"Without armor," added Lekhard. His tongue caressed his lower lip. "Surely you have knowledge of our customs?"

A society which lived on the edge of violence-the guns carried were not toys. Yet to avoid the escalation of feuds certain rules had been evolved. Duels were fought with the contestants wearing armor which limited the vulnerable area. Limbs could be broken and painful wounds received, but the possibility of actual death was slight. The victor gained a badge from the vanquished, a token scalp, and the more obtained the greater the admiration.

But a public challenge such as had been made to Dephine would be to the death.

She said, forceably, "It must be stopped. Earl, you cannot fight the man."

"He must!" Hendaza looked from one to the other. His eyes were determined. "As your champion, Dephine, he can't refuse."

"He can and must!"

"No!" Lekhard was as determined as the other. "For one thing to refuse would be to gain the derision of the House. That you could, perhaps, bear. But there would be more. The gauntlet, for one. And for your champion-" he made the word a sneer. "-well, we do not treat cowards lightly on Einijar. Such men are taken and left unarmed in the haunts of the olcept. None have ever returned."

Dumarest said, "Dephine, just what does Galbrene have against you?"

In the following silence he looked from one to the other, seeing each trying to avoid his eyes, each masking his face in his own way; Lekhard with a sneer, Kanjuk with a bland expression, Hendaza with a frown. Only the woman was outright.

"Once, Earl, years ago now, I promised to marry him."

"And now he wants to kill you?"

"Yes."

"An odd way of showing his love."

"Love has nothing to do with it, Earl. Even the word itself doesn't mean to him what it does to you. It is a matter of pride. He chose me and I rejected him. I broke my given word. I made him a mockery in the eyes of his companions. If he could that man would tear me apart with his bare hands." Pausing she added, "I'm sorry Earl. I didn't know this would happen. If-" She broke off as Alorcene entered the room.

He crossed to the table, sat, his face expressionless. His hands, in the colored streams of light, looked like scraps of paper or thinly scraped bone as they rested before him. Hands which matched the thin dryness of his voice, quiet now in startling contrast to what it had been in the hall.

"I have questioned Galbrene de Allivarre Keturah and his claim is just. He has the right to challenge. You, Dephine de Monterale Keturah, have only the right to defend either in person or by use of a champion."

Dumarest said, "Her life at stake for a broken promise?"

"It is our way," said the old man quietly. "But it is not her life at stake but her reputation. Should you fall she will be ostracized, scorned, disavowed. She will be expelled from the House, the Family, from this world. But you, Earl Dumarest-you will be dead."

* * * * *

Through the uncurtained window he could see the stars, a glitter of distant suns each with its own worlds, their pattern broken by the sprawling blotch of an interstellar dust cloud, its edges haloed with a faint luminescence. From the balcony could be seen the night-shrouded land, the distant hills a wavering, ghostly line in the cold glow of the heavens. Beneath the parapet lay sheer stone, more in an unbroken expanse for twenty feet above, the wall ending in the overhang of a peaked roof. Things he had spotted in the fading daylight, barriers now augmented by the sealed portal, the watchful guards on walls and roofs.

A precaution against external enemies but one which kept men in as well as out.

Lying supine on the wide bed Dumarest stretched, easing muscle and sinew, his thoughts busy with odd scraps of assembled information.

The Shrine-would the items it contained hold any information as to the whereabouts of Earth? If the First Families had landed here long enough ago it was barely possible that an old navigational table would give the coordinates he had searched for for so long. Would Navalok permit him to search? A good start had been made to win his friendship, but more could be needed. The boy was a dreamer, one cursed by having been born to the wrong society at the wrong time. Earlier he would have been quietly disposed of so as not to contaminate the gene pool with his undesirable characteristics. Later he could make a place for himself as a thinker, a poet or an artist, a planner or a teacher. Now he was caught between two fires, tearing himself apart with the desire to prove himself according to the customs of his Family yet lacking the physical attributes which would make it possible.

But he would try and, trying, he would die.

Dumarest turned, thinking of his own problems.

An hour after the great bell sounded at dawn he would have to fight and, from what he had seen of Galbrene, the man was no stranger to combat. The badges he wore proved that, each a trophy of victory as the gun he carried showed his courage against the olcept. And, as Lekhard had pointed out, the man had not been satisfied with a minor kill. He had gone after bigger game and Dumarest knew what it took to face a ravening beast with nothing but a scrap of edged and pointed steel.

He heard the knock and had risen and was at the door before it could come again. The passage outside was lit with a smokey yellow light which gleamed from the gems set in the mane of auburn hair.

"Earl?" Dephine glanced at the naked blade in his hand. "Did you expect an assassin?"

"Get inside." He closed the door after her, thrusting home the thick, wooden latch. "What do you want?"

"To talk. I couldn't sleep and I missed you." Her eyes met his as she tilted back her head. "A light?"

The curtains rasped from their rings as he drew the thick material across the panes. An unnecessary precaution, perhaps, but it was late and curiosity could be aroused. For a second he fumbled in the gloom then, as light blazed from the lamp, Dephine came towards him, arms extended.

"Earl!"

He ignored the invitation.

"Galbrene was a surprise," he said, dryly. "One I could have done without. Could there be others?"

"I didn't know, Earl," she said, quickly. "I told you that. It shouldn't have happened and, on any other world, it wouldn't have mattered. He could have been taken care of without all this ridiculous formality."

"On any other world it wouldn't have been necessary." Dumarest watched as she poured wine. "Theft, lies and harlotry," he murmured. "How long ago was it, Dephine? Eight years? Ten? Twelve?"

"Why?"

"Galbrene has either a long memory or you made a hell of an impression."

"Both." She met his eyes without smiling and deliberately drank some wine. "Do you want me to pretend that I'm a pure little innocent who didn't know what she was doing? All right, so I'm guilty of everything he accuses me of, but so what? Are you any better? A killer? A man who lives by violence? Have you any right to judge?"

"Have I judged?"

"No," she admitted. "You haven't. Not from the very first. You took me for what I was, but treated me as if I were all the things a man hopes to find in a woman. Not as a cheap whore or a thief or a liar or someone who should have known better. Not like these fools who look at me and then at you and decide it would pay them to keep a shut mouth. You, Earl-you're a man!"

"Tell me about Galbrene."

"What is there to tell? He wanted me and, yes, we were betrothed. It was an arrangement and one of the reasons I wanted to get away. And I stole also, that I admit, but I needed money for passage and other things. And I didn't know that I'd ever want to come back. I didn't know that until after I'd met you and then, in the ship, with death all around and you lying so ill, dying I thought-Earl, if I'd known how to pray I'd have done it then! Prayed for you to live and to love me as I love you. To want to be with me so that we could find happiness together. To build a home, Earl. A home!"