My last copper went under the registration table. I knelt to retrieve it, snagged my sleeve on a nail, and heard the caller announce that the eighth place was still available.
“It's taken,” I said from under the table.
“When I've got your money.”
Dust, nutshells, someone's broken buckle. I curled two fingers and lifted the dust into a thin brown cloud. The copper showed beside a table leg. I picked it up, let the dust fall, and tried to get up too fast. The nail held me.
It had gone through the seam beneath my right forearm. I could tear the wool or undo the stitching. Wool cost more. I took off my left mitten, set a fingertip against one thread, and worked the little unpicking all the way from cuff to elbow. The sleeve opened underneath and came off the nail.
“Six,” I said, putting the coins on the table.
The caller looked at my coat. “Are you entering or mending?”
“Both. Have you got a needle?”
She took one out of her collar. While she counted my money I pushed it through the old holes, making enormous stitches. I'd earned two of those coppers stripping braid off cast-off uniforms. Fine work at a penny a basket, especially if you could loosen a whole thread by touching it. Sewing things back together paid worse and took longer.
Beyond the table stood the tournament platform, a square of boards twelve paces across. Beside the steps, on a cushion, sat thirty silver pieces in a yellow purse. I knew a lodging house where a bed cost two silvers a month. A bed with a door between it and the street; a door I could shut. Last night I'd slept under a folded market awning with my boots beneath my head, and someone had still tried to take the boots. Even after new ones and food there would be a great deal of sleeping in that purse.
“Name?”
“Fennit.”
“Age?”
“Fifteen.”
She set down her pen. “Control trial. Show me a working. Stop when I say.”
The dust lifted again. I kept it low over the boards, turning it in a tight ring while she leaned down to watch. At her word I released it. She brushed a speck off her shoe and wrote my name.
I finished the sleeve, gave back her needle, and put my mitten on. Seven mages waited by the steps, discussing the draw. One had red sleeves so wide I could have put both my arms in either of them. Another was making a bright bird turn above her wrist. She closed her hand as I passed, and the bird vanished.
The caller fitted us with white vests bearing square red patches over the breastbone. Mine went over my sleeveless shirt and under my coat. She folded the coat's fronts back and tied them behind me, leaving the patch entirely exposed.
“First bare hand to the other patch wins. No hiding it. Clothing holds are allowed. No fire, no cutting, no spells on flesh. Obey a halt at once.” She tapped my left mitten. “That hand won't score.”
“The other one will.”
“School?” she asked, pen ready again.
I had learned the dust lift from a secondhand bookseller who made me clean his stock. The holdfast came from keeping blankets on myself when older boys tried to pull them off. My unpicking earned money. None of these sounded right with a tournament caller shouting them.
“The Gutter School.”
The mage with the red sleeves laughed. Two others joined him. Peltrude, whose name I'd heard shouted by half the crowd, looked me up and down and snorted through her nose. Hadrum, the defending champion, put a hand over his mouth. He still had very amused eyes.
“Do they send a champion every year?” the red-sleeved mage asked.
“They've only got me.”
That made him laugh harder. I hadn't meant it to.
The caller shook the folded draw slips in a hat. Eight of us meant three wins for the purse. I looked from the yellow silk to the red sleeves.
“I ought to be finished by supper,” I said.
“I think you will,” said Peltrude.
*
I drew red sleeves first.
He bowed to the crowd before acknowledging me. Close up, he smelled of cloves, and tiny embroidered suns shone on his cuffs. My feet were dusty inside my boots. I rubbed my bare right palm down my trousers and wished I'd kept that remark about supper to myself.
Four marshals stood at the platform's corners. I had seen one catch a tumbling contestant last year, lifting both hands to spread a cushion of air beneath her. They were watching us now. That helped until I wondered how often they had to do it.
“Begin!”
The mage raised his fingers. Six more mages appeared, every one red-sleeved, every one smiling.
They spread across the boards. I backed away. The one on the left lunged; I ducked and put out my scoring hand. It passed through his chest. Behind me, the crowd laughed.
I spun. A real hand grazed my coat collar. Too high to score, close enough that I felt a fingernail. All seven mages stepped away together.
“Try another,” they said.
I was going to lose every copper I owned to a man showing off his sleeves.
The boards were gritty. Hundreds of people had crossed them to watch the morning exhibitions. I crouched and lifted the dust around my feet, only a pace out, only ankle high. Holding so much made the tendons in my wrist stand up. The mage would have to come through it to reach me.
His copies advanced. Dust hung undisturbed inside six pairs of shining shoes. The seventh pair, coming on my left, pushed little brown curls ahead of its toes.
I turned towards those toes.
He saw me turn. The copies vanished; he swept a hand across his body, and a gust drove the dust into my face. I shut my eyes. A board thumped under his next step.
I couldn't see his patch. I could see, through one watering eye, his right hand coming straight at my chest.
My mitten caught the bottom of his advancing sleeve. I held wool to silk with the holdfast. It was no stronger than a good handgrip, but a grip spread across the whole mitten didn't slip off embroidery. I pulled his sleeve out to my left and stepped in beside that reaching arm.
His fingers swept past my ribs. My bare right palm met the red square on his vest.
“Touch! Fennit!”
He jerked his sleeve free, breaking my hold. I stumbled a step after him.
For a moment the crowd was quiet enough for me to hear someone drop a cup. Then people at the front began shouting. I held up my right hand because that was the one that had done it. It was a very fine hand. I felt that everyone ought to have a proper look.
“Best of three?” my opponent asked the caller.
“One touch. As announced.”
He stared at the dust still settling on his shoes, then brushed at the mark my mitten had left on his cuff. I bowed to him. Quite deeply. He didn't bow back.
I came down the steps grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.
Peltrude stood at the bottom, rolling her sleeves above her elbows.
“I see what those are for,” I told her.
“Good.” She pulled the last fold tight.
*
While the other quarterfinals finished, I watched Hadrum win his. He kept a larger man turning with little pushes of air until he got within arm's reach, then closed his left fingers. The man's coat cuffs stopped in midair, arms spread wide. Hadrum stepped in and touched the exposed patch with his right hand. He opened his left fist only after the call, and the cuffs dropped.
I ate the heel of bread I'd saved for supper. It had lint on it. I picked off the biggest piece and decided that winners could eat early.
Peltrude won her quarterfinal without once touching the boards with her heels. She balanced forward, raised her left palm, and drove her opponent backwards with air until he could hardly take a step. Then she eased the wind, followed him in, and scored.
“No cuffs today?” I asked when we faced each other.
She slapped her bare forearm. “You can try holding this.”
“Clothing only,” the caller reminded us.
“I know,” said Peltrude, still looking at me.
On the start she sent me backwards three steps. Air flattened the loose coat against my sides and whistled through the bad stitching of my boots. I leaned into it. She let it ease, took a quick step, and reached for the patch.
I twisted away. Her fingers missed by the width of a copper.
“Nearly,” I said.
She pushed me again.
I went sideways this time, angling for the tight sleeve above her elbow. One touch, one hold, just as before. She turned with me and drove the air against my left shoulder. My reaching hand found nothing; I fell sideways onto the boards.
She was coming before I'd got my breath back. I rolled, scrambled to my knees, and crawled round her towards the middle while people shouted different advice at me. The marshal at that corner had raised his hands but hadn't needed them.
My shoulder hurt. My bread sat in a lump halfway down my chest.
“You're not getting a sleeve this time,” Peltrude said.
I had a reply ready. Then I needed the breath to get up.
She came after me. I scrambled up just as the wind struck again and tried sticking my right boot to the board beneath it. I could work the hold through anything I was touching, and I had used it on blankets, sacks, my own soles. Here it lasted less than a heartbeat. Her full gust ripped it loose and sent me staggering.
That wouldn't do.
She stepped after me, easing the wind so that she could close the distance herself. I saw her right hand starting forward and skipped back. She withdrew before my answering swipe could reach her, raising her left palm to send me away again.
Push, reach, push. My retreat did half her work. Every time she came for me I was already moving backwards; every time I tried to go forwards she had the wind up.
I gave her two more retreats. On the second I made a show of tripping. She didn't hurry. Her left palm stayed steady until I was upright, and when she came in she kept her scoring hand low, ready for another duck.
My shoulder throbbed. So much for pretending.
On her next push I went back as she expected, right foot behind me. But when the air eased and she took her long step, I pressed that boot's sole to the board and held it there.
One breath. My own boot, my own weight. No gust to fight yet.
I stopped retreating. My knees folded and I swung left around the planted foot. Peltrude had reached for a chest that should have been another stride away; her hand went past my right shoulder as her step brought the rest of her close.
I came up inside her arm and slapped her patch.
The returning wind hit me as the caller shouted. My hold broke. I landed on my backside with my right foot folded under me. Its sole had torn loose and hung by the heel.
“Touch! Fennit!”
I stayed sitting long enough to make sure she'd really said it. Then I laughed. I couldn't stop. Peltrude had to walk round me to get to the steps.
“That wasn't nearly,” I said.
“Get up. You're on your boot.”
I was. I got up carefully, and that started the laughter again.
Below the platform I tied the loose sole against my foot with the cord from my bread wrapping. Twice I dropped the knot. Peltrude watched, holding a cup of drinking water.
“How long can you keep that sticking trick going?”
“Long enough.”
“Your left hand's shaking.”
I put it on my knee. “You landed me on it.”
“I landed you on your shoulder.”
She handed me the cup. I had to take it in my right hand. Past her elbow I saw Hadrum, waiting for his semifinal, looking directly at my fingers.
“Thanks,” I said to Peltrude, rather more quietly.
She sat beside me to watch him fight.
*
Hadrum won, of course. This opponent tucked both hands close to avoid the cuff hold, so he used a sharp sideways gust to turn her, then stepped across her path and scored before she could face him again.
He hadn't even had to sit down afterwards.
When we went up for the final, he bowed to me first. The crowd had packed so close that the caller had to clear the steps. Somewhere behind all those heads waited the yellow purse. I tried to see it and found myself staring at Hadrum instead.
“Would you care for a longer rest?” he asked.
“Would you?”
“I'm ready.”
So was I, apparently. I took off my left mitten. My fingers felt swollen when I spread them.
Hadrum's coat fitted close, with fastened cuffs. He stood well out of reach as the caller started us. When I moved left, a sideways push drove me right. When I tried to go with that push, he changed it. The air tugged at one knee of my trousers and then the other. I had to watch my feet as well as his hands.
I lifted dust. He swept the boards between us clean without coming any closer.
I stuck my repaired boot down for a turn. He stopped advancing and shoved from the opposite side. I broke the hold myself before my ankle twisted, and staggered back into the middle.
“You can come closer,” I told him.
He did. I hadn't meant immediately.
His right hand darted towards my patch. I batted it away with my left and felt my coat cuff draw tight. His other hand was closing. I flung myself backwards before he could harden the air around the cloth, and the cuff snapped loose.
Both of us were breathing harder now. He had a spot of sweat beside his nose. I took enormous comfort in that spot.
His wind rose, then faltered. I sprang forward into the opening.
He'd been waiting for me to try that. The next push hit my coat from the side and spun me round; I barely turned my chest away from his scoring hand. As I got clear, a hot pain ran up my left shoulder.
The crowd had stopped giving useful advice. Several people were shouting my name, and one was shouting “Mind him!” as though I had other business on the platform.
I couldn't keep doing this. Hadrum changed his timing whenever I thought I'd found it. He was saving his strength, making me stumble, waiting until I was slow enough to catch.
I backed off, tugging at my right sleeve. The cuff had slipped down over my knuckles. Underneath it my thumb found the ugly row of stitches I'd put in at registration.
I stopped tugging. With the cuff still over my knuckles, I folded my thumb back against the stitches inside it.
Hadrum had seen the dust. He had seen the holdfast. When I'd mended the coat he had been up by the steps with the others, arguing about the draw.
He might still know unpicking. He might see what I was doing. I had no better idea.
I let him drive me a little farther back, then reached for his left sleeve with my right hand, slow enough to look tired. I really was tired. That part came easily.
He moved his arm out of reach. Air squeezed my extended coat cuff, holding it to my right. Before I could draw the other arm in, he caught that cuff too. His left fingers closed; the cloth stretched sideways, pulling my arms apart. His right hand was free.
The crowd made one long disappointed noise.
The coat bit under my armpits. Its tied-back fronts kept the whole garment on me while his two grips held both cuffs out wide. My patch was uncovered, practically offered up.
He came in at once.
I pulled hard against the right cuff, as though I could break his hold, and worked the unpicking through the thread beneath my thumb.
The stitches loosened. Hadrum's right hand was reaching. I wrenched my elbow down and the seam opened from wrist to elbow, spilling my bare forearm through the underside of the sleeve.
He was still holding the cloth. I bent my knees and turned to my right under his reaching hand. The trapped left sleeve dragged tight behind me, but I had room for half a step towards his left shoulder. His fingertips brushed the top of my vest; my patch had dropped below them.
My right hand came up between us.
Red wool. The hard beat of his heart through it.
“Touch! Fennit!”
Hadrum's fingers closed on my shoulder an instant later. For a dreadful moment he stayed there, holding me, while I stared at my own hand on his chest and waited to learn what had gone wrong.
Then he looked down at it.
“Yes,” he said, a little breathlessly. “That was yours.”
His left hand opened. My other arm dropped and the empty right sleeve fell against my side.
The shouting hit me all at once. I jumped, tried to jump again, and nearly went over on the broken boot. Hadrum caught my elbow and let go as soon as I was steady.
“I won,” I told him.
“I heard.”
I had meant to bow. Instead I turned a complete circle, grinning at everyone, and raised both hands. I couldn't have worked another spell if they'd offered me a second purse. I would certainly have tried.
The caller brought the yellow one. She counted the silvers into my cupped hands before pouring them back into the silk, each coin cold and heavy against the next. There were thirty. I counted with her, aloud.
Peltrude came up the steps when we were done. She lifted the hanging piece of sleeve, looked at the loose thread, and let it fall.
“Did you plan to ruin every stitch you owned?”
“Only the cheap ones.”
“That boot was cheap, then.”
“Very.”
She laughed. I let her. I had thirty silvers, and her patch had my dusty handprint on it.
Hadrum was still beside the caller, rubbing the red square on his own chest. “I'd like another bout, Fennit. When your hands are rested.”
I tucked the purse inside my vest and kept one hand over the lump.
“Next tournament?”
“Before that.”
Peltrude folded her arms. “I'm first.”
I looked at them and took my time answering.
“You can draw for it,” I said. “I'm going to eat.”