"Then," roared Jam, "there remains -but one course. Kavir bad-Matlum or whatever your name is, I declare you a knave, pervert, scoundrel, spy, coward, liar, and thief, and challenge you to disprove these assertions with weapons of war upon my person." With which the dasht pulled off his glove and threw it at Hasselborg.
The king sighed. "I thought I had everything arranged, and you do that. 'Tis true there's some question as to whether a person in Master Kavir's station be compelled to accept a challege from a gentleman, especially one of your not inconsiderable rank—"
"See the case of Yezdan versus Qishtaspandu, only last year," retorted Jam. "A professional artist is considered constructively a gentleman, and so may be challenged."
"Here, here," said Hasselborg. "We do things a little differently in Malayer. Somebody explain. Jam wants to fight me, is that right?"
"And how I do!"
"What happens if I don't feel like fighting?"
"Ha hah!" said Jam. "A thin-livered wretch, said I not? Already he seeks to crawl out. Well sir, in that case we inflict upon you, as stigmata of your cowardice, the five mutilations, beginning with your ears—"
"Never mind the rest. Do I get a choice of weapons?"
"Surely. Any weapon in the approved list—lance, pike, sword, dagger, battle-ax, mace, halberd, gisarme, flail, javelin, longbow, crossbow, sling, or throwing-knife; with or without shield, armored or bare, afoot or mounted. I'll take you on with any combination you care to mention, for you'll be the twelfth to try to stand against me. Twelve's my lucky number, you know."
Hasselborg, not thinking it necessary to ask what had become of the other eleven, got out his knuckleduster and showed it to the king. "Would this be allowed?"
"No, no, no!" said the latter. "What think you, that we're savages from the Koloft Swamps, to pummel each other with fists?"
"Then make it crossbows, unarmored, and afoot," said Hasselborg, who as an expert rifle shot figured that this weapon would give him the best chance. "You'll have to give me a couple of days to practice up."
"Accepted," said Jam. "A fine brabble 'twill be, with me the best crossbow-hunter in Rüz. Saw you my collection of heads?"
"You mean the ones on spikes over the city gate? Vulgar ostentation, I thought."
"No, fool, the heads of the beasts I've slain. Your Supremacy, let me urge that you set a guard over this scum, lest he steal away in the night."
"Fair enough," said the king. "Master Kavir, hear my royal command: That you move your gear forthwith to this the royal palace. I'll send men to help you move."
Hasselborg mentally added: To keep him from making a break for liberty.
Fouri's eyes widened with horror when Hasselborg told her what was up, and Haste seemed mildly distressed.
"A foolish business, dueling," said the priest. "The Council of Mishe condemned it in unequivocal terms. Although we of the cloth have long striven to convince the nobility of its sinful folly, they throw our own astrology back in our teeth, saying: won't the stars grant victory to him whose triumph is foreordained? Discouraging."
When he went to his room to pack, Fouri followed him, imperiously telling his pair of guards: "Stand you outside the doors, churls! I command!"
Either the guards thought better of picking an argument with so domineering a young lady, or they knew her as a privileged character. She threw herself on Hasselborg's neck, crying:
"My hero! My love! Can I do aught to save you?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact you can," he said. "Could you sew a pair of pads into the elbows of the jacket of my old suit?"
"Pads? Sew? What mean you?"
Hasselborg patiently turned the coat inside out and explained what he wanted.
"Oh, I understand now," she said. "A wretched seamstress I, but still I'll let none other do it, for then when you wear this jacket, the occult force of my love will flow through your veins and nerve you to deeds of might."
"That'll be nice," he said, folding his clothes on the bed.
"Oh, it will. And then at last shall I be avenged upon this filthy fellow." She stitched away clumsily for a while, then said: "Kavir, why hold you yourself aloof from me? You're colder than the great statue of Qarar in Mishe!"
"Really?"
"Yes, really. Have I not given you all the encouragement a decent maiden can, and more? Look you, Uncle Haste could join us tonight in a few words, and the king wouldn't boggle at my accompanying you to your new chamber in his palace. Then whatever ensued, we'd have a sweet memory to carry with us to our graves, be they early or late."
Hasselborg began to worry lest he say "yes" against his better judgment simply to end the argument. When he looked at her it took all his will power not to take her up on her offer. He would have done so had he been willing to discard his disguise. Of course there was Alexandra, but she was light-years away.
He pulled himself together. "I'm grateful for your regard, Fouri, but I don't anticipate an early grave; not this time anyway. Marriage is a serious matter, not to be entered into as a preliminary to a duel—"
"Then finish your sewing yourself, and I hope you prick your finger!" She threw the coat, needle and all, at his head, and stamped out, slamming the door.
Smiling wryly with a mixture of amusement, pity, and annoyance at the position in which circumstances had placed him, Victor Hasselborg picked up the jacket, donned his glasses, and began complying with her order. Between Haste's mercurial and amorous niece and the Lord of Ruz, he knew just how Odysseus felt in trying to steer between Scylla and Charybdis.
His move completed, Hasselborg spent a dismal evening. The guards whom the king had assigned to him had evidently received orders to stick like leeches. Although he would like to have mingled with the court and found out more about Zamba and its new rulers, the people proved unexpectedly impervious to the charm he turned on. He wondered if the presence of the guards at his elbow might not dampen conversation, until one of his victims set him right:
"Not that we esteem you not, Master Kavir, but that, should you succumb in the forthcoming contest, we'd have likely contracted some of your ill luck by fraternizing with a doomed man."
He retired morosely to his new room. Haste and Fouri—who had become the courteous hostess again—kept him company for a while, the former seeming distressed in his long-winded and ineffectual way.
"Officially, you understand," said Haste, "the Established Church discountenances magic. Still in such a case I might get in touch with one of the local witches, who'll put a spell on the dasht's bow—"
"Go right ahead," said Hasselborg.
"Not that I really believe in witchcraft," continued Haste, "but one can't deny that strange things do happen, not to be explained by ordinary philosophy, as the prince says in Harian's play—"
Finally Haste had to leave to check some astronomical observations, and took Fouri none too willingly along.
Left alone except for his ubiquitous guards, Hasselborg tried to read a Gozashtando book but soon gave it up. The curlicues were just too hard to puzzle out, especially since he did not want to betray his ignorance of the written language in front of the guards by using his dictionary. Moreover, the work itself seemed to be an interminable metrical romance, perhaps best comparable to the Terran epics of Ariosto and Vega Carpio.
He tried engaging the guards in conversation, finding them agreeable enough, but also that he had to do most of the talking. He dropped a few broad hints about his escape from the Rosid clink:
"… you know, I've been lucky in making friends in fixes like that, and happily I've been able to pay them back handsomely. The friend who helped me in Rosid will never want for anything again—"