Duel Identity

Chapter 5

Leif walked into his room and was just about ready to cut his link when he heard a familiar sound-the clash of steel. He ran to the open window, stopping only to grab his own sheathed sword. His room had a good vantage of the inner courtyard of the palace, much of which was cultivated as a garden.

Two stories below, on a graveled path, two young officers were dueling-at least, they were trying to. The pair looked like clowns, staggering around with no trace of footwork or any idea of the proper distance from which to launch an attack, swinging their heavy cavalry sabers as if they were trying to chop wood.

Looking down, Leif didn't know whether to laugh or be horrified. Latvinia had only been open for bare hours, and these two idiots had to fool with swordplay in the worst way.

And it was the worst way, Leif realized as he continued to watch. The two continued to hack and swat at each other with no rhyme or reason. Somewhere in the Latvinia program, there had to be some basic knowledge of swordsmanship stored for the role-players to tap into. But there was a big difference between knowledge whispered in the back of the brain and knowledge in the muscle and nerve tissue.

These guys could barely handle the weight of the heavy military sabers. Their attempted slashes wobbled in midair. One guy was huffing and puffing, looking as if his arm was going to fall off. The amateur duelists would attack at the same time, their blades clanging together, then rebounding. Or they'd manage to miss, which really scared them as razor-sharp blades whipped far to close to various pieces of their anatomy. Then both of them would fall back, or clumsily lock their blades together, they way they'd seen it done in old flatfilms or historical holodramas.

Leif turned away, unable to watch any more of this travesty.

I hope those guys down there aren ft products of the fencing school Megan is attending, he thought. Otherwise, the place should be shut down for taking money under false pretenses.

Shaking his head, he gave an unspoken command to his computer. An eye-blink later, he found himself back home on his computer-link couch. He swung around so his feet touched the floor, got up, and stretched. No matter how much the machinery in the couch tried to keep his muscles toned-and Leif's couch was a pretty expensive one-it still felt better to move around after a long session in veeyar.

A glance at his watch made Leif frown. He'd spent more time in Latvinia than he'd realized.

Apparently, time flies even when I'm having a not-so- good time, he thought. A quick pat to his midsection didn't start any growls of hunger. But Leif padded through the apartment on stocking feet anyway, heading for the kitchen.

Mom and Dad were out showing their European friends the glories of the real New York City, as opposed to the virtual version anybody could visit by synching into the Net. He had more than enough time to take a shower and join them for dinner. Besides, Leif liked a cup of coffee after spending any length of time on the Net. It brought the real-life edge back to his brain.

He was sitting on a kitchen stool, watching the cof- feemaker brew a cup to his precise specifications, when a sound like chiming silver bells filled the house. Leif took one last, longing look at the coffee still dripping down into the cup, then headed over to the terminal set in the kitchen wall to answer the call. He had to answer. It might be his folks, calling with a change of plan.

Hey, it could even be Megan, calling to talk some more about their afternoon's adventure. She'd probably prefer to talk to Alan Slaney, but he was probably still in the sim, plotting away as Gray Piotr.

Leif activated the phone connection, but the face he saw in the hologram image was neither Megan's nor either of his parents.

The model-perfect facial features, dramatically framed by hair as black as a raven's wing, spoke subtly of expert-and expensive-plastic surgery. After a moment of silence those lovely features arranged themselves into a frown that was more like a sneer. "The polite thing to do when someone calls is to say hello, Leif."

"Hello, Roberta," Leif replied cautiously. "Please forgive me. I was… surprised."

As far as Leif was concerned, that was putting it mildly. He liked girls, and enjoyed going out with them-a lot of them. He had a reputation to uphold as playboy-in-training-at least, his friends thought so- and so his social activities were almost mandatory. But problems came along with having an active social life. Or, as his father called it, a volcanic one.

Some girls got possessive. They seemed to see more in a friendship/flirtation than was actually there. A few got scared at life in the fast lane-especially if their parents got involved. Other girls just got nasty, treating Leif like the flavor of the week. No matter what the attitude, more than a few of Leif's relationships had ended in explosive breakups.

But Roberta Hendry was in a class by herself. About a year ago, Leif had enjoyed a pretty wild summer with her, running through the Washington social scene with a bunch of diplomatic brats. Roberta's family was old- money rich-what they called FFV, or "First Family of Virginia." The Hendrys had hung on. To their wealth since Virginia was a royal colony of Britain. Investments of some of that wealth made two generations ago in early tech stocks had enlarged the family's fortunes from lavish to obscene. They had more than enough money lying about these days to enjoy Society with a capital S.

The only two things the Hendrys hated were publicity, which Roberta's escapades sometimes brought on, and politics, which the Hendrys considered vulgar.

Perhaps that's why Roberta had gone political. Maybe it was some bizarre form of late adolescent rebellion.

Journalists and Net newscasters called her "the radical debutante." By the time they'd broken up, Leif thought she'd just gone plain wacko.

Roberta had taken up a bunch of weird — isms that frankly contradicted each other-except that they were all revolutionary in tone.

Leif's interest had quickly sunk to impatience when she started ranting to him about changing the whole social order. Somehow, the rhetoric seemed a bit much when he had to listen to a child of privilege attack his self-made father as a bloodsucking parasite.

Magnus Anderson had worked hard to build the fortune Leif enjoyed. A lot of fine people had gotten jobs from his father's company and good paychecks along the way to that fortune. Leif knew about his father's efforts-at times, he'd even helped with them. So being bad-mouthed by a rich girl whose family counted inherited money for a living got to be a little too much.

Leif and Roberta had argued the politics of privilege, their fights getting louder and louder until the rest of their good-time crowd began to avoid them. But the corker had come after a night they'd spent dancing- Roberta had told a valet-parking attendant that it was his class duty to sabotage all the rich folks' cars in his care. When Leif pointed out that would include her own luxury Dodge SUV, Roberta had used the powerful car to try and run him down.

After that, Leif had returned to New York and succeeded in not talking to Roberta Hendry-until this very surprising call.

"I had an agent checking on the comings and goings from Alan Slaney's childish amusement park," Roberta informed him loftily.

Leif wasn't impressed. If her searchbot had wasted enough time for him nearly to finish making a cup of coffee before getting to Roberta, the agent wasn't all that great.

Reminded of his coffee, Leif picked up the cup, adding a little sugar. Too bad he couldn't sweeten the beautiful girl floating in front of him. "You know Alan Slaney?" he asked. "I would think that historical simulations in general-and AHSO in particular-would be pretty far down the list of your interests."

"On the contrary," Roberta told him. "The turn-of-the- century era was the breeding ground for some of the great political movements of the twentieth century." She took a deep breath, as if she were tasting something. "Socialism, communism, fascism… anarchism. They all came to a great flowering twenty years on either side of 1900. I have a deep and valid interest in the turn of the century."

Her lips curled in that all-too-familiar sneer. "Unlike so many who claim an 'interest' in order to play dress- up!"

Leif blinked. "You're actually taking part in the Latvinia beta-test?"

Roberta nodded. "I was just as surprised to find your name listed among the participants." She gave him a sidelong look. "Actually I was more surprised when your name turned up in the early reports on the sim. My agent sorts items of political importance for me-even the silly reactionary politics in this charade. Imagine my astonishment when I discovered that you had prevented an attempt to kidnap Princess Gwenda! And you're staying in the palace!"

Leif rolled his eyes. "And what exactly do you want out of it?"

Roberta leaned forward, intent on her plans-and completely oblivious to Leif's skeptical reaction. "I'll be entering Latvinia as Viola da Gamba, an adventurous female reporter." Her lips twisted again. "It was the least demeaning role I could find in the simulation. I'm sure Slaney planned it that way, to keep me from upsetting his reactionary applecart. As a commoner, I would normally find it almost impossible to speak to the princess, even though I represent the press."

"Normally," Leif repeated.

"But now I have a friend at court-literally," Roberta said with a self-satisfied nod.

Ignoring her rather elastic definition of "friend"- someone who chases you down the street in a car with probable intent to kill wasn't anywhere on Leif's definition of friendship-Leif asked, "Isn't there someone else in the SIG you can… uh… get help from?"

If Roberta had been scornful before, she got three times worse now. "Those… idiots! They have no notion of the importance of the era. For the girls, it's a chance to try on so-called 'romantic' fashions. And the boys all leap into uniforms, playing soldier. It's the same heedless imperialism that got millions killed in 1914-"

"I'll take that as a simple 'no,' then," Leif said.

Roberta's voice became suspiciously sugary. "But you, Leif… even though we weren't on the same political plane, you always liked to make things happen. I'd say it's safe to assume that Slaney doesn't know we have a history. Imagine the look on his face when you usher me in for an interview with the princess!"

Oh, it wouldn't be an interview, Leif knew. Viola da Gamba would start lecturing "Princess Gwenda" on everything she saw wrong with Latvinian society. Megan would be ready to kill him by the time it was over.

Even so, Leif couldn't quite keep the grin off his lips. Anything that might annoy the great Alan Slaney was all right with him…

The next day at the fencing salle, Alan had to crack down and make people work-everyone was talking about Latvinia and their adventures there.

Megan found herself standing in front of a mirror, working off her distraction by practicing moulinets-the deadly diagonal cuts Alan had used to harass her during their last practice. The idea was to make the cut as efficiently and quickly as possible-with perfect form. Twist the wrist, slash up with the sword from left to right. Then take the en garde stance with the blade defending the right, and slash up from there-

"You do not do it correctly," the practice partner, Sergei Chernevsky, suddenly said.

"What's wrong?" Megan asked. Sergei had been studying at the salle longer than she had. If he could give her the benefit of his experience…

"You move the blade like a modern fencer-with the flat. Listen." His blade flashed up, making an audible. whiffing noise.

"Classical moulinet means leading with the edge. You can hear the difference." His sword leaped up again, but this time there was a whistle as the blade's edge cut the air.

"I see," Megan said. "Actually, I hear." They grinned at each other, then resumed their positions. Up and around-slice! Down and around-slice!

Soon Megan's blade began to whistle instead of whisper as she got the trick of it. She also began to get a sweaty face and an aching arm. "I really, really hope this is an important move," she puffed.

Sergei's breathing was a bit labored, too. "I read about some old-time fencing masters, they would expect you to do thirty minutes' worth-moulinet with lunge."

"Great." Megan laughed. "Burn out your legs and your arm."

They resumed their practice. "By the way," Megan added as her sword whistled through the air, "I was very impressed by your uniform in the sim."

"It is the costume of the old Hungarian Hussars," Sergei replied. "Embroidered frogging across the chest, and the fur-trimmed jacket-the pelisse-worn over one shoulder."

He smiled as he swung his sword around. "The saber, you know, came from Hungary. The cavalry there adopted it from the Turkish scimitar." Sergei actually blushed. "Excuse the lecture. Back home, I went to a military school. Every cadet had to learn the motherland's glorious military history. I was always fascinated by swords and cavalry. My dream was to be a Hussar."

He brought his blade around with a flourish, slicing his moulinets back and forth, creating a sideways figure eight in steel.

"Even more impressive," Megan said. "Except that it looks like the sign for infinity."

"Let us hope Alan does not keep us that long on the exercise," Sergei said. "It is supposed to make the fingers more flexible, the wrist more limber."

"If my wrist gets any more limber, my hand will fall off." Megan glanced in the mirror, searching for their instructor in the reflection. "Where did Alan go?"

Sergei took a break, shrugging. "Disappeared, just like the kidnappers in the sim. We followed their trail right onto the slopes of the great mountain-Grauheim. But we couldn't find another trace."

Transferring her saber to her left hand, Megan shook out her right, trying to get the lactic acid out of her burning muscles. Then, gritting her teeth, she resumed the practice.

So, the guys who got the real Princess Gwenda disappeared on the slopes of Grauheim, the wildest mountain in Latvinia. Not surprising.

Especially not surprising, if Gray Piotr, Master of Grauheim, was behind the plot to steal the throne. What was Alan Slaney up to behind that monocle and mustache?

"You've lost your whistle again." Sergei's voice intruded on her thoughts.

Megan blinked, glaring at her sword as the flat whiffled through the air instead of the edge slicing. She resumed the guard position for the left side of her body, concentrating on every move.

Can't do this right if you don't think of what you're doing, she scolded herself. Fencing now. Latvinia later.

She shook her head as her blade whistled through the air.

Damn, but Alan had created a seductive little world!