No lie, it was the duel that got me waving loose bills as if I were watching a cage match. That says too much about me, I know. I really liked the scenes, there, and the grizzly end to the loser.

I'm pretty sure this is the bloodiest fight scene we've ever written, and we were kind of stupidly proud of that, so I'm glad you enjoyed it. Especially since there are going to be a good few more fight scenes before this is over.

I don't get this sentence: to lose an official challenge of one's authority was ! ! to lose that authority, completely and utterly. Did you leave out something with the exclamation marks

That would be a bizarre side effect of elspethdixon emailing me the fic. I can't believe I missed that; unlike the typos, there's really no excuse for missing that. Thanks for pointing it out.