Suspended from the belt was not only the pouch, but a half-meter-long, single-edged, hiltless dagger on the right as well as a long, basket-hilted broadsword.
Sten didn't know if Alex thought he was going to a party or an invitational massacre.
To continue: Under the belt was a black doublet and vest, both with silver buttons. At Alex's throat was a ruffled silk jabot and, at his wrists, more lace.
Over that was another couple of meters of the hairy, colored cloth, belted to Alex's belt in the rear and then attached to his left shoulder with a silver brooch.
Finishing off the outfit was what Alex called his bonnet— looking a bit like an issue garrison cap, but with more silver and some kind of bird-feather pluming rising from it.
Also, Sten knew, tucked out of sight in that pouch was a nasty little projectile pistol.
Sten couldn't decide exactly what was going on and wasn't sure he wanted to ask.
Naturally, all of the sentries outside the mansion saluted Alex and ignored the others. Only Fflllips seemed upset by the error. They went into the hall.
Just inside the door Sten gratefully parked the shako and walked into the central ballroom.
The first thing he saw was a woman wearing nothing else but a quiver of arrows with a bow tucked beside it taking three glasses of some beverage from a servibot.
Startled, he looked around the ballroom. From the nude Amazon on, his impressions became a little chaotic.
The princes of Nebta seemed to have a vague idea about uniforms but a very definite idea about making these uniforms unique.
Sten saw a pastiche of every army that had ever fought in the thousand years of the Empire and the prehistory before it.
Sten thought he recognized about one tenth of the uniforms. But just barely. There was, for instance, a podgy, red-faced man wearing the fighting cloak of the Thanh, but under it was arraiguelette-crowded purple tunic. There was someone wearing a skirt like Alex's, but of common cloth, with a broad, short-bladed sword, hammered metal helmet, greaves, and shoulder-plate, and even somebody wearing a full metal suit.
He turned to Ffillips in puzzlement.
"That's called armor, Colonel," Ffillips said as she passed Sten a glass.
"But... those holes in the facemask? Wouldn't it leak in space?" Ffillips laughed for some reason and Sten decided to quit showing his ignorance.
Then Parral was standing in front of him, in a costume as fantastic as any of his guests: a long, embroidered robe, a square hat, a huge sword—swords were evidently very popular—and slippers.
"Welcome, gentlemen," Parral silked. "Since this fete is in your honor, we are delighted."
"The pleasure is ours," Ffillips replied smoothly. "We can only hope that our campaign is successful enough to provide many other occasions as wonderful."
Parral looked at Ffillips, then ostentatiously turned his attention to Sten.
"Colonel, there are a few minutes before the meal. Perhaps you and your... underlings would care to circulate?"
Sten nodded stiffly.
Sten's ideal party was a certain amount of quill, beer, four or five congenial companions, and a bright woman he hadn't bedded yet. Certainly not this kind of panoply—there must've been a thousand people milling around the ballroom.
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 Parraclass="underline" "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.