parade of followers and emerged from the hall into the waiting room—a narrow space with high windows and floor of patterned white and purple tile.
“And what science is that?” the Baron asked.
“It’s the um-m-m-ah-h science of ah-h-h discontent,” the Count said.
The Houses Minor behind them, sheep-faced and responsive, laughed with just the right tone of appreciation, but the sound carried a note of discord as it collided with the sudden blast of motors that came to them when pages threw open the outer doors, revealing the line of ground cars, their guidon pennants whipping in a breeze.
The Baron raised his voice to surmount the sudden noise, said, “I hope you’ll not be discontented with the performance of my nephew today, Count Fenring.”
“I ah-h-h am filled um-m-m only with a hm-m-m sense of anticipation, yes,” the Count said. “Always in the ah-h-h proces verbal, one um-m-m ah-h-h must consider the ah-h-h office of origin.”
The Baron did his sudden stiffening of surprise by stumbling on the first step down from the exit. Proces verbal! That was a report of a crime against the Imperium!
But the Count chuckled to make it seem a joke, and patted the Baron’s arm.
All the way to the arena, though, the Baron sat back among the armored cushions of his car, casting covert glances at the Count beside him, wondering why the Emperor’s errand boy had thought it necessary to make that particular kind of joke in front of the Houses Minor. It was obvious that Fenring seldom did anything he felt to be unnecessary, or used two words where one would do, or held himself to a single meaning in a single phrase.
They were seated in the golden box above the triangular arena—horns blaring, the tiers above and around them jammed with a hubbub of people and waving pennants—when the answer came to the Baron.
“My dear Baron,” the Count said, leaning close to his ear, “you know, don’t you, that the Emperor has not given official sanction to your choice of heir?”
The Baron felt himself to be within a sudden personal cone of silence produced by his own shock. He stared at Fenring, barely seeing the Count’s lady come through the guards beyond to join the party in the golden box.
“That’s really why I’m here today,” the Count said. “The Emperor wishes me to report on whether you’ve chosen a worthy successor. There’s nothing like the arena to expose the true person from beneath the mask, eh?”
“The Emperor promised me free choice of heir!” the Baron grated.
“We shall see,” Fenring said, and turned away to greet his lady. She sat down, smiling at the Baron, then giving her attention to the sand floor beneath them where Feyd-Rautha was emerging in giles and tights—the black glove and the long knife in his right hand, the white glove and the short knife in his left hand.
“White for poison, black for purity,” the Lady Fenring said. “A curious custom, isn’t it, my love?”
“Um-m-m-m,” the Count said.
The greeting cheer lifted from the family galleries, and Feyd-Rautha paused to accept it, looking up and scanning the faces—seeing his cousines and cousins, the demibrothers, the concubines and out-freyn relations. They were so many pink trumpet mouths yammering amidst a flutter of colorful clothing and banners.
It came to Feyd-Rautha then that the packed ranks of faces would look just as avidly at his blood as at that of the slave-gladiator. There was not a doubt of the outcome in this fight, of course. Here was only the form of danger without its substance—yet….
Feyd-Rautha held up his knives to the sun, saluted the three corners of the arena in the ancient manner. The short knife in white-gloved hand (white, the sign of poison) went first into its sheath. Then the long blade in the black-gloved hand—the pure blade that now was unpure, his secret weapon to turn this day into a purely personal victory: poison on the black blade.
The adjustment of his body shield took only a moment, and he paused to sense the skin-tightening at his forehead assuring him he was properly guarded.
This moment carried its own suspense, and Feyd-Rautha dragged it out with the sure hand of a showman, nodding to his handlers and distractors, checking their equipment with a measuring stare—gyves in place with their prickles sharp and glistening, the barbs and hooks waving with their blue streamers.
Feyd-Rautha signaled the musicians.
The slow march began, sonorous with its ancient pomp, and Feyd-Rautha led his troupe across the arena for obeisance at the foot