"Not if you drop the charges," Lily said. "No charges, no case; no case, no need for any sort of trial."

  "Good enough for me," said the troll. "Consider 'em dropped."

  "Me, too," Ludlow said eagerly.

  "After what she did to us?" Goodwife Eyebright snapped. Her hand, grown strong and swift in the ministering of domestic justice to her helpless brood, shot out and grabbed him by the ear. "If it weren't for her and her prodigal troll-flinging, we'd both have what we wanted by now."

  "I don't care." Ludlow squealed and squirmed. "What good's a dowry if I'm dead? You want your kid married off so bad, you fight the tin-plated bitch!"

  "All right," said Goodwife Eyebright. "I will."

  * * *

  "Did I miss anything?" Garth Justi's-son asked Dean Porfirio as he sidled along the row of benches ringing the duke's arena. Normally the sand-covered enclosure was reserved for riding exhibitions, but today it had been hastily judged the best site for the upcoming trial-at-arms.

  "Not a thing." The wizard reached into a paper cone filled with salted nuts and munched primly. It was amazing how fast word of the combat had spread, fetching still more people to the ducal palace grounds. With the crowds came hucksters of every stripe. They seemed to swarm out of the ground, like maggots in meat, which coincidentally was what some of them were selling.

  "Sorry I took so long," Garth muttered, sitting down. "I had to teach Ludlow some manners. He might be walking normally by next Market Day, if he finds an ice pack. No whelp calls my Zoli a bitch and gets away with it."

  The wizard stuck the paper poke under Garth's nose. "Nuts?"

  "Fair enough, she is that. But only a little, and I think our Lily caught it from her. Trial by combat to the death, no less! What was going through that girl's head?"

  "Probably the notion that she could save you a lot of legal woes. She believed they'd all drop their cases because no one would be fool enough to fight Zoli." The wizard ate some more nuts. "Never underestimate fools."

  In the center of the sand-strewn ring, Duke Janifer stood between the two combatants and nervously asked, "Ladies, are you certain you wouldn't like to reconsider?"

  "I would," Zoli said. "It's not combat, it's bloody murder. I've eaten seafood that had more hope of killing me than this idiot." She gestured scornfully at Goodwife Eyebright. "Plus, she looks ready to drop her calf any second now. One needless death on my hands is bad enough, but two?"

  "Will you withdraw?" Duke Janifer turned to Goodwife Eyebright, entreating her with his eyes. "Pleeease?"

  Ethelberthina's mother stood herself up a bit taller and held the sword she'd been given as though it were a carpet beater. "I'd sooner die."

  "I was afraid you'd say that." The duke sighed, shrugged, and tossed a bright orange kerchief high into the air. As he dashed from the arena he called back over one shoulder, "When it hits the ground, start fighting!"

  The audience gasped and held its breath. Zoli went into her preferred fighting stance, grim and silent, eyes fixed on the floating kerchief. Goodwife Eyebright, on the other hand, began jabbering the instant the bit of cloth left the duke's hand.

  "My gracious, aren't you in a hurry? I'm sure it's not going to take you long to kill me, but don't you worry about that. Nor about the poor, innocent, unborn babe I'm carrying that never did anyone a bit of harm. Nor about all my poor little lambkins that'll be left orphaned and helpless, oh no, don't you give any of them a second thought! Mayor Eyebright will probably remarry quick enough, and then they'll have a stepmother, and who knows what she'll be like? But don't you fret over it, you've done your duty, you don't have to bother your head about whether they'll be decently clothed and fed and who'll tuck them into their cold, lonesome little beds of a winter's night with not even the comfort of a loving mother's kiss on their tiny, tear-stained faces, no. Don't you concern yourself over their bitter tears or their heartbreaking sobs or their—"

  "Gnut save us, what's the wretch doing?" Garth exclaimed.

  "What she does best." Dean Porfirio sounded glum. "What she did to force Ethelberthina to undergo a Maiden Morn. And it's working again. Just look at Zoli now."

  It was true: Under Goodwife Eyebright's verbal barrage, Zoli's sword drooped by degrees, leaving a hole in her defensive posture fit to drive an oxcart through. Her shoulders trembled and, as Goodwife Eyebright expanded upon the tragic fate awaiting her soon-to-be-motherless babies, she sniffled. Just as the orange cloth touched the ground, she burst into tears, dropped her blade completely and pounced on the kerchief in order to wipe her streaming nose and eyes.

  Goodwife Eyebright had been a homemaker long enough to recognize something ripe for the plucking. While Zoli howled her heart out, the mayor's wife swung her own sword back, ready to strike. It was not an elegant attack, but with Zoli thus disabled, elegance was unnecessary. The blade swept straight for the former swordsister's head.

  A second blade shot out and blocked Goodwife Eyebright's swing with a clang. Panting hard, holding the hilt of Zoli's discarded weapon with both hands, Ethelberthina glowered at her mother.

  "Drop the charges," she ordered. "And the sword."

  "Young lady, you go to your room," her mother said. "This is no place for a child."

  "Says you." Ethelberthina lifted her chin impudently. "I've had my Maiden Morn rite: I'm not a child any more."

  "Then this is no place for you," Goodwife Eyebright countered. "This case concerns only me and that Zoli person." She nodded at the crumpled swordswoman who was still blubbering on the sand, occasionally wailing something about the poor, comfortless little orphans.

  "And my case concerns you and me. Or have you forgotten? I've simply decided to move it ahead on the duke's docket."

  Goodwife Eyebright laughed in a condescending manner. "You can't be serious, darling. You fight me to the death? You'd kill your own mother? Not that you haven't tried to do that ever since the day you were born. But I don't mind. A good mother doesn't care if her child—who has been given every advantage at great personal sacrifice—turns out to be a little viper. I love you anyway."

  "Oh, I wasn't planning on killing you." The girl dropped her sword, and grabbed hold of her mother's forearm. With a few quick twists and turns, Ethelberthina had herself under the startled woman's defenses with the edge of the blade pressed to her own small throat. Glancing up, she grinned and said, "Whenever you're ready, Mother."

  Goodwife Eyebright tried to wriggle her sword away from her daughter's neck, but in vain. "Ethelberthina, what are you doing and stop it!"

  "Not until you do. Drop the charges against Zoli or I swear I'll make you cut my throat. Know what that means?"

  "It means you are a very inconsiderate child," the goodwife replied stiffly.

  "It also means that you will have to go into strict mourning for two years. That's the minimum acceptable period for the loss of a grown daughter. Strict mourning," she repeated. "No celebrations of any kind."

  "No . . . what?"

  "No celebrations," Ethelberthina said. "Oh, like, just for an instance say . . . weddings?" Her smile was a caution to the ungodly.

  A cry more bestial than human shot skyward from the crowd. Demystria and Mauve Eyebright burst into the arena, their hair streaming wildly, their faces contorted into masks of mindless terror. Only the thought of what a collision might do to the sword at Ethelberthina's throat stopped them from throwing themselves at their mother's knees. Instead they pitched facefirst to the sand, pounding it with fists and feet while they yowled with grief.

  "Do what she says, Mummy!" they begged in unison. "Drop the sword! Drop the charges! Let her go!"

  "Girls, girls," the goodwife chided. "If your sister wants me to cut her throat, that's her choice, isn't it? Besides, it's just come to me that if she dies—not that I'm encouraging that sort of thing, mind you—then all of her money goes to her closest living relative. I do believe that should be me. Then Mummy will be able to give you the biggest, splashiest, most expensive weddings that Overford has ever seen."

  "And how am I supposed to get married with no groom?" Mauve demanded. "There's no courting allowed during strict mourning! By the time I'm free of it, I'll be ooold!"

  "That can't be helped; you should have planned ahead, like your sister. She knew what to do to get a man!" Goodwife Eyebright beamed at Demystria. "Well, at least you shall have the finest wedding ever, and you'll have two whole years to plan—"

  "I can't wait two years to get married." Demystria sat back on her haunches and gave her mother a hard, eloquent look. "I want—I need to get married. Now."

  There were times when Goodwife Eyebright could be as quick on the uptake as Ethelberthina. Her eyes locked with Demystria's, her face lost some color, but she never flinched. All she said was: "Oh."

  The sword fell from her fingers to the sand.

  "Thank you, Mummy dear." Ethelberthina made a perfect curtsey that was a thumbed nose in thin disguise.

  * * *

  It was a lovely wedding, the talk of Overford. The Eyebrights hired the entire Crusty Boar tavern to host the festivities. Garth Justi's-son helped break up six knife fights, and that was just counting the ones that broke out before the happy couple cut the bridal cake. He had to: Five of them involved Zoli.

  Dean Porfirio finally called upon his magic to compel the retired swordswoman to take a Time Out. One moment she was arguing hotly with Mayor Eyebright, the next she was *poofed* into a locked storage room. Her curses shook plaster from the walls and dust from the thatch.

  "Calm yourself, m'lady; we're in for the duration," came a familiar voice in the dark. Bursar Tailings passed her a tankard of ale drawn from one of the many barrels around them.

  "Why're you locked up?" Zoli asked, sipping the brew.

  "I'm here at my own request, to avoid accidental exposure to sunlight. Nothing spoils a good wedding like an unintended fatality, I told them."

  Zoli lifted one eyebrow. "This wedding began at sundown."

  "I know." The troll chuckled. "Most of the ale's in here and so am I, with no Eyebrights to say me nay. Not the sharpest bunch of pickaxes in the mineshaft, are they?"

  "Except for your betrothed," Zoli teased.

  "Oh, that's all off." The troll waved his hand cavalierly. "As a troll I can't wed a human, and it seems that since I was designated a deadly weapon in Ludlow Pennywhistle's suit, I can't be betrothed to a human either. It's against the law."

  "What law? Since when has anyone bothered to enact a law against marrying weapons? Who'd even think of doing something like that?"

  A ball of parchment sailed out of the dark recesses of the storeroom and hit Zoli in mid-breastplate. The retired swordsister uncrumpled it, read it, and blushed.

  "An imperial law, for your consideration, which is still on the books of this and all other lands once ruled by the Talligar Empire," said Ethelberthina, emerging from the shadows, a cup of sparkling quince juice in her hands. "Rushed into effect more than forty years ago by a certain warrior queen whose only daughter announced she'd sooner marry her sword than any man."

  Zoli's blushes deepened. "I was young and idealistic! I didn't know any better! I hadn't met Garth yet! You have no idea how bossy my mother could be! And it was only thirty years ago; closer to twenty." Noting the badly concealed smirks of her listeners, she nimbly switched the subject. "What are you doing in here, Ethelberthina? Your sister's wedding is out there."

  "It's rude to answer your own questions," the girl responded pleasantly. Lifting her cup, she proposed a toast: "To other people's weddings! I'm not losing a sister, I'm gaining closet space." She drained her drink to the dregs.

  "You know," the troll murmured, "she really is an exceptional child."

  "Since she's had her Maiden Morn, she's an exceptional adult," Zoli corrected him. "And as such, she'd best be thinking about her future."

  "Don't you start in on me about marriage," Ethelberthina spoke up.

  "Me? Never. But you will be wanting something to do with your life. You can't sell any more of Mama Ethina's Elixir—your stock's as good as all gone—so what will you do?"

  Ethelberthina tapped her lips with a fingertip thoughtfully. "Well, I'm not exactly the physical type to enter the Swordsisters' Union, much as I'd like to, and I don't fancy further dabblings in alchemy—too stinky. What I would like is power: Great honking heaps of unmitigated power, the ability to make people fear me, to cringe before me, and most especially to never, ever think they can bully me and get away with it. Not even Mummy. So I suppose what I'd truly like to be is—"

  "—a wizard?" Zoli suggested.

  "—a bursar?" The troll tried to be helpful.

  "—a priestess?"

  "—a queen?"

  "—a lawyer," said the girl.

  And the shrieks which burst from the storeroom of the Crusty Boar caused Goodwife Eyebright to go into labor, so that Ethelberthina did not lose a sister that day after all.

  Looking for Rhonda Honda

  William Sanders

  The minute she clanked into the office I knew she was trouble.

  Okay, she didn't clank, not really; body armor hasn't clanked since before I was born. But people like her always seem as if they ought to clank, or at least jingle a little. Maybe it's the attitude they all seem to wear with it.

  She said, "You're Johnny Noir?"

  I sat back in the creaking old swivel chair and looked at her. That wasn't hard work at all. She had pale skin and nice small features, maybe a little on the sharp side. Short-cropped reddish-brown hair showed beneath her squared-off black beret. She was a little on the short side, but what there was of her, under that snug-tailored black one-piece suit, looked pretty good. Of course it was hard to tell, with so much of her upper body concealed by that damned bulky vest.

  Which was silly, since nobody really needs to wear that kind of heavy protective gear any more—you can buy a vest off the rack, now, capable of stopping anything short of an antitank projectile, and light and thin enough that your own tailor couldn't spot it—but then that wouldn't send the message: My job is so important, people try to kill me to stop me from doing it.

  I couldn't guess her age. Who can, nowadays? She looked somewhere in her middle twenties, but for all I knew she was old enough to be my grandmother. For all I knew she could be my grandmother; the old dear had been talking lately about getting a new morph job.

  I said, "Yes, I'm Johnny Noir. And you're not, are you?"

  She ignored that. So much for dry humor; it wasn't my best subject at detective school. She was looking around the office with an expression that might have indicated either scorn or routine professional paranoia. I couldn't really tell with those wraparound mirror shades hiding her eyes.

  She finished her inspection and looked at me again. "My name is immaterial," she said in a dry flat voice. "You can call me Margo."

  She didn't offer her hand. I had a feeling that wasn't all she wasn't going to offer. I said, "Well, Ms. Immaterial—uh, Margo—what can I do for you?"

  "We need you to find somebody," she said.

  "We?" I looked past her but I didn't see anybody else.

  Her mouth pulled tight at the corners. "I . . . represent the interested persons," she said reluctantly. "Please don't ask questions. You'll be told everything you need to know."

  She took a quick step forward and leaned across my desk. For a second I thought she was warming to the Noir charm after all, but she was merely reaching for the battered old phone. She picked it up, jabbed quickly at the buttons, and handed it to me. I held it up to my ear just as a familiar voice said, "Noir?"

  "Chief." I caught myself sitting up a little straighter.

  "Listen closely, Noir." The Chief's voice was high and hoarse, with an edge like a cheap steak knife. About the same as usual, in other words. "Somebody is going to tell you what she wants you to do. Do it."

  I said carefully, "I see."

  "The hell you do. You got no idea at all—Christ, I don't know how far up this comes from. The person in your office right now? She's not really there. Anything she says to you, you never heard. Whatever you wind up doing for the people she works for, it never happened. Am I getting through, Noir?"

  I said, "Is this an order?"

  There was a moment of silence, broken only by the Chief's wheezy breath. "Of course not, stupid," he said finally. "How can I order you to do something that's never going to happen, for people who don't exist? Especially when I'm not even talking to you right now."

  He hung up. "Yes, sir," I said to the dead phone.

  Margo was undoing the front of her bulletproof vest. Hope sprang to life again, but she was just getting something out of an inside pocket. "Here," she said.

  She reached across my desk again, this time holding a disk which she popped into the ancient computer with a gesture that sneered. She tapped a few keys, her fingers moving faster than I could follow, and the page I'd been working on disappeared, to be replaced by a head-and-shoulders portrait of a blond-haired woman.

  "This," Margo said, "is the person we want you to find."

  The face that looked back at me was pretty, maybe even beautiful if you liked that tanned-SoCal-goddess look. There was a time when I would have said she was in her late teens or early twenties. Now, I wouldn't even bother trying to guess.

  "She have a name?" I queried.

  "Immaterial," Margo said immediately.

  "Related, are you?"

  Margo grimaced. "I know, but I'm serious. Her birth name really is immaterial, because she's not using it now."

  She reached out and touched the keys again, and the picture changed to a full-length shot of what appeared to be the same woman, standing next to a purple-and-black motorcycle. She was dressed in elaborate protective gear: full snug-fitting leathers, high-topped racing boots, lace-on plastic knee and elbow guards, even a shiny perforated breastplate, all of it neatly color coordinated to match the bike. Other figures, similarly dressed, stood around in the background, or sat on other bikes.

  Jesus, I thought. A roadgrrl.

  "According to our information," Margo went on, "she is now known as Rhonda Honda."