That, and pride. She couldn't bear to be thought a coward, to disgrace her mother's name. That would be-a betrayal.
But Faro was not likely to be "kind" enough to kill her immediately. She shivered, thinking of his eyes, and all the pent-up venom in his gaze. No, if she simply went through the motions, he would probably do terrible things to her before he killed her....
She had to do more than pretend to fight him, she decided bleakly. She had to humiliate him; make him so angry he forgot what he wanted to do to her, until all he wanted was to kill her. She had to shatter whatever self-control he had until he wasn't thinking anymore.
That wasn't going to be easy; if Euterpe had planned on having him become her scribe, he had to be very intelligent. She would have to keep that in mind.
Odd: for a moment there, in the cells, she had felt something more than his hate. For a moment, she had thought she felt a kind of shock of recognition.
Maybe she did feel something. In a strange way, it was almost as if they were each others fate, as if something worked to push them at each other. Each of them betrayed, in away... both of them alone. What did he fear? she wondered. She didn't think it was death.
She fell asleep in the midst of those strange speculations, exhausted by the emotional turmoil of the day, and she did not wake until the Queen's guard came to take her to the arena.
• Chapter 2
Faro had not really believed that the slim young girl would choose him as her opponent. When Xantippe paraded the latest contender in front of the cells he had hoped it would happen, of course, but he had not believed. She would have been the ideal opponent: a lamb to his lion. The slender girl with the banner of golden hair was too fragile to even think of coming up against him.
But he could show his hatred and contempt of her, of all her kind, and he had done that much. Xantippe had not punished him for his small defiance, which meant mostly that she didn't care for the girl either. Otherwise she'd have used that whip of hers, for his insolence.
No, he had been certain she wouldn't be that foolish. Rape and death was certain for a pampered, frail thing like her. So he simply poured all the bitter rage within his heart into his glare. Yet even as he did so, there had been something that mitigated his emotion. Of course he hated her, as he hated them all, but-
Then the girl had picked him.
To say he was stunned would have been an understatement. He stared after her, wondering what the fickle fates had in store for him this time. Freedom-it was almost his! A moment or two in the arena, and he would be free forever! Elation warred with the ever-present rage, and for a moment, won.
But soon it evaporated. As Xantippe went off to lock up behind the girl, he frowned, suddenly wondering just what trickery was behind all this. It couldn't be this easy. The bitches were going to raise his hopes and destroy them again for their amusement. The girl couldn't be as helpless as she looked. Her winsome beauty had to be a trap. For all he knew, she could conjure better than the Queen-or else she was some kind of specially trained fighter. He had heard of those from the other arena-slaves: women (or men, in the outer lands) who looked ordinary, even weak, but could kill with a single hand. Hustlers, sent in to enhance the entertainment of the regal class by humiliating foolishly confident men. Such examples also served to warn all men of their place, in case any should be tempted to rebel. Maybe she would take a false fall, pretend to be terrified, weakened, helpless. Then, just as he thought to reap his reward with her luscious little body, zap! and he would find himself a eunuch, as the crowd laughed. Then a slow death as she did all the things to him he had hoped to do to her.
But he knew the answer to that ruse. Steel himself against her insidious, childlike attraction, attack with caution, and pursue without mercy. Make sure she was blind and paralyzed before going between her legs, and never try to kiss her at all. Then break her neck.
Yet when Xantippe returned, she was frowning, and there was nothing in the way she behaved to indicate that land of trickery.
She looked at him and shook her head, as if she believed it no more than he.
"Crazy," the slave-keeper said, finally. "Crazier than her mother. Or else that curse has addled her brain."
The statement distracted him a little.Curse? What would a curse have to do with the girl's woman-trial?
Xantippe regarded him with brooding eyes, not speaking for a long time. He stared right back at her, doing his best to betray nothing of his own thoughts or confusion.
"You, boy," she said, finally. "Barring intervention by a god, you're going to have your freedom out of this. You have to know that."
He nodded, once, slightly. Barely acknowledging that he had heard her, and that-if he assumed she was telling the truth-she had confirmed his first reaction.
"Fine," she said shortly, almost as if she had not even noticed his nod.
"Now listen up. This girl is nothing; she had no training to speak of. This probably looks like it's going to be easy for you, and you're right."
He concealed his surprise, but he finally met Xantippe's eyes. She did not look as if she was trying to fool him in any way, and over the past several weeks, he thought he had learned to read her fairly well. There was none of the slyness that meant she was lying or trying to deceive him. "I don't care how easy it is; I want you to work at this. You're going to have to earn your freedom. The people coming here want a spectacle; the Queen wants a show. Draw it out, you hear me? Make it last, however easy it is, don't let it look easy. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Once again, he nodded, this time with satisfaction. He would be only too happy to give them their "spectacle." This was his one chance to take his revenge on the entire Mazonite culture, and the girl would not die an easy death.
Perhaps he would break her back, first, then-
Lost in his contemplation of a catalog of things he could do to her, he didn't even notice when the slave-keeper left him alone. When he came out of his reverie, and saw that she was no longer standing before his cell, he left his own place before the bars and lay down on his pallet.
Only then did he allow himself to realize that he almost wished that this particular girl hadn't chosen him. She just didn't seem like a typical Mazonite. Suppose she weren't a hustler? He would still have to kill her, because if he didn't put on a good show, Xantippe would have him killed anyway. Freeing victors was custom, not law. Where would his vengeance be if he killed an innocent girl the Mazonites didn't like anyway?
Sleep would not come-nor did he particularly want it to. There were too many possibilities for the day ahead.
And what difference could a little lost sleep make? He would have all the days of his free life to make up for it.
Time and time again, he found himself coming back to the same question, a question that obscurely bothered him, although he could not have told why it did.
Why had she chosen him ?
What had she seen in him that had driven her to pick him? Was she so incredibly self-confident that she could not conceive of her own defeat?
At first, that was a very satisfying notion. Self-confidence to the point of arrogance would explain why her fellow Mazonites seemed set against her, why the slave-keeper clearly wanted her to fail her trial. That kind of attitude made enemies, not friends. And would make his own victory that much more gratifying.
But he was a logical man, and something so very unlikely could not satisfy him for long. And besides, arrogance and self-confidence was not what he had read in those pale blue eyes. A kind of shock, blankness, carefully cloaked fear-he was not certain what he had seen there, but it had not been self-confidence.