Gods' Gaze

6.

Pethens, Year 348

Dracus Caesius Uranus dropped his sack from the top of the kudzu-covered bailey surrounding the Imperial Palazzo.

Reaching for the holes in bricks with a precision that came with practice, he climbed down like a gecko. As he landed on the mushy soil, he swung up his sack, slinging it across the shoulder. Squatting behind a shrub of his mother's favorite hydrangeas, he dusted off his hand. Eyes up at the walls, sullen in the bath of moonlight, he frowned, his fingers splaying upon the brick under a large kudzu leaf. If everything went as planned, he wouldn't see these walls again for quite some time. He plucked the leaf off its vine and tucked it in his sack. The plain silk of his tunic rustled as he advanced.

A few turns into a bending ally, he descended flights of slippery stairs coated with moss. His slender shadow shifted about while his feet quickened, taking him to the main road.

A wagon screeched by, and a bulky man bellowed, "Watch it, boy!"

Dracus dodged aside, his back clinging to a slimy wall.

No one took him as a first-class citizen once he stepped outside the Palazzo. While he wouldn't deny rejoicing in the look on their faces when he was cornered to brandish his citizenship amulet, he dissimulated his status on most occasions. Like a hissing torch that kept the darkness at bay, the amulet radiated protection as if a rune. But only when he dimmed the light of that protection could his eyes grow used to the dark and see the world as it was, as it always had been.

Close to the outer ring of the city, near the magnificent double-lined ramparts impregnable on all sides, Dracus boarded the last wagon plying south. He took a seat in the corner near the rear. Through the horsehide drapes hanging on the back, he mused on the grandeur of Pethens, the Garden Capital, wondering if he had taken it all for granted.

Wheels creaked as the wagon wobbled into motion. Once it had crossed the wide moat at the base between the double ramparts, it squeaked to a halt.

A guard raised a firebrand, poking his head through the horsehides. Dracus hid his face behind a palm, pretending to have dozed off.

"Clear!" the guard croaked. The orange glow of his firebrand faded away as he turned on his heel.

The draft horses resumed clopping, and the wagon its high-pitched moan, rocking everyone onboard with it.

Dracus glimpsed over his shoulder.

Through the snaking gap between the horsehide, the city that had been his home for the last thirteen years shrank in size with the growing distance.

"Are you going to see the tournaments in Volos?" asked a man sitting nearby in the dark, his gruff voice grating on top of the creaking wheels.

"Aye," answered a different voice.

"I've heard the League had groomed some real tough pugilists as candidates for the Favorite."

"Which house will be naming the Favorite this year?" asked the third man.

"The Gaius. Fuck sake, are you even from here?" the first one chided him in his gruff voice.

Hissing with a stiff laugh, the third man scratched his pate. "Who you think you'll bet on?" he changed the subject.

"Of course the Favorite," the gruff voice replied with a pfft. "You?" He turned to the second man.

Who hesitated, observing at length, "I wouldn't be too sure. You make what? Two silver pieces at most on every win when you bet on the Favorite, and you give them all back to the Scipios by spending more on their ales! Where's the sense in that?"

"Only idiots bet against the Favorite!" the gruff voice wretchedly defended himself. "When you bet against the Favorite, you're against the Triumvirate! And the Praetorship! When was the last time the Underdog beats the Favorite? Our only chance at winning at all is to bet on the Praetor and the triumviri! Not against them! A small win, alas! But a win still, eh?"

Engrossed in thoughts, Dracus narrowed his gaze. Since his stepfather took over, declaring himself the Praetor Magnum, he appointed Remus Scipio, Luke Legidus, and Augustus Gaius, his most invaluable subordinates, as the triumviri. Their clans form the Triumvirate, each of which controlled information and entertainment, gold and mining, engineering and buildings, respectively.

Held by the Scipios, the game, or the Pyrrhic Battle, ran year-long, consisting of seasonal tournaments held in Volos and the annual finals in Pethens. The games kept men, such as those sharing the wagon, distracted from their own miseries. As they gathered bingeing on rip-off ales to vent out nameless rage, they gambled away their scanty savings either on a pugilist owned by the Scipios' Leagues, or an outlier convinced of his shot at freedom as a debtor or a slave.

While desperation has indeed rendered the latter dangerous, they were more liable, and whose liability had the lure of a much higher return. Even years of long odds showed the outliers seldom walked out of the battle ring alive, a procession of fools bet on them without hedges. When their last silver pieces jingled out of their slippery hands, they signed themselves up as an outlier to fight in the tournaments, hoping for an unlikely miracle to pay off their debts. Their hope sealed their fate, and while their deaths promised to break more men just like them, the self-reinforcing cycle paved the floor of Pethenian courtyards with gold. But if death shall count as a way out of debt or to emancipation, perhaps everyone did get their wishes.

Dracus sneered.

"Now here is what I don't understand," said the third man, who had kept quiet since he last spoke. "I get the parts where pugilists fight pugilists and outliers against outliers. But why would they pit an outlier against a pugilist in the final?"

"Because our Praetor Magnum has a big heart!" the gruff voice asserted matter-of-factly. "He wants us to have a chance! All of us! Even slaves and debtors and ex-cons can prove themselves worthy!"

"Worthy how?" the third man demurred, his voice trailing off to the creaking wheels. "If they could win, perhaps. But they all died, no?"

Dracus pursed his lips, brooding over how often was the case that truth lay in the hand of those who raised what sounded like stupid questions. He lifted a corner of the horsehide. While the ramparts of Pethens had reduced to pea size, its gravitas stalked still. He pulled his sack to the front, his arms clasping around it. Carried by the soporific rhythm of the wagon motioning ahead, he leaned to the teak cage and dozed off.