Tamora Pierce - Tempests and Slaughter

‘Here,’ Yusaf said, pressing a spyglass into Arram’s hand. ‘You ought to have a really close look at your first fight!’

Arram smiled at his father and raised the glass to his eye. Yusaf showed him how to twist the parts until he could see the emperor as if he stood only a foot or two away. Arram gasped at the flash of jewels on the great man’s robes, then swung the spyglass until he found the teams of fighters. Musenda was not among these gladiators.

A slave struck the great gong at the foot of the imperial dais, and the opposing forces charged with a roar of fury. They smashed one another without mercy, kicking and tripping when they were too close to swing their weapons. Arram stared, gape-mouthed. This was nothing like the self-defence lessons taught in the Lower Academy! One fighter, a tall, glossy-skinned black woman, was glorious, her spear darting at her enemies like lightning as she held off two attackers at once.

The crowd gasped. A gladiator wearing a green armband sprawled in the sands. A long cut stretched from the downed man’s left eyebrow across his nose; it bled freely. A pair of slaves raced forward to drag the fallen man from the arena as his opponent turned to fight someone else. The crowd booed their disapproval.

‘Why are they angry?’ Arram shouted in his father’s ear.

‘They prefer more serious injuries,’ Yusaf replied.

‘But he couldn’t see!’ Arram protested. ‘How can he fight if he can’t—’

Metan patted his arm, a signal for him to be quiet. Arram sighed. He was glad the slaves had taken the man away.

He looked for the woman and saw her knock a man down. She was raising her spear for a killing stab when one of his comrades swung at her, knocking her weapon from her grip. She lunged forward and grabbed his spear.

Suddenly a fellow Green stumbled into her, shoving her forward. Down onto her knees she went, clinging to her opponent’s weapon. The crowd was on its feet, screaming.

The female gladiator still gripped the spear, but one of the two men fighting her had cut her deeply from her ribs to her hip bones. She knelt in the sand, fumbling with crimson-black ropes that spilled over her loincloth. Arram opened his mouth and swiftly clapped his hands over it: the gladiator was clutching her intestines. He shoved the spyglass into his grandfather’s hold and forced his way through the crowd, praying that he would make it to the privies.

He didn’t. Arram threw up in the tunnel, in the gutter off to the side. Even when he was being sick, he wondered if the trench was there to carry away vomit or water from the winter storms. He was able to save the rest of his stomach’s contents for the privy. The immense stone room with its long line of stalls was empty, for which he was deeply grateful. He spewed everything in his belly. Finally he was able to rinse his face at one of the privy’s fountains. Weak and disgusted with himself, he staggered outside to rest on a convenient bench. His father found him there.

‘I thought you would like the games,’ Yusaf said, beckoning to a water seller. He purchased two bamboo cups full and handed one to Arram. The boy drank slowly; his stomach heaved a little, then settled. ‘Haven’t you gone with your school friends?’ His father sat next to him.

Arram shook his head. ‘I don’t have any friends,’ he admitted softly. Would his father be ashamed of him? Quickly, he added, ‘Well, I have some to talk to, but they’re two or three years older than me. And my old friends say I’m too good for them now that I’m two terms ahead. But everyone talks about the games. I was sure I’d like them.’ He hung his head. ‘You should go back. I’m ruining this for you and Grandda.’

Yusaf rubbed his shoulder. ‘Don’t be foolish. We see you once a year, if we’re lucky. It will be even longer if I get this new contract. Today we would far rather spend time with you. Wait here, and I’ll get him.’

Arram sat in the shade and gazed at the buzzards overhead. He had spotted a golden hawk when he heard his grandfather’s voice.

Metan purchased his own throwaway cup of water and came over to stand next to the bench. Arram put the spyglass in his lap and stared nervously at the old man. Metan’s bite was worse than his bark, but even his bark drew blood sometimes.

Finally the old man said, ‘What will you do when you must learn healing? Didn’t you say you’ll be cutting entire bodies open?’

Arram gulped. ‘Maybe I’ll get used to it,’ he said. ‘They have us doing worms and fishes now. It’ll be years before I must work on big animals, or people. If I even get to do people. I’ll be taught to make medicines first – herbalists are well paid, too,’ he pointed out. He didn’t tell them of the time he had been told to add a herb to repel snakes to a teacher’s potion and, thinking of something else, had brought the man a herb that would attract poisonous spiders instead.

Yusaf nudged him. ‘Arram!’

The boy twitched. ‘Oh – I’m sorry, Father, Grandfather. I was thinking.’

‘You are always thinking, youngster,’ Metan said. ‘Come – let’s rent one of these carts. If your belly’s up to it, we’ll take an early supper in Thak City.’ He walked towards the lines of carts for rent, calling back to Arram, ‘You can tell me what you mean to study this year.’ He chuckled. ‘I daresay I will like that as much as you enjoyed the games.’

Two days later Arram stood at one of the many docks in Thak’s Gate, watching his father and grandfather board the small shipping vessel that would take them across the Inland Sea to Tyra. He barely remembered the place: Carthak was his home now. He never said so, of course. His family would be hurt. But the truth was, they hardly seemed like family. The things they liked to talk or write to him about held little interest: shipping, cloth, cloth markets. The only thing about their way of life that fascinated Arram was the magic that could be worked with weaving and thread. His family scorned it – there was no status in such spells. Thread magic was the work of hedgewitches and goodywives, not worth their attention. If Arram became a mage, then all the money they’d put into his education would be worth something, but only in terms of battle or healing magic. Those would bring the family status and fortune.

Arram sighed. They loved him. He knew that, from the gifts they sent – sweets, warm blankets and coats, coin for shoes – and their letters. He loved them, for their kindness, their letters, and their visits. But he didn’t understand them, or they him. The games were just the most recent example.

He saw them waving and waved back. The ship was easing from the dock as sailors rushed up the masts and about the deck. A crowd gathered around Arram, waving and shouting to those who were sailing away.

Someone shoved him. Arram scowled at her, but she didn’t even look down. He was insignificant. His temper roiled inside him. He was always too small, too young, always being put aside. His mood was strange today, prickly and restless. He was itchy inside his skin.

‘Safe journey!’ people shouted, and ‘Swift journey!’

The thought sprouted up like it had been waiting. There was a way he could do something significant. They wouldn’t know it, but he would. It wasn’t much, but he’d feel better for it. He looked hurriedly at the inside of the hem of his tunic, searching for a loose thread. Only a couple of months ago, he had begun reading about weather magic. He had memorized a few spells from it to try when he had some time alone, out in the fields beyond the university, but surely this spell was safe enough. It was for hedgewitches, after all, a blessing for ships and voyages. It was a small thing.