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but inside he was filled with relief. For the first time since Garet and Tarja had approached him with their assessment of the Karien treaty almost five years ago, he had a woman in charge who was prepared to listen to him.

CHAPTER 6
    “R’shiel! Hurry up!”
    R’shiel forced her eyes open and squinted painfully as the bright wall greeted her with its silent, glowing panels. Her pounding headache had abated somewhat, but she still felt groggy and listless. She rolled over on her narrow bed and stared sleepily at Junee.
    “What?”
    “Hurry up!” Junee urged from the open doorway. “We’ll never find a good seat if we wait much longer.”
    Understanding came slowly to the younger girl. “Oh, at the Arena, you mean?”
    “Yes, at the Arena,” Junee repeated with an impatient sigh. “Come on!”
    R’shiel swung her feet to the floor and gingerly lifted her head. With relief, she discovered she could move it without too much pain. She must have slept the worst of it off. Her headache was the third one this week. R’shiel had almost reached the point of doing what her mother ordered by seeking help from a physic. She slipped on her shoes and stood up asJunee tapped her foot impatiently by the door. She caught sight of herself in the small mirror over the washstand and grimaced. Her skin was waxy and there were large dark circles under her eyes. Even her grey tunic hung on her loosely these days. R’shiel tried to recall the last time she had eaten. Every time she neared the Dining Hall and smelled the meat, she found herself running in the opposite direction. The last time she had forced herself to eat, she had thrown up. Her tummy rumbled and complained, but she ignored it. Hunger was preferable to the alternative. She picked up her grey knitted shawl against the chill of the late autumn evening and followed her roommate down the corridor of the Probate’s dormitory.
    “Hey! Wait for us!”
    R’shiel and Junee stopped and waited for the three girls who called after them from the other end of the hallway. Tonight was an event of some note at the Arena and R’shiel was already regretting her decision to join Junee. Every Novice and Probate in the Citadel, every Defender not on duty and probably a good many of the Sisters and civilians would be there. Georj had taken up the challenge that Tarja had refused. Everybody knew about it. Everybody wanted to be there.
    Rumour had it that the only man Georj Drake had never beaten in the Arena when he was a Cadet was Tarja. Brash and good-looking, with a shock of golden hair, Lieutenant Loclon had been the undisputed champion of the Arena for months now. It would be a fight worth seeing, the other girls insisted—perhaps the best seen in the Arena for years.
    Normally, R’shiel was not terribly interested in the fights in the Arena. She had grown up at the Citadel and her brother was a Defender. There was little romance or excitement for her, watching men hack at each other with blunted swords. The fights had begun a century or more ago as training exercises. They were now the main form of mass entertainment and no longer restricted to the Cadets. Many officers and enlisted men continued to fight in the Arena long after they graduated to the ranks of the Defenders. Occasionally a brave civilian entered a bout, although the Lord Defender discouraged such rash bravado, even though the swords were blunted and the worst injury gained was usually a nasty bruise or the occasional broken bone. Tonight would be different, however. There would be no blunted swords and no quarter given.
    The fight was to first blood. Loclon had formally challenged the captains and Georj Drake had accepted on behalf of his brother officers.
    As she hurried along the street to the amphitheatre with her friends, R’shiel worried about Georj. He had not been in the Arena for several years, whereas Loclon fought there almost every week.
    By the time the five Probates reached the amphitheatre, the