3 Fighter, 1 Underdog.
Moon Xeator clenched his hand with the set of cards in it, his eyes scanning the auditorium. Colorful crowds from all walks of life chanted in various accents. To the accompaniment of the chanting crowds were livered heralds blaring a fanfare as they rounded the amphitheater. On the grandstand erected at the front of the auditorium facing south, the leading families of Pethens were seated in the shades of vermilion awnings against the clear autumn sky the color of brilliant lapis lazuli. A pageboy in garish linen scuttled toward him with a flagpole flying the Praetor's sigil. As he led Xeator into the arena, Felix Nipius, following another page, came toward them from the other side.
Both parties stopped at the midline before the main grandstand festooned with streamers of silk and vines. Xeator risked an upward glance at the Praetor and his Consort accountered in full regalia. The fat man looked almost twice in width than the alabaster of himself at the bow of the raft. His thinning pate glistened behind the gold laurel wreath, his lackadaisical grin a palimpsest overwriting whom he could have been.
Xeator lowered his eyes. Musing on the flagstone covered with sand on the day before to prevent slipping, he measured in his head the distance between him and the grandstand. If only everything could end with the man's death. If only he weren't his father's son that forbade him not to dread the inevitable consequence of vultures hovering around the axis of power would tear to threads this country his late father had rebuilt, he would snatch the flagpole from the pageboy and hurl its steel barb at Uranus' fat head. He bit hard on his bottom lip, his hands clenching so hard the knuckles cracked.
No. Uranus' death would accomplish nothing. It would not restore the dual consulship or any of Father's legacies.
As he cautioned himself, the Praetor rose to his feet.
"People of Renania!" he bellowed. "My daughters, my sons, brothers, and sisters! I, Marcus Cornelius Uranus, your Praetor Magnum, welcome you to the grand city of Pethens! Today, we celebrate her beauty, her wisdom, and her unparalleled wealth!" He paused, raising one arm over his head. At this gesture, coins were spread from a rhombus tower that stood sentry on the west wing, and the already animated crowd ran amok. Those seated on the east wing craned forward their necks, their eyes goggling with envy. Before they could cry out a protest, more coins were thrown from the tower on their wing
"Praise the Praetor Magnum!"
They whooped, their arms up, hands clapping.
"Long live his reign!"
Squeezing the cards in his hand, Xeator lifted his eyes and turned to the woman. Laelia Euphrates. Quite a beauty even at her age.
A couple of years before the civil war almost fifteen years ago, he and Julius Gaius were sleuthing around for a missing cat in what was now the Scipios' castle. Having climbed off a parapet walk, he hid outside a mullioned window. The sun beat down through the gap between shutters of large planks of whittled cedar twice tall as he had been. He peeped inside the great hall and saw Father with Consul Glaber.
"Should I remind you that you're married to Lord Valerius Clemen's daughter?" Father's voice echoed off the immense trussed roof. "We need the gold master's support in our defense in the north and along the shores!"
"Anything?" Julius cried in a low voice, leaning out from the edge of the parapet walk.
Putting a forefinger to his mouth, he strained his ear. A woman's name came about. Laelia Euphrates, a foreign courtesan, as Father spoke, turning to his erstwhile friend. "Making her your new consort would only shake people's faith in you as a Consul."
Xeator only tumbled to the meaning of that conversation many years later, when Marcus Uranus named Laelia Euphrates his Consort and had hung every one of House Glaber, as well those of his wife's house, who couldn't escape Renania in time with the patriarch, the then gold master, Valerius Clemen Aelius.
It was borne in on Xeator that the woman he wished vengeance on must have wished her own vengeance. The circle of vice would only continue to turn and churn, implicating generations yet to come, as the nonchalant time elapsed.
He dropped his gaze. Out of the corners of his eyes, he espied Felix fidgeting. When he saw Felix's name among the finalists, he had prepared for the worst. Nothing surprised him anymore, and yet he cursed at the blighted Gods that of all the pugilists from the League, the Favorite had to be Felix.
As the zest around either tower slowly came down, and the injured were carried out on litters, the game commenced. The pageboys led the Favorite and the Underdog to the center of the arena, where stood the arbiter by a round oak table, whose shape was to resemble the city of Pethens as a sundial, and whose plane was whittled with the relief of the city in miniature.
Stationed on the left to the referee, Xeator shuffled the cards in his hands. He glanced up at Felix.
The boy had little patience. He was eager to win and easy to frustrate, a terrible candidate for a game that could take a while.
Xeator passed on a Fighter card to the arbiter.
With a flip of both cards, "Draw," the referee declared in a voice as loud as his eyes were dull.
In the first ten rounds, Xeator lost three times, and the rest were a draw. The game restarted. So on and so forth, it dragged on. The crowds started to lose patience, and so did Felix. His neck reddened, scorching his face. Sweat rolled like beads, defying the cool autumn breeze. Xeator forewent a smile.
The game restarted for the fifth time.
Xeator took a long pause while the spectators pumped their arms, demanding him to hurry.
"On the count of three," said the arbiter without a stir in his eyes. "You must give your card."
He obliged.
"Underdog. Fighter. One point to the Favorite!" The referee announced as he flipped both cards with either hand. The boy shook his fist. "Yes!" he yelled, his voice soon doused out by the crowds' cheering.
Xeator dropped his eyes. Gnawing his bottom lip, he handed out his card as slowly as the rules permitted him, and by the eighth round, he had lost four times. One more, he'd lose the whole game. Hoots and shouts soared to a crescendo from all sides.
"Last one! Last one! And crush the blond twat!" Men bellowed from their seats on the far side to the grandstand. "Make me the gold or kick yourself back up your mother's cunt!"
Xeator wrung his hands upon the table. He clucked his tongue, his eyes roaming the rowdy auditorium afar before landing on Felix. Pumping his fists at the spectators, the boy didn't even try to hide his ecstasy. Had it been a game of chess where no one could die, Xeator thought, he'd probably be bored to tears by now. He drew his card without a moment of delay this time. Across the table, the boy immediately followed.
"Underdog. Favorite," announced the arbiter as he flipped both cards in either hand. "The Underdog wins."
Xeator closed his eyes, snuffing up the dry air while the arena drowned in a terrifying bawl. He opened his eyes. Across the round table, Felix gaped at a loss, a visible shudder flexing the muscles in his cheeks. Slowly turning away, he followed the pageboy to where the blunt blade awaited.
"Contestant," spoke the other pageboy. "Please follow me."
Xeator swiveled around and walked the opposite way.
On a trestle table displayed a sheen of weaponry: longswords of double-edged steels with a pommel forged out of lava stone, bludgeon and maces attached at either tip the glint of rapiers, and glaives crafted and whittled with artisan details. He sucked his cheeks, narrowing his eyes as he made his pick. Of all the shimmering steels, amidst a roar of boos, he picked a pair of bolas.
"Oi cocksucker! Strap on a pair yourself!"
"Why don't you pick a ribbon already, you bloody cunt!"
"If we want namby-pamby bag o'shite we go to a fucking play!"
Xeator had to chuckle now that he had acquired a taste for such imaginative epithets. If only they could grab an ale together, he thought wistfully, he might as well befriend those raucous tongues, and perhaps they, too, would come into his favor like old Gallus. The pageboy gestured to the mail and barbute for him to put on. He smiled at the boy about his own age when he fled Pethens and shook his head. "Too clumsy," he said.
Spinning the bolas from back to front around his waist, he leaped back on the stage under the autumn sky clear and high. The table that was the miniature of Pethens had been removed. Across the arena, Felix Nipius clumped toward him, clutching the blunt blade in both hands. His mail gleamed under the midday sun, exposing only his arms and calves corded with muscles. The barbute was too small for his large head. His nose crammed through the gap.
As the fight began, announced by the tepid arbiter, the raucous crowds roistered, insulating the arena from the outside with cacophonies of cheering and booing. Straining their necks, their fists pumping, they had thirsted too long for the blood of others to forget their own wounds and pain.
And it was these crowds, thought Xeator as he scanned the auditorium, his only hope for both him and Felix to make it out alive. Turning his back to the grandstand, he glanced up. A lock fell before his eyes. He snorted, folding the braided rope in half while looping the end around his wrist. Having secured both lengths in the crook of his thumb, he rotated his forearm about his waist and swung the bolas on his flank. They whirred, propelling vertically as though many a radius drawing a disk at the same time.
Before him, Felix had positioned himself, tilting his body sideways, his hands gripping the hilt. His eyes blinked, irresolute. His feet quickened, clinking the mail. He leveled the blade and launched. Xeator dodged on gliding steps; his rotating arm flexed, stirring the air with the bolas in a smooth rhythm, then loosened his grip. One of the iron balls slipped at Felix, who parried with his blade.
Clunk.
The boy snarled, worked up by the toll of steel. Feet swished, blade swooshed, he hacked at Xeator's neck.
Xeator leaned back, paralleling his torso with the ground, and slid forward on bent knees. All the while, he tossed an end of the bolas at the boy's feet. Felix tumbled.
The crowds roared in laughter.
Felix reddened. He repositioned himself and circled back. Brandishing the blade, he slammed. But Xeator didn't bolt this time. Staying on the ground, he waited until it was too late and blocked the blow with his bare arm. The shock of impact ran through him. Trembling in pain, he raised his chin, the whooping of the crowds had grown so thick it darkened the sky as though a murder of crows.
Make them laugh, he thought. Feed them blood. And give them a show as grisly as my bones could take so they'd pardon us.
Spinning the rope in the other hand, he hurled a sidestroke. The iron balls circled the air before hitting Felix on the barbute. Blood sputtered from his mouth and nose. The boy shambled aside to lean on his blade. The crowd cheered him on. He glared at Xeator, gritting his teeth, his neck rolling. He tossed up the blade, sending it to a spin, and caught it in the other hand. With a cry of rage, he brandished at Xeator.
Who ducked and ran to the wall, the boy at his heel. With a hard kick at the flagstone, he leaped, landing the other foot on the wall while he held himself horizontal. Tucking in his chin, he somersaulted backward and flung the rope. The pair of iron balls spun as they flew across the air, wiring around Felix's neck. In the same pulse he landed behind the boy, he whirled around, twirling either end of the rope around his wrists, and yanked. In a loud clunk, the boy fell flat, groping about his throat. His blunt blade spun before clanging into the ground. Xeator vaulted, straddling the boy's chest while he gripped the rope tightly enough to threaten his life without taking it.
"Pollice Verso!" He cried, a desperate tremble in his voice. "Just say the words! Ask the crowds for pardon!"
Felix purpled, veins bulging along his neck.
"C'mon, boy! Pollice Verso!" Xeator glowered, almost begging while he loosened the grip to let the boy breathe. "Say it and be spared! There is nothing worth dying for! What's more important than life, huh?"
Felix wheezed, one hand about his neck, the other reaching for the amulet cinched to his belt. But Xeator's knee was in the way. He pried at it, trying to shove it aside, but failed. "Move!" he wailed, punching Xeator on the waist. A sudden glow of shock came to his eyes and dimed in despair. "I don't want a life no one remembers," in a sobbing voice, he hummed. "Brothers, are we not?"
Xeator felt a tug at his belt. In a rush of horror, he saw the boy pluck off his own amulet and flip off the pin of death.
A glint scythed and stabbed into his left eye.
He wrenched back his head. His scream rent through the wild hooting. As he writhed to the side, Felix wriggled free and crawled away, with the rope of the bolas ringing still around his neck. "For House Gaius!" he croaked. "For General Ju- Julius!" His voice broke.
The crowds quieted.
Behind him, Xeator scrambled to his feet. He yanked the karambit from his socket, drawing an arch of blood that sent his eyeball flying. Grabbing the rope, he pulled the boy up from the ground and slashed his throat with the karambit. Blood spurted into his other eye, dying his vision and his world. He limped off the stage. All shapes blurred in red and darkened, churning like the tumultuous sea, his face burning.
He heard Lorenzo and groped at the voice.
"Your speech, my lord," he mumbled. "And the guards. Block the arena."
He sank to his knees.