20 - Raikas's Second Fight

Next day everything went back to normal. I had to wait to do anything, and the never-ending round of protocol began again. The schedule Ailadas had set me was stiffer than anything I’d done before and I resented him for it. Jitanzas had never pushed me so hard.

It was around that time that I decided to send a note to Brias Mil Foras, architect. I had noticed that the boys in the Mezem had said there were things missing in the baths, and I saw how Raikas liked my Lesser bath. So I commissioned the architect to re-build the Mezem baths.

I faithfully attended Raikas’s next fight.

He faced a Lakan one-chainer, Ixtak something, who came out rushing… probably having heard that Raikas hesitated for his first fight. I pressed against the glass front of the Imperial box to try and send Raikas some help, some prayer, though Tobeas always said my prayers would and should only be granted to Arkans. I was by myself this fight day since there were only two higher chainer fights scheduled and my father had something occupying him today more interesting than the fights… probably the young singer if I knew him.

Raikas’s fight was the second on the roster. I swiped impatiently at the fog on the glass my breath had made. I needed to see. Raikas had not let the Lakan trap him in his gate but circled along the edge of the ring away from me, horribly close to the lion trench. I could see the flashes of paws as one of the two lionesses – the more aggressive one – leapt up to try and snag him backwards, down to be devoured.

“Raikas!!!” I could yell, here. I was private even if everyone could see me. And everyone knew I was his first fan. “Get him, you need to kill him! Don’t do the Yeoli thing… don’t try and think about him too much! It’s a WAR!” Of course he couldn’t hear me.

The Lakan rushed him, a flurry of blows some so fast I couldn’t see, couldn’t understand, but Raikas on the defensive. “STRIKE BACK! FORZAKAS BASTARD!”

Somehow he spun, using the motion of his attacker and they traded places, Raikas backing up… the Lakan was clear of the edge, both fighters moving toward my box into the center of the Ring. “Forzak it!”

Another flash from the Lakan’s blade… the way he was facing I could see his face, the wide, white grin against his dusky skin. He thought he had him. A line of red sprang up on Raikas’s sword arm, all along the inside, deep enough to pour. I think I screamed in horror then, right out loud.

The kraiya fell out of Raikas’s fingers and the arm curled up tight to his chest. My heart clenched, like my hands on the glass, closing me off from the ring, my yell fogging the glass again. Tears stood in my eyes. “You can’t die! You like me!” I swiped with my sleeve, frantically, to clear my sight, the gems on my wrists squealing against the glass.

The sword fell straight down out of Raikas’s right hand, into his left. The hilt smacked into his left hand as though part of it, spun, and Raikas twisted sideways, the kraiya straight down his back, blocking the Lakan’s lunge, and smashed the pommel into his face. The pommel of the sword -- an open ring -- connected, the edge crushed the Lakan’s nose, just between his eyes. As he staggered back the kraiya spun a final time and took his head off.

Raikas had turned right around and killed his opponent and I was still screaming -- that fast. The Lakan’s body staggered back a few more steps, neck arteries fountaining, then stretched its gory length on its back. The head rolling lopsidedly on the ground, several steps to one side, eyes still blinking. The crowd was on its feet, roaring, screaming, cheering the feat.

I flattened my hands against the glass, unknotting my fists and my throat. Sprinkled here and there through the mob a man threw his head back in ecstasy as the boy under his robe worked hard, sucking, as Raikas stood looking down at the corpse. Skorsas ran out and clamped wound-lint over the wound on the arm, lashed a quick knot around it so Raikas could go to receive his chain from the director without bleeding out any more than he had.

I sagged back against my cushions, completely exhausted, my heart hammering, unpleasantly sweaty. I thought, even more than his first fight, that I’d lost him. I watched him stalk over the blinding sand to the Director’s Stair, while behind him the slaves raked, then dropped the once human refuse into the lion’s trench. No sense feeding good beef to lions when human carrion was produced every four days.

I watched him bow his head and accept the chain as though it were made out of shit, turn and start down the stairs again. The Director called to him and he froze. People were noticing but the bedlam of the end of fights shuffling didn’t die down fast enough for people to hear what Raikas turned and said. I’d have to ask.

I had to talk to him before I was required to get back up to the Marble Palace. I had a half bead before I had to be back to listen to the solas graduating boy’s choir competition.

I went down into the quarters while most people were still waiting their turn to leave, and decided to have a talk to the Director first to find out what had been said. Raikas would be cleaned up and stitched up and rather than wait for him I walked into the Director’s apartment and sat down at his desk and passed the time by spinning the little desk toy he had.

It was a wood disk with a spinning brass pointer, divided into eight segments each of which had a different phrase on it. “Fire someone.” “Hire someone.” “Yes.” “No.” “Pay cut.” “Pay raise.” “Buy someone.” “Sell someone.” I sat and spun it, and waited.

“That black-haired, sheep-loused bastard insulted me! How dare he? Doesn’t he know? He actually had the temerity to speak so rudely to me!”

I could hear the Director’s fruity voice all the way down the hallway, coming up the stairs to his apartments. “Why isn’t there a forzakin lefaetas in this ramshackle pile of an antique building so I wouldn’t have to climb stairs and who the Hayel left MY door open?” He came storming in ready to verbally rip some hapless slave a new anus. “WHO IN HAY…. Um.” He floundered to a halt as he both laid eyes on me and managed to realize whom he was yelling at. Silence. A ticking noise as I spun his toy. I could see a half dozen of the spare boys and servants behind him where they’d piled up into each other when he’d stopped so abruptly.

“Spark…” he gulped and nodded at me, his dangerously bright red face faded to something approaching normal. “… of the Sun’s Ray.” He bobbed in a half-bow. “How may I assist you?”

“I was just curious, Forlanas. You said something to Karas Raikas when you gave him his victory chain and he said something to you. What was that?” I put the toy down and made his chair spin around with me in it, toeing my way around the circle if it slowed down. Once. Twice.

“Spark of the Sun’s Ray. I just… attempted to instruct the barbarian in the use of courtesy! And he was vilely rude.”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, I said to him ‘Young man, what does one say, when someone gives you something.’ I had just given him his chain you see.” He settled his jewels and silks with an offended jerk. I nodded for him to continue. “I… well… the young man was unbearably rude to me. I intend to see he learns common courtesy, Spark.” Forlanas thought Raikas needed training in common courtesy? Raikas?

“What did he say?”

The Director didn’t want to repeat that. The boys and servants in the doorway were standing, frozen, not quite daring to move in case they should draw uncomfortable attention from their titular superior or me. “Umm. Spark of the Sun’s –“ I waved a hand to cut him off.

“I quite understand. I will certainly not take his rudeness as yours. Tell me.”

His voice was almost truculent. “He said… Spark, he said… fik you!”

I burst into laughter. “No! He didn’t!”

The man puffed up like an offended frog. “And I didn’t even think he spoke the language! Spark but… but… but… I’ll have him punished! I’ll have him flogged to –” Karas Raikas, who had instructed me in courtesy, was going to be corrected by this flatulent ass? Not if I could help it.

I cut him off again. “Director Forlanas.” I stopped the chair and picked up the toy and spun it again. “Huh. It says fire someone. Maybe I should. Maybe my father should. Surely an uncouth barbarian’s parrot-like curse shouldn’t bother someone so exalted as you?”

He was confused for a second, then understood that I didn’t think he should be offended. “You… you think he might have thought that the Arkan was ‘thank you?’ not…”

I wouldn’t have believed such tripe, but the Director… well, let us say he needed his decision spinner to make effective assessments. I sighed. “I like this gladiator. I’d like you to consider his effectiveness, as I like watching him fight. If you flog him, he won’t be fit to fight.” I had to explain it in simple words for Forlanas Limmen to get it.

“Hrmph. Well. Um… of course. Of course, Spark of the Sun’s Ray. I hear. Of course it was a language misunderstanding. I shall be magnanimous and not flog the man.”

“Good. I’ll go downstairs and have a post-fight katzerik and a glass of wine. I do like the atmosphere you cultivate here, Forlanas.” And I pushed past him in a way that Raikas would have called me up on.