he was waiting for her reply. ‘After a suitable interval,’ she said, placing her hand in his. ‘Of course, my lord.’
For one short moment, she relived her triumph; then she was back, her body still placing one foot in front of the other, like a mind-controlled slave.
Every bit of exposed skin burned with a torment that had passed beyond pain long ago. It was so hard to think … So hard to remember who and what she was, and why she should keep fighting to stay alive.
I am Serina Daeth, daughter of – daughter of – Jared Daeth. Trainer of gladiators to Lord Dyran –
Little Serina perched on the edge of a bench high above the arena, up in the shadows where the lesser elves sat when the Lord entertained. The arena itself was not very large; it probably didn’t seat more than four or five hundred, and the floor, covered with soft sand, could not hold a combat involving more than four men. This was strictly a dueling arena, meant for challenge-combat and not much else. It was a sign of Lord Dyran’s wealth that he maintained his own arena. It was also a sign of the number of challenges he played host to; either his own, or those arranged for others. Like the other rooms of the manor, it was lit by day by a large, frosted-glass skylight. The seats immediately surrounding the combat area were covered in leather padding; those up here were simple wooden benches. Nevertheless, humans never took these seats when there was a real combat underway.
But the combat in the arena today was strictly for practice, though it was performed at full speed, and with real, edged weapons. Good weapons, too, straight from the Lord’s forges.
Jared had taken his daughter to see the forges today, as a part of her education in the reality of being bound to Lord Dyran, and she had been suitably impressed with the fires, the heat, the smoke, and the huge, brawny men and women who worked there. Most valuable of all of Lord Dyran’s slaves, the forge-workers received attention and reward even above a successful duelist.
‘We have a good lord,’ Jared had said in his stolid way. ‘Good work is rewarded. The Lord could ignore us, or treat us like cattle; many lords do. Just you remember that, girl. All benefit and all reward come from Lord Dyran.’
The iron from which steel blades were made had to be pure; it was smelted ten times to remove any contaminants before it underwent the final process of smelting with charcoal and air to make it into true steel. Then, when it had undergone that transmutation, the smiths took it and made it into the weapons for which Lord Dyran was famed. No few of the elven lords came to Lord Dyran for their weapons, or so Jared told his daughter.
For the fighters of the elven lords’ armies, they made fine swords, spear- and axe-heads, and tiny, razor-sharp arrowheads that could not be pulled from a wound, only cut out. For the duelists, however, the gladiators and other fighters, the weaponry was far different – weapons meant to wound rather than kill. Chain-flails, maces, short, broad knives, metal-barbed whips, tridents – all meant to prolong combat, all requiring great skill in the handling.
The two fighters in the arena now, practicing under her father’s careful eye, were armed with gladiatorial weapons. One had a trident, the other, a chain-flail; both were also armed with knives.
The exchange seemed to be an even one; the red-haired giant with the chain-flail managed to stay out of reach of the trident points, while the swarthy man with the trident avoided having his pole fouled by the chains of the flail. Serina watched them with wide eyes, remembering that she had seen one of the breeder women taken from the red-haired man’s cubicle this morning, her face a mass of bruises.
And she knew already that she was destined to serve these men, or others like them – unless she managed to save herself from that fate.
‘Your fate is in your own hands,’ Jared had said. ‘Always remember that, girl. Make it your first concern to please your Lord, because no one else can make any difference to you.’
The slave-master had already remarked to Ambra, her mother, just how fast she was growing, and how she was going to have to go into training soon. Serina knew what that training was for; Jared had explained it to her with blunt words; explained the difference between a concubine and a breeder. And he had hammered home the lesson that any change in her fate lay only in Lord Dyran’s hands and her own diligence.
She had seen already how true his words were. Only last year they had taken her older brother Tamar away, sold or given him to another elven lord who had admired his fragile grace. Her younger brother Kaeth was being trained now in the assassins’ school, taken there two weeks ago, when his agility had been uncovered during a foray on the Lord’s fruit trees.
She had cried when Kaeth left in the hands of his trainers, and her mother had taken her aside, into her own room, and sat her down on the edge of the bed; told her sternly to dry her tears. ‘The lords rule everything,’ Ambra had said, without pity, but with tears shining in her eyes, tears that Serina sensed she dared not shed. ‘We are fortunate in having a lord such as Lord Dyran to rule us. He rewards us well for good service; there are lords who reward no one and nothing, and punish as their whim leads them. If Kaeth does well, he will be rewarded. He deserved to be punished for stealing fruit, and instead he is being given a wonderful chance. He could have been killed out of hand. That is the difference between our Lord and others.’
‘But why?’ she had cried. ‘Why do they rule us? Who said they could? It isn’t fair!’
Another parent might have cuffed her; might have said: ‘Because that’s the way it is.’ But not Ambra.
‘They rule us because they are strong, and powerful, and they have magic,’ she said, and Serina sensed a resigned sadness in her words. ‘We are weak, and the gods gave us no magic at all. The lords live forever, and our lives are short. If we are to prosper, we must please the lords, for the gods love them, and despise us.’
‘But why?’ Serina had wailed.
Ambra only shook her head. ‘I do not know. There are those who say that the lords are the children of the gods; there are those who say the lords are demons, sent by the gods to punish or test us. I only know that those who please them live and are rewarded, and those who do not, die. It is up to Tamar and Kaeth now, to please their lords. As you must please Lord Dyran, and those he sets over you. Nothing else matters, and neither I, nor your father, nor your kin or friends can help you. They can only hinder you. If you would rise, you must do so alone.’
Serina remembered that, and remembered the glimpse she’d had of Lord Dyran this afternoon, when he had come to see how the training of his fighters was progressing. She’d watched as her proud, stern father bent until his forehead touched the ground; how the other fighters had knelt in obeisance. And how Lord Dyran had seemed a creature out of a tale; tall, haughty, clothed from head to toe in cream-and-gold satin, and cream-colored leather, so supple and soft-looking that Serina had longed to touch it. How he seemed to shine, taking in the light of the sun and sending it back out redoubled. He was so beautiful he made her breath catch, and she had thought, He must be a child of the gods … And the woman with him, like a jewel herself, made Serina ache with envy. The woman was clothed in the softest silks Serina had ever seen, and laden with a fortune in gold chains. Gold chains formed the cap that crowned her golden hair, gold chains depended from the cap and flowed down her back, golden chains circled her neck and arms, and held her cream-colored dress closely to her body at the waist. She was magnificent, nearly as beautiful as the elven lord beside her, and Serina wanted to be wearing that dress, standing in her place.
She recalled how Lord Dyran had taken an imperfectly made sword that her father had brought to him in complaint, and bent it double, then
