79 - in which I have the first joys of Mezem training

In respect of their seniority, the fighters who have at least one chain train in the afternoon, so they may sleep in after debaucheries the night before, which they are also permitted. The greenhands train in the morning. By Skorsas’s fluent Arkan and halting gestures, I gathered I was expected to bathe and shave before the morning meal, so I did, then asked, by my fluent gestures and halting Arkan, where my clothes were; as usual I’d slept naked.

He had a different set for me, it seemed, a plain black kilt and a shirt as bright a white as snow which was floppy on me, tailored for a man who was much more massive in the chest. I’d come in wearing a pair of cheap sandals that Daisas had got for me for the journey, which would have to do for now, as I had nothing else.

Once we’d eaten, it was time to train. Tomorrow was a fight day, I understood, on which the captives who’d been brought in since the last one, four days ago, would be paired off. On the fresco-ringed training ground there were about twenty of us, all eyeing each other wondering which one we’d have to kill.

Koree drilled us to tear out your heart if you weren’t already fit; one man keeled over halfway through and was a while getting up. I was still stiff and sore from what the guards had done to me and out of practice from the journey with Daisas, but my body warmed up soon enough. Disorienting as it was to be training here, and for this purpose, moving and straining and feeling the sweat flow was like home, and linked me back to myself.

We practiced sword-work with wooden swords, sparring a little—greenhands don’t spar each other with steel—and then he ordered those of us who had swords to put them on, and supplied standard-issue Arkan ones to those who didn’t. I turned towards the Weapons Trust but Skorsas wagged his head sideways for no, said “Stay!” as if I were a dog and ran off that way himself. The proper procedure, it seemed, was for him to fetch and carry for me.

He came back with Chirel, and undid the clasp; the proper procedure is also for the boy to sling the sword on the fighter, but he’d apparently never seen a shoulder-scabbard before, at least of this kind, and so was at a loss. I took it and slung it on myself, for the first time since the tribe, or more exactly the meat-eating water-plant, had captured me. That linked me to myself even more, as if I were whole for the first time in all those days. With Chirel on my shoulder it was hard to feel like a slave.

Another boy came running with a sword for Koree himself. “Line up!” he barked, in Enchian, Arkan, and another language I didn’t know; he always spoke in at least three languages while he trained us, out of necessity. Once we had, he drew with a flourish. Does it become second nature, I wondered, for a fifty-chainer to become as much a performer as a warrior? It occurred to me that my time as All-Seeing Rao would stand me in as good stead here, or even better, than all my fighting against Laka. The thought was nauseating.

“So, you scurvy would-be sword-bucks!” Koree said, pacing down the line brandishing his blade. “Any of you think you can take me? Or even prove yourself worthy to lick my boots? Step forward if so.” He looked straight at me.

I thought perhaps I could, but kept my place. I had less than no desire, to stand out here. His eyes moved on. Another man, of a race I didn’t know, with olive skin, curly black hair and almondine eyes, stepped forward, strutting, nose in the air.

No surprise—you didn’t have to be brilliant to see how this story would play out—Koree would have made short work of him if he’d wanted to; instead he played with him for a while like a cat with a mouse. Every move was showy, but perfect. Yes, I thought, second nature. I cast a glance over my shoulder. In the colonnade, a line of oddsmakers a single rank thick peered at us from between the columns, notebooks in their hands.

The end was showy; Koree foot-swept him down hard, so he went sprawling, and put his sword tip to his throat as if he’d done it a thousand times. “They show white, you live, red, you’re dead. Go on; at least you are not a coward like every other one of these miserable vermin. You hear me, you dogs?” Goaded, two of the others, an Enchian and a Lakan, both stepped forward.

They turned to each other and glared, looking ready to duel already, as if they had an argument; it’s natural, of course, for people who know they’ll be pitted against each other to the death to quickly start seeing each other as enemies. But Koree said, “It doesn’t matter a flea’s shit to me which, boys,” and then did the child’s game. “Eeny, meeny, miney… you.”

It was much the same with the Enchian, though with a different showy finish; he ended up on his knees with Koree behind him, holding his hair in one hand and the sword to his throat with the other. “Go on, get lost,” he said, smacking his shoulder. “You, Lakan,” he said, in Lakan; how many languages did he know? “Still think you can take me?”

The Lakan shifted from one foot to the other. “Ahhhh,” he said finally, “no. Akdan.”

Koree let out a long chuckle. “Well, you’re not a fool. Want to spar anyway, just for fun and maybe to learn a thing or two?”

“Yes,” the Lakan said.

“Ha! You are neither a fool or a coward, bless you! Come on then.” There was no formality, no saluting or bowing or the like to mean each was on his honour not to harm the other, incidentally; it was just draw swords and go at it, on Koree’s command.

The Lakan made a better account of himself than the other two—he was very good—and I thought I perhaps even saw a faint sheen of sweat on Koree’s brow; but it ended with a spectacular feint and gut-stab, pulled, of course, and the Lakan conceded with a slight bow that he had lost. “Good, good, you are worthy to at least lick one of my boots, go on.

“Now who?” We stood still as a line of statues. “What? No one? What a bunch of miserable, effete, pasty-fleshed, cowering, cringing, thumb-sucking, bed-wetting, kilt-brown-staining scum.” I wondered if he said the same verbatim in Arkan and that third language, or went further in his creativity.

He walked the line, haranguing us one at a time. “No coward lives in the Ring! The lions will love the taste of this flesh”—he poked a man’s arm—“and the crunch of these bones”—he snapped another’s cheek. There was a trench around the Ring proper, I’d come to understand, into which several lions, which knew no food but the bodies of fallen fighters, were released during fights. “Or perhaps you’ll be defeated but they’ll show the white and spare you, to be sold off… fine for chipping off salt in the mines, these well-muscled arms, nice for sucking some Aitzas’s wrinkled old dick for the rest of his life, and then his son’s for the rest of yours, these rosebud lips. That’s what cowardice earns, in the Ring.”

Before me, he stopped, and stared me in the eyes. I had not seen before, since I’d been on the floor when he’d spoken to me, that he was a good hand-width taller than me, like most of them. “Well, well, what have we here?” he said. “I know why no one else is stepping forward; they’re all ready to piss themselves with dread of being shamed before each other, as if that’s a hundredth as bad as what they’ll face tomorrow. Not this one, though, at least not that I can see. Or are you just good at hiding it? If you aren’t scared, you girly-faced little slip of a Yeoli, why aren’t you stepping forward? Answer me, come on; speak up.”

“You spar us to win our respect, so we will listen to you when you teach, do you not?” I said. His stare didn’t change, but he didn’t answer, not wanting to say “Yes” as it would be leaving me an opening I was clearly ready to seize on, but too honest to deny it. So I just went on. “You already have mine. I will of course listen. Why wouldn’t I?”

Koree glared at me for a long moment; everyone else was dead silent too, eager to hear what he’d say. He finally jabbed one finger at me, without touching. “You… you… you… you make words fail me.” He spun away on his heel. “Well, guess what, all you lily-livered, diarrhea-spewing poltroons! You’ve earned nothing by your cravenness but my contempt—because you all have to spar me anyway. Suck on that.”

He worked his way down the line except those who’d already done it. I unclipped Chirel and loosened it in the scabbard as he sparred the man next to me; so long since I’d last done that, it felt vividly sweet in my hand. But he passed over me, calling out the one on the other side. Was he afraid of me? Don’t flatter yourself, I told myself. It turned out he was saving me for last, whether for the oddsmakers, who were two and three ranks thick on the colonnade now, or for his own pleasure, I could not know. “Come, You-who-already-respect-me,” he said. “Maybe you’ll teach me a shred of respect for you.”

Koree could not have been less than forty-five, but he’d done the full drill with us even as he led it, without even breathing particularly hard, and had skill like an old teacher’s. I knew that since he’d been here not only for his fifty but longer, he’d have moves I couldn’t conceive of; he’d already done a few. As we started, I felt, as I had expected, that I had over him only the blessings of the young, strength and speed, as well as the advantage I can almost always count mine, weapon-sense. All of these, greater skill can defeat, as Azaila showed me every day at home.

But something made me hold back; looking into myself I saw it was that I didn’t want to best him in front of the others, and become the one they most feared. Of course it was half-action, that no war-teacher worth his salt wouldn’t notice. He called a halt, stepping back, his face angry.

“You said you would fight,” he said. “Were you lying? And so would make me a liar if I beat you?” His own thought seemed to make him more angry; his face darkening, he raised his sword and came in, in stance. “You are worth nothing, boy, not a scrap of chain or of shen to anyone, if you won’t—so from here on, if my sword goes in, it goes in, and you’re buzzard-meat, right here and now. Damn your miserable bones.”

No one had told me he was not permitted to kill me. The logic was sound; I was indeed worthless, here, if I wouldn’t fight. It was no bluff, I found as we closed again; he struck in a way that let me know he wouldn’t pull if I missed a parry. If I tried nothing, it was only a matter of time.

So I went all out, the blood-fire raised in me by life-danger making it easy, and looked for openings. In time I found one. We froze with his sword far off-line, and mine at his throat; whatever he could do to me, I knew I’d be in much worse trouble if I killed him. The thought passed through my mind that if I did, it was the end of his blackmailing me, until it occurred to me he’d probably told Iska, and who knows who else, how he’d persuaded me.

He smiled wide, that big skull’s rictus on his skin-and-bone face again. “Excellent! Beautiful! See, you fools? I’m not impossible to solve, if you’re sharp enough.” I sheathed Chirel and turned to take my place in the line. Everyone else stood as silent and downcast as at a funeral. I met none of their eyes, sickness in my heart.

“Hey!” I found myself whirling like a common-ranker at a setakraseye’s bark; Koree certainly had the gift of command. I wondered whose armies he’d served in before he’d come here. “Did I dismiss you?” His sword was still out, and his eyes were alight as I’d never seen them. He wanted more, I saw, sheerly for his own pleasure. “Get back here! Or do I have to come and get you?” The fighters around me stepped away out of his reach as he approached. I drew Chirel again; it was that or run.

He’d seen Yeoli Unsword before, no doubt; but he could not know it as well as I. A hilt wouldn’t tear easily out of those rawhide fingers; I used everything I knew, waiting for the perfect angle, listening for the dead moment between his breaths. It worked; his sword landed in the dust with a pleasing thump.

He swore in three or four languages and cackled wickedly. I turned away to the line again, wishing for all the world to flee to the baths and then my room, hiding. By weapon-sense, I knew when he snatched his blade up and charged me from behind, but he couldn’t know that, so he let out a war-cry to stop the blood in the veins, to give me warning. I turned and did the wrist-parry, turning his crosscut high with my shield-arm wristlet, and pricked him over the heart.

He stepped back, with a look that made me feel like a boy again, thrilling to see it on my Teacher’s face. Then he gave a whoop, and tossed his sword straight up into the air, laughing like a child. Before I knew he had grabbed two handfuls of my hair on either side of my face and was knocking his forehead against mine, half roaring, half laughing, while his sword came back down fairly close behind us, point-first, and stuck in the sand. I didn’t think to resist.

“You idiot! You killer-mountain-boy moron! How could you even think of refusing, you shen? Most everyone else here would sell their mothers for half your talent, and you, you little wool-haired son of a bitch, you could fikken make it out of here! You could fikken make it, you jackass, you could fikken make it, you piece of shit, you could fikken make it, you mouse-brained, snot-nosed, dog-raping…”

Over his shoulder I saw the faces of the greenhands. All down the line were eyes from which the veil of naïve hope had been torn away, to show their true fate: Shininao, waiting only a few steps more down the path. But it was me they looked at.

I tore out of Koree’s grip, and away, sheathing Chirel. In the colonnade, a clutch of men pushed in around me, yelling questions in a jabber of Enchian and Arkan. I broke through, uncaring whether I bruised anyone, with Skorsas trailing, chattering. “The sword! The sword!”, I realized he was yelling; I unslung Chirel and handed it to him to take to the Weapons Trust. I ran to the baths and one of the one-person stalls—Arkans like to wash in a rain of water flowing from a high cistern, in total private, of course—and didn’t even strip before I banged shut the door and shot the bolt.

Of course Skorsas came, and the moment I was out and dry and had on the black satin robe he gave me, he tried to pull me out through the Legion Mirrors again, exhorting in Arkan. “He’s trying to say the writers want to speak to you,’ Iska said, as we came to his desk. “Do you understand, we have a machine here in Arko, that writes? Every week, all the news is written on paper, many times over, for the citizens of Arko to read. They want to write about you. For all the people to read, lad, do you follow me? If you want them to write anything slightly resembling the truth, it’s best to speak to them.”

I spun on my heel, Skorsas shrilling all the way. In the fighters’ parlour, everyone measured me more closely, the high-chainers no less than the low.

“I’m none of their business, and I don’t give a shit what they write,” I said. “Arkans are not my people, for all they think I should take their leers as honour. They can all go fik themselves.” I was learning the language.

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