainly are. Get me some of that cheap wine, please. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”

  “Certainly.—Over here, youngster! A wine for the lady, and one for me. And a clean cup. —But there’s a reason for all this. You couldn’t put, say, Aele, up against some poor nosuk that when turned into the Enclosure would try to run back down the tunnel, or dig a hole and hide in it. You want one fearless and wily, as they properly are in the wild, one that knows to some extent what it’s up against, and can deal with it. An educated beast, if you like. Then when Aele comes in to dance it, there’ll be some competition for both of them. A nosuk is faster on its feet than almost any beast alive, but Aele specializes in nosuk and knows how they tend to react, knows how they move in the attack. She would want one that would properly stretch her, make her work a little—no player wants it easy, or at least no good player does. An easy dance makes for low marks, and low marks pull down your yearly average, do you see, and then at the end of the year your point bonus is lower than it should be. Not to mention the matter of honors and so forth, which are all based on score averages, with suitable handicaps—”

  The young mrem selling wine came hustling over. “All right, two wines,” he said, “and which of you gets the clean cup?” He snickered.

  “Son,” Reswen said, “that joke was old when Sorimoh’s eyes were still closed, and if anything is living in either one of these cups, you’re in trouble. Get out of here. And here, take this. Get yourself something to drink, and I hope whatever’s at the bottom of your cup bites your nose.” The lad hastened off, still snickering. Laas laughed herself.

  “Cheeky kit,” Reswen said. “But never mind. Now, if someone like Aele is dancing, as she is today—”

  “Oh? How do you know?”

  “Oh, a crier comes around in the morning and lets everymrem know.”

  “Don’t tell me,” she said, “that you were paying attention to anything some crier said this morning!”

  He smiled at her. “Would it ruin your day to think so?” he said.

  Laas pummeled him, claws in, but just barely.

  “Peace, peace,” he said. “I heard it last eightday. They do a summary as well.”

  “And you remembered it all this time? You must be very fond of all this.”

  “Very,” Reswen said. “And besides, a policemrem never forgets.”

  “I’ll make a note.”

  “Anyway, about Ael
e. She has a handicap of nearly eighteen points, these days, which means she’s considered too good to handle anything less than a prime bull nosuk, or maybe a chieshih older than, say, five years—”

  “Your hunters,” Laas said, “must have decimated the countryside. Where do you find all these beasts?”

  “Hunters? Heavens no, we breed them. There are several breeding farms outside the city. It’s very lucrative ... some of the Arpekh own shares in them as well.”

  “Is there anything your Arpekh don’t have their claws in here?”

  “Precious little,” Reswen said, and made a snide remark about where else their claws might be in between times.

  “Tsk, If we’re being watched again, or listened to, you’re going to get in trouble.”

  “I’m in trouble already,” he said, “or didn’t I mention? But never mind that. Look, they’re ready—”

  There was a stirring and exchange of papers among the judges, and then one of them stood up and signed to someone high up on the Enclosure walls. The gong rang out again. It was almost immediately drowned out by the shouts and yowls of the eager crowd. Onto the bare sand of the “field” came walking one lone figure, a tall, slender, white-and-patchwork mrem wearing a light leather apron, nothing else; and the roar that went up to greet him was considerable.

  “It’s Ogov,” Reswen said. “Not a bad player, even though this is only his second season. Probably the last year he’ll be starting; he’s getting too good to go on first, these days. Lovely hand with the sword. But he hasn’t got one today. Can you see a sword, or a knife?”

  “No,” Laas said, sounding rather distressed. “Surely he’s not going to take something on with just his teeth and claws—”

  Her question was answered by a creaking of machinery, and Ogov turned to face in the direction from which the sound came. All eyes turned to a small door in the wall of the Enclosure, and there was a mulled grumph noise from inside it. Slowly, cautiously, something came out.

  It was dun-colored, about half as tall as the mrem it faced; it went on four legs, and its tail lashed behind it like a whip. “Akoos,” Reswen said. “Do you have them back East?”

  “No, and I’m glad of it.” Laas said, sounding relieved. Reswen could understand why. He had never quite believed in the way an akoos looked—that huge head, all those teeth, the saggy skin all around. This one was apparently youngish; when it opened its mouth to roar, he could just barely make out that its second and third rows of teeth hadn’t grown in yet. But the hungry little eyes, buried in their rolls of flesh, were looking around it with a sullen anger that suggested that it was willing to work fairly hard to make up for the lack of them.

  It saw Ogov and gave tongue again, that curious cutoff grunt-cum-roar. He moved cautiously closer to the akoos, and the crowd roared.

  “It’s an interesting match,” Reswen said, having to raise his voice a bit to be heard. “If he manages it, it’ll drive his season’s average up considerably. Akoos score fairly high on maneuverability, but that’s Ogov’s strong suit as it stands. If he can—”

  Reswen forgot what he was saying as Ogov moved closer and leapt at the beast. Beside him, Laas watched, but more with curiosity than interest, and Reswen felt a quick stroke of sadness. He couldn’t explain to her, not quickly, what the Game meant to one expert in it—how the combination of grace and ferocity and danger always moved him. He got the sense, too, that it bored her; not the combat itself, but the business of it, all the surrounding statistics and jostling among players for rank, the things that were meat and drink to him. But there was nothing he could do about it. Besides, things were getting exciting. The akoos had a weak spot, the vertebrae in its neck were partially fused, and to attack by biting, it had to go straight ahead. Ogov was feinting at it again and again with a dancer’s grace, almost indolently, then spinning around to get behind it. The akoos had avoided him the first two times; this time it missed, and Ogov was behind it in one move, half leap, half roll, and clinging to its back, biting at the neck. The akoos shook him, screaming, trying to dislodge him; but Ogov was not letting go. With such a young beast, there was nothing to be gained by another pass with it. It had done all it knew how to do—there were no other tricks to be coerced from it. He clung, he bit. No Clawing: A clean kill scored more points than merely ripping a beast inelegantly to ribbons—

  “Reswen, look,” Laas hissed from beside him. Reswen tore himself away, feeling something of a pang as the crowd’s shout went up for something he had missed. But there was movement down in the empty boxes, a line of bright-colored robes filing in from one of the private gates on the lower level. It was the Lloahairi. Reswen could make out Maikej’s color from here. Then, “Indeed,” he said softly, for the mrem who had been watching them at the Play House, the “big spender,” was seating himself several seats behind Maikej,

  “Laas,” Reswen said, “that one. See him? The green kilt.”

  “Gods,” she said, and stared.

  Reswen looked at her in surprise. “ ‘Gods’ what?”

  “Masejih,” she said. She sounded utterly shocked.

  “Who? What? Do you recognize him from somewhere?”

  “Yes! No, no, not the one in the green. Behind him, a couple of rows. Blue robes, with the striped cezhe.”

  Reswen searched the box for the mrem she meant, then found him: a big mrem with gray-blue fur of a kind he’d seen a few times before, though it was rare in Niau. He had seen the description of this mrem in the summary that Krruth had sent him of the names and descriptions of the new Lloahairi Embassy. “I see him. Who is it again?”

  “Masejih, He’s a wizard. He’s fairly well known, though not as a wizard. Something of a court fixture.”

  Reswen looked at her. “I didn’t know you’d been to Lloahai.”

  “I have been,” she said, “but that’s not the point. He’s not Lloahai, Reswen. He’s from Cithiv, from one of the cities in the East. Another one like Usiel. Occasionally one of his cronies, in fact.”

  Reswen was shocked. “Then what’s he doing pretending to be a Lloahairi?”

  “How should I know? But Reswen, he makes his living the same way Usiel did. ‘Quiet work’ for the nobility. And he’s nothing to be toyed with. Many mrem are dead because of him, and no one could lay it at his doorstep at all. Those who tried—” She shuddered.

  Reswen sat there, having lost all taste for the Games ... a most unusual occurrence.

  “Let’s head out of here when intermission comes,” he said. “We’ve got real problems now, and we’ve got to start doing something about them....”

  Beside him, Laas hugged herself as if she was cold.

  Reswen put an arm around her ... and was troubled to see that it didn’t seem to help.

  THERE WAS little that could be done, though, as Reswen soon discovered. Most of his constabulary staff were out about the various businesses he had set them; there were no messages waiting for him when they got back from the Games. There was really only one thing left to do....

  Someone hammered at the door. Reswen cursed.

  “Such words, darling one,” Laas said softly, biting his ear. “Who taught you language like that?”

  “You’re a fine one to be talking. I heard you this afternoon. Give you a sword and you turn into a ruffian.” He got up and threw a kilt on for the looks of things, then went to the door and shouted, “Who is it?”

  No answer. Reswen reached behind the door for the gold-and-rose knife, hanging on one of the clothes hooks in the wall. Then he threw the door open.

  Lorin stood there, looking small and hunched in his poor tattered robes.

  “Get in here, you idiot, why didn’t you say who it was?” Reswen said, pulling Lorin in and slamming the door to behind him.

  “Do you really want me shouting my name so the whole street can hear?” Lorin said, putting his shabby hood back. “Ar
e you busy?”

  “Rather,” Reswen said, “but I know you well enough that you wouldn’t be troubling me unless it was something important. Come in.”

  Lorin walked past the screen into the sitting room, which looked rather more like a lying room at the moment, especially with Laas lying in the middle of it, propped on an indolent elbow, drinking Reswen’s dark sweet wine and looking at Lorin with interest.

  “The lady Laas,” Reswen said, as Lorin goggled.

  “We’ve met,” Laas said, “that day at the party, when you brought this young gentleman by to have a look at Deshahl. And he sniffed me out, too: most perceptive.” She looked at Reswen for a name.

  “Lorin neh Thibaha-chir,” Reswen said. “An honest bookmaker of this city. And other things as well.”

  “Erath ivilhih ren ssahmeith;” Laas said, inclining her head to Lorin gravely.

  If possible, Lorin goggled at her harder than before, then clutched at something under his robe—his own fishysmelling charm, Reswen supposed—and said to her, bowing a little, “Na erath ssahmeith usaj lel-ioilh,”

  Reswen raised his eyebrows at Laas. “ ‘Workers’ sometimes have ways of recognizing one another.” she said, “that have nothing to do with feeling one another from across a crowded room. Though that was certainly how Lorin recognized me. You are trained, then,” she said to Lorin, “in at least one of the Eastern disciplines.”

  “At least one,” Lorin said nervously, “a very little, and right now, I wish I was trained better.” He looked at Reswen, a rather helpless expression. “Policemaster, how much—”

  “—can you say? Anything necessary. This lady is in my confidence, and anything she hears will be used in honor.” He glanced sidewise at her; Laas shut her eyes in agreement.

  “All right.” Lorin flung off his cloak, one-handed. Under it he had a tight roll of parchment, and what appeared to be a potted plant.