Duel Identity

Chapter 7

Megan had gotten as far as the French doors to the courtyard before the Graf von Esbach caught up with her- and gently stopped her.

"Your Majesty," he said softly, "it would be most improper for you of all people to witness that duel."

The background knowledge programmed into the sim backed him up a hundred percent. Duels were supposed to be private affairs-audiences were frowned upon. Female audiences were especially frowned upon, although there were a couple of scandalous historical references. But for a member of a royal house to involve him- or herself in such an irregular affair..

In properly old-fashioned terms it just wasn't done.

Megan's initial response was the urge to yell "Frack that!" and go to back up Leif, regardless of the consequences.

But then, she wasn't really Megan O'Malley in this here and now. She was in a sim, playing Marguerite O'Malley, adventurous society girl masquerading as Princess Gwenda. Marguerite would never use language like "Frack that!" And the real princess wouldn't be caught dead at a duel.

Standing beside her, the older man watched the duelists head off for the walled garden. Then he glanced at Megan. "You and the baron… is it a matter of the heart?"

Megan shot the old guy a look that could have scorched off his side whiskers. "We're just friends," she snapped. Then, in a lower voice, "If I were the real princess-"

"I would never have dared to ask such a thing," von Esbach finished for her in equally quiet tones. "However, dear lady, I am fighting for the life of my country. So I will risk an impertinent question if it will help discover a weakness to be defended." He nodded toward the garden. "Even as our antagonist seeks out any weaknesses he can exploit."

Megan's hand went to her mouth. "That man who challenged Leif-the baron-"

"One of Gray Piotr's creatures." Von Esbach almost spat out the word. "He's an unknown foreign adventurer, given rank in our army by the Master of Grauheim."

The prime minister bit off any further words as Gray Piotr himself approached. Once again he seemed to be scanning Megan with his monocle. Searching for signs of weakness?

"Your Majesty," Piotr murmured. "You left the court in such haste that many were surprised. Some even thought you were going off to witness the vulgar spectacle outside."

Oh, Vm sure your stooges are even now spreading that particular bit of dirt, Megan grimly thought.

She looked hard at the face, so like the Alan Slaney she admired… and yet so different.

"You can tell the court that I shall return-"

When I'm damn well good and ready, a rebellious voice piped up from the back of Megan's head.

"Presently," she finished aloud, deciding a more diplomatic tone was appropriate.

Then she ruined the effect by gasping as the gate of the walled garden swung open. Four men were carrying another. And even at that distance, she could make out the red hair on the lolling head.

"Is he-?" She couldn't force the words out.

Gray Piotr's mask of aristocratic irony cracked. He muttered some sort of command, and everything around them-the palace corridor, the courtyard outside-went gray. Beside them, Graf von Esbach stood frozen like a store mannequin or some hyper-realistic statue.

"Don't worry," Alan said-and it was Alan speaking, not Gray Piotr. "I'm just freezing the sim for a moment. It's hard to play a character and get all the information you want."

His face got a distant look, as if he were listening to a faraway voice. "You're friend's fine. No blood shed- he just got knocked unconscious. In fact, that's a simulacrum they're carrying. The real Leif synched out."

His smile of relief turned less pleasant. "So did Roberta Hendry, after her curtsy showed off more than she intended. The Viola da Gamba leaving the court is just a simulacrum, too."

He waved an arm at the scene. "I thought you'd like to know that everything's okay. This is just cleaning up the set."

Alan readjusted his monocle, and Graf von Esbach and everyone else came back to life. But a thoughtful frown remained on Megan's face all the way back to the throne room.

Megan had a different reason to frown during the next night's fencing practice. She was working with Sergei again, against the antagonist in the mirror-her reflection. They were practicing footwork and unexpected moves, one calling out orders as they both moved. "Advance! Retreat! Lunge!" Sergei called out.

Attacks with the point of the saber were valid in historical fencing, but hard to pull off successfully. By the time an attacker closed the distance, an alert defender could usually parry. A point attack was a trick that had to be pulled sparingly, at the right time.. and at the right speed. Megan hadn't expected Sergei's command, and bobbled as she thrust.

Sighing, she tried to do better with her next movements. "Retreat! Pass to the rear!" This was another tricky move. The standard fencing retreat was the reverse of the advance-pushing off on the forward foot, gliding the rear foot back about a foot and a half, then matching the movement with the forward foot to retain the en garde position. The movement was harder than it looked, because it had to be done smoothly, without making her weapon jump around. The passata was even stranger, a crablike quickstep executed at ninety degrees to the way she was used to walking. Megan's sword point wobbled as she tried to move and guard herself at the same time.

And they weren't even trying to do it quickly yet!

Sergei let her retreat a few more times, then began directing a new advance on the mirror. "By the way," he said as they took a brief rest, "I was approached to betray you yesterday."

Megan shot a look at Sergei, then her eyes sought the mirror, looking for their instructor. "Was it Alan-Gray Piotr?"

With a laugh, Sergei shook his head. "It is a very different plot, 1 fear-with a very different motive. There are several AHSO members, prominent in the SIG, who are annoyed at the part you have been given."

For a second, Megan didn't even know how to answer. "It's a sim, for frack's sake! A beta-test? Maybe they should get a life."

"Apparently the life they have chosen is historical simulation," Sergei replied. "From the note I received, they seem very jealous that an outsider received such a major role. They appealed to my sense of fairness to help in rectifying this mistake."

"Do you know these people?" Megan asked.

Sergei shrugged. "I am not an AHSO member myself. But they seem willing enough to allow me to play the lowly bodyguard." He drew himself up, his sword at the ready. "Do they think a Hussar would fail to defend his princess?"

Megan didn't know whether to laugh or be touched. "I guess they're not thinking much at all," she finally said. "I mean, it's a game."

Her frown returned as she remembered another game she'd been involved with. One of the players had really gone off the deep end, attacking his role-playing rivals in real life.

"Perhaps I should have played along, found out who was behind the note." Sergei sounded a little embarrassed.

"What did you do?"

The Russian boy's face grew a little pink. "I tore the note up and threw it in the messenger's face."

Megan couldn't hide her smile. "Very much in character."

"You're a Korpsbruder-er, sister. I mean, we're fellow fencers together."

"And I guess we should get back to fencing," she said, before he began to babble. "My turn to give the commands, I think. Retreat! Retreat! Retreat! Pass forward!"

At least now the tempo and body movements were things she could control..

"I hope you know what you're doing," David said tightly on his next visit to Latvinia. Against his better judgment, Leif and P. J. had persuaded him to get up on a horse. Except for a couple of fun-fair pony rides as a little kid, he'd never been in the saddle. It wasn't something kids from the streets of urban Washington did much, even in veeyar.

"Just follow your instincts," P. J. told him, reining in the high-stepping stallion he'd chosen. Leif's mount was a bit less spirited, but he seemed comfortable enough in the saddle. Riding was probably another of those elite sports he'd been trained in.

David tried to grip tighter with his legs. The ground seemed an awfully long way down as they clopped along. "My instincts tell me to get off and hail an au- tocab," he muttered unhappily.

"P. J. picked a gentle horse, we won't go far, and you won't have to do anything extreme," Leif promised. "It's just to get you used to the saddle, in case this adventure takes us someplace the car can't go."

"Doesn't the programming give you any help?" P. J. asked.

"There's not even as much support as I got on swordsmanship," David said, trying to listen for any help routines. "And you might remember, that wasn't all that useful, either."

"You came through the first sword fight just fine." P. J. tried to sound encouraging.

"Sure, by accident, and except for wanting to lose my lunch," David pointed out.

"Well, if we're lucky, Slaney won't have programmed in saddle sores," Leif said. "How about once more around the stable yard? That way if you fall, you'll only land in mud."

"Great," David muttered as he led his horse into a turn. "Wonderful."

As the boys swung round, they caught an unexpected dash of color entering the stable yard. It was Roberta Hendry-Viola da Gamba-this time in a bright red riding habit.

The area near the gate was full of people. A large group of country types-peasants-were talking with the stable hands while hitching pairs of draft mules to crude two-wheeled wagons loaded with hay.

Roberta stepped decisively to an empty wagon and stepped up on the tongue of a wagon where the mules were about to be yoked, which rested down on the muddy ground. "Comrades!" she called out. "I would call you my friends, but I won't-not until I've proven my friendship. I call you comrades, because that is what we should be-comrades in a struggle against an unjust and arbitrary social system! A system which demands that you lie quietly while others stand upon your backs and press your faces into the mud!"

"Well, she picked a good place to talk about that,"

P J. said, looking at the brownish, mushy ground around them.

"Roberta always thought the peasants should be revolting." Leif shook his head. "Ask me, they already are! Have you taken a good whiff? Equal parts garlic breath and B. O."

"That was probably an old joke even in this era," David told him.

Roberta, meanwhile, was really getting into her speech. "The rich, the powerful, they'll say you can improve yourselves-work hard, and you'll become men of property.

"That, of course, is a lie. Not merely because they'll only let you have whatever property they don't want, but because all property is theft!"

She clambered onto one of the wagon's wheels so she could look down at her audience. "If you seek the comfort of religion-well, that comfort is only found in the next world, not in this one. 'The poor are always with us,' the churchmen say. And so it will be-so long as the rich continue to steal the wealth that belongs to all of us!"

Her eyes raked their way across the growing crowd of upturned faces. "And what of the powerful? What of those like your dear princess, who claims to be concerned for you all?" Roberta made the word sound like some sort of curse. "Oh, she and those like her will do all they can to help you-except get off your backs! What are the lives of a few-if the world is to be changed?"

"Great crib job," Leif said. "I think I detect quotes from everywhere-early socialists, anarchists, and that last one came from Mussolini, if I remember."

"What I don't understand is why she's wasting her time," David muttered. "Those folks all have to be nonrole-playing characters. Who'd sign up to come here and just shovel horse dooky?"

P. J. stared at the crowd, which was beginning to stir. "Maybe she knows something we don't about the programming here-or maybe she has a few friends in the crowd."

The stable hands and peasants did seem to be responding to Roberta's fire-eating speech.

"Now is the time to rise!" Roberta's voice was a clarion call. "Your so-called betters pretend to despise you, but in truth, that's really fear. They try to distract you with a pretty piece of cloth-a flag. They throw a few pennies at you, and expect you to be content. They build cannon to threaten you. But what good will those cannon be, if the cannoneers are on our side? Rise up, I say, rise! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"

Carried along by her own oratory, she leaped up onto the two-wheeled cart itself. The sudden shift of weight made the wagon abruptly tip. Roberta tumbled from her perch, her fall broken by a giant pile of mud behind the cart.

All three boys waved their hands before their faces in a fruitless attempt to ward off the sudden stink rushing toward them. That wasn't mud at all. Roberta had just discovered the location of the stable's muckheap the hard way.

"Whoof!" David managed, his eyes watering. "It seems they feed the horses well in these parts."

Roberta's former audience simply fell apart, roaring with laughter. The sudden movement and noise spooked David's mount, which broke into a nervous trot, moving through a lane appearing in the dispersing crowd.

"Whoa, horse," David said nervously, sawing on the reins in an effort to slow his mount down. The horse paid no attention to his efforts, beginning to buck a little as it came closer to the mound of horse flop from which a bemired Roberta was emerging.

Apparently, her appearance was the last straw for David's mount. It began making serious efforts to get its rider off its back.

David gave up all pretense of being in charge of things. "HELLLLLP!" he yelled.

Which would make for a softer landing? he wondered as he crouched low in the saddle, clinging as best he could. Should I aim for the mudf or for Mount Crapola over there?

He was barely aware of P. J. coming up from the side, swinging down from the saddle. The young Texan approached David's mount, who was showing a lot of white around the eyes. "Hey, big feller," P. J. said in a soft voice. "Simmer down, simmer down."

The horse shied, tossing its head, but before it could rear, P. J. got hold of the reins. "Nobody's gonna hurt you."

"I wouldn't mind getting off if that would make him happy," David said in a strangled voice.

"Shhhhh," P. J. said.

David wasn't sure if that comment was aimed at him or the horse P. J. was trying to gentle. At least the blasted animal wasn't trying to fling him off anymore.

P. J. finally indicated to David that it was safe to dismount. Luckily, he'd maneuvered them all into an area where the brown muck covering the ground really was mud, and not something worse.

"We'll have to try this again-real soon," David said, rubbing his aching muscles as P. J. began to lead both his own horse and David's former mount away. "I just can't remember when I've had this much fun."

Leif Anderson sat in his saddle, watching Roberta Hendry storm off, heedlessly squelching through mud puddles. Knowing Roberta, she'd probably synched out as soon as she realized what she'd landed in. If her simulacrum was that angry, how furious was the real-life original?

Looks like Latvinia is downright hostile to good old Roberta, Leif thought as the simulacrum vanished through the stable gates. Is she going to keep fighting… or will she just make good on her threats to get this place shut down?