5

Imagine you are a magician and can see through the eyes of a crow flying above the City Fives Court. Below you lies the huge round stadium built of stone and wood. You see the tiers of seats and the shaded balcony boxes filled with people cheering and shouting. The Fives court in the center is divided into four quarters, each one of which is an obstacle. At their simplest they are easily described: Pillars is a maze, Rivers is water crossed via moving stepping stones, Traps is bridges and beams to balance along, and Trees is climbing posts. The first person to negotiate the four outer obstacles and then get through the fifth and center obstacle, called Rings, climbs the victory tower to claim the victor’s ribbon. To win you need to be strong, fast, smart, and flexible, and have excellent balance and agility.

Through the crow’s eyes you look down on a girl crouched on a raised wooden platform about three paces by three paces square. She is panting, catching her breath. Blood dries on her left palm where she scraped herself while climbing on Trees. She is grinning, every part of her body and spirit filled with elation.

That girl is me.

I have successfully made my way through Pillars, Rivers, Trees, and Traps. This platform is one of two entrance points for Rings. From the height I look around to see where the others are. The red-belted adversary is still stuck in the maze of Pillars. If you’re not smart enough to figure out the maze you shouldn’t be running.

The green-belted adversary is wavering as he crosses a high beam on Traps. I suck in a breath, pulse racing as I see him overbalance. Too late he tries to center himself! He slips and falls. A shout explodes from the spectators as he hits. I can’t see the floor of Traps from here but men race out with a stretcher. There is a moment of utter silence as people stare.

My heart is pounding and my throat feels raw with apprehension. What if Green Belt is dead?

Laughter and good-natured cheers erupt from the crowd: Green Belt must be injured but not dead, aware and awake enough to make light of his fall. I’ve gotten distracted even though only five breaths have passed since I arrived here. I should be looking for Blue Boy as I decide on a strategy.

A Rings configuration is set up as a maze, like Pillars. The spinning rings turn at different speeds, just as stones move in Rivers. You have to avoid traps; this one has smaller rings that turn separately, nested within the larger rings. Rings are stacked so you can climb, as in Trees, to a higher and more difficult but faster level, or play it safe on the ground. Rings is my specialty. I’m not the strongest nor the fastest, but I’m agile and I’m patient and I’m calm. Most of all, I know how to grasp the whole pattern and figure out the fastest path. You can beat me anywhere else on the court but no one beats me through Rings.

Since Blue Boy isn’t yet here, how am I going to lose on purpose without everyone guessing? Even though Father doesn’t know it’s me, I want him to admire the girl in the brown belt as she falls just short of winning. Worse than losing would be overhearing him remark on how that girl had run poorly.

A foot slaps the ladder behind me. To my utter relief Blue Boy hauls himself up onto the platform and drops into a crouch beside me. It’s a good tactic, confronting me directly as we enter the last challenge. He’s about my height, lean and muscled. A gold silk half-mask covers his eyes and forehead but I see his smile and his even, white teeth. He looks like he’s having a good time and is perfectly happy to share that good time with me.

“Salutations, Adversary. Do you let me pass, or do you contest my right to enter first?”

I can tell by his high-class accent that he’s way above my place in the world. He’s as pure Patron as they come but there’s no glint of condescension in his voice.

“Salutations, Adversary,” I answer, pitching my voice low to disguise it.

He drops the pompous formalities with another flash of the friendly grin. “I have to say, I’m impressed. I don’t remember running against you before. By the way you took that twisting leap over the rope bridge in Traps, I’d have remembered you.”

“How did you see that?” I ask, surprised both that he was able to observe my run and that he would have paused for long enough to watch.

He points to a cluster of poles sticking up in Trees. “I had just reached the top of the center-post. Your leap was impressive. You’re not wearing a stable badge. Who trains you?”

“What makes you think I’ll give up my secret?” Cheerfully I snap out the informal court challenge used only between players. I can tell he’s expecting it by the way he laughs. “Kiss off, Adversary.”

From the platform there are three possible rings I can reach on my first jump. I’ve already chosen my path. I leap for the middle ring just as it turns full on open, facing me. I brace my feet on its wooden curve and grasp each side, spread-eagle. The thrill is what I live for, the timing, the way I can hit it just right.

He whistles sharply, amazed by my audacity. After a hesitation he jumps through the right-hand ring and starts climbing down into the spinning maze. I stay holding on through three complete turns of the big wooden ring. I’m comfortable braced here. Anticipation curls smugly in my gut as I watch him dodge and climb and backtrack along the ground.

There is always more than one path through Rings. The key is finding the most direct one instead of the most obvious one.

Getting bored, the crowd begins singing a popular song about a lovelorn adversary:

I’ll wear my mask and I’ll wear my ribbons

And to the wharf I’ll gladly go

For my love has said he will meet me there and—

A man’s voice pierces above the clamor: “Wait for it, sweet pea!”

Whoever the man is, up in the stands, he knows exactly what I’m going for: on the fifth turn a straight path will open to the tower. It’s a hard choice to make because all the rings are continually moving. Once you start leaping you have to keep moving as the tunnel opens in front of you and closes behind you. If you stop, you’ll fall. But if you’re bold you can race through a wave of opening rings like opening doors.

I’m bold.

The path opens. I run right through, the curved wood rings scraping on my feet as I propel myself to the next one and the next. Blue Boy is working the slow but sure way. He’s good but I’m better.

I’m going to reach the tower first.

So the moment I have to decide to fall feels like stabbing myself. I gauge the speed of a wheel’s turn so I can just miss getting a good brace on the rim. Pretending to slip, I sit down hard on the edge. It cuts into my rear as I slide and let myself fall until I am hanging by my hands. The grip bites into my fingers like a reminder of what I’ll never have. With a grimace, I let go.

When I hit the ground I roll to absorb the shock but pretend to sprawl, taking up precious time to allow him to get farther along.

Sand chafes my face. But it is the burn of hating myself for having to lose and look clumsy that chases me the slow way along the ground to the tower. He swarms up the ladder ahead of me, not looking back.

With my foot braced on the lowest rung and a spike of anger slashing through my chest, I watch as he snags the victor’s ribbon and pulls off his mask to the crowd’s roaring approval.

In official trials the winner has to take off the mask in front of the entire assembly.

That’s why I have to lose.

To my disgust he’s good-looking, with cropped-short, straight black hair, dark eyes, and a pale golden complexion, the very model of a lord’s son, one of the highest Patrons of all, palace-born. Most likely his household has its own Fives stable of players and a private training court.

He glances down at me. A narrow-eyed frown shades his face.

He’s not as happy about his win as he ought to be.

Shaking, I crawl down the ladder into the undercourt.

As the crowd roars, I remember Amaya. What if she couldn’t keep Father from coming back and checking on me? I’d better hurry.

I jog along a passage to the retiring hall, separate from the attiring hall so no one who has run the court can exchange information with someone yet to race. An attendant gives me my satchel and a cup of the sweet nectar that only adversaries and the royal family are allowed to drink. I knock it back in one gulp and almost choke on the syrupy flavor. The attendant says nothing—they aren’t allowed to talk to the adversaries for fear of bribes and favors trading hands—but her brow wrinkles with curiosity. I still have my mask on.

Setting down the empty cup I hurry on.

Gate-custodians allow me out the narrow exit stairs, guarded below and above.

I emerge into the nether passages. After I change in the shadowy alcove I’m just another sweaty Commoner girl in her one nice dress, except for the clamor of my thoughts.

I did it! I ran a real, official trial. I can almost call myself a real adversary now, even if I’ll never be one.

The air reverberates with the noise of spectators calling out bets and predictions as the next set of adversaries begins. Vendors shout. I didn’t notice them before but now the smell of food drenches the hot breeze: bread dipped in oil, shelled roasted nuts and salted seeds, and toasted shrimp.

I return the way I came.

To my relief the curtained retiring room is empty. As I strip off my long tunic, I try not to cry. It was everything I’d hoped: the exciting course, the crowd’s cheers, the smell of sawdust and chalk.

I rub a few tears off my face, then ladle water from a ceramic pot into the washbasin and wash the drying blood off my hand. I cherish the pain because the scrape proves I did it.

A haughty voice rises outside. “Open the curtain!”

The drapery lifts, handled by an unknown servant wearing a mask. Amaya sweeps in. While I’ve been gone she has powdered her skin so it is as golden-pale as Maraya’s.

“You almost won! I could tell you wanted to! If you had taken off your mask in front of everyone it would have humiliated Father on the very day of his great triumph.”

“Which is why I didn’t win.” The cool water soothes my exercise-flushed skin but my mind keeps seeing how I could have run right through the rings to the tower.

She shoves me onto a stool in front of a dressing mirror. With a lighter hand than her temper suggests she teases out the worst tangles in my hair with her fingers, then uses a little oil to comb the rest.

“How could you do that to me, Jes! When the green adversary slipped I thought he’d broken his neck and then I thought you would break your neck when you fell—and I screamed!”

“You screamed? You never scream.”

“I was so frightened. If you were injured everyone would have seen your face! And then when I screamed everyone looked at me, so Father wanted to bring me back to join you and I thought we would get caught for sure. I told him a bug ran over my foot.”

I snort. My pounding pulse is finally slowing. “As if bugs ever scare you. You’re the one who flattens them with your sandal. Bett’s the screamer.”

“Father doesn’t know that, does he?” She yanks my hair back into an unfashionable puff-tail, a quick way to make my coily hair look neat. “It was a close call. If he found out, my life would be over! I’m done covering for you, Jes! This is the last time!”

“The oracle speaks,” I mutter.

“Don’t say that! It’s bad fortune to mock the oracles!”

She stamps a foot, which makes me giggle, which makes her pull my hair even harder. In all fairness she makes it look good, and afterward pauses to stare at her own tresses all tied up in pretty ribbons. She drinks in every bit of Patron beauty she has inherited from our father: the perfect bow of her eyes, her straight black hair, the lips whose color she emphasizes with carmine stick. Yet even Amaya can’t quite pass as a Patron. In the way her lips part slightly I see how it hurts her, knowing she will always be second best in the circles we live in.

“You look lovely,” I say.

“Amaya? Are you in here?” Her friend Denya waits behind the closed entry drape for permission to enter. “Lord Ottonor is about to receive visitors! You better hurry!”

I grab my linen finery as a servant lifts the drape. Denya steps into our little refuge and stops, trying not to stare at me pulling the long sheath of a gown down over my dark body.

Amaya places herself between Denya and the couch to hide the Fives clothes draped in full view. “Glad tidings! Who is coming, Denya?” she asks in what Maraya calls her bird-twitter voice. “I simply can’t wait to see!”

“A party from Garon Palace. It’s a great honor for Lord Ottonor to host a palace lord at his balcony!” Denya is a soldier’s daughter, like us, but both her parents are Patron-born. She has the courtesy to be embarrassed at being caught staring, for which I like her. Her gaze catches on the tunic and leggings, and her forehead wrinkles as she puzzles. “Is your headache better, Jessamy Tonor?”

“Salutations, Denya Tonor,” I reply, for every person who lives under a lord’s sponsorship takes the clan name as their surname to mark their allegiance. “While languishing here with a headache I have been reciting poetry to improve my character:

At dawn face the east to sing in the new day.

What the oracle speaks, your heart yearns to obey.”

“You are so dutiful, Jessamy Tonor,” Denya says politely as she grabs Amaya’s hand and hauls her to the entry drape. For all that Denya is pure Patron and pretty enough, she knows Amaya is the lamp that draws the moths. “If we hurry we won’t miss Lord Gargaron’s party as they arrive. I’ve seen them on their balcony. His nephew is really good-looking. If we pick the right place to stand, he might speak to us!”

“Truly?” Amaya’s interest shifts away from the damning clothes to the far more interesting prospect of flirting.

They slip outside just as a roar of disappointment bellows from the spectators. An adversary has failed to complete one of the obstacles. I slowly tuck the clothes away in my satchel. It was far easier to climb up the ladder onto the Fives court than it is to go stand among people who will stare, wondering why Father allows a daughter who looks like me out in public. But I don’t want him to think I’m a coward. And hiding will dishonor Mother. So I walk out along the cloth-walled passageway to the balcony where Lord Ottonor and his entourage watch the trials under the shaded comfort of an awning.

Lord Ottonor sits on a cushioned chair with an excellent view of the playing court below. My father’s sponsor is an avid spectator of the Fives. He ran them himself when he was young. I find it hard to look at this old man with his sagging jowls, patchy breathing, and complexion gray from ill health, and imagine him as a Fives adversary good enough to compete at the Royal Court, much less as an Illustrious.

“This set has no adversary as adept as that last pair,” he wheezes as everyone listens attentively. They don’t even notice me enter. “Look at the fellow wearing the green belt. He’ll never get past the rope bridge if he can’t figure out it is rigged to collapse. I put no odds on the red-belt girl. She’s slow like day-old porridge, ha ha!”

The men standing beside his chair all laugh politely. A table laden with fruit, roasted shrimp, spicy beans, and sweet finger-cakes dusted with sugar sits close enough that he can gesture to whatever he wants. Right now my father is offering him a platter of shrimp from which Lord Ottonor is picking off the fattest and juiciest with a pair of lacquered tongs.

None of Lord Ottonor’s blood relatives are here today, only people he has elevated through sponsorship. Besides my father there are three other military officers, an administrator wearing the long sleeves of a bureaucrat, and one dour merchant. The men have been allowed to bring their marriageable children.

Amaya and Denya have taken a place at the railing at the edge of the awning, where they can get the first look at any visitors coming through from the back. Another Patron girl joins them; I don’t know her name and have never seen her before. Three boys about our age watch the game.

My mother is the only Commoner seated beneath the awning. All the other Commoners here are masked servants, none of whom would ever sit down in the company of Patrons, because they would be whipped.

I don’t want to talk to Amaya and her friends so I find a place to stand at the far end of the balcony. The only thing I really care about is what is going on down on the court. The green-belted adversary is stuck at the rope bridge in Traps. My father sees me. With a stern nod he indicates the platter in his hand, so I hurry over and return it to the table.

My movement catches Lord Ottonor’s eye. “A shame about her, Esladas, no? The other girl is so pretty.”

I busy myself with arranging the platter among the others, keeping my face averted.

My father says, “Jessamy is an obedient girl, my lord. Obedience must always be valued above beauty in a woman.”

“I suppose so,” said Lord Ottonor. “Although when obedience goes hand in hand with beauty, the world smiles more brightly, does it not?” He nods at my mother, whom he allows to sit beside him because he enjoys admiring her.

She is embroidering a length of cloth. Her hugely pregnant belly should make the work a little clumsy, except my mother can do nothing clumsily. No ribbons confine her hair, which she wears in its natural cloud. She makes no effort to lighten her complexion, nor does she need to. Men have written poems to the lambent glamour of her eyes. She looks up with a kind smile.

“I think all my daughters are beautiful, Lord Ottonor, both the two who look like Esladas and the two who look like me.” Her silk-soft voice is as exquisite as her face and rather than scolding him seems to be agreeing with him.

I don’t know how she does it. I don’t think she knows. I think she just is that way, like a butterfly whose bright wings capture the eye simply because it is a radiant creature.

“Four daughters, Esladas!” Lord Ottonor drones on. “I’m surprised you kept them all, since they will just be a burden to you when you have to pay to marry them off. If you can marry them off.” He pops a shrimp in his mouth as he considers the vast swell of my mother’s belly. “Perhaps this one will be a son.”

My father says, “If the oracles favor us, it will be a son.”

My mother’s eyebrows tighten. Although she takes an offering tray to the City of the Dead once a week in the manner of a proper Patron woman, she herself never consults the oracles, not as Father and all Patrons do.

At the railing Amaya tugs on Denya’s sleeve. A party of men enters the balcony box. My mother rises from her chair and retreats to the back benches where sit the Patron women who are the wives of the soldiers. Out of respect for my father’s new fame as hero of Maldine they allow her to rest among them. Anyway, they like her.

Once I am sure she is settled I sidle to the far corner railing out of the way as the newcomers are announced. Lord Gargaron is a slender man of about my father’s age, a thin-faced fellow with thin eyes and a thin nose and a thin smile. Lord Ottonor laboriously rises to greet him.

I am as invisible as any servant. Which is a good thing, because I sustain a shock that jolts right through my body as my hands clutch the railing.

One of the people with Lord Gargaron is Blue Boy.