'A double Napoleon on the big fellow!' cried the perfumed dandy.

'Done!' cried the hunchback. 'That slender lad has the footwork, mark it well.'

'Footwork ne'er stopped swinging steel e'er now,' the dandy lisped. 'Wilt back thy judgement with thy purse?'

'Aye! I'll add five Louis d'Or!' said the hunchback, fumbling for his purse.

And now others in the crowd had caught the gaming fever. 'Ten rupees on the Denis!' shouted the long-nosed fellow. 'Nay, I'll offer odds of three to one!'

'Make it four to one!' cried the ever-cautious landlord, 'and seven to five on first blood!' And so saying, he swept out a bag of gold sovereigns.

'Done!' screamed the piebald-eyed fellow, putting up three silver talents and a gold half-denarius. 'And by the Black Mother, I'll even offer eight to six on a chest-cut!'

'I'll take the bet!' shrieked the barmaid, taking a bag of Maria Theresa thalers out of her bosom. 'And I'll give you six-five pick 'em on first amputation!'

'I'll take that!' the perfumed dandy shrilled. 'And by my wattles, I'll even offer nine to four that the slender lad runs out of here like a scorched greyhound before third blood!'

'I'll take that bet,' Marvin Flynn said, with an amused smile. Evading Denis' clumsy rush he plucked a bag of florins out of his sash and threw it to the dandy. Then he settled down seriously to fight.

Even in these few brief moves, Marvin's skill at fence could clearly be seen. Yet he was faced with a powerful and determined opponent, who wielded a sword many times larger than Marvin's inadequate weapon, and who seemed determined to the point of madness.

The attack came, and all in the crowd except for the hunchback held their breaths as Black Denis rushed down like an incarnation of Juggernaut. Before that impetuous rush, Marvin was forced to give ground. He backed away, vaulted over a table, found himself wedged into a corner, leaped high and caught the chandelier, swung across the room and dropped lightly to his feet.

Bewildered, and perhaps feeling a shade unsure of himself, Black Denis resorted to a trick. As they came together again, Denis' long arm swept a chair into Marvin's path; and as Marvin dodged, Denis grasped a collard of black Ignean pepper from a table and flung it into Marvin's face …

But Marvin's face was no longer there. Pivoting and driving off his left foot, Marvin evaded the treacherous tactic. He feinted low with his knife, double-feinted with his eyes, and executed a perfect stepback crossover.

Black Denis blinked stupidly and looked down to see the handle of Marvin's knife jutting from his chest. His eyes opened wide in astonishment, and his sword hand came swinging up to the riposte.

Marvin turned serenely on his heel and walked slowly away, leaving his unprotected back exposed to the glint-edged cutlass!

Black Denis began his downward swing; but already a thin grey film had formed over his eyes. Marvin had judged the severity of the wound with exquisite precision, for Black Denis' sword clattered to the floor, to be joined a moment later by the great body of the brawler.

Without looking back, Marvin crossed the room and regained his chair. He opened his fan; then, frowning, he slipped a lace handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbled at his forhead. Two or three drops of perspiration marred its marble perfection. Flynn wiped the drops away, then threw away the handkerchief.

The room was in absolute silence. Even the piebald-eyed man had stopped his stertorous breathing.

It was perhaps the most amazing exhibition of swordsmanship that the inhabitants had ever seen. Brawlers one and all, and calling no man master, still they were impressed.

A moment later, pandemonium broke loose. All crowded around Marvin, cheering and exclaiming, and marvelling at the skill he had shown with pointed steel. The two rope wrestlers (brothers, born deaf-mutes) made squealing noises and turned somersaults; the hunchback grinned and counted his winnings with foam-flecked lips; the barmaid looked at Marvin with an embarrassing excess of ardour; the proprietor gruffly served drinks on the house; the piebald-eyed man snuffled through his long nose and talked about luck; even the perfumed dandy was moved to offer perfunctory congratulations.

Slowly the room returned to normal. Two bull-necked servitors dragged out Black Denis' body, and the fickle crowd pelted the corpse with orange peels. The roast was set again to turning on the spit, and the rattle of dice and swish of cards could be heard over the playing of the blind, one-legged fiddler.

The dandy strolled over to Marvin's table and looked down upon him, hand on hip and feathered hat akimbo. ' 'Pon my honour, sir,' the dandy said, 'you do indeed have some qualifications at fence; and it seems to me that your skills could be rewarded in the service of the Cardinal Macchurchi, who is always on the lookout for apt and agile fellows.'

'I am not for hire,' Marvin said quietly.

'I am glad to hear it,' the dandy said. And now, looking at the man more closely, Marvin perceived a white rosebud in his buttonhole, and a copy of the Diario de Celsus (4-star edition) in his hand.

The dandy's eyes flashed a warning. In his most effete voice, he said, 'Well then, sir, my congratulations again; and perhaps, if you would care for a bit of sport, you will join me in my chambers on the Avenue of Martyrs. We could discuss the finer points of swordplay, and drink a rather adequate little wine which has lain in my family's vaults for 103 years, and perhaps even hazard another topic or two of mutual interest.'

Now Marvin was able to recognize, beneath his disguise, the man who had pressed a note into his hand earlier.

'Sir,' Marvin said, 'your invitation does me honour.'

'Not at all, sir. Your acknowledgement of my invitation does me honour.'

'Nay, sir,' Marvin insisted, and would have examined the honour question further had not the man cut short the punctilio and whispered, 'We'll leave at once, then. Black Denis was but a harbinger – a straw to show us which way the wind blows. And I greatly fear, lest we get ourselves promptly hence, it may well blow us a hurricane.'

'That would be most unfortunate,' Marvin said, grinning very slightly.

'Landlord! Set this upon my account!'

'Aye, Sir Gules,' the landlord replied, bowing low.

And so they went out together into the fog-bound night.

Chapter 26

Through the tortuous lanes of the central city they went, past the grim iron-grey walls of the Terc Fortress, past the infamous Spodney Asylum, wherein the screams of abused madmen mingled strangely with the squeak of the great waterwheel at Battlegrave Landing; past the howling of prisoners in the squat and ominous Donjon of the Moon, and then past the malodorous High Battlement with its grisly row of spiked torsos.

Being men of their time and age, neither Marvin nor Sir Gules gave notice to these sounds and sights. Quite unmoved they walked past the Garbage Pond wherein the former regent had gratified his mad nocturnal fancies; and without a glance they went by Lion's Gambit, where petty debtors and child malefactors were buried headfirst in quick-setting cement as an example to others.

It was a hard age, and some might consider it a cruel age. Manners were refined, but passions ran unchecked. The most exquisite punctilio was observed; but death by torture was the common lot of most. It was an age in which six out of seven women died in childbirth; in which infant mortality was a shocking 87 per cent: in which the average life-expectancy was no more than 12.3 years; in which the Plague yearly ravaged the central city, carrying away an estimated two-thirds of the population; in which continual religious warfare halved the able-bodied male population every year – to the point where some regiments were forced to use blind men as gunnery officers.