One of the guards said: "Very interesting, sir, but that could never happen here."
"No?"
"No. Our dour be a shrewd judge of men, most careful to pick those for his personal guard who can't be bribed or corrupted."
He asked the other guard:
"Would you agree with that, chum?"
"Absolutely, sir."
Either he's equally honest, thought Hasselborg, or he's afraid to admit otherwise in front of his pal. If one could get him alone, then maybe—
But as time wore on, Hasselborg realized that he could not get either one of them alone, for they were under orders to watch each other as closely as they watched him.
Disgustedly he went to bed, revolving impractical schemes for talking Fouri, on a promise of marriage, into ordering these guards to look the other way while he bolted. He was still thinking thus when he fell asleep.
The next morning, Hasselborg went down to the royal armory to borrow a crossbow. He chose one that fitted his length of arm and whose steel bow was as strong as he could cock with a quick heave of both hands on the string. Then he went out to the exercise ground, where he understood the duel would be held the following morning.
The minute he appeared, an official-looking person rushed up. "Master Kavir, you may not bring that weapon hither now!"
"Huh? Why not?" A crowd with their backs to Hasselborg was watching something. Being taller than most of them, he soon made out that they were looking at Jam bad-Kone at target practice.
"Why, the rule! Ever since Sir Gvasten 'accidentally' skewered the Pandr of Lüsht with a longbow shaft while they were at friendly practice for, their duel, the dour has forbidden that two gentlemen under challenge should practice here at the same time."
"Okay; suppose you hold the bow until he's finished," said Hasselborg, handing over the weapon.
"Yes, yes, but I dare not let you promenade around here while he's armed; comprehend you not?"
"Oh, I'll be careful and not get close to him." Followed by his guards, Hasselborg strolled over to the crowd and watched quietly for some time before the other spectators became aware of his presence. Thereupon they turned heads to look at him. The dasht, seeing him also, flashed him a rousing sneer over his shoulder and addressed himself again to the target.
The system appeared to be that the duelist had to stand with an uncocked crossbow in his hands and his back to the target. On a signal given by a whistle, he snatched a bolt from his belt, cocked his weapon, whirled, and shot. The dasht's next bolt went through the man-shaped target in the heart region—that is, the Krishnan heart region, which was more centered than that of Earthmen—adding one more to a sinister constellation of holes in the cloth. Jam was obviously no tyro.
Hasselborg watched the dasht closely for hints on how to beat this game. He remembered reading a case years before at Harvard Law School on the subject of obsolete laws—about the Englishman who around 1817, losing a lawsuit, challenged his opponent to trial by battle and appeared in the lists on the appointed day with lance and sword, armed cap-a-pie and then claimed to have won his suit because the other litigant had not shown up. The lawyers scurried about frantically and found that the man had won his suit, and the next session of Parliament had to abolish trial by battle.
After an hour or so, the dasht quit and marched off, followed by the men-at-arms he had brought from Rosid. Several of the local gentry hung around, waiting to see Hasselborg perform.
Hasselborg, however, had no intention of making a fool of himself in front of company. He sat lazily on a bench and engaged his guards in conversation on the technical points of crossbowmanship, on the pretext that: "We do things differently in Malayer, but perhaps you local men have better ideas—"
Since the incorruptible whom he had approached without success the previous night proved an enthusiast, Hasselborg had merely to feed him occasional questions until the spectators, becoming bored, drifted off.
"Now I'll try a few," said Hasselborg, to whom the marshal had given back his bow after Jam had departed. "Remember that they use a different kind of bow in my country, so I shall make a few misses at first."
And a few clean misses he did make. The trouble with this thing was that it had no sights, but perhaps that could be remedied.
He asked: "Where can I get a couple of pins about so long, with round heads like so?" He indicated something on the order of a corsage pin.
"I can get you such," said the enthusiast, "for my sweetheart is maid to the Lady Mandai. Since I may not leave you, 'twill take some little time—"
Half an hour later, Hasselborg had his pins. He firmly pressed one into the wooden stock of the crossbow near the muzzle end, to one side of the bolt groove, and the other into a corresponding position to the rear. Then he made a few more shots, adjusting the pins until, from the official distance, he could make a clean hit by shooting with the heads of the two pins in line with the target.
"By all the gods," said the enthusiast, "what's this our good Master Kavir has done? By the nose of Tyazan, 'tis surely a new and deadly idea!"
"Oh, that's old stuff where I come from," said Hasselborg.
He was now confident that he could hit the target all right; the problem remained to keep the target from hitting him. Jam had done all his shooting from an erect position. "Do the rules require you to shoot standing?"
"What other position is there?" said the enthusiast.
The other guard said: "I've seen men shoot kneeling. In truth, the drillmaster the dour had before the present one taught sinking to one knee to shoot from behind a wall or other obstacle. That was before your time, Ardebil."
Hasselborg asked: "How about the rules?"
"I know of nought to prevent one from shooting from any position he likes," said the enthusiast. "For aught I know, 'tis legal to charge your foe and smite him on the pate with the stock of the bow."
Hasselborg cocked the bow and lay down prone, thankful for the pads in his jacket but also wishing the flagstones of the exercise court were cleaner. His shooting, however, became so good that the guards whistled their appreciation.
The enthusiast said: " Twere a chivalrous thing to warn the dasht of that which he faces."
"You wouldn't want to spoil his surprise, would you?" said Hasselborg.
Next morning, Hasselborg stood on the same flagstones, listening to the marshal intone the rules of the contest: "… and at the ends of the court your bows will be handed unto you. You shall stand facing the wall and making no move until the whistle. Then may you fight howsoever you will, and may the stars grant victory to the right."
The marshal was standing in back of a little wooden wall about a meter long and breast-high, behind which he could duck if things got too hot. He and the duelists were the only people in the court, although the palace windows, which surrounded the court on three sides, were full of faces. King Eqrar, High Priest Haste, Fouri—
"Stand back to back," said the marshal. "Now walk to the ends of the court: one—two—one—two—"
"Are you ready?"
Hasselborg stood facing the stone wall, gooseflesh on his back, into which back he more than half expected Jam to send an iron bolt any second. He was finding a formal duel harder on his nerve than he expected. A fight was one thing; he'd been in several on Earth that had resulted fatally for his antagonist. The first time it had given him the bleeps, but after that he'd taken it as a matter of course. Now the shivery feeling of his first lethal fight had come back. This standing up like a fool and deliberately risking—
The whistle blew piercingly. Hasselborg, tensed for action, dropped the nose of his crossbow to the ground, stuck his toe into the stirrup on the end, and heaved on the string. It came back with a faint sound into the notch. He snatched a bolt from his felt, whirled, and threw himself prone on his elbow pads, placed the bolt in its groove, and sighted on his target.