Darloona gasped, and Thuton's face went all loose with shock. I merely smiled, and stood waiting for the next engagement.
He entered with a thrust in quinte, which I turned aside effortlessly―and again my point slid through his guard, this time to draw a line of crimson down one cheek. He sprang backwards with remarkable agility, staring at me with utter astonishment. I elevated one eyebrow ironically, and stood waiting for his next attack.
It was blatantly obvious that my superb and almost effortless competence had disconcerted him mightily. And lie must have been baffled that I had turned neither of my thrusts into a killing or disabling wound. He engaged my point cautiously a third time, and the air rang with the clang and slither of steel on steel as he felt me out.
I was delighted to see the flushed, congested appearance of his face and the puzzlement in his eyes. And particularly pleased to see a trickle of perspiration slide down his face from his hairline, to mingle with the blood from the slight scratch I had given him on the left cheek.
He was now playing a cautious, defensive bout, even as I had been earlier. Hence, I disengaged and reentered in sixte, and as he parried that―and failed to make a counterthrust―I extended my arm lithely and gave him a similar scratch on the right cheek!
Thuton cried out with astonishment and alarm, disengaged awkwardly, stumbling backwards in his haste to elude my dancing point. And, as I turned to face him again, I caught the expression in Darloona's eyes as she watched my swordplay.
Was it―admiration?
Now Thuton threw all caution to the winds and hurled a storm of ringing steel against my slender blade. He pressed me back with a swift glizade, a dazzling blur of steel, and I gave way before him, but not without a chuckle at his manner of fighting. I know not in which school of the fence the Prince of the City in the Clouds had learned the art, but he fought in a flashy, noisy manner―with much floor-stamping and hand-flourishing, sharp little cries and barked comments, screwing his face up in the most fearsome grimaces―all very impressive to an audience, I suppose, but a little showy for my tastes. I, by way of contrast, fought in a quiet, easy, restrained manner, with a minimum of movement or gesture, content merely to give way before his stamping lunges, and to turn each aside with an adroit twist of the wrist.
We circled the box twice, kicking the chairs out of the way. I let him press me back because I knew he could not keep up this intensity for long. And I was right. Ere long he began to get winded and his wrist and arm were wearying fast, for his blade began to tremble in his grip. He sought to disengage and rest, but now it was my turn to press him, and I slid past his guard and gave him another nick above the heart. Again I extended it into a scratch, drawing a parallel line across the breast of his tunic, slitting the material to the bare skin.
I continued to press him and a few moments later I slit his tunic at the shoulder, and next at the other shoulder―and all the time, blowing like a beached whale, his face black with effort, he was trying to disengage. When I finally had him virtually helpless, I had cut away the whole front of his tunic, laying him naked to the navel. His sword arm was trembling with exhaustion by this time and the glint of fear shone in his eyes at long last.
Thuton was a fine swordsman and he had learned from a master of the art. It was not that I was by very much his superior. But for many hours every day for the past month I had practised with novice after novice, ending each day with a bout against one of the finest Swordmasters this planet had ever produced. Naturally my arm was tougher than Thuton's and my swordsmanship, honed and whetted through exhausting hours of continuous practice, was better than his.
Now that I had laid him naked to the waist, I proceeded to cover his torso―which glistened with perspiration―with scratches. I marked him on both shoulders, and drew a scarlet line down his ribs to either side, and I was carefully attempting to write "Jandar" across the breadth of his chest between the nipples, when his nerve broke and he suddenly gave way to rank cowardice.
Squealing like a panic-stricken woman, he literally threw his sword in my face and sprang clumsily out of the box, falling down several steps, to stumble to safety amid the milling throng. It was an act of almost unheard-of cowardice, and even I was amazed. One swordsman just simply does not elude a foeman's blade in such a manner―not on Thanator, at least! Even if you are outmatched hopelessly, the Callistan code of honor demands that you stand and die, if need be, before running away from a duel. Nevertheless, I had broken Thuton's nerve, and he had showed the yellow streak. I had erased my previous humiliation, vindicating myself gloriously, my only regret being that I had not killed him.
To tell the truth my own sword arm was a bit wearied, for the duel had been a prolonged game of cat-and-mouse, and I had not enjoyed much sleep the night before. So I leaned on my blade and caught my breath, watching him run into the safety of the mob. And I wondered if, after all, I would have been able to write my name in the Thanatorian script upon his naked chest even if he had not fled in so cowardly a manner.
The Thanatorian language is written in a cursive hand in a script made up of many hooked, swash tailed characters, not unlike a simplified version of Arabic, and very hard to write with a sword point. It would not have been difficult to write "Jandar" in Roman capitals, but it might well have proven impossible to inscribe Thuton's breast with my cognomen, limited as I was by the intricate nature of the native alphabet. Ah, well, perhaps Thuton and I would meet again, at some later date. At which time I might again attempt to complete the little love note I had been carving on his breast.
As my blade was somewhat sticky with Thuton's gore, I bent and used his thrown-aside cloak to wipe it clean, whereupon I returned it to my scabbard.
All the while Darloona was regarding me with an unreadable expression on her lovely features.
Such was my rather high opinion of the way I had conducted myself in the bit of swordplay just past, I rather naturally interpreted this expression as denoting intense admiration on her part.
Of this incorrect notion I was, ere long, soundly disabused. While I had acquitted myself with the sword well enough, and had doubtless corrected her earlier misapprehension of my manhood, courage, and swordsmanship, I failed, as seemed always to be the case, to read the psychology of the female. For she fixed me with a searing glare of outrage and contempt.
"I know not for what reason you dog my heels, barbarian," she said levelly, her voice shaking with fury, "but I would that I could be rid of you."
The world swung around me dizzily, and I fear I stared at her slack-jawed. I do not recall just what sort of a reaction I had expected her to display towards my recent battle, but it surely was not rage and contempt.
"What―why―" I fumbled for words.
"The Lords of Gordrimator have surely cursed me for my sins," she continued, now almost tearfully. "Why must you continually be bursting in upon my affairs, to their eternal detriment?"
I was baffled in the face of her tearful fury. I had expected praise, perhaps, even admiration―but not a storm of tears!
"My Princess, why do you―"
She stamped her small foot furiously, tossing her crimson mane like a spirited mare.
"Stop calling me that, you―you horeb!" she wailed, naming a particularly repulsive Thanatorian scavenger―something like a pink, naked rat the size of a small dog, whose accustomed habit is to feed on garbage.
Before I could think of anything to say, she blazed at me: "I am not `your Princess'! I want nothing to do with you―nothing, do you hear?"
"I―I hear well enough," I stammered witlessly, "but I―I do not understand. What have I done to offend you?"