Move, move, move! the trainer screamed to himself. The armor was squeezing his ribs; he wasn’t in shape for this sort of thing any more. Go, go. He got himself turned around just in time to knock a sword cut aside with his shieldboss, springing back to give himself distance to use the spear.
Crack.
The slung stone hit him over the breastbone. The edges of his world went gray, and the shield and spear dropped as his arms lost strength. The swordsman hacked at him twice, into the collarbone and then up into the side of his thigh from below. He fell to the ground, feeling himself yawning in reflex. There was time enough to see Helga dragged back, one leg limp from the stunning impact of a slingstone.
A pirate turned him over on his back with a foot. What a complete fuckup, he thought, watching the spearpoint rise over his face. Guess I didn’t make it out of the games alive after all.
An impact, then blackness.
* * *
“I’ve got to admit, the Confederates outdo us in this, at least,” Adrian said, lying back in the cool water.
Public baths in an Emerald city were usually small and utilitarian. This was a palace, and not a small one either. The main pool lay under a high dome, the tiles that coated its interior silvered to reflect light from the round windows that ran completely around the base. The walls below them were rose-pink and snow-white marble, with a ten-foot band of bas-relief murals below that, and the floors had fifteen different types of colored stone. Water arched from the mouths of fabulous bronze beasts into the pool; in halls leading off on three sides were steam rooms, hot tubs for soaking, rooms for scraping down and massage, exercise and workout rooms, small libraries . . .
It was rather noisy; someone was making the air hideous with song as he stood under a stream of water and rubbed himself with a sponge. He could hear the slap of hands on flesh from a massage table, the click of dice from a friendly game in a corner, the grunting of would-be athletes as they swung lead weights, the tremendous splash as someone did a belly flopper in another corner of the pool, the cries of a vendor with a tray of sausages and pickled artichokes.
“When you’ve got the whole world to loot, you can afford the best,” Esmond said. “Shameless degenerates,” he added.
Adrian smiled. Public baths in the Emerald lands didn’t mix the sexes . . . and the women here weren’t all whores, either. It certainly added to the scenery, he mused, watching a statuesque redhead go by in nothing but the towel draped over her shoulder.
“Come on, we’ll get weak as girls if we just lie about like this,” Esmond said.
His brother attracted more than his share of looks as they walked over to the steam room—mostly from women. The hot chamber was empty, the time being a little early—the baths really filled up after three o’clock in the afternoon, when free men knocked off work and came to meet their friends and spend a pleasant few hours before dinner. They said you could meet anyone from a Priestess of the Hearthfire to the Lord of the Western Isles in the Vanbert baths, and hear what the Council was going to do before the Councillors knew themselves.
“Don’t sneer too much at Confederate wealth,” Adrian said. “Since you’re going to get your hands on some of it yourself . . . Three hundred arnkets a year, plus your keep, a room and a servant! You can easily save two hundred of that. With three thousand, you could open your own salle d’armes back in Solinga, or buy an olive grove or shares in ships.”
Esmond made a restless gesture and tossed a dipperful of water on the hot rocks in the corner of the room. A smell of hot cedarwood went up from the chips mixed with the glowing stones, and the heat struck like a padded club.
“Here,” the older brother said, tossing Adrian a blunted, curved bronze knife from a rack. “Do my back.”