The Titanides said she was getting more like them every day and soon would entirely lose the disgusting habit.
Whatever the reason for it, she had decided she could get by without sleeping at this camp. She went off by herself, walked by the river for a time, and when she returned, the camp was quiet but for the low, humming songs of the Titanides in rest phase. They sprawled around the fire, four improbably limber comic nightmares, their hands occupied with unimportant tasks, their minds wandering. Valiha was on her side, propped up on one elbow. Hautbois was on her back, her human torso now in line with the rest of her body, her legs curled in the air like a puppy waiting for her belly to be scratched. Of all the things Titanides could do, Gaby thought that was the funniest.
There were four tents pitched among the trees a good distance from the fire. She passed by her own unoccupied shelter. In the second, Cirocco slept uneasily. She had two stiff drinks in her, and an ocean of coffee. Gaby knew it wasn't the coffee that made her toss and turn.
She paused outside Chris's tent and knew it would just be snooping to look inside it. She had no business with Chris. So it was on to the next one in line. She waited outside for several minutes until she heard someone stirring.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Who is that? Gaby?"
"Yeah."
"I guess so. Come on in."
Robin was sitting up on her sleeping bag, which rested on a deep pad of moss put there by Hautbois. Gaby lit the lamp hanging from the ridgepole and saw Robin's eyes glittering alertly but with no particular malice. She was dressed in the clothes she had worn all day.
"Did I disturb you?"
Robin shook her head. "Can't sleep," she admitted. "This is the first time in my life that I've not had a bed to sleep in."
"Hautbois would be happy to get more moss."
"That's not it. I'll get used to it, I suppose."
"It might help if you wore something looser."
Robin held up the elaborately patterned nightgown Hautbois had laid out for her. "It's not my style," she said. "How could anyone sleep in something like that? It ought to be in a display case."
Gaby chuckled, then squatted with one knee on the ground and picked at a cuticle. Robin was looking at her when she glanced up. Might as well get on with it, she thought. She knows you didn't come in to see if she needed fresh towels.
"I guess the first thing is to apologize," she said. "So here it is. I regret what I did, it was not justified, and I'm sorry."
"I accept your apology," Robin said. "But the warning still stands."
"That's fine. I understand that." Gaby was picking her words as carefully as she knew how. Something more than an apology was called for, but she had to be sure she did not appear patronizing.
"What I did was wrong in my culture as well as yours," she said. "The apology was for the violation of my own moral code. But you were telling me about something you witches have, some system of obligations, and the word has slipped my mind."
"Labra," Robin said.
"That's it. I don't pretend to understand it all. I think I can be sure I violated it, though, even if I'm not sure just how. What I'm asking for now is your help. Is there a way to set things right between us? Is there anything I can do to make it like it never happened?"
Robin was frowning. "I don't think you want to get into-"
"But I do. I'm willing to do quite a bit. Is there anything?"
"Y-e-e-s. But-"
"What?"
Robin threw up her hands. "Much like any primitive culture, I suppose. A duel. Just the two of us."
"How serious a duel?" Gaby asked. "To the death?"
"We're not that primitive. The purpose is reconciliation, not murder. If I thought you needed killing, I'd just do it and hope my sisters would back me up when the tribunal came around. We would fight bare-handed."
Gaby considered it. "What if I won?"
Robin gave an exasperated sigh.
"You don't understand. The winner isn't important, not in that sense. We wouldn't be trying to prove which is the better woman. The fight would only prove who is the stronger and quicker, and that has nothing to do with honor. But by agreeing to fight with a provision not to kill each other, we each acknowledge the other as a worthy, and thus honorable opponent." She paused and for a moment looked quite wicked. "Don't worry about it," she said. "You wouldn't win."
Gaby matched her grin and once again found herself liking this strange child. More than ever she wanted her solidly on her side when trouble started.
"How about it then? Am I worth fighting?"
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.