Capítulo 2: Chapter 2: Fifteen Slick, Part 2
He looked up at the cheerful voice and smiled at the man who came running toward him, shirt unlaced, breasts unbound, hair tumbling about his shoulders. "Did you get thrown out of some lady's room, to be running around half-dressed?" Rath asked and offered half of the honey-slathered bread he'd bought.
"Maybe," the man muttered and wolfed down the food. "Worth it, though. You should have seen her."
"Proper folk are nothing but trouble."
"Nobody this side of the channel is proper," the man replied with a leer.
"Toph!" a voice bellowed. "You get your ass back here now!"
Toph laughed. "Whoops, gotta go. See you later at the Blue?"
"Only if I don't have to pay your bail," Rath replied and handed over the hunk of cheese he'd bought before shoving Toph on his way. "Get going. The constable's wife, honestly, Toph."
Laughing, Toph darted in to kiss his cheek, then ran off just as a cluster of guards, led by a red-faced man with an enormous black mustache, drew close. The man bellowed and gave Rath a shove hard enough to send him sprawling on the muddy cobblestones, and then took off after Toph.
Picking himself up for the second time that morning, Rath brushed off what dirt he could as he once more headed for the bridge.
It was crowded, far more than was typical for the middle of the week, but the preliminary round of the Tournament of Losers was beginning soon. Hopefully Friar and the rest of the city's slush would be so busy terrorizing tourists that they'd leave the locals alone for a few months.
Rath pushed his way through a flock of fat swans who were bejeweled to the teeth: one quite literally; Rath did not understand noble fashion. He deftly relieved two of them of coin purses they were stupid enough to leave accessible. He shoved them away where he wouldn't lose them himselfand where a sharp-eyed guard wouldn't notice he had too many purses.
Across the bridge, he fell into the throng of an even greater crowd, mostly comprised of young, overeager fools who thought the Tournament of Losers offered a real chance at something better than their half-penny lives. Even walking as quickly as he could through the mess, Rath caught snatches of eagerly-spouted hopes and dreams. When I marry the prince, I'll buy my parents a proper house. Once I win the tournament, I'll see the whole village gets what it needs! I'll never have to worry about food and shelter again.
He went tumbling when a particularly rowdy group accidentally knocked into him. "Sorry!" one of the young women exclaimed, shoving back a strand of limp, red-brown hair that had fallen from her cap.
Rath grunted an acknowledgment, but didn't slow, though he did catch the eye of their tolerant, exhausted parents and share a look of commiseration. He could still remember being a boy excited that he would be of an age to participate in the Tournament, indignant at the way all the adults scathingly called it the Tournament of Losers when it deserved its proper name: the Tournament of Charlet.
So-called for Regent Charlet, who had saved the kingdom several centuries ago in the first years of Queen Bardol II. Between plague and civil war, the whole country had been falling apart. It had taken a stray peasant to rise up and set all to rights. A woman with whom the queen had fallen madly in love. Tradition had been established that every seventy-five years, at least one immediate member of the royal and noble families must marry a peasant to bring in fresh blood and new perspective that would keep them from falling into the same patterns and arrogance that had once nearly destroyed the kingdom.
The nobles had protested that simply letting anyone marry into their families would do more harm than good, and that certain traits and skills were necessary to properly fulfill the duties expected of them. The solution had been a tournament where candidates could prove their suitability. It had been named for Regent Charlet, who was responsible for the law and the devising of the tournament.
Over time, the tournament had devolved into a mess of fools competing in challenges for no damned reason, since the nobles had rapidly mastered the art of manipulating, bribing, and otherwise cheating. It was well known that the vast majority of the winners were always 'peasants' only in the barest, most laughable sense. From the stories Rath did remember, they were often extremely young children of merchants or shopkeeps, or more often, orphans then given to said merchants and shopkeeps, and trained up to the exact specifications of the nobles in question. No real commoner had won the past five tournaments, and there had only been nine tournaments total so far. This would be the tenth, and some said the last, that the nobles were pushing harder and harder to do away with the idiotic matter for the 'good of everyone'.
Thank the Fates he'd left all that nonsense behind and knew to avoid the whole bloody thing. Rath might not possess much sense, but he had enough.
Finally making it through the congestion at the heart of High City, he threaded through a bunch of small side streets until he reached a small building at the southeast side. It was a modest townhouse, respectable enough for High City, but only sufficiently so to live at its edges, three steps from tumbling back down to Low City. It was three stories, only leaned slightly against the house to the right of it, and always smelled fragrantly of the teashop on the first floor. So much nicer than living at the ass end of Butcher Street and all the lovely smells that came with.
To the right of the teashop was a coffeehouse, and to the left of it was a small spiceshop, giving the whole area the most wonderful aroma. It was the only part of visiting his mother that he ever enjoyed, other than, of course, visiting his mother. He ducked into the narrow alleyway between the tea and coffee shops, pitch black because the way the houses leaned against each other meant practically no light slipped through.
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