Garth exchanged looks with Len, who was still more than angry, but the two of them nodded the way I wanted them to.
“All right, we’ll keep your secret,” Garth agreed. “Why it has to be a secret I don’t know, but we’ll keep it anyway. What are you going to .. . . ”
“We may now leave,” Daldrin said, suddenly reappearing in the doorway. “Come quickly but silently, and we may yet live to see the new light.”
No one had to be told that twice, but we made sure to close and bar the cell door again before moving back up the corridor. We reached the stairway without incident, climbed to ground level, then hurried up the corridor that led to the exit they would use. The air was so much fresher up there that I was able to breathe normally again, not having realized that I’d been breathing in small gasps the entire time I’d been below ground. When we were almost to the exit Daldrin and the others stopped, letting me go on alone. The guard at the small door went to sleep the same way the guards at my door had, and the three men were able to join me.
“Care for yourself until our return,” Daldrin told me, looking down at me with reluctance in his mind. “I do not care to leave you unprotected, yet I may do no other thing. And curb your foolishness, wenda. It will not prove profitable.”
He pulled me to him then and kissed me deeply, and then he had gestured to the other two men and led them off. Len and Garth looked at me strangely as they passed, but I was more concerned with Daldrin’s strangeness. Why had he kissed me like that? The question bothered me all the way back to my rooms, but I hadn’t found an answer even when I’d undressed and gotten into bed. I was tired enough to fall asleep immediately, but to add another strangeness it took quite some time before sleep came.
16
A female slave brought my breakfast tray the next morning, and also found it necessary to wake me. I had been just as well wrapped in the sleep of the innocent when a guardsman had burst into my sleeping room in the small hours of the morning, thinking to find me dead or gone. The guardsmen outside my door had been found to be fast asleep when their reliefs had arrived, and all that had saved their hides had been my presence and safety, and the fact that the relieving guardsmen were friends of theirs. Nothing of a reason for disturbing me was mentioned, and I went back to sleep secure in the knowledge that Aesnil would not be told about my guards’ dereliction.
The girl slave served me my meal and helped me get dressed, but none of it was my idea. I would have been happier being left alone, but without Daldrin there someone had to do it, and the girl considered herself elected. I ate food I didn’t want, and had my hair brushed and combed, and then was dressed in a pale tan gown and a new pair of sandals. The sun was bright and strong outside my windows, the warmth of the air showing it was going to be another hot day. Once I was dressed I sent the slave to find out if Aesnil needed me, then walked back and forth until the girl returned. The Chama had sent word that she was almost ready to leave for the vendra ralle, and that I was to await her outside the royal suite. My guards had to jump to it to catch up with me when I left my rooms, but I didn’t care how odd it looked. I had the best excuse in the world—that I was going to see the man who had kidnapped me put his life on the line—and I intended milking it for everything it was worth.
Aesnil didn’t keep me waiting long, but we made a procession of it to the arena. Surrounded by a couple of dozen court women and men, we strolled out the main palace entrance, walked a wide flowered path to the vendra ralle, then entered through a wide stone archway. We weren’t anywhere near the high wooden gate we had used on our last visit; this entrance led to the stands of the arena, where we could sit on cushioned stone benches eight feet above the glaring white sand of the vast arena circle, with nothing to obscure our view of what went on down there. Aesnil gestured me down beside her with a smile as our guards moved to positions behind us, and we were finally ready to start.
A trumpet blared a warning, and the surprisingly large arena crowd cheered as a vendra appeared from a barred archway and slogged his way through the sand to stand in the middle of the circle. I saw immediately that the vendra was Daldrin’s brother, but he had changed from when I had seen him last. No longer chained or naked, he stood in a haddin as red as Aesnil’s gown and gripped a sword in his fist, his mind alert as his head swiveled around to keep the entire circle of wall in view. I gathered from that that his opponent could come from any of the numerous barred gates around the wall perimeter, and that he stood in the center of the wide circle to protect himself, not to show himself off for the crowd’s edification.
Suddenly a fazee came racing out across the sand from one of the archways, its mind wild with hunger and madder than a fazee’s mind normally is. The beast is horrendously large, taller than I am and equipped with claws and fangs, but the vendra did no more than turn calmly to meet it, his sword up and his body poised. The beast came charging in, but all it got for its trouble was a slash across the chest as the man jumped quickly to one side, avoiding the charge. The beast wheeled and came in again, sending the sand flying in all directions in its haste to reach a meal, its mind barely aware of the wound it had gotten. I glanced at Aesnil as Daldrin’s brother avoided the charge a second time, but the Chama was too wrapped up in enjoying the spectacle to notice my glance. Her mind was excited and happy at seeing a man forced into fighting for his life, and I could feel the emotion but not understand it. It was pleasant looking at a well-made man, yes; it was not pleasant seeing that same well-made man ripped to bloody shreds by an insane beast. Possibly one needs to be closer to the fangs and claws before one can learn how unpleasant the situation really is.
It took a while, but Daldrin’s brother finally killed the fazee. He stood over the bloody corpse while the spectators screamed out their delight, his chest heaving from the exertion, his body covered with sweat, his flesh cut and bleeding along his left side where the fazee had raked him with its claws. His gory sword was still firmly gripped in his fist, but then two barred archways opened to admit a dozen guards with swords held high and ready, their eyes on the vendra as one of them gestured to him. He stared at them a long moment, weighing the sword he held, and then he threw the weapon down to the sand in a disgusted way, glared up at Aesnil where she sat beside me, then slogged his way back across the sand to the waiting guards. They kept him under their weapons as they herded .him out, and the crowd roared again in derision and delight. The guards hadn’t been willing to face the vendra on a one-to-one basis, but they really couldn’t be blamed for that. Considering the man’s ability as a fighter, there wouldn’t have been many of them left afterward to take him back to his chains.
Once the vendra was safely out of the way, male slaves with a seetar came in to remove the fazee carcass, and the next spectacle was begun. The time moved by rather slowly for me, and I was glad when an awning was put up over Aesnil and me to cut down the glare of the sun. Even with male servant-slaves to fan us and female slaves to bring us cool drinks and tidbits to nibble on, the day was becoming too hot to be enjoyable. Vendraa came and went on the glaring white sand, their bodies covered with sweat even before they began fighting, and the crowds continued to yell and scream and demand more and more.
Most of the vendraa won against the beasts they were put up against, but one of them was so badly clawed and bitten that he collapsed as soon as the large silver animal did. The guards burried out to carry him off the sand to the screaming and stomping of the crowd, and no one bothered to ask if he was still alive or likely to stay that way. The next match was between two men, and everyone seemed to know it and look forward to it.