Pledged to Service

The swordsman bowed. "What would you have, milady?"

"Perhaps some olives?"

"At once!" He saluted and ran off, leaping silverware and soup bowls. At the olive bowl, he encountered another thumb-high man. "Avaunt, varlet! The lady desires olives."

"Thou'lt wait thy turn," sneered the other.

"Cad!"

"Poltroon!"

In a flash, both needle-sized swords were drawn. The ensuing duel left an overturned wineglass, a trampled biscuit, and gravy-soaked bootprints behind.

"I could just reach over there," said the lady.

"Nonsense," the swordsman gasped, clasping his wounded side. He extended his sword, tipped with a speared olive. "I shall return with another."

Mental Discipline is the Foremost Requirement

“Come,” Nyctis said. “We will be late for supper.”

Bric stood, and the servants whose hands and arms had made a couch for him to sit upon retreated, heads bowed, toward the wall. Nyctis strode toward the door, and the four burly men who formed it retreated obsequiously before her. The table was made of at least eight backs, held straight and stiff, and a cringing pair of servants on all fours for benches.

“Bring out the appetizer,” Nyctis called.

Bric swallowed heavily as the first course, nude and trembling, made his unsteady way toward the table to be served.