The Wordsmiths and the Warguild by Hugh Cook Page B

was a success. She was
glorious. She was beautiful. She was loved. Her happiness would have been
complete if her father had been there to see her triumph, but unfortunately he
was laid up with gout.
            Determined music began;
the cheering died away, and was replaced by a babble of talk, gossip and
speculation. The festivities were underway.
            As a skavamareen wailed
along in the wake of a galloping thrum, Togura encountered a girl named Zona,
who made it appear that she met him almost by accident.
            "Are you a
Suet?" he said.
             "Yes. How did you
guess?"
            "What else would
they send to seduce me?"
            "The cheek of the
animal!" she said.
            "A kiss would be a
good way to start," said Togura.
            She blushed, and Togura
saw his suspicions were correct. The Suets had sent one of their expendable
females to romance him. He was flattered.
            "Dance with
me," he said.
            She yielded, so soon
they were dancing the Dalataplash, kicking their heels and punching the air,
whooping at the war-scream and shouting at the hoot, then embracing each other
in the couple and the grind. She laughed a lot. She might have been sent, but
she was willing. He was young, handsome and a hero, and a baron's son besides,
heir to the estate if he killed his half-brother Cromarty. There was good meat
on her bones; he knew himself lucky.
            They danced then ate,
danced then drank, then danced again. Togura cast occasional glances in the
direction of young Roly Suet, who seemed to be making a remarkable recovery
from his traumatic experience with Slerma. The royal couple were not dancing:
Slerma was still eating, with Roly at her side feeding her choice morsels from
a bucket.
            "Would you marry
me?" said Togura to Zona.
            "Would I if
what?"
            "If I asked."
            "Ask."
            "That's no
answer."
            "Still, it's the
answer deserved. Are you a hero or aren't you?"
            "I'll think about
it," said Togura. "Come, the music's wasting. Let's dance."
            And dance they did. She
was smooth, lithe, clean-limbed and lively. He wanted her. She was his answer
to the urgency of the flesh. She was part of a contract for a fabulous future.
In the face of such offers, what wisdom in questing? Fifty men missing, most
probably dead? Where was the temptation in that?
            It was many generations
since Togura's ancestors had been sharp-bargaining Galish merchants, but,
nevertheless, a trader's caution was still part of his heritage; he disliked
unnecessary danger on principle, being entirely lacking in the kind of
hang-devil recklessness which welcomes impossible odds.
            But Day!
            How could he forget
about Day?
            How could he write her
off like this?
            He tried to bring her
face to mind, but failed. He could not remember what she looked like. He tried,
in a dutiful way, to fabricate feelings of regret and remorse, but failed.
            "Kiss me,"
said Zona.
            And he could hardly
decline.
            As they danced, the
music grew louder. An old-fashioned canterkade beat out a rhythm in direct
opposition to a new-fangled clay. A sklunk back-thumped, a chanter whined, a
snot-pipe shrilled, then massied plea whistles hooted and honked, joining the
screaming high pinions in a caterwauling fanfarade.
            "So what's it to
be?" said Zona, as the last of the music jogged down to nothing.
"Where will you sleep tonight and tomorrow? By some bone-rotting
mountainside bog? Or elsewhere, far warmer?"
            "Give me time to
think," said Togura, with a laugh of joy and triumph which he was unable
to suppress.
            Already he knew his
answer. It was no contest. The people of Sung - even the young men - were
essentially too sane and