Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (62 page)

He wondered, idly, how long the kai Leonne had trained for. Wondered it when his own students were called out of the stands to take their place in the jump.

It was hard not to be caught up in this, not to feel, as he watched, that history's roots were
here
, in this contest, at this place; that the course of whole nations would be decided by the outcome of the Challenge.

He took a breath; the air was heavy with salt, almost wet enough to be water itself. He had been young, here.

It was hot by the river's bank, and the sea breeze that often alleviated the summer heat was absorbed by the wall of bodies that had formed behind the line of the Crown guards. In front of those guards gathered the guards of the contestants, and among these guards, the hostility of warring nations. One or two of the contes-

tants, true to their roots, had no such entourage; the only attendants they had brought were their witnesses, and the witnesses stood as far apart from the armed men as they could without crossing boundaries into the event itself. It was easy, actually; they were given a spot at the forefront of any such crowd.

But when their contestant was given leave to enter the ground, the witnesses were escorted from the enclosure to stand, like a living shadow, by the judges. They could watch, then, although it was frowned on to actually say anything.

Aidan was fairly good at lying low. He was good at avoiding people who were too much larger than he, and he was good at showing deference when he least felt it.

They thought he was a polite boy—for the inner holdings, although they never added that in so many words—but they still thought he was a boy. That irked him. Still, no one thought to pat his head or tell him how much he'd grown, which was better than he sometimes got.

"I see that you are still watching foreigners," a voice said, softly, at his back. He jumped; he knew the voice's odd accent, the way it said the right words with all the wrong breaks and pauses, sort of like a river running uphill in its riverbed.

"Yeah," he said, reddening. "You don't—"

Ser Anton di'Guivera frowned; the frown was a cool thing in the day's heat. "Here," he said softly, "We do not speak of the wars we may be fighting. This is the Kings' Challenge."

Aidan nodded. "But—"

"But?"

"Your men, and his men—they're separated by the Kings' Swords."

"Yes," Ser Anton said, "they are. Do not be foolish enough to think that the Kings are disinterested parties in this affair. If Ser Valedan kai di'Leonne chooses to attempt a return to the Dominion, it will be with the blessings of the Northern Kings—and quite possibly with their martial aid."

"Martial?"

"Armies."

Aidan said nothing for a moment. And then he turned to look up into the face of the most famous man in the Dominion. "Why do you hate him?"

"Do I?"

"Don't you?"

Ser Anton shrugged. "Watch the games, boy. They start, even as we speak."

Gold caught the sunlight and hung it a moment round Aidan's neck like a pendant; it was heavy.

"Look, Andaro. It's the Northern pawn."

The words were theatric, overly loud, certain to be heard by anyone who spoke Torra. Thankfully, on this side of the river, they were few; three men. to the best of Valedan's knowledge, and Vale-dan himself was one of them.

He knew, from his days in the Imperial Court, that to ignore the taunts of older children was, in the end, to best them; they learned that short of physical violence, they received no pleasure from him. But wisdom was only knowledge, and if knowledge could save a man from himself, the world would have been a different place. His knuckles were white against the pole that lifted, momentarily, from its slanted perch across his shoulders.

"He's pretty enough," the voice continued, "If you like white skin and big eyes. A bit thin, I think. Probably has the same water for blood as the rest of the Imperials."

I am the kai Leonne
. He heard other words
. I do not have to respond to this
.

"Pretty," the same voice said; his unseen audience remained conspicuously silent, but Valedan was certain that silent or no, he had no friend in that unknown quarter. "Pretty and white. What else is pretty and white? Harem women, of course. Women.

What do you think, Andaro? Doesn't he look like a woman?"

Valedan didn't hear the next words because there weren't any. He tilted the pole on his shoulder and then pivoted tightly, lowering it by the center, hafting it to a weapon height.

He knocked his enemy off his feet; hit him hard enough that the wind forced itself out of his open mouth in a small, satisfying huff. Winded, the face was slightly flat, broader and coarser than the faces of the Imperial hostages, and definitely ruddier. Or perhaps it was flushed; hard to say.

"Get up." Valedan threw the long pole to the ground and picked up the half-pole that was used by the boatmen to push off from the bank. Picked up a second, and threw it at the dark-haired man who had propped himself on one elbow.

"Get up."

The man rose. "I am Carlo di'—"

"You are
nothing
."

Silence, edged on one side by white lips and on the other by a face bleached of color, emptied of sneer that had passed for smile. The man that Valedan had denied a clan name gripped the half-pole and rose, his cheeks regaining some color, and it an ugly red.

"Carlo—" the shorter man at his side said, speaking for the first time. "Carlo, this is not wise."

The man so spoken to slowly put up his pole, straining a moment as if at a great weight.

Valedan said, coolly, "I see that you are not content to fight your own battles; you hide behind the skirts of your… companion."

He was prepared for the charge when it came.

The sound of wood striking wood was distinctive. Aidan recognized it. although to him it was oddly distorted, and not just by distance. But it was clear that the man at his side recognized what that difference meant at once. And why wouldn't he? He was Ser Anton di'Guivera; the only things he didn't know about fighting were probably things that weren't
worth
knowing. Even the Northerners respected him. Even them.

"Boy," he said sharply, "my eyes are not perhaps as keen as they once were. Please tell me that there is no fighting across the river." As he spoke, he reached out for Aidan, slid his hands under his arms, and
lifted
him, acknowledging by that gesture Aidan's slight build, his unenviable smallness.

But because it was Ser Anton, Aidan schooled himself not to mind. Wasn't hard, really—because the minute he got a clear view over the heads and shoulders—mostly shoulders, of the people who had edged their way just in front of him, he forgot there was anything
to
mind.

"Aidan?"

Commander Sivari appeared beneath him. His eyes were obviously better than the old man's—he started to swear.

"Boy?"

"They're fighting, sir."

" 'They'?"

"I think —I think it's Carlo, sir."

"And?"

"Ummm, Valedan, sir."

It was strange. Until he head Ser Anton begin to curse alongside Commander Sivari, he'd never realized how-similar their tongues sounded.

* * *

They were neither of them masters of the art. The poles that they were wielding might as well have been clubs. But even so, they knew how to move; they had been trained, one in the South and one in the North, exactly this way: one on one, beneath the open sky. Carlo was older and had the advantage of weight; Vale-dan, lighter, had the advantage of speed. Experience lay between them, but how wide the gulf was only the combat itself would determine.

Their sticks clashed and rebounded with the authority of their weight; they struck, pivoting stick and self in an attempt to land the definitive blow. They exchanged no words.

Words, after all, were just a way of reaching this point; they'd done it; they had no further need of them.

Bets were being made. As the boat reached the flat platform set up for this single week, Sivari could hear the numbers being shouted. A side glance at Ser Anton made it clear that the older man's Weston was not up to translation over a great distance. Or perhaps he understood the numbers, but could not put them into the proper context. Whichever was true, it was just as well.

At the moment, there was no competition, no combat, between Sivari and Anton di'Guivera; they were, he was certain, bent on a single purpose. Or perhaps two.

First: Stop the fight before one of the two young men had injuries to something other than vanity and pride. Second: Find a damned good reason not to kill them for the humiliation of this completely disgraceful behavior.

Sivari thought that of the two, he would find it easier. Vale-dan was not, in fact, a student who had come to him, and upon whom his reputation rested. The Flight wanted the war itself to take place, and Commander Sivari, theoretically of the same rank, was far less valuable to the Crowns—and the Kings, having acknowledged the boy as a peer and a monarch in his own right, were unlikely to turn a blind eye at his untimely and ungraceful death-by-throttling.

He was not as certain that Ser Anton di'Guivera would find so compelling and so accessible an excuse—at least not in time.

The adjudicatory stood in a thin line—they were few—around the area traced by the movement of staves; they were grim-faced and silent. Listen, and Sivari thought he might be able to hear the words that had already been said. He stepped forward to speak them himself, and froze.

Very few of the adjudicators—none, this day—had ever been the Champion of this Challenge; Sivari had. And he saw something akin to memory, but somehow more personal for its reality, in the moving faces of the two men who fought here. He recognized Valedan's opponent at once; the surly, ill-bred student who was one of the best of those Anton had traveled with.

And he recognized, better than that, that they had both—Carlo and Valedan—found the invisible center around which the contest pivoted; they held to it. He was not certain that he could separate them. Not certain that he wished to try. There was no friendship here; no false pretence; there was no overt bloodlust, but there was much to be proved.

None of it was pretty; all of it was real.

You could watch these two fight and remember that the Challenge itself had been bred for warriors and bred by war, although it eschewed both. He had been angry that the men who had been set to judge the quality of the cross-river jumping should instead, sit, idle, while the two fought. None of that anger remained. There was just this—and to a man who had been there, there was an almost visceral need to see its natural end.

And then he heard the voice of Anton di'Guivera, a man who had twice been Champion, and who had never once offered insult or dishonor to what that title meant. He stood forward, stood tall.

When he spoke, he spoke in Torra.

"You will cease this
at once
." He waited; the grunt of his student, almost caught off his stride, was his entire answer. Another man would have given up at that point.

"You dishonor your vows. You forget yourself. You forget the purpose of the Challenge that you have agreed to embark upon. There will be
no war
to mar the games."

Valedan's turn; a near slip. The slope of the banks themselves were six inches beyond his right foot, and Carlo had almost managed to use superior weight to bear him back; to force him into the river. Clever; the river was the signal of the failure of a jump.

But Valedan slid to the side; Carlo stumbled forward an inch or two; there was give and take in the combat.

There was no response. He had not expected a response: Sivari couldn't believe he would be that stupid. Not Ser Anton di'Guivera. But expect it or no, he was obviously ill-pleased not to receive one.

He turned to the oldest man present—a man who was perhaps six years his junior. He bowed, a Northern bow, and said, "With the permission of the adjudicatory."

"Ser Anton," the man said. What else did one say to legend?

Anton di'Guivera stepped away to the boat that had carried him, Commander Sivari, and the quiet young witness that Vale-dan had chosen, from the far banks of the river to the heart of the action itself. He bent a moment at the boat's side, and when he rose, Commander Sivari saw that he carried a boatman's pole loosely in his left hand.

He bowed again to the judges, and they nodded to him; the glimmer of curiosity, the sudden cessation of breath, was not lost on Sivari; indeed, he was part of it. This man, this man was Anton di'Guivera.

He walked toward the two men who struggled with the weight of their weapons, and their opponent's, and the pole came up in his hand. It was a pole, no more—until he swung it.

And then it leaped up; it shed weight; it seemed somehow thinner and more supple. Was it of hardwood? Sivari thought bamboo would look more cumbersome than the pole in Anton's hands. As he lifted it, as he swung it in a tight, deliberate circle, it almost flew.

The pole that had been Carlo di'Jevre's did.

And the student himself followed, heavier, his body landing audibly in the soft grass and dirt. His teeth were clenched to force silence, but Sivari noticed that his arms were wrapped round his side. The young man with whom he had often sparred in the fifteenth holding, the man their spies had correctly identified as Andaro par di'Corsarro, came at once to his side; he began to kneel there.

Without a backward glance, Ser Anton di'Guivera barked. It was barely a word, but it was a denial.

The young man hovered a moment over his fallen companion; their eyes met, and Carlo nodded quietly. Anton did not see this interchange—or chose not to be aware of it. Andaro withdrew.

And that left Valedan, his pole gripped and lowered, his cheeks flushed, his expression almost unreadable.

"Put up your weapon," Ser Anton said, in Weston.

Valedan drew himself up to his full height. He had height, but it was always a surprise to Sivari to have his attention called to it. "If you wish the weapon," he replied—in Torra, "it is yours by the Lord's Law. If you can take it. There are no clouds in the sky," he added softly. "There is only the open sun, and the Lord watches."