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Margaret, and I were going to dinner at the Blue Pig, a favorite place of mine
on the edge of the Quarter, which both Garsenda and my father's last letter
had assured me had not changed one bit.
The choice was not mine, however. When we came out of the exit from the
Palace, into the Almond Tree Yard, Marcabru was waiting for us, with half a
dozen hangers-on in Oldstyle costumes. A glance showed all wore a
Patz badge; Marcabru at least intended to fight solo.
I pressed back with my arm and found empty air; the corner of my eye saw
Garsenda already dragging Margaret over to a bench and compelling her (I heard
the whisper) to
"sit still and don't distract him, he'll be fine."
Since the donzelhas under my guard were safe, I turned my attention
to pressing matters. I made sure of my footing, and that if I backed up there
was flat wall and no stone bench to trip me, and spoke to him in Occitan. "Ah,
how pleasant, and ah, what a homecoming, to see the Prince Consort in
all his besozzled glory. Do you know, Marcabru, you dear old friend, I
never thanked you for the letter in which you described the Interstellar
parodies of that quaintly tasteless costume of yours ... you remember the
letter and the parodies, no doubt, the giant phallus dangling from the seat? I
laughed for what seemed a full day as I thought of that, for if only they had
known how six or seven of us jovents used to take you up into the bedroom in
your father's house, and share you as our woman, and how you used to weep and
squeal because there were not enough of us "
It was all unnecessary, for I had already challenged him without limit in my
letter, but the old wild fight-lust was bursting in my heart, and the drunken
rage in his eyes drove me to new heights of creativity. His maniacal hetero
masculinity was just the easiest target to hit; this toszet had made
himself a parody of the Occitan jovent, one that embarrassed us all,
and it was as such a parody that I would bring him down.
"Why, do you know, my oldest friend of oldest friends, you owner
of the best buttocks ever buggered, I do believe you are more fun in bed
than the Idiot Queen, and you have even been had by more men, hard though that
is to imagine."
He drew then, the neuroducer extending out from his epee hilt with a
loud bang, glowing at me in the shadows, and said in Terstad, "Your bitch is
very ugly, and I used to fuck Garsenda half an hour before she would meet
you."
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"And your words, the poetry of your Occitan, que merce, old friend." I did not
switch languages; I could see that he was having a little trouble
following his own culture language, and anything that added to his
confusion was in my favor, for though I was sure I could defeat him, I needed
to make it seem completely without effort. He took a step toward me, but I
popped out my neuroducer and he held a moment, which gave me the chance I
wanted to enrage him further. "Another man might have composed some
clever phrase and shown off, but our Prince Consort shows us that,
however slowly and belatedly, he has mastered the simple declarative
sentence nay, is able to join two of them with a conjunction.
Que merce, I say que merce.
You must have been spending some of what you've made peddling Yseut on the
street on a tutor, my clever, my darling, the favorite whore of all my
friends."
I had gotten matters where I wanted them. His rage drove him straight onto me
with neither subtlety nor strategy. Like many drunks he was preternaturally
strong because his saturated nerves no longer gave him feedback enough to know
he was overstraining his muscles, but with the epee strength matters little,
grace and speed are all, and those were completely on the side of my healthy,
well-trained body.
I turned his point as a bullfighter does the bull, flinging his arm out to the
side, and slashed his cheek before he could return to guard.
Bellowing his fury, he lashed out with still greater force, so that my
parrying epee bent almost double before slipping through again to scar his
other cheek.
He leapt back dramatically, trying to pretend that he was not injured, but his
facial muscles betrayed him; he must be hallucinating big flaps of flesh
depending from each cheek.
I closed slowly, giving up a little reaction time to keep him off balance.
When had I ever thought of him as formidable? I supposed it was only because I
and all our opponents had been in the same condition he now was.
There was a moment of utter clarity, his black shadow falling on the cobbles
of the pavement, his entourage staring open-mouthed at the swift destruction
visited on him, his bloodshot piggy eyes locking onto me, the rich folds and
drapes of the costumes. For one moment it was like some High Romantic play of
two centuries before, a moment of pure Occitan drama and grace
He lunged. This time I delicately turned him once more and then slashed the
tendons of his blade hand with sure finality. His weapon clattered on the
pavement, and, sensing that his hand was no longer on it retracted an instant
later. I slashed his chest lightly to make him back up, and stepped over his
dropped epee. He was disarmed, wounded, helpless.
I must give him some credit. Whatever wreck of a human being he was by then,
he still had enseingnamen enough. He took one more step back, clasped his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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