Tristan is still standing there. I sense he’s about to vomit with the rage, although he looks calm enough. “To avoid a disruption of the Queen’s Peace, I will apologize whole-heartedly,” he says, but of course that just feeds the fellow’s ire:
“If that’s why you’re apologizing, I reject it,” he says. “I demand you acknowledge you’re wrong for insulting and challenging a nobleman. And now you’re being insolent as well.” He draws the rapier fully from its sheath. “Will it take a taste of steel for you to find your manners?”
“I have no weapon,” Tristan says, still quiet-like.
The nobleman laughs. “So?” he says.
“Would you strike an unarmed man?”
He laughs again. “That makes it easier to strike him, doesn’t it?” Around us, folk are still hustling by, and by now we’ve missed a few wherries. I want to catch one while the tide is with us, and I certainly don’t want to get ourselves stuck here.
Now the nobleman looks around, as if expecting an admiring crowd.
In truth, almost everyone’s giving us a wide berth. There are only two exceptions. Standing off at a distance, observing matters carefully, is a gentleman with a long, sharp yellow beard, dressed in those sorts of clothes that look dark at first glance but on closer examination are splendid. Closer to hand, three paces behind and to one side of the tosser, is another courtier, old enough to be the fop’s father, dressed as if he’s on his way home from a Dutch funeral.
“But I’m happy to give an advantage to one who so desperately needs it,” continues the tosser. “George,” he says to the old git in the neck-ruff, “lend this varlet that rusty meat cleaver you have hanging from your belt. I’ll take my apology in blood.” Very familiar he is, and cheeky in his description of George’s sidearm, which looks a perfectly respectable weapon to my eye, but George takes no offense; I reckon these two know each other well, and that George is some manner of retainer or vassal.
“You’ll be fined again, Herbert,” says George, who for one so long in the tooth and so weedy in his attire is, I confess, a bit fierce-looking.
“The fine’s a trifle,” Herbert says breezily. “Lend him your sword.”
George tosses his cape back, reaches across his body, and draws the weapon, which turns out to be as old and out-of-date as his clothing: it’s a heavy, single-edged backsword of the old school, such as you’ll see Protestants toting about at home, the better to wave menacingly at Irish folk. He offers it hilt-first over his arm to Tristan, who declines to take it. “I pray you accept my pardon for all offenses uttered,” Tristan says. “I’ve an ailing mother in Southwark and I would fain meet her within the hour.”
“If she ails enough, you can meet her in heaven in half that time,” says Herbert. “Take the sword.”
Tristan remains where he is.
Herbert, without warning, slashes at Tristan’s face. He’d have taken Tristan’s nose off if Tristan’s reflexes were not so fast. But like a dragonfly avoiding a bird, my Saxon has ducked the blow, grabbed the hilt of the offered backsword, and swung it around to face his attacker. Old George, no fool, steps back to give them room. A passing washerwoman utters a little shout of fear and scurries off, and suddenly I notice nobody else is on the steps now but the four of us, and sure I’m sweating in the hazy September sun much more than I was moments ago.
The fight was fierce but very short. Wherever Tristan comes from, they must use swords because it’s confident, strong and graceful he seemed to me. But I think whatever their swords are, they can’t be rapiers. He looked like he was dancing, like he’d learned steps he could perform very well, but Herbert—although far less elegant and less muscle on him—was so accustomed to the weapon that using it was like walking or eating for him.
Their fight moved them down a couple steps and then back up, and nobody watched overtly as they might back home, here in the city people mostly hurried away up on the road, or if they were on the river, they kept rowing toward the Westminster stairs or the nearest sandbank to disembark. Herbert was wielding his slender blade like an Italian fence-master, darting in from this angle and that, and it was all Tristan could do to set his thrusts aside with herky-jerky movements of the backsword. It looked ponderous even in his strong hands.
Suddenly, I didn’t see how, the backsword went flying out of Tristan’s hand and Herbert had him flat back against the stairs—his sword actually pinning Tristan against the stone by virtue of having pierced through the shirt, vest, and jerkin just at the side of Tristan’s neck, and then Herbert stabbed it into the crevice between the rise and tread of the stone steps. Tristan was stuck. It seemed a fancy move from a fellow not likely capable of fancy moves.
“To fall for such an easy and old-fashioned technique,” said Herbert, making a tch-tch-tch’ing sound. “A stupid error—and a fatal one.”
But then a gloved hand came down, gently but firmly, upon Herbert’s wrist. An extraordinarily fine glove it was, made of white kid, with intricate embroidery.
Herbert hadn’t seen this coming. Nor had I. Both of us looked up into the face of the gentleman I had noticed a minute ago—the finely dressed chap with the sharp yellow beard. “Who are you, sirrah, and how dare you?” Herbert demanded, and tried to wrench free of the other’s grip. But the white kid glove held firm.
“I am the gentleman’s second,” said the man with the sharp yellow beard. He had an accent—’twas ze he said instead of the, like a German. He glanced over at George, then returned his eyes to Herbert’s face. Or perhaps I should say eye, for he was wearing a tall hat with a broad brim, gorgeously plumed, and in the best style of all the young blades, he’d pulled it down low to one side, concealing his left eye. “You have your second,” the German continued, flicking that eye momentarily at George, “and so ze honorable tradition is zat your opponent in ze duel should have one also. Is it not so?”
“It is so,” Herbert admitted, “but you do not even know this varlet.”
The German shrugged, giving me cause to admire the exquisite silk lining of his cape. “Zis in no way alters ze honorable tradition. As you will know. Being a man of honor.” And the German now turned his head to look about at the crowd of onlookers that had gathered during the pause in swordplay. The scarlet plume in his hat wafted first this way, then that. Herbert looked up to see that there were now many witnesses. Some of whom were gentlemen—capable of giving testimony and of being believed by a judge.
The German’s intervention had worked; Herbert’s humours had cooled. He looked down at Tristan. “Go ask the wet-nurse how to escape next time. But first give me apologies. Varlet.”
The German released Herbert’s wrist, spun away, and walked off into the crowd.
“I apologize,” said Tristan stiffly, from his awkward supine position.
“For what wrongs precisely, sirrah?”