Court of Fives

by Kate Elliott

  Numerous side alleys make Mask Lane a maze for shopping but fortunately I spot Amaya on the central aisle. She is standing at a stall holding a pair of cat masks so she and Taberta can look them over. The ill-wisher loves shopping with Amaya because my sister includes her in decision-making and slips her extra coin to buy trinkets for herself.

  As angry as I am, I cannot help but be amused by the sight of several young Efean men loitering nearby, waiting to see if Amaya will look their way. They’re not direct like Patron men. They wait for you to speak first. But Amaya is uninterested in good-looking boys who cannot offer her an advantageous marriage, especially if they are not Patron-born.

  “You have an audience,” I murmur as I come up beside her. “We have to go.”

  She doesn’t even look at me. “Shhh. I’m about to start bargaining. You owe me for helping you today. This will make us even.”

  “Amaya! We can’t take the risk!”

  “You should talk!”

  Turning her back on me, she begins haggling with the vendor over the pair of gold-sequined cat masks with silver-wire whiskers and tufted, feathery ears. The sky would have to rain fire before Amaya would cease bargaining once she has started, so I decide it will be faster to let her get what she wants and then go.

  What if someone we know spots us? I look around, studying the ground as I would a Fives course to identify paths of escape.

  On the Fives court, the pace is focused and tight. That’s what I’m comfortable with. Here in the market people relax; they smile; they pause to take a drink of juice or tea. They set down their work and chat for a while with a friend who has come to talk. On mats under awnings, artisans carve and weave. Most of the vendors and artisans are Commoners, as are many of the shoppers. Patron rule has brought prosperity for Patrons and Commoners alike.

  In the next stall over, my eye catches on a woman who is embroidering spots on a cloth-and-wire butterfly mask. She considers two spools of thread for her next set of stitches, one a delicate rosebud pink and the other a starker bloodred. Glancing up, she looks me right in the eye. With a lift of her chin she spits on the ground, never taking her gaze off me.

  Heat flushes my cheeks as I glance toward Taberta, but the ill-wisher is caught up with Amaya. My sister and the cat-mask vendor have settled into a drawn-out haggle that is beginning to attract attention for its masterful display of competitive bargaining. To show respect to the vendor Amaya bargains in Efean rather than Saroese. Like all of us girls, Amaya speaks the Commoner speech as easily as the Patron language, although never in front of Father.

  “The work is exquisite, and far too dear for the likes of me, Honored Lady. I am only a soldier’s daughter. I cannot hope for any such fine vanities as these perfect masks. Yet I cannot help but admire them. They are worth far more than a mere two silver bars. I am ashamed even to mention such a price, for I mean no insult by it.”

  “Doma, were I able to give them to you for nothing I would, for they will surely ornament your beauty. Or, I should say, your beauty would ornament their humble craftsmanship. But what can I do? I must pay rent to the Patron lady who owns this stall. I must feed my children and my husband. For all this I am obliged to sell such work for no less than eight silver bars.”

  While they haggle I risk a glance back at the embroiderer. She has chosen the thread the color of blood to decorate the butterfly’s sapphire-blue wings. Now I wonder if I imagined her contempt. Am I just being jumpy?

  Amaya drops five silver bars into the vendor’s payment bowl and receives both masks wrapped up in cotton batting. She turns to me. “Victory is mine! Are you ready to go yet? I’ve been waiting forever for you, Jes!”

  “Where is Coriander?” I ask, ignoring her stupid joke.

  Her gaze skips past me to light upon the embroidering woman.

  “Honored Lady, that emerald butterfly is so lovely!” she exclaims, stepping around me. “Its beauty reminds me of my mother, delicate yet strong, and in harmony in all ways. The gods have honored you with a gift.”

  The woman’s surly frown thaws beneath Amaya’s soothing charm. “My thanks, Doma,” she says in a husky voice as she hands over the one with emerald wings.

  “Amaya, we have to go,” I mutter as the woman glances between us, trying to sort out our relationship: Amaya with her straight black hair, eyes with a slight fold as Patrons have, and light golden-brown skin, and me with my coily hair and dark brown skin. It’s my Saroese eyes that give away our sisterhood.

  “Won’t Father love to see this on Mother?” She turns back to the woman. “This is so like my mother’s beauty and grace that I could not possibly bargain. Please do not be insulted if I tell you I have only three silver bars left in my purse.”

  So the haggling begins.

  “Taberta, we have to go,” I say, begging help, but the ill-wisher is looking around for Coriander.

  Has the servant girl run away? Has someone abducted her, as we’ve heard sometimes happens to servants? Then I see her farther down the lane. She steps out of the shadow of a stall where racks of plain white linen-over-wire masks stare blankly, empty faces awaiting decoration. She is speaking to a person out of my sight, and she grins with a brilliant smile I have never seen on her face in our house, not in the entire year she has served us.

  The constant hammering emotions of the day have crushed my patience to dust. I stride down toward her. She sees me coming and hurriedly trots to meet me, gourd bouncing on her hip, eyes cast down. There’s an old scar on the top of her shorn head that I have never before noticed, the score of a whip.

  “Please give me your pardon for wandering off, Doma.”

  A scowling young man with pliers in hand steps into view from out of the stall. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, utterly Commoner, like her. His anger and suspicion strike like a bolt of lightning quivering through me. My hands curl into fists. Who is this nameless youth to judge people he doesn’t even know?

  “Keep going,” he says to her in Efean. “There’s no cause for you to beg a pardon from the likes of her.”

  She scurries on but I cannot allow such disrespect to go unchallenged. His eyes flare as I approach, but he’s an Efean male and so he waits for the woman to speak first. A jagged scar on his face gives him a menacing look but it is the sneering curl of his lip that really annoys me.

  With a false smile pasted on my face I address him in the Patron language. “I am looking for a sturdy, well-constructed mask at a fair price. Might I find that here?” My smile crashes as I unleash my anger. “Or would you just try to cheat the likes of me?”

  He replies in the Patron language, his words tinged with the same Commoner accent Mother has. “You’re one of that spoiled litter of half-sour kittens my sister serves.”

  It’s like slamming into a wall of scorn.

  He adds, “You must be one of the twins. Which are you? The sullen schemer, or the screamer?”

  How dare he call us names!

  Above, Amaya, Taberta, and Coriander hurry away up the lane, Amaya beckoning imperiously for me to follow. But I already had to lose once today. I want to beat him before I go.

  “What a rude and selfish boy you are!”

  “Selfish?” He gestures toward the stall he came out of. On his right forearm five parallel scars stand out against his brown skin, like he was clawed. “I labor dawn to dusk to help keep my family’s household fed and sheltered. I’d labor into the night but we haven’t the money to buy oil for lamps. Can you say the same?”

  “I mean you are selfish to feel the need to insult me even though you must know that a single word, and I could have your sister whipped and put onto the streets. My father would never tolerate a servant who says such things about his daughters. Not that he will know! Because I don’t think it’s right that your sister be harmed just because you need to prove you can insult me to my face as if that makes you a man.”

  He stiffens. “It wasn’t my idea to sell her labor into service. She’s had whippings before from
your kind—”

  “Not from my father!”

  “No, not from him or his household,” he admits grudgingly. “But our uncle has plenty of work she can help him with here. It wouldn’t involve hauling out Patron piss buckets to the sewer—”

  A throbbing bell tone rings through the air, followed immediately by a clacking of wood sticks like a signal. Abruptly people start lowering their awnings to show their booths are closed. A burly man emerges from the curtained back room of the stall. He grabs the young man’s arm to pull him off the lane but halts when he sees me.

  “Doma! You do not belong here.” The burly man has the accent of someone who has learned the Patrons’ language just well enough for the marketplace. “Go. Please. Go!”

  He spits Efean words at the youth, calling him pigheaded and wretched fool and a phrase that refers to the withering of his reproductive organs. For one breath I enjoy the scolding, because the old man is really ripping into the youth. But the discipline I learned from my father kicks in. The last thing I need today is to get caught in whatever commotion is unfolding in the market. Nearby a child starts to cry with screams of helpless fear.

  Amaya is already out of sight. As I back away, a rumble of tramping trembles through the ground. Gears and joints tick over. Sunlight flashes on tiny mirrors. A curved metal body looms into view above the market stalls. A slender metal spider, twice my height, pivots into the lane. The child’s hysterical bawling cuts off as the huge spider slams to a stop in the lane.

  The luster of brass makes the creature shine. Five of its eight legs are braced against the ground. One uses an auxiliary pincer to lift up the corner of a striped awning to examine what lies beneath. One has unfolded into a pair of blades, ready to strike anyone who comes too close. I can’t see the last leg, because it is cut off from my sight by the spider’s carapace head and sleek abdomen.

  Puffs of sorcerous mist rise from the metal belly. The tilted carapace shelters a soldier, his back protected by the shell and his front by boiled leather armor. By the way the body is swiveling from one side to the other, the spider scout is searching for a dangerous criminal or a traitorous spy. People scurry out of the way like vermin trying to escape the sweeping broom of a vigilant housekeeper.

  I take another slow step back, hoping the scout will not notice me.

  A screaming woman shakes off a pair of men trying to hold her back and runs under the spider. Two of its legs move, shifting its carapace to a new angle. I can now see the eighth leg. Horribly its splayed foot has crushed the hips and legs of a child. The tiny head lolls peacefully, a chubby hand tucked under the chin as if the child were merely asleep instead of dead.

  Several people race out and drag the woman away as she fights to stay.

  Suddenly the pincer leg rips free of the striped awning and points right at the stall where I’m standing. With a curse, the burly man shoves the youth into the back room.

  When the spider moves it eats up the ground. I barely have time to suck in a shocked breath when a leg slams down so close that air shudders in front of my face. With a shout of fear I skip back. Its pincers tear apart the canvas and pinion the youth like a fish caught by a sea eagle. As easily as I would pick up one of Amaya’s old dolls, it lifts him. He kicks once, then gives up. Tears stain the burly man’s face, but he makes no protest.

  My gut is clenched, and my face feels numb, but I have to get out of here. I don’t owe them anything and I can’t afford to get caught. Falling in among other people I hurry up the lane in the direction in which Amaya went. I pray to all the gods that she has already reached the promenade. But before I get to the stairs, soldiers in boiled leather armor march out to block our way.

  I am trapped between the spider scout and the infantrymen on foot.

  The soldiers push forward from both ends of the lane.

  They are rounding up all of us who look like Commoners.

  9

  Always scout your ground. That is one of the first lessons the woman who trains me teaches her fledglings. It’s also what my father says about impending battle.

  When I was waiting for Amaya at the mask stall I noted that there were two alleys on the right and one on the immediate left. The one on the left runs alongside a two-story building with a narrow balcony. I shove through the milling people and bolt into this alley. Jumping, I catch the rim of the balcony. But when I try to swing a leg up to hook over the railing, the sheath skirt of my linen gown won’t let me kick, much less climb. I drop back down and frantically tug up the cloth just as two Patron soldiers run into the alley. A burst of fear and determination gives me a rush of energy. I leap, catch, and swing myself over.

  One soldier levels his crossbow at me as I pry at the closed shutters but they won’t open. The other kicks down the door and stomps inside as the inhabitants cry out in fear. A crossbow bolt thunks into a shutter a handbreadth from my shoulder.

  “The next one will be in your head,” calls the soldier.

  A shutter slams open, and I grab it because it will give me enough leverage to clamber up onto the roof and get away. Then I see the other soldier inside. He holds a spear in one hand and a baby in the other.

  “Please, Domon, don’t hurt my child,” gasps an Efean man who is trembling in the shadows.

  In the distance the woman is still wailing over her dead child. I let the soldier take me into custody. He seems to take pleasure in repeatedly jabbing me in the ribs with the spear as the two men escort me back to the lane. Desperately trying to come up with any kind of a plan I stumble into the clot of huddled prisoners. The woman who makes the butterfly masks steadies me reflexively, then recognizes me and pushes away with a curse as if I am the evil shadow whose whispers bring misfortune. People examine me with so much hostility that I tense.

  A second spider scout stamps up, crested with a captain’s horns. Soldiers shove Coriander’s brother forward. His arms are already trussed up behind his back, and his face is dirty, like they deliberately and maliciously rubbed it in the dirt. His nose is bleeding, and for an instant I feel sorry for him.

  “That’s him.” The captain surveys the shattered stalls and frightened craftspeople. “These people must have known who he is! Arrest them all for harboring a fugitive!”

  The thought of Father showing up at the Queen’s Prison to bargain for my release makes me choke.

  “Jessamy!”

  I almost leap out of my skin.

  Lord Kalliarkos rushes up, wearing the same rich clothing he wore on the balcony. The gold scarf flapping at his neck marks his grandmother’s royal lineage, so naturally the soldiers give way at once. He hauls me over to the spider captain.

  “My lord,” says the captain wearily, as if he already knows what is going to happen.

  Kalliarkos is so highborn he does not even identify himself. “You may release this young person into my custody.”

  Soldiers avert their faces, knowing better than to smirk. I wish a trap would open and swallow me. Coriander’s brother’s look of disgust is like hot ash blown in my face.

  The captain’s words fall with rigid politeness. “Then if you will be so kind, my lord, and move out of the way of our operation, I would be all gratitude.”

  Oblivious to the man’s contempt, Kalliarkos tugs me past the spider scouts. The dead child is gone, having left behind a puddle of blood and a forgotten little sandal with one broken strap.

  “Why are you here?” I demand as I trot along beside him. I’m too breathless and too horrified by what I’ve just seen to be in awe of a rich young lord sweeping out of nowhere to rescue me.

  “You never told me where you train.”

  “You followed me to find out where I train? You must be desperate, my lord.”

  His smile has an edge. “You should be very glad right now that I am that desperate.”

  My father’s words dog me: You will never speak to him again. But I need answers. “How did you know I was here?”

  “After your father took you o
ff the balcony I made my way around to the servants’ area. I just meant to find out where you live but when I saw you leaving I followed. Good fortune for me that you got yourself into trouble. Now we can talk.”

  “Good fortune? There’s a dead child, and people getting arrested!”

  His bitter smile curls into frowning displeasure. Without a word he leads us to a long straight stair set off with tall railings and guarded by silent soldiers. They bow to Kalliarkos and let us pass. We climb forty steps in silence. No one else uses these stairs; they must be reserved for highborn Patrons. At a landing he pauses, setting a foot on a bench.

  “My lord, I beg your pardon for my disrespect.” The placating words stick in my throat because I am still angry, but no lord will let the likes of me scold him. He can destroy my father’s career. “I have no right to speak to you that way.”

  “No, you are right to speak. It is easy for me to make light of a situation that does not threaten me. Honesty isn’t disrespect.”

  He gazes thoughtfully over the roofs and awnings of the Ribbon Market. The many lanes and stalls take up almost all of the crater. A thread of smoke marks the place where I was captured. Spider scouts moving through the narrow alleys flash as the sun hits their polished carapaces at just the right angle. It reminds me of how a good adversary can use the sun’s light to gauge where traps are concealed. There are a lot of clues and cues an astute player picks up on. Kalliarkos’s tense posture tells me something. I just have no idea what.

  I can’t help but notice the things Amaya would. His profile has the classic beauty of the Patrons in the slope of his cheekbones, the curve of his eyebrows, the cut of his eyes. His black hair is so short it stands straight up, and with a restless gesture he combs a hand through its stiff strands.

  “I didn’t mean to force the secret of you running the Fives from you like that,” he goes on. “I won’t tell anyone.”