“He’ll show up eventually, in the Pit at the very least,” Muluk said.
“Hmm. So what of tomorrow?” Halm asked of Goll.
“I already told you. We get up, and we walk out to Thaimondus,” Goll repeated hotly, clearly becoming annoyed. “Just like this day. We ask if he’s interested and go from there.”
“Just thought of this… who’s going to pay him to train us?”
“We will.”
That surprised both Halm and Muluk. Goll frowned at their faces. “Where did you think the coin was coming from? We have to pay on top of the Chamber’s fee. They aren’t going to train any of us for nothing.”
“How is that going to work?” Halm asked.
“From our winnings. All gladiators pay a sum from their winnings to their houses, for their training, food, and lodgings. Wagers as well. The Domis will be seeing my face quite a bit in the days to come. Those are the main ways to make coin in this business.”
“Where do you keep all of this?” Muluk asked.
Goll didn’t seem to like the question. “I’ll keep that to myself, for reasons best unsaid. And if you don’t like it, you can cast off now.”
“Sensitive.” Muluk scoffed, but he didn’t pursue the matter.
Halm cleared his throat, wanting to get the conversation back on safer ground. “And if Thaimondus rejects us?”
Goll didn’t immediately have an answer to that. “We’ll continue on. Do things the hard way. I’m committed to this, and I’ll tell you now—you both have to make peace with yourselves on whether you truly want to be founders of a house. I’m not going to keep checking to see if you are both with me. This is just the beginning. Just the beginning.”
Halm held up his palms, submitting. Muluk grunted and kept his eyes downcast.
“That a yes?” Goll asked him.
“Aye that, it’s a yes. Leave me alone about it now. Seddon above, I hope that food gets here soon. I’m famished. We haven’t eaten or drunk anything all day. Do you realize that?”
They did.
“Just thinking about that one big bastard with the missing ear,” Halm said. “That’s two men I’ve seen in as many days with the same injury.”
“Who was the first?” Muluk asked.
“One of the Gladiatorial Chamber Members. Older man. Right ear sliced off.”
“That one we saw this day had his left shorn off. And that scar.”
“That was a scar,” Halm agreed. “He didn’t have it stitched together, and the flesh never came to on its own. Looked like a pair of lips running up the side of his face. Or petals half bloomed.”
Muluk made a face. “Ugly thing.”
“Be hard to sleep with that picture in my mind. Or eat.”
“It didn’t bother me that much.”
“Well, get what you can into yourselves this night, and sleep,” Goll told them. “Tomorrow is going to be more of the same but with a different ending.”
The Kree swept his hands over the worn knots in the table’s surface.
“I guarantee you.”
*
Later that same evening, Grisholt sat and stared at the painting on his wall, the colours cast in a darkly orange hue from a torch sputtering in its sconce. The warship’s course held steady, charging the sun, with just a touch of white froth around the prow where it cut the sea. Grisholt had never been at sea, and it occurred to him that he was getting too old for any kind of lengthy travel. Any ocean might very well kill him. It didn’t bother him much. Other matters of concern pressed him. Marrok had just informed him that the pantry and larder were running low and that he’d have to go to market soon, within two days at least, else the men would be eating fried-up flour sprinkled with a little sugar. Grisholt told him to make do until he could get him the coin to buy food. Then it was Sarkus, the smithy, wanting new iron to fashion and leather to be bought for straps and bindings. More coin that Grisholt didn’t have. He ordered the smithy to make do. He didn’t even want to think about the coming fall when the cold winds would start blowing. They rattled the roof last year and this year; who knew what damage might be done? This season had to pay off handsomely for Grisholt.
Coin.
It all came down to coin. And he needed a sizeable sum from the games. A fat pot of gold.
He sighed and hefted the bottle of mead. Even though times were difficult, he still managed to have a bottle for himself. One of the few remaining pleasures granted him, and even that needed coin.
Grisholt had a lad fighting in the tournament tomorrow, a brute by the name of Gunjar with a good chance at winning. Even better, he was marked to fight a Free Trained lad. The odds would be high in his favour, but the problem was there weren’t many who would take a wager on a Free Trained facing a house fighter. Regardless, Grisholt would play with what little money he had left and wager all of it on that match. He needed that gold. He needed a winning season. The notion made him run a hand over his brow. Grisholt was glad his father wasn’t alive to see how low the stable had sunk under his management. The shame would kill him on the spot.
The rattling of a door and the sound of approaching footsteps prodded the master, and he diverted his attention to the study entrance.
“Master Grisholt?”
“Hmm?”
Brakuss stepped into the room with a torch, which made Grisholt think of the need to purchase oil for the lamps.
“Caro is here.”
Grisholt perked up. “Show him in.”
Keeping to the shadows, Caro eased around Brakuss and stopped before the desk. Grisholt had gotten used to reading the body language of his spy, something he never revealed to the man, and Caro’s suggested that all was well—which was good. Grisholt needed some good news for a change.
“Yes?”
“Master Grisholt, I have some news.”
“Out with it.”
“I have at least one man following them at all times. If I had coin, I’d be able to—”
“There is no more coin. Out with this news,” Grisholt said impatiently.
Caro gave a curt dip of his head. “One of my lads followed Halm of Zhiberia, Goll of Kree, and a third man outside the city this day. To the residence of Clavellus. He couldn’t proceed any further for fear of being spotted by the guards on the wall, so he waited, and they left the residence not long after.”
“So they’ve made contact with Clavellus.”
“Yes, but I have no idea to what end. They appeared to be downcast, so the meeting may not have gone in their favour.”
“Maybe.” Grisholt stroked his beard. “Maybe. Regardless, tomorrow morning, as early as you can, you go to Dark Curge and tell him you have information for him. I’m sure he’ll be interested to learn about the visit to his old taskmaster’s hole. Tell him only about the visit. Get paid as well, and use it to keep our lads on our three friends. And who is the third?”
Caro shook his head. “I’ll find out.”
“Any word on the gold?”
“Nothing yet.”
“When you do, even if it’s just a sniff of something, you let me know. Find out where they’re keeping it. Don’t do anything else until I know what the situation is and decide on a plan. Understood? And no killing.”
Caro nodded.
Grisholt leaned back in his chair. “They’ll probably be heading to Thaimondus soon. Perhaps even tomorrow. This Goll is the intelligent one. Watch him above the others. Everywhere he goes and anything he does. He leads the Zhiberian pisser. That one probably has to be instructed on where to leave a cow kiss.”
That made both henchmen smirk.
“I’ll have a man follow them right from the alehouse,” Caro said.
“Get back there this night. Sleep in an alley if you have to, but keep me aware of what’s happening. I’ll be at the Pit tomorrow as well. See if I can’t win us some coin,” he ended with a knowing smile.
“Who is fighting?” Caro asked.
“Gunjar.” Grisholt stretched the nam
e ominously. “Odds are on him and rightly so. And truth be told, the money can’t come fast enough. Oh yes, be there as well, to place the wager after me.”
“Hmm,” Caro grunted thoughtfully. “I’ll leave for the city this night.”
“Yes, do that,” Grisholt said and waved, dismissing his head spy. Caro slunk back into the dark, leaving him and Brakuss in the study, their features made hellish by the torchlight. “Our fortunes haven’t been the best lately, but I smell change on the wind. Do you have your boys picked?”
“I do.”
“Now, I want to you be careful about this. Anything we do might come back on the stable. Obviously, I don’t want that. My name’s in the shite enough these days without having thievery added to it. What I want is a faceless wraith to descend from the night, do my bidding, and leave with nary a sign of passage. If there’s anything to be discovered, Caro is the weasel to discover it. I’ll have your lads do the striking when the time is right. Understood?”
“Clearly.”
“Excellent.” Grisholt eyed his once-gladiator. “Our hard times are about to come to an end, Brakuss. Oh, I can feel it.”
15
Long, lazy streamers of cloud smeared the early morning light of the sky, and the temperature was already warm. By noon, the sands would be scalding. A harsh day for pit fighting, but then Dark Curge supposed most days were. Facing the training grounds of his house, he bent over a table and ate the flesh of a red melon, swallowing the seeds and heedless of the juice covering his jowls. From his balcony, he watched the activity below. His trainers put his pit fighters through an early-morning hell to the steady beat of blunted, weighted swords being smashed against practice men—thick crosses of wood that would be chipped away until broken. He eyed each one of his fighters in turn as he devoured his breakfast, lingering, studying, making mental notes of a swing or a stab, the posture or placing of the feet. The taskmaster and trainers walked amongst the men, snapping whips when needed, taking gladiators aside and correcting them if they spotted something amiss.
After the loss of Samarhead, Curge wondered who might fill the place of his prized fighter. All of his lads were animals in the more flattering sense, and after Halm of Zhiberia killed Samarhead rather decisively, his trainers had reported that there were several lads wanting a cut at the fat man. That kind of desire placed a warm tingling in Curge’s black heart. All he had to do was choose one, and he mulled that very question. Even the unfit Vadrian had been unable to kill the Zhiberian, and Curge still felt the lingering burn of that one. He should have kept it in his house from the beginning, as custom went, and selected one of his own to challenge Halm. As it was, he still had time to seek bloody retribution against the Free Trained piece of shite, but truth be known, seeing the Zhiberian hack down his best man concerned him.
Curge sat and chewed, periodically drinking water from a silver cup filled by one of his female servants, raking his attention from one pit fighter to the next. Something whispered to let this one killing go, to not do anything. He had the sour feeling the Zhiberian was more trouble than he was worth, but the old warrior in Curge refused to let him take Samarhead’s scalp without a blood match.
But who could challenge the Zhiberian?
“Master Curge?” said someone behind him.
Naturally, Curge didn’t turn right away. Instead, he gnawed at the melon, right down to the white of the rind, and dumped it on a juice-wet plate before him. A servant gave him a hand towel to paw at his hands and face.
“Didn’t I once tell you not to disturb me this early in the morning, Bezange?”
A fearful pause, ripe as a blister.
“You did, Master Curge.”
“And what time is it?”
“Morning.”
“And what am I doing?”
“Eating?”
“So you have good reason—dare I say very good reason—to come into my private quarters? Hmm?”
Another pause. Saimon below, things were getting bleak.
“I believe so.”
Dark Curge sighed and looked at his baby-faced agent. Bezange was dressed in his usual plain clothing, so as not to draw attention, and was trying very hard to not tremble in his black boots.
“What is it?” Curge finally asked, his throat thick with breakfast and making him sound harsher than usual.
“You have a visitor.”
That made Curge frown. “A visitor? This early in the morning? Who?”
“He says his name is Caro and that he has information for you he’s willing to sell.”
Curge’s frown deepened. “Why wouldn’t he give it to you?”
“He wanted to see you.”
A growl came from the owner then, and he glanced back at his gladiators’ morning paces.
“He wanted to see me?”
Bezange stood there, looking every bit the messenger bearing annoying news.
“Who’s his employer?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“A real mystery this morning,” Curge rumbled. “Little bastard has balls to see the lion in his den.” He sat and stewed. “Have Demasta and a few of the guards escort this Caro to the meeting room in the lower level. See to it he’s uncomfortable. I’ll be down in a bit.”
Bezange dipped at the waist and disappeared through the inner curtains of the house. Curge watched him go for a moment before directing his attention back to the training pit fighters. He scrutinized them for a bit longer, losing himself in the very same thoughts that troubled him during breakfast.
Eventually, he remembered he had a visitor waiting for him in what he called the meeting room. Curge had two such chambers. One was a regular audience hall, a smaller room and undeserving of its title, where he met visitors. The meeting room, however, lay beneath his house’s cool stone floors, only accessible by descending two flights of stairs. He kept cells down there as well, off from the main corridor of the lower level and behind an iron door, and he wondered for a moment if anyone occupied any of them.
Curge stood, his left stump rubbing his ribs, and stretched. He was a noisy stretcher, yawning like a bear. One of his women came forward to wipe his hairy chest with a cloth, and he kept still long enough for her to complete her job. Once done, he left the balcony, wearing only his trousers, and proceeded to the meeting room. He passed the plants and tapestries decorating his home, in no mood to appreciate them. The door to the lower level lay half open, and he descended with heavy steps, feeling his knees each time. Getting old did not set well with Curge. He supposed it didn’t with most people, but for him, after a life of pushing his body to physical extremes, feeling and watching his strength slowly diminish galled him.
Lamplight illuminated a long corridor walled with slabs of flat rock, and the ceiling was mere fingers above his hairless head. The air was much cooler, and Curge liked its damp feel. He walked past the door leading to the cells and went to the half-opened entryway at the end. The sounds of people moving reached his ears, then a curse, drawing a thin line of satisfaction on his face.
Dark Curge entered the room with a threatening grace, immediately quieting the visitor lashed to a heavy wooden chair. He stopped and simply studied his prisoner for a moment, not saying a word. Strips of leather bound his captive’s neck, waist, wrists, upper thighs, and ankles, keeping him as firmly in place as possible. Curge knew from experience that once he got cutting, nothing really kept a body still. The man’s hands rested on thick chopping blocks attached to the ends of the chair’s arms, his fingers knotted up into protective fists. Bezange stood off to one side, fidgeting with his belt, while thick-bodied Demasta, the head of Curge’s household guard, stood to the right of the chair. A thick X of studded leather crossed his chest while another leather slab protected his midsection. The warrior’s blue eyes flashed almost angrily at his employer, but upon recognizing him, he smoothed over his short black beard, nodded a greeting, and backed off. Three more household guards stood about the chambers, dressed in the same intimid
ating armor, carrying assorted weapons, and glaring at the prisoner. Curge took on hard men who could follow orders and had no qualms about taking a life. He didn’t care what manner of weapon they used, but he demanded they wear the armor.
Curge looked at each of his lads before settling on the worried expression of his restrained guest, noting the torn front of his shirt and the heaving of a hairy chest underneath. With a menacing air, Curge stared, sizing the bound man up and down as if he were gauging an expensive cut of steak.
“What is this?” Caro asked, barely keeping the fright from his voice. “I came here to sell information! I have information, and your dogs grabbed and lashed me to this chair. Let me go! Let me go this instant!”
Curge glowered at the man, mildly piqued that he’d spoken at all.
“What?” Caro demanded, becoming more unnerved. “What is it? I only want to sell you some information! That’s all. A few gold pieces for what I know. Why all of this? There’s no need of it.”
Curge kept his face unreadable.
Caro chuckled nervously. “Do you greet all informants the same way?”
No one answered. Not even Bezange dared to move, his fingers now firmly plunged into his belt leather. The household guard stood like trunks of timber, ready to fall on the captive’s skull upon command.
Caro gawked at Curge with bulging eyes. His lower lip quivered before he finally lost control. “What? Release me, damn you! Release me this instant!”
Caro screamed then. He emptied his lungs like a wild rabbit caught in a snare and seeing the hunter’s axe. He howled and raved to be released, rocked against his bonds. He threw out threats, and when he saw they held no power, he changed his tune and begged.
A stoic Curge listened and watched, masking his thoughts expertly, until he’d had enough. He had no fear of the man’s yowling reaching the surface, and even if it did, he didn’t care.
But a man could only take so much noise.
As if remembering something, Curge turned his bulk towards an area behind him. There, on a table, rested an assortment of heavy iron tongs, dull knives, and well-used meat cleavers. Curge stepped over to the table and picked up a cleaver, turning over the fat blade in his hand so the light flashed along its girth. He flicked a calloused thumb across its edge, testing it, and then considered Demasta. Grim approval sparkled in his head guard’s eyes. Curge slowly revealed the instrument to Caro… who, not surprisingly, stopped screeching upon seeing the weapon.
131 Days [Book 1] Page 26
