by Emerson, Ru
“I saw it all,” Giraut said; he sounded and looked unhappy and very worried both. Dupret waited him out. “He—unfortunately, M. Cray, he has the right of it.”
“He hit me first, what’d you expect me to do?” Chris said flatly.
“Yes, but he is noble, and—”
“You dare not!” Ariadne began. Dupret growled something extremely obscene at her in gutter French and she went red to the hairline. Giraut protested weakly.
“No, Giraut, whatever he and this misgotten child of mine say of me, I have yet rights!” Dupret drew a deep breath, expelled it in a gust, and smiled unpleasantly. “I challenge you, M. Cray. And you, Giraut, you tell me my cher ami Albione is aboard this ship: I name him my impartial witness.” And, very softly, “You will pay for that, M. Cray.”
“Good luck,” Chris snarled. “You don’t have Maurice to soften me up this time.” Farce, he thought sourly. He’d give this snotty nobleman farce. “Eddie,” he said; not quite a question.
“Of course,” Edrith replied at once.
Dupret drew himself up. The smile broadened. “My choice of weaponry, of course.” He turned, touched the point of the captain’s sword. “Nothing quite so heavy and common as this, if there is better aboard. As for time and place—why, what better than here, and now?”
“That is not yours to choose,” Ariadne snapped. “Aboard this ship, oui, because only a fool would permit you to leave it alive! But we wait an hour, when the sun is below the hill so you do not use that against him!” Dupret’s lip lifted slightly.
“Um—ah—first touch,” Giraut stuttered anxiously. “First touch only!”
“If you say.” Dupret’s mouth quirked; his eyes remained dangerously expressionless.
“I do say!”
“First touch,” Chris snapped. Dupret clearly intended first touch to go right through him; well, things weren’t going to go Dupret’s way this time around.
Ariadne brought her chin up, gazed at Dupret furiously for a very long moment. “First touch,” she said. “Giraut, upon you if things go beyond control.” Dupret flashed her a nasty, teeth-only grin. She turned away and strode off.
13
Chris turned on his heel and stalked down the deck; Edrith was right behind him. Ahead of them, Ariadne’s back was stiff with displeasure, her head high; her skirts swished crisply. Chris caught up with her just out of sight of the main deck, under the sheltered entry to the first-class cabins, and gripped her shoulders, spinning her around to face him. She met his eyes squarely. “Ari! What were you trying to do out there, collect one last bruise to remember him by?”
She was still very red, practically trembling with fury. “It was not necessary that you—non. Never mind.” She averted her face and fixed her eyes on her fingers.
“More to the point,” Edrith put in mildly, “what do you plan on doing, to keep from being killed? You’re worse with a sword than I am, Chris.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Chris said. He licked suddenly dry lips. “Thanks a lot.” Ariadne caught hold of his hands and shook her head.
“You do not get killed. Not today, not by him.”
“I do, and I’ll haunt you forever, I swear,” Chris replied sourly. He looked up as heavy footsteps came along the deck, from the direction of the hatch. A bare-headed, grubbily shirtsleeved Albione went by, escorted by two armed junior officers. The reek of hold wafted over them.
“Pay heed,” Ariadne said, tapping his shoulder with one hard little finger to get his attention. “You are not good with sword but you know how to use one, I have seen you and Eddie.”
“Yeah. Fooling around, handful of lessons from Dahven, four years ago,” Chris retorted. “Real useful. But I—” Ariadne held up a hand.
“I finish, please. He has a trick he will try upon you at once, he uses it in every duel, to win with a quick flourish and before any time at all passes. He leans so, with his left shoulder toward you, then turns on his heel very swiftly, to bring the blade down overhand, and at the last moment across, backhand.” Chris shook his head; she showed him. “It is easy to counter; you ignore the overhand, cut like so before he can shift the direction. It slices a line across his ribs and you are done.”
“Yeah. Then he guts me because he’s pissed.” Chris bit his lip. “Uh, look, if we can find something to talk about besides cutting people and bleeding, you mind?”
“You must touch him, to stop the fight, and then you jump back from his reach; it need be no more than touch, a drop of blood—even a scratch—for proof. If Giraut is slow to remind the soldiers and he attempts more fight, if he is yet able, I shout and remind them myself.” She gazed out across the deck, at the long shadows lying there. “You need a good sword, you and Eddie both—I have those you bought me in Sikkre. And you,” she added as she leveled a finger at Chris’s nose, “need one of the new powders.”
Chris sighed heavily. “Forget it. Absolutely not.”
“You already tell me they ease the pain, and they do not make dizzy of you.” She turned away, eased her arm from his grasp, and walked toward their cabin.
He came right on her heels. “They don’t make me as dizzy. Any dizzy at all is a little too much if I’m playing duel with Dupret, all right?” She merely shook her head, went on.
Edrith touched his shoulder. “She’s right, you know. Besides, I would like to see you practice that maneuver she suggests once or twice, if you’re really gonna do this. You know?”
“Oh—I’m gonna go through with it. I owe the jerk, even if this wasn’t quite the payback I had in mind.” Chris waited until Dija closed the cabin door behind them, then went over to the chest, where his single clothes bag was stored, and undid the clips, rummaged in it for some moments. “Ah-hah!”
Ariadne stared, visibly horrified, at the three-foot length of dark, smooth wood. “You—oh, no! You do not fight a skilled swordsman with that!”
“Hey, lady,” Chris said flatly as he spun the stick. “This is how I fight. The only way. I’ve used nothing else since I got hauled into this world four years ago. I was good enough to stop practiced, grudge-holding swordsmen back then. Now—well, now I’m four years better at it. Dupret’s a trained duelist, he fights by certain rules and he’s used to certain kinds of response to what he does. He’ll never know what hit him.”
“You—” She’d gone very pale, couldn’t get any additional words out. Chris waited; she licked her lips, shook her head.
“Trust me. Better yet, ask Eddie. This is what I know, and it will work.” Silence. “Think about this, too: He’s twice my age. Oh,” he added as she opened her mouth to protest. “I know, he’s good at this stuff; he’s killed a lot of men. He’s damn near fifty. His legs are old, so’s his heart. Even if he did this a lot, he’d never be as young or as fit as I am—and he spends most of his time behind a desk. I’ll play him out until he starts staggering, then cold-cock him. Piece of cake.”
“He—he will never fight that,” Ariadne protested faintly.
“He started this. He’ll fight. I can make him.” Chris laughed; there wasn’t any humor in the sound.
Ariadne sat on the cabin’s only padded chair, hard. “He will—”
“He won’t.” Chris tossed the stick deftly from hand to hand. “Show me that trick of his again, how he does it.”
She got to her feet, crossed to the dry sink that held the water pitcher and a tray with several enameled cups. “Powders first,” she said. Her voice trembled.
“No powders.” She turned, brought her chin up. “No way, Ariadne. Some plain water—yeah, I could use that, it’s hot out there, it’ll still be too warm for real people after the sun goes down.” He leveled the bo at her. “Water only, you got it?”
Ariadne glared at him for a very long moment. She was still so furious she could hardly contain herself. She didn’t dare let them know; wouldn’t let him, any of them, see how very angry she was. All I planned, everything I did, to make certain of that man, to see to it he did no
t leave this ship or this port alive, and Chris—to save me a slap, he ruins all! Well, he didn’t realize what he’d done—but he wasn’t going to fight Dupret, either. Thanks to my beloved papa, that I know always to have a plan behind the first plan should the first fail. But Chris must suspect nothing. She did have such a plan—and he wouldn’t suspect. She gave him a nasty look and slammed his cup down on the edge of the dry sink, poured water into it, set the cup to her lips, tipped it up a little and swallowed. That he believes I sipped some of this stuff first, and trusts, and drinks it down unsuspecting… Emilie swore this particular liquid mixed immediately with water and tasted not at all. She had better be right about that—and about how well and quickly it worked. “There. I test it first. Have you—are you satisfied?” She made a show of turning the cup so the opposite rim was toward him, waited until he drank, and carried it back to the dry sink, stood there with her back to him. Get away from him, he will see it in your face, he will suspect… “Keep in mind,” she announced suddenly, sharply, “that I wish even less, now, to become a widow at not yet twenty. You die at his hand, and I will haunt you forever!” She slammed the cup down once more and stormed out of the cabin, hauling the door closed behind her with a teeth-rattling slam. Dija made a vexed, unhappy little sound and went after her.
Edrith waited until the door closed behind Dija, then turned to Chris. “For once I agree with the lady, if not with her particular style of diplomacy, or her logic. You are mad to even think of using that against Dupret.”
“I’d be nuttier to use one of those nasty sharp-edged things; I haven’t even touched one in over a year, remember? That would be even more dumb than if I let you take him.”
“Which, being a sensible man, I would not,” Edrith said flatly. “Not with sword, and certainly not with a short staff. You tell me all the time it’s the law-and-order thing, let the guard do its job, let them handle the Casimaffis, the Chorans, the Duprets—and then you let him provoke this?”
“What?” Chris spread his hands. “I shoulda just said no?”
“I would have!”
“Hey, Eddie, damnit, don’t you start on me, too!”
“That kind of macho pride is stupid; you always say so. I agree with that.”
“This isn’t—well,” Chris said thoughtfully, and much more quietly. “Guess maybe it is, some. Not entirely, though. It’s—not just what he did to me, what she went through, waiting for him to—hell,” he growled. “If I didn’t think I could take him, I’d’ve told him to stuff his noble rights.”
“And if you can’t?”
Chris sighed. “Eddie, it’s me, remember? Besides, think about it—he’s hauled out of his house and onto this ship, everyone in Philippe-sur-Mer knows where he’s going and why, and then, he gets decked by me? Humiliations galore, remember?” Edrith started to shake his head; Chris gripped his shoulder. “I owe the guy,” he said flatly. “I’ve always said that, too.”
Silence. Edrith got to his feet. “If I were you, I would think of what else you owe him for.”
“I’m thinking of her. I probably saved her a—hey.” Chris was quiet for some moments; his brow furrowed. “You know what?”
“After all this, a trick question?”
“No trick, Ariadne. The way she looked out there waiting for Dupret to show, the way she went for him—” His voice trailed off.
“You don’t think she was trying to provoke a fight? Herself to duel him?” Edrith laughed shortly. “You think she tried to make him smack her in the face so she could challenge him?” He laughed again.
“Well? He almost did, didn’t he? Until I got between them. But you didn’t see her take on Dahven; she’s—she’s pretty good. She knows it, too.”
“That’s dangerous knowledge. But it sounds a fantastic plot, even for her,” Edrith said.
“Yeah—I guess. Like Giraut would let her pick up a sword and go to first blood with her old man; in his book that would be unnatural, and besides, he thinks she’s spun sugar.” He got to his feet, frowned uncertainly. “You don’t think she went out to jump him?”
“Jump—who, Dupret? With all those soldiers around? And a straight attack?” Edrith laughed; the sound was rather forced. “Walk past all those men and run him through? I thought you said she preferred the sodden drunk, black night and back alleys.”
“Yeah—I guess.” Chris said slowly. He shook himself. “Sure, with Dija right in the middle of things; she might not care for her own hide but Dija—”
Edrith gestured toward the room’s sole window, the shadows across the deck beyond it. “It’s nearly sundown.”
“Oh, thanks, guy.”
“I mean to say,” Edrith overrode him sarcastically, “that if you really mean to use that short bo, do you want to work out a little first?”
Chris shook his head. “Save my energy, what strength I got.” Edrith frowned at him; he shook his head again. “I’m not hurting or anything, don’t look at me like that. Just not a hundred percent, you know?”
“Not dizzy, not sick?”
“Hey. I’m not doing any of that stuff anymore, remember?”
“You had better not be. What’s my job, out there?”
“Not totally sure; you don’t have to step in for me if he does me, or anything—not like my world, where a second could fight if the first guy chickened out or got killed or like that. Think it worked that way, anyhow; I know duels only from old movies. Far’s I know, an impartial witness only has to stay close and make sure everything’s done the right way.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Edrith replied gloomily. “I get to say he ran you through properly.”
Chris sighed and said with heavy patience, “Nobody’s running me through. Not today, anyhow.” He gave the bo a final spin, ran his hands down it both ways to make sure the wood was still smooth. “Let’s go; I’ll go nuts in here and I wanna make absolutely sure Ariadne hasn’t snagged a knife and gone Dupret stalking.”
She was standing under the canopy, arms folded, scowling along the main deck toward the bow. Chris looked that direction; he couldn’t see anything except soldiers. Just then, three more ordinary soldiers came up the gangplank, a very tall black man in their midst. Ariadne swore and darted toward the plank. Chris snatched at her arm, too late. “Damn. Wait here,” he told Dija. “Eddie, you stay with her, okay?”
“Dija is fine, you may not be,” Edrith said mildly. Ariadne was already at the head of the ramp, fists jammed into her waist, arguing vehemently with one of the soldiers; he spread his hands and shook his head. The three went on across the deck toward the short stairs that led to the officer’s cabin; the tall man stayed with her. “Not one of Dupret’s, apparently,” he added as he caught up with Chris. “But he looks familiar.”
“Works on the docks. That’s Uncle Brother,” Chris said tersely. Ariadne had his near hand in both of hers, she was listening as he spoke in a rapid, low voice. Patrice looked up, gave Chris a brief glance; his face was very grave.
“You look better, M. Cray,” he said. “I am glad. We saw the soldiers, heard all that has passed in the city this afternoon. I came to see if you and she were about, or if the soldiers could give us some word of you.” He planted a loud kiss on Ariadne’s fingers. “I cannot stay, child; I go with some of these French to the plantation, see if there are more of your disgraced papa’s men there, and help them find where the bad brandies are mixed.”
“Have care,” Ariadne urged, her voice low and worried. “And—and if you can, if there is time, bring from my tante a box of her bone-mend powder, for Chris.”
“I do it.” He gripped Chris’s hand, turned, and strode down the ramp; half a dozen soldiers followed him.
A cool breeze slid across Chris’s back; he turned to look down the deck. “The sun,” Ariadne said; her voice was suddenly husky; she caught her lower lip between her teeth.
“Yeah.” Chris watched it slide behind the mountain, then turned back as light footsteps came from the bow. Giraut looked eve
n more nervous than he had earlier and was all but wringing his hands; Joulon appeared merely harassed. “I’m ready if he is,” Chris said. Giraut dabbed at his throat with a damp-looking handkerchief and nodded sharply. “Fine. Cool. Let’s get it done.”
The soldiers still on deck had moved back, along the rail and across the foredeck, enclosing a space maybe ten feet on a side. Chris swallowed, stepped into the open, bo dangling from his fingers. Not much room; no room for mistake, definitely. Dupret—he couldn’t see the man yet, but there was Albione, staring impartially down his thin, rather smudged nose. Ragged beard covered his cheeks and throat, ruining the line of the neat little imperial he ordinarily sported. Ship’s hold is afar cry from your fancy cabin, huh, dude? He shifted; Dupret came from somewhere behind Albione, visibly confident and certain of himself despite the stance of the guards, the metal bands on his wrists. He stopped short of the captain, raised his chin in a disturbingly Ariadne-like gesture, and held out his hands. One of the soldiers removed the fetters; one of the junior officers came forward with a short rack of swords. Dupret gazed at this thoughtfully, hands rubbing his wrists; he finally drew one partway from its niche, then another; he took out a third, hefted it judiciously, and sliced the air with it. It was slender, like the rapier Ariadne had used to fence Dahven. He smiled at his opponent then; that glittering, mad-eyed smile that was Dupret at his most unnerving.
Chris bared his teeth in reply but his mouth had gone very dry, and as he took another step forward, the ship’s deck seemed to move under his feet. His stomach twisted sharply; nerves, he told himself. Not fighting; not even fighting Dupret, who’d probably been at it more years than Chris had been alive: it was more the formality of the whole thing, the deliberateness of it, as opposed to the kind of surprise-attack, kill-or-be-killed fight he’d faced so many times in Rhadaz those first few months. So what, and also big deal, he ordered himself. It’s no worse, no different than if the dude dropped on you like the Sikkreni guard did, way back when. Take him out like you did those guys. Everything fell into place all at once. This was right. Dupret: Yeah. Last fencing lesson, you jerk. Watch out for your head. The junior officer turned toward him and held out the rack.
