Robin took a long time answering. Many things had occurred to Gaby since the fight was proposed. She wondered how many of them Robin was considering now. Should she let Robin win? That might be hazardous if Robin suspected she was not fighting wholeheartedly. If Robin did lose, would she really bury the hatchet? Gaby had to take her word for that. She thought she understood the little witch well enough to know her concept of honor would not have allowed her to suggest it if she could not behave as advertised. So the fight would be serious and probably painful.
"If that's the way you want it," Robin said.
Robin was taking off her clothes, so Gaby did the same. They were half a kilometer from the river, far enough to make the campfire just a dim light seen through pouring rain. The field of combat was a shallow depression in the rolling land. There was little grass, but the dirt was firm enough: heat-baked ground only beginning to soak up moisture after six hours of steady rain. Still, the footing would not be good. In places there were puddles and mud.
They faced each other, and Gaby sized up her opponent. They were a close match. Gaby had a few centimeters in height and a few kilos in mass.
"Are there any forms we should observe? Any rituals?"
"Yes, but they're complex, and they wouldn't mean anything to you, so why don't we just dispense with them? Mumbo jumbo and alagazam, you bow to me and I bow to you, and we'll consider the rituals satisfied, okay?"
"Rules?"
"What? Oh, I guess there should be, shouldn't there? But I really don't know how much you know about fighting."
"I know how to kill someone with my hands," Gaby said.
"Let's just say we do nothing that would permanently injure the other. The loser should be able to walk tomorrow. Other than that, anything goes."
"Right. But before we start, I was curious about that tattoo on your stomach. What is that for?" She pointed to Robin's midsection.
It might have been better-Robin could have looked at herself rather than at Gaby's pointing hand-but she was still caught off guard when Gaby kicked with the foot she had been carefully working down into the mud. Robin ducked the kick, but a glob of mud hit her on the side of the face, blinding one eye.
Gaby expected the leap backward and was prepared to exploit it, but Robin's reflexes were a little quicker, and Gaby took a kick in the side. It slowed her just enough for Robin to execute her own surprise move.
She turned and ran.
Gaby ran after her, but it was not a tactic she was used to. She kept expecting a trick and so did not run as fast as she might have. As a result, Robin soon had a comfortable lead. She stopped when the distance between them had lengthened to ten meters, and when she turned, her eye was open again. Gaby thought she would not be seeing as well as before, but the rain had removed most of her disadvantage. Gaby was impressed. When she began to move in on the younger woman, she did so with extreme caution.
It was like a restart. Gaby felt handicapped because she had seldom fought this way before. Her own training had been very long ago, and while she was not rusty, it was hard to remember what one did in those practice sessions. For the last eighty years any fight she found herself in was completely serious, meaning that death could always result. That kind of fight was not at all like practicing. Robin, on the other hand, must do this sort of thing all the time. Her personality would practically guarantee it.
There was no real reason why the fight should last more than a few minutes, even pulling punches. Somehow Gaby didn't think it would turn out that way. When she moved in, she gambled by not throwing any punches or kicks, leaving Robin an opening Gaby felt she could handle if the younger woman chose to exploit it. But she did not, and the two of them grappled for wrestling holds. An agreement had been made without words. Gaby would honor it. By formalizing the contest even further than the rules they had agreed on, Robin was saying she had no desire for either of them to be hurt. That meant Gaby was an honorable opponent who did not deserve to be hurt.
It took quite a while. Gaby realized she had surrendered what advantages she might have had by fighting this way. She didn't mind. She expected to lose, but that didn't prevent her from giving it all she had. Robin would know she had been in a fight.
"Peacel" Gaby yelled. "Uncle, aunt, and a lot of little cousins!"
Robin released her arm, and the knife of pain slowly withdrew from Gaby's shoulder. She lifted her face from the mud and cautiously rolled over. She began to think she might one day regain the use of the arm.
She lifted her head and saw Robin sitting with her head between her knees, panting like a steam engine.
"Two out of three?" Gaby suggested.
Robin began to laugh. She did it loudly and with no self-consciousness.
"If I thought for one minute you meant that," she finally managed to say, "I'd tie you up and keep you in a cage. But you'd probably gnaw through the chains."
"Almost had you a couple of times there, didn't I?"
"You'll never know how close."
Gaby wondered how she could feel so good, considering the fact that she hurt all over. She supposed it must be marathon euphoria, that boneless relaxation which can come when one completes an all-out effort. And after all, she was not injured. There would be bruises, and the shoulder would be weak for a while, but she was suffering mostly from the effects of exertion, not pummeling.
Robin got slowly to her feet. She held out a hand.
"Let's get down to the river. You need to wash up."
Gaby took her hand and managed to rise. Robin was walking with a limp, and Gaby didn't feel too steady herself, so they supported each other through the first painful hundred meters.
"I really did want to ask you about that tattoo," Gaby said as they approached the river.
Robin wiped her hands over her abdomen, but it was no use. "Can't see it now. Too much mud. What did you think of it?"
Gaby was about to say something polite and noncommittal but thought better of it.
"I think it's one of the most hideous things I ever saw."
"Precisely. It is a source of much labra."
"You want to explain that? Do all witches disfigure themselves like that?"
"I'm the only one. Therein lies the labra."
They walked carefully out into the river and sat down. The rain had relented, becoming a fine mist, while to the north there was a break in the clouds that let some light through. Gaby could no longer see the tattoo but could not stop thinking about it. It was grotesque, almost frightening. Rendered like an anatomical drawing, it depicted incised layers of tissue laid back with surgical precision to bare the organs beneath. The ovaries were like rotten fruit, crawling with maggots. The fallopian tubes were knotted many times. But the womb itself was the worst. It was swollen, bulging out of the "incision," and dripping blood from a ragged wound. It was clear the injury had been caused from the inside, as though something were tearing its way out. Nothing could be seen of the creature the womb sheltered but a pair of red, feral eyes.
As they went to retrieve their clothes, it began to rain hard again. Gaby was not alarmed when Robin stumbled and fell; the footing was terrible, and she was still favoring a turned ankle. By the time of Robin's fourth fall it was obvious something was wrong. She staggered, trembling, her jaw muscles knotted with determination.
"Let me help you," Gaby said when she could no longer bear it.
"No, thank you. I can make it on my own."
A minute later she fell down and did not get up. Her limbs shook in a slow rhythm, not violently. Her eyes did not track. Gaby knelt and put one arm under Robin's knees, the other under her back.
"Nnnn ... uunnnnuh. Nnnnuh."
"What? Be reasonable, friend. I can't leave you out here in the rain."