Whatever its origins, handball had been played throughout the history of Vordan, in many forms and under many names. It had been called “grand melee,” “pushers,” and, confusingly, “football”—not because it involved the feet, but to differentiate it from other popular ball games played on horseback. It always involved two teams, a hard leather ball about the size of a man’s head, and two scoring areas some distance apart, but details like the number of players, the permissible ways of advancing the ball, the dimensions of the playing field, and the rules governing the use of weapons had gone through every imaginable permutation over the years.

Winter had learned a version of the game growing up, not under any explicit set of rules but following a vague consensus of the participants. At Mrs. Wilmore’s, ball games were restricted to children under the age of eleven, at which point girls were expected to limit themselves to more ladylike pursuits such as gardening, shoveling animal dung, and preparation for childbearing. Watching the opposing squads square off gave her an unexpected feeling of nostalgia; it had been a long time since she looked back on Mrs. Wilmore’s with any good feeling, but a few buried memories of glorious rough-and-tumble merriment in golden summer afternoons wormed their way to the surface, like bubbles escaping from muck.

According to the fairly simple rules of this variant, teams could be of any number of people, provided they were roughly equal. The ball could be thrown, carried, or indeed used as a bludgeon as the players saw fit. Pressing the ball to the ground within the opposing team’s scoring area was worth one point. Shoving, grappling, or tackling opposing players was of course permitted, although punching, kicking, biting, or jumping on them was frowned upon.

Each team was made up of a section of Royals and a section from the Girls’ Own, for about forty players to a side, evenly split between men and women. Winter had chosen the sections that would play by lot, picking scraps of paper from a cauldron. On the first day, there had been quite a bit of grumbling from both sides. This was the third day, and the chosen sections had erupted in cheers when their number was called.

A light rain was falling, just enough to mist the air and turn the dark earth of the fields into thick black mud. The stuff clung like molasses to every inch of clothing and skin, turning men and women alike into earthy golems as they ran, slipped, struggled, and floundered in the mess. One team wore blue bands wrapped around their foreheads, but they were becoming hard to see in the morass, making it hard to distinguish “blues” from “skins” as well as Royals from volunteers.