Court of Fives

by Kate Elliott

  I could kiss him just by inhaling but suddenly I can’t remember how to smile as a doting lover would. As my mother and father would smile at each other. As they never will again.

  “I can’t believe you’re hesitating,” he whispers. His eyes crinkle. His mouth parts as he waits for me to act because he thinks it’s funny that I’m the one who is hesitating.

  So I cup his face in my hands and I match him, look for look. “This isn’t hesitation. This is my challenge.”

  I press my lips to his, and after all it is easy to forget everything else and just kiss him, because we are learning who we are, as if he and I will turn by turn unfold each other until we know everything that matters about our hearts.

  A bark of command slaps down over us. We break apart, but it is not anyone speaking to us. The dawn changeover of guards has arrived. The gate stands wide open and, with the sun rising, all the guards have seen.

  With a parting smile he walks out the gate, leaving me standing in full sight of every awake person in the stable. My pulse eases down from a hammering gallop into a mere trot. Without meaning to, I touch fingers to my lips.

  The cook chuckles as she trundles past, her assistants trailing like cowed goslings.

  Mis, Gira, and Shorty are standing at the entrance to the baths, mouths agape. Talon waits apart from them. Even she has eyebrows raised in that princely style she affects without its seeming an act. Abruptly I wonder if she is related to him.

  “A good wakening to you, Spider,” calls Tana from the shelter, with a false cheer that warns me she isn’t pleased, “although it looks as if you’ve not had much sleep over your Sevensday rest. Best take a few cups of tea with your morning porridge. I believe we shall have to run you hard today to remind you that you train here. Keep the rest of your business to yourself.”

  32

  As we adversaries eat our morning porridge, not one person asks me what I did during my absence, but it is obvious by the way they whisper behind their hands that the news is spreading. When Kalliarkos shows up for training, flanked by Thynos and Inarsis, all talk ceases. People’s mouths might as well have been sewn up. Inarsis catches my eye and gives a subtle nod, but I know what it means: my family is installed at the inn as a temporary refuge.

  Now I can breathe. Now I can truly enjoy our victory.

  Once we are through menageries, Tana and Darios ride me all morning until I am so exhausted I can barely shift one foot in front of the next. On Trees I climb until my arms give out and my vision swims. Rivers defeats me as I splash a hundred times into the shallows and once scrape my knee so bloody it stings. I am so clumsy on Traps that everyone starts calling me “Dusty,” and in the maze of Pillars I keep mistaking my right hand for my left.

  They whip me along, trying to make me cry. But why would I cry? My mother and sisters are free, my father did what he could for us, I am training to run the Fives, and a prince kissed me.

  When the bell rings at last, I shuffle to the dining shelter. Not even Thynos and Inarsis can keep Kalliarkos from me. As exhausted as he looks, with shadows under his eyes and a fresh bruise on his chin from a fall on the court, he has a strut as he brings his platter over and sits beside me. His defiance brings a smile to my face although I am so tired it feels like the effort of grinning is the same as that of trying to hoist a massive stone.

  He frowns. “Are you all right, Jes?”

  “I’m about to fall asleep face-first into my soup.”

  He nods gravely, leaning closer. “I’ll wipe off your face if you do. Promise.”

  I stifle a giggle behind a hand but everyone hears it. Everyone sees. Everyone disapproves. I can practically smell it, as if flesh can exude castigation.

  But Kalliarkos doesn’t care, and so neither do I.

  I press the side of my foot against his under the table, where no one can see.

  In a low voice he says, “Grandmother was very irritated with me for being out two nights running. But for once my mother spoke up. She said it meant I was behaving as a man should, not tied to their skirts. That was amusing, let me tell you.”

  His light voice has such charm. The way he shares the little arrangements of the life he lives in the elaborate confines of Garon Palace makes me want to know everything.

  The bell rings to mark the afternoon rest.

  “Kal!” Thynos calls. A prince must rest in the safety of the palace.

  With his sweetest grin as a promise he departs with his uncle.

  Mis walks with me to the barracks, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t have done it. But he is very good-looking. There isn’t a single person in this whole stable he has taken a harsh word to, like he could, being a prince who could order any of us whipped or sent to the mines if the whim took him.”

  “He’d never do that!”

  “Oh, Jes, you sound like you’re in love. Tell me about it later!”

  I collapse onto my cot and sleep like the dead. Or how I used to imagine the dead slept.

  A hand shakes me awake. Talon stands over me. In the dim room her expression is unreadable. She taps her chest twice. I sit up in my underclothes, blearily trying to rub the leaden weight out of my eyes and limbs. The long slant of shadows through the shutter slats in my window and the silence suggest the others have already left for the afternoon session.

  “Thank you,” I say, wondering why Mis did not wake me or if Gira and Shorty are mad or if Tana gave them orders to let me sleep. “Do you have another name than Talon that I can call you? Not if you don’t want to, but you can call me Jes. It’s short for Jessamy.”

  She taps her chest again, points toward the outside, and leaves me sitting on my cot.

  The first warning bell rings, calling adversaries to the training ground for the late afternoon session. With more haste than care I dress, gulp down water, and arrive on the court with drops still dribbling down my chin. I do not see Mis, Gira, or Shorty anywhere, nor any of the experienced adversaries. Even Talon has vanished. Elsewhere on the court, out of my sight, Tana calls out commands as she loops the adversaries through a drill. Only the beginners remain here. Darios works us through our menagerie with the look of a man who has given up on finding a single good thing in his dreary life, of which we are the last failing hope.

  How bad a sign is it that I have been cast back in with the beginners?

  Darios whacks my butt with his baton. “Don’t let your mind wander. Don’t get above yourself.”

  It is a warning. But I can’t explain to him that I am not a fool in a way that he’ll believe. Instead I shove everything else from my mind and let myself live within the menageries: cat, ibis, elephant, snake, dog, falcon, bull, wasp, jackal, butterfly, gazelle, crocodile, horse, gull, monkey, scorpion, horned lion, crane, sea dragon, firebird, tomb spider.

  When I work that deeply I never notice anything going on around me. It is one of the reasons I am good. Only after we finish with the deathly menace of tomb spider and I have the leisure to wipe the sweat from my face do I see the people who have come to sit on the viewing terrace.

  Three women sit in a row: one elderly, one of middle age, and one young like me. The elderly woman looks as brittle as a misfired iron blade; her back is as straight as if a rod holds her up. No ribbons adorn her silver hair; she wears it in a single braid. Her gold gown has the flare of fire sewn out of rippling silk. The woman in the middle is no longer young and not yet old. She has a plump round moon face and a placid expression and a way of sitting that makes it seem she has been there forever and will be there forever, perhaps having forgotten where she came from or meant to go.

  The young woman is shifting in her seat and impatiently tapping her fingers together. Her hair is a tower of ribbons and arches spun out of thin braids woven with yet more golden ribbons, and it shakes and shimmers with each of her impatient movements. If not for the presence of the other two women, I think she would have run out of here already. She has a look of bored disgust on her beautiful face, or else ants are crawling
all over her body beneath her clothes.

  This is my father’s wife.

  I cannot help but smirk. I have gotten the better bargain.

  Above the women, with a more commanding view of the proceedings, Lord Gargaron sits beside men I do not know but who resemble him enough to be kinsmen: brothers, nephews, cousins. The youngest crows out a laugh and points to a sight elsewhere on the court that I cannot see from the ground. He has a voice like a bullfrog’s, oddly deep in so small a frame.

  “There he is! Ha ha! Look at Kal swing along that horizontal ladder like a monkey! I thought you said he was no good, Uncle Gar.”

  All the beginners turn to stare at the speaker. Upon realizing with horror that they aren’t to stare at the lords, they glance accusingly at me as if my torrid love affair with the princely son will get them whipped for their part in the conspiracy, and finally fix their gazes on their feet. It happens in such unison that I would laugh if I weren’t quivering because I hate Gargaron so much.

  Yet it is hard to fight down the smile that wants to burst out of me. Gloating will give me away so I wear my obedient face, knowing I have saved them, beaten him, and won his nephew’s trust and heart besides.

  Darios whistles. We hurriedly assemble in our ranks. Lord Thynos stands in the place of honor, befitting his Illustrious status. I am sent to stand with the Novices between Gira and Dusty. Kalliarkos takes a place on the other side of Gira now that he has decided to become a real adversary who devotes his life to the Fives and not a prince playing at being one.

  Lord Gargaron and his kinsmen descend to stroll up and down our columns.

  He stops in front of Kalliarkos. “Well, Nephew, the Exalted Princess your grandmother and I have agreed you will be allowed one last trial at Novice rank. I have enrolled you in the victory games at the Royal Fives Court tomorrow. Lose, and you go into the army at my bidding and under my aegis.”

  “What if I win?” asks Kalliarkos, annoyance flickering in the corner of his mouth.

  “What if you win?” echoes Lord Gargaron, the tone shaded so close to mockery that I tense. The frog-voiced boy honks a laugh. “That would be food for discussion, would it not?”

  Only now do I notice that Talon is nowhere to be seen. Are they hiding her?

  My distraction catches me up short. Lord Gargaron paces past me, halts, pauses, and turns back. When he glances at Kal and back to me, I know he has heard the rumor. He measures me with an insulting ugly frown. But I say nothing. I show nothing.

  “They call you Spider now, so I hear.” His smile is thin and his voice is thin but he is a man whose power is as weighty as the City of the Dead crushing the past into rubble. “Tomorrow you will run the first trial, Spider. Appropriate for the daughter to run in the victory games held in her father’s honor, do you not think?”

  He pauses.

  I nod obediently although my mind spins a giddy whirl at the thought of running a trial at the Royal Fives Court. In front of my father! If I could crow aloud, I would. But I mustn’t forget that I am merely an adversary on the court and he is the one in the undercourt spinning the Rings.

  “Remember, Spider. I will be watching to see if you pass muster.”

  33

  Once when Father and I were returning home after I had accompanied him on a visit to his military camp, he stared for the longest time at the terraces of ripening grain cut through by irrigation channels. Shades of brilliant green stretching away to the horizon mark the richness of the soil of Efea, the land that nourishes us.

  To my astonishment he said, “Even after all this time I can never quite get over how different the fields look here.”

  “Father,” I asked daringly, “why did you leave your home and come to Efea?”

  He almost smiled. “Funny you should ask in quite that way, Jessamy. For when I told my family, kin, friends, and acquaintances that I had decided to take my chances and sail to the fabled land of Efea, that was the only question they asked me. ‘Why are you leaving?’”

  “What did you tell them?”

  He leaned out from under the carriage awning to watch a falcon fly past. When it was gone, he sat back and addressed me.

  “I told them that the choice was made for me when I was born the youngest son in a poor household. My older brothers would inherit the bakery. My father could not afford me the bride-price for a wife, so I had no expectation that I would ever marry. In Saro-Urok, men of our caste could be nothing but foot soldiers with no rank in the army, because only men of wealth and connection can become officers. But we had all heard the poets and sailors and merchants and tale-tellers. They said that in Efea a man from Saro can be anything he wants.”

  He took my hand in his, an affectionate gesture he so rarely made that I was stricken and tongue-tied. His grave face made me think he was about to impart his most precious secret.

  “There will come a moment in your life where you find yourself confronted with two choices, and both are bad ones. For me it was to stay in a place where I was choked and had nothing to look forward to and no way to prove my talents, or to leave everyone I knew and loved behind forever for a chance that might not work out. That is how the gods test us, by laying before us what seems to be a choice and yet is no choice at all. When we come to that fork in our path down which no road is clean, all we can control is with what dignity and honor we take our inevitable step.”

  34

  The representatives of the Garon Stable enter the Royal Fives Court in procession, Tana in the lead, Kalliarkos behind her and after him Lord Thynos, then me, with Darios bringing up the rear. To walk into a building I have only ever glimpsed from the outside numbs me. The Royal Court is built of marble and hung with painted silk tapestries depicting famous adversaries of the past. The stairs down to the undercourt are swarmed by women and men who toss flowers at the feet of those of us who are entering. Many call out Lord Thynos’s Fives name of Southwind.

  My feet tread on rose petals as I descend. The scent floods me with the memory of my father bringing flowers from the market as offerings for my mother.

  Blinking back tears, I enter the attiring hall. Everything is polished to a shine. The benches have cushions. Mats woven of soft reeds cover raised beds where trainers work stiffness out of the muscles of waiting adversaries. Ropes mark out private curtained chambers where the Illustrious await their trials in a privacy the rest of us have not earned. I glimpse the faces of men and women I have seen win on the Fives court. I am walking into my most cherished dream.

  That my father will sit in a place of honor on the royal balcony just makes me even more nervous and excited.

  I have to concentrate.

  Tana takes me aside. “Do not get distracted,” she says.

  She leaves to go up top to the trainers’ balcony, from which she will watch the trials. Thynos retreats to the roped-off area to wait in privacy for the Illustrious rounds, which will come much later in the day. Darios leads Kalliarkos and me through a warm-up of menageries.

  I haven’t spoken to Kalliarkos since Lord Gargaron told us we would both run trials in the victory games. They have kept us apart, and I can’t help but watch him moving through the patterns beside me. He’s graceful and precise as he moves, although his angles are a little off. It’s impossible not to marvel at his perfect profile with its strong chin, straight nose, dark eyes, and short hair. He flashes a glance at me that is almost as good as a kiss, and I purse my lips and blow a kiss back. Darios whaps me on the butt with his baton.

  When Darios tells us to pause so he can adjust my gloves and check my mask, he says, “You have a chance, Spider. Don’t get distracted.”

  “I don’t understand why I’m entered,” I say, because I’ve been running this maze in my head. I’m sure Lord Gargaron must have an ugly motive. Perhaps he hopes I’ll lose in front of my father or maybe even means to run me against Kalliarkos. “I’ve never competed at anything like this level.”

  “Tana and I recommended you be entered in th
e first trial today, the one for the most promising Novices.”

  “You did?”

  He nods, his gaze steady on my face to make sure I understand how serious he is. “Think of this as a test to see how good you really are and how badly you really want this. Any Novice who wins at the Royal Fives Court automatically moves up to Challenger. We think you’re ready for it. You have the potential to become an Illustrious, Jessamy.”

  The unexpected praise sweeps warmth into my cheeks. “What about Lord Kalliarkos?”

  He yanks hard on the lacing of my gloves. “Keep your eyes on the obstacle in front of you and your heart in the court. As for his lordship, he’ll be placed in the normal manner, according to his victories and a random draw.”

  The first warning bell rings.

  The Fives have a structure so complicated it is run by accountants. Trials begin with fledglings or the lowest-ranked Novices and work up to Illustrious. That’s why I’ll go in the first trial whereas Kalliarkos, with five Novice wins under his belt, will go a little later.

  A fanfare of blaring horns announces the arrival of the king and queen and their entourage, so loud we can hear it even down here.

  I want to prove myself. I want my father to be proud. I want to run the prize circuit and pour money into Mother’s hands so she never need want for anything. I want to pay the fee for Maraya to take the Archivists’ exam if Kalliarkos will agree to secretly sponsor her in another city. I can accompany Amaya to the theater and buy her all the masks and ribbons she wants. I will find Bett. As I wait for the second warning bell I stare at the wall and envision in my mind’s eye the obstacles I may encounter and how I will defeat each one.

  “Jes.” Kalliarkos steps in beside me and takes my hands in his with such familiarity that my pulse surges like I’m already running. “May Fortune kiss you, as I intend to do right now in front of everyone.”