Court of Fives

So I snap at Maraya. “You just think if he gets a promotion and reward he will agree to you sitting for the Archives exam.”

She shrugs, my ill temper rolling right off her. “I like the thought of sorting through all those dusty old books looking for arcane references to ancient oracles.”

Amaya wilts against the couch, pressing a hand to the back of her forehead in a pose copied from the theater. “I would weep and wail every day if I had to suffer that. As I will for the next year if I can’t go tomorrow,” she adds threateningly. “Every day.”

“You couldn’t pass the exam anyway, Amiable,” says Maraya with one of her rare thrusts. Yet her gaze fixes on me. “What else do you suggest I do, Jes? No Patron man can marry me, not even if he is the lowliest baker’s son from a humble hill-country town back in Saro-Urok. Furthermore, Father cannot let any of us marry a Commoner. It would be illegal, even for us.”

“I don’t want to get married,” I say, crossing my arms. “I don’t want to live Mother’s life.”

“Don’t be selfish, Jes. Father would marry Mother if it weren’t against the law. Think of how much easier and more secure that would have made her life. So don’t sneer at her and the choices she’s made. We live because of her.”

I look at the ground, scraping a heel over the marble.

Maraya goes on in her relentlessly calm way. “I do not want to be trapped in this house for the rest of my life. My point is that if Father feels his position is strong enough despite his domestic arrangements, he’ll let me become an Archivist. So if you won’t do it for Mother and Father, then I pray you, do it for me.”

“I saved for a year to get enough coin to pay the entry fee for this week’s trials at the City Fives Court! I chose this week because none of us heard anything about Father coming back so soon. If I’m trapped on a balcony box the whole time, I can’t run. That’s a forfeit. I’ll lose my coin.”

Amaya throws her arms around me, burying her face on my shoulder, her voice all weepy. “We’ve never been invited to Lord Ottonor’s balcony before, Jes. Never. The other officers already look down on Father. This is his chance to shove us in their faces. Not that you care about that.”

I push her away and jump up to pace. Frustration burns right through me. “How do you think I feel, training for years without ever having a chance to actually compete in a real trial? I have run the Fives a hundred times—a thousand times!—on practice courts and in practice trials. Now my one chance to experience a real trial is ruined. My one chance!”

“Please, Jes. Please.”

The stars must hate me, having fallen out in this ill-omened way. I walk with Mother every week to the City of the Dead to make the family’s offerings to the oracles. Can the oracles read my angry thoughts, as rumor says they can? Is this their punishment for my not being content with my lot? For my not being a dutiful-enough daughter?

“It just isn’t fair! We have to pretend to be proper officer’s daughters even though no one will ever believe we are. It’s Father’s reputation we are protecting, not ours!”

Yet alongside my furious ranting, my mind races, assessing options, adapting to the way the situation has just changed. None of their arguments matter anyway. With Father in residence I have no hope of sneaking out when his aides and servants are looking for the slightest break in the strict routine they impose.

I circle back to the couch. “Very well. I’ll accompany you, if you’ll cover for me.”

Amaya grabs my wrist. “You can’t mean to sneak out of Lord Ottonor’s balcony to run under everyone’s noses! In front of Father! What if he recognizes you?”

“No one will recognize me, because Fives competitors wear masks. It’s just one run.”

Maraya pries Amaya’s fingers off my arm. “Jes is right. No one ever knows who adversaries are if they don’t win. It’s only when they get to be Challengers or Illustrious that people can tell who they are by the color of their tunic or by their tricks and flourishes. No one will guess it is Jes because they won’t think she’s out there.”

I grab Maraya and kiss her. “Yes! Here’s how we’ll do it. There’s bound to be small retiring rooms for the women at the back of the balcony. Mother won’t use the one assigned to her because she’ll think it her duty to remain out on the public balcony the entire time so everyone knows Father’s not ashamed of her. I can claim to have a headache and pretend to rest in the retiring room. Amaya just has to make sure no one goes back to see me.”