It must have come from his mother’s side of the family, Jezal supposed. His father had rather a weak chin. His brothers too, come to think of it. You had to feel a little sorry for them, he had got all the looks in his family.

“And most of the talent too,” he murmured happily to himself. He turned away from the mirror with some reluctance, striding into his living room, pulling his shirt on and buttoning it up the front. He had to look his best today. The thought gave him a little shiver of nerves, starting in his stomach, creeping up his windpipe, lodging in his throat.

By now, the gates would be open. A steady flood of people would be filing into the Agriont, taking their seats on the great wooden benches in the Square of Marshals. Thousands of them. Everyone who was anyone, and plenty more who weren’t. They were already gathering: shouting, jostling, excited, waiting for… him. Jezal coughed and tried to push the thought from his mind. He had kept himself awake with it for half the night already.

He moved over to the table, where the breakfast tray was sitting. He picked up a sausage absently in his fingertips and took a bite off the end, chewing it without relish. He wrinkled his nose and tossed it back in the dish. He had no appetite this morning. He was just wiping his fingers on the cloth when he noticed something lying on the floor by the door, a slip of paper. He bent and picked it up, unfolded it. A single line, written in a neat, precise hand:

“Shit,” he murmured, disbelieving, reading the line over and over. He folded the paper shut, glancing nervously round the room. Jezal could only think of one “A”. He had pushed her to the back of his mind the last couple of days, he had been spending every spare moment training. This brought it all back though, and no mistake.

“Shit!” He opened the paper and read the line again. Meet me tonight? He could not escape a slight flush of satisfaction at that, and it slowly became a very distinct glow of pleasure. His mouth curled into a gormless grin. Secret meetings in the darkness? His skin prickled with excitement at the prospect. But secrets have a way of coming to the surface, and what if her brother found out? That thought brought on a fresh rush of nerves. He took the slip of paper in both hands, ready to tear it in half, but at the last moment he folded it instead, and slipped it into his pocket.

As Jezal made his way down the tunnel he could already hear the crowd. A strange, echoing murmur, seeming to come out of the very stones. He had heard it before, of course, as a spectator at last year’s Contest, but it hadn’t made his skin sweat and his guts turn over then. Being part of the audience is a world away from being part of the show.

He slowed for a moment, then stopped, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall, the noise of the crowd rushing in his ears, trying to breathe deep and compose himself.

“Don’t worry, I know just how you feel.” Jezal felt West’s consoling hand on his shoulder. “I nearly turned around and ran the first time, but it’ll pass as soon as the steels are drawn, believe me.”

“Yes,” mumbled Jezal, “of course.” He doubted that West knew exactly how he felt. The man might have been through a couple of Contests before, but Jezal thought it unlikely he had been considering a surreptitious meeting with his best friend’s sister the same night. He wondered whether West would be quite so considerate if he knew the contents of the letter in Jezal’s breast pocket. It did not seem likely.

“We’d better get moving. Wouldn’t want them to start without us.”

“No.” Jezal took one last deep breath, opened his eyes and blew out hard. Then he pushed himself away from the wall and strode rapidly down the tunnel. He felt a sudden surge of panic—where were his steels? He cast about him desperately, then breathed a long sigh. They were in his hand.

There was quite a crowd in the hall at the far end: trainers, seconds, friends, family members and hangers-on. You could tell who the contestants were, though; the fifteen young men with steels clutched tightly in their hands. The sense of fear was palpable, and contagious. Everywhere Jezal looked he saw pale, nervous faces, sweaty foreheads, anxious eyes darting around. It wasn’t helped by the noise of the crowd, ominously loud beyond the closed double doors at the far end of the room, swelling and subsiding like a stormy sea.

There was only one man there who didn’t seem at all bothered by the occasion, leaning against the wall on his own with one foot up on the plaster and his head tipped back, staring down his nose at the assembly through barely open eyes. Most of the contestants were lithe, stringy, athletic. He was anything but. A big, heavy man with hair shaved to dark stubble. He had a great thick neck and a doorstep of a jaw—the jaw of a commoner, Jezal rather thought, but a large and powerful commoner with a mean streak. Jezal might have taken him for someone’s servant but that he had a pair of steels dangling loosely from one hand.

“Gorst,” West whispered in Jezal’s ear.

“Huh. Looks more like a labourer than a swordsman to me.”

“Maybe, but looks can lie.” The sound of the crowd was slowly fading, and the nervy chatter within the room subsided along with it. West raised his eyebrows. “The King’s address,” he whispered.

“My friends! My countrymen! My fellow citizens of the Union!” came a ringing voice, clearly audible even through the heavy doors.

“Hoff,” snorted West. “Even here he takes the King’s place. Why doesn’t he just put the crown on and have done with it?”

“One month ago today,” came the far-off bellow of the Lord Chamberlain, “fellows of mine on the Closed Council put forward the question… should there be a Contest this year?” Boos and shouts of wild disapproval were heard from the crowd. “A fair question!” cried Hoff, “for we are at war! A deadly struggle in the North! The very liberties which we hold so dear, the very freedoms which make us the envy of the world, our very way of life, stand threatened by the savage!”

A clerk began making his way around the room, separating the contestants from their families, their trainers, their friends. “Good luck,” said West, clapping Jezal on the shoulder, “I’ll see you out there.” Jezal’s mouth was dry, and he could only nod.

“And these were brave men who asked the question!” Boomed out Hoffs voice from beyond the doors. “Wise men! Patriots all! My stalwart colleagues on the Closed Council! I understood why they might think, there should be no Contest this year!” There was a long pause. “But I said to them, no!”

An eruption of manic cheering. “No! No!” screamed the crowd. Jezal was ushered into line along with the other contestants, two abreast, eight pairs. He fussed with his steels as the Lord Chamberlain droned on, though he’d checked them twenty times already.

“No, I said to them! Should we allow these barbarians, these animals of the frozen North, to tread upon our way of life? Should we allow this beacon of freedom amidst the darkness of the world to be extinguished? No, I said to them! Our liberty is not for sale at any price! On this, my friends, my countrymen, my fellow citizens of the Union, on this you may depend… we will win this war!”

Another great ocean swell of approval. Jezal swallowed, glanced nervously around. Bremer dan Gorst was standing there beside him. The big bastard had the temerity to wink, grinning as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Damn idiot,” whispered Jezal, but he took care that his lips didn’t move.

“And so, my friends, and so,” came Hoff’s final cries, “what finer occasion could there be than when we stand upon the very brink of peril? To celebrate the skill, the strength, the prowess, of some of our nation’s bravest sons! My fellow citizens, my countrymen of the Union, I give you your contestants!”