“No,” Dirk said slowly, looking straight into his eyes, “I think it’ll prove to be very much worth it. You’re still you; you know.”
Gar’s gaze held steady, but his face drained. Sandals slapped earth, and the guard came toward them. Gar glanced at him, irritated; then his fist lashed out, blocking the world, and Dirk had the rest of the afternoon off.
So it went—boxing practice all morning and all afternoon, with brief breaks for meals; then doused torches and deep, almost-drugged sleep. The prisoners gained some skill, but they made up for it in increasing exhaustion.
“If they keep this up, they’ll be easy meat for a pussycat,” Gar growled over his evening bit of porridge.
Dirk nodded, swallowing. “I think the Lords’re aware of that.”
“But we’ll look excellent for ten minutes,” the Butler next to Dirk said brightly.
“Yes indeed.” A Tradesman finished licking his bowl and lay flat on his back in front of them. “For the first ten minutes, our good brother churls will see a real battle. Then we’ll weaken, and the young Lords’ll gain an advantage, then more and more—and our kinsmen will see the Lords triumph slowly but surely, as men of their birth must inevitably do.”
“Yes.” The Merchant on Gar’s far side rubbed his knuckles, smiling softly. “But those first ten minutes … Who knows? I might even cave in a helmet.”
“Never happen.” A Farmer ambled up, shaking his head. “No man’s strong enough, by the time they get you to the games.”
“No ordinary man.” The Tradesman cocked an eyebrow at Gar. “But we’re counting on you, friend.”
Gar gazed at him a moment; then he smiled wolfishly. “I think I may give you some slight satisfaction.”
The words induced a prickle of warning in Dirk. What did the big man have in mind?
“ ‘May?’ ” A lantern jawed Fisher sat on his heels between the Merchant’s and the Tradesman’s feet. “Only ‘may’? Is that the best you can offer us?”
Gar leaned his head back against the wall, smiling lazily. “What did you have in mind?”
The Fisher suggested, “A mild massacre, perhaps. Fifteen or twenty Lords would do.”
“Twenty! My two poor fists against plate armor and swords? Twenty?”
“Your two poor fists will be leaded and steelshod,” a Woodsman pointed out, joining in. “And, too, I think we could promise you something of a diversion, allowing you ample time to develop a deep and meaningful relationship with any one opponent.”
Gar sighed, gazing up at the ceiling. “It’s tempting, gentlemen. Almost, I could let myself be persuaded to it. But there’s a small matter: my conscience. It’d be needless bloodshed.”
“Conscience!” The Woodsman snorted, and a Hostler scowled. “Needless? How can you think that?”
Dirk glanced up and saw, with a shock of surprise, that most of the prisoners had gathered around them, and the last few stragglers were coming up.
Gar laced his forgers behind his head. “If what you say is true, we’ll all die anyway, but all the lordlings will live. So, if we kill any one of them, it’s a death that needn’t have happened.”
“There is a need for it,” the Butler assured him grimly; and the Hostler said, in a voice soft as flame, “We have a need for it, Outlander. Great need. We cannot accept death tamely; we cannot accept having our lives count for nothing.”
Gar lifted an eyebrow. “So that’s how you manage to stay so cheerful. I was wondering.”
The Farmer grinned like a bandsaw. “What would be gained by moping and trembling?”
But the Tradesman laughed and rolled up on one elbow. “Do not think we are so courageous as that, Outlander. When I came here nearly a year ago, I was so sick with fear I could scarcely hold water. But after a time, I began to see that I would have died young in any case, even if I had not been caught out.”
The Merchant nodded. “Only Lords die old, here.”
“I know the day of my death now; and that is all that has changed,” the Tradesman continued. “I might have had a day or two more otherwise, perhaps a year…” For a moment, his face bleached to bleak; then he shrugged it off and grinned. “But never much longer—and I would have died with no purpose, with nothing accomplished, nothing changed by my life so the world could look and say, ‘Here! Here is the sign that a man lived!’ But now, here … I have purpose now, a chance to kill a lord. Only a chance, perhaps, and a poor one—only steel gloves against sword and plate armor, with the sun in my eyes—but my chance nonetheless! Any chance at all is more than I had before—and perhaps…” His voice sank low, caressing; he brought a hand up, clenching it slowly. “Just possibly, I might, by some wild freak of chance, kill myself one of them…” His fist clenched in a spasm; he nodded, eyes glistening. “Yes. That is worth a death—even a certain one.”
Gar had lost his smile. His gaze held on the Tradesman, very steadily.
The Tradesman brayed laughter and threw himself flat on his back again. “Why, Nuncle! Do I amaze you?” He rolled a droll eye at Gar. “I think you know nothing of hate.”
“I thought I did,” Gar said slowly.
“Welcome to school,” said the Hostler, amused. Gar turned his head slowly from side to side, unbelieving. “You’re incredible. A band of men, eagerly awaiting certain death, for the minuscule chance it brings of chopping down a few minor enemies.” The Farmer shrugged elaborately. “We are not particular. Any of them will do.”
Gar still shook his head, smiling now. “If I had an army of men like you, I could conquer a world.”
“Why, here is your army,” the Tradesman said lightly, but his gaze held Gar’s. “Where is this world you would conquer?”
There was a silence then, stretched out like the skin of a war drum.
Then Gar laughed. “It is outside the walls of this jail, coz. Shall we stroll down to the river? Or perhaps you know a tavern where we might sit down to discuss fates of kingdoms.”
The Tradesman’s mouth pulled slowly into a sour smile, against his will.
One by one, the other men smiled, too; but the sudden disappointment weighted the dank air of the prison.
The Tradesman rolled to his feet. “We waste time in chatter. We should sleep; it behooves us to be as fit as we may in four days.”
The other men rumbled agreement, they slowly moved off to find filthy straw pallets against the walls.
Gar watched them go by the wavering light of the single torch outside the bars.
“I think you almost had a revolution going there,” Dirk pointed out.
“Yes.” Gar nodded, eyes shining. “And I think I could have it again, anytime I called.” Then, very softly; “They’re amazing. You expect to find brutes in a prison, not men of wit.”
“They are brutes, in a way,” Dirk said slowly. “Each of them thinks only of killing.”
“ ‘Think?’ ” Gar turned to him, nodding. “Yes, they do, don’t they? I always thought myself an intelligent man—but I had a good education, and they’ve had none. Am I the lowest intelligence in the room?”
“I think not,” Dirk mused. “You strike me as having no shortage of brains. But you certainly find yourself in congenial company.”
Gar nodded. “What kind of anomaly is this planet? Do only the brains turn to theft?”
“They aren’t thieves,” Dirk said softly. “Not a one of them.”
“What, then?”
Dirk looked up into his eyes. “You really haven’t figured it out yet? The whole purpose behind this gladiator’s charade?”
Gar frowned down at him a moment, then rolled his head back against the wall, lips pursed in thought. “I’ve figured out that the purpose of it is to cull out the brainy ones—but I haven’t gone too deeply into the mechanism. This is one place where you don’t ask a man about his background. Why are they here?”