He recalled, too, more clearly than faces or words, how in that country one of the men had struck the woman (his mother), continuously. Here and now, no man who was clever lifted his hand to a woman in the Lydian’s presence. He had required his preference, confronted by the white-eyed Lowlander. For he had felt in those minutes a thing which only came to him rarely in the stadium, the boiling itch of blood-desire. It seemed to him he had wanted her death.
6
Chacor’s Luck
The Star ascended, the night burned. From ship to shore, from avenue to promenade, in the sumptuous chambers of palaces, in huts piled up the hill behind the Street of Tombs, lovers loved. But in the courts of Daigoth, those men due to fight tomorrow lay watchful, and hungry. The phallus must become the sword.
The shows were always very good, in the initial days of Zastis.
Before sunrise, before the great hawks, which hunted over the crags of the city, launched themselves into a hollowing sky, fighters were at exercise in the stadium yards.
“The Corhlan is in love with Rehger. The chariots weren’t enough for him, he’ll be back for more.”
“What can dung-heap Corhl offer him? If he can win a bout here, even unowned as he is, he might make some cash.”
Boastful, the slave-Swords. Free men were poor things. No one worshiped them enough to keep them. Often they came here, these outsiders, to try the lots, chancing their arm against Saardsinmey heroes. Generally they left the stadium feet-foremost in carts.
Those that sparred with Rehger knew that he, or they, were capable of finishing any Corhlan, if it came to it. This was Zastis, and every man at work here in the dawn mingled words and unspoken concepts of sex with the killer’s banter. Not one Saardsin would be drawn against another—that, too, was Daigoth’s law. They would be tried on the blades of other cities, other lands. So it was safe to mention death. You did not slay your brothers. And who wanted to grow old?
The sun rose, climbed. The exercise court was empty.
The noise of the morning city came and went. Over the high stadium walls, the sky hammered out its blue.
Slaves appeared with their baskets and scoops of sand. The central platform had been lowered, and the whole great oval stretched flat. The slaves scattered the sand thick and white across it, everywhere, making the stadium into a beach. A sea would break upon this beach, of a sort.
At noon, the gates were thrown open. The crowd crowded in. Colors poured down the terraces. The smell of scent, sweat, and fruit, changed the air into a pomade. But soon there would be, too, the butchery smell of blood, to lay the perfume and the sand.
Because he was a free man and an amateur, not bred and molded to the customs of a stadium, Chacor the Corhl had spent the foregoing night with two girls. It had been far from a random tryst. He had sought it purposely, intending to rid himself of the first need of Zastis, and leave mind and body clear for the fray. The idea of starving the need and deploying it as a weapon was one he would not have entertained. Such things Zakorian pirates did to their oars-slaves, chaining them during the Red Moon so they could not even see to themselves, until the act of rowing became the only release.
Meanwhile, Chacor’s luck in surviving the chariot race had prompted him to display other skills. It was true, there was nothing much for him at home. He had come out of Corhl with only his goddess for property. In little towns of Ott, Iscah, and unfree Vardian Zakoris, he had beaten the locals at this and that. The cities of New Alisaar, with their codes of dueling and betting and their choice of public games, had lured him on. Perhaps he wanted glory more than wealth, but pure metal bars and bags of draks were not uncharming.
He had also, in a young man’s way, become obsessed by the Lydian, and wanted to fight him. The Lydian was a slave, a king, a god, and an older male. Just as the three-year stallion animal would try to oust the herd-lord, Chacor longed to challenge him, tussle, bring him down, or at least to taste the strength of what bettered him and would not yield. Envy and admiration mixed in it. Besides, he could not help but be aware, on some mostly submerged level, that the Lydian Swordsman, vastly his superior in skill, would not slay a free man the crowd was partial to. A sense of the hazard, the mere foolhardiness of the venture, were not let past the Corhlan’s mental doors. Indeed, he had been praying to Corrah for this chance, to be drawn in the lots against Saardsinmey’s champion. Obscurely, since Corrah and Cah—the goddess of Iscah—were one, Chacor imagined she might wish also to bring both of her sons together, like any primitive mother of the region, to do battle. Not a hundred years ago, Alisaar’s princes fought each other to the death for the kingship. In Free Zakoris they did it still, and in several areas of the western lands, many, noble or peasant, kept the tradition.
Chacor, if his family had retained this method, believed he could have disposed of all his legal brothers, and so inherited his father’s small wooden palace in the forested swamps of Corhl. But Corrah had instead meant him for a wanderer. Corrah had brought him here to match him with the Lydian.
Convinced he could not die, the Corhl thought to himself. And if he kills me, that’s glory, too.
The acrobats came out first, clad as characters from myth, or beasts, and did their tricks, chancy, spectacular and ribald by turns. Then there was a mock race, spoof of the Fire Ride, teams of waddling orynx drawing flimsy gilded cars. Snorting and defecating in rage, the orynx soon ran amok and the chariots collided and collapsed, the charioteers tumbling and diving in all directions. The winner gained the favors of a promising maiden, but was only allowed to embrace her while hung upside down from a pole. After several attempts, during which the crowd laughed and proffered instructions, the lady ran off with a monkey.
Following the acrobats, the creatures of the stadium menagerie were paraded, swamp leopards in jeweled collars, fighting-bis, plumed and hooded, a pride of Vardian lions with gold in their ears and manes, Shansar horses, neighing, brindled kalinx, and apes as tall as a man.
A selection of these animals might be reared for combat, but generally they were trained for use in religious processions, or to spice scenes of terror in the theaters. The citizens, diverted by a display of their possessions, always, weighed and measured and evaluated, and threw flowers to the hons.
When the display had finished, and the stadium, where necessary, had been swept and freshly sanded, there sounded the blast of brass horns.
It was at that moment, when all eyes were inclined to fix passionately on the arena, that a slight stir ran along the eastern tiers. Someone had come late, and appeared suddenly in one of the boxes to the left of the Guardian’s seat. This was the section reserved for women of rank. A fringed awning mantled it, and here and there were screens of pierced stone behind which the boxes’ occupants might modestly conceal themselves, a convention seldom observed. Those female aristocrats who attended the sports alone, made display, each jamming the box with her retinue and bodyguard.
There had been a rumor for most of the month that an Amanackire was in the city. Now, she was here. Clothed entirely in white, her ice hair lit with silver ornaments, she entered the box, unguarded, without a single slave, and sat down there.
The Guardian was absent on political affairs. His counselor, occupying the center box, angled himself to favor the white woman with a stare. When she turned, his nod of courteous deference underlined a plain disapproval, both of her boldness and her life. But her cold, cold eyes returned him nothing. She looked away as if she had not seen him, or, seeing him, had not thought him to matter. She, too, fixed her gaze downward on the stadium floor.