Three old women appear. Mis steps forward to address them in Efean.
“Honored Dames, my name is Missenshe, daughter of Hametwe, daughter of Rihanwe the perfume maker, of Saryenia. On behalf of the honored poet Ro-emnu and his entourage, I request shelter.”
They smile on Ro like benevolent aunties. “Welcome, Honored Poet. Your name is known to us. How may we assist you?”
He uses the flourishes of an actor: a swept arm, a lift of the eyebrows. “I come to you as a fugitive, carried in the sheltering arms of the Mother of All. I arrive with my companions. Missenshe you have met. The honored sir Khamu acts as our guide.”
He then settles a hand on Kal’s shoulder exactly as an actor playing a master marks his faithful servant for the audience to see. “This is my groom and loyal bodyguard, Kallos.”
Everyone looks at the strange sight of a rather grimy Saroese youth dressed in a workingman’s keldi.
“Kallos?” Kal mutters under his breath, recognizing only the Saroese name out of all the Efean words Ro said.
“Kalliarkos is a prince’s name and would give you away in an instant, but both lowborn and highborn men may be called Kallos,” I reply softly. I don’t know whether to laugh at Kal’s disconcerted expression or to punch Ro for finding this exact way to aid Kal by making him stand in Ro’s shade.
Ro goes on in Efean. “I have fled the city of Saryenia lest I be arrested, for the Saroese king cannot abide a poet of my particular magnificence casting aspersions on his history. We barely escaped with our lives. Your hospitality nourishes us at a moment in our journey when we might falter, and we thank you. For our part, we will not let your generosity go unanswered. Of course I will declaim for you from my most recent play, the one the Saroese king himself banned.”
The villagers eat up this prospect, and in truth I’m curious too, not that I’ll ever let Ro know that. But he’s not done as he finally steps away from Kal.
“But that isn’t all we have to offer,” he says, gesturing to me. “This adversary won her first Novice trial at the King’s Court and became a Challenger on the strength of it. She saved the Royal Army of Efea from defeat by escaping an ambush and bringing a warning to the Royal Army’s commander. You’ll not defeat her easily when she takes on all comers!”
“What?” I say.
“Perhaps her fame has reached you here already. This, my friends, is Spider.”
“Spider!” Whispers buzz through the crowd as they stare at me in delight. A voice pipes up in the refrain: “She’ll fight for Efea, and win!”
“Yes, my friends.” Ro gestures with his hands as if to beckon them closer to hear a momentous secret, and since he is speaking in Efean, the words stay a secret from Kal. “The tomb spider, the herald of that which has reached the end of its time on earth, does indeed fight for Efea and Efeans.”
In answer, several of the villagers call out the phrase he’s coined: “Efea will rise!”
It feels as if everyone knows their part in a play except me, but I’m given no chance to demand Ro explain what he’s up to because he is immediately invited to bathe away the dirt of travel and swaggers off, surrounded by admirers.
“Is every girl in this village determined to be the one to charm Ro?” I say to Mis.
“I thought you didn’t like him, Jes.”
“I have complicated opinions about the poet.” But he’s not the person I’m worried about. When Khamu takes Kal with him to the pastures to discuss borrowing mounts for the next stage of the journey, Mis catches me before I can follow.
“You have to run now that Ro has volunteered you. It’s an honor to the village.”
“Will Kal be all right?”
“Khamu will watch over him. Anyway, no one here cares about Kal now that Ro has declared him an ordinary laborer. But you running a trial is a big deal. It’s part of the exchange of hospitality.”
After I wash my hands and face and drink down a bowl of broth, I dig my Fives gear out of my bundle and change. Three adversaries are waiting for me beside the Fives court: a stocky older man named Ofru, a gangly boy about my age called Kenwis, and a sleek, strong, and very pretty young woman who goes by the name Precious.
“Precious?” I can’t hide my surprise.
She shades her eyes to look in the direction in which Ro went. “It’s actually Itet, but everyone’s called me Precious since I was born because I was the first girl after my mother gave birth to five boys. Do you think the poet is going to come back to watch us?”
Mis and I share a look.
“I’m sure that is his intention,” I answer with a steadfastly straight face.
“Then I’ll run,” she says magnanimously as Mis stifles a giggle.
Ofru leads us through a warm-up menageries, the long sequence of movements that trains our bodies in the patterns we need to run the Fives. He uses a form of menageries closer to the one I learned at Anise’s stable than to the one our trainers Darios and Tana followed at Garon Stable. I slip into the flow of my early training as easily as a fish sliding back into water.
We finish and draw for starting positions. Precious preens as Ro is seated on the guest porch in a sling-back chair in the company of the dames and honored elders. Young people serve them drinks.
The poet’s life in Efea is a burden, clearly.
I look around for Kal but don’t see him amid the gathering crowd. I’m surprised by how many wish me good fortune. That just makes me more determined to win.
The village court is sturdy but simple. Pillars has movable canvas walls. Trees is a series of posts that can be fitted into different post holes. Traps has ropes, beams, and nets that can be shifted around to create variety. Rivers is a set of tilting planks dusted with sand. My competitors are good, but my serious training gives me the edge. I want to offer them the best thrills I can, so I throw in a few flips and twists. The crowd is cheering, “Spider! Spider!” as I reach the fourth platform in the lead, only to find myself staring over an entirely unfamiliar configuration that looks nothing like spinning Rings.
Long afternoon shadows patch the central area, where a wide spiral path encircles a tall scaffolding: the village victory tower. The spiral path has four pebbled strands, each a color representing one of the four outer obstacles: blue, green, red, and brown. There’s no trick or turn here that I can see, just a choice, so I take the blue spiral. My feet crunch on the tiny rocks. The spiral’s curve gets tighter and tighter.
The victory tower is taller than I realized because it is set into a large well with sheer stone sides. It’s hard to tell how far down it goes because there’s water below but depths don’t intimidate me. I jump from the pit’s edge to grab a ladder set within the scaffolding. I’m well ahead by now, yet as I climb the crowd begins laughing.
I discover why they’re amused when I reach the top with its superb view of the flat terrain now mostly hidden by dusk.
There is no victor’s ribbon.