"I've never—I don't—" and Sten shut up, because he suddenly knew he was going to learn how to dance in record time.
He took Sofia by the hand and led her around the table.
Trying not to look at her, trying to eye the moving feet of the dancers already on the floor. Hell, it can't be that hard, he reasoned/rationalized. First they move a foot to the side, then the other comes up beside it and—what was the Bhor prayer?... By the beard of my mother, don't let me blow it.
Then, somehow, it was all natural as Sofia was all softness melting into his arms. He could smell the perfume in her hair, and Sten, who had never cared much about music, felt something in the dance and was floating across the floor with her. He felt a building tightness in his throat as he found himself drowning in intense deer-eyes staring solemnly up at him.
"Are you enjoying the party?" she whispered to him.
"Not until now," he said. It was a statement, not a flirt.
"Oh," she said, blushing again.
Then, if it was possible, she was snuggling closer in his arms. Sten thought he had died and gone to whatever heaven was sanctioned in this part of the Empire.
Suddenly, nearby, he heard a table crash over. Sten spun, Sofia forgotten, his right hand started to curl to bring the knife out.
The center table was overturned and, standing in the rubble was Alex and a young, heavily muscled man that Sten vaguely remembered as being Seigneur Froelich.
"I do not challenge underlings," Froelich was saying. "I merely wished to convey my compliments to your superior, express my admiration for his abilities, and then to allow my considerable dismay that he had decided to company the lady Sofia."
Sten was across the dance floor, costumed Nebtans scattering before him.
"Sergeant!"
"Beggin' your pardon, Colonel." Alex's voice was down into that deep brogue and almost whisper. "Ah hae a wee bit a business ae th' moment."
Sten, properly, shut up. And then there was a tap at his shoulder. He turned, and fingers flicked across his face.
Momentarily blinded, Sten dropped into attack stance, claw-hand coming out to block-feint... and then he caught himself.
Another man was there, someone who looked enough like Froelich to be his twin. It was Seigneur Trumbo.
"As Seigneur Froelich's cousin, I must also confess to being offended. I also wish to extend my compliments."
Sten caught a glance of Sofia as the crowd gathered around. Very interesting, he flashed. In a dueling society like Nebta, she doesn't seem delighted. She looks scared. For me? Come on, Sten, he reprimanded himself. Shut your clottin' glands off.
And now Parral. "This is becoming an interesting evening," he said. "Colonel, perhaps I should explain some of our customs."
Sten shook his head. "Don't bother. These two bravos want to fight. S'be't," Sten mocked.
"Then, tomorrow," Froelich's cousin began...
"Tomorrow I am very busy," Sten said flatly. "We fight now. Here."
A murmur floated through the crowd, and then eyes brightened. This would indeed be a fete worth talking about.
"As first challenger, then," Froelich said, "I believe I have precedence, if you'll excuse me, Seigneur Trumbo?" He bowed to his cousin.
"Ye hae a problem, lad," Alex said. "Ye'll nae b'fightin' m'colonel. It's be me."
"I have already told you that—"
And the great sword hung in Alex's hand and then crashed down, splitting the thick overturned table down the middle.
"Ah said ye'll be fightin' me. Ah challenge you, as Laird Kilgour ae Kilgour, frae ae race thae was noble when your tribe was pullin' p'raties in ae wasteland. Now ye'll fight me or ye'll die here ae y'stand."
Froelich paled, then recovered, smiling gently.
"Interesting. Very interesting. Then we shall have two bouts."
The dance floor was cleared and sanded in a few minutes, and the Nebtans ringed the fighting area. Alex and Sten stood fairly close together at one side of the floor, Trumbo and Froelich across from them. The two soldiers were flanked by Vosberh, Ffillips, and the still-unworried Kurshayne.
Since Sten and Alex were the challenged parties, they had choice of weapons as well as location and time.
Alex, of course, had chosen his claymore, and Parral had been delighted to provide Froelich with a basket-hilt saber that nearly matched the Edinburghian's weapon.
Sten had thought wistfully of his own ultimate knife, then discarded the notion. He was, after all, supposed to be a bit of a diplomat as well as a soldier, and he figured that Parral would not be overly thrilled by having one of his court bravos butchered two seconds into the fight.
So he'd picked poignards—long, needle-tapered, double-edged daggers, almost 40cm long. Parral had lovingly selected a matched pair from his own extensive collection.
Sten hefted the weapon experimentally—it was custom-built, of course, and made of carefully layered steel, in the eons-old
Damascus style. To compensate for the blade-weight and consequent imbalance, the maker had added a weighted ball pommel. It would do..
Alex padded softly up beside Sten. "How long, wee Sten, d'Ah play't wi' th' castrati t'makit appear bonnie?"
"Give him a minute or two, anyway."
Alex nodded agreement and walked to the center of the floor. Froelich stood across from him, testing his saber's temper by tension-bending the blade. And trying to look deadly, dashing, and debonair.
Alex just stood there, blade held casually in eighth position. And then Froelich blurred forward, blade slashing in on a high attack. Alex's hand crossed over, point still down, and blades clanged.
"Ah," he murmured. "Y'fight th' wae ae mon should, wi'out skreekit an' carryint on."
But Sten could tell by the expressions of the Nebtans that Froelich had already broken etiquette. Probably, he guessed, there was supposed to be some kind of formal challenge, offer to withdraw, and all the rest of the boring business. So? All Froelich was doing was shortening the time span before he became wormfood.
Froelich went back on guard. Alex still waited patiently. The next attack was a blinding flurry of strokes into first and third. Or at least it was supposed to have been. Alex locked hilts with Froelich's second stroke in a prise defer, forced the man's saberhand up level, and then shoved.
Froelich clattered back, falling, rolling, coming up, quite respectably fast, Sten thought, and then going on guard. Breathing hard, he closed in, cautiously clog-stepping forward.
And now Alex attacked, brushing past Froelich's parry with a strong beat and flicking the claymore's blade. The tiny cut took off most of Froelich's ear. Froelich riposted and backhanded across Alex's gut—which was no longer there.
Alex had leaped backward, almost ten feet. Again he stood waiting. As Froelich, leaking blood and reddening, howled and came in, Alex flicked a glance at Sten. Now?
Why not? Sten nodded back, and Alex's blade snaked out, clashed Froelich's saber out of the way and then Alex, seemingly in slow motion, brought the claymore's hilt back almost to his neck and hewed.
Froelich's head, gouting blood, described a neat arc and splashed into the punchbowl. The corpse tottered, then collapsed. Alex sheathed his claymore and strode off the floor to dead silence.
"You might really be Laird Kilgour," Sten whispered.
"Aye. Ah might be," Alex agreed.
Parral, looking a little shaken, walked up to the two soldiers. "That was, uh, quite a display. Sergeant."
Alex gravely nodded his thanks.
"Colonel? Seigneur Trumbo? I should caution you, the man is one of Nebta's best. He has fought more than a' score of duels and operates his own salle."
Sten kept silent.
"I am in a bit of a quandary. You should be aware," Parral went on, "that this man goes for the kill. On one hand, I do not wish to lose the able captain of my mercenaries."