“Dinner?” My sword point fell as I gawked at him. Was he asking me out on a date? A computer character? He wanted to date me? How pathetic was that?
And worse, why was I even considering it?
“Yes, dinner. It’s the meal that comes just after lunch.” I gave him a look. He smiled. “If I beat you, you agree to have dinner with me.”
“Just dinner?” I asked suspiciously.
“Just dinner… unless there is something else you’d like to do.”
“Not likely, computer boy.”
“We will see. Shall we get on with the duel? I have dinner to order and a ship full of mates to clean up.”
He raised his sword in the traditional starting position, but it was my turn to stop him. “Not so fast—what do I get if I beat you?”
His two crewmates laughed, unnecessarily long and hard, to my mind. I wasn’t atotalidiot with a sword.
“That won’t be likely, lass,” Leeward Tom said. “Our captain, here, he be the best swordsman in all of the Seventh Sea.”
“Be he?” I said, entering into the whole pirate-spirit thing. “Then he shouldn’t mind at all putting his money where his mouth is. What will you give me if I win?”
Corbin looked thoughtful, but I could see a wicked twinkle in his eyes. “Dinner with me?”
I raised my eyebrows. He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “What would you like?”
“Well… I don’t know. What do you have? No, wait, let me rephrase that—
what tangible things other than yourself do you have to offer?”
“Ships, money, fine jewels, rare cloths—”
“Ships, that sounds good,” I said, picking the biggest-sounding item from his list. “If I win, you give me ships.”
“Ship,” he countered, his eyes narrowing speculatively. “A ship. A sloop.”
I had no idea what a sloop was, but so long as it wasn’t a rowboat, it sounded like a good bet. “You’re on.En gardeagain, Captain Corbin.”
He was surprisingly good, light on his feet, his ripostes following lightning fast after his parries. Although I hadn’t fenced in years, the muscles in my quadriceps complainingly obliged when I assumed the correct fencing stance—
elbows in, knees bent, wrist straight, toes slightly turned out, back straight. The rhythm of advance, retreat, advance, retreat—with occasional lunges thrown in to try to score a point—quickly returned, as did the reason I quit fencing.
I really, really disliked it.
“Tiring already?” Corbin asked as I sluggishly parried a particularly quick lunge.
“Not even,” I answered, rallying a riposte that had him stumbling backwards.
His men sat on nearby tables, yelling encouragement as we danced the peculiar advance, retreat fencing dance. After about five minutes of traditional fencing, he suddenly went Errol Flynn on me, leaping onto a nearby table and yelling a war cry as he flung himself off it. I, having had a fencing instructor who was also an expert in self-defense, stuck my foot out and tripped him. Yes, it was a move clearly against the rules of classical fencing, but so were wild leaps off tavern tables.
Stunned silence filled the room as his two henchman sat in disbelieving horror.
“I’d like my ship delivered now, please,” I said as Corbin rolled himself over onto his back. His entire front side was coated with dirt from the unfinished floor, a tiny trickle of blood from his nose indicating that he’d hit the ground harder than I’d anticipated. The tip of my rapier pressed against the flesh of his neck, right next to where his pulse beat strong in his jugular vein.
He spoke very carefully, without moving a single muscle. “If you reach into the leather pouch hanging from my belt, you’ll find a deed to a ship named theSaucy Wench.”
“TheSaucy Wench,” I said happily, pulling a battered bit of parchment from the pouch strapped to his hip. The handwriting was difficult to make out, but the name of the ship and a pen-and-ink sketch of her were legible. “I like it.”
“It suits you,” he answered, still not moving. “You cheated.”
