Following Khembold’s lead, the scarred man joined in the token tossing. At first he worried that flinging his arm would throw him off balance, perhaps topple him from his high perch on the siggy he rode. But the gyros easily compensated for his motions and the Brute quickly learned to master its controls.
“Padaborn!” shouted a woman in the crowd, and when Donovan looked her way she opened her blouse for him. The Fudir leered, but the Silky Voice turned it to a polite smile and a wave.
“I could get used to this,” said the Fudir.
“So,” Donovan mused, “this is how Shadows comport themselves at home.”
The other side of the plaza funneled onto an ancient iron bridge across the River Tware. It was a cantilever bridge, the Pedant noted, but fashioned to resemble a suspension bridge for some long-forgotten reason. There was a plaque beside the entrance reading: She still stands! in the ancient Murkanglais and attributed to one Mayor Donna Sanjezz, otherwise unknown to history. As each member of the procession stepped on the bridge, he paused and touched the first right-hand suspender—a steel beam that had been polished smooth by the custom. Parts of the bridge had been quite evidently repaired or replaced over the centuries, and Donovan wondered sardonically whether any part of the original relic really did still stand.
The structure was unimpeachably ancient, and even the newer parts were old. It very likely dated from Commonwealth times, if not earlier. The piers were built of granite blocks, black with age. Plast-seal protected metal and stone from the elements, and the stresses were likely relieved by strategically placed gravity grids.
A juggler came up beside Donovan, entertaining the people lining the bridge. When Donovan tossed a token at the crowd, the juggler nimbly snatched it from the air and added it to the balls he kept cycling, to the applause of everyone, including Donovan himself.
“Nimbly done!” Pyati called up to him.
“I’m glad someone here knows what he’s doing,” Donovan answered.
“Oh ho!” said Pyati with a nod toward the right bank of the river. “A pasdarm!”
From the second pylon a deep-purple banner unrolled above the bridge deck. It bore a single teardrop in its charge. Beyond, on a grassy sward on the western bank, a pavilion had been erected and pennons flapped from its poles. The pennons bore a rose in a tan field with a comet in the canton. A Shadow in a black-and-tan shenmat stood akimbo at the far edge of the bridge.
“Eglay Portion,” Pyati told Donovan. “Who is for Gidula the seneschal. He runs the headquarters, like Khembold runs the ship.”
“And he stands in our way because…?”
Pyati shrugged. “That is depending on ground rules. Our earwigs will catch the narrowcast when closer.”
But another of Geshler’s magpies had trotted ahead and returned now excited. “Eglay will fight man-to-man with each of due rank—Shadows or senior magpies—until someone has defeated him. First fall. No bones or blood. Until then, none may exit the bridge.”
Pyati smiled. “May magpie fight magpie?”
“No side bouts. And Gidula doesn’t fight.”
“What! Is he then the Lady of Secret Isle?” The other magpies guffawed broadly. But Donovan already saw Gidula leading his paraperceptic office manager toward a pair of thrones mounted to the side of the bridge.
“Two is the Queen,” he told the others from his vantage point. “And the whole of her court, beside.”
Pyati looked at him for a moment before sputtering into laughter. Seventeen had a servant run back to the baggage train and dig into the wardrobe, returning with a coat of tears: the purple shenmat. “Here ya go, Geshler,” Seventeen said, holding it out. “Best ya not fight in them puffy sleeves. Too much for an edge to catch on.”
But Donovan waved him off. “It won’t be a long fight.”
Seventeen scowled. “Ya ain’t gonna throw it, are ya?”
Donovan watched from his high-seated siggy. The first challenger was Magpie Four Gidula, who stepped forward confidently and touched Eglay’s banner with a staff. Khembold Darling steered over beside him and extended a hand.
“I had no chance earlier,” he said. “I hight Khembold Darling. It is an honor to meet you at last, Deadly One.” Then, dropping his voice, he murmured, “My father was with you in the Rising.”
Donovan allowed as he was pleased to meet him, but he wondered quietly how, if Khmebold’s father had been a rebel, Khembold himself was still among the quick. But then it was not impossible for some to have escaped notice in the aftermath.
“Eglay is a good ’un,” the ship’s captain went on in a normal tone, and he settled his siggy to face the contestants. “Not much for him to do here but spar and practice. Staff does all the drudge. Two times in three, he’ll knock me down. Don’t underestimate his youth and vigor. You and I are both older men, and just off a long and wearying journey. And you have sparred with Ekadrina.”
“It was more than sparring. We should both be dead.”
“What a man should be and what a man is often depends on the man.”
Donovan grunted. “Well, Eglay may have youth and vigor on his side, but we have old age and treachery.”
Number Four was already down. The crowd cheered and Eglay strode in a circle with his arms stretched upward. Then he reached down and helped the magpie to his feet and they embraced briefly. A medic ran forth to tend to the magpie’s wounds. Number Two, as Queen of the pasdarm, graced Eglay and his opponent with an absent smile. Donovan wondered if the paraperceptic were even capable of giving her full attention to anything.
Gidula’s Number Three magpie had stepped forward. Khembold sighed. “My turn next. After months sitting in the pilothouse of a starslider.” They watched Three spar gracefully with the seneschal. He was fast and agile and landed a few good blows that in context could have been telling, but he was betrayed by the boundaries of the ring and the Judge blew him offsides. Cornered, he ran out of wiggle room and fell as if poleaxed. The medics carried him off on a floater.
Khembold sighed. “Eglay could be taken down a peg. Well, I can put on a decent show.” He siggied to the end of the bridge, touched the banner with his staff, and leapt off his scooter. He and his colleague bowed to each other and Khembold launched a whirling side-kick as they rose from the bow.
But Eglay had been ready for just such a play and danced away from it.
Donovan stopped watching. Silky, he thought, give us plenty of juice. Brute, are we up to this? Our body, I mean.
Ya want we should fight, or take a dive?
Donovan considered the matter. “Fudir?” he muttered.
The Fudir rubbed their hands on their pants. “I don’t think Gidula set this up so we could take a dive.”
Ya think Gidula set it up, then, not this Eglay?
Gidula’s conflicted, the young man said. He wants what he thinks we know, but he doesn’t want Geshler Padaborn hale and whole and idolized. He can’t have us killed. Too many people know we’re in his jurisdiction and some of his own magpies might turn on him. He wants to cripple and humiliate us without obvious assault, so a nice, friendly bout to lull us and an “accidental” rabbit punch that the other rebels can believe.
“Sir?” Pyati tugged his sleeve. “Are you all right?”
Donovan shrugged him off. “Any more senior magpies?”
Five tried to look modest and failed. “Eglay’s good. Last time, he beat Khembold and went through eight top magpies before he went down. He’s not unbeatable. Last year, Khembold and he wrangled for a good quarter clock before Khembold won, and another time Number One got him with a surprise move.”