by Gail Dayton
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Champions lined the streets shoulder to shoulder guarding the route between embassy and arena from any disturbance. Kallista rode behind the escort troop, ahead of the trial champions, with Torchay and Obed at either shoulder as always.
Overtheirkilts,theAdaranchampionsworescarletoverrobestrimmed in the colors of the compass rose—blue for the lightning arm of the North, green for the East twining vine, yellow for the flame pointing South, and black for the thorny briar of the West. The robes kept them warm against the drizzling rain that had the horses slipping on the slick paving. Kallista wished she had a robe of her own to go with her broad-brimmed hat. The rain was cold on her neck. But she refused to have servants carry a canopy over her. She wouldn't melt from a little damp.
The trial arena was new, built outside the city's governmental center across the Bafret Canal in the main commercial area. Merchants had donated land and funds for its building, according to Namida Ambassador. The trials brought people into the sector and the excitement encouraged them to spend freely. As they rode across the arched bridge over the canal, Kallista saw the massive building rising ahead.
Drum-shaped, its granite construction gray and gloomy in the rain, it seemed to promise blood, death and pain. How many had died just bringing the granite from the mountains for its construction? And now folk flooded through its gates for the entertainment of watching more men fight and possibly die. And now folk flooded through its gates to watch men fight for their entertainment.
Oh, they claimed it was justice, a way for the One to determine which side was in the right. But justice had nothing to do with this spectacle.
Immediately around the arena court, wide plazas opened up. A distance away, Kallista saw Chani with her purple-clad champions riding in their own procession to the arena. All across the plazas, traders hawked their wares from awning-protected carts or sodden blankets spread on the ground or from the depths of their overrobes. Champions made paths through the chaos and others were scattered through the plazas to keep order, but for once, few paid the Adarans any attention. They were intent on business, or on getting into the arena before they got any wetter.
Finally, Kallista's party rode through the plaintiff's gate out of the rain and dismounted. The horses were taken away and justiciar's apprentices waited to escort Kallista and the other non-combatants to their seats. She couldn't make herself leave, not quite yet.
"Finish it quick,” Obed was saying to the red-robed others. “If you can. The crowd won't like it, but you're not here to entertain them, no matter what they think. This is a trial. You win and end it."
Kallista couldn't say “stay safe.” They were going into an arena to fight. “Take care. Nobody dies today."
"What if they want us to die?” Night asked.
"You'll just have to make sure you win, then, won't you?” Torchay winked. “Yeah, we've all heard Habadra retained a bunch of the most brutal fighters in Mestada. We're better than they are. We don't have to kill them to beat them.” He looked up at Kallista. “But stay close, Naitan, just in case."
"I have my healer's robe.” She showed the garment that would allow her access to the arena to heal any of the injured. The justiciars had found it an odd request, for a party in a case to be allowed to participate as healer, but as long as she agreed to heal the wounded on both sides, they would allow it.
One of the waiting apprentices pointedly cleared her throat. Those not fighting needed to go to their places, but Kallista couldn't make herself leave, couldn't tear her gaze from her iliasti. Black-haired, red, gold—she'd dreamed of them before they'd become hers, fought against loving them, and now she couldn't imagine life without them. And she had to send them into a fight without her beside them. She didn't like it, it wasn't right, and she couldn't do a thing to change it. Yet.
The others—Aisse, Viyelle, Joh, Leyja—had all wished them luck. Only Kallista delayed. She reached up to brush her fingers across Fox's sightless eyes, wishing she dared kiss him, and spoke a single word. "Win."
She tucked a coil of scarlet hair that had come loose from the clubbed queue behind Torchay's ear and whispered the same word. Then she curled her hand into a fist and touched Obed's shoulder tattoos. She opened her hand and pressed it over the tattoo around his navel, the tattoo that proclaimed “Victory comes from the One."
"Win,” she whispered, and stepped back.
She turned to the rest of her champions then, moving from one to the next, holding each gaze. “Live,” she told them. “Win. Bring Stone's Sky home."
She could delay no longer. Kallista turned to follow the justiciars through a maze of narrow corridors until they emerged into a huge chamber shaped like a flat-bottomed, steep-sided bowl. The sides rose in tiers that provided seating for several thousand spectators; the floor was filled with sand to provide footing for the combatants as well as to absorb blood. The open roof was covered over with an enormous tight-laced canvas to keep the rain off and the cold out.
It succeeded, for the most part. The dim light filtering through the rain clouds and canvas was supplemented by strategically placed torches and a gigantic lighting fixture that hung from the thick beam crossing the open space overhead. Its many branches held more than a hundred candles, all blazing away.
The justice-apprentices led Kallista to a box on one side of an area raised above the lower levels of the seating. Habadra Chani and her party already occupied the box on the far side. A fanfare sounded from a brass horn, its mellow tones filling the arena, and everyone rose to their feet. Obed had told them what would happen, but still the ceremony, the ritual of the thing, caught Kallista off guard.
Below them, literally under their feet, doors opened in the arena wall. Kallista could barely see the door below Habadra's box and the one below her not at all. The champions walked out, eight from each door, clad in kilts of their sponsor's colors. When they reached the center of the arena, each group pretending the other didn't exist, they turned and faced the boxes.
The horn sounded again. Kallista turned to see a trio of white-clad justiciars, one of them with hair almost as white as her robe, walk onto the central platform from the gilt archway behind it. They took the three benches at the front of the platform. Behind them, dressed in his slave's kilt, came Sky, escorted by a pair of younger justiciars. They'd had clothing made for the boy for this event—a plain tunic and trousers—but the justiciars had apparently banned it.
"Easy, love.” Joh gripped Kallista's shoulder, quelling her impulse to leap onto the platform and snatch their son away now. Or at least smother him with hugs and kisses.
She'd ridden Joh's vision a dozen times on visits and she was tired of it. She wanted her own time with him, not to borrow someone else's. She'd probably terrify the boy, blubbering all over him. She couldn't stop the tears now, finally seeing him with her own two eyes rather than Joh's. Stone's boy. The last little bit of their lost love they could hold on to.
A gong sounded, one of Mestada's great bells, vibrating the bones in her body. When it faded away so she could hear again, the youngest of the justiciars in white was reading the official petition. Kallista tried to listen, but her mind kept drifting. To Sky. To Stone. To her men standing on the arena sands.
But the petition was short and before she expected it, the champions trudged back across the sand to their respective doors and the spectators rustled back to their seats. The escort justiciars indicated that Kallista and the godmarked should take the chairs set up across the front of their box.
"Is every trial held in this place?” Kallista asked the apprentice who seated herself just behind her.
"No, Your Majesty. Many are, of course—all the trials for serious crimes, and civil cases between the Hundred Lines. But there are smaller courts across the city and in the districts outside Mestada."
Kallista unfolded her healer's robe and put it on, awkward while sitting, then tried to smooth out the wrinkles. “If I'm needed, how do I get down to the arena?"
>
"Er—well...” The justiciar had apparently never been asked that question before.
"Never mind.” Kallista shook her head. “If it's bad enough I'm needed, I can jump."
"Over the wall?"
Kallista ignored the young woman's shocked exclamation, for the doors had opened again to admit the first two champions in single combat. The justiciars had called for a “dedicat bout” to begin, apparently to get the crowd enthused. Kallista didn't approve, but though she was Reinine, this wasn't Adara and she wasn't a justiciar.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fox was the first. The spectators murmured over his tattoo-less state and his golden hair and skin. The murmurs grew to a loud buzz when they realized he was blind. All across the arena, bets were laid. Fox's opponent had his height, but easily twice his weight. He held his hand-and-a-half sword, a third longer than Fox's mountain blade, in tattooed hands.
"Fox's people don't do tattoos,” Kallista murmured to the justiciar. “He's Tibran-born, from their Warrior Caste."
"Ah.” The justiciar nodded as if she knew exactly what Kallista meant.
It took some time for Fox to wear his opponent down, amazing the audience with his nimble escapes, his flashing parries and ripostes. Finally, the courtside judge called halt just before the dedicat ran himself onto Fox's blade. A flag was hung from one of the eight posts below the front of Kallista's box. This was how they determined matters of law? The Reinine did not approve.
The next two contests went quickly, a win for Habadra and a win for Kallista. Then the crowd went wild when Genista marched out onto the sand, halberd over her shoulder. They'd seen her parade with the champions at the beginning, of course, but this was absolute confirmation that she would actually fight.
Ruel hadn't come. He'd stayed at the embassy with Keldrey, taking Genista's place guarding the children. He'd said that while he fully expected her to win, he couldn't watch her in the arena with another man.
The other man was a massive brute. His only tattoos were on his face, but his body was crisscrossed with marks—scars from previous combats.
"Kerik hasn't lost a match against any champion not dedicat,” the justiciar murmured.
"Must have fought a great number of dedicats to get scarred up like that,” Kallista muttered back.
The scarred champion roared, showing his missing teeth, and swung his pole weapon in a circle over his head. While he was swinging and roaring, Genista darted in and poked the upper point of her halberd under his chin. Three flags to one. Kallista tried not-so-hard to keep the smirk off her face.
The combats wore on. More flags went up in front of Kallista's box. The audience thinned out. Apparently they found the quick victories boring. Two more Habadra champions won their matches—one through sheer mismatch, the other when his Tayo Dai opponent allowed himself to be distracted. Torchay and Obed won the final two flags.
Kallista was ready to go meet her champions and congratulate them on their victories, have lunch. But there was yet more ceremony to endure. The three white-clad justiciars had their heads together, discussing something. Finally, their spokeswoman stepped to the front of the platform.
"Varyl is the winner of the day's trial, five to three. Tomorrow, at first bell, the mêlée combat will begin. Varyl is handicapped by five. The three dedicat-level champions will face Habadra's eight."
"What?” Kallista jumped to her feet, knocking over her chair, shouting at the justiciars on their platform. “What do you mean, handicap? Three against eight? What's fair about that? What kind of people are you?"
The justiciars ignored her, retreating through their archway to wherever justiciars went. The apprentice in the box caught Kallista's arm, tried to restrain her, and found herself facing bodyguard's steel in at least three hands.
Kallista threw her off. “I want to talk to the justiciars."
"It's not allow—"
"To all the seven bloody hells with what's allowed.” Kallista shoved the young woman toward the exit of the box. “Take me to them. Now."
Scowling with disapproval at every step, the apprentice did as Kallista demanded, taking her to a room one level up in the bowels of the arena. The door opened onto a large chamber filled with every luxury Daryath's wealth could provide. The justiciar's speaker looked up. “What is the meaning of this?
"Exactly what I would like to know.” Kallista pushed past her guide into the room. “What in all the names of the One is this handicap?"
"How dare you disturb the workings of the court? I'm calling out the guard.” The speaker yanked on a bell rope.
"This looks more like lunch than court, and while I know you'd rather watch others spill their blood than do any honest—"
"Kallista." Viyelle's fingers dug hard into Kallista's arm, and she realized Vee had been squeezing for a while.
Kallista also realized Viyelle was thinking more clearly than she. They did not need to antagonize the very people who could determine the outcome of this trial. She took a deep breath, reaching for control. A trickle of magic seeped through the links without her calling it, tasting of Viyelle's worry and Joh's cold anger. That helped more.
"I beg forgiveness for this disturbance.” Kallista bowed low, Adaranstyle. “But I know nothing of this handicap business. You claim justice in Daryath is fair, but three men fighting against eight? How is that fair?"
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse for—"
The white-haired justiciar cut off their speaker. “She is from another land that does not know our laws and she is ruler there, where she can demand and receive what she demands."
That was far from how it worked, but Kallista didn't owe them any explanations. They owed her.
"It does no harm to answer her questions.” The old woman looked then at Kallista. “Is it fair to force those who have faced each other once already and lost to fight again with nothing altered? Circumstances must change to even the odds."
"Why? Why must circumstances change? How does ‘evening the odds’ benefit anyone but the betting shops? How does it show ‘the will of the One'?"
"By removing the influence of money. One side may have been able to buy better champions. This eliminates that advantage, so that the One's will may more clearly be seen."
"My champions do not fight for money.” Kallista let Joh grab her hand, used his grip to keep her seething rage under control. From the corner of her eye, she could see Aisse holding onto Leyja the same way.
The old one's response was a shrug. Nothing more.
"Whybothertowinintheindividualcombatsthen?"Kallistademanded. “Why should anyone win if they're going to be penalized for it?"
"Today's wins are still credited to your case.” The old woman sipped at her cha, her quavering hand taking its own time about it. “Tomorrow's results will be weighed against today's victories. If your dedicats are as skilled as today's matches showed, they should have no trouble against these opponents."
"But—” Kallista cut off the temptation to shout that they were all mates and she loved them. The justiciars would likely just shrug again and go back to their meal. If they didn't call out the mob, or have them all tossed into the jail with Sky.
"You have had your questions answered. We are done.” The white-haired justiciar waved a hand, dismissing them rudely.
But then it had been rude for Kallista to barge in on them, and it had done no good whatsoever. Might even have done them harm. Nothing had changed. Torchay, Obed and Fox would stand alone in the arena tomorrow against all eight of Habadra's ruthless champions.
Kallista bowed in grudging apology and allowed Joh and Viyelle to escort her out of the room. Aisse had to almost drag Leyja out. The little justiciar-apprentice led them back through the warren of corridors to the space inside the plaintiff's gate where the champions waited with the horses.
"Where were you?” Torchay demanded when Kallista finally let go of him. “We've been waiting an age."
She grabbed Obed by the shoulder of his robe
and shook him. “Why didn't you tell me about the handicap?"
"Handi—?” His eyes narrowed. “What handicap?"
"It seems that since you won today's matches so easily, tomorrow, the three of you will face all eight Habadra champions by yourselves."
"What?" Shock and outrage came from a hand of throats at once, Obed's foremost among them.
Kallista could sense his surprise through the link, now Leyja had calmed a bit. “You didn't know, did you?"
"No, of course not. What—How—?” Obed's mouth opened and closed another time or two without finding the words he wanted.
"Let's go.Backto theembassy. Wecan talk about itthere."Kallista swung onto her horse. “They must have changed the rule since you left Daryath."
"Yes, but why?"
"No reason that makes sense to me, but I'll tell you what they told me when we're out of all this.” Kallista clucked to her horse, heading for the gate, forcing Obed and a few of the others to scramble to keep up.