15 -- Libraries and Faibalitz skates

When the old man finally released me I fled to the library with the reading list in my fist. The library was quiet and cool, and all of the emotions I found so difficult or ugly to deal with in people were safely locked away behind wooden and leather covers and I had complete control over them. Books, to me, were the best friends I could have. They could be destroyed like people but because of the iron wheels of the Press they could be replaced, identical to the original, if enough copies were printed I would never lose a friend.

The librarian was, like all the rest of Arko, out for the Diems and I had the library halls to myself. The smell of leather and paper was warm in my nose and I took a couple of deep breaths to clear my head. It was safe here. My father didn’t care for books and most people didn’t realize I did. They never thought to look for me here.

The main library hall was three stories tall with its glass dome and ladders on every level and the portals of propriety standing like gates at each level. Even as Heir I was not allowed past more than the first… though when the librarian wasn’t there I ran through to see what was too dangerous for anyone younger than fourteen or twenty-one to see.

I took some of the Yeoli books and language books hidden behind the third portal… they were restricted because of the lack of moral fiber in the language… All those naked hands waving about. It was part of the language. But there was no one to stop me. The other restricted books seemed to be pretty boring. Perhaps I would understand why they were secret when I was older.

The reading list from Ailadas was more than I could take at one time so I took my forbidden ones shuffled into the pile I could comfortably carry and left a note on the rest, all of them acceptable or required, that they are requisite. Someone would bring them to my rooms and set them into a shelf for me. I’d be able to pretend indifference to all of them. I wanted… it was strange.

I wanted my father to know I was smart. I didn’t want him to know how much I loved books because I was afraid he’d decide I shouldn’t be. It made no sense that he would be jealous of my attention to a book but I couldn’t risk it.

There was a bowl of apples on one of my tables and I grabbed it and climbed up into my bed without pulling the curtains. I wanted the sunlight. My rooms were filled with light and I curled up in my bed. I wouldn’t be called to more lessons, I wouldn’t be bothered by servants with new suits of clothing that had to be donned for some meal or ceremony. My aitzas ‘friends’ wouldn’t be trying to curry favour with me. The only time I had fun with them was when we played faibalitz or raced on our faib skates.

I picked an apple and “Campaigns and Strategies” off the top of the pile. The day had started well, gotten bad and then better again. Most of the day was good so it was a good birthday. I reminded myself to write a thank-you note to my father and get my secretary to write thank yous to all the aitzas who sent me gifts. There was a room where common folk could give me gifts but I wasn’t obliged to look at any of them. Some people thought the Gods would look more favourably on them if they were good to me as well as my father. I didn’t know if that was true. Tobeias always said I should accept the people’s tributes.

**

On the last day, the Diem Purification of Thoroughfares Arterial I went out with my Mahid and required them to put on their faib skates because I wished to wear mine. The main square was flat enough for the row of small wheels on the skates to run smoothly and the Avenue of Statuary and the Ring Street circle around the Mezem. My guard and I pushed off from the Steel Gate stairs and swooshed smoothly over the bridges over the fountains. I always felt free on my skates. A lot of nights in the Marble Palace when I couldn't sleep I'd skate through the halls in my nightclothes.

A group of aitzas boys also on skates whirled around us tossing the faib disc back and forth. Joras Mahid, who was on the Mahid team, leapt straight up and caught the disc before it could fly over my head and hurled it back.

Too hard. The boys weren’t on a team of any kind. They were just playing. The boy saw Joras’s windup, and his eyes went round, his arms coming up to cover his head. One of his friends, thinking very quickly, flung himself at his friend’s knees, knocking him out of the way, both of them sprawling bruised on the stone street.

The disc hissed over both boys’ heads and smashed into the wall behind, the wood under the leather breaking. I heard it crack and wondered if it would have sounded the same if it had actually hit the kid’s arms… The pack of boys swooped around behind their fallen two friends and watched us. Though they were helpless to do anything should my Mahid choose to take exception that their comrade hadn't taken the blow.

I didn’t say anything to Joras since he was my father’s Mahid not mine, but if the disc had broken the boy’s arm or head, I would have been held responsible. I set my teeth and decided I was going to make Joras’s life harder for a while.

At the Mezem gate the two Mahid held out their hands to lift me under my armpits and placed me up the two steps so I did not have to unlace my skates. They leapt off their back feet to jump up the steps together, and the guards had the door open for all of us. I skated down to the glass door, slowly enough to let the Mahid get ahead and open it for me.

I spun on one foot and hopped up backward to sit on Iska’s desk. “Boy.” I waved at one of the Mezem boys. “Take off my skates. I’m going to take Raikas away from you this Diem.”

“If this lowly one might dare to comment, Spark of the Effulgent Light. The recovery of the gladiator is progressing well"– I cut Iskanzas off.

“I intend to summon a carry chair, fessas. He’ll be back after dinner some time. Fetch his boy will you?” I swatted at the boy unlacing my skates. “Stop that. I changed my mind, lace them up again. I’ll wait here.

The boy did up the one skate he’d begun to unlace and Skorsas came scampering down the stairs. “Spark of the Sun’s Ray? How is this one able to assist the shining –"

“Get Raikas. I want to take him shopping and to dinner and show him stuff.” I could see him take a breath to try and dissuade me and I raised my hand. “I intend to put him in a carry chair and I will require you to come with us for the shopping.” I yawned and flapped the hand at him. “My gladiator can hardly go about the city naked or looking like the bottom of someone’s rag bag. It would reflect badly on me."

He shut his mouth with a click and bowed, scurrying back upstairs presumably to get Raikas.

14 -- A good use for Poisoned Cake and the New Tutor

Next morning I paddled in the Lesser Baths without anyone to yell at me and I think I managed to get myself clean. I pulled my bathrobe on over my damp skin and wandered out to the Golden dining room. The servants were all there, already having dinner. It was Diem Wards Back so dinner was served first. People got to interpret whatever they chose as to how far to go backwards. Some of my Aitzas attendants were following my father’s lead and weren’t in evidence or they’d have to do something humiliating. My lowest servant… the guarderobe man who wiped my anus clean every morning… sat in my chair with his feet on the table, picking his nails with a dagger tip and the rest of my household had arranged themselves in reverse order of status around the room. My father’s diningroom throne was occupied by one of the Marble Palace’s dogs chewing on a bone.

“Hey brat.” My chamberlain of my household, Sartas Iren, Aitzas, wearing his nightclothes as well, waved at me. “Your da isn’t eating with us… He’s in his rooms. You go see him after. He'll call.”

So my father had finally decided he did not wish to come out of his chambers at all in Jitzmitthra. I was relieved, but I found myself sad. He didn’t care to celebrate my birthday. I had a whole room of gifts waiting for me that were from Him to me but I knew his chamberlain chose them for me. He’d told me once He was too busy for such things.

I nodded at Sartas and sat down in the bottom chair, the least seat in the room where my celebration cake sat. I giggled because the chef had actually built it upside down with the smallest cake on the bottom. It looked impossible.

I picked up the knife and looked around at all the servants watching me. The cake looked like it would fall apart if I touched it. They were watching to see me serve myself. I thought of something even more backwards, even more wild. I cut a chunk of cake and laid it on my plate, then grinned and walked over to my garderobe man and handed it to him.

He was so startled he nearly dropped the plate. I took a deep breath and spoke equal to equal. “There you go, ser. I hope that’s acceptable.”

The whole room gasped. I tried to keep my face straight, went back and cut everyone pieces of cake. I wasn’t very good and the pieces were bigger or smaller and the icing got smeared on my fingers. They watched me as if I’d grown another head. Then Binshala whistled approval as though I was a Mezem fighter or a faibalitz player who had scored.

Everyone started laughing and some whistled me on as I hacked at my cake. I was almost at the end, at my chamberlain, when my bad job caught up with me and the cake overbalanced and started to fall over.

Sartas, acting on impulse, tried to catch it and it fell over on him. I started laughing and that’s when everyone fell over, looking at this proper Aitzas gentleman, his hands and arms and balding pate with its long fringe of gold hair absolutely covered in icing and pastry. “Sartas!” I said. “You have a bit of icing on one cheek! Here, let me get that for you!”

I daintily took the corner of a napkin and with one corner smeared the icing on his cheek into his ear. He looked at me as though I might bite him but I nodded, just a fraction, and he drew himself up, slipped and caught himself on my shoulders, both hands full of cake. And then someone threw a gob of icing. It hit me in the side of the head and everyone froze. I put up my fingers to touch it, startled, looked at the chocolate on my fingers. I grabbed a piece of cake from the ruins on the table and hurled it back. My master of horse ducked and I hit my kennel boy. The looks on their faces was so funny I burst out laughing… and caught a chunk of return cake in the mouth. And then everyone was hurling food.

It was the best celebration dinner I could remember, even if I essentially didn’t put much in my mouth, I couldn’t taste poison in the cake at all and realized my servants weren’t eating any of the food that would have gone into my mouth. My household… I’d never even looked at them before. My Groom of the Underclothing and I ended up behind a barricade of sticky flower arrangements, defending against all comers, using my cake as a weapon of defense.

It was my ass-wiper who put on his haughty face and began telling us all off for being hooligans and despoilers and set us to cleaning up the mess. “Oh damn, brat, don’t do that!” I looked up from where I was gathering up scattered silver and gold plates. “Don’t you know anything? Silver and gold are NOT stacked together! Oh, you’re a mess! Go wash some of that mess off!”

I bowed to him. “Oh yes, ser, of course ser. Certainly honored ser!” He pretended to aim a kick at me and I scampered off to go to the lesser baths and stand under the flow of hot water from the cascade, robe and all. I had cake and icing in places I never thought I’d have either cake or icing. I poured soap onto my hands and rubbed. That seemed to do the trick. It felt good.

“Hey, Minis!” A servant shouted from the door of my baths. “Yer da wants yeh.”

“Oh, umm. At once.”

There would be no Jitzmitthra around my father. And I had yet to give him my birthday gift. The gift that a child gave his father every year was usually something symbolic. For my family it was usually a topaz something or other… a sunstone but my father had any that he wanted.

I raked my hair back and the servant… without any more Jitzmitthra nonsense came into the room and began helping me. I needed it to get my hair in order fast and he… on his own… managed to get me into simple clothing very quickly. I said “Thank you,” to him and ran. I didn’t have time to even see if he heard me. My father had called and would not tolerate dawdling. I only slowed down enough to snatch up the gift box from my desk.

My father’s wing of the Marble Palace was quieter, the Jitz noise locked outside with glass screens closing off any windows open to the city, all the cool breezes breathing out of the atriums against and in the cliff wall, stone cooling the air before it could come anywhere near the Imperial skin.

He was on the Etzine balcony, lying on a divan listening to a singer. I wasn’t required to prostrate myself but I was careful to go to my knees. He acknowledged my arrival with one finger raised, then turned the hand and gestured me to rise with the same finger, his attention still on the soaring voice of the boy singing. I stood and listened to the silver tones of the song, waiting for my father’s attention.

I could see myself in his face, relaxed to listen. His skin, save only for the birth mark on his cheek, was smooth and plump and shining, his hair showing no sign of thinning, falling over his Imperial paunch in a sheet of silver/gold. I looked into his eyes, blue as mine, saw his features like mine but in a man’s form, framed by more flesh. My heart twisted in me, wishing he would see me as clearly as he was seeing the boy singer. I looked at the singer and swallowed hard against the lump of jealousy in my throat, my fingers tight on the gift box behind my back.

My father loved this boy more than he had ever loved me and I shoved the sadness down. That love would only last a short time anyway and the boy would be gone and I would still be here.

When the last delicate notes fell from the boy’s lips, my father sighed. “Very nice. Sirsas, you may go.” The boy went down into the prostration gracefully enough. “Gehit.”

There was a shuffle as the singer got up and left with a servant or two to take him. A slave offered my father a cool cloth scented with his favourite heliotrope for his face and hands. “My scion, my little adjunct, Minis! I have been diligent in my concern for you!” He said, smiling. It wasn't a 'smile at' though, but a 'smile in my general direction.'

I went to one knee to present my gift. “My birthday gift for you father…”

He took it and gave it to the servant next to Him without opening it. I bit my lip. I had hoped he would at least look at it. I found the glass artist to make the little statue last Jitzmitthra and he’d been working on it ever since. It was only a little glass boy holding the reins of a glass pony but I thought my father might like it since he liked anything made of glass. He didn’t even look at it again but left his eyes on me. But he wasn’t looking at me, really. He was looking at his idea of me.

“I have selected your new tutor, my son. He is rather more level headed than your last one, older, less flighty.”

“Yes, honoured father.”

“He is awaiting you in the schoolroom.”

My jaw nearly dropped. “He is? Its… Jitz…” I cut myself off as his eyes on me began going glassy. “Of course, father. I obey.” I went back down on my knees and he waved me away.

“I will see you in a few days when this madness vanishes again, my son.”

“Yes, honoured father.”

I looked at the gift box one more time before I left. I’d even wrapped it myself hoping he would notice. But what use does a man who owns the world have for a child’s present?

I stomped down to the schoolroom, wanting to go to the library and then retreat to my bed with a stack of books and a bowl of apples. I kicked the door open and stormed in, the older man at the desk looking up, blinking through his spectacles. My father would have picked someone stuffy and boring and book smart but not people smart, I guessed.

“I warn you, Aitzas. Don’t try to be my friend!”

He cleared his throat in a dry little cough. “Very well, Spark of the Sun’s Ray.” He gave me the short dip of the Heir’s obeisance, his gloves on the desk. “My place is to educate, not befriend.”

His eyes looked watery behind his spectacles, set in pools of wrinkles, his hair thin and fluffy.

“What’s your name?”

“Ailadas Koren, Aitzas, Spark of the Sun’s Ray.”

I thumped my butt into my desk chair, feeling sullen and upset. It was stuffy in here and I wanted to be outside. “Hello, Ailadas Koren, Aitzas. I’m here. But I want to keep reading Idylls of a Masked Woman, by KK not some stuffy text.” That cough again. It was going to drive me mad, I could see.

“Ahem. Spark of the Sun’s Ray, your august self may read what you like in your own time, but – ahem -- your Father Whose Wit is the Wisdom of the World requires you follow the designated curriculum – on the designated schedule.”

Of course. My Father. He’d ask me questions and I had better get the answers right. I stuck my hair in my mouth and stared at Ailadas and he sat quietly and stared back.

“Of course. Curriculum and on schedule. Do I have to keep to the schedule?”

“Spark of the Effulgent Light – ahem -- does your father approve of you chewing your hair like that?” I glared at him. Oh, he was going to be delightful to be around. I pulled my hair out of my mouth and started nibbling the edge of my thumbnail. “Ahem, I repeat, Spark of the Sun’s Ray, you are required to follow the designated curriculum and the designated schedule. You may – ahem – inquire of your Father regarding this should you wish to.”

That was unlikely. “So what’s the schedule for me, that I should be following? No, no I don’t think you’re lying.”

The old man laid a page in front of me. I read down it. Without looking up I said quietly, “This sucks dead gladiators.”

“Ahem. A schedule that, ahem, sucks dead gladiators is, nevertheless a required one.”

I’m not stupid, I thought. You don’t need to keep hitting me in the head with it. “Of course, beloved tutor.” I said, wanting to make my sarcasm cut like my Father’s and not succeeding.

He ignored that, fingering through his papers, gloved fingertips rustling dry against them, slid one out and placed it in front of me. “The required reading list.”

That was better. I had already read a few of the books and some I thought looked interesting. I could probably find them and read them through in the next few moons. It wouldn’t be too bad if we were going to be reading ‘Campaigns and Strategies’. “Good. I want this… Ummm. You have a copy for me?”

“You may borrow this one, to peruse, Spark of the Sun’s Ray.”

I ripped a bit of skin down my thumb and sucked on the tiny wound. “And we have a schedule even through Jitzmitthra?” I was whining and didn’t care. It was my birthday and I had to sit for this old man, and the Diem had started so well. I thought of my bed and a stack of books with longing.

He pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Ahem. I am assuming you did the readings up to a moon ago? Recite the political chapter out of “Arko; an Ideal” for me then."

I sighed, stood up and for the next bead, at least, heard very few ‘ahems’ since I was doing most of the talking.

13 -- View from the Puckered Fig

Jitzmitthra or not, there is no holiday for any purveyor of food or drink, my aged father always said, and he was right. As owner and master of a wineshop in the tiny cubby my family had the fortune to own for five hundred years I did, at least, not have to get up like a baker in the cool hours of night to begin my day. I was on site this first day of Jitz however before the sun was over the rim.

There were always the usual pre-opening jobs, on top of having the entire basement absolutely packed tight with more than a hand of day’s supplies. And I’d want every crate of wine flasks and bottles and wish for more. Jitzmitthra was always a huge source of income.

Kaj my manager was there already, having unlocked the shutters and swept out the corners. He was polishing our pride and joy, a large mirror with an elaborate etching in the silver’d glass -- the dried fruit that was my shop’s namesake, like the waiting mouth of a lover -- hanging on one wall. “’Mornin’ to yeh, sar,” he said.

I unlocked the winesafe as he began setting out our street space tables and chairs, along with a discrete handful of single chairs that were technically not allowed, all along the wall of the shop. He unfurled the white sun shade overhead with his long-handled crank as the server boys began filtering in to start their workdays. I always paid double for the time worked in Jitz and every one of them had some nod to the holiday on, though nothing untasteful, mostly face-paint as some kind of creature in colors that did not clash with their uniform shirts.

My chef Haiksenas staggered in and gave me a bleary look, having started celebrating the night before, but once he was in front of a hot oven or grill he was steady as if he’d never touched a drop in his life. He had a mouth on him that could take the hide of a young fessas apprentice in either full sheets or thin strips. “I’ll have yeh some hair of the dog breakfast for yeh, in a half-bead, Haik,” I called from my station between the kitchen and the wine-safe. It was part of his contract that he had a glass of wine with his meals – something else I learned from my da. “Once yeh get a good chef, it’s the little things that keep him happy. If yeh ever get a Great Chef, make sure yeh have the right little kindnesses, though I would draw the line at giving him the wife and kids,” he’d say. Haik grunted, nodded and headed out back to scrub down at the wash yard… more a cubby with water pouring out of the overhead spigot.

Kaj propped open the door and took his raised seat to supervise the crowds we knew would be arriving shortly. It would be like a post fight day, with a big match either won or lost, the fans arriving to either celebrate or drown their sorrows, only ten times as bad. At least madness was lucrative.

Around the late morning I leaned back against the wall behind the kitchen door just to stop for a moment. I counted my income by the throbbing of my feet and smiled, grabbing a cup of water. Every table was full, every chair filled. The café tables were filled even this time of day when they were normally counted too hot even under the sun shade and that extra row of chairs showing a nice turnover.

What I didn’t need was my head servant Riji, rather unfortunately named by his Fight-fannish da, staggering in, his lion face paint just beginning to run slightly and grab me by the elbow, babbling. “Ienas! Ienas! Yeh’ve gotta come! Yeh’ve gotta!”

I peeled his glove off my sleeve. “What’s on fire, Riji? Let go of me and go tend yer tables! I’m the fikken owner and can take a tenth break unless the Imperial Rejin, the Marble Palace Drummers or the stark naked Heir Himself come in and tell me otherwise.”

He gaped at me, very unlike him, he was an older man, not a boy, and had served with me for years. Usually he could raise an eyebrow and squelch someone with his ‘we aren’t amused’ sneer. I’d seen him stop a table of Mezem fans in full scream with that more than once.

“Fikket, Ienas! It’s the Spark of the Sun’s Ray! Here… he’s out front with his Mahid and a newbie gladiator. The Heir… he’s not naked… he’s dressed as a dog… the gladiator… he’s the one stark naked. They need someone who speaks Enchian… Ienas, I don’t understand Imperial to fessas well! Yeh gotta come now!

I smiled and relaxed. It was a Jitzmitthra joke, obviously. He’d actually had me going. I laughed. “Yeh got me, Rij. Yeh got me good. For a second there I was actually starting to believe yeh!”

Then I quit laughing because of the look of abject panic on his face. “I’m not kiddin’ Ienas! Yeh’re the owner! Please!” It was the ‘yeh’re the owner’ – and thus responsible, he was implying – that got me most. He was terrified he’d offend and get dragged of by REAL Mahid. I was the owner. Anything that happened would be on my plate.

“The… the… Oh my little professional god!” I was hardly presentable to the scion of the Marble Palace himself… sweaty already from half a day’s work and from the heat pouring out of the kitchen at my back, my makeup was surely running down my face like a multi-colored waterfall and I had to face the Imperial Obnoxious Brat? “OH MY PROFESSIONAL GOD! Riji, stall him… get him some ice water…get him some cool cloths to use on his face and hands… get the dishboy to pull out and dust off the Sandalwood Presence fan to fan him …”

I pushed Riji back out of the kitchen, pulled out a fresh pair of gloves and whipped a white cloth to hang over and cover a blue wine stain on my sleeve.

This could ruin me, or make my fortune, depending on His Brattiness’s mood. “Wish me luck, da,” I whispered to my father’s shade and stepped out to face the no-doubt armed, customers.

The group in question sat at the two best tables in the house, at my lovely big glass windows with the view down the street framed in flowers. At the central table, on a silk-padded bench sat a stark naked young man with coal black curly hair on his head and on his body. His bare body. All he wore was a sword harness, a money pouch and a bandage on the one leg he had stretched out along the banquette. He was indeed a gladiator, with one chain on his neck along with a rock crystal on a leather thong around his neck, and what looked like a human tooth. Curly pitch black hair… a Yeoli I would think from the description. Despite all the stories about Yeoli men being enormously well hung, this fellow seemed moderately proportioned. Nice, but certainly not stretching down to his knee while flaccid. Not that I was looking. Not that I had to try that hard to actually see that part of him, since he was sitting with his bandaged leg stretched out on the bench, fully exposed. Aside from that shamelessness he seemed very poised.

He held onto a dog’s lead that seemed to be made out of gemstones stretching under the table where a young boy lay on his stomach, his chin propped on his hands. He was hard to see in the dark shadow under there but seemed to be an impressively chunky kid and just like Riji said… in a dog costume.

And at the table shielding that one from the door were two Jizmitthra Mahid. Excellent costumes, with their whites as pristine as that pitch black of theirs usually is and glossy black wooden buckles instead of the all metal, silver buckle on their belts. They leaned on their elbows, looking sleepy and I started to wonder. They could all just be good costumes, especially since I couldn’t see the kid too well.

The dishboy, glistening where he’d been hurriedly scrubbed up and not quite dried off came scampering in with the big carved fan and scrambled into the fan niche at one side of the window. Thank goodness he didn’t have to take up paying customer space to fan them from there.

I’d seen His Imperial Pain-in-the-Butt a few times… he had always taken that table -- but under it? I was suddenly sure that it was a joke and Riji and the others had hired a bunch of poseurs to deceive me. Then one of the supposed Mahid smiled and I knew they were real Mahid. Only the Black Dogs of the Imperator ever smile like that. On anyone else it would be charming, on that face it was terrifying and I wasn’t even quite sure why.

“I understand, ser, that yeh need someone who speaks Enchian?” I said to the young man… If that really was Minis under the table then the Yeoli had to be the new pet that he’d named a while ago. Karas Raikas. There was a whole crowd of people on the terrace, looking in our open door and in the window, with more coming down the street. They’d never all fit in here but they were clearly dying to see the Spark behaving like a real kid for once. Or maybe it was just because it was such a scandal. Like the crowds that gather at the cliff base when a jumper gets cleaned up, or the spectators at some natural disaster with less sense than a gnat because they’re craning to see rather than running like Hayel.

“Yes, thank you.” He said. He was very soft spoken, very polite. I’d never heard the accent before and figured it must be the way Yeolis spoke Enchian.

From under the table I hear the boy say quietly, “A 153 Tatzian.” My mouth went dry. This wasn’t a joke. That was the Imperial accent all right. “I’ll have mine in a bowl on the floor.”

Riji, bless him, had already gotten them all ice water and cool towels and he’d even brought them a full tasting tray of salt beans, fresh vinegar kavik salads and bread twists. If we got out of this without the Spark deciding to piss in the stock or hold servant races with bottles or barrels of wine I’d put a full copper chain as a bonus in his pay packet next eight-day.

Raikas repeated the request and then ordered our root crisp platter and all the dips. Our signature dish and one I am justifiably proud of. The Spark of the Sun’s ray came out from under the table to sniff at my feet while the gladiator ordered and the man had the nerve to yank on the lead and say “Bad dog! No pissing in here! No pissing on that man’s feet!”

I cringed waiting for the sun to fall on Raikas but the kid just giggled and put his head down on his arms like a puppy ready to play and whined at him, then barked ‘rar rar!”

I finished my bow and did my best vanishing servant act back into the kitchen. Almost everyone in the kitchen was stunned slow. I thanked the Gods that they were good enough workers to still be working while they hissed to each other things like ‘..its really HIM…” and “My hope of Celestialis… honest the guy jerked on his chain! It’s made out of gems, I SAW…”

“Haiksenas Jaren,” I called. “If you love your life and your job and all our sanity you’ll make the most fantastic root crisps platter you’ve ever made in your life!” He was bent over a tricky sauce, his brow furrowed in concentration and must have been the only person in the kitchen who hadn’t noticed what was happening out in the dining room.

He drew himself up and stuck his nose in the air as well as any aitzas. “I always do the most fantastic crisps platter in the city!” Wonderful, I’d offended my chef.

“Haik, I know. So does the Spark of the Sun’s Ray and he wants some. He wants some right now!” His mouth actually fell open as he realized I was serious and that the Heir was waiting to taste his food. His glance finally took in the terrified excitement in the kitchen all around him.

I could see the look in his eyes, the dawning ambition. If the Heir liked his food enough he might even work at the Marble Palace. “Of course, Ienas. Of course,” he said. The whole kitchen had stopped to hear me.

“Yeh slackers have nothing better to do than stand like stumps while there is a whole MOB of customers standing around watching the Heir and entourage without so much as a scrap of food in their hands?” That was Haik’s bellow, rallying his rejins into battle.

They all jumped like he’d lit their asses on fire and ran. I pulled out the flask of Tatzias and a crystal bowl for the most important dog I’d ever served. If he wanted a hundred year old wine out of a bowl on the floor, that’s what he’d get.

For the next bead I served the Mahid and Karas Raikas with my own hands, watched him takes bites from crisps and toss them into the air for his ‘dog’ to catch. The Mahid followed my every move like two cats at a mousehole and I made sure that anything that got to the Heir happened to sit on their table first.

Most of the crowd that followed the Imperial procession of Mezem pit dog and his Imperial dog down to the Fig, did actually end up ordering things and we were run off our feet.

I kept having to keep a straight face for more reason than all the chains we were raking in. His Brattiness was a good actor and played a perfectly bad puppy while Raikas was a perfectly apologetic dog owner, struggling to instill some manners in his pet. I kept pinching myself, expecting the kid to get mad, pull the costume off and get all offended and huffy. But all he did once was get out from under the table, pull the mask off for a bit and cool his face off with a cool cloth and the breeze from the fan.

It was him. It really, really was him and he gave everyone a good look at his face before insisting that the gladiator help him put the dog head back on. By this time they’d drunk a full flask of the 153, most of it pressed on the Yeoli by the Heir and the gladiator had a couple of points of red bright on his cheeks. I would have thought he might be a little drunk by now but he didn’t show it.

When they left a good portion of the crowd went with them, the Yeoli supported between Mahid, the dog and the gladiator singing as they went. I pinched myself again. That spot on my arm was already black and blue. The red-dyed pigeons fluttered up ahead of them.

The Spark of the Sun’s Ray brought his newest favorite -- during Jitzmitthra -- to my food and wineshop. I could tell anyone, anyone at all, and they would probably think I was pulling their legs or was drunk or on ‘herb.

I looked down at the piece of gold chain he’d left behind under the table in the pattern that meant ‘tip’. His Mahid had paid for everything and the Heir… the Brat… Ser Pain in the Ass… left us a gratuity. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even know he knew that pattern.

The dregs of the second flask were left behind so I filled everyone in the kitchen a couple of drops in fingercups to taste and through the open kitchen door watched the odd procession go away up the street. My professional god certainly had an odd sense of humor.

--
this scene from Chevenga's point of view
this scene from Minis's point of view

12 -- Root Crisps and a nice 153 Tatzias Vintage

He gave me a quick hug, easily. He did it without thinking about whether he wanted to. It was quick so I didn’t startle at it. He just hugged me because he liked me. He hugged me because he thought I deserve a hug. I was so confused I just blinked at him.

“No need to be sorry. Not your responsibility.” I nodded and he grinned at me and pushed a finger into my ribs in another tickle.

“OW! Hey! Row, rowwowwow!” I remembered I was being a puppy dog today. He had me giggling again in a minute and I wiggled right off the bed. “YIPE!”

Raikas caught me before I could bruise my behind. “I’m hungry," I said. "I want you to take me for a walk!” I unwound the leash from around my waist and handed it to him.

He looked at me and then down at the leash. “The healer said I should stay off my leg today, I’m sorry lad.”

I sat on the floor where I’d landed, looking up at him, then down. “Not even down the street? It’s not far. You could go naked like that. It’s Jitzmitthra and nobody would look twice.” I had the edge of my hair in my mouth again and nibbled on it, thinking. I’d forgotten one of the courtesy words. “Please?”

“You could have some wine and we could eat some rootcrisps – crisps -- with white sauce and sun sauce or both if you like… Please?”

He studied me for a moment. “And you want me to hold you on a leash? Won’t you get in trouble? Would I?”

“You wouldn’t if I ordered you!” I waited, chewing my hair shorter. He reached out and gently tugged the damp end out of my mouth.

“I – All right! I can’t refuse if you order me.” He grinned, looking me in the eye and then swung his legs down off the bed. I raised my chin so he could clip the long silk lead onto the collar.

His boy… dressed in a leopardskin barbarian drape with hair hardened into long points all over his head like a fluff of lion’stooth seeds and dyed bright purple… peeked out of his room to see if Raikas needed something and bowed to me, checked, and then spoke to Raikas as if I weren’t there.

“I didn’t know you wanted a dog. Where’d you get the little cur?”

Raikas looked confused so I translated for him. He looked at his boy and waved his hands around with that Yeoli double shrug. “I wandered in,” I said. "Woof."

“Rar Rar Rar!” I barked at him and scrambled over to sniff at his knees. His eyes flickered wider for a fraction of a moment then he hid it. He was quick. I was glad Raikas had him. I sidled sideways toward his bare legs and Raikas quick as a flash tugged on the leash.

“No. Bad. Skorsas – um… dog piss. Needs…”

The boy nodded. “The dog needs to be walked.” He held out his hand. “I can do that.”

Raikas signed that palm down hand sign. “Boru, no. I do it.”

You could see the moment he realized why, because I wanted it, and quit fighting. I sniffed but didn’t say anything… trotting over to sit at Raikas’s heel while he stood up, testing his leg, careful of the bandage.

I barked all the way down the hall and down the stairs. At the bottom, Boras Mahid looked up from playing with a small hand-knife that he was bouncing off his knuckles. “Ah! You found him! Bad dog! Bad dog running off like that!”

He put the knife away and reached for my leash and I pulled back and growled at him. He stopped and looked at the leash and at Raikas and at me. I stood up. “I ordered this.” And sat down again.

The Mahid actually threw up his hands. “As commanded.” And off we went down through the glass doors and out to the weapons trust for Raikas to arm himself and out the gate. We gained followers as we went because no one had ever seen me do anything like this before. I was so happy I thought my face would split. I pulled on the leash to show Raikas which way to go and he pretended to yank me back.

“Bad dog … baby dog… puppy… not… teached… taught… sorry.” Raikas apologized to all around for my bad dog behaviour, practicing his new language. I spotted a solas boy dressed as a squirrel, tugged my leash out of Raikas’s hand – he let me go deliberately I knew -- and went barking after him, scrambling as if my paws were too big, young pup slow. His eyes widened and he put his war training to use, scrambling up a potted tree in the street and sat with his feet and fluffy tail dangling down over my head as I circled below. “Wow Row, ruff… Good costume! Wow rarararararar!”

He grinned down at me, chattering back like a squirrel. “Kikikikik thanks! Kikiki!”

“Bad dog, no chasing squirrels!” Raikas said in Enchian as he caught up to me and picked up the leash again. He winked at the boy in the tree who had just realized who had treed him, as he realized my caste accent. Not that my father and I were truly a separate caste but we did speak differently than anyone else.

The squirrel boy watched us go, mouth under the fuzzy nose hanging open.

I peed on trees and posts and tangled myself in my leash and made a thorough nuisance of myself all the way down to the Puckered Fig, trying to go slow because Raikas was limping.

The wineshop was full but Boras and Idiesas both slouching rather than ramrod straight, still cleared a small table for Raikas and I with a look and a head gesture, and one for the two of them. A servant of the place, grinning, thought they were in costume as Mahid He made the mistake of putting one hand on Idiesas’s backside but he stiffened to normal for a moment and glared down at the servant until he slunk away.

Raikas scratched my ears for me and I panted loudly, sitting down on the floor. “Under the table dog! Go on! Go on.” He urged me with a push and rather than go immediately I flopped down on my back and waved my ‘feet’. He rubbed my belly then repeated his order and I wiggled over and settled under the table. “Servant!” I called. “Tell him we want a 153 Tatzias, all right?” I asked Raikas. “I can have it in a bowl down here!” I giggled at the idea and giggled harder at the look on the wineshop stewart’s face when he had to pour that vintage into a bowl supposedly for a dog.

“Crisps too?”

“Crisps too, boy,” Raikas said quietly, smiling. He was at ease on the silk cushions of the wineshop even totally naked, as though he were a Durakis… a foreign king on his throne. I put my head on the bench next to his knee as he ordered in Enchian. The owner of the shop came, himself, to take the order since he spoke the tongue.

Raikas tried the rootcrisps that this place made by first boiling then frying golden brown, in all the sauces and from his own plate bounced a few of them off my costume nose until I barked at him and he put his own plate on the floor for me. Boras was satisfied because Raikas tasted them for me before doing that. People in the crowd were trying to be surreptitious, whispering to each other.

The owner had an astonished look on his face because the crowd that had followed us in were ordering wine even if they had to stand because the place was so small. Usually only the wealthy Mezem fans patronized the place.

I sat up at one point and pushed my dog’s head back to wipe my face with a napkin. All the bouncing and barking was making me hot and sweaty and I needed to cool off. It let them all see it was really me, too.

When Raikas first sat down he was tired. A little pale and I think he was hurting but the wine helped. He laughed a lot and I think he had fun, explaining to any who would listen how badly trained I was and I would bark or growl or howl appropriately and have him correct me. After the second flask of wine he wasn’t hurting so much any more and I made Boras buy a third flask for him for later. Then I made them help him back to his room. He and I sang a song on the way back that had the same tune but different words even as my Mahid winced and complained at my voice.

Raikas’s eyes had blinked closed almost the moment his head hit the pillow. Evenly breathing but not quite a snore, and his boy checked the leg bandage without disturbing him. He drew a light cover over him, smoothing it lovingly when he thought I wasn’t looking.

I was going to put the collar and lead with their gems and jingly gold bangles on his night table but instead handed it to his boy. “For him. He obeyed well.”

His face was better controlled than some aitzas boys in service in the Marble Palace and it showed nothing of what he felt. Instead of pretending to be a puppy I pushed my nose in the air and imitated a selfish little pig instead. Easy. “You look after my gladiator, boy.”

“This one hears,” he said bowing, and I went away happy because I caught the anger he felt with me, the devotion he already felt for Raikas. Someone who loved Raikas, who would look after him that well I took as a really good birthday present.

--
this post from Chevenga's point of view

11 -- More Jitzmitthra

Down the Avenue of Statuary I could see the shuttered windows in Adamas Nizen’s school standing wide open, so that anyone, not just solas could see what was being taught. But the teacher was juggling instead of teaching fighting. I stopped to watch because he was juggling flaming batons and instructing his students who struggled with simple leather balls. I wanted to stop longer and learn how to juggle but thought that my friend might want or need instruction this first Jitzmitthra morning.

Someone on Assiduous Effort Street had apparently paid to have all their white doves dyed red. I thought it was appropriate for the street that edged the looming bulk of the Mezem. I barked at the pigeons to make them swirl up and around against the blue sky right outside the Puckered Fig restaurant. And had the thought that it would be good to get my friend out of his room… even if he were still hurting from his wound. It wasn’t that far. I figured he already hated the Mezem worse than anyplace else in the city.

I stopped for a second to let an express chair swish by, the lead carrier shrilling a rhythm on the whistle in his mouth rather tune-like rather than just the usual harsh warning blast. Then I stepped over the chair-lane in the street before another chair could come blasting by.

I watched an Aitzas boy letting an Okas girl go in front of him… her costume a hand-made copy of the mad Imperatrix’s costume with gems made of rubbed smooth glass shards and his a falcon with true gilt wings and golden beak.

The guards at the Mezem were painted black as Srians and one – rather attractive actually -- was dressed as a woman. One of my Mahid made a kissing noise at that one and he batted his eyelashes at him… but I could see he was afraid he’d remember him later. “Jitz!” I barked at my Mahid to remind him… “Jitz! Jitz!”

He made a lazy swipe at me. “Down dog! Get down.”

I plowed through the wild array of costumes in the Mezem -- Iskanzas was also dressed as a woman with enormous eyelashes and ribbons of eyepaint -- and up the stairs to Raikas’s room. His door was open but I stopped outside it, unsure of what would be polite… even during Jitzmitthra.

It seemed as though even if every convention was thrown away, that was one that should not be… somehow. I peeked into the open door. “May I come in please?”

Raikas looked up from where he was stretched on his bed, leg elevated slightly on a couple of pillows. “Minis, yes…” he stopped, looked at me, his eyebrows climbing to almost disappear under his forelock, and broke into laughter. It wasn’t a man’s belly laugh… it broke high and he giggled like a boy, throwing his head back. I liked it and bounced and ‘rar rar rar’ barked to get him to do it more.

“…come… come in, yes.” He managed finally. I bounced in, barking “Ruff, woof, ruff, ruff!” I began sniffing in corners and the edges of his table and bed as though I was looking for a corner to pee on. His laughter, again, was a little startled, a little amazed.

“I guess I call you pup, today?” It wasn’t really a question but he seemed almost breathless. It wasn’t surprising, I suppose, from someone who had never seen us Arkans let our hair down.

“Want a scratch behind your ears?” he asked.

I started laughing and bouncing up and down in front of him. “Yup! Yup!” and then rolled on the floor waving my arms and legs in the air panting. He tentatively started scratching my belly and I ‘rar-rred’ and wiggled while he did.

“That’s just so…” He broke off and kept rubbing my belly while I ‘rar rar rared’ at him then started pulling one of his sheets off the bed, growling.

He yelped ‘Down boy, down!” and I started giggling harder. I rolled over on my belly and put my head down on my arms.

“I’m ticklish!” I said. And he giggled high and wilder even than before.

“RARARARARAR!”

“I shall have to take advantage of that!” he said. And lunged to tickle me. Not tentative as though I would order his head off, or tentative as if I could hurt him at all… Firm fingers that held me solid in the laughter. I couldn’t remember having laughed like that in years.

“Oh. Oh. I’m getting a cramp… stop… please?” I almost couldn’t remember the polite word, but did at the last moment. I was panting hard by then, as fat as I was.

Raikas let up on me and just held me there where he’d tickled me and I lay panting, recovering myself.

“I love… I love… Jiztmitthra. Even my birthday.”

He looked down at me with that puzzled look. “Jitz…mitth…ra. Your birthday is during this?”

I grinned up at him and panted “yup, yup, yup! Tomorrow… but like all Jitz it’s not a real day… so all of it is my birthday!”

“That must be taken as a sign of something,” he said quietly. I stopped wiggling and kept the tears that are close in Jitz back by swallowing hard.

“Yeah. Not good. Not proper. Very wild.” I looked down at the spots on my skin. “I was born backwards, my father says. Feet first.”

Raikas nodded. “Ah. Tomorrow’s backwards day… Skorsas said.”

I nodded. “I have to more careful tomorrow than most people.”

“Why is that?”

I started chewing on the ends of my hair, suddenly not liking the Diems much. “My nurse says I’m more vulnerable to the little devils tomorrow, the devils that turn the world upside down. My father cursed my mother for not having held me inside until after Jitz.”

I looked down on my costume and it seemed just silly. I sat up a bit more. “You’ll see sugar devils tomorrow. For people to eat.”

“Ah,” he said quietly. “Those little devils.”

“Everybody eats them,” I said. And he grinned at me.

“I would never have thought Arko could be like this.”

I smiled at him and panted like my costume. “This year is wilder.”

He grinned at me. “Why is that?”

I wiggled a little to get my tail out from under me. “Ummm. Every four years there’s an extra day? And things get even more nuts?” I changed the subject because I didn’t want to talk about it any more. “You’re looking better than yesterday.”

Raikas looked thoughtful, something I was getting used to seeing… “It’s a leap-year. On the Yeoli calendar too.” He seemed surprised that our two countries would have that in common.

“Ummm.” I said intelligently. “Yeah. Ummm. Raikas? I was… kind of confused yesterday.”

“By what?” He turned his thoughtful look back on me.

I was chewing on the ends of my hair enough that the ends all the way across were wet, the odd, oily flavor of hair in my mouth. “Well. I was scared because I thought you’d get killed. And then happy because you weren’t. Why were you unhappy? You’re still alive…” One hand had hold of the end of my costume tail and I played with that while I waited for him to think.

Raikas took a deep breath. “Minis. My war training. Was for one thing only. To defend Yeola-e. That’s the only reason I should ever fight. That’s sacred to us.” He looked into the distance, thinking. “I had agreed. But it’s one thing to say you’ll do something, and another to have it in front of you, having to be done. So… I…killing…”

I sat up straight. “You hurt because he died?”

“It only belongs on a battlefield, lad. I hurt because I killed him.”

I nodded, chewing on the ends of my floppy ears instead of my hair. “So was the guy I read… the philospher… mis-quoting your founder? I hoped… I wanted to help…”

He cut me off with that odd slash of flat hand. “No.” He shifted a little on his bed as though he sat on something sharper than goosefeathers and lamb’swool stuffing the mattress.

“It was a little garbled,” he said. “But I understood it.”

I poked at a feather jabbing out of his mattress, the tiny sharp quill as delicate as a needle. “If…”

“If we… are keeping you as a slave… and you’re a warrior… isn’t that a battle?”

The careless truth out of children’s mouths. I had no idea how pointed my questions were. But I had no idea why he was so upset.

He sighed and answered me in a way that no one ever had before. “I guess you could say… since I’m fighting for freedom… but it’s all staged… set up for a crowd…” He sighed and picked at the bandage on his leg almost the way I picked at things, then looked up at my puzzled face. “To kill someone just for someone else’s entertainment… that’s sacrilege. It’s wrong to kill someone for trivial reasons.”

That I thought I understood. “Like a sin? The Gods don’t like it?”

He nodded but it wasn’t sure, like a foreign language word, signing his yes handsign. “Sort of. It’s wrong. You don’t see it?”

I wanted to see what he was saying but I wasn’t sure I understood. “I think so.” He stared me right in the eyes and I tried again. “You mean… everyone… is… important? But…” That went against every lesson I’d ever had. Every lesson that said a person was only worth the caste he was born into.

He picked up both my hands, probably less important to him that to me since he used his hands so freely, looking into my eyes as though what he intended to say was truly important.

“Everyone is important. There were people… a mother… a father… who loved him. Siblings… family.” He looked right through me, looking into the life of the man he’d killed. “Maybe a wife, now lost to him. For what? For my freedom? It makes me sick.”

I didn’t know where the tears came from, they welled up unknowing, unwilling. I found myself choking on them thinking of a man whose life I hadn’t counted, or cared for. “A slave? A fessas? An okas? Everyone is loved?”

I wasn’t. I knew it suddenly. And couldn’t let myself realize it. I was not loved. It was too much to bear so I forgot it as suddenly as I realized, to float up in my mind now and again like a foul bubble of corruption to assault my mind as though it were my nose. You have never been loved. No one really cares if you live or die. “I shouldn’t cry.” I struggled to suppress it. It was something too painful to know. Raikas was looking at me as though he didn’t recognize me.

“I don’t mind,” he said. “You Arkans hold it in too much… well maybe not this year, but usually.”

I took a deep breath and shoved down what I felt. I knew how to do that really well. “I could howl.”

“You’ve lost me, lad.”

“I never thought of slaves as having families.”

“Did you think we grew out of the ground?” He sat up straighter and pulled me onto his lap, unthinking, somehow knowing I needed cuddling… “We all have families and that man just died by my hand.”

I sat still on his lap, confused and wondering if he even noticed that he was acting loving, holding me. Slaves were just there to be used up. I’d never thought of it.

There was only one thing for me to say. “Raikas… I’m sorry.” I wasn’t crying any more. “I’m sorry.”

___________
This scene from Chevenga's point of view

10 -- An Aside: My First Nurse

Her name was Disarsha Liporas, Aitza.

She was the first nurse I could remember. She was short for an Aitzas woman, with her hair trailing from the knot on top of her head still reaching her feet. It reached the floor even though the bun was three coils high. Her hair was white gold from age and once, she told me, it used to be a warm gold like harvest sun on wheat fields. I begged her to let it down one year during Jitzmitthra and it was almost as long again as her height when she let it all down. I lay down in it and laughed. And she laughed with me and said I was somehow born from her hair.

She made me brush out the whole length of it where I’d messed it up that year and I found I loved doing it. It felt so good.

Her eyes were gray/blue and very gentle. I imagine the blank marble stares of the Goddesses with her eyes and it makes me love them, instantly.

Disarsha loved me. She wasn’t supposed to touch me any time other than seeing to my hygiene but when I had crying, screaming nightmares she would come and cuddle me to her breast and ease my tears with a cool handkerchief until I could sleep again. I fell asleep over and over again held tight against the nightmares… and I wanted her to keep loving me.

She was the one who… if I was too bad… would just look at me and then look away and I would know I hadn’t done the right thing. I learned that if I was truly selfish I would hurt her and I wanted her to love me so I learned to be good even if my father didn’t like it.

I remember once, having a tantrum. A full, screaming, flailing, ripping pillows, pounding fists tantrum and when I looked up from the mess I’d created in my room -- my favorite stuffed lion in pieces all around me and she’d stood by, let me vent my rage on everything around me, witness to my worst -- I looked up, straight into her disappointed eyes.

I do not remember what that tantrum was about, but I never threw one again, except to set my father’s mind at ease that I was being given the freedom He wanted me to have; and those were never the same because they weren’t real.

She came to me one night… late… It was winter and cold rain fell on the city in the middle of the night. “Wake up, Spark. Please wake up and listen to me. You need to hear me.” I woke up confused because she was there and I had not cried out for her. I didn’t realize it then but it was a nightmare and Disarsha would never be able to make it go away again.

My father believed that I should have no restraint on me at all. He thought I should be free because He was free and He was perfect as far as He knew. He would look at me – more often a dispassionate examination -- and if He suspected anyone was laying any kind of restraint on me, would fix it. Ripping anyone away from me who might actually give me limits was His way of being a good father.

“My Beloved Spark.” Her eyes were swollen all around with shed tears. “Your Divine Father as decided, He Whose Will is the World’s Wisdom, that I am not the best nurse for your illustrious development.”

"Shh. Shh.” She put a gloved finger over my sleepy protest. “Your Father has decided.” She paused a long minute while I knuckled sleep out of my eyes.

“Nursey… you can’t go… You mustn’t. I don’t want you to go.”

”Shh. Spark… Beloved little Spark. You are a bright soul, a bright child and wherever I am I will always love you, little one. Even if I may not say any of this.” She was speaking to me equal to equal and I didn’t understand why then. I spoke to everyone equal to equal as a child does but she had always spoken to me properly. In the dark of the night, I was sure it was all a bad dream, so I threw my arms around her waist and buried my head in her bosom, wailing.

She waited until I had cried myself out enough to hear her again and stroked my sweating, tear-soaked locks out of my face in the dim light from my little night sun-candle, behind its frosted glass shade. “Minis.”

Her use of my name outside of Jitzmitthra shocked me still, tears cooling on my face. “You won’t see me again, Spark. I must go away. I was to tell you it was because my family needs me. I don’t know if your father will let me just go away, lovey…” she took a deep breath and I felt her breathing under my cheek, as big as the world.

“I will call you that this once because I might not get a chance again. You’re a good boy and wherever I am, I love you.” She raised my chin and made me look at her. “Can you remember that I believe in you?”

I nodded even against her chin hold and she leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “Goodbye lovey. I’ve always seen you as good and I always will.”

She set me away from her and I wanted to cling but realized I couldn’t. She smiled at me and left me sitting in the middle of my big bed, all alone.

I didn’t move for a long time after she left and I knew I shouldn’t complain to my father. There was no calling her back. I cried alone with my nightmares after she left because no one dared comfort me.

Binshala Ilberas, Aitza, came soon after, more reserved. What she thought of me was much harder to discern.

9 -- The start of Jitzmitthra

Next morning I was up early with the Beginning of Jitzmitthra, the days that didn’t exist officially in the calendar. I loved it because it seemed as if the whole city went bugfikken crazy just for my birthday. I knew it really wasn’t true but I still loved everyone being naughty and unconventional. I could count all of Jitzmitthra my birthday because they were all the same. Diem 0. Today was Relinquishment of Conventional Decorum.

This morning I slid out of bed before any of my servants could stop me and ran into the bathing room totally naked. “Hey!” My nurse managed to take a deep breath and speak to me the way she normally wouldn’t though not as badly as tomorrow when everything would be completely upside down.

“Don’t you be runnin’ around like that, M… Minis!” I giggled and jumped into the Lesser Bath and made a huge splash but ran up the step and did it again. I was careful not to splash her.

“Oh, Dearest Nurse! Could I beg you, please please please would you help me get myself clean?”

She sighed and walked over as if it were the last thing on her mind but this year she scooped up a floor brush. “I’ll make sure you’re clean, Minis!” I made my eyes white all the way around and scrambled back out of her reach… soaping myself.

It was so funny having her treat me like that. They didn’t dare do such things in my father’s sight even in Jitz. "You behave, now, or I'll take this brush to your skinny white behind!"

Father didn’t like the festival much and except for once or twice he’d stay in his rooms and ignore the uproar in the city as if it weren’t happening. The only time he ever came out of privacy during it was for my birthday dinner tomorrow morning and for the Restoration of Decorum Festival at the end of the Diems. And this year there wouldn’t be only Five Diems… but it was an Addition Year. There would be Six! And this year I would have a friend who… oh… he probably didn’t know about Jitzmitthra! I’d have to show him all about it!

“I’m all right, I’ll wash myself. Honest!” She stood on the edge of the pool, tapping her foot, letting me wash myself.

“Good enough. If you need help, I’ll be around somewhere.” She set the brush down and left me alone. She’d have brought my breakfast and left it in my dining room as if someone had forgotten it there. But today it would only be cold things… things that could be set out with a minimum of work. A glass of plain milk. A bowl of fruit that would have been cut up and mixed during normal days. A plain piece of bread.

I never understood it but Jitzmitthra meals always tasted better even when they were completely simple. I didn’t have to struggle to get it down. I took off my own robe and dropped it on the bed. I’d be wearing it for the next few days so I wanted to remember where it was.

My rooms were empty. It was very quiet inside with no servants in evidence at all and I went to look for my costume. It had been laid out the night before. I couldn’t help it… I jumped up and down when I saw it and giggled. It was a spotted loincloth and spotted wraps for my arms and calves but the best part was the headpiece. The floppy doggy ears were on expensive springs so they bounced and flapped at the slightest motion, the puppy nose glistened over my own nose and the long satin tongue was attached to the jaw-piece so it bobbed to my own mouth’s movement.

I pulled it on and tugged my hair through the supports at the back and it settled comfortably as though it were part of me. I looked in the mirror and laughed and laughed and jumped up and down before I put the loincloth on, just to make my penis bounce like the tongue. It looked so funny I did it again.

It was so blasphemous -- a dog costume for the Heir of the whole Empire -- it was perfect for Jitz. It was like I was wearing a little bit of the worst curse an Arkan could say…’Dog-mother of the Ten’, as if there was a female dog who could have birthed the Gods!

My giggle was a little nervous so I put the loincloth on and the wraps… really tubes and wiggled the bouncy, curly tail on the back of the loincloth. The sponge in the bowl was perfect for me to dab spots on my skin and the tail was heavy enough to swing when I moved my hips and flexible enough to slap the outsides of my legs if I really wiggled. The artist that made it was wonderful. I’d have to hire him again.

The collar was gemmed and had gold dangles and charms all around it and the matching silk leash was an Imperial blue. I wrapped that around my waist for later.

I ran outside and found the floor sweepers playing dice on the floor rather than sweeping it. I barked at them and one picked up his broom and waved it at me. “Shoo! Shoo, puppy! Don’t frighten the cats! Shoo!”

He swatted me on the behind and I barked at them both again and giggled… before running down to the laefetas, the moveable room that would take me downstairs without having to go down any stairs at all. The one in the Marble Palace was manned whether it was a holy day or not.

I panted and barked and ran in circles right in front of the Steel Gate, the Mahid guards lounging. One of them finished a peach and hurled the pit at me, stinging me on the behind. It was almost too much and I stopped barking and stood up. “Wait, dog. There’s a couple of guys who need to walk you,” he drawled. I sat down, with my knees spread, crouched like a pup on the step. Some Mahid liked Jitzmitthra more than they let on, I thought. Until my guards strolled out I sat and panted and watched the city throw off its usual constraints.

Someone had filled the fountains in front of the Marble Palace with soap and the bubbles blew in mountains across the paving of the Presentation Square. People in every colour of the rainbow and type of costume played in the foam taller than they were.

A older woman who had chosen not to change out of her night clothes and gloves danced along the raised granite edge of the fountain, her silver/gold hair uncovered and unbound flowing down to her feet.

Four men tossed a wine skin back and forth between them. Whoever caught the skin would raise it and pour a stream of wine into his own mouth or that of passers-by before sealing it up and tossing it to the next. They were, for some reason, dressed as frogs.

“Hey, brat.” It was Boras, looking uncomfortable slouching, the casual tone a strain in his mouth. I replied by barking at him. The city was going mad as usual… somewhere behind a manor’s walls I heard a woman laughing and laughing, open and free.

A man stood on top of his own gate dressed in only a loincloth and his hair, playing the feda, the music wild and wailing instead of staid and proper as was usual for the instrument. There was a bit of pink lace… a glove… caught on the end of his bow.

I sat down for a while in front of his gate and howled until he threw a candy at me. I jumped up like a puppy aiming to snatch it out of the air, but even in Jitzmitthra I couldn’t eat just anything and Boras, lightning fast, snapped out and seized it before I could. “Bad dog,” he said mildly. I growled at him and headed down to the Mezem.

8 -- Raikas's First Fight

I decided I wanted to see his first fight anyway and was in the colonnade with the oddsmen, the scribblers from The Watcher of the Ring, and other gladiators and hangers-on. The low-chainers with their thin wreaths of gold gleaming sparse around their necks, showing their teeth at each other like a pack of barely restrained dogs. The high-chainers were quieter, lone wolves staying out of the dominance scrum, only snarling quietly when the dogs showed too much fang too close.

The scribblers had ink-stains on fingers and robe cuffs and katzeriks hanging from their lips, spiraling smoke into the air and around their heads. Their fingers were yellowish from smoking and their teeth when they smiled. I caught a whiff of that fragrant smoke coiling down the covered colonnade.

That reminded me that I hadn’t had one since breakfast. I snapped my fingers at a Mahid and he pulled out my enameled katzerik case, tapping one out for me to take. Another struck a match and held it to the end as I puffed it alight. It was harsh and soothing at the same time, the quiver building up in me settling down. My father’s Haian disapproved but my father, who didn’t indulge, just laughed and said becoming Imperator would stop me.

The training ground was open to the sky, the sand just as white and just as carefully raked. Around the three other walls gladiators of old were carved and painted onto the plaster, fifty chainers of the past in procession. There had been no room for any new portraits for generations but the ancient pit-killers were carefully maintained and re-painted as an inspiration to the new slaves brought in. Fifty chains could be won. Freedom could be earned with fifty deaths other than your own.

Tobeas, of course, claimed that any death would be freedom but then he was concerned more over souls than bodies… and very few of the gladiators were actually Arkans any more. Any Arkans were usually misguided youths or down on their luck solas younger sons who couldn’t be dissuaded by distraught fathers.

Raikas was second fight and the servants had just carried the body from the first down to the morgue through a door cleverly hidden in the painted walls, others raking and sweeping the sand smooth behind. Oddsman passed betting chains back and forth, scratching their odds on slates. One or two of the scribblers decided they had the fighter they wished to follow, at least until he got killed, and packed up their blade-narrow notebooks and pens.

Raikas was brought out by his boy while his opponent, some fellow from Brahvniki came in from the other side, that closest to me. Raikas looked very young compared to his opponent who had a hefty scar across the bridge of his nose, his arms and shoulders laced with other fine scores and marks, all well healed but showing pale against tanned skin.

The Brahvnikian was taller than Raikas but had arms and legs shorter than was proportional and that spoke well for his skill as a warrior, dealing with that kind of reach. He radiated confidence while Raikas… I looked at him and he seemed, somehow, to not be present.

He wore undyed cotton, kilt and shirt. He had metal wrist cuffs that I overheard some writer say were Yeoli warrior symbols and was barefoot. His eye floated over the lot of us as though we weren’t there. He had a shoulder harness, the plain, circle-pommeled hilt of his Yeoli sword, his kraiya, rising to one side of his head.

The scribblers had wondered why I had shown up and my ‘adoption’ of a new fighter obviously made the Pages of the Lips while the first fight played itself out, all but unwatched. On the training ground there were no fighter’s gates, no thunderous clang as the fighters are released on each other, only the boys sending their fighters each to an opposite corner and getting out like stink.

The Brahvnikian stood in front of me, close enough for me to smell musky sweat, quivering like a high-bred racing hound sighting prey. Raikas stood on the corner opposite, creamy cotton, pale skin, dark hair, the sunlight cut diagonally across him the beginning shadow that would move across the ground later in the day. His face was solemn, distant as the moon, the Goddess's Eye.

“FIGHT!” The trainer’s voice cracked and both fighters moved before the final sound left his lip.

Raikas came out more warily than the Brahvnikian, making some flap their lips at him for too much caution. He was almost hesitant and the fighters met on the far side of the ground as the Brahvnikian took the fight to Raikas. The bigger man's style was a power style, very straight line, very strong. Raikas blocked once, spun out of the way as light on his feet as a crane flitting away from the claw slash of a heavy cat.

That curved Yeoli sword tapped the heavier sword like a bell, deflecting, never taking a straight strike. Then a low slash from the bigger man raised a bloom of red on Raikas’s left leg, luckily as he moved back or it could have been much worse, cut the tendon inside the knee perhaps. I caught my breath. NO! No no no! You can’t die on me now.
I’m wrong? I thought. No. I’m not, I’m not. You are better than this, Raikas! I was dizzy with holding my breath, my guts twisted into a solid knot of fear. I had never felt such fear for anyone that I could remember. I cared. I truly cared and I was terrified I was about to lose it and lose him.

The injured left leg had come up, just the toe on the sand, Raikas standing still on the right, the Brahvnikian and half the gallery were convinced the fight was finished and they were right.

But Raikas’s face had changed and he was there suddenly and a feeling, an emotion rose like heat on the sand. As the Brahvnikian lunged to kill him absolutely certain the Yeoli would be locked in place by the injury Raikas turned on the supporting leg. The straight sword aiming for his heart skimmed past his chest, tearing his shirt as he struck back. His kraiya, left a pulsing fountain in its wake splattering the Brahvnikian’s blood in an arc splashing across ancient painted faces where the sweeping stroke opened his neck.

The body dropped limp as dirty hair.  Raikas stepped away from the falling corpse, injured leg obviously still able to bear his weight. He ended up facing away from the dead man, his boy at his side almost as fast. He wiped the kraiya with the rag he was handed and sheathed it, threw his arm over his boy’s shoulder, all without looking at anyone in the gallery. He said nothing, no one could see his face.

“Hey!” Koree’s shout stopped them on the sand. “Skorsas! His chain.” Since he was injured the boy brought him over to accept the chain. “You accept the chain from the Director in the ring, Yeoli,” he said and placed it over Raikas’s head where it fell against his crystal. My friend nodded and limped to the door leading to the hall and the infirmary, behind Iskanzas’s desk.

There was a rustle and it appeared that other people were resuming breathing as I was. I dropped the katzerik on the flags before it could burn my fingers, let a Mahid grind it out with his boot.

I walked down the gallery out into the hall and sat down in one of the chairs of honor by the front desk. I wanted to take my gladiator friend out to congratulate him on surviving his first fight. I wanted to speak to him. I wanted to find out why he seemed so sad when he should be happy. I’d wait until he was stitched and cleaned up and I’d take him out to dinner, get him some clothes, some of the gifts he’d need. I could be patient for that. The famous glass doors swung open again and the third FIGHT shout cracked out before being cut off by its closing.

I took a deep breath and waited until my Mahid had re-arranged themselves to protect me, then got up and walked past Iska’s desk, pushing the door into the infirmary open. I ignored the unassigned boys who were already setting things up for Iska to start stitching when he got there. Raikas already lay on one of the tables, arm flung over his face, Skorsas applying pressure to the cut on his leg.

He shifted the arm over his eyes only slightly, to drop the hand on that side down to catch his forelock.

One of the other boys spoke up. “Maybe we should give him a needle for pain.”

“Not gonna help,” Skorsas replied quietly.

I mostly ignored them. He’d won. He only had forty-nine fights left and he’d be free. I’d seen other fighters with a wound that wasn’t just a scratch but not life or limb threatening acting much happier having won their matches.

“Raikas? What’s wrong? Other than the wound?” I turned to the boys and spoke in Arkan. “Is he in pain? Do something to help him!” And then back to him. “Raikas, you won! You’re all right.”

He let go his forelock and stared at me, his look bleak. “I just killed a man, just took his life for no good reason, for Arkan’s enjoyment and you’re asking me what’s wrong?”

His boy didn’t understand what he’d just said, but tried to get him to lie quiet. I caught the edge of the usual glance I got from people as they tried to guess how I would react. “Sh, Raikas, its all right, stay quiet, Iska is coming to stitch you up.”

Another boy said quietly “Maybe we should give him something to numb his head.” For a second I wasn’t sure if he were talking about Raikas… or me. I felt so stupid. Raikas had objected, tried to not fight in the arena.

“Oh,” is all I said to him, ignoring what the boys were saying. “I was reading something about Yeolis last night… someone named Yeola was quoted… should I say what it was?”

He said something muffled behind his hands in Yeoli, while his boy continued to sooth him. So I continued. It had puzzled me but it seemed like he should hear it. I wasn’t sure he’d hear it from an Arkan. “Yeola is your country’s… ah, not father… mother right? She said “Responsibility is in the mind driving the actions of the kraiya - that’s like your sword right? – Not the hand on the blade.”

His voice sounded cracked and broken as he answered me, still behind the fence of his hands. “Yes, she was the mother of my country and yes, she said that.” He was weeping openly now. I’d been trying to help, not make him cry. He wasn’t that weak. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be.

“Oh, I thought the word was like our solas caste… but… I thought its my father’s mind driving this… not your hand so its his responsibility isn’t it?”

He shook all over, almost enough to buck Skorsas off his injured leg and shouted something in his own tongue that I didn’t understand.

“Raikas, what can I do to help?” I was struggling not to get angry. I wasn’t used to feeling helpless.

Raikas caught his breath. “Unless you can give me wings, nothing.” His boy whispered something in his ear in Arkan that I probably understood more than he did even though I only caught a couple of the words. Be careful what you say to him. Or something like that. Iskanzas came in and took up the curved needle and Haian skin thread and without paying any attention to me began sewing up Raikas’s leg.

I thought I knew what might be making things worse so I argued with it. “This isn’t your responsibility. You’re a Yeoli solas with your duty to your country and your people, right? Your family needs you to live through this.”

He made a sound like I had slugged him in the wound. I didn’t want to make it worse, I wanted to make it better. “I’m sorry Raikas, you’re doing this for your oaths and your people who need you, right?”

“Ye..ye… yes. I wouldn’t do it for anything less.”

“So you need to breathe and take your boy’s comfort, for your people and for your family.”

Iska finished and Skorsas had washed his bloody hands and begun wrapping the soft lint bandage around the thigh. Raikas began weeping harder. I couldn’t help him. It made me angry. I could see the anger in the boy’s eyes even as he modestly lowered them. Modestly or prudently. I could choose not to take offence, and didn’t care to.

The boy offered him some medicine and said quietly “You’re done, Jewel of the Mezem. You’re stitched up. You can only soak in the tub if we figure out some way to elevate that leg.”

The other boy said “There’s no use mentioning it if we can’t; it’ll just torture him.”

“You’re right,” Raikas’s boy said.

I asked him, “There’s no invalid slings in the Mezem baths?” This was the first I’d heard that they were perhaps deficient. I knew slings and so forth from my father’s baths, though he was no invalid.

“No, Spark of the Sun’s Ray.”

I shrugged that off as I translated the “You’re done… “ part and didn’t mention the baths. I was angry and upset enough that I thought I should go and leave them alone to look after my favorite person.

They were helping him to sitting as I turned away. I didn’t want to take my frustration out on him or them because they were looking after him. I waved a hand.

“He’s a valuable man, I’ll let you look after him.” To Raikas. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He looked up at me, his brown eyes full of a pain I had never thought to see, but waved an acknowledging hand as I left.

--

This scene from Chevenga’s (Karas Raikas’s) point of view.

7 -- Morning Routine

Before I could empty my bladder I had to wait till the Servant of the Footstool brought the step for the Servant of the Slippers to place them on. And I had to stand in the slippers and put my arms out for the Draper On of the Morning Robe and wait for the Official Tie Servant secured the belt. After that I could go to the garderobe and hope the Servant of the door wasn’t slow that day. I disliked losing control of my bladder and with all the milk and water during the night my need was urgent.

My father wouldn’t bother. I’d been there on his waking when the Servant of the Imperial Garderobe Door was a breath too slow. My father had stopped and let his bladder go on the floor where He stood, staring at the Aitzas lad who had hoped to gain favour by serving Him. The boy knelt, not daring to look up, watching the yellow puddle flow across the stone to touch his knee, realizing his hopes and that of his family were now worth less than that spreading pool. Once my father was clean He’d ordered the boy to drink His urine for an eight day to teach him not to be slow.

The servant made sure I was clean after I used the garderobe and then I had every piece of my clothing and jewelry placed on me by a different person. Lots of the servants were boys my own age, Aitzas worthy of waiting on me, hoping I would grow to like them and their service. I mostly ignored them and their greedy eyes. They’d gaze at me like misers counting future gold and believed I was too stupid to see the look in their eyes.

I preferred the career servants of the Marble Palace, they had their own hierarchies and in-fights, interlocking with the Aitzas ones but it did not much depend on my favour or censure. I was just another Imperial mannequin, albeit breathing. I sat down to eat my first meal just as the Imperial Chime on the roof sounded. My father had just risen and that chime would let the whole city know their ruler’s motion through the day, the sound as regular a progression as the sun across the sky.

I ate baked crème with an undertone of spasmweed, drank two more cups of kaf with arsenic. The whipped, baked apple foam was clear of additives, as was the thick smoked bacon, and the cream sauce frothed eggs on pressed white toast. It took me a while to eat what I should, Binshala watching almost every mouthful, one of her charges being to see I kept my regal weight up. I had perhaps an hour before she would appear with another snack for me. Then would come the Middle of Day Meal with the court and my father would insist I join him after for a nursing session.

He had never weaned and kept a stable of slaves as his wet nurses. They would come to the Imperial Nursing room or the atrium balcony, naked for him and for me. At one time they had all had additives given them so their milk would taste of them but they tended to sicken and die, so father had graciously ceased poisoning them. That was much to the Chamberlain’s relief because the slaves my father favoured were very expensive, mostly blond Arkans because my father preferred their taste. There was the occasional black woman for variation but I found their milk tasted the same no matter the colour of their skin. The women’s milk was pale and scented like fanilas, sticky and too sweet, a middle day dessert too much on top of a full court meal but at least it didn’t taste of the various poisons. I also found I liked being cuddled against a woman’s breast. It was very comforting.

That routine changed on fight days, with the Middle Meal served my father and I in the Imperial box at the Mezem so we wouldn’t miss a single fight. My father loved eating while watching men die. He’d lock His eyes on the latest fight and shovel food into His mouth with gusto, licking His lips, gravy often on His chin, flowing like the blood on the sand. I preferred that over the other when He had a boy serve Him. My father seemed to be thrilled most by things spurting or pouring or gushing. Semen, blood, sauces, milk, it was all passion to Him.