"Room!" someone bellowed, excitement in his voice. "Give them room!"
Kedaki and extra-planetaries moved away from the bar, forming a rough square a dozen paces across. The barkeep ducked through a doorway and Matlin heard a lady tourist from Polaris say, almost squealing the words, "This is so exciting." The tone of her voice disgusted him. The extra-Kedaki, he thought. Perhaps they were guilty too. At least, if they enjoyed the fantastic mores of Kedak, if in any way they encouraged them, then they shared guilt with the Kedaki highborn.
But not equal guilt. No, not that. For clearly, the man named Felg was chiefly to blame here. Big, powerful-looking Felg—a murderer. Because, Matlin told himself grimly, it would be murder. The smaller Kedaki, the lowborn, didn't have a chance. Looking at his face, Matlin knew that the man was aware of this. And Felg? Felg was aware of it too. In the case of the lowborn awareness did not bring terror, for virtually all lowborn Kedaki believed in reincarnation. Thus, facing death, Felg's victim was almost sure he would be reborn in a higher station in life. But Felg did not believe. Felg was a trained maceman: the scars on his cheeks—white scar tissue over crushed cheekbones—proved this. Felg would kill the lowborn and it would be cold-blooded murder morally if not in the eyes of the Kedaki law.
A buzz of eagerness stirred the crowd as the barkeep returned with the traditional melgast, the metal bar from which the two dueling maces hung on hooks. The maces were a yard long, their stems extremely light-weight and thick enough around at the base for a man to hold comfortably, their heads round and heavy and black and studded with a score or so of half-inch long spikes. As the barkeep brought the melgast forward, the maces swung back and forth on their hooks.
The Polarian woman who had been excited gasped. Whispers ran through the crowd. "Let me see them," Felg demanded coldly, and examined the maces as the barkeep lifted the melgast over the surface of the bar with both hands.
"You can still change your mind," the barkeep suggested.
Felg raked him with a glance. "Would you want me to?"
The barkeep could not stare at him long. "No," he said. "Not if you don't want to."
"I am ready, master," the lowborn said.