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!'
