None within memory had made a scene like this one though. She was tall for a Vartosu woman, handsome, and much younger than her husband. Her condition hadn't been conspicuous until he asked if she might not like to meet the kalifa, who was talking with people a few yards away.
"The kalifa? That bitch in heat?" Her bugled scorn carried well through the hubbub of voices. "She's a slut! You men all act as if she's so beautiful! You'd all like to get in her pants! Yes! You, too!"
All eyes for a dozen yards around turned to the woman. Her husband was too stunned to act.
"She'd like it, too! Give her half a chance and she'd be in the nearest bedroom, with a line outside the door!"
Her husband pulled on her arm then, trying desperately to quiet her and rush her out, but his efforts made her louder. The crowd sounds died in a widening ring.
"Look at her!" She was actually yelling now. "The Sultan's Bride! The Kalif's Bride, but old Rashti fucked her, too! You can bet on that! What do you think she…"
It was the Kalif that cut her off. Within earshot at the start, he'd plowed through the crowd like an angry bull, and his hand gripped her shoulder from behind, fingers like hooks. Her yell changed to one of surprised pain as he turned her around, and she slapped his face, hard, would have slapped it again if he hadn't caught her hand.
For a long moment they matched glares. "You foul devil!" she shouted. "Get your filthy hands off me! I'm not your slutty wife that you can-"
He slapped her once, not as hard as he might have, but it snapped her head to one side, and she wilted, tears starting. Her husband stood as pale as a Vartosit could get.
"Sergeant!" The Kalif's voice was as cold as ice. "Get this excrement out of here. Into a cell. Tomorrow we'll see how she likes cleaning public latrines on her hands and knees."
"Your Reverence!" Her husband had reflexively stepped back when the Kalif had strode up. Now he stepped forward. "Please! She, she didn't know what she was doing. Now and again she…"
He stopped at the Kalif's cold gaze. "You would make excuses for the things she said?" The man was unable to answer, and the Kalif began to realize how out of control he'd been himself. "Well then. If she'll apologize." He turned his eyes back to her. "What do you have to say?"
She didn't straighten, but tipped her head sideways, looking at him as if from beneath something. Her voice was quiet now, but so was the room. "You are Shatim incarnate," she said, "and that-" She turned and spat phlegm toward Tain. "That is Shatim's bitch in heat."
The Kalif's eyes bulged, and he slapped her again, the sound like a gunshot, sending her sprawling, screaming. Her husband reacted like a spring uncoiling, starting at the Kalif, then somehow stopping in mid-move. Two bodyguards were on him in an instant, grabbing his arms, jerking him back.
The man sagged, and when he spoke, his voice was thick and hoarse. "I, Lord Siisru Parsavamaatu, demand satisfaction at arms for your attack upon my wife."
The challenge brought the Kalif out of his own brief psychotic break, and he looked at the man: perhaps fifty-five years old, not decrepit by any means but no longer fit, and undoubtedly no match for him. The challenge had been an act of despondency; the man fully expected to be killed.
And suddenly the Kalif felt very tired. "I do not wish to fight you, sir," he said. "Each of us has reacted badly to this-" He groped. "This occurrence."
The man's head slowly shook. "It's a matter of honor. You struck my wife, knocked her down. The challenge stands."
The Kalif exhaled audibly through rounded lips. "Well then. If it must be."
"Please! Coso!" Tain had come up, but though he heard her, he ignored her. "Please! Don't do it! She…"
He cut her short with a chopping motion. His eyes were not angry however, only bleak. "We have no choice," he told her, then turned back to Lord Siisru. "Who will be your second?"
"My cousin, Lord Gromindh Parsavamaatu." A man who'd come near stepped through the circle of watchers now, to stand waiting. "And yours?" Siisru asked.
Coso almost answered Jilsomo, but Jilsomo was not noble, would not have been acceptable. It would have been taken as an insult. It occurred to him that he had no real friends among the nobility, outside the College. "Alb Tariil," he found himself answering. "If he's here, and if he'll consent to. Otherwise, Lord Roonoa Hamaalo."
Tariil was either out of earshot, or reluctant, and it was the tall and powerful Maolaaro who came forward.
"It was my challenge," Siisru said. "What weapon would you use?"
The Kalif shrugged heavily. "Sabers."
Siisru nodded. "Sabers then. Where?"
"The choice is yours."
"I am not familiar with this locality. Name a place."
"The drill field in the Sreegana. The ground is bare there, and sandy. The footing is good."
"So be it."
"The location was mine," the Kalif said then, following the ritual. "Name the time."
"At once."
He nodded. "As you wish."
No one followed them except their seconds and the Kalif's two bodyguards; it would have been totally outside protocol. The square seemed huge, their crossing a slow movement through a dark, deserted, dismal space. At the great gate, the guards watched them approach with idle curiosity, then with silent foreboding as they saw their faces, and wondered what this was about.
While the duelists waited silently on the dark drill ground, the senior guard signed out two sabers, both honed razor sharp, and at the Kalif's order, offered Siisru his choice. The nobleman tested the balance and feel of both, shrugged and chose. The Kalif took the other.
He bowed then to Lord Siisru. "You issued your challenge in extreme circumstances. I wish it had not been given, and would gladly see it retracted."
"It stands. I have no honorable alternative."
The nobleman's words had neither force nor indignation. He sounded like a man already dead.
"And if I refuse to fight you?"
The answer came tiredly. "Then I will kill you, for you would never run."
"Very well. Are you ready?"
The man's sword came up. "Ready."
Both took the guard position. "Lord Gromindh," said the Kalif, "you may give the command."
After a long reluctant moment, Lord Gromindh croaked the word: "Begin!"
To the Kalif, the "duel" was a macabre mockery, for Siisru moved slowly, as if under water. Clearly the man had not invited him to fight, but had chosen this as a form of suicide. The Kalif himself fought listlessly, as if hoping for something-Kargh perhaps-to intervene before he had to kill the man.
Then Siisru stepped back, lowered his sword and waited for a stroke. After eight or ten ludicrous seconds of nothing happening, he suddenly set upon the Kalif with furious energy, not skillful but dangerous.
The Kalif fended his strokes with a certain sluggishness, till the man's blade sliced his swordarm. Abruptly he reacted, and in a moment Lord Siisru lay crumpled on the packed and sandy ground. The Kalif stepped back, gripped his arm to stanch the bleeding, and turned to Gromindh, Siisru's second.
"It is done," he said quietly. "You can tell them he died with honor, my blood on his sword."
Gromindh met his eyes. "Did he now?" he muttered, then half-turned to look at nothing.
"Sergeant," said the Kalif, "call your regimental surgeon for me. Tell him to come tend to Lord Siisru's body. And to arrange for a mortician. Lord Gromindh can inform him if he has any particular wishes. Lord Gromindh?"
The nobleman made no response, gave no sign that he'd heard. The Kalif shrugged and turned to the big Maolaaro. "Good Roonoa, I am going to my apartment. The kalifal physician will tend to me there. You will do me a favor if you return to the celebration and tell them what happened. Ask Jilsomo to bring the kalifa. Make sure she knows my injury is not dangerous."