"Unfortunately, yes. More or less by accident, I gather, in a scrambling fall, the Count's son managed to put his sword through his friend's stomach and sever his abdominal aorta. He bled to death almost immediately. By the time the bystanders had gathered their wits sufficiently to get a medical team up there, it was much too late."

"Dear God."

"It was a duel, Cordelia. It began as a mockery, but it ended as the real thing. And the penalties for dueling apply." He rose, and paced the room, stopping by the window and staring out into the rain. "His father came to ask me for an Imperial pardon. Or, if I could not grant that, to see if I could get the charges changed to simple murder. If it were tried as a simple murder, the boy could plead self-defense, and possibly end up with a mere prison term."

"That seems . . . fair enough, I suppose."

"Yes." He paced again. "A favor for a friend. Or . . . the first crack in the door to let that hell-bred custom back into our society. What happens when the next case is brought before me, and the next, and the next? Where do I begin drawing the line? What if the next case involves some political enemy of mine, and not a member of my own party? Shall all the deaths that went into stamping this thing out be made void? I remember dueling, and what things were like back then. And worse—an entry point for government by friends, then cliques. Say what you will about Ezar Vorbarra, in thirty years of ruthless labor he transformed the government from a Vor-class club into some semblance, however shaky, of a rule of law, one law for everyone."

"I begin to see the problem."

"And me—me, of all men, to have to make that decision! Who should have been publicly executed twenty-two years ago for the selfsame crime!" He paused before her. "The story about last night is all over town, in various forms, this morning. It will be all over everywhere in a few days. I had the news service kill it, temporarily, but that was mere spitting in the wind. It's too late for a coverup, even if I wanted to do one. So what shall I betray this day? A friend? Or Ezar Vorbarra's trust? There is no doubt which decision he would have made."

He sat back beside her, and took her in his arms. "And this is only the beginning. Every month, every week, there will be some other impossible thing. What's going to be left of me after fifteen years of this? A husk, like that thing we buried three months ago, praying with his last breath that there may be no God? Or a power-corrupted monstrosity, like his son, so infected it could only be sterilized by plasma arc? Or something even worse?"