Tournament of Losers (3 page)

Rath woke up sore and still exhausted. He could hear the cry of vendors and shopkeeps outside, the bustle of shoppers, which meant it was well into morning. He groaned as he sat up, wincing at every ache and pain that made itself known.

Last night hadn't been bad as such things went, but he was in no hurry to repeat the venture. At least the group of five lords and ladies had been so pleased they'd left him a full mark tip in addition to the two marks they paid to the house for his services. That was two marks in total for him—a year's worth of wages in one night.

Whoring didn't usually bring in money that good, but between the group service and the fact they were from out of town… Well, one of the reasons he'd become a whore was the money. If not for his father, he'd have been living a lot better than he did.

So two marks down, thirteen to go. If he got another couple of good nights in the brothel, he'd be sure to pull in another mark, possibly two if the Fates would just once show him favor. Add in some purse lifting and turning a few tricks in the streets, and he might be able to pull together five marks. That would hopefully be enough to convince Friar to feel like being generous and give him more time to come up with the rest.

He finally climbed out of bed and walked stiffly across the room to the wash tub someone had been kind enough to leave. The water was warm, not hot, but he wasn't picky. Scrubbing away the mess left by his night, he rubbed a salve into the worst of his bruises and other sore spots. Pulling open the wardrobe, he pulled out the clothes he'd stowed there. He paused as he pulled on his jacket, took it off again, and looked at the worn elbow. Smiled when he saw someone had patched it for him. Looking again, he saw that someone in the brothel had, in fact, cleaned and repaired all his clothes. Probably the cleaning staff, they'd always been kind to him when he'd worked there.

Somewhat cheered about the day ahead, he pulled his jacket back on, ran a comb through his hair, and tucked away the mark his clients had left him as he hastened down to the kitchen by way of the back stairs. "Good morning!" he greeted Bettina, the house cook.

She didn't leave the pot she was stirring, but did look up briefly to smile at him. "There's food on the table for ye."

"You're the best." He sat at the nearest bench and quickly wolfed down the plate of bread with butter and honey, left over bits of cheese, even some slices of tart apple. Someone thunked a mug of ale down in front of him, and he looked up at a smiling Trinira. "Morning."

"Morning, handsome. You must have done a lot right because I rarely get personal thanks from that sort. They paid their balance without even a breath of hesitation." She slid his earnings across the table. He picked them up and tucked them away with his other mark. "You ever want steady work here again, you know it's yours. Coming back tonight?"

He nodded, gulped down the ale. "Yes, since you're so willing. I appreciate it, Trin."

She scoffed at him and drank her own ale. "So I think I might know a way you could earn ten marks, either today or tomorrow, depending."

"I doubt I'm physically capable of something that would earn that much money in two days. I barely made it through all of last night."

Laughing, Trinira playfully slapped his arm. "I think you're underestimating yourself. Lucky for you, though, I wasn't talking about sex when I said I had an idea. I was talking about the Tournament of Losers."

He paused with a last bit of apple halfway to his mouth. "Fates, no. You can't be serious. I want no part of that stupid thing."

"Serious as a priest on prayer day," Trin drawled. "Think about it, darling. You could get through the elimination round easy enough, which puts you in the second round. Everyone who makes it to the second round is given ten marks to cover living expenses while they're competing and unable to work."

Rath opened his mouth, closed it again, then finally ate the bit of apple. "I think you're overestimating my skills, and the first bout of the elimination round is a melee, which is as much luck as skill. I could get my head caved in and come away with nothing but more debts I can't cover."

She shrugged. "If you don't try, you'll never get the money in time, and word on the street is that Friar is out for blood and not feeling terribly inclined toward mercy."

"I see," Rath said and swore softly before finishing off the last few bites of his meal. There went any hope of convincing Friar to give him more time. Ugh, he was going to kill his father three times over for forcing him to get involved in something as stupid as the tournament. "Guess I'd better get to work, then."

Trin stood up with him, caught his arm. "Rath, I don't want you to come to a bad end, especially at Friar's hand, because your father is a fool. Try the tournament; I still think you'd be fine. That's ten slick, and I'll see to it you've got the remaining balance. You can pay me back at easier length. I know you're good for it."

Good to repay three slick, but not thirteen. But Rath couldn't really resent that, given how quickly he lost money because of his father. "I'll do my best not to need that. Guess I'd better give that stupid tournament a try." He groaned at the thought. "I think I'd rather just do group work for a week straight. I swear that would be less exhausting and painful. Not to mention less humiliating."

"Only you would think being a fuck toy is less humiliating than trying to marry into a better life." Trin shook her head. "Get the money and get out. It won't cost you more than a day, two at the most."

Rath sighed, but nodded. "Thanks for all your help, Trin." He kissed her cheek, then left out the back door, slipping through various rank-smelling alleyways until he came out on Baker's Row, where he could cut more easily up to the bridges, taking smaller roads that wouldn't be congested with visitors.

All the while, he tried to come up with some other means—any other means—that did not entail entering the stupid Tournament of Losers. Not that it really mattered in the end, because as Trin had said, it would only cost him an afternoon or two.

But it was the principle of the matter. The tournament was a bard's song, fool's gold. Rath might not have much sense, but he had enough to avoid participating in a spectacle put on for the masses to abide by the letter of the law. Like every other time before, the nobles had probably long ago selected and groomed suitable candidates. If the nobles hadn't already started cheating, they would soon, beginning with bribing tournament officials to ensure their pre-selected candidates made it through the preliminaries, or to learn ahead of time what the challenges would be. If their candidates failed anyway, there would also be bribes to fix that. Cheating wasn't hard, merely expensive.

He was going to be harangued endlessly by everyone who knew him, but there was no help for it. His only other option for getting that kind of money that fast was providing cadavers to the strange trio that was always happy to pay generously for bodies and ask no questions about where they came from. What they did with the bodies, nobody had ever been brave enough to ask.

Rath had once helped a friend take his father's body to them after the man had dropped from too much booze and fighting. One of the most miserable nights of his life, though not as bad as it had been for his friend, who'd actually liked his father, but needed the money and was doing only what his father had ordered.

The horrible evening had earned Rath fifteen shillings, though. He hadn't needed to worry about money for three whole weeks. Then his father had turned up and ruined everything, but three weeks of peace was more than he usually got.

Giving up on finding alternate means of earning money fast, Rath tried to dredge up what he knew about the tournament. People had told him countless stories when he'd been young and stupid enough to be excited, to think he might be one of the lucky few to marry into a noble house,
or maybe, mama, I'll get to marry a prince or princess!

He winced at the memory, tried to think of something to banish it again. Like all the stories people had told him when he was older about how stupid and pointless the tournament truly was. Or the rules. Those would be useful to remember if he was actually going to do this.

Rules, rules, rules. Thousands always showed up to compete, and it would take far too long to give that many the full gauntlet of challenges. So over the course of a couple of days, five back when the tournament had been more popular, competitors were whittled down in two rounds.

The first round was the melee, a mad free-for-all dash across a specially built 'battlefield'. All competitors were given flags before the melee started, and the goal was to keep those flags while stealing them from everyone else. The more flags captured, the more likely a competitor was to go on to the next round. There was a record set, for some ridiculous amount, but Rath no longer remembered it.

The second round was dueling, something like best of five or whatnot. He didn't remember that, either. Once, he'd had
everything
memorized. The number of marriage slots, all the titles, the different kinds of challenges and the keys to success for each, the records set for all of them, on and on and on he'd gone. So much energy wasted on something so stupid.

All he remembered now was that there were seventy-seven noble houses, plus the royal family, which meant seventy-eight marriage slots. Six duchies, seventeen earldoms, and fifty-four baronies. Approximately five thousand people, give or take a grand, would be showing up to compete for a chance. All but five hundred of them would be whittled out in the first two days, and that wasn't counting the ones who weren't approved for competition.

Because to participate at all, the competitor must be: Between the ages of twenty and forty. Have no trace of noble lineage for at least seven generations. Must not have family that won the previous tournament. No arrests within the last three years and absolutely no convictions of major crimes, which were rape, murder, grand theft, and arson.

That eliminated plenty, but still left a surplus of options.

What the melee didn't take care of, the duels did, reducing the final number of contestants to five hundred. After that came the sorting round, where the five hundred were sorted into who would compete to marry the royal family, the dukes, the earls, and the barons. After that came the final round, months of absurd, arbitrary challenges meant to prove that the pathetic little peasants were fit to become hoity-toities.

Rath would much rather do anything else, but he'd faced worse. He could endure the stupid tournament long enough to earn ten slick.

"Raaaaath!"

He stopped and turned around as Toph came barreling at him, because Toph had somehow never learned to simply
walk
anywhere. He oofed when Toph slammed into him and hugged him tight. "Morning, Toph."

"Where have you
been?
I waited at the pub for you to show! All night!"

Rath groaned. "I'm sorry, Toph. I've been busy cleaning up my father's latest mess. Spent the whole night working at Trin's. I totally forgot."

Toph wrinkled his nose. "Your dad again? Haven't you put him in the harbor or sold his body yet?"

"Everyone keeps suggesting that second one. I'm somewhat alarmed about the company I keep."

"Like you're company to be going on about," Toph retorted cheerfully, linking their arms as they resumed walking. "So where you headed now? Got time for a pint?"

"Maybe later. I'm, uh—" Rath wrinkled his face, then sighed. "I'm still ten slick short."

"Holy Fates!" Toph said. "What in the name of Belna's balls did he do this time?"

Heaving another sigh, Rath told him. By the end, poor Toph looked so stressed on his behalf, Rath would have bought him a drink if he hadn't needed to focus on what he was doing. "Come on, stand in line with me, so I don't go mad or panic and dash at the last moment."

Toph shrugged. "I've never know you to dash from anything, but I've got nothing else to do until tonight. Got work at Wynri's place."

"Since when are you the pain sort?"

"Pain, no, but what's a little silk rope here and there? Oh, hang on, I'm hungry. You want something?"

Rath shook his head, laughing softly. "I never refuse food, but since when do you have money? Steal that from the constable, along with his wife's affections?"

"That woman only loves herself and has no interest in loving anyone else—it's my favorite thing about her," Toph said, then darted over to a nearby street vendor to cheerfully haggle for his lunch. He returned a few minutes later with steaming pies that smelled of chicken and gravy and good vegetables. "As to the coin," he said, when Rath gave him a suspicious look. "The others bet I'd end the night in the stocks and they'd have to come pay the bailiff to let me out in the morning. But I stayed the whole night free as a rat, and they all had to pay up."

Rath gave his head a playful shove. "The constable is still going to have your nethers for a coin purse when he finds you."

"Che," Toph said and wolfed down several bites of his pie, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before adding, "He's busy with all the out of town rabble, and by the time he can go back to dealing with local rabble, he'll be mad at the most recent stranger in his bed. He'll have forgotten all about me." A quick grin. "Again."

"You're playing with Fate," Rath replied. "Be careful or you'll wind up in a noose."

"I will, I will," Toph replied easily. He finished his pie and pulled out a tattered kerchief from one of his jacket pockets to clean his face and hands.

Rath finished his own and was clean and ready as they stepped onto the common bridge, threading carefully through the crush. He would have loved a chance to lift a few purses, but the congestion made it too dangerous. Easy pickings, but if they got caught, there was nowhere to run.

When they were finally through, he resisted the urge to check his own coin. Nothing drew a thief's eye faster than being told precisely where the money was kept. "I can't wait for this to be over. I've walked more in the past two days than I have the past two
weeks.
What's a person got to do to be left to honest labor and a pint or two at the end of the day?"