Author's Preface
I was not at all prepared for how far Thorunn would walk on foot. He marches resolutely forward, undeterred and unhindered by anything—road traffic, construction, ladies of the night. There are even a few times where I am pretty sure he is going the wrong way, because he will usually pause at an intersection, look around in confusion, and then turn down a road to make a loop back in the same direction. At no point does he stop or rest. And at no point do I have any idea where we are going.
I am no stranger to walking, as my position as Edgar’s clerk entails a lot of walking throughout the castle. But at least then I am able to take breaks. And at least then, the end of the suffering is in sight. At one point, after about a half hour of traveling eastbound, I realize that our path circles the royal palace— he is trying to get somewhere on the other side of it, somewhere in the industrial district, despite the fact that he could have cut across the seaside wharf to do the same thing in less time. But doing so would have taken him down the main road, past my house. Is he walking around the whole fucking royal palace to avoid passing by my house?!
It appears so. After nearly two hours of walking, by which point my feet are completely numb and ankles cramping with pain, the night fully cloaks the city. We are deep in the heart of the industrial district. Still he treks forward. I once thought myself immune to the terrors of the “bad parts of town”—I grew up there, after all. But the industrial district is different. Somehow, the weak yellow gas lamps do not pierce the shadows in the same way. The pea-soup smog obscures anything further than a half block away. It gives me more freedom to move undetected, but the same is true for others, too. Once, I stumble over a man slumped face down on the pavement, his filthy clothes indistinguishable from the roadside muck. I am not sure if he is drunk or dead. Shortly after, something yanks my grocery basket off my arm, and I only realize what has happened as I watch a child sprint down the street and vanish around a corner. He will be most displeased to find that there is nothing inside.
Finally, Thorunn reaches what looks to be a pub, slouched on the corner of a residential block. I expect him to go in the front, but instead, he walks around the back and disappears. I wait in a doorway for a few moments, reluctant to go where the streetlamps do not reach, but eventually curiosity breaks through fear and I follow.
At first, I am baffled, as the back alley just seems to be a dead end. Glass crunches under my feet, and the place reeks of piss and vomit. Then I spy a glimmer of light. The back wall of the pub is mostly solid, save for two egresses: a single garden-level window, partially obscured by overgrowth; and a rusted iron door through which a raucous chanting leaks. The window is too filthy to make out details, but I can see that there is a basement beyond. It is packed with people. The source of the chanting, I reckon. I really don’t want to go inside, but I’ve come all this way. And maybe (unlikely) they have some place I can sit down.
I try the door. To my surprise, it is unlocked and open. As soon as I step inside, a wall of heat, humidity, and tobacco smoke slams into me with such force it makes my eyes water. The basement is much larger than I thought. It slopes down from all sides into a wide, circular arena. A sandy pit sits in the center, surrounded by a wire mesh cage and illuminated by a powerful spotlight. Around that cage, there are easily two hundred people clamoring to get the best view.
Two men step into the cage. Neither of them are Thorunn—they seem to be common laborers from the industrial district. A bell sounds, and the men start to fight. I sigh. A betting ring, I scoff to myself. The proud Oberjarl Ascendant, Wolf of the North, Broadaxe of Hel…spends his Saturday nights socking poor chumps to earn a quick buck. With the room being so packed and the lights so disorienting, I can’t see Thorunn, but I assume he must be closer to the ring if he intends to fight.
Ordinarily, this is the last place I want to be by myself on a Saturday night, but…I have to admit, there is an odd appeal. I’m morbidly curious. However, I can’t stay any longer while sober. I head upstairs to the pub, return with a vodka soda, and find an empty seat on the very edge of the room.
I still don’t see Thorunn, and the fights in the ring aren’t particularly interesting. They are just sweaty, shirtless men slapping each other. I have entirely finished my vodka soda and am considering going home when I overhear a single word:
“Rhotascan.”
The speaker is a portly middle-aged fellow leaning against a table, not far from where I am sulking against the wall. Slowly, so as to seem more like I am just wandering and not eavesdropping, I sidle closer towards the conversation and listen carefully.
“And so I says to him,” says the portly fellow, “‘you don’t just go in the fuckin’ cage like it’s a bloody carnival ride. You gotta pay.’ And he says, ‘Ooh, I can pay, and I can pay quite nicely.’ Now, of course, that’s not what I meant, but I’m no sucker, so of course I fuckin’ took the money, but then I tell him, ‘Well, when we say pay, we also mean you make the customers pay.’ And he says whaddya mean. And I says, ‘Youse gotta give ‘em a few shows. Youse gotta make ‘em bet on you, couple times, throughout the bracket, make ‘em order more drink and more girls, which make ‘em stupid at the bookies.’ And then he looks at me like I’m a fuckin’ moron and says, ‘Obviously, but youse doing murder to the Saelic language about it’ or something like that. Bah. I dunno what’s up with that fuckin’ kid. At least he knows how to put on a fuckin’ show, he and the Northman. If they weren’t so profitable, I’d’ve thrown ‘em out by now. Smartass fuckin’ kids.”
Murder to the Saelic language is an apt description for the auditory experience that is listening to this man talk. All that matters is that I am certain who is responsible for the quote. It can only be Moretti. He is from the country of Rhotasca and he is associated with a Northman, which must be Thorunn.
My conclusion is soon confirmed. As the last two bedraggled fighters crawl from the ring, an uproar of voices catches my attention. The next man to enter the ring is indisputably him. His long, dark hair is pulled back into a short braid, and he is likely the only man here lacking a full beard, making him look much younger than twenty-five. What shocks me (to the point that I do not realize my mouth is hanging open until I taste the tobacco on the air) is that Moretti is surprisingly fit. With no suit jacket to hide his form, he is built like an archer, his overall form lithe and slim, but the muscles of his arms and back wiry and well-defined. My mind flickers to the great paintings of saints and martyrs—their symmetrical, almost androgynous forms; the perfect balance of muscle and movement; the ethereal glow of their skin beneath heavenly lights.
My breath catches in my throat. Suddenly appalled, I clutch at my chest and scold myself. Eloise. Behave.
“One thing’s for sure,” one man guffaws, “the broads are all over ‘im!”
This is true. Despite the rough environment, there are quite a few women here as well, most of them closer to the cage walls. They, in particular, are happy to trade their obols to the house bookies that roam up and down the stands, taking bets and passing out tickets.
“Watch,” says the portly fellow. “He knows how’ta play it. He’ll lose quickly in the first. After a struggle, he’ll win the next. And then a bare fuckin’ victory in the third. Slow to watch. But damn, that kid knows how’ta string ‘em along. How to make folks underestimate ‘im, bet against the house, and make it look like he just got lucky with a win by the skin off his teeth. Never seen anythin’ like it.”
I am tempted to take my new information and make good of it at the bookie, but I also do not want the men to notice me and grow suspicious that I am eavesdropping. And anyway, I can’t guarantee my seat will still be here when I return.
The bell rings, and the match begins. I don’t know much about fighting, but I do know what it looks like when someone is losing. Moretti’s opponent is a man of about middle age, grizzled and peppered with bullet wounds up and down his torso. A war veteran, probably. With one single, decisive blow, the veteran lunges forward and lands a punch square on Moretti’s nose. He drops like a sack of potatoes and does not get up.
“This is how he plays it,” my helpful commentator explains. “He’s done this three times now. Even me, who knows the game, I get doubtful he’s gonna get up again…and the way we do it here, you can bet again between rounds. Watch the money change hands.”
Indeed, as a couple boys rush over to help Moretti stand again, the spectators are mumbling among themselves. The bookies are more popular than ever. Moretti looks terrible. Blood streams freely down his face, and he wobbles slightly as he stands, dizzy and disoriented. But something isn’t quite right. None of the ring attendants seem worried. Moretti’s stance is…too controlled. His stumbling is deliberate. And his eyes are laser-focused on the other man across the ring.
The second match is, indeed, close. Moretti opens with a clumsy, staggering punch that opens him wide to a fist in the stomach. He slams against the cage wall, but manages to stay on his feet. The men circle for a few moments, throw a couple punches, and then…I must have blinked, because I miss it. All of a sudden, the veteran is on the floor. Moretti stands over him, panting and wide-eyed, as if he is just as shocked as the rest of us.
All things considered, though, Moretti still looks worse than his opponent. The veteran is winded, nothing more, and easily stands up on his own for the third round. This round is—just as my commentator predicted—much slower. The veteran lands a few punches, but either they are weaker than his first few or Moretti suddenly developed immunity to impact damage, since they hardly faze him. Now, Moretti is faster. He dodges and lunges to evade attacks, and once, when the veteran grabs him by the shoulders, he slips out of his grasp like a bar of soap in the bath. They circle more, the veteran feints a lunge that makes Moretti flinch, and then the veteran charges.
What happens next is so quick that, again, I miss it. I know they collide, and Moretti hits the sand. But at the same time, so does the veteran. And then Moretti stands up.
A win by the skin of his teeth, indeed. I can see how this “game” works so well. As Moretti leaves the cage, he wipes the blood from his face with a handkerchief. But, as he turns, I notice that his nose is still straight and unbroken, and after the blood is wiped away, his nose does not bleed any further. Curious.
“We always have the Northman go next,” says my commentator. “To give folks an easy bet. Lighten the mood. Everyone knows how this guy fights.”
When Thorunn steps under the spotlight, it takes all the might in my body not to gasp aloud. Even with how close we have become in the past few months, and despite my own recurrent temptation to disavow my chastity, Thorunn has never disrobed in my presence. He steadfastly insists upon a layer of fabric between us, especially when sleeping. The most I have ever seen of his body is the sleeveless cuirass he wore to the engagement party, and even then, the glimpses of his shoulders and biceps were nearly enough to drive me to madness.
Now, wearing nothing but a loose pair of trousers and linen wraps around his knuckles, Thorunn is on full display. His runic tattoos do not stop at his shoulders. The swirls and patterns, much resembling the geometric poetry framed in my office, extend across his back and chest. In many places, the tattoos intersect with healed scars of every possible type and shape; jagged white slashes, shallow brown burns, even a radial bullet wound just above his hip bone. And he is not just fit, but solid as a stone wall—though not as defined or sculpted as other men’s, his muscles are cushioned in a generous layer of fat, like a mountain bear. It must be how he can give such soft hugs…and take so much damage.
Thorunn’s opponent is a man who, viewed in isolation, might be formidable. He has a similar build to Thorunn, equal pounds of fat and muscle, but is far shorter, looking almost like a child in Thorunn’s shadow. It is not even a contest. As soon as the bell rings, Thorunn backhands his opponent across the face. Then the man is on the ground. The entire match lasts approximately two seconds.
“Now, both of them boys are moneymakers, just by being so popular,” says my commentator, “but the Northman’s a bit of a loose cannon. The original deal was, I’ll let him fight the Rhotascan, but only if they follow the house’s direction. And that direction, that plan, requires the Northman to lose some. The Rhotascan’s got that in the bag, that’s why he’s the bigger moneymaker of the two, encourages betting, competition. But the Northman doesn’t get it. He won’t lose. He’s only lost once—to his buddy, the first night they matched, two weeks ago. Guess the bastard underestimated him, like we all did.”
So I was right. That first night Thorunn went out and came back with a bloody lip and black eye, he did lose to Moretti. But if he only ever lost once, then that means…
“I heard, last week, the Northman whooped the kid’s ass,” another man at the table comments.
“Oh yeah. Didn’t give him a chance. And drunk off his tits, too. Must be a barbarian thing, put a pint in ‘em, then they can go into this…unstoppable rage. Shit’s fuckin’ scary. We was picking the Rhotascan’s hair out of the cage wires for days after. Now, this is why I’m telling you this—I says to the Northman, you don’t do that shit a second time, youse gotta let the underdog win for the last match; he’s our moneymaker. And he tells me where to shove it. Says, ‘It’s personal, you don’t tell me to lose.’ But he’s not coming back after this weekend. So I tell him he can do whatever the fuck he wants s’long as he pays extra.”
“And did he?”
“‘Course he fuckin’ did! He wants that Rhotascan dead, I reckon. Needs deniability. I don’t know what’s going on between ‘em, and I don’t fuckin’ care, but after this weekend I’ll have enough to sell this place and skip town with the missus, so no sweat off my back…”
I am not personally familiar with the politics of underground pit fighting. But I know that the situation is not half as simple as the commentators seem to think. If Thorunn wanted Moretti dead, it would have been over weeks ago. They wouldn’t go to all this trouble—finding a venue in a part of town where nobody recognizes them, entering a bracketed fighting ring with a steep entry fee, and fighting through the bracket only to face off against each other for the championship. Killing each other is free and easy. But fighting each other, like this, requires more than murderous intent. This is a ritual. They are trying to prove something to each other.
The rest of Thorunn’s fights go exactly like his first one. A single, mighty backhand; a clean punch to the gut; and once, Thorunn kinda just pushes the guy over and kneels on top of him. He looks almost bored. “Oh, man, the Rhotascan’s fucked,” one man mutters. “This son of a bitch is here on business.” Thorunn’s style stands in jarring contrast to Moretti’s next fights, where it is now abundantly clear to me that the smaller man is not fighting—he’s acting. With each match, more moves enter his martial repertoire. He begins to dodge and weave with expert precision, and employs the use of not just his hands, but his legs as well, more consistently finishing opponents with devastating kicks and acrobatics. It is like watching a dozen years of combat training flow into him over the course of minutes.
By the time only two men are left standing, it is late into the night. Everyone is deep into their drinks. I would be with them, except that the room is getting progressively more crowded and I really don’t want to lose my seat by going up to get a refill. To my right is an I-beam and to my left is a man that has been very respectful (he started to flirt with me until I told him I was here with someone; upon him asking who, I pointed to the ring where Thorunn was wiping someone else’s blood off his knuckles. My neighbor has been dead silent ever since).
I think, by now, the table of old men has caught on that I am listening to them. The portly fellow, the owner of this building and the one who has been doing much of the talking, once met my eyes across the short space, and I have seen him glance my way a few times since. But, since I have not moved, he seems reassured that I will not exploit my insider knowledge at the bookies. Of course I won’t. I can respect the hustle. So now, when the owner gives his commentary to his friends, I can’t help but feel like he is also offering it to me.
“I’ll admit, I never expected how popular they’d be. But the customers love ‘em. This shithole’s never this crowded. Word must’a gotten out, or something, that this is their last fight, best two outta three.”
“Who’ve you set to win?” asks one man.
“Honestly? I didn’t!” He cackles. “It could go either way, especially now that the Northman’s just doing whatever the hell he wants. The ‘big pro’ betters are all in on the little guy; they can see he’s putting on a show, and a lot of them saw his first win as a good sign. My bets are on the big guy, personally. But either way, we make a killing tonight.”
“House always wins,” another says.
“House always wins,” the owner agrees, and holds up a shot glass for cheers.