Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

A day later I heard report of a terrible fire on the Street of Nails. A house burned to ash with not a single survivor. Even today the site lies vacant, with nobody willing to build there again.

The walls of the Blood Holes were blessedly free of any decoration save perhaps the scratched names of temporary lovers here and there where a buttress provided shelter for such work. I cursed myself for a fool and led on through the doors.

The Terrif brothers who ran the Blood Holes had sent a wagon to collect Snorri from the Marsail keep earlier in the day. I’d been particular in the message I dispatched, warning them to take considerable care with the man and demanding assurances of a thousand in crown gold if they failed to ensure his attendance in the Crimson Pit for the first bout.

Flanked by my entourage I strode into the Blood Holes, enveloped immediately in the sweat and smoke and stink and din of the place. Damn, but I loved it there. Silk-clad nobles strolled around the fight floor, each an island of colour and sophistication, close pressed by companions, then a ragged halo of hangers-on, hawkers, beer-men, poppy-men and brazens, and at the periphery, urchins ready to scurry between one gentleman and the next bearing messages by mouth or hand. The bet-takers, each sanctioned and approved by the Terrifs, stood at their stalls around the edge of the hall, odds listed in chalk, boys ready to collect or deliver at the run.

The four main pits lay at the vertices of a great diamond, red-tiled into the floor. Scarlet, Umber, Ochre, and Crimson. All of a likeness, twenty foot deep, twenty foot across, but with Crimson first amongst equals. The nobility wound their way between these and the lesser pits, peering down, discussing the fighters on display, the odds on offer. A sturdy wooden rail surrounded each pit, set into a timber apron that overlapped the stonework, reaching a yard down into the depression. I led the way to Crimson and leaned over, the rail hard against my midriff. Snorri ver Snagason glowered up at me.

“Fresh meat here!” I raised my hand, still staring down at my meal ticket. “Who’ll take a cut?”

Two small olive hands slid out over the rail beside me. “I believe I will. I feel you owe me a cut, or two, Prince Jalan.”

Aw hell. “Maeres, how good to see you.” To my credit I kept the blind terror from my reply and didn’t soil myself. Maeres Allus had the calm and reasonable voice that a scribe or tutor should have. The fact that he liked to watch when his collectors cut the lips off a man turned that reasonable tone from a comfort to a horror.

“He’s a big fellow,” Maeres said.

“Yes.” I glanced around wildly for my friends. All of them, even the two old veterans picked specially by my father to guard me, had slunk off towards Umber without a word and let Maeres Allus slide up beside me unannounced. Only Omar had the grace to look guilty.

“How would he fare against Lord Gren’s man, Norras, do you think?” Maeres asked.

Norras was a skilled pugilist, but I thought Snorri would pound the man flat. I could see Gren’s fighter now, standing behind the barred gate opposite the one that Snorri had come through.

“Shouldn’t we call the fight? Get the odds set?” I shot Barras Jon a look and called out to him, “Norras against my fresh meat? What numbers there?”

Maeres set a soft hand to my arm. “Time enough for wagering when the man’s been tested, no?”

“B-but he might come to harm,” I flustered. “I plan to make good coin here, Maeres, pay you back with interest.” My finger ached. The one Maeres had broken when I came up short two months back.

“Indulge me,” he said. “That will be my interest. I’ll cover any losses. A man like that . . . he might be worth three hundred crowns.”

I saw his game then. Three hundred was just half what I owed him. The bastard meant to see Snorri die and keep a royal prince on his leash. There didn’t seem to be a way past it, though. You don’t argue with Maeres Allus, certainly not in his cousins’ fight hall and owing him the best part of a thousand in gold. Maeres knew how far he could push me, minor princeling or not. He’d seen past my bluster to what lies beneath. You don’t get to head an organization like Maeres’s without being a good judge of men.

“Three hundred if he’s not fit to fight wagered bouts tonight?” I could slip back after Father’s ridiculous opera and buy into the serious fights. This afternoon’s exercise had only ever been intended to whet appetites and stir up interest.

Maeres didn’t answer, only clapped his soft hands and had the pit guards raise the opposite gate. At the sound of iron grating on stone and chains ratcheting through their housings, the crowds came to the rail, drawn by the pull of the pit.