But Sten smiled his thanks to Parral and then moved slowly off through the crowd, flanked by Alex and the silent, non-drinking Kurshayne.
"It ain't the heavy haulin' that 'urts the 'orses "ooves," Alex murmured, "hit's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard
'ighway."
"What are we doing here?"
"Bern' heroes," Alex said. "An' gie'in these wee parasites a chance to dress up."
"Oh," Sten said, and set his untouched glass back on a passing tray.
"W'll lurkit around here until they feed us, makit our
'pologies, an' gie back to our wee homes an' gie drunk like civilized sol'yers," Alex said. "Dinnae tha' be a plan?"
Sten agreed and started looking at his watch.
The merchant princes of Nebta religiously held to a pattern for the banquet. Dinners were multicourse—a twenty-course meal was regarded as vaguely bourgeois. Each course consisted of a main dish, the cooked barley that had originally sustained the first settlers on Nebta, coupled with a highly exotic side dish.
Of course the princes ignored the barley side dishes and concentrated on the goodies.
Sten had decided the only way to survive terminal obesity was to nibble a lot. He sampled something strange from a dish, then nodded to his waiter, who promptly removed the dish.
He wasn't much impressed by the supposedly exotic dishes. In Mantis he'd relentlessly eaten anything that didn't (a) poison his skin when rubbed on it; (b) move too much; or (c) try to eat him.
The waiter bowed up with the next sample, and Sten tried to behave the way he thought an experienced ex-Guard officer, experienced in affairs of state and the gut, would behave.
Kurshayne hulked behind him. He'd not only refused drink but food as well. Sten thought he was taking this bodyguard thing entirely too seriously.
Alex, on the other hand, was enjoying himself. And eating most of everything in sight. His table area looked a little like ground zero on a very sloppy nuclear test. Sten could not understand where the man was putting all the food—perhaps in that pouch.
The waiter removed the dish. Sten waited. And then heaved a sigh of relief, when he saw other servitors removing the plates. At last it was over.
A few more minutes, listen to some speeches, and then Sten for the mercenaries' mansion and bed. He did, after all, have an appointment to keep a few hours before dawn…
Parral hissed politely for silence, and the conversational hum in the room died away. Parral stood and lifted his glass.
"I thank you, honored guests, for joining me as we, the defenders and supporters of the True Faith of Talamein, celebrate the victors of the battle of…"
And Sten shut his ears off. He was sure this speech would not tell him anything he already didn't want to know.
And the speeches went on, and the toasts went on. Sten barely touched his glass to his lips at each toast.
And then, mercifully, Parral finished, there was applause, and, from some unseen niche, music began.
"Colonel Sten," Parral said. The man had an odd ability to materialize unseen. Not that Sten noticed, because beside the prince stood a young woman. About Sten's own height, close-cropped dark hair that Sten could already feel on a pillow beside him. She would have been nineteen, perhaps twenty years old.
Her costume was not a uniform; instead it was a high-necked, dark-colored tunic skirt, very conservative until you noticed the hip-high slit up one side of the skirt and until the lights caught the dress.
It turned translucent under certain lighting and at certain angles, suddenly promising flashes of the tanned, smooth skin underneath.
Sten would have thought that his suit radio was suddenly malfunctioning with a static-rush—but he was not wearing a suit.
Dimly he heard Parral: "This is my youngest sister, Sofia. She expressly wanted to meet and congratulate you."
Sofia extended a soft hand. "I am honored, Colonel." Her voice was low and throaty and full of promises.
Sten stumbled his return greetings, realizing he sounded like an utter clot. He couldn't help staring at her, and then he realized with a start that she was staring at him too. Sten was sure it wasn't true, but it seemed as if she was just as taken as—
"Perhaps," Parral broke in, "you would do Sofia the honor of dancing with her."
Sofia blushed.
"I've never—I don't—" and Sten shut up, because he suddenly knew he was going to learn how to dance in record time.
He took Sofia by the hand and led her around the table.
Trying not to look at her, trying to eye the moving feet of the dancers already on the floor. Hell, it can't be that hard, he reasoned/rationalized. First they move a foot to the side, then the other comes up beside it and—what was the Bhor prayer?…
By the beard of my mother, don't let me blow it.
Then, somehow, it was all natural as Sofia was all softness melting into his arms. He could smell the perfume in her hair, and Sten, who had never cared much about music, felt something in the dance and was floating across the floor with her. He felt a building tightness in his throat as he found himself drowning in intense deer-eyes staring solemnly up at him.
"Are you enjoying the party?" she whispered to him.
"Not until now," he said. It was a statement, not a flirt.
"Oh," she said, blushing again.
Then, if it was possible, she was snuggling closer in his arms.
Sten thought he had died and gone to whatever heaven was sanctioned in this part of the Empire.
Suddenly, nearby, he heard a table crash over. Sten spun, Sofia forgotten, his right hand started to curl to bring the knife out.
The center table was overturned and, standing in the rubble was Alex and a young, heavily muscled man that Sten vaguely remembered as being Seigneur Froelich.
"I do not challenge underlings," Froelich was saying. "I merely wished to convey my compliments to your superior, express my admiration for his abilities, and then to allow my considerable dismay that he had decided to company the lady Sofia."
Sten was across the dance floor, costumed Nebtans scattering before him.
"Sergeant!"
"Beggin' your pardon, Colonel." Alex's voice was down into that deep brogue and almost whisper. "Ah hae a wee bit a business ae th' moment."
Sten, properly, shut up. And then there was a tap at his shoulder. He turned, and fingers flicked across his face.
Momentarily blinded, Sten dropped into attack stance, claw-hand coming out to block-feint… and then he caught himself.
Another man was there, someone who looked enough like Froelich to be his twin. It was Seigneur Trumbo.
"As Seigneur Froelich's cousin, I must also confess to being offended. I also wish to extend my compliments."
Sten caught a glance of Sofia as the crowd gathered around.
Very interesting, he flashed. In a dueling society like Nebta, she doesn't seem delighted. She looks scared. For me? Come on, Sten, he reprimanded himself. Shut your clottin' glands off.
And now Parral. "This is becoming an interesting evening," he said. "Colonel, perhaps I should explain some of our customs."
Sten shook his head. "Don't bother. These two bravos want to fight. S'be't," Sten mocked.
"Then, tomorrow," Froelich's cousin began…
"Tomorrow I am very busy," Sten said flatly. "We fight now.
Here."
A murmur floated through the crowd, and then eyes brightened. This would indeed be a fete worth talking about.
"As first challenger, then," Froelich said, "I believe I have precedence, if you'll excuse me, Seigneur Trumbo?" He bowed to his cousin.
"Ye hae a problem, lad," Alex said. "Ye'll nae b'fightin'
m'colonel. It's be me."
"I have already told you that—"
And the great sword hung in Alex's hand and then crashed down, splitting the thick overturned table down the middle.
"Ah said ye'll be fightin' me. Ah challenge you, as Laird Kilgour ae Kilgour, frae ae race thae was noble when your tribe was pullin' p'raties in ae wasteland. Now ye'll fight me or ye'll die here ae y'stand."
Froelich paled, then recovered, smiling gently.
"Interesting. Very interesting. Then we shall have two bouts."
The dance floor was cleared and sanded in a few minutes, and the Nebtans ringed the fighting area. Alex and Sten stood fairly close together at one side of the floor, Trumbo and Froelich across from them. The two soldiers were flanked by Vosberh, Ffillips, and the still-unworried Kurshayne.
Since Sten and Alex were the challenged parties, they had choice of weapons as well as location and time.
Alex, of course, had chosen his claymore, and Parral had been delighted to provide Froelich with a basket-hilt saber that nearly matched the Edinburghian's weapon.
Sten had thought wistfully of his own ultimate knife, then discarded the notion. He was, after all, supposed to be a bit of a diplomat as well as a soldier, and he figured that Parral would not be overly thrilled by having one of his court bravos butchered two seconds into the fight.
So he'd picked poignards—long, needle-tapered, double-edged daggers, almost 40cm long. Parral had lovingly selected a matched pair from his own extensive collection.
Sten hefted the weapon experimentally—it was custom-built, of course, and made of carefully layered steel, in the eons-old Damascus style. To compensate for the blade-weight and consequent imbalance, the maker had added a weighted ball pommel. It would do..
Alex padded softly up beside Sten. "How long, wee Sten, d'Ah play't wi' th' castrati t'makit appear bonnie?"
"Give him a minute or two, anyway."
Alex nodded agreement and walked to the center of the floor.
Froelich stood across from him, testing his saber's temper by tension-bending the blade. And trying to look deadly, dashing, and debonair.
Alex just stood there, blade held casually in eighth position.
And then Froelich blurred forward, blade slashing in on a high attack. Alex's hand crossed over, point still down, and blades clanged.
"Ah," he murmured. "Y'fight th' wae ae mon should, wi'out skreekit an' carryint on."
But Sten could tell by the expressions of the Nebtans that Froelich had already broken etiquette. Probably, he guessed, there was supposed to be some kind of formal challenge, offer to withdraw, and all the rest of the boring business. So? All Froelich was doing was shortening the time span before he became wormfood.
Froelich went back on guard. Alex still waited patiently. The next attack was a blinding flurry of strokes into first and third.
Or at least it was supposed to have been. Alex locked hilts with Froelich's second stroke in a
prise defer
, forced the man's saberhand up level, and then shoved.
Froelich clattered back, falling, rolling, coming up, quite respectably fast, Sten thought, and then going on guard.
Breathing hard, he closed in, cautiously clog-stepping forward.
And now Alex attacked, brushing past Froelich's parry with a strong beat and flicking the claymore's blade. The tiny cut took off most of Froelich's ear. Froelich riposted and backhanded across Alex's gut—which was no longer there.
Alex had leaped backward, almost ten feet. Again he stood waiting. As Froelich, leaking blood and reddening, howled and came in, Alex flicked a glance at Sten. Now?
Why not? Sten nodded back, and Alex's blade snaked out, clashed Froelich's saber out of the way and then Alex, seemingly in slow motion, brought the claymore's hilt back almost to his neck and hewed.
Froelich's head, gouting blood, described a neat arc and splashed into the punchbowl. The corpse tottered, then collapsed. Alex sheathed his claymore and strode off the floor to dead silence.
"You might really be Laird Kilgour," Sten whispered.
"Aye. Ah might be," Alex agreed.
Parral, looking a little shaken, walked up to the two soldiers.
"That was, uh, quite a display. Sergeant."
Alex gravely nodded his thanks.
"Colonel? Seigneur Trumbo? I should caution you, the man is one of Nebta's best. He has fought more than a' score of duels and operates his own
salle
."
Sten kept silent.
"I am in a bit of a quandary. You should be aware," Parral went on, "that this man goes for the kill. On one hand, I do not wish to lose the able captain of my mercenaries."
"But on the other?"
"The Trumbo family and mine have somewhat of an alliance.
His death would be equally inappropriate."
"The question then. Seigneur Parral," Ffillips said quietly, "is which death our colonel would find least appropriate then, is it not?"
Parral had the good grace to smile before walking to the center of the dance floor as a servitor finished sweeping the last of the gore aside and sprinkling fresh sand. The body was being lugged out by two of Froelich's long-faced retainers, who must've bet on their ex-leader.
"It would appear." Parral said, relieved at finally being able to go through the rigamarole, "that both challenged party and challenger are unable to settle their differences except by blood.
Am I correct?"
Sten nodded, as did Trumbo as the two men walked toward each other, each gauging his opponent.
"Then blood is the argument," Parral intoned, "and by blood it shall be settled." He bowed twice and backed off the floor.
Trumbo went on guard. At least he wasn't holding his poignard like an icepick. Instead he had his left hand flattened out in front of him, fisted into a guard and held chest-high. His poignard was held low, pommel lightly resting on his left hip. He crab-walked toward Sten.
Sten stood nearly full-on, with right hand, fingers curled, held forward, waist high. His poignard was held slightly to the rear and slightly lower than his right hand.
Sten, too, began crab-walking, trying to move to Trumbo's offside. Come on in, friend, he thought, eyes carefully wide open.
Come on. A bit closer. And who trained you, clot? as Trumbo's eyes narrowed and predictably he lunged, going for Sten's chest.
But Sten wasn't there to meet the blade. He sidestepped and snapped his right palm into Trumbo's temple. The man staggered back, then recovered.