Court of Fives

by Kate Elliott

  “Does that mean we’re saddled with them for a year or more? No offense to you, Tana, but for all this new push to build Garon Stable so it can truly compete with the other palace stables, this place will never amount to anything until the princess stops doing favors for her grandson.”

  “Kalliarkos has improved a great deal.”

  “Yes, he has, but if the quality of adversaries here does not improve a great deal more than he has, my honor will demand I leave.”

  “Garon Stable will fall apart without you, Lord Thynos,” she says in alarm.

  “That I had to sit through that embarrassing performance by Kalliarkos at the City Fives Court four days ago was bad enough. I have never seen Gar as angry as when that brown girl slipped on purpose to let Kalliarkos win!” But he laughs as if Lord Gargaron’s anger amuses him.

  “I would not like to be her if he ever finds out who she is.” Tana does not laugh. “When he gets to cursing like that, you know he wants revenge.”

  “Do you think Kal paid off that adversary so he could get another win?” asks Thynos.

  Tana scowls. “He is no cheater. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I suppose not. It would never occur to him to cheat.”

  I finally realize where I’ve seen Thynos: he is an Illustrious who runs under the Fives name of Southwind. I’ve seen him run at trials. Players who have reached the highest level get their faces painted on murals throughout the city.

  The conversation veers to how Garon Stable may fare at the victory games to be held at the Royal Fives Court in six days: my father’s victory games. Thinking of how Mother wept with joy at seeing him honored makes me want to tear out my heart just so I won’t hurt so much. Grief sinks into me with the heat.

  The sun reaches its zenith. A whistle marks the end of practice, followed by the ringing of a bell in the kitchen shelter. Everyone ambles over to the dining area. Heat and hunger make me woozy as I clatter down the steps. No one pays me any mind as I take the last place in line. No one speaks to me. It’s like I don’t exist, like I’m already handed over to the stewards and asphyxiating in the mines.

  As they get their food the adversaries scatter along the tables in groups. A kitchen girl yawns as she hands me a lacquered meal box. I decide it is most prudent to find a seat alone and just fill my stomach. There is warm bread and salted vegetables and a huge portion of savory chicken stew heaped over rice. I murmur the polite offering under my breath: “With both humility and gratitude my body accepts this gift of food, holy ones. Creatures who were once living gave of their spark and substance to nourish mine. I honor them.”

  The words rise with a sour taste. Father would speak them while we awaited his permission to eat. I don’t want to think about him. My hunger twists into despair. But I have to eat to keep up my strength. If I get sent to the mines I can’t help my mother and sisters. And the chicken stew does look good.

  “Jessamy?”

  The spoon halfway to my lips with my first bite, I freeze. Kalliarkos stands with a meal box in his hand, wearing a tunic and leggings just like any other adversary. The way he said my name draws the attention of every person in the shelter. They stare as he sits opposite me.

  I set down my spoon because my hand is trembling. Unexpectedly, anger cascades out of me in a harsh whisper. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone that I run the Fives. But you told your uncle!”

  “I did not speak of you to him at all!” He looks taken aback.

  “How else could he have found out? He humiliated my mother in front of my father just for the pleasure of seeing her cry.”

  Abruptly he gets up and walks away. At first I think I have offended him but he returns with two mugs of barley beer, the usual midday drink in Efea, a thick brown brew as rich and nutritious as bread. He sits and offers one to me as he speaks in a low voice.

  “Perhaps seeing my uncle in action helps you better understand why I do not wish to follow his orders, since they so often lead to unpleasant things.”

  A fist in my chest unclenches. “You didn’t betray me.”

  “No, I didn’t. If my uncle was interested in your father, he would have investigated everything about him thoroughly.” He sips contemplatively, then sets down the mug. “What I don’t understand is why you are here. Your household is in mourning for Lord Ottonor.”

  Everyone is still looking at us. I liked it better when they ignored me.

  I shift closer, whispering even more softly, “Lord Gargaron took my father into his household and made him a general.”

  Kalliarkos whistles. “That can’t be possible.”

  A spike of irritation burns through my flesh. It’s as if he’s two people: a young man who really understands me, and an oblivious fool. “Of course it’s possible. Your uncle wants the hero of Maldine to command the Eastern Reach. What’s so strange about that?”

  He looks at the sky as at the gods and their inexplicable actions. “I had no idea. I thought it was a lord from the old country, someone with military experience overseas.…”

  “What are you talking about?” My hand tightens around the mug. I need something to hold on to when I get the bad news I am sure is about to come.

  He runs a hand through his short black hair.

  “My older sister left this morning for our villa at Falcon Hill. She’s to marry a military man newly come to the service of Garon Palace.”

  16

  My father is marrying Kalliarkos’s older sister.

  I stare as the scraps and hints of information I’ve overheard all fall into place.

  “Have I done anything to make you think I make rash promises without meaning to keep them?” he asks in a low voice.

  A woman I did not know could remain a mirage, but every time Father looks on his bride he will see the face of a highborn woman whose brother he told me I must never speak to again. Because I’m not good enough for such a man.

  “When I said I would keep your secret, I meant it,” he adds.

  It’s odd how annoyed he sounds, like I’m doubting his honor. I’m grateful to him for keeping his promise but the news is a knife in my throat. I can’t speak.

  We eat the rest of our meal in silence. At last Kalliarkos makes an awkward retreat.

  Tana shepherds me to the women’s barracks for the usual lie-down people take in the worst heat of the day. Canvas curtains hang from the roof to create eight cubicles with two cots each. She directs me to a cot placed by the door where normally a servant would sleep.

  “Rest here. We’ll run you at the afternoon practice, see how you do.” She leaves.

  In the gloom I strip down to my underthings and lie on top of the blanket. Having sisters and servants, and training at Anise’s stable, has killed any shyness I might ever have felt about undressing around women.

  The curtain flaps as the Patron girl strides past without a word and goes into the cubicle at the far end. Three other women jostle up to look me over.

  The tallest is a strapping Commoner woman with big hands. “Please don’t tell us you’re Lord Kalliarkos’s latest pity rescue.”

  “Pity rescue?”

  The short one breaks in. “The useless fledgling adversaries he brings in are a waste of everyone’s effort. This stable will never be able to compete at the highest level if his uncle doesn’t put a stop to it.”

  “Lord Gargaron?” I ask, thinking about the mines.

  All three make the sign against the evil eye.

  “Don’t ever mention his name,” says the tall one. “We’re talking about Lord Thynos.”

  “Lord Thynos is Lord Kalliarkos’s uncle?”

  “He’s the younger brother of Kalliarkos’s mother. When she was shipped here to marry his father, he was sent along with her. He was just a boy then.”

  The one who hasn’t spoken yet looks at me. “Maybe she can actually run.”

  “Maybe I can!” I say with a flash of confidence that punches through my misery. “I’m no pity rescue!”


  “How else can Lord Kalliarkos know you?”

  I know better than to tell the truth so I just shrug. They walk off. Tallest and shortest share a space. The quiet one’s cubicle is hung with so many pretty masks and ribbons that it reminds me of Amaya. Melancholy swells in my heart. I would drown in grief except that the heavy meal, the mug of beer, and the drowsy heat combine to make me sleepy as my thoughts eddy.

  I can’t die in the mines. I have to help Mother. I can’t abandon her as Father did.

  Every night when we went to bed she sang an Efean charm over us to keep night-walking shadows and their fingers of illness off our vulnerable little bodies. She would never sing it in front of anyone else, not even the servants and especially not Father. It was her secret mother’s gift to us, she always said. The charm would lose its power if any ears but hers and ours heard it. As I drift off to sleep the memory of her voice whispers in my mind:

  Sea and stone and wind and seed

  Sky above them, pay me heed.

  Let no wandering shadow’s kiss

  Harm my girls or steal their strength.

  Let their shadows safely roam

  On night’s dark path, then bring them home.

  I dream in snatches: a bird-haunted ship on the water rolling amid stormy seas; a lamp’s blazing wick being doused by the pinch of a finger; a baby born with no spark of life in its flesh…

  I bolt upright, my heart pounding, my face soaked in sweat. What am I still doing here? I am invisible to these people. I can run away and find Mother. Father made his choice; let him live with it. I don’t have to obey him anymore.

  I tug on my clothes. The other women are moving as they start to wake up. Outside, afternoon shadows stretch across the training court. I stroll past, then veer toward the open gate. The same guards stand there, still bored and now sweating profusely. The moment they see me they cross their spears in my path.

  “We have orders not to allow you out until we get word that you’ve passed muster.”

  “Just seeing if there’s a view.” I force an ingratiating smile. “I’ve never been up this high on the King’s Hill before.”

  The street is angled to create a spectacular view. On a clear day like today the closest of the smoking islands of the Fire Sea can be seen on the western horizon, but the most prominent sight is the peninsula between the harbors, the City of the Dead. From this height it looks rather like a squat tree, with its narrow trunk connected to the land and its spread branches marked by paths winding past white stone tombs. The paths flow up toward the crown of the hill at the peninsula’s center. The temple is a long, narrow building stretched like a wall across the “trunk” to control all access into and out of the tombs.

  “Very impressive!” I say brightly before I turn to go back. My jaw hurts from smiling.

  Tana and the elderly trainer sip tea in the dining shelter. I drink at the basin and splash water on my face to cool down my flushed cheeks. Slowly my bleary thoughts focus on the only thing that matters now: I have to pass muster. Everything depends on that.

  The other adversaries are on the forecourt warming up with a round of menageries. I find a space at the back and step into the rhythm. The dance unfolds through a changing pattern whose movements are named after animals: cat, ibis, elephant, snake, dog, falcon, bull, wasp, jackal, butterfly, gazelle, crocodile, horse, gull, monkey, scorpion, horned lion, crane, sea dragon, firebird, tomb spider.

  My arms and legs are stiff as I begin, but as I arch like a cat, sway like an elephant’s trunk, stretch my arms wide as a falcon’s wings, I loosen up. My feet tread the coarse stone pavement as the bull paces his field. The linen headband I’ve tied around my head grows damp as I become the lazy but explosive crocodile. Sweat trickles down my scorpion’s curved back. My arms flex and extend as I stalk the proud path of the horned lion.

  Within the discipline of the menageries my despair drains away and my resolve creeps back into my heart.

  Anise taught us that every training ground, like every person, has a unique soul. I seek the soul of this place through my dusty, callused feet, the taste of the air on my tongue, and the pitch of my beating heart. This training ground feels fresh and unformed, still discovering itself, not like Anise’s whose stones felt old and patient. I think I could belong here. I think this ground likes me.

  As we finish up, still in unison, Tana and the old man, called Darios, arrive.

  Tana whistles to me. “Girl, you start on Trees. Lord Kalliarkos, if you will, on Rivers.” She points to the two fledgling boys. “Pillars. Traps. Take your places.”

  “Is there chalk?” I ask.

  She raises an eyebrow, as if she had not expected me to ask that question or perhaps any question. “Chalk at each gate.”

  Everyone else retreats to the viewing terrace, not bothering to hide their anticipatory smiles. Kalliarkos catches my eye and smiles to reassure me, and when I hear laughter from the spectators’ benches I am sorry I looked at him.

  I shake off their amusement as I trot around the outside of the court to find the crooked crossed hatch-mark that is the symbol for Trees. A bowl of chalk sits on the ground by the curtained gate. I tighten my slippers and my fingerless gloves before dusting my palms and the soles of my slippers with chalk.

  The warning bell rings.

  As I face the entry gate a sliver of hope lightens the dreary misery in my heart. A whisper trembles up from the ground like the heart of the Fives court speaking to me. It reminds me that I don’t have to lose. I don’t have to cheat myself here, and if I pass muster, they will want me to win.

  The start bell rings.

  Energy pulses through me, driving me forward. The heavy canvas curtain gives way as I shove it aside. Some adversaries swarm right up the posts of Trees and pick a path as they go, but that is not what Anise taught us: Sailors chart shoals and currents, so must you chart your path before you set sail. Seek the most efficient route, not the shortest one.

  The configuration is a basic course set for speed and strength. Because I am not usually as strong as the men I have learned to use speed and agility to create momentum that will carry me up handholds on high posts and across gaps between clusters of posts.

  I am going to win because the Fives is where I belong.

  The world narrows to the grain of wood beneath my fingers, the press of my foot against a post as I shove into a leap, the impact that jars through me as I catch the next post and steady myself. When I land on the resting platform, I’m more winded than I ought to be but that is likely because I was eating only bread for three days.

  A murmur of voices rises from the spectators’ terrace.

  Half the challenge of the Fives is the choices you have to make on the fly. Because the court has four starting gates, one for each obstacle, and only one center obstacle, each adversary has a choice when she successfully completes her first test: which direction to go next. The choice here can make the difference between winning and losing.

  The gate to Trees is always sited facing the southeast, Rivers to the northeast, Pillars to the northwest, and Traps to the southwest. I must choose either Rivers or Traps next. I don’t want to chance that I might pass Kalliarkos where he started on Rivers because it would embarrass us both. So I climb down and race along a canvas tunnel that leads to Traps.

  No sooner do I ring the gate bell and dart through the canvas than I see one of the fledglings fighting to maintain his balance on a slack rope. In the time it takes me to confirm that this configuration of Traps holds no maze or height complications, only a straight shot through every basic sort of balance and trap, the lad falls. He catches himself with a good two-footed release, then runs back to the beginning because if your foot touches the ground you have to start over from the gate. I’m already up the opening incline.

  My heart is centered; this is my joy and my brilliance. I race across the narrow beam, rock along the taut rope weave, and relax into the slack rope. The bridges and traps are so simple that I am a
little irked when I cross the resting platform and charge for Pillars.

  In a training maze, hanging canvas walls can be easily moved into new configurations. When I was sitting up on the terrace in the morning I charted this Pillars course and memorized its turns. Did the trainers change it while we napped?

  Given the number of footprints smearing and smudging the sprinkling of sand I decide that if they haven’t even raked it then they likely have not changed its course or added any complications. Still, I don’t want them to guess that I memorized the pattern in case they decide that’s cheating.

  Counting branching corridors keeps me so occupied that I slam into the back of the other beginner where he has paused trying to decide whether to go left or right. Without a word I dodge past him. He’s a bright boy; he follows on my heels, right behind me as I climb to the resting platform.

  He says, “How did you come all that way already?”

  A few years younger than I am, he has the wheat-colored hair commonly seen among Soldians, sailors whose homeland lies far to the east.

  I offer him the best piece of respect I can, by treating him as an equal.

  “Kiss off, Adversary,” I say.

  His startled smile flashes in answer as I jump down to Rivers.

  This configuration is dead easy, hopping from each slowly moving tiny roundel of wood to the next. It’s just balance and timing. The fledgling actually just stands on the shore to watch me. As I climb up to the last resting platform I see him start across, mimicking my choices, my pace, and my way of jumping. Pleasure flames my cheeks at the imitation.

  A foot scrapes the ladder below. Kalliarkos climbs up. He crouches with a hand touching the floor as he catches his breath. He glances at me, then ahead at Rings.

  It is a fledgling’s version used for basic training. Rather than the usual upper and lower paths, its twelve large wooden rings are arranged to make a circular path around the victory tower. A hidden mechanism turns each at a different speed. All you have to do is jump onto the first and gauge the right timing and angle to leap to the next.