Egert grew angry. “You are going to chase after that man? You?”
Flushing, Toria took another step.
Egert blocked her path. “You are like a precious jewel that has chosen a rotten hunk of wood as her setting. Use your eyes! You were born to rule; you are a queen, a goddess, but you—”
The student escaped from the corner; he was red faced and disheveled, as if he had been scuffling, and it seemed likely that something unpleasant had happened between him and Karver, who leapt after him, shouting for the whole street to hear.
“Sir, you aren’t even married yet and already you’re playing the cuckold! If the woman wants to talk to a man in the street, a man who is pleasing to her, that is no reason for hysterics!”
An artisan passing by burst out laughing. The gray-haired guest, who had just exited the doors of the inn, slowly turned his head toward the group. Lieutenant Dron and the eternally gloomy Lagan emerged onto the front steps of the Faithful Shield.
The student flushed from red to purple; he turned toward Karver as if about to strike him, but then he thought better of it. He turned back and hurried over to the perplexed Toria. He took her forcefully by the hand. “Let’s go.”
Their route of escape, however, had already been blocked off by Egert. Gazing straight into Toria’s eyes, he asked softly, “Are you so submissive as to allow this … this creature to lead you away to the gray, spiritless life he has prepared for you?”
Karver shouted at the student, “But you still have time, sir, to fit yourself for horns! Not a week will pass after your happy little wedding before they adorn your learned brow!”
The student had begun to shake slightly; not even Toria’s hand, which was holding his wrist in a viselike grip, could restrain this shaking.
“Lord Soll, please allow us to pass.”
“In the event that a man should whip out his sword, you, sir, will be able to poke him with your horns,” continued Karver. “This should give you with a certain advantage.”
The student, as though blind, leapt forward right into Egert. Egert’s iron-hard chest repelled him back to his former position.
“What would you call that combat maneuver, master student?” asked Karver. “The Pouncing Pupil? Do they teach that at the university?”
“Lord Soll,” said Toria softly, looking Egert straight in the eye, “it seemed to me that you were an honorable man.”
Over the course of his, admittedly not very long, life, Egert had had sufficient occasion to study women; he had seen numerous coquettes, whose Be gone! meant Come to me, my love and whose Foul rogue! meant We must talk about this later. Married women in the company of their spouses had demonstrated their disinterest and then, once the two of them were alone, had thrown themselves on his neck. Egert knew and could read many shades of meaning, but in the eyes of Toria he read not only complete indifference to the splendor of his manliness, but also the furious power of antagonism, of rejection.
Lieutenant Egert Soll was cut to the quick. In front of the entire regiment sitting in the Faithful Shield, a student, almost a eunuch, someone who did not even carry weapons, had been chosen over him, a man who had heretofore never known defeat.
Unwillingly stepping to the side, he gritted his teeth and snarled, “Well, my sincerest congratulations! An aristocrat in the embrace of a sniveling bookworm: what a splendid couple! But perhaps your learned spouse is just a screen behind which you hide your many lovers?”
Drawn by the noise in the street, the maidservants and guests were peering out the windows of the inn.
The student released Toria’s hand. Ignoring her beseeching look, he drew a deep line in front of Egert’s boots with the dusty toe of his shoe: the traditional challenge to a duel.
Egert laughed condescendingly. “What? I don’t brawl with women! You, my dear sir, don’t even have any weapons!”
Drawing his hand back, the student quickly and audibly slapped Egert across his face.
The excited crowd—guards, guests of the inn, chambermaids, servants, and casual passersby—filled the rear courtyard of the Noble Sword; Karver was there, practically crawling out of his skin, hurrying to clear a space amidst them for the combatants.
Some kind soul had lent the student his sword, but in his hands even that decent blade looked ridiculous, like knight’s armor at a grocer’s stand. His fiancée seemed ready to break down into tears for the first time since Egert had met her. Toria’s cheeks, white as a shroud, were covered in irregular splotches; their jagged pattern concealed her beauty. Biting her lips, she threw herself at the spectators by turns.
“Stop this, you! Merciful Heaven, Dinar! Stop them, someone!”
To stop an honorably proclaimed duel was unlawful and also foolish: all the residents of Kavarren had imbibed that notion with their mother’s milk. They simply watched Toria with sympathy and curiosity, and many of the women envied her silently: Just think, to be the reason for a duel!
One chambermaid decided, with sincere goodwill, to comfort the poor girl. Throwing off her arms, Toria, despairing of being able to stop Dinar, decided to leave. But she returned almost immediately, as if on a leash. The crowd parted before her, politely giving way, silently acknowledging her right to watch all the details of the fight. Toria leaned against the wheel of a carriage and remained frozen there as if overtaken by stupor.
The adversaries were ready. They stood opposite each other, enemy against enemy. Egert grinned derisively: there was nothing better than love, except a duel. True, his rival was entirely worthless. Just look at how he wheezes, trying to stand in the correct position! It was apparent that he had taken a fencing lesson or two, but not enough to do him any good.
Egert cast his eyes over the faces in the crowd, searching for Toria. Would she watch? Would she finally understand that she had favored a tiny stream from an overflowing sink over a thundering waterfall? Would she repent?
Instead of Toria, Egert met the eyes of the middle-aged guest, that gray-haired man whose head rose above the crowd like a pine tree towering over an orchard. The guest’s gaze, steadfast but expressionless, displeased Egert; he tossed his head and flicked his sword at the student like a stern master flicking a switch.
“Hup, now!”
The student recoiled involuntarily, and the crowd burst into laughter.
“Lay into him, Egert!”
Egert grinned widely. “This is nothing more than a small lesson in good manners.”
The student narrowed his eyes, bent his knees as though he were in a fencing class, and sprang forward recklessly, as if he intended to chop Egert up into cabbage. Within a second, he was looking around in amazement, searching for his opponent, while Egert, appearing behind his back, reminded the student of himself with a delicate jab just below his spine.
“Try not to get distracted, now!”
The student whirled around as though stung. Egert bowed politely and retreated a step.
“All is not lost, lad! Gather your strength and give it another shot. The lesson is just beginning!”
The student stood as rigidly as a mast; the tip of his blade was not pointed at the eyes of his opponent, as it should, but rather at the sky. He lunged awkwardly, managing to hit Egert’s sword, but then the student’s blade swung wide. Its tip hit the sand, and he was barely able to keep his grip on the hilt. The spectators began to applaud. Egert, however, was already bored with this game. He could fence for a hundred hours without rest, if only his hopelessly feeble adversary would not fight so tiresomely.