A narrow, twisting passage ran through the shantytown, large enough to take the horses single file. We decided it safer to walk them than ride. With every step, I felt the squatters’ reproachful stares.
“Refugees and runaways. Admittedly it has … uh … grown a bit worse in the last few years,” Sir Baramon said.
“You mean it’s been like this for years?” I blinked at him. “Who holds their thudajé?”
“No one,” he said, surprised. “I mean, they are Marakori.”
A shout ahead drew our attention. Soldiers dragged a woman out onto the bridge and cuffed her to the ground, while a second band ransacked the cob house where they’d found her. After a few seconds, they exited, shouting and dragging a Marakori man out with them. The woman screamed and reached for him, but the soldiers struck her down.
Brother Qown tensed next to me. “Aren’t we going to do something?”
I hesitated. “It’s not our business,” I said. “Besides, those men wear the duke’s colors.”
My heart hammered in my chest. I wanted to do something. I should have taken the whole incident in stride, trusting the duke’s men to enforce the laws, but Barsine’s corruption still tasted sharp and bitter on my tongue. I could no longer—
Even as I debated my options, a guard pulled a dagger across the Marakori man’s throat.
The woman’s scream filled the air.
I grabbed Brother Qown by his robe before he could run over and try to save the Marakori man’s life.
“No, I can help!”
“You’re wrong.”
The soldiers left. They tossed the man’s body to the side, ignored the woman, and marched toward the gates. Whatever their objective, they had either accomplished it or didn’t think it worth the effort.
I let Brother Qown go. He ran over to the woman, who sobbed over the slain man. He might have been anything to her: brother, father, friend, husband. She ignored Brother Qown until he tried to comfort her, and then she lashed out at him, screaming.
“Come on, then,” Sir Baramon said as he pulled Brother Qown back. “I promise there’s not a thing you can do here.”
I felt Qown’s stare. Although he didn’t say the words, I knew what he was thinking.
You could have stopped this.
“Enough,” I snapped at him. “This isn’t our business. Anyone who lives here does so at the duke’s sufferance. We don’t know the circumstances.”
“You said the Joratese didn’t just kill criminals! What about saelen? Where was his trial by combat? His tournament? Who was going to win his thudajé?”
“Brother Qown—”
“How was this justice?” Tears spilled down his face, tears of furious anger.
“Ah, you sweet colt,” Dorna said, patting the priest on the shoulder. “You know that only applies to Joratese.”
I walked Ash Flower past the scene, refusing to look back behind to make sure the others would follow. I refused to look back and see the dead Marakori man.
I didn’t know the circumstances. I didn’t know the man’s crimes. Perhaps he’d deserved it. Perhaps he hadn’t. But I knew one thing for certain.
In Jorat, what you protect is what you rule.
Brother Qown didn’t understand. He didn’t understand how standing up for some random Marakori refugee might be perceived as an act of rebellion.
I pulled the hood up over my head as I approached the gate, which always struck me as an underwhelming, tiny little door—because Kandor had designed it to be difficult, bordering on impossible, for horses to use.
What had Emperor Kandor cared for horses? He hadn’t come to save horses but to slaughter them.
If the front gate was small, the archery platforms were not.
“My count,” Sir Baramon said, “let me do the talking.”
I nodded, relieved, still not trusting my own voice. Brother Qown’s words had hurt like razors against my soul.
I had hoped for a subtle, quiet entrance to the city, but it wasn’t to be. All this business with refugees and improvised buildings parked on the bridge like a besieging army ensured the guards not only checked each entrant but wrote down particulars as well. Those reports would be compiled later. Entering the city unnoticed became complicated if I ended up in a file reported to my enemies.
Damn it all, but I do have such enemies.
“Name and reason for visiting?” the guard asked when we reached the front.
Sir Baramon laughed. “Reason for visiting? Tell me, my good man, does anyone answer with aught but tournament with the thing itself two weeks away? As well to say one is interested in moistening one’s brow, while swimming in the Zaibur!”
The guard cleared his throat and gave Sir Baramon a calculating look. “Watching or participating?”
“Starring!” Sir Baramon barked out. He then leaned in toward the man and lowered his voice. “Not me, you understand. It’s been a few years”—he patted his stomach for emphasis—“since I’ve been the star of a tournament. Still, surely you’ve heard of the great Sir Kavisarion of Dalrissia?” He lowered his voice again until he was whispering. “This year, I bring my newest protégé, Ember—it’s her first show, but you’ll be seeing her at the games, I promise you that—as well as our trainer, Bitsy, and her personal servant, Featherbottom.”2
Brother Qown blinked in surprise. Dorna, on the other hand, grinned from ear to ear and puffed out her chest.
The guard looked us over, settling on my red cloak before returning his attention to Sir Baramon. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you say you were with the Red Spears?” He scribbled something on his paper. “Your people are in the usual place: the Green next to the Temple of Khored. Tell Captain Desrok I said hello.”
“Desrok?” Baramon raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you mean Captain Mithros?”
I fought to keep my expression bored and still. Mithros was the name Thaena had given me, the man who would help me find a way inside Duke Kaen’s palace.
The guard smiled. “Oh, right. My mistake. Enjoy the games.” He motioned for us to bring our horses inside.
I realized just how odd we must have seemed. Tournament performers would come in through the Gatestone. We’d walked up on foot, with inferior horses too poor to ever be used in the ring.
So he’d tested us.
Fortunately, Sir Baramon passed.
I heard a yelp and looked back to see Sir Baramon hopping on one leg. “Damnable woman! What was that for?”
Dorna put her hands to her hips. “As if you don’t know. Bitsy?”
“Well, it’s not like you’re growing larger in your old age, is it?”
Mare Dorna poked a finger at Sir Baramon’s stomach. “Unlike some!”
“Count.” Brother Qown said a single word, low and warning. He stared up.
I followed his stare with my own and saw he was looking at one of the city’s many bridges, stretching from rooftop to rooftop. A crow’s cage hung on the bridge closest to the entrance, meant to be viewed by all who passed by. A fire had twisted and blackened the metal. The same fire had surely killed the person inside, now nothing more than a charred skeleton.