by Jay Kristoff
Mia walked a slow circle around her. Nodded once.
“Can I borrow that dress?”
* * *
Mia and Matteo were escorted from their sparring session by two guards wearing tabards of the Familia Remus. Staring at that falcon sigil on their chests, Mia felt that sinking feeling in her belly growing worse. Sidonius limped out from an infirmary at the keep’s rear. The big man’s nose had been set with a wooden splint after Mia’s beating, fresh stitches at his brow. The girl called Maggot followed him, wandering over to the big mastiff and letting him lick the man’s blood from her fingers. She looked at Mia, again gifting her that small, shy smile.
Not knowing quite what to make of the girl, and despite the bitter sting of her defeat at the hands of the executus, Mia smiled back.
The guards collected Sidonius, and the new recruits were marched up to the great double doors at the keep’s rear. There, they were met by a slender woman with long gray hair and three circles branded into her cheek. She was in her late forties, and carried herself with an almost regal air. A flowing dress of fine red silk hugged her body, and her neck was encircled with a silver torc, similar to Furian’s.
“I am Anthea, majordomo of this house,” she said. “I manage the domina’s affairs in these walls. You will refer to me as Magistrae. You are to be bathed and fed before being locked down for the nevernight. If you have questions, you may speak.”
Sidonius rubbed a hand across his bloody chin, looked the woman up and down.
“Will you wash my back for me, Dona?”
The magistrae glanced at the guards. The men drew wooden truncheons and proceeded to beat the bleeding shit out of Sidonius right there in the foyer. Mia rolled her eyes, wondering how the Itreyan could be so dense. After a hard drubbing—his second of the turn—Sidonius lay on the tiled floor in a spatter of his own blood.
“That’s a n-no . . . I take it . . . ?”
“Mistake me not for some simple servant, cur,” Magistrae said, her dark eyes roaming the COWARD burned into his chest. “I have known our domina since she was a child, and when she is absent, I am her voice in this house. Now cease your bleeding upon my tiles and follow.”
Sidonius wobbled to his feet, brow and lips dripping red. Mia watched the magistrae from the corner of her eye. The woman reminded her of her father’s majordomo—a Liisian named Andriano—who was head of this household back when the Corvere colors still flew upon the walls. He too lived in bondage, but carried himself like a freeman. Anthea seemed cut from the same cloth.
The more things change . . .
“May I ask a question, Magistrae?” Mia asked.
Anthea looked her over with a careful eye before replying. “Speak.”
“I see falcons hanging on the courtyard walls.” Mia winced, massaging her bruised ribs. “But is our domina not of the Familia Leonides?”
“The falcon is the sigil of Marcus Remus,” the woman nodded. “Aa bless and keep him. This was his house, awarded for his service to the Republic after the Kingmaker Rebellion. Now he is gone to his eternal rest by the Hearth, the estate passes to his widow, your new domina.”
The sinking feeling in Mia’s belly reached all the way down to her toes.
I fucking knew it . . .
Mia had no idea where he might be, but she could almost hear Mister Kindly’s rebuke in her ears. She hadn’t just failed to win a place with the collegium she’d intended, she’d also fallen into servitude to the wife of the justicus she’d murdered? Her scheme was drifting further down the sewer with every passing turn . . .
Be still. Be patient. Leona will never know.
Mia bowed her head, followed the magistrae obediently. They were escorted through a broad hall at the keep’s rear, the trio all limping after their beatings. Mia was reeling from the news about Leona, about the presence of another darkin, but somewhere in back of her mind, the child who’d walked these halls was struck by how much Crow’s Nest had changed. The layout was untouched, but the decor . . .
Dona Corvere had favored an opulent look, but now the halls were plain—the beautiful tapestries and carpets replaced by suits of armor and weapons of war. Mia wanted to see her old room, the view of the ocean from the balconies, but she and her fellows were led down a winding stair to an antechamber outside the cellar. An iron portcullis blocked them from going any further, a complex mekwerk device on the wall beside it. A guard inserted an odd key, worked a series of levers. The portcullis rose, and Magistrae ushered Mia and the others inside.
Darius Corvere had used the vast sublevel as a living area for the brutal summer months, but Mia could see it had been refitted as a barracks. The space had been partitioned into six-by six-cells, lined with long rows of heavy iron bars.
Very generous of the dona to let her pets live underground . . .
Walking past the cages, Mia noted the fresh straw, the thick chains. Arkemical globes glowed on the wall. The barracks smelled of sweat and shit, but at least they were cool. The guards kept them moving, marching to the end of a long corridor, where they found a large bathhouse, hung thick with steam. Mia and her fellows were ushered in by Magistrae, the guards left outside. The older woman looked at them expectantly.
“Off with your clothes,” she ordered.
Another girl her age might have blushed. Trembled or simply refused. But Mia saw her body as just another weapon, as dangerous as any blade. Weaver Marielle had gifted her curves sharp enough to almost kill a man if she wished it, and Mia had murdered more men than she could rightly count.
What matter now, to show a little skin?
And so, she stripped off her rags and boots without hesitation, stood naked in the steam. Sidonius was still too shaky from his beating to take much notice, but she saw Matteo drinking in her body from the corner of his eyes. Magistrae pointed to a stone bench near the pool. Mia saw razors, combs, a bevy of soaps.
“Gladiatii bathe together, eat together, fight together,” the woman explained. “But until you survive the Winnowing, you will tend to your own ablutions. Mark me well; I’ll not tolerate filth beneath this roof. And have a care with that hair of yours, girl.” Magistrae looked at Mia’s long, dirty locks. “If I find a single flea in it, I’ll have the lot chopped off.”
The woman raised one gray, sculpted eyebrow, inviting questions. After a moment’s silence, she nodded curtly.
“I will return in twenty minutes. Keep me waiting, taste the lash as your reward.”
Magistrae stalked away, the guards remaining stationed outside the door. Mia waded into the bath, sinking down with a long sigh. The temperature was glorious, and she luxuriated in the sensation, running her hands over her skin. Pushing back her hair, she finally surfaced, blinking the water from her lashes. She fixed Matteo in her stare, let herself rise in the water just enough that her breasts showed above the surface. The boy had his hands at his crotch, unsuccessfully trying to cover his growing erection as he stepped into the bath.
“Four Daughters, you’ll have someone’s eye out with that,” Sidonious growled. “Anyone’d think you’d never seen a pair of baps before.”
Matteo raised the knuckles and Mia found herself laughing. She reached for a cake of honeysoap, wondering how a peace offering might fare. Thugs often stood down once you stood up to their bullshit . . .
“If you weren’t such a pig, I’d find you more amusing, Sidonius.”
“Aye, well, if you weren’t such a cunt, I’d find you more attractive, little Crow.”
“I think I’ll learn to live with the heartache.”
The Itreyan smirked, gingerly touched his broken nose. Though she’d given him a drubbing, he seemed not to take it personally, and Mia decided Sidonius was one of those fellows who worked out his feelings through the application of violence. The kind who’ll walk into a taverna and beat the wailing shit out of the first man to look at him crossways, but the moment the fight is done, will be calling his foe “brother” and buying him drinks. Now that she’d given
him a walloping, he seemed more kindly disposed. Though watching Sidonius prod his new sutures, she still wouldn’t be willing to bet whether he’d rather fuck or murder her.
“Who stitched you?” she asked, blinking suds from her eyes. “That young girl?”
“Aye,” Sidonius nodded. “Maggot they call her.”
“What kind of name is that?”
The big man sank up to his chin in the water. “No clue. But she’s swift with a needle. Good thing, too. She’ll have more stitching to do after the Winnowing.”
Matteo finally dragged his eyes away from Mia’s breasts, frowning.
“What is this Winnowing they speak of?”
Sidonius scoffed. “Where you from, boy?”
“Ashkah. Down near Dust Falls.”
“They got no arenas down there?”
Matteo shook his head. “I’d never seen the ocean until a month ago. Never even left my village. And now I’m here. Locked up with Itreyan pigs and Dweymeri brutes.”
“Watch your mouth.” Sidonius raised an eyebrow. “I’m Itreyan.”
“Aye,” Mia said. “And the most brilliant boy I ever met was Dweymeri.”
Sidonius nodded. “I’d leave that shit in the sewer if I was you, countryboy.”
Matteo mumbled apology, fell silent. Minutes past, the boy fumbling with the soap, finally dropping the cake and fishing about for it in the water.
“How’d you end up here?” Mia finally asked.
The boy shrugged, steam sticking those dark curls to his skin. “My da sold me. Gambling debts. Foisted me off for want of coin.”
“Aa’s cock,” Sidonius growled. “And I thought I was cold-blooded.”
“You’re half-decent with a blade,” Mia said. “Where’d you learn to fight?”
“My uncle.” Matteo ran a hand through his hair, Mia idly watching the muscles at play in his arm as she combed her knots. “I was going to join the legion. I hoped I might get posted to a big city one turn. I always wanted to see the City of Bridges and Bones.”
“Perhaps you will,” Mia said. “They hold the Venatus Magni in Godsgrave.”
“What’s that?”
“The greatest games in the calendar,” Sidonius replied. “Held at truelight, when all of Aa’s eyes are open in the sky. The purses are fortunes to the sanguila who win them. And to the gladiatii who wins the magni? He knows greatest prize of all.”
Hope gleaming in Matteo’s deep brown eyes. “Freedom?”
The big Itreyan nodded. “A gladiatii can buy his way free if he wins enough coin. But the gladiatii who wins the magni has freedom handed to him by god himself.”
The boy frowned in confusion, obviously oblivious. Sidonius rolled his eyes.
“You heard the tale of the beggar and the slave?”3
“Aye.”
“Well, to honor the God of Light during truelight, every beggar in the ’Grave is fed from the Republic’s coffers. And the winner of the magni is given his freedom by the grand cardinal himself. Clad in naught but rags, just like Aa was in the gospel.”
Sidonius leaned forward, eyes glittering.
“And then, if that weren’t enough, the bloody consul hands you your victor’s laurel. Imagine it. Crowd going berserk. That god-bothering bastard Duomo dressed like a beggar, and that marrowborn wanker Scaeva kissing your arse in front of the entire arena.” Sidonius grinned like a madman. “Every woman in the ’Grave would know your name. You’d be swimming in cunny for the rest of your life, countryboy.”
Mia looked to the ripples on the water before her. Imagining it, just as she’d imagined it for months now. Grand Cardinal Duomo, standing within arm’s reach, dressed in nothing but his beggar’s robes.
No cathedral around him.
No holy vestments around his shoulders.
And no trinity hanging around his neck . . .
And beside him, Consul Scaeva, victor’s laurel waiting in his hand . . .
“And all I need do is win the magni?” Matteo asked.
Sidonius guffawed. “All? Aye, that’s all you have to do. Just win the greatest games in the Republic. Against the finest gladiatii under the suns. This collegium hasn’t even won a berth in the great games yet.”
“Well, how do we do that?”
“With difficulty,” Mia sighed. “A collegium that earns enough laurels leading up to truelight can send gladiatii. But apparently this is our domina’s first competitive season, and it seems she’s but one victor’s laurel to her name.” Mia scowled. “Furian’s.”
“And we three are a long way from the sands just yet,” Sidonius growled. “Before we’re even counted among the gladiatii, we must survive the Winnowing.”
“So come to explanation, then,” Matteo demanded. “What is this Winnowing?”
“A cull,” Sidonius said. “They hold them before every major games in the lead-up to the magni. Separate the wheat from the chaff.”
“Nobody knows what shape the Winnowings take,” Mia explained. “The editorii change the format each time. But the next one is in two weeks. At Blackbridge.”
Matteo swallowed thickly, muscle in his jaw twitching.
“But if we don’t know what the format will be, how do we prepare for it?”
“Do you pray?” Mia asked.
“ . . . Aye.”
Mia shrugged.
“I’d start there if I were you.”
1 The braavi are a loose collective of gangs that run much of the criminal activity in Godsgrave—prostitution, larceny, and organized violence. Though a thorn in the side of Itreya’s kings and Senate for centuries, the city’s history is replete with bloody episodes where various city leaders tried (and failed) to dislodge them from their traditional roosts in Godsgrave’s nethers.It was Consul Julius Scaeva who first proposed the idea of paying the more powerful braavi an official stipend, and the first payment to them was made from his own personal fortune. Since then, the city has enjoyed a long tenure of peace and stability, and Scaeva a tremendous upswing in popularity.As Mia so memorably stated in our first adventure, the so-called People’s Senator is an unspeakable cunt, gentlefriends.But he’s not a stupid cunt.
2 A well-established taverna on Godsgrave’s lower west side, which has undergone an astonishing number of name changes over the years. Originally called “the Burning Bush,” its first owner was a retired brothel madam with a rather cheerful outlook on the ailments her many years in the saddle had given her. Purchased by a staunch monarchist years later, it was renamed “the Golden King” shortly before the overthrow of Francisco XV. After the good king’s brutal murder, the pub was renamed “the Slaughtered Tyrant” in what most locals considered a fucking smart move.Decades after, a slew of successive owners renamed the taverna “the Drunken Monk,” “the Daughter’s Bosom,” the amusing if inexplicable “Seven Fat Bastards” (there were only two owners at the time, and neither was particularly obese). It was finally purchased by a braavi leader named Guiseppe Antolini and his new bride, Livia, and redubbed “the Lover’s Vow.”Guiseppe disappeared soon after the pub’s purchase, however, and Livia took over sole proprietorship of the hotel and leadership of the gang, renaming herself “the Dona” and the taverna “the Dog’s Dinner.” Rumor had it she’d discovered her beloved was diddling one of the serving girls, and according to the fireside gossip, she’d chopped off his wedding tackle and fed it to her dog, Oli.Whether or not the rumor is true, it must be noted that the first sights to greet a newcomer to the establishment will be a well-fed pooch sitting by the hearth and a razor-sharp cleaver hanging over the bar.
3 A parable from the Gospels of Aa. In his wisdom, one fine weeksend, the Light God sought to test the worthiness of his subjects. And so, dressed as a beggar, he sat outside the grand temple to his name, dressed in rags with an alms bowl before him.The king walked by in his golden crown, and the beggar pleaded for a coin. But the king told him nay.The cardinal strode past in his silken robe, and the beggar pleaded again. But the cardinal gave him none.T
hen a slave came by, and in his wisdom, Aa asked nothing, for the man had naught to give. But seeing the beggar’s plight, the slave took his cloak—his only possession in the world—and wrapped it around the old beggar’s shoulders. And Aa threw off his guise and stood, and the slave fell to his knees, amazed.“Stand, I pray thee,” said almighty Aa. “For even in thy poverty, thou hast dignity. And I say thou shalt kneel to no man again.”And the Light God granted the slave his freedom. And the slave was mighty pleased. And nobody stopped to ask what the slave was planning to give the next beggar he found if the first one hadn’t been a god, or how it’s not really sound economic policy for kings to wander about giving taxpayer money to the destitute when public infrastructure is in such dire need of overhaul, or why the creator of the universe had nothing better to do on a weeksend afternoon than come down to earth to fuck with people.Pfft.Parables.
9: stepping
Mia walked slowly, service tray balanced on her upturned palms. Other girls passed her in the hallway, carrying drinks or bowls of purple slumberbloom or phials of ink. Her shirt had been left behind in her room, but she still wore her britches beneath the corset and gown, sword and stiletto and a pouch of wyrdglass strapped to her thighs. She proceeded up the hallway carefully, hoping she portrayed an image of poise, rather than that of a girl with a small armory bumping against her nethers.
She reached the stairs at the end of the hall, made to breeze past the two lumps of muscle there without a word. One spoke as she passed, freezing her in her tracks.
“Goodeve, Belle.”
She’d tied the golden courtesan masque over her own, propped Belle’s powdered wig atop her head. She was a good inch or two taller than the serving girl, and harder muscled, but her curves were around the same, and that was where the bruiser was spending most of his eyetime.
“Lazlo,” she said, giving a small curtsey.
“A stupid one,” Belle had told her. “Just give him a flirt and he’ll let you past.”
“You’re looking dashing as ever,” Mia smiled.
“Where you goin’ with that?” the second man asked, eying the tray.