“Well, being gorgeous helps,” Mike pointed out, smiling. “But you’re not all that strange at all. You’re just strange to the Keldara. And they’re not used to much strangeness.”
“And you are?” Katrina asked.
“Trust me,” Mike said. “You’re not a patch on some of the girlfriends I’ve had. I won’t get into the list, don’t know if I could remember all of them, but you’re not nearly as strange as half of them. But I do care for you, a great deal. It’s one of the reasons I won’t sleep with you; I don’t want you to get hurt. And here we are back on that subject.”
“If you hadn’t brought all those girls into your household there would be a place for me,” Katrina said, sadly. “But you did. And that foreign witch.”
“I needed Anastasia because of the rest,” Mike replied. “But, trust me, if you were in the household it would be a special place. I’d like you to make your home among the Keldara, though, if you can. And if it turns out you can’t… we’ll talk. But not this spring, it’s too soon. You’re far too young…” He held up a hand to forestall the response. “I know, among the Keldara you should be married already. But among my people you’re far too young. And, yes, some of the girls that we picked up are younger. I had them thrown on me, I didn’t have much choice. And I don’t intend for to… open them until they’re a bit… older. Besides, there’s more out there than just me. I’d like you to try to live life before you throw yourself at me. And if you can’t… we’ll talk. That’s all I’ve ever promised and it’s all I will.”
“You are the most stubborn man,” Katrina said, exasperatedly.
“Get used to it,” Mike said. He’d been eating as they talked and he wiped his hands. “I hope like hell I can just watch for the rest of the day but I get the impression I’m supposed to participate in these contests.”
“You are one of the Burakan,” Katrina said, shocked. “Of course you have to compete.”
“More luck me,” Mike said, laying back and looking at the sky. “I’d rather just lie here and sleep. This is a nice spot.”
“I like it very much,” Katrina said, crossing the blanket and lying down by him. “Is this permitted?”
“Very much so,” Mike replied, putting one arm under her head. “But that’s all the touching we’re going to do.”
“I think this is where the water sprites come to play,” Katrina said, snuggling into him. “In the spray and the falls of the stream. It is a very pretty place.”
“Pretty girl, pretty place to snuggle and I’ve got to go, what? Throw a bull? I’ve never thrown a bull in my life. Carry big rocks? Done that in SEAL training. Toss a big log? Wrestle?”
“And jump the fire pit,” Katrina said. “You must play with the bull, also, not just toss it. The Burakan are judged on their artistry in playing with the bull.”
“Great,” Mike grunted. “I should have been in the rodeo. Maybe I’ll play the rodeo clown, I saw one of them one time. It looked like a hell of a way to make a living.”
“Whatever you do, do not let yourself get directly in front of the bull’s horns,” Katrina said. “It will gore you for sure.”
“Hold on,” Mike said, sitting up. “It’s got horns?”
“Of course,” Katrina said, sitting up as well. “It is a fighting bull.”
“You could get killed that way,” Mike pointed out, realizing how fatuous the statement was after he said it. “Are they nuts?”
“It is a test of courage,” Katrina said, her eyes narrowing. “You’re not afraid are you?”
“Of course I’m afraid,” Mike said, then frowned. “In my culture it’s not a shame to admit fear. You just work through it. Sure, there’s times you don’t mention it. In a sub comes to mind. But you just do the damned job. But fighting with a bull? With horns? That’s nuts!”
“You admit to being afraid?” Katrina said, amazed.
“I’ve been flat terrified more times than I want to remember,” Mike said, thinking about a corridor stinking with dead bodies, not to mention spraying poison gas in a closed room. “There was one time,” he said, avoiding those particular, highly classified, events, “when I had a double failure on a jump. You know what a parachute is?”
“No,” Katrina said, frowning.
“It’s a device for jumping out of airplanes,” Mike said, picking up one of the napkins and holding it by the corners. “Imagine this as a very big piece of fabric,” he said, pulling it through the air. “You jump out of the plane and then pull a ring so that the big fabric, attached to strings, comes out. And you float down through the air.”
“That must be exciting,” Katrina said, her eyes wide. “You have done this?”
“A couple of thousand times,” Mike said. “I used to instruct in it. But one time, on a training jump, the chutes wouldn’t come out of the bags they were in. You use two, for safety, but neither one would come out. I had to struggle to get the reserve deployed. It didn’t open until I was a couple of hundred feet off the ground and we’d jumped from higher than the mountains,” he said, gesturing at the peaks around them. “Now that was frightening. But there was a reason for me to be doing it.” He thought about it for a moment and then shrugged.
“Okay, I’ll admit it, I’d still be jumping for fun if I was in the States.” He thought about it some more and shrugged again. “So maybe fighting a bull isn’t so nuts after all. But I don’t know how.”
“Grab it by the horns,” Katrina said, holding out her hands. “Get to the side and pull down on the horns to the side. Twist the head and force it to the ground and the body will follow.”
“Sounds easy,” Mike said, grinning. “And it’s not, is it?”
“No,” Katrina admitted. “Do not let it get you in front of its horns or it will hook up and you will be done.”
“Thanks for the handy safety tip,” Mike said, standing up and holding out his hand. “And on that note, I think we’d better be getting back.”
“Yes, we should,” Katrina said, unhappily. But she took his hand. However, when he hauled her to her feet she continued up, swarming on him and planting a kiss on his lips.
Mike leaned into it for a moment, their tongues tangling, then pulled himself away. More like pried her off.
“Very nice,” he said, setting her back on her feet reluctantly. “But I’m going to be late.”
“You are so very stubborn,” Katrina said, shaking her head. But she started to pack up the lunch.
The first test was the test of the stone. A course had been laid out, about thirty meters long, with a line at the end and one huge fucking stone at the beginning.
“In the test of the stone, the contestant must pick up the stone and carry it to the far line, then back,” Father Mahona said for the benefit of the visitors. Most of the Keldara were gathered to watch, along with the trainers and the women from the castle. Mike was glad to see about five of the trainers were missing, which meant Adams and Nielson had kept a reaction team around. He’d worried that if the Chechens got frisky today, nobody was in a position to do anything about it. He also wondered when would be a good time to point out to the Keldara that future festivals were going to be interrupted by personnel being on duty. “A count is kept starting from when they cross the first line until they get back to the line. He who makes it to the far line and back fastest wins. If you drop the stone you are permitted to pick it back up and finish.”