Competitions

by Sharon Green

  The man he referred to was rather grim-faced and certainly no noble, but I didn’t mind leaving with him in the least. Odrin was beginning to get on my nerves, and with the power still coursing through me I might not be able to keep from saying so. So I followed my escort through the polite applause of the audience, and by the time we got outside I’d closed off all but a faint touch of power. It had gotten to be a habit to keep a touch on that minimal amount, and I felt a good deal better doing it.

  It wasn’t hard to find an empty table even with the greater number of people still standing around, and after ringing a bell for a servant, my “escort” positioned himself behind me. For a moment it felt as though I were being guarded instead of accompanied and I was startled, but then I realized that the thought of being guarded was comforting rather than disturbing. With the smaller flow of power my self confidence had shrunk down to its usual low ebb, and the idea of being protected felt good.

  The servant came quickly to take my order for tea and anything wickedly fattening that might be available, and then I sat back to relax until it came. If that girl happened to come out before I left I intended to talk to her, and if the coach had to wait then it would wait. Getting in contact with someone else in my position seemed a very good idea, and I wanted to—

  “Good morning,” a voice said, breaking into my thoughts. “Your performance was delightful just now, so I thought I’d come out and tell you so.”

  The man who spoke looked familiar, but for a moment I couldn’t place him. A bit on the heavy side but of average build and looks, he was an older man with an air of easy authority to him. My “escort” stepped out to the left of where I sat, apparently ready to order the man away, but one look from the newcomer immediately silenced my guard. His expression said he suddenly recognized the older man and therefore wasn’t about to challenge him, and an instant later I recognized him myself—with a gasp. He was the one who’d been there for my very first test, the test I’d almost died taking. He’d been much too attentive for my liking, and he’d said—

  “I promised that we’d meet again,” he said with an odd smile when he realized that I’d recognized him, sitting down as though he’d been invited. “You’ve grown into your talent a bit since we last saw one another, which I really do find quite delightful. There are a large number of women in our aspect, but few of them have a really decent amount of strength.”

  “But how can they survive that initial test without it?” I found myself asking, a question probably caused by the residue of power in my system. “We all do go through the same testing procedure, don’t we?”

  “Certainly we do,” he agreed, that odd smile broadening just a hair. “The system would hardly be fair otherwise. But I was saying how thoroughly attractive I find you—”

  “You know, a very learned friend of mine made an interesting point,” I rattled on, pretending I heard nothing of a personal nature in his conversation. “He said that the nobility had to keep the testing fair, otherwise they would be the ones who were penalized. Exempting your children from having to prove themselves makes for weaker heirs, who then breed and raise even weaker ones. If the testing wasn’t fair, my friend said it would eventually be difficult to find anyone in the nobility as strong as a Middle. Don’t you agree?”

  By then I had my hands in my lap to keep them from trembling. The man hadn’t taken his eyes from me, and I silently cursed myself for having reworded what Lorand had told us. The man whose name I didn’t even know wasn’t amused, and there was no telling what he would do because of what I’d said. His eyes frightened me most, the unblinking stare of them terrifying, and I really wished I’d never said anything at all. He continued to stare for a very long minute, and then that smile was back.

  “Of course I agree with something that sensible,” he said, the words smooth and unexcited. “The same point was made by noble scholars quite some time ago, but with one small addition. They pointed out that although it was quite unthinkable, the problem could be solved by bringing in … new blood, so to speak, every once in a while. By using such women to bear his children, a man would be assured of healthy and strong offspring. But such a practice would be barbaric, don’t you agree? I mean, the woman would be nothing more than a slave and brood mare.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving me faintly lightheaded and very cold. His smile had widened again, and those eyes…

  “I really would recommend against trying anything like that,” something inside me made me say, the something not caring that the words came out a whisper. “I’ve had one very bad experience with a man, and if the circumstance ever arises again, I won’t be the only one having it. Now please go away.”

  “You really are delightful,” he said, actually chuckling as he stood. “Once again it’s been a pleasure to meet you, and I sincerely look forward to … third time lucky? Do enjoy the rest of your day.”

  He walked away, and once he was gone the servant appeared. I had the distinct impression that the servant had waited to keep from intruding, but I didn’t ask. I needed to give all my attention to steadying my hands, so that I might drink the hot tea and melt the ice inside me. Not another one, was all my mind could say, over and over. Please, not another one. And why can’t I find this ridiculousness funny…?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “But Delin, why did we have to come all the way into the city?” Bron asked as they walked into the establishment, sounding to Delin as though he were thoroughly annoyed. “What’s wrong with the dining parlors in our own neighborhood?”

  “Come on, Bron, you can’t tell me you’re even too lazy to get tired of eating at the same dining parlors all the time.” Delin made sure his tone was very amused and just a little mocking, and Bron reacted self-consciously—and predictably—with silence. “Besides,” Delin continued then, “it’s safer to discuss certain things among you and Kambil and myself in a place where we aren’t that well known. Less chance of someone deliberately trying to listen in.”

  Bron couldn’t argue that point, and Kambil only looked as if he wanted to. When Delin had insisted that they three go out to dinner together, he hadn’t told the other two exactly where they were going. He’d said he wanted to discuss certain things about the group, and he hadn’t been lying. They would indeed discuss the ideas which had come to him, but their presence in that particular dining parlor had another purpose entirely.

  The host came forward with a bow to conduct them to a table, and Delin allowed himself a moment of pure enjoyment. This establishment was one of the best in Gan Garee, offering silver eating utensils, beautifully delicate plates and dishes, crystal glasses, chandeliers boasting over a hundred candles each, and superb chefs who prepared exactly what each patron wanted. It had been much too long since the last time he’d been here, and he’d earned the treat—even if he hadn’t been warned to be here tonight.

  The host sat them at a fine table, off to one side of the room for privacy, but in a location which commanded a view of everything going on. Delin had paid good silver for that, and expected it to be worth every copper. They each placed their orders for food and drink, and once the host had left, Kambil leaned back in his upholstered chair and pinned Delin with a stare.

  “All right, now you can tell us why we’re really here,” Kambil said in that calm and unaccusing way that he had. “You’ve been … bubbling over with excited anticipation since you picked us up in your carriage, so I think it’s time you told us the truth.”

  “The truth is that I was advised to be here tonight,” Delin admitted readily enough with a grin. “I happened to … meet a lovely lady whose husband is an investigator for the Advisors, and she told me about an extraordinary find that they’d made. It has to do with something we’re all tangentially involved with, and the investigators mean to move tonight—which is why we’re here.”

  “You’re not referring to the competitions, I hope?” Bron asked, immediately looking frightened. “If you are, then I should
have been notified at once. I am leader of our group, after all, so—”

  “No, it has nothing to do with the competitions,” Delin replied with a laugh, his mood so good that nothing conceivable would be able to spoil it. “But it does have to do with something related to them, only I won’t say what. I have a very strong suspicion, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  Bron began to protest again while Kambil simply looked thoughtful, but their arrival at the parlor had been nicely timed. All protests and stares broke off at the appearance of a new group of four arrivals, each of whom fairly exuded personal power when they strolled in. The ladies on their arms were all beauties, and Bron, who faced the door, suddenly gasped low.

  “That’s Rigos with them!” he hissed, as though the man would have been able to hear him if he’d spoken normally. “Does he have something to do with the reason why we’re here? Never mind, I don’t care even if he does. Just cancel my dinner order, because I’ve completely lost my appetite.”

  “Rigos does have something to do with all this, but I can’t tell what,” Kambil said, studying Delin narrowly. “I’m even less happy to see the man, Delin, so I’d appreciate the courtesy of a full explanation.”

  “You’ll both understand everything in just a little while,” Delin assured them, soaring high on the unmatchable feelings brought about by the exercise of power. “Right now you’ll have to trust me, since I don’t really know anything. As I said, I have my suspicions about what will happen. Let’s wait and see if I’m right.”

  The other two weren’t happy about being put off, but Delin had made it all too obvious that he had no intention of saying anything else. A servant came then with the drinks they’d ordered, and Delin sipped carefully at his glass of light wine. He wanted to be clearheaded when it happened, so as not to miss a single moment.

  They were brought a large plate of nibbles to keep them occupied until their food was ready, and Delin chuckled to himself when Bron immediately began to stuff them in his mouth. The fool had already forgotten what he’d said about losing his appetite, which showed again what a marvelous “leader” he made. Delin could hardly wait until the time came for him to announce that he was the real leader of the group. What a pity that that would not be happening until they’d won the Throne. Announcing it sooner would just be too risky, since there was always the possibility of someone finding out—

  “What the—!” Bron exclaimed, pulling Delin out of reverie. He turned to see what Bron already had, which was the arrival of two important-looking men leading a small contingent of guardsmen. They ignored everyone as they strode to the table where Rigos and his friends sat, not really all that far from Delin’s table.

  “Lord Rigos Baril, you’re to rise and come with us,” one of the important-looking men said, making no effort to keep his voice down. “Right now, if you please.”

  “Are you insane?” Rigos demanded coldly with his usual frown. “I certainly don’t please anything of the sort. If you have some matter to take up with me, you may make an appointment with my secretary—during the day. Now you can get out of here.”

  “Rigos Baril, we’re here to arrest you for the murder of Lady Elfini Weil,” the same man went on, drawing gasps from almost everyone in the room. “Either get out of that chair and surrender yourself to the guardsmen, or they’ll come over and pull you out of it!”

  The outraged anger in the man’s voice was extremely obvious, and Delin was delighted to see that Rigos just sat there staring with his mouth open. Obviously he couldn’t believe what he’d heard, but his dark skin had still paled quite a bit. The man who’d spoken waited no more than a moment, and then he gestured to the group of guardsmen.

  “No, what are you doing?” Rigos babbled as three big guardsmen began to circle the table toward him, his eyes widening even more. “I had nothing to do with the murder, so you can’t treat me like this. Go away, I say, go away!”

  Rigos’s voice rose to a shrill scream with the last of his words, a delicious delight Delin hadn’t dared to hope for. The icy poise and superiority Rigos always showed was broken at last, shattered when the guardsmen combined their strength in Earth magic and forced him to his feet. The heavy chair was nearly knocked over as Rigos screamed and tried to struggle, and everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath. The other people at his table were as white as the lace cloth under their glasses and hands, and the beautiful woman Rigos had escorted in sat with her face turned away. She’d disassociated herself from him completely, and wanted everyone to know it.

  It took another few moments before Rigos was dragged from the parlor, as his struggles would have done credit to a much larger—and more talented—man. He’d clearly lost all control of himself, and his terrified screams showed he hadn’t a scrap of dignity left. One of the guardsmen watching finally lost patience, and then Rigos was bent forward and gasping in pain. Delin had felt the guardsman use Earth magic to squeeze Rigos’s stomach from the inside, an action equivalent to a hard blow in the same place. After that they were able to force him out of the room, while another guardsman followed while readying chains.

  “They’re going to chain him to the arrest wagon!” Bron exclaimed low as the last of the intruders disappeared outside. “But he’s a noble, just like the rest of us! How do they dare to treat him like that?”

  “I’d say the Advisors decided to make an object lesson out of this,” Kambil offered, his soft voice almost lost amid the shocked exclamations of everyone in the room. “He may be a member of the nobility, but so was the woman he murdered. Rather than arrest him quietly they did it publicly, so that everyone will eventually get the message: no one kills one of us and gets away with it. I certainly don’t like the man, but now I pity him.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Bron said, all but taking the words out of Delin’s mouth. “I agree with the Advisors, that no one can be allowed to attack one of us and get away with it. Just think: he could have come after one of us next.”

  “That’s very true,” Delin agreed, silently ridiculing the fool. Rigos hadn’t a trace of talent beyond the basic level almost everyone was capable of, and they were all Highs. Only a moron would think for even a moment that Rigos could have a chance against any of them, but that was the whole point. Bron was a moron, if that didn’t insult the intelligence of morons in general.

  “Is that what you brought us here to see, Delin?” Kambil asked, his voice now filled with curiosity. “If so, how much of it did you know about beforehand?”

  “All I knew was that Rigos was in trouble and that it had something to do with the murder investigation,” Delin responded with the sort of smooth lies he’d always been capable of. “I thought he’d done something where Homin was concerned, and would be taken to task for it where we could witness his embarrassment. I never expected anything like this, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.”

  Kambil grunted and sat back, showing clearly that he still didn’t agree with the way things had been handled. But Kambil was a fool in his own right, much too soft and forgiving. Delin, on the other hand, was precisely ruthless enough to achieve greatness, which his handling of the matter had proved conclusively. He’d buried the murder weapon with Rigos’s traces all over it, then he’d sent a note with common traces and badly constructed language to the chief investigator. The note had suggested more than ordinary bad blood between Rigos and that slut Elfini, and hadn’t said a word about searching the grounds of Rigos’s estate.

  Which, of course, was one of the first things they did. Delin sipped his wine again as he remembered how he’d kept track of what was going on, using his long-standing acquaintance with the chief investigator’s wife. Her fear over what had happened to Elfini kept her after her husband to learn about any progress, and he’d kept her informed just to keep her from badgering him to death. She’d passed on everything she learned to Delin, which was how he’d known to be in the parlor tonight. They’d discovered Rigos’s plans for being at dinne
r publicly tonight, and so had waited until now to arrest him.

  “I’ve just realized something,” Bron said suddenly, drawing Delin’s and Kambil’s attention. “Now that Rigos is under arrest, we don’t have to worry about him any longer. This calls for a celebration, and it’s just too bad that Selendi and Homin aren’t here as well.”

  Delin saw a look of pain flash briefly across Kambil’s face, and he knew exactly how the larger man felt. Bron seemed to make a career of pointing out how stupid he was, and this time he’d done it in more ways than one.

  “Don’t you think someone might have gotten the least bit suspicious if all five of us were here?” Kambil asked him gently, undoubtedly wasting his time in an effort to teach Bron how to think. “They’d know then that we’d been warned what to expect, and might even have our own reasons for wanting Rigos out of the way. We don’t need that sort of suspicion, but I’m still curious about Delin’s other reason for taking us to dinner.”

  “Oh, yes, he did say he had another reason, didn’t he?” Bron remembered aloud, shrugging off the rest of what Kambil had said. “But if it has something to do with the group, the others should definitely be here.”

  “It most certainly does have something to do with the group, but you’re the only one besides Kambil and myself whom I trust to handle it properly,” Delin told Bron smoothly. “I’ve gotten an idea about the reception at the palace we’ll be attending, the one where we’ll be studying the groups we’ll be going up against. I’d like to suggest something else we might do.”

  “I hope you’re going to say miss the thing entirely,” Bron complained, sprawling back in his chair. “But I can’t possibly be that lucky, so go ahead and make your suggestion.”

  “What I have in mind is this,” Delin said, easily ignoring Bron’s newest stupidity. “You and I will search out any attractive ladies involved and show them how wasteful it would be to harm us, and Homin and Selendi will just mix with the peasant groups, leading them to believe that we’ll be easy to overcome. Kambil here, though, ought to be doing something else entirely—like trying to find at least one member of each group who can be counted on to be … reasonable.”