"Sorry I took so long," Garth muttered, sitting down. "I had to teach Ludlow some manners. He might be walking normally by next Market Day, if he finds an ice pack. No whelp calls my Zoli a bitch and gets away with it."
The wizard stuck the paper poke under Garth's nose. "Nuts?"
"Fair enough, she is that. But only a little, and I think our Lily caught it from her. Trial by combat to the death, no less! What was going through that girl's head?"
"Probably the notion that she could save you a lot of legal woes. She believed they'd all drop their cases because no one would be fool enough to fight Zoli." The wizard ate some more nuts. "Never underestimate fools."
In the center of the sand-strewn ring, Duke Janifer stood between the two combatants and nervously asked, "Ladies, are you certain you wouldn't like to reconsider?"
"I would," Zoli said. "It's not combat, it's bloody murder. I've eaten seafood that had more hope of killing me than this idiot." She gestured scornfully at Goodwife Eyebright. "Plus, she looks ready to drop her calf any second now. One needless death on my hands is bad enough, but two?"
"Will you withdraw?" Duke Janifer turned to Goodwife Eyebright, entreating her with his eyes. "Pleeease?"
Ethelberthina's mother stood herself up a bit taller and held the sword she'd been given as though it were a carpet beater. "I'd sooner die."
"I was afraid you'd say that." The duke sighed, shrugged, and tossed a bright orange kerchief high into the air. As he dashed from the arena he called back over one shoulder, "When it hits the ground, start fighting!"
The audience gasped and held its breath. Zoli went into her preferred fighting stance, grim and silent, eyes fixed on the floating kerchief. Goodwife Eyebright, on the other hand, began jabbering the instant the bit of cloth left the duke's hand.
"My gracious, aren't you in a hurry? I'm sure it's not going to take you long to kill me, but don't you worry about that. Nor about the poor, innocent, unborn babe I'm carrying that never did anyone a bit of harm. Nor about all my poor little lambkins that'll be left orphaned and helpless, oh no, don't you give any of them a second thought! Mayor Eyebright will probably remarry quick enough, and then they'll have a stepmother, and who knows what she'll be like? But don't you fret over it, you've done your duty, you don't have to bother your head about whether they'll be decently clothed and fed and who'll tuck them into their cold, lonesome little beds of a winter's night with not even the comfort of a loving mother's kiss on their tiny, tear-stained faces, no. Don't you concern yourself over their bitter tears or their heartbreaking sobs or their-"
"Gnut save us, what's the wretch doing?" Garth exclaimed.
"What she does best." Dean Porfirio sounded glum. "What she did to force Ethelberthina to undergo a Maiden Morn. And it's working again. Just look at Zoli now."
It was true: Under Goodwife Eyebright's verbal barrage, Zoli's sword drooped by degrees, leaving a hole in her defensive posture fit to drive an oxcart through. Her shoulders trembled and, as Goodwife Eyebright expanded upon the tragic fate awaiting her soon-to-be-motherless babies, she sniffled. Just as the orange cloth touched the ground, she burst into tears, dropped her blade completely and pounced on the kerchief in order to wipe her streaming nose and eyes.
Goodwife Eyebright had been a homemaker long enough to recognize something ripe for the plucking. While Zoli howled her heart out, the mayor's wife swung her own sword back, ready to strike. It was not an elegant attack, but with Zoli thus disabled, elegance was unnecessary. The blade swept straight for the former swordsister's head.
A second blade shot out and blocked Goodwife Eyebright's swing with a clang. Panting hard, holding the hilt of Zoli's discarded weapon with both hands, Ethelberthina glowered at her mother.
"Drop the charges," she ordered. "And the sword."
"Young lady, you go to your room," her mother said. "This is no place for a child."
"Says you." Ethelberthina lifted her chin impudently. "I've had my Maiden Morn rite: I'm not a child any more."
"Then this is no place for you," Goodwife Eyebright countered. "This case concerns only me and that Zoli person." She nodded at the crumpled swordswoman who was still blubbering on the sand, occasionally wailing something about the poor, comfortless little orphans.
"And my case concerns you and me. Or have you forgotten? I've simply decided to move it ahead on the duke's docket."
Goodwife Eyebright laughed in a condescending manner. "You can't be serious, darling. You fight me to the death? You'd kill your own mother? Not that you haven't tried to do that ever since the day you were born. But I don't mind. A good mother doesn't care if her child-who has been given every advantage at great personal sacrifice-turns out to be a little viper. I love you anyway."
"Oh, I wasn't planning on killing you." The girl dropped her sword, and grabbed hold of her mother's forearm. With a few quick twists and turns, Ethelberthina had herself under the startled woman's defenses with the edge of the blade pressed to her own small throat. Glancing up, she grinned and said, "Whenever you're ready, Mother."
Goodwife Eyebright tried to wriggle her sword away from her daughter's neck, but in vain. "Ethelberthina, what are you doing and stop it!"
"Not until you do. Drop the charges against Zoli or I swear I'll make you cut my throat. Know what that means?"
"It means you are a very inconsiderate child," the goodwife replied stiffly.
"It also means that you will have to go into strict mourning for two years. That's the minimum acceptable period for the loss of a grown daughter. Strict mourning," she repeated. "No celebrations of any kind."
"No… what?"
"No celebrations," Ethelberthina said. "Oh, like, just for an instance say… weddings?" Her smile was a caution to the ungodly.
A cry more bestial than human shot skyward from the crowd. Demystria and Mauve Eyebright burst into the arena, their hair streaming wildly, their faces contorted into masks of mindless terror. Only the thought of what a collision might do to the sword at Ethelberthina's throat stopped them from throwing themselves at their mother's knees. Instead they pitched facefirst to the sand, pounding it with fists and feet while they yowled with grief.
"Do what she says, Mummy!" they begged in unison. "Drop the sword! Drop the charges! Let her go!"
"Girls, girls," the goodwife chided. "If your sister wants me to cut her throat, that's her choice, isn't it? Besides, it's just come to me that if she dies-not that I'm encouraging that sort of thing, mind you-then all of her money goes to her closest living relative. I do believe that should be me. Then Mummy will be able to give you the biggest, splashiest, most expensive weddings that Overford has ever seen."
"And how am I supposed to get married with no groom?" Mauve demanded. "There's no courting allowed during strict mourning! By the time I'm free of it, I'll be ooold!"
"That can't be helped; you should have planned ahead, like your sister. She knew what to do to get a man!" Goodwife Eyebright beamed at Demystria. "Well, at least you shall have the finest wedding ever, and you'll have two whole years to plan-"
"I can't wait two years to get married." Demystria sat back on her haunches and gave her mother a hard, eloquent look. "I want-I need to get married. Now."