Authors: Alice Borchardt
“Hush, dear,” Nest whispered. “And yes, she’s certainly the result of some illicit coupling.”
“What is a licit coupling?” I asked.
Nest drew in a deep breath. “Well . . . a young woman properly purchased for breeding may lie with any and all of her owners. A fighting woman who loses passes to the guild or family that defeated her. The head of the family may assign any or all males the right to her favors. Any two commoners unencumbered and free can join to form a household, or simply as a temporary arrangement for mutual pleasure.”
“It sounds as though highborn women have a bad time of it,” Albe said.
Cateyrin giggled. “A lot of hard times.”
“Yes, they are sought after,” Nest said delicately. “But they are one and all very valuable property and any man in authority who ill-treated one would soon be assassinated by his own kin or poisoned by one of his wives. Our whole way of life depends on them. A woman talented herself or one who produces talented daughters will become a permanent member of the ruling council of the household or guild she belongs to.”
My stomach knotted as I watched the big woman make her way to the platform among the rapids. Some sort of etiquette seemed to demand the man wait until the woman reached the platform and was ready.
The red-armored warrior was also big and obviously a well-practiced swordsman. But the bout was inconclusive.
“I wonder if the reds have settled on a campaign to take Elise?” Nest said to Ilona as we watched a dazzling display of swordsmanship.
“The woman is called Elise?” I asked.
“Yes,” Nest said. “She’s famous, but there haven’t been too many serious attempts to take her. There is a worry about her bloodlines.”
“How is this concerted attempt usually made?” Albe asked.
“They put constant pressure on her. Try to wound her. And when she is wounded, they give her no rest, until she is finally worn down and at last taken.”
“Couldn’t she stay home?” Albe asked.
“No, dear,” Nest said. “When a girl presents herself as a Woman of Wager, she has to show up. Otherwise her guild or family will find itself the target of bravos, the men forced to fight all the time.”
I drank some wine and knew what a rabbit with a wire around its neck feels like. Albe’s eyes met mine, and for the first time, I saw fear in them. I drank again, deeply, and the wine was strong and made me a little dizzy.
The red warrior broke off the fight. Elise let him. Then he retreated to his family’s platform. She returned to her guild.
“By the way,” I asked Nest. “What guild is that?”
“They sell prepared food.”
“Cooks?” I asked.
“No, more innkeepers, I would say.”
I glanced around. The Hall of the Tree was packed. All the platforms on the river were full, standing room only in some cases. There were buildings along the shore scattered among parklike open spaces. They were filled with spectators, faces at every window and roof. Families had gathered around picnic blankets in the open spaces among the trees, and beyond the respectable citizens there were shadowed areas where the green park trailed away slowly into the forbidden towers.
The night gangs were gathered there. They scarred their faces or, as the Painted People did, wore tattoos. Except that among the Painted People the idea is often some sort of beauty. These masks, skin paintings, and scars had only one purpose: to make the gang look as horrific as possible. Many of them were powerfully muscled, and I saw that free, or perhaps escaped, Fir Blog accounted for most of this murderous-looking crew. There were a lot of them; I couldn’t see how many, because those crowded behind the first rank were in deep shadow.
I glanced at Albe. She nodded.
Ilona wasn’t eating, though almost everyone else was. In fact, it seemed that the whole crowd on the platforms on the riverbank was fortifying itself with almost indecent haste.
Ilona looked very frightened. “We should never have brought them here, Nest. We could have hidden them in the guild hall. We could have tried to smuggle them out.”
“We’re going to have to fight,” Albe said, breaking in on Ilona. “And if we fight, it might as well be here as anywhere else.”
“If luck is with you,” Ilona said, “and you can stave off defeat tonight, tomorrow I think I know a way to . . .”
I felt the dress tighten, then loosen on my body. “Battle!”
“Yes,” I said.
I made myself relax. Even if I won tonight, I would be a hunted creature. I could feel the eyes of all the men and women on the great family platforms. The Faun had told me to pass through this world to the Summer Country. He didn’t warn me that once I reached here, I might never escape.
Thud! The challenge knife pinned Ilona’s sleeve to the chair. The knife came from the black platform.
I stood, watching octagonal stones rise from the water. The platform of roots also had vanished and the same stones rose from the riverbed to form a dueling ground for me. I glanced up at the tree. I’d almost forgotten it. I had been preoccupied with the people. But it arched overhead, green in the insect-eyed lights above. I drew my sword and saluted it.
Then I stepped from stone to stone until I reached the platform. It was broad and magnificent, three high steps above the roaring river. I stood on its surface and found I was looking out at the entire city.
My challenger was big, almost as big as one of the Fir Blog. But a man. He was quick; I saw that much as he leaped from stone to stone. He had the cold, self-confident look of a practiced warrior. The crowd murmured when they saw who he was. His arms and armor were practical and utilitarian rather than ornamental. When he reached the platform, he drew his sword. Mine was already drawn. He saluted me.
“Why, you’re a lovely little virgin.” He sounded condescending.
“Thank you,” I said. “I hope to remain one.”
He gave a pleasant laugh. “No chance of that, my dear. You will be much better off if you make an accommodation with me right away. I’ll tolerate a few harmless passes so that you may salvage your dignity. Then you slip. I put my sword at your throat and the deed is accomplished.”
“Suppose I don’t agree?” I was surprised at my own pleasant tone.
Something ugly crept into his eyes.
“They say you are a stranger to our ways. So I had best explain what happens when a Woman of the Wager is captured. The men of the capturing family take possession of her body. All the men. Now, I can defend you tonight and say you are my own. Or I can yield you up to whomever I favor. That is the rule. The first night of a new woman can be . . . shall we say, very painful.”
I got the picture, but it didn’t matter to me much, because I was pledged to endure no second night. And I knew then that I would not. Perhaps Albe could reach me in time, but that didn’t matter, though I was certain my head would be a powerful talisman to the Painted People. But if she didn’t get there, I could do the deed myself.
Was the Hall of the Tree silent, or did the rush of the rapids drown out the sound and murmur of many voices? No. I glanced at the spectators and saw they were watching raptly.
“Well?” he asked.
“As you wish,” I answered. “But a few passes, please, for the sake of my dignity.”
“Certainly.”
“And,” I said, “I hope you’re a man of your word.”
“You’ll find I am, you little darling.”
Then he advanced.
I edged back as though nervous toward the edge of the platform.
“Now don’t jump in the river,” he cautioned as he raised his sword.
I leaped forward, just a little out of his world. I hoped enough. I went right through him. There was darkness and a stench of muck.
A second later, I stood behind him. This was no time to hold back. Hero’s salmon leap, both feet up. We were in the same world now. Both of my feet slammed into his back. I hit the ground rolling and saw my stratagem had worked. He pitched over the edge of the platform into the rapids.
The cheers made the lights on their long wands quiver. I raised my sword. More cheers thundered around me.
I was congratulated from another source, too.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do?” The mass of mail on my torso shifted alarmingly.
“What?” I hissed. “And give the game away?”
“True! True! What’s wrong? You are still wound tight as dried sinew.”
“That was one. There are six more,” I snapped.
I gazed downstream and saw some helpful people were pulling my opponent out of the river. Just at that moment, I saw the second dagger fly at the platform where the Diviners Guild sat. Even from here I could see the handle was red.
The head of the red family rose. There was a loud murmur from the crowd.
“That trick won’t work twice.” I spoke to my unseen companion.
“No, but then this time I don’t think you will be facing a human.”
And I saw my friend was right. The pieces of armor in front of the leader of the red family had risen of their own volition and formed themselves into the semblance of a warrior.
“I wonder where he got that? And, you know, it’s very dangerous.”
“That’s not helpful,” I said. “What is it?”
My companion was uncharacteristically silent.
Helmet, cuirass, arm guards, leg guards, thigh protectors, greaves, and shoes. They hovered in the air, then turned in the exact way a living fighter would. One mailed glove stretched itself out for a sword. Someone placed the hilt of one in its hand.
“I don’t know what it is,” my unseen companion said.
A shield rose from the table and took its position in front of the thing’s arm. The stones began rising in the direction of the red platform. When they were in place, the thing leaped easily to the first and headed toward me.
“It’s a construct,” my companion finally said. “Something like a tool put together to solve a problem.”
“Not a lot of help,” I said. “How do I defeat it?”
At that moment it leaped from the last of the stones onto the platform and was on me in a second. For a minute I was as busy as a fighter can be. Our swords rang together and struck sparks as I parried an attack as vicious as any that has ever happened to me. I danced in a circle, trying to get away from the flying sword and the empty helmet.
I could see the whole hall through the joints in my adversary. It was as though I faced an invisible opponent. I used a variant of the trick I had used on the first swordsman. It nearly got me killed.
I eased out of the world just a bit and let the sword pass through me. I felt it, but I was only a specter to the force of the blow. That gave me a clean swing at the space between helmet and breast plate. Or where the neck would have been on a human. My blade whistled through empty air and since I had to return completely to strike an effective blow, my foe’s sword caught me at the waist.
It rang against the ring mail and threw me down. The next sight I saw was the thing’s blade descending toward my face. I rolled clear and got far enough away to leap to my feet. The thing caught up to me in an instant and a second later, I was frantically parrying a rain of blows.
I fled to the only spot that offered respite, the world the ring mail came from. A second later, the rain was slashing at my face. My companion presented me with a view of the ruins. I found I was not in the same place I had been before. I was on the other side of the jumble of broken towers on a broad, shallow stair.
I’d been here before when I had fled the fish eater. The fish eater, King Bade, sent to steal “Her” pool. He had tried to lay hands on immortal powers. “She” used me to rebut him.
The immense shell of the rainbow chamber rose on my left. Even in the thick gloom of perpetual storm clouds it burned white, reflecting the giant curved steps I stood on. Green, gold, gray, churning like the turgid storm clouds above, lit by brilliant flashes of blue lightning and swirling patterns of silver rain. I’d taken the Faun’s head in the chamber.
I called it, and the walls swirled into a symphony of green, then silver, followed by gold. My unseen companion gave a cry of shock.
“
Yiiiiiiiee!
Warn me when you do things like that!”
I didn’t have time to reply. The suit of red armor followed me into this world.
“You are measurably stronger. Try tripping it,” my companion shouted.
I slipped to the thing’s left and brought my sword down hard on its shin guard. The shield slammed into me, but the ring mail protected my torso. I reeled back, but when I did, I saw my blow landed perfectly.
The thing had been pivoting on that leg to follow me. The other leg was in the air. I knocked it off its pins. It went down with a crash, flying into its component pieces.
“Get the helm! Get the helm! That’s how it sees!” my companion shouted.
I threw down my shield. The helm was one of those Greek-style helmets, big cheek pieces with only a T-shaped slit for the eyes and mouth. It tried to roll away from me, but I got it by one of the cheek pieces, grabbed the nose guard, and turned the eyeholes to my body, trying to blind it.
The sword came after me by itself, slashing wildly, but apparently my stratagem worked. The sword didn’t seem able to find me.
“Got to get back!” I shouted. I was afraid to make the leap. My movements in this world might have placed me over the river in the other one.
“Hush. I’m working on that. . . . Now!”
I made the leap. Actually, I was a little above the platform. I landed hard on my knees, near the edge. I hurled the helm into the river just as the sword slammed into my arm. My armor turned most of the force of the blow, but my right arm and hand were drenched in blood from an open slash wound just above my elbow.
But I went for the sword hilt with my left hand. I swung it once around my head, then out over the white-water rapids surrounding the platform. It vanished. The remaining bits and pieces fought me, but one by one, I ran them down and hurled them into the river.
The shield gave me the most trouble. It was triangular. It flew at me, point first. I slammed it aside with my sword, a blow that sent it flying out over the water. Once over the water, whatever motive power the thing had seemed to disappear, and it vanished into the river, joining the rest.