Brother Qown smiled as he picked up his journal. Then the smile faded as he looked at it for a moment before closing it again. “I’m going to skip ahead a bit, if you don’t mind. I mean the interesting stuff happens at the tournament.”

“Oh no,” Janel said. “I never did hear about what happened to you while we were training.”

The priest cleared his throat and opened his book again. “Very well.”

Qown’s Turn. Marakori slums, Atrine, Jorat, Quur.

Count Janel, Sir Baramon, and Ninavis spent the next two weeks learning to blend in with the Red Spears and training to pass in the tournaments. Easy enough. Ninavis possessed an undeniable talent for archery, mounted on horseback or otherwise. Sir Baramon, while too old to excel in the tournament itself, proved an excellent coach. Dorna too offered advice to performers. She also managed to unearth every single game of chance to be found anywhere in the camps, walking away with a tidy sum.

But Brother Qown’s services were unneeded.

The priest began visiting the Marakori slums.

Some social mixing occurred between the Joratese and Marakori, but not nearly enough to soften relations between the two groups. The Joratese considered their southern neighbors to be an intruding herd. They also seemed convinced every single Marakori practiced witchcraft in secret, stole babies, summoned demons. The Joratese treated the Marakori accordingly.

Now if the Marakori had banded together for their mutual defense … but the Marakori didn’t even consider themselves Marakori, let alone united.

Most of them lived in hovels built on the bridge, using materials they’d brought with them. Or they purchased materials from whatever enterprising merchant had brought building supplies by the wagonload and traded them for family heirlooms. Most Marakori wouldn’t talk about why they’d left Marakor. When they did, they cursed the Royal Houses and spat to the side.

No one talked about going back home.

“How did you break the arm?” Brother Qown asked a teenage boy as he applied an herb plaster. The boy’s coloring was typical: dark brown skin with dark auburn hair.

The boy didn’t say a thing. He just stared at Brother Qown.

“Damn Agari bastards did it,” his mother spat. “His father’s gone out with my brothers to make it right.”

Brother Qown hesitated. “You mean break their bones too?”

The flat stare she gave the priest suggested he was being naïve. But she just said, “Thank you. We have a hard time finding help these days. Too many people claiming they can cure anything when they’re just peddling grass and river water.”

“Yes, I would imagine that’s a problem.”

“Demons take them. It’s not right. Anyway, I—” She paused, hearing something.

A pot of burning oil crashed through the open window.