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heavy brows lowered further. "You are trying to mock me."

    Manfred clapped an arm across the man's shoulder. The fact that his hand happened to rest on the knight's neck was purely incidental. "Not I," he said sanctimoniously. "Did I say anything about dancing masters? Come. Let me try this weapon." And he took it from fingers rendered suddenly nerveless, because of the extreme pressure on a point in the Ritter's neck.

    Manfred felt the sword's balance, weighing it in his hamlike hands. Erik watched with some amusement. Manfred and the broadsword were a natural pairing. He had the build and the wrists for it. And he'd been training with one for longer, and with better masters, than any border Ritter would have. Manfred turned on the pell.

    "Dia Coir!" he thundered. It was a textbook stroke, on the turn with a full bodyweight follow-through, perfect to the detail of exhalation and the war cry's force coinciding with the strike. The top of the pell leaped and bounced across the floor. Manfred stood calmly inspecting the blade. He handed it back to the open-mouthed knight. "See that you get a proper edge onto this thing. It'd do as a butter knife right now."

    Embarrassment had turned the heavy-browed knight's face to a shade of beetroot. Now the blood drained away. He was white with fury. Erik tapped him on the shoulder with the rapier. "Let us see how your butter knife can do against my willow wand."

    "Are you mad?" demanded the knight, thrusting his blue jaw at the lean-limbed Icelander. Manfred's display of might had made him wary about that newcomer, but this foreigner looked easier meat. He was less bulky, if a little taller.

    "I promise I won't hurt you," said Erik reassuringly.

    "I meant that my sword is neither rounded nor buttoned," said the Ritter through clenched teeth. "And unlike you, I am armored."

    "Ah. Well, I shall just have to keep out of the way of it then," said Erik, stepping back and assuming guard.

    Ritter Von Mell took a deep breath. "Let me show you what a true weapon can do. Once I've disarmed you I will give you a long overdue hiding with the flat." He stalked toward Erik.

    Erik moved aside easily from the blow intended to knock the relatively frail rapier spinning. The next blow was, if anything, harder, delivered with real anger. Twisting his blade from sixte into a croisé on the furious swing, Erik used Von Mell's momentum to angle the broadsword downward to nick the floorboards. As it did this, the rapier flicked upward to touch the Ritter's throat.

    "You are dead once. Do you wish to continue?" asked Erik, dispassionately.

    For an answer Von Mell wrenched his blade out of the floorboards and swung it at Erik's head. Erik sidestepped. For the next ten minutes he continued to dodge, using Von Mell's rage and strength against him, while the entire lower hall watched. Occasionally Erik proved that he could have killed Von Mell. Then, as the Ritter began to seriously tire—he was, except for his helmet and boots, in full armor—Erik began to apply a dreadful lesson, both in swordsmanship and respect. The armor might have saved Von Mell some bruises. It did nothing for his dignity, especially as he received swats across buttocks with the flat every hundred heartbeats or so. Erik Hakkonsen took training to the far edge of fanaticism and a little beyond. He was scarcely even breathing hard. His opponent was staggering, barely able to raise his sword tip. Von Mell was, of course, carrying many extra pounds of steel plate, and a heavier weapon. But he was also not in particularly good shape. Erik did not give him a second opportunity to call a halt.

    Eventually Manfred did. He did so by the simple method of taking Von Mell by the neck-piece and sitting him down, hard, in a clatter of steel. Then he twitched the Ritter's broadsword away from him. "Hasn't he sweated enough, Erik?"

    "There is still tallow to melt away from his ribs," said the Icelander critically, looking at the knight—who