"I have been awake," said Marcus, "since the fifth hour."
"So have I," said Duncan.
"You are a soldier. Soldiers enjoy it. I am a diplomat, Duncan, and diplomats were not built for mornings, we were built for fancy suppers, long lies, and being brought things." Marcus lowered himself into his seat in the royal box with one hand pressed to his forehead. "Somebody pour me something. I am fading."
"You're not fading," said Maia. "You're sulking because Leo got the good seat."
"I am fading."
"Leo got the good seat," said Leo, "because Leo is Master of the Guard and it is Leo's knights in that ring this morning, and Leo would like to watch them without listening to the pair of you."
"Oh, the big lion's nervous," said Maia, delighted.
"I am not nervous."
"You've polished your buttons."
"My buttons are always polished."
"Not like that, they aren't," said Maia, and Duncan laughed so hard he had to put his cup down.
---
The royal box sat high on the east side of the arena, open to the air, with a green canopy over it and the King's banner hanging from the rail.
Below it the arena had been swept and sanded and marked out with chalk, and the stands going round it were packed so full that Sito could not see a gap anywhere.
He sat on his father's left in a stiff coat, the way he had been told to.
On his father's right, the Queen watched the arena with exactly the same neutral expression she used for reading correspondence.
Behind them the Masters of Epiria were arguing about seats.
"Could we," said Reginald Stillwater, "perhaps have the argument about seats after the tournament, since it has already begun?"
Everybody went quiet.
"Thank you," said Reginald, and went back to his notes.
Ragnar leaned over the back of Sito's chair and held out a piece of jerky.
"Here, boy."
Sito smiled and took it. "Thank you, Master Ragnar."
"You eat that. Big day. Long day." Ragnar sat back down and started on another piece of his own. "Takes more than sitting in a chair to get big."
"I know."
"Aye. You would." Ragnar chewed thoughtfully. "Heard you been taking more than thirty at a time down there."
Sito glanced at his father. Xerxes did not look away from the arena.
"Sometimes," said Sito.
"Sometimes, he says." Ragnar let out a deep chuckle and shook his head. "When I was your age I couldn't take one without falling over my own feet. Didn't make no difference though. Got big eventually."
---
The marshal called the first bout, and the stands came up like a wave.
A Trotter knight in green and gold against a Royal Knight Sito did not know, a tall fair man with a notched helm. They met in the middle and circled.
Sito watched the Trotter man for about four seconds, and one look at the Royal Knights stance, and the way he held his shield, confirmed that he saw exactly what Sito saw.
Sito nodded towards the Trotter man. "He's going to lose".
Xerxes did not turn his head. "Why?"
"He's guarding his left and all his weight's on his right. He's scared of that side. So he's going to try and win it on the right, fast, and the other one knows it."
The Trotter knight went right, fast, on the second exchange. The Royal Knight stepped inside it, took the blow on his shield, and put the flat of a blunted sword across the Trotter man's ribs. The marshal's flag came down.
The box was quiet.
"Well," said Duncan, smiling. "That's one."
---
The second bout was two ducal knights, a Machin man against a Brewer man.
"The Machin one's going to go under," Sito said. "The Brewer knight lifts his elbow every time he swings high and he's done it twice already."
Leo turned round in his good seat.
"He's what?"
"Lifts his elbow, Master Leo. There — he's done it again."
"Our young Prince here is correct." Duncan turned to Sito with a delighted smile on his face. "You have quite an eye on you, it seems the Old Masters shouts are being thrown at a worthy student."
Leo looked back at the arena.
On the third exchange, the Brewer knight swung high, lifted his elbow, and the Machin knight went underneath it and came up behind him. Flag.
Ragnar had stopped chewing.
"Well, I'll be," he said.
"The boy's right," said Leo, in the tone of a man admitting something he would rather not. "Damn it. He's right."
Maia leaned forward. "Isn't he just the cleverest little thing."
"He is," said Marcus, very lightly. He was not looking at Sito. He was looking at the King.
Night, from the end of the row, said nothing at all.
Xerxes turned his head for the first time that morning.
"Sito."
"Father?"
"The Lady Rachel's party is in the ducal stand, below us. They have kept you a seat since the first bell." The King's voice was perfectly pleasant. "Go and sit with them. You are expected."
Sito looked at him.
"Now, Father?"
"Now."
"Yes, Father."
He got up, and bowed to his mother, and bowed to the Masters, and went down the stair at the back of the box.
Duncan waited until the boy's head had disappeared below the rail.
"You sent him down because he was right."
"I sent him down," said Xerxes, "because he was right in front of every duke in this kingdom, with the box open on three sides."
"Ah," said Duncan.
"Two bouts. Two out of two. Called before either man had struck." Xerxes watched the arena. "By the fourth, somebody in the ducal stand would have been counting."
"And sending him to sit with the dukes' children is better?"
"The dukes' children are children," said the King. "Nobody listens to children."
Marcus lifted his cup, hid his face in it, and did not say a word.
---
"There he is."
Rachel and Isolde had both saved him a seat and they had both apparently spent the whole morning keeping it while arguing about who saved him the seat first.
"Hello."
"You were in the King's box," said Maud.
"I was."
"Why did you leave?"
"Father sent me down."
"Why?"
"He said you'd kept me a seat."
Rachel looked extremely pleased about this. Isolde looked extremely pleased about this as well, and for a moment the two of them glared at each other over the empty space.
Sito sat in it.
"Right," said Isolde, instantly. "Raymond's in the fourth bout, right after the Bekker one, and if he loses I'm going to be sick. Do you think he'll lose?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"How are you so sure?"
"Because I've fought him about a hundred times," said Sito, "and nobody he's meeting today has fought him once."
Isolde thought about that for a second, and smiled. "If you say he's going to win then I believe it."
Piers had climbed up on the bench behind them for a better view and was leaning on Sito's shoulder.
"Who's next?"
"Valor. The one in the green with the dark braids."
"Is he good?"
"He's the quickest man I've ever fought."
"Quicker than you?"
"Much quicker than me."
Edric, on the far end of the row, made a small noise that was not quite a laugh. Aldous, beside him, did not make any noise at all. He was watching Sito.
"And the other one?" said Piers.
"The tall one with the red plume. That's a Bekker knight." Sito glanced at Piers. "Your house, isn't it?"
"Sure is! Is he going to win?"
"Not a chance. Keep an eye on his left shoulder." said Sito.
---
They came out into the middle and circled.
Valor held his sword loose in his right hand. The Bekker knight was a head taller than him, heavy in the shoulders, with a longer reach and a blade to match.
"Why's the little one not moving?" said Maud.
"He's waiting," said Sito.
"For what?"
"For that."
The Bekker knight's left shoulder dropped. It was a tiny movement, the kind of thing you would not see at all unless somebody had told you to look for it.
And Valor was gone.
There was a sound like a whip cracking, and a flash of white along the edge of his sword, and the air where he had been standing smelled suddenly, sharply, of a summer storm.
He had crossed the gap before the Bekker knight's blade had even come up to the top of its swing.
He came in underneath it and put the flat of his sword against the man's ribs, and the lightning that had been running along his blade jumped the last inch and snapped.
The Bekker knight's arms went rigid. The overhead never came down.
The marshal's flag did.
The whole ducal stand came up on its feet. Piers, standing on the bench, was screaming so loudly that everyone in the three rows in front of them turned around to look.
"HE WAS SO FAST—"
"He's always that fast," said Sito.
"—he went CRACK and then he was just THERE—"
"Your knight lost, Piers," said Maud.
"I DON'T CARE," said Piers, and went on screaming.
Aldous Coldren had not stood up.
He was sitting very still on the end of the bench with his hands folded in his lap, and he was looking at Sito.
"You said watch his left shoulder."
"I did."
"And then his left shoulder dropped. And your friend won the bout."
"Valor's quick."
"That's not what I'm asking." Aldous's voice was quiet and perfectly polite. "You knew it would drop."
"I watched him warm up yesterday," said Sito. "He does it before every overhead."
"You watched a knight warm up for one afternoon," said Aldous, "and you noticed a thing his own trainers didn't."
"Maybe they noticed. Maybe he just can't fix it."
Aldous considered that for a moment.
"Maybe," he said, and looked back at the arena.
---
Raymond came out for the fourth bout to a noise from the Machin section of the stand so loud it drowned out the marshal.
Isolde was on her feet with both fists in the air.
"RAYMOND! RAYMOND MACHIN! THAT'S MY BROTHER!"
"Everyone knows it's your brother, Isolde," said Rachel.
"I'M TELLING THEM ANYWAY!"
His opponent was a Coldren knight in grey. Older, broad and patient, with the look of a man who had been fighting in tournaments since before Raymond was born.
Aldous sat forward very slightly.
"Your house?" said Sito.
"My father's champion." Aldous did not take his eyes off the ring. "He's won two other combat tournaments."
"He won't today."
Aldous turned his head.
"How do you know?"
"Because training in the hundered is worth more than winning some tournaments twice."
"You can't know that."
"Watch."
---
Raymond came in on the first exchange exactly the way Raymond always did — with everything he had, direct, like a door coming off its hinges.
The Coldren knight did exactly what a patient old champion should do against a charge like that. He dropped his weight and set his feet to take it.
The sand under his boots went white.
It happened so fast that half the stand did not see it. There was a crackle, and a flat spreading sheet of frost across the ground in a circle around the Coldren knight, and when he set his back foot to brace against the impact, the foot kept going.
He went down on one knee and quickly raised a wall of earth to shield himself, but it was too late.
Raymond's blunted sword was resting on the back of his neck before the knee hit the ice.
The marshal looked at it for a second, processing how quickly everything just happened, then brought the flag down.
Isolde screamed so hard that she got lightheaded and had to sit down.
"Right again," said Aldous, very quietly.
Sito did not say anything.
"You knew he would win. A newly minted royal knight versus a two time tournament champion, and you knew."
"I just got lucky."
"Lucky? You've been right about every single bout you've called today," he said. "All three of them."
"It's two."
"It's three," said Aldous. "You called the Brewer and Machin one from the box before you came down. I could see your mouth move."
Sito looked at him.
Aldous Coldren looked back and then smiled for the first time since Sito had met him.
"It's all right," said Aldous. "I won't say anything. I just like to know things."
---
He called four more before the end of the day, because the others kept asking him to.
Piers begged him each time. Isolde made him say whether each knight was as good as Raymond, and used it as an excuse to scoot closer to him until they were touching. Rachel noticed immediately and scooted over until they were sandwiching him between eachother.
Beatrice said nothing, and stared at his face and arms every time Rachel stood up to cheer, and looked away each time Rachel sat down.
Edric sat on the far end of the row and watched Sito be right, bout after bout, and his jaw got tighter each time.
"How do you know?" he said, finally, in the middle of the sixth.
"I watch a lot of fighting."
"I watch a lot of fighting."
"Then you'll get good at it," said Sito.
Edric did not seem to find that as encouraging as it had been meant to be.
---
The stands were emptying when Sito found the Old Master.
He was right at the top of the far stand, on the last bench under the wall, with nobody within twenty feet of him in any direction. He had been there all day. Sito had seen him from the box in the morning — a small brown shape with a cane across its knees — and had not seen him move once since.
"Master."
"Boy." The old man did not look round. "You were sent down from the box."
"Yes, Master."
"Because you opened your mouth."
"...yes, Master."
"Good. Your father has more sense than I credit him with." The mustache twitched. "Sit down."
Sito sat.
Below them the arena was being swept. Somebody was carrying off the marshal's flags. Down in the ring, the frost from Raymond's bout had left a pale circle in the sand that the sweepers were going around instead of through.
"Valor won his first in a single exchange," said the Old Master.
"He did."
"Did you tell him about the Bekker man's shoulder?"
Sito considered lying and decided there was no point.
"Yes, Master."
"Hmph. I would have let him find it for himself." The cane tapped once on the bench. "He would have found it in the third exchange, and he would have remembered it for the rest of his life, and instead he found it because a nine-year-old told him the night before, and he will forget it by the summer."
"Sorry, Master."
"You are not sorry. You wanted him to win."
"I wanted him to win," Sito admitted.
The Old Master was quiet for a while.
"Both of them are through to tomorrow," he said at last.
"Yes, Master."
"If they each win in the morning, they will meet in the final. My two. In front of all of that." He tipped his head very slightly at the emptying stands. "It would be the first time since I have run that ground that two of mine met for the crown of it."
"Would you mind?"
"I would mind a great deal," said the Old Master. "I would have to watch it, and I would not be allowed to hit either of them with a stick when they did something stupid."
Sito laughed.
"This is theatre, boy. You understand that. A fight with a man standing by to stop it and a crowd to cheer when it's done." He leaned both hands on the head of his cane. "It is fine theatre. My two are very good at theatre. And I would rather they were good at it than not, because men who are good at theatre are usually good at the other thing as well."
"And the other thing?"
"The other thing," said the Old Master, "does not have a marshal."
He stood, slowly, and settled the cane under his hand.
"Go to supper. And tomorrow, if your father sends you down to the children again, keep your mouth shut when the thin Coldren boy is sitting next to you."
Sito looked up.
"You saw that?"
"I see everything in my arena, boy," said the Old Master. "I have been sitting up here all day for exactly that reason. The Coldren boy has been watching you since the first bell. He watches the way I watch." He started down the steps. "That is a very unusual thing in a child, and if I were you I would not give him anything else to watch."