Indrid had held a grudge against his caretaker for a while now. Because Montague encouraged Anna to have meals with her Mern cousins Indrid believed that Montague was trying to separate them. But he wasn’t. Nor was it his decision to force Anna to eat anywhere other than her own choosing. But the Lotts had demanded that Anna ate with her relatives. It was they who wanted to distance her from Indrid. Not because they didn’t like him. They just didn’t want her to adopt Graleon etiquette.
Through the gates Montague, Rayne, and Anna walked a short distance before they were all looking back into the stadium from a high window across the exit hallway.
“Here,” Montague said. “We can see everything from here.”
“Monte?” Anna asked.
“I promised him,” he whispered to her.
But Montague never promised Rayne anything. It was a test. He felt that Rayne may not be old enough by years, but he was quite mature for his age. The child’s first reaction to brutality would tell Montague much about the boy.
The arena crew assembled a platform for the competitors. Four wooden planks, only three feet wide and fifteen feet long, connected to each other at a cross section, were placed on the crests of the elephants’ backs. Men, dressed in dirty old shirts and pants, stepped onto the high platforms from the edges of the arena wall. They looked rugged and hadn’t shaved in weeks. With swords held to their backs by the guards behind them, they had no choice but to walk onto the planks.
“What’s going on? Who are these men?” Rayne asked.
“They’re sinners; murderers that have lost respect for themselves and life itself. This is the punishment Ikarus has set for their crimes,” Montague said. “Two of the men were caught trying to commandeer a gold shipment from Mern.”
The gates along the sides of the arena wall began to lift as glimmering eyes twinkled in the shadows. Two massive cats the size of adult bulls warily walked onto the sand. They immediately eyed the elephants, but the guards holding the torches kept them at bay, swinging the flames across their faces. Behind the cats, men with whips lashed them to direct their way.
Montague looked at Rayne. He was quiet; watching as if he were analyzing every detail. He seemed confused and shaken by the barbaric treatment of the animals, particularly the cats.
The fighters paced across the elevated platform, moving clockwise to the motion of the elephants’ circular path around the arena. The only weapon they had to defend themselves was a staff with a sack of thick, tightly-wrapped cloth, called a beater, at either end.
Four men stood at each end of the platform. “Begin!” the announcer shouted.
All of the men ran towards the cross section in the middle. They hammered at each other, knocking their opponents off the elevated walkway to let the cats finish them off. As bodies began to fall into the pit of starving beasts with teeth as large as spear tips, the cats mauled the invaders that dropped from above and lunged up at those that were still sure-footed on the platform, clawing at their feet. In the pit, one competitor managed to delay his death by striking one of the cats with a javelin before the other mauled him to death.
“The game is over when the last man is left standing with no opposition,” said Montague.
“Is the winner allowed to live?” Rayne asked.
“For now, but I’m afraid the outcome of the next tournament may not be so positive.” Montague reassured him, “He cannot escape the consequences of his actions.”
“One of the cats…he’s hurt…he’s limping,” Rayne said in a concerned tone. “What will happen to the cat, Monte?”
“They will pull the javelin out. Then time will either heal him, or take his life. If wounded cats remain disabled, they usually put them to death. It’s a shame became he is still a young one,” Montague said gently.
Rayne’s eyes widened. “He is not fully grown?”
Montague shook his head.
“And if he heals, what is to come of him when he is older?” the king asked.
“They are kept in the cells below the east gate until they can no longer perform duties in the Ikarus arena. When they grow old, they are taken to the bottom of the plateau and released back into the wild.”
“How cruel,” the boy said, his voice shaking with sorrow.
THE KING’S concern for the cat’s well-being was a good omen, Montague La-Rose thought. Rayne’s empathy for animals displayed the beauty of his heart. The boy’s respect for the lives of all things supported Montague’s hope that Rayne was the star being, the angel, whom he and Burton had summoned, rather than a bloodthirsty mage under the enemy’s influence, or worse—a demon.
Later that evening, just before the king’s bedtime, Montague wanted to speak with him. He felt bad about letting Rayne watch such violence. Maybe the boy wasn’t ready to witness such cruel ways to die. Montague didn’t want shock or trauma to trigger negative feelings.
On his way back to Rayne’s room to say goodnight before the boy went to sleep, Montague bumped into Gretchen rounding the corner of the castle’s fourth floor hallway.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” she huffed.
“Oh, I just wanted to say goodnight to Lord Rayne,” Montague replied.
“He is asleep,” said Gretchen. “Don’t wake him.”
“Ok then. I’ll see him tomorrow,” he said.
Montague waited for Gretchen to descend the staircase before he opened the king’s door and entered. He whispered in the darkness, “My lord?” But there was only silence. Montague reached out and grabbed a candle from the wall in the hallway and walked towards the boy’s empty bed. He knew that Rayne slept on the floor underneath the mattress. But when Montague pulled the sheets up from the ground, the king wasn’t there. If Gretchen just saw the boy sleeping, then he must have just sneaked out under their noses, Montague thought.
Rayne’s fascination with the arena cats and disgust of their
