Tournament of Losers (14 page)

Eventually the woman who'd given him food returned, saw the boy had lingered, and dragged him off by the ear, blistering it the whole time. Grinning, Rath finally finished off the last couple bites of his food and drained his wine. He definitely preferred red wine. Not that he should have a preference; he needed to stop letting Tress spoil him.

Rath stood and carried his dishes over to a group of people standing by wash bins, thanking them as they took them. Going over to the edge of tent, he stared at the milling crowds eating and drinking and playing games while they waited for the competitors to return. He could see Sorrith among them, the purple robes hard to miss, even if he was blurry. Rath watched him walk a bit, pause to talk, walk some more, pause to talk, slowly working his way to the top where a guard let him through the silk screen that cloaked the royal box.

Rath stared at it, a blur of color hiding an outcome too wild for him to believe it could actually happen. An outcome he should be running from. That he wanted to run from.

Except he'd had the chance to do exactly that, and instead he'd remained.

Because he was an idiot who wanted to die, apparently. He probably wouldn't even make it to the city gates before somebody dragged him into a dark corner to strangle him. Rath turned away from the colorful blur of spectators and tried to figure out how he was going to waste a few more hours of time.

Except in the next moment the trumpets sounded, hailing the return of… A lot of people. He glimpsed Kelni in the crowd, so this group must be part of the barons' challenges. He lingered at the edge of the tent to watch as they all approached the stage and one-by-one, climbed it to present something to the clerk behind the table. Most of them looked wet, a few muddy, as they came trudging over to the tables.

Kelni slowed as she saw him, dismay filling her face. "Did you lose your challenge?"

"What—um, no." Rath scratched his nose. "I won it, actually. I'm waiting for everyone else to finish."

"You have to tell me more!" she said and dragged him over to a table, where he somehow wound up wedged between her and another woman, surrounded by a sea of faces familiar and not, and was offered more sticky-sweet wine that he really shouldn't drink.

Rath drank it anyway. "Why are all of you wet and muddy?

"The challenge was retrieving some funny blue stones from a small lake in the woods," Kelni grumbled.

"But what if someone doesn't know how to swim?" Rath asked.

Another man shrugged. "It wasn't really much of a lake, more like an overblown pond, and most of it was really shallow. The deeper parts meant those of us who could swim didn't have to fight the crushes in the shallow portions, but that's about it."

"I collected seventeen," Kelni crowed. "Though if any of the other challenges involves climbing, I won't be so victorious. So how'd you win your challenge so fast?"

"I don't know," Rath said, but when that got him a sharp elbow to the ribs, he grudgingly told the story—and got the predicted gales of laughter and swats to his arms and backs.

Kelni shook her head. "Wish I'd seen that. I—" She broke off as the horns sounded again, similar to the way they'd sounded when Rath had been declared a victor. He stood up and strode to the edge of tent, not remotely surprised to see Jessa returning to the stage.

A few minutes later, the victory call spilled across the field, along with more cheering, and shortly after that, Jessa strutted across the field to the tent like ultimate victory was already assured. Which, whatever Tress insisted, it probably was.

Rath was more confounded than ever that anybody thought it necessary to beat him up. "Well met," he said as Jessa drew close and offered a hand.

"How did you finish so quickly?" Jessa demanded. "What did you do?"

"Worked the docks," Rath snapped, withdrawing his hand and turning around—

Jessa grabbed him and yanked him back. "Tell me what you did!"

"If you do not let me go, I will start a fight, and we'll both be disqualified," Rath said in the low, but icy tone he'd mastered taking care of customers who couldn't figure out that he was allowed to say no and money didn't mean they could always do whatever they wanted.

Jessa sneered. "You'll be thrown out for starting a fight, but I won't for defending myself."

"Just who is grabbing who right now?" Kelni countered. "Lots of folks here saw that you were the one to start the trouble. Rath tried to walk away, even."

Jessa muttered curses but let him go. "Tell me how you did it."

"I told you: I worked the docks. There's also the fact I'm
poor
. We tend to pay attention to things like how much food costs."

Jessa glared so hard, Rath could practically feel him vibrating with the effort it took not to haul back and knock Rath off his feet. Not that he actually thought someone as soft as Jessa could hit that hard. "There is no way just working the docks taught you all that."

Rath shrugged. "I work around those merchants and butchers and bakers all day, almost every day. If I wasn't emptying the ships or fetching livestock or grain or whatall from their warehouses, then I was delivering it to their customers. A penny and a half a day, sometimes two, to haul grain and butchered meat and barrels of wine and ale, carts of cheese and bread. Nobody pays any mind to the stupid louts moving the goods, but we have eyes and ears the same as anyone. That's how I did it."

Swearing again, glaring at him with a look so hateful Rath reared back, Jessa stormed off toward the buffet tables that had been set out while Rath was being chattered at.

"Charming," Kelni said. "Who or what is he?"

"A merchant's son, if I had to guess. Most of 'em live in Low City, the same as the rest of us, but they act like they're High City. We call them propers."

Kelni laughed. "We call people who act like that 'city'."

"That's harsh," Rath replied with a grin. He glanced toward Jessa again, and the smile faded, Friar's warning clanging in his head. He should probably find out who exactly Jessa was, and who his family was in bed with. Might slightly improve his chance of not winding up dead.

Or he could have quit the damned tournament like somebody with half a brain. Whatever. He would just lie low, be extra careful, and he'd probably lose the next challenge.

"You look like you could use some more wine," Kelni said. "Come on. I certainly deserve all the free wine I can get after jumping into a lake fully dressed and slogging back here wet and muddy. Shopping sounds like a much better challenge, especially when you're all Master Fancy and didn't even have to leave the stage to win."

Rath pinched his eyes shut, which made Kelni laugh. "Wine is definitely sounding like a better and better idea."

Hooking their arms together, Kelni dragged him over to the buffet tables for wine and more sweets than Rath had ever seen.

Hopefully, they weren't the last sweets he'd get to enjoy.

He made it back home without incident, but only because he was surrounded by people who wouldn't stop talking to him for most of it. People who kept asking him questions, demanding, some politely, some not, that he recount the story of how he'd won the challenge.

On the other hand, several people had been more than happy to tell what they knew about Jessa, whose grandfather had come into some unexpected money and bought a bookshop, which automatically moved them up in society. If rumors were to be trusted at all, they were eager to keep moving up. A few said they were petitioning to change their family name, but everyone knew that sort of thing took centuries and wasn't worth the effort.

Rath thought a bookshop sounded like a wonderful life. Good money, interesting work, and there were always people who needed books and not a whole lot of bookshops, so above all, it was
secure
work. Who'd want to throw that away on the extremely small chance that a better job could be had? He'd take secure and interesting any day.

People finally parted ways and left him alone as they passed through the city gates, and Rath practically ran the rest of the way home.

Only to be stopped at the door by Anta, who held out a small slip of expensive paper. "Girl left this for you."

"Do I owe you anything for it?"

She shook her head. "No, she said she'd already been paid. I hope nothing is wrong. You've been gone so much lately, and half the time you come back in a sorry state." She planted her hands on her hips and gave him a worried, faintly disapproving look. "What's going on, Rath?"

"Nothing, I promise. I'm just unexpectedly still in the tournament and seem to have acquired a lover, and when those two things aren't occupying my time, I'm busy looking for work."

"Oh, I see." The frown turned into a smile. "A lover, huh? Who managed to turn your head?"

"Just a proper who's taken a passing fancy," Rath said, heart thud-thudding. He'd never mentioned the affair to anyone, his feelings entirely too jumbled and complicated. "For being a proper, he's not all bad. Obviously. Um." He looked down at the note as Anta laughed at him, unfolded it, and frowned in concentration as he slowly read it.

Meet me by the common bridge by closing bell. If you can't, find me at the Harp.

Rath smiled. He should just have enough time to get to the bridge.

A soft chuckle drew his attention. "Oh, the note is from the lover."

Rath laughed sheepishly, ran a hand through his hair. "Yes, and I have to go. See you later, Anta."

"Get along, then," she said with another laugh, shaking her head as he darted off.

His heart kept pounding rapidly in his chest, torn between the thrill of seeing Tress and the dread of what might happen to him along the way.

If there were people waiting to attack him, they'd not yet managed to catch up to him, because he made it to the bridge unhindered. And there was Tress, dressed in dark green and scarlet, long, heavy hair held back with a wide band of red fabric embroidered with green and gold. He looked so glaringly High City, Rath would normally have rolled his eyes.

That, however, would have required he stop staring, and that was definitely not something he was capable of doing.

He was a fucking fool, because even if Tress didn't grow bored and move on, their relationship still had a definite, unavoidable end. He should have held firm after driving Tress away.

Not a bit of that common sense held strong as he reached Tress and was drawn in close for a brief kiss. "Hello, Royal Competitor."

Rath wrinkled his nose. "Don't call me that."

Tress's grin just widened. "Oh, no, you don't get to say that. You said you were going to quit, and here you are still in the tournament."

"I
tried
to quit. Usually being rude to important people is a good way to get thrown out of anything. How was I supposed to know he was the only powerful figure in existence who wouldn't punish me for it?"

"I'm pretty sure he's always been considered eccentric," Tress said. "He's in charge of the kingdom's finances and loves numbers more than anything else in the world. The way you rattled them off like that—"

"You
were
there!" Rath said, brightening. "I looked for you, but I didn't see you anywhere."

Tress rolled his eyes. "Of course I was there. Even if I didn't want to attend, my father would drag me there on pain of
or else
, which is vastly more ominous a threat than death. I prefer to stay out of sight, though. I'm enough of a recluse that most people wouldn't recognize me, but there's always someone who does, and then I get stuck socializing incessantly." He grinned. "Can't have that when there is something else I'd much rather be doing."

"You're a spoiled brat," Rath replied, fingers moving over the soft material of Tress's utterly ridiculous jacket. It must have cost at least a mark, with all that embroidery. He couldn't stop touching it, wanted to roll around on a bed covered in it. "What in the Fates are you wearing?"

"A weakness to be exploited, clearly," Tress said with a chuckle, capturing his hands and lifting them to kiss Rath's fingers. He smiled happily, as free and open as only children and spoiled idiots could be, but Rath was incapable of not smiling back, which just made Tress smile more. "It's called velvet, and it has to do with something I wanted to ask you. Would you be willing to go along with me on an adventure this evening? I brought you a change of clothes if you didn't want to risk mussing those, since I know you've another challenge tomorrow and do not have several scores of servants to wash and repair everything."

Rath rolled his eyes, but his smile never faltered. "Yes, only one score of servants for poor me. What sort of adventure?"

"A small house party."

"Small house party," Rath repeated. "You're not supposed to be spending time with me, and you want to go to a house party?"

"That won't be a problem," Tress said with a mischievous little smile. "So will you come?"

"When you say small, do you mean my idea of small or your idea of small?" Rath asked, because he had a sneaking suspicion they were not going to agree on what that word meant.

Tress seemed to realize the same. "Umm… not more than two hundred."

"No," Rath replied, recoiling. "I don't know how to do any of that sort of dancing and whatever else you do. That's for
your
lot."

"And
your
lot if you win the tournament," Tress snapped. "We're not all evil and lazy and useless. You spend your nights drinking at the bar. We have parties. It's not that much different. But fine, forget it, we can do something else." He bent and picked up the satchel that had been resting against his legs and swung it over his shoulder, face expressionless save for the tightness around his mouth. He didn't quite look at Rath as they started walking. "What would you like to do? We could grab a bite to eat at a pub or rent a room for the night and eat in."

Rath tamped down on his racing nerves. If he could yell at the Master of the Treasury on stage in front of everyone then he could suffer through a party for a few hours. "Well, we're going to need to rent a room anyway, because I'm not changing my clothes here on the street."