Dethan did not know why he stepped forward, did not know why he thrust his hand out, blocking the next strike of the whip’s tail from hitting the man, letting it wrap around his wrist instead. He yanked as hard as he could, testing the strength of his healing muscles to the maximum. The coachman had such a grip on the whip that Dethan ended up yanking the lot of them, man and whip, from high above down into the wet of the mud. The coachman spluttered and spat, getting to his feet in a state, his face mottled red with fury.
“How dare you! Do you not see the sigil on this coach? It is the lord high jenden’s vehicle! You will be whipped for your insolence!”
“Would that be with this whip?” Dethan asked, rolling the whip up slowly in his hands. His manner might appear mild on first glance, but anyone who looked a bit harder would realize what the coachman realized: that Dethan, for all he wore baggy rags and a thick layer of mud, was the one fully in charge of the altercation.
“You there! You let my man go or you will find yourself without a head!” barked a man leaning out the window of the conveyance.
“Oh, I’ll let him go,” Dethan said. “Only not with his whip. The whip is mine now.”
“How dare you commandeer anything of mine! How dare you interfere with—!”
He broke off suddenly when a delicate, gloved hand appeared from the darkness of the coach and rested on the hand of the man within. The glove was white with a sprig of flowers ringed around the wrist.
She, for it was obviously a woman, must have said something—Dethan could not hear what—because the angry man subsided somewhat, though it was very clear he was not happy about it. He looked to the left and right, seeing the crowd they were beginning to draw.
“But … my dear … he is an upstart of a peasant and we cannot abide—”
“Is this truly worthy of your time?” she asked, this time loud enough for Dethan to hear, though in no way with strong emotion. More like she might scold a puppy. Then she finally appeared in the window, and Dethan felt his breath lock up in cold shock in his chest.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen … save the goddesses themselves. Her only flaw, immediately noticeable, was the burn scar along her lower cheek and jaw on the left side of her face. But he hardly saw it because the rest of her face was stunning, her eyes dark and bottomless, her nose small and delicate, and her lips lush and smiling over perfectly white teeth. It was a shock to him that she had all her teeth. Women of his time hardly made it to her age with all intact.
Her hair was dark and curly, piled high on her head with a jaunty little cap set amid it. The teal cap had a stiff veil, which dropped down over the left side of her face, presumably to hide the scar, only it had been pushed back, either by accident or design, and she could be seen quite clearly. She had the longest of necks, the whitest of skin. Her gloved hand was graceful on the man’s.
“Can you not see how out of line your carriage driver was, Lord Grannish?” she asked him gently. “This man was only doing what was right. Those with power should not use it to press down those without,” she said, almost pointedly. No. It was with a point. Something Dethan did not fully understand was being passed between them.
“Very well,” Grannish groused, his narrow face with its curling moustache looking a cross between angry and deferential. Whatever it was, he was not happy about the situation. “Driver!”
“Sor.” The lady addressed Dethan. “The driver cannot drive without the whip.”
The implication was clear. She was trying to manipulate him the way she had just managed the other man. But he had no intention of being managed.
“A whip should not be applied to such fine horseflesh, woman. If he cannot control them with reins alone, then you are in need of a better driver. And I am in need of a belt.” With a sharp movement he whipped the whip around his waist, effectively belting up his pants, and tied the end tightly to his body, the long, hard handle dangling down against his upper thigh.
“This is a woman of the highest born blood,” the man Grannish hissed. “You will refer to her by her title—!”
She cut him off. “ ‘My lady’ will suffice.”
“Your pardon, my lady. I am a foreigner to these lands and things are different here than where I come from.”
“Then it is understood. Truly, you are forgiven. Driver, ride on!” she said in loud command.
The driver had since climbed out of the mud and back up into his seat, Dethan having kept a sharp eye on him the entire time. He made a sound to the horses and they drove on with a jolting start. Dethan watched them go, his eyes on the woman and hers on him the entire time. It took him a minute to shake himself free of the trance in which he found himself, and then he questioned why he had done what he had just done. He should be worrying about his own skin, his own tasks, and not what happened to a lone man in the filth of the street.
“Thank you!” the man said then, coming up to him and grabbing his hand. He touched the back of his hand to the back of Dethan’s, pressing them together. “I owe you much. Come, let me reward you.”
“I have no need of reward,” Dethan said. He eyed the other man. The man was tall and gangly, full of long, loose limbs and a corded sort of lean strength. It was clear he knew what a hard day’s work was. He had a mop of dark curly hair and warm, laughing brown eyes. “And you have little to give, I think.”
“Any other day that would be true, but today is the fair and I have been saving my silver to go. I think I might find me a wife today, if I can be so lucky.”
“You intend to buy one?” Dethan asked.
“Oh well … I suppose I could. From one of the slavers. But my money is so little that I wouldn’t be able to buy any woman of passing health. It takes a strong woman to be a mud farmer’s wife.”
“You might be surprised,” Dethan said. “A sickly slave might be made well with good care. I’ve seen it done.”
“It might be cheaper at that!” The man chuckled; it was a low raspy sound. He ran a hand back through his hair, obviously a habit because there were streaks of mud in various stages of wetness from the times before. “By the time the courting is done a man can be begging in the streets. Your idea has merit! To the fair, then? I’ll buy you a roasted gossel leg for your trouble, though I wish it was more.”
“A gossel leg is more than fair and will be more than welcome.”
“Very well, then.” The man pressed the backs of their hands together again. “My name’s Tonkin. You are new around here.”
“Yes. Why does that matter?” Dethan said uneasily.
“Well, no one who knows would step in to interfere with his lordship the high jenden’s business. He’s a cruel bastard, make no mistake about it. If I hadn’t fallen, I would never have come close to that vehicle of his. He rides it round here all fine and fierce-looking, making sure all us drudges know our place.”
“Jenden?” Dethan asked cautiously. He didn’t want to seem too strange to this individual. But by the look the man sent him, he could tell he was very much so strange.
“Advisor to the grand. You know, advisor to the king,” Tonkin stressed when Dethan’s expression remained blank. “And anyways, that was the grandina, the grand’s daughter, with him. I guarantee you had she not been with him the whole business would have gone much differently. It’s rumored that once the jenden killed someone right in the middle of the street. And the grand is so enamored with all the jenden says and does he can do no wrong. I suppose that’s why the grand has given his eldest daughter and heir to the jenden to marry. Though some say the jenden’s getting the raw deal, what with her being so ugly and all.”
“Ugly? That’s ugly?” Dethan asked incredulously, cocking a thumb in the direction the coach had disappeared. “She’s nearly as beautiful as Kitari. And I do not make that case lightly, for I’ve seen Kitari with my own eyes!”
He regretted it the minute Tonkin looked at him as though he’d grown boils all over his face. After all, what manner of man
claimed to have seen the unattainable queen of the gods? But then Tonkin’s face relaxed and he chuckled.
“Oh aye, she is a beauty at that. I agree with you. But round here that burn makes her ugly to most. Some say she will be unfit to rule after her father’s death … no doubt some like the jenden himself. Jenden Grannish wouldn’t be marrying her, you could wager, if he could think of any other way of becoming grand himself. As it is, the grand’s children have been cast a sad eye by Hella. Misfortunes have fallen on the royal family in terrible ways. The grand’s sons dying like that. And his two youngest daughters taken by the plague just this past summer. That leaves only the grandina Selinda and grandino Drakin. But the boy prince is only two and of poor health.” Dethan’s companion tsked his tongue and shook his head gravely. As though to say that was the whole of it and there was nothing to be done about it. But surely anyone could see that there was something dark at play in the grand’s household.
Of course Hella was as capricious a goddess as any and she had been known to toy with entire families, entire bloodlines, especially if she felt slighted in some way. It was hard to say what moved her and why her whims fluctuated so wildly. There were those who said Hella had gone mad, her mind crazed by the many things she could see and feel unfolding in the world. From all the choices she had to make every day that could save a person or bring about their demise or worse.
But fate could be changed or altered under the right conditions. One just needed to know all the elements at play.
CHAPTER
THREE
None of this was any concern of Dethan’s. He had much more important things to tackle and trying to comprehend the whims of fate was a waste of his energies. He had to stay focused on his goal. Get a horse. Get to his cache. Get an army. It was as simple as that, and yet in his present circumstances it was also hard.
He and Tonkin moved into the fair and Dethan found himself feeling on edge. He didn’t know why at first, because there was nothing at all threatening about the happy people milling about, enjoying the vendors’ wares and eating the large quantities of foods available. Everyone was relaxed and having a good time.
After a while he realized it was the crowd itself that was the problem. He had spent an untold amount of time chained up alone in the hells, with no one but himself for company. Here he was thrust into the mix of hundreds of people, packed end to end in some places where the crowd bottlenecked between two vendors or where there was an attraction, such as the dancing gossels presently taking place. The six-legged beastie was better served up broiled and salted, in his opinion, but to each his own.
Dethan’s best bet was to get out of there as soon as possible. But there was one other thing he needed before he could go, and this crowd might help him to get it. There were clothing vendors all about and possibly he could nick a shirt to go with his pants. Once he did that he would be able to wear his armor. Without underpadding it could be painful … but he would suffer the pain and chafing if it meant getting on with his journey.
He was keeping his eyes open when he saw an opportunity. But before he could move toward taking advantage of it, his companion grabbed him around one of his arms and dragged him toward a raucous uproar of shouting.
“Shivov fights!” his companion said with no little amount of glee.
The more things changed, the more they didn’t. How many centuries had it been since he had been dragged into the hells? And yet shivov fighting still existed. He had won four shivov matches in his time. He could not have afforded to lose. No one could, for it was a death match. There were winners and then there were corpses. There was no ground given, only ground that was taken.
Unable to help himself, he was drawn toward the arena. The crowd was even thicker here and his apprehension ratcheted up to a new level. He struggled with himself. Forced himself to shove down all the anxiety clawing through him. He tried to remind himself that he had once been one of the most renowned and most feared warlords of his time. But with a body still burned and barely healed, he was hardly more than a shadow of who he had once been.
Tonkin, for all his slight build and undernourished state, had surprising strength in him as he dragged Dethan to a place right at ringside, shoving into the space for all he was worth and receiving some angry epithets in the process. Right away Dethan could see the two fighters, seeming at first glance unevenly matched. One was burly, no more than three straps tall, by the look of him, but carrying a good two hundred rocks if he carried one. His opponent was closer to four straps tall, the same as Dethan, and also like Dethan—when healthy—was about a hundred and seventy-five rocks, give or take. It would be a fairer match if Dethan were in the ring rather than the stockier man. But it was obvious right away that each had their strengths.
And as soon as the first blow connected, something else was very obvious as well.
The weapons were blunted.
“How do they expect them to fight to the death with blunted weapons?” Dethan asked his new friend. “Are they forcing them to do this more brutally? Forcing them to kill each other with their bare hands?”
Tonkin gave him another one of those looks.
“They aren’t trying to kill each other! They haven’t done that since my father’s father was a boy! No, here it’s to the edge of the ring. Whichever fighter can toss the other out of the ring is the winner.”
“You must be joking,” Dethan said with a scoffing laugh. It had to be a jest. Shivov was the most glorious test there was of manhood and of a warrior’s skills. “What do your youngbloods do to prove themselves men?”
“A shivov test. This same here,” Tonkin said, indicating the fight. “That’s right, Willem. Give ’em what for!” he yelled at the top of a pair of mighty lungs. “Keeps us from losing some fine young men,” he said to Dethan.
“How fine can they be if they lose their fight?” Dethan muttered. Training for one’s shivov fight took every moment of every day; it forced a man to make a weapon of himself. Learn or die. Improve or die. Without that goal, what force drove men these days to better themselves? To make them reach the pinnacle of performance?
The fight was over a moment later when the shorter man used his low center of gravity and exploited his opponent’s overreaching swings, catching him under his ribs and sending him flying backward over the barrier of the ring. With a roar, the barbarian claimed his victory, showing off to the adulating crowd. Then he moved forward and made a kneeling bow to someone in the stands on the far side of the ring. The minute Dethan saw the teal coloring of her cap and the darkness of her veil, pulled down over her face, he knew it was the grandina. Seated beside her in the position of overseer was the jenden she was engaged to.
“I, Jjanjiu, am your champion, woman!” the warrior called out rudely to her. “Give me my reward. Give me my gold and give me my kiss!”
A kiss? That was what the victor got for winning? And now she had to give it to this overbearing and obviously unclean oaf? He wasn’t even that worthy an opponent, all bluster and strength and no finesse. Even across the way from her, even with the veil, Dethan could see the discomfort on her features.
“That’s the jenden’s doing,” Tonkin confided. “Offering her up to a commoner like a prize. She’s too good for us lot, and so she should be. But he does it to embarrass her. He does a lot of things to her to get back at her for being in a more exalted position than him, if you ask me.”
“Are there no other challengers?” the grandina asked in a loud, clear voice, but Dethan could hear the quaver of discomfiture in her tone.
“Give me a weapon and I will challenge him, Grandina.”
Had those words just come out of his mouth? It must be the press of the crowd. It must be the heat of the day. No, it had to be for the gold, he told himself, satisfied at last with that reasoning. That and the offensive idea that this piece of ill-skilled trash could ever consider calling himself a champion. It was probably better the battle wasn’t to the death because it would be unfair,
since he was now immortal. Not that his opponent would know that.
He stepped into the ring, making certain the grandina could see him clearly, and he could tell immediately that she recognized him, and that she was relieved beyond words that he had stepped forward. Why she thought he, with his burn-scarred body, was anything better than the other oaf was beyond him. But he would not be burn-scarred forever. His body would eventually heal … although not for a while, because by the time he healed enough for it to show, the curse would be upon him again at dusk and he wouldn’t be any more healed then than he was now. But he had to realize that anything would appear better to her than a lumbering man with rotten stumps for teeth in his mouth. Gods only knew the type of kiss the lecherous hecka was seeking to have. The very idea disgusted him, just as much as it must disgust her.
He would not be asking for a kiss, he thought. Gold was enough at this juncture.
When he reached the center of the ring, he bent to pick up the blunt wooden practice sword that the previous contestant had been divested of.
His opponent turned and, upon seeing him, let out a raucous barroom laugh. “This is the best the stinking city has to offer me? A gnarled, scarred stump of a man?”
Dethan looked down at his hands, thinking he wasn’t all that gnarled and his burns were nowhere near as bad as they had been an hour before. In fact, it was the best he had looked or felt in eons. The truth was he had been immortalized at the peak of his physical prowess, and so he would always be, once he had the time to heal. But even as injured as he presently was, he was more than a match for this man. The shape of his body was one thing; the cunning and skill earned on the battlefield was something that could never be removed.