The east gate ring sat inside the old customs yard, which the Association used when a bout carried an office rather than a purse. Two hundred spectators filled the wall walk by the second hour, most of them people who crossed that gate every working morning.
Renk Sowa arrived in his inspection coat rather than fighting gear, which told Vell how the man had prepared for this. The coat carried eleven years of service braid down one sleeve, and he had worn it into a ring where it served no function at all.
He had rehearsed a speech, which showed in the way he waited for the yard to quiet first. Vell had built four speeches of his own in a pump house with a broken stove, so he recognized the shape of a man carrying one.
"You came back for me," Sowa said, so the whole wall walk could hear it, "eleven months in the waste, and you still crawl toward the same gate."
