75 - [June 29] The bloodsport arena

So I came into the City Itself of Arko, still wearing the peace-sigil as I should, but also chains and collar, and with slavers instead of an honour guard. Daisas made me dress plainly in Arkan style, shirt and trousers, to hide my nakedness out of courtesy to the city, I think; a blessing, because it hid the semanakraseyeni brand-mark, which I could not throw away. Though I thought he would want to have me most in hand now, he loosened the collar completely, so that I remember well my first sight of the city.

It was spectacular beyond spectacular. Arko is set in a great depression in the earth, bounded all around by granite cliffs fifty man-lengths high, and big enough that the opposite wall is tiny and blue-grey in the heat-haze. The whole pit but the blue lake and a ring of green woods was filled with a carpet of white buildings, bulging high in the center like tall trees in the heart of a forest, reaching higher than I had thought buildings could, and so many that it was as if I saw all the cities I had ever seen all joined together and turned white.

Much traffic goes in and out of Arko not by the gate but by the lefaeti, the lifts, of which there are twenty. Each of the ten old ones is simply two fenced platforms hung from great cables, by which one is raised while the other lowered between cliff-edge—the Rim, as Arkans call it—to the pit-floor, the motion powered by a team of oxen. The modern ones use the weight of water flowing into a container affixed beneath the platform when it is in the upper position so as to outweigh the lower. The inventor of this was raised from fessas, the third of the five Arkan castes, to Aitzas, the highest.

As we were lowered, it was all I could do not to gape at the cliff-face. The living stone, the bone of the Earthsphere itself, was dressed to as shining a finish as a temple keystone, from not far shy of the top to the bottom; I saw my chained and collared reflection, and as we went lower, that of the sky and clouds, as in a mirror wide as a mountain, against the sea of white buildings behind. Daisas laughed as he saw me gazing, and said, “Your first look at civilization.”

Through streets that were like giant trenches for the height of the buildings lining them, and endlessly long, Daisas led me, stopping only for noon observance; the entire city of Arko stands still and silent in the time after the ringing of the main bell at high noon, an astonishing thing to see and hear. He threatened me with pain beyond my imagining if I so much as twitched. Though I did not know it at the time, we were in the fessas quarter. As the Aitzas in my escort had worn their hair waist-long and the solas heart-long, every man here had his cropped just above his shoulder. Everyone, everywhere, even beggar children in the street, wore gloves, even if they were ragged; it was not just the custom of my escort, or of soldiers, I learned then, but all Arkans, as if their hands were obscene, or they were ashamed of things their hands had done.

I would be lying to say the City was not even more beautiful to me closer. Arko’s climate being hot and still, the houses are built airy, yet a good half of the windows had flawless glass. Arkans love art, and though in the poorer districts it was often in disrepair, at every corner was a mosaic or marble statue of some scene or person, full of luxuriant curves in the Arkan style. Street artists and musicians were everywhere, dashing out charcoal-on-paper portraits or crooning to the strains of a lute for copper chains—Arkan currency is all chains—nimbly thrown around their necks between strokes or chords. One artist tried to persuade Daisas to let him sketch me.

Arkans are also in love, so much as to dazzle away one’s usual standard of excess, with gold. Everywhere I saw their elegant and simple script, even on house-signs, it was engraved and gilded; I began to think there must be a law. Temples were easy to tell; even the small ones, besides being built with all their angles pointing skyward, bore a great disc of gold over the door. I saw sun flash from a tower on the distant white parapet that stood like teeth beneath the far cliff; the roof was gold-leafed. The Marble Palace, I guessed. I had heard they’d carved the eagle in big on the cliff over it, and gold-leafed it entirely; seeing it was something else again. Each gleaming wing was wider than three houses on top of each other, and long as an archery range.

As in Laka, women were few to be seen in the streets, Arkans considering the house their place. But pairs of men walking close together were common. I remembered the Arkan custom. If a man and a youth, or even a boy of ten, walk holding hands in Arko, they are as likely lovers as father and son; if the boy is better dressed, the man is his chaperon. One should not take “lovers” as meaning “equals,” though. To the Arkan mind, every bond has, and should have, one superior and one inferior.

I drew more attention than I wanted. Being in the capital of an empire that had conquered so many nations, I was surprised to see nothing but blond hair and blue eyes; perhaps there was a law about that too, which excepted me for some reason. Everywhere we went, men both rich and poor measured me with their eyes, fingered Chirel with their gloved hands, felt my arms or chest or legs—sometimes the touch was a grope, which Daisas would slap off possessively—and spoke with Daisas enthusiastically, obviously about me. It was as if all Arko could buy me.

He led me to a huge round building five stories high and wide as a palace. It went far beyond what I now knew as the Arkan standard for garishness, even; I would have thought it could only exist in a story. The outer walls were ringed with niches, each of which held a statue of a warrior in stance or a grave, sitting king or some dramatic scene; everything else was covered, every finger-width, with low-reliefs: animals, hunters, warriors, winged creatures frozen in furious motion, swirling plants and stars and running patterns, all painted with merciless flamboyance, their brilliant colors only slightly muted by the patina of age.

I suddenly knew where I had seen such extravagant whimsy before: the carts and props and tent of the Sinere Circus. But that had been just paint and dye; here it was gold-leaf, jewels, towering marble columns that proclaimed grandeur, as if to say, “Here in Arko, we need not spare expense even on our frivolity.” It made me feel drunk.

Daisas took me in through a gate, inlaid with ruby-eyed dragons, that had a lintel emblazoned with a sword and chain entwined as well as Arkan words, in gold of course, which I would have given my hair to read. Inside, same as the circus, was less ornate, but still quality. He led me a little way along a colonnade; beyond the red and gold-painted columns was a training ground, where some thirty warriors of all races were training. The walls made their number seem greater, being carven and painted all around with men just like them, as if to celebrate the tradition of the school. Yet they were watched, by grizzled men scribbling with Arkan pens on paper—they have paper to burn, in Arko—as no students are watched. One of them glanced at me, and though he looked seedy, his once-over, measuring me as a warrior, was so expert I felt stripped.

Finally it came to me what this place was, why I’d been such a fascination on the street, and why I had been bought together with Chirel.

As a boy in the School of the Sword I had heard mention of how warriors fought to the death just for crowds to watch, and bet on like horse-races, in Arko. Of course we’d spat on the idea as further proof of the Empire’s depravity, while being secretly darkly intrigued. In truth the Mezem, as the bloodsport arena is called, went too far beyond anything natural for us to truly believe it was real, so we treated it the same as fairy stories or high-seas tales, just as its decor goes so far beyond excess as to overwhelm your sense of proportion, so you cannot judge it by your own measure. That was why it had taken me so long to realize my fate; it was inconceivable.

Daisas barked, and yanked my neck-chain. I’d stopped short, as if hit by a thrown spear. I had trained in the School of the Sword for one purpose only, to defend my people, not fight like the dogs and roosters foreigners pit against each other for sport. My skill was not for killing others, against whom I had nothing, to slake an Arkan crowd’s thirst for blood. But that was what I was headed to.

Then I thought, a person can be made to work, with the stick or the lash; but who will put Chirel in my hand, and try any way of compelling me? No one can force another to fight.

Daisas led me through a door into a tall bare room with a gallery, from which three ancient Arkan men peered at me. On each of all three of their noses perched two discs of glass attached to each other by golden wire, to magnify the world for their failing eyes. I had never seen spectacles before. Daisas addressed them with a marketplace smile and tone, recognizable in any language, boasting my virtues.

His apprentice, meanwhile, attached one of my ankle-irons to the chain—iron, no less—fixed to a ring in the floor, and unslung Chirel from my shoulder. Two men with the manner of horse-grooms unbound my arms, leaping back as from an unbroken stallion; then one of them took up two wooden swords, threw me one and came toward me in stance with the other.

This was the slave-block for Mezem fighters, I saw. The goods must be properly tested, to settle a price. That was why Daisas had loosened the collar; the more clear-headed I was, the better account I’d give of myself, and so the more I’d be worth.

My arms were stiff as bones, which the man seemed to expect. I shook them out and flexed them, then threw the wooden sword into the dust, and said to the elders in Enchian, “I will not fight, for a crowd.”

The tester didn’t seem too fazed by this, letting me know I was far from the first who had refused. He mimed a thrust through my heart, which I let him do; then gave me a few blows on the ribs, hard enough to hurt, in the hope of angering me. I’d had worse in training. The old men exchanged owlish glances. They looked like noble fools, awarded this sinecure for favor and/or incompetence in useful work.

The tester tossed me the wood again; as he came in poking, I threw it down again. Daisas caught up his hawker’s patter, too smoothly; over the smile pasted onto his mouth, his eyes scowled. At every refusal my price dropped. Then suddenly he went silent, as if some danger had come into the room. I heard a jingling and a giggle, the kind a child makes pulling legs off spiders.

A plump boy of ten or so stood in the gallery, behind and above the old men. Not that one should slight him, with such a plain word as “boy.” One could barely see his clothes for jewelry. Chains, pearls, tiny figurines, gemstones of all hues and gold mail shimmering at every fidget, coated him from head to foot. Astalaz in audience would wear perhaps a quarter as much. I couldn’t help but stare.

There was a strained silence, as he went from elder to elder, patting their heads, tweaking their shoulders with, to my surprise, bare hands, while they bowed and prattled obsequiously to him with an obsequiousness that seemed desperate.

Everyone else had gone to their knees, hissing something at me, which I suspected was orders to get on mine. It was a certain pleasure, to find myself standing over all these Arkans, so I pretended not to understand. I’d heard Kurkas had a young son, the heir in fact; it appeared we were now graced with his presence.