Blood of the Fold

"A game? The entire city empties out to go watch a game?"

Warren nodded. "I'm afraid so. Except a few — mostly older people; they don't understand it and aren't too interested, but most everyone else is. It's become the people's passion. Children start playing it in the streets almost as soon as they can walk."

Verna eyed a side street and checked behind, the way they had come. “What kind of game is this?"

Warren shrugged. "I've never been to an official game, yet; I spend most of my time down in the vaults, but I've delved into the subject a bit. I've always been interested in games and how they fit into the structure of different cultures. I've studied ancient peoples and their games, but this gives me the chance to observe a living game for myself, so I've read up on it and made inquires.

"Ja'La is played by two teams on a square Ja'La field marked out with grids. In each corner is a goal, two for each team. The teams try to put the 'broc'—a heavy, leather-covered ball a little smaller than a man's head — in one of their opponents' goals. If they do, then they get a point, and the other team gets to pick a grid square from which they begin their turn at attack.

"I don't understand the strategy, it gets complex, but five-year-olds seem to be able to grasp it in no time."

"Probably because they want to play, and you don't." Verna untied her shawl and flapped the ends, trying to cool her neck. "What's so interesting about it that everyone would want to go crowd together in the sun to see it."

"I guess it takes them away from their toil for a day of festivity. It gives them an excuse to cheer and scream, and to drink and celebrate if their team wins, or to drink and console one another if their team loses. Everyone gets quite worked up over it. More worked up than they should."

Verna thought it over a moment as she felt a refreshing breeze cool her neck. "Well, I guess that sounds harmless."

Warren glanced over out of the corner of his eye. "It's a bloody game."

"Bloody?"

Warren sidestepped a pile of dung. "The ball is heavy and the rules loose. The men who play Ja'La are savage. While they must of course be adept at handling the broc, they're selected mostly because of their brawn and their brutal aggressiveness. Not many a game goes by without at least some teeth getting knocked out, or a bone broken. It isn't rare for a neck to get broken, either."

Verna stared incredulously. "And people like to watch that?"

Warren grunted a humorless confirmation. "From what the guards tell me, the crowd gets ugly if there isn't blood, because they think it means their team isn't "Ting hard enough."

Verna shook her head. "Well, It doesn't sound like anything I would enjoy watching."

"That isn't the worst of it." Warren kept his eyes ahead as he strode along the shadowed street. To the sides, shutters so faded it was hard to tell they had ever been painted stood closed over narrow windows. "The losing team is brought out onto the field when the game is over, and each is flogged. One lash with big leather whip for each point scored against them, administered by the winning team. And the rivalry between teams is bitter; it isn't unheard of for men to die from the flogging."

Verna walked in stunned silence as they turned a corner. "The people stay for this flogging?"

"I think that's what they go for. The entire crowd supporting the winning team counts out the number of lashes as they're laid on. Emotions run pretty high. People get really worked up over Ja'La. Sometimes there are riots. Even with ten thousand troops trying to keep order, things can get out of hand. The players sometimes start the brawl. The men who play Ja'La are brutes."

"People really like rooting for a team of brutes?"

"The players are heroes. Ja'La players virtually have the run of the city, and can do no wrong. Rules and laws rarely apply to Ja'La players. Crowds of women follow the players around, and after a game there's usually a team orgy. Women fight over who will be with a Ja'La player. The spree goes on for days. To have been with a player is an honor of the highest order, and is so highly contested that bragging rights require witnesses."

"Why?" was all she could think to say.

Warren threw up his hands. "You're a woman; you tell me! When I've been the first in three thousand years to solve a prophecy, I've never had a woman throw her arms around my neck, or want to lick the blood off my back."

"They do that?"

"Fight over it. If he's pleased with her tongue, he might pick her. I hear the players are pretty arrogant, and like to make the eager women earn the honor of being under him."

Verna looked over and saw that Warren's face was glowing red. "They even want to be with the losing players?"

"It's irrelevant. He's a Ja'La player: a hero. The more brutal, the better. The ones who have killed an opponent with a Ja'La ball are renowned, and are most sought after by the women. People name babies after them. I just don't understand it."