A moment of silence, then a roar went up that hurt my ears. Half delight, half outrage. Betting parchments flew, coins changed hands, all informal wagers made in the moment.

“An impressive specimen,” Maeres said without passion. He watched while two pitmen dragged Norras away through the double-chambered exit valve. Snorri let them do their work. I could see he’d calculated his chances of escape and found them to be zero. The second iron gate could be raised only from the outside and then only when the first had been lowered.

“Send in Ootana.” Maeres never raised his voice but was always heard amidst the din. He offered me a thin smile.

“No!” I strangled back the outrage, remembering that I had seen lipless men even in the palace. Maeres Allus had a long arm. “Maeres, my friend, you can’t be serious?” Ootana was a specialist, with countless knife bouts notched onto his belt. He’d sliced open half a dozen good knife-men this year already. “At least let my fighter train with the hook-knife for a few weeks! He’s from the ice. If it’s not an axe they don’t understand it.” I tried for humour, but Ootana already waited behind the gate, a loose-limbed devil from the farthest shores of Afrique.

“Fight.” Maeres raised his hand.

“But—” Snorri hadn’t even been given his weapon. It was murder, pure and simple. A public lesson to put a prince firmly in his place. The public didn’t have to like it, though! Boos rang out when Ootana stepped into the pit, his hooked blade held carelessly to the side. The nobles hooted as if we were watching mummers in the square. They might hoot again tonight with equal passion if Father’s opera contained a suitably villainous party.

Snorri glanced up at us. I swear he was grinning. “No rules now?”

Ootana began a slow advance, passing his knife from hand to hand. Snorri spread his arms, not fully but enough to make a wide man wider still in that confined space, and with a roar that drowned out the many voices above, he charged. Ootana jigged to one side, intending to slash and dodge clear, but the Norseman came too fast, swerved to compensate, and reached with arms every bit as long as the Afriqan’s. At the last Ootana could do no more than attempt the killing blow; nothing else would save him from Snorri’s grapple. The exchange was lost in the collision. Snorri pounded into his man, driving him back a yard and slamming him into the pit wall. He held there for a heartbeat—perhaps a word passed between them—then stepped away. Ootana slid to a crumpled heap at the base of the wall, white fragments of bone showing through dark skin at the back of his head.

Snorri turned to us, shot an unreadable glance my way, then looked down to inspect the hook-knife driven through his hand, hilt hard against his palm. The sacrifice he’d made to keep the blade from his throat.