Tedric glanced at the target. Rhoann was beating her father unmercifully--her purple-shafted arrows were all in or near the gold, while his golden ones were scattered far and wide--and she had been twitting him unmercifully about his poor marksmanship. Phagon was in no merry mood; this was very evidently no competition for any outsider--least of all Lomarr's top-ranking armsmaster--to enter. "Crave pardon, my lady, but other matters press...." "Your evasions are so transparent, my lord; why not tell the truth?" Rhoann did not exactly sneer at the man's obvious embarrassment, but it was very clear that she, too, was in a vicious temper. "Mindst not beating _me_ but never the _Throne_? And any armsmaster who threwest not arrows by hand at this range to beat both of us should be stripped of badge?" Tedric, quite fatuously, leaped at the bait. "Wouldst permit, sire?" "_No!_" the king roared. "By my head, by the Throne, by Llosir's liver and heart and brain and guts--NO! 'Twould cost the head of any save you to insult me so--shoot, sir, and shoot your best!" extending his own bow and a full quiver of arrows. Tedric did not want to use the royal weapon, but at the girl's quick, imperative gesture he smothered his incipient protest and accepted it. "One sighting shot, sire?" he asked, and drew the heavy bow. Nothing whatever could have forced him to put an arrow nearer the gold than the farthest of the king's; to avoid doing so--without transparently missing the target completely--would take skill, since one golden arrow stood a bare three inches from the edge of the target. His first arrow grazed the edge of the butt and was an inch low; his second plunged into the padding exactly half way between the king's wildest arrow and the target's rim. Then, so rapidly that it seemed as though there must be at least two arrows in the air at once, arrow crashed on arrow; wood snapping as iron head struck feathered shaft. At end, the rent in the fabric through which all those arrows had torn their way could have been covered by half of one of Rhoann's hands. "I lose, sire," Tedric said, stiffly, returning bow and empty quiver. "My score is zero." Phagon, knowing himself in the wrong but unable to bring himself to apologize, did what he considered the next-best thing. "I used to shoot like that," he complained. "Knowst how lost I my skill, Tedric? 'Tis not my age, surely?" "'Tis not my place to say, sire." Then, with more loyalty than sense--"And I split to the teeth any who dare so insult the Throne." "What!" the monarch roared. "By my...." "Hold, father!" Rhoann snapped. "A king you--act it!" Hard blue eyes glared steadily into unyielding eyes of green. Neither the thoroughly angry king nor the equally angry princess would give an inch. She broke the short, bitter silence.