know not what—perhaps to pummel him into unconsciousness and drag him before the magistrate. The truth is that I had no plan and I knew not what to do beyond the instant.
Madly, Sir Owen arose and attempted to strike me upon the face with his hot pistol, but I dodged his blow easily and responded with a calmly executed punch to his ample belly. As I expected, he doubled over and dropped his now-useless firearm. But he did not quit. He was desperate, and he would fight until he escaped me or until he could fight no more.
The baronet took a step backward and reached for his hangar. I therefore reached for mine, and had it out and at the ready before he had even drawn his. I made the mistake of believing that I should have the clear advantage in this arena. I stepped forward, ready to drive my sword through his body.
Sir Owen took his first pass at me, a nimble and well-executed thrust aimed for my upper chest. A scoundrel like Sir Owen did not live to be his age by being a mean swordsman, and I confess I felt a tinge of fear as I hastily parried the thrust and attempted to conceive of a strategy. I had been overconfident, for I was not the master of all the arts of self-defense, and saw at once that Sir Owen could prove to be a match for me.
Despite his frenzy, Sir Owen held his blade with a kind of instinctive aplomb, and he moved it gracefully as he slashed back and forth with a few strikes meant merely to disorder me. I should like to say that the sword seemed an extension of his arm, but if that had been the case the sword should have been fat and ungainly—it was more as though the arm became an extension of his light and delicate weapon, and Sir Owen, under its spell, moved with equal parts grace and violence.
These were not conditions under which I relished taking on a skilled opponent with murderous intent. Let me assure you, reader, a strategy is a difficult matter to formulate when parrying blades with a villain in a theatre crowded with hundreds of panicked patrons screaming and fleeing for the doors.
Sir Owen launched another attack, aimed again for my chest, but at the last moment he shifted targets downward, thinking thereby to slash my leg and impair my ability to maneuver. I only narrowly blocked his thrust and then countered with a passionate jab toward his side, under his right arm, hoping he would have trouble blocking this blow. For a man his size, he maneuvered with stunning quickness, effectively avoiding my advance.
Although I was forced to concede that he was a man of exceptional swordsmanship, when I looked at his face I saw none of the pleasure that a man takes at exercising his talents—only murderous passion. I thought Sir Owen’s passions would surely provide me with a considerable advantage, but there was none to be had. He made another pass, this time at my sword arm. I blocked it, but I felt our blades lock. In my efforts to regain control of my sword, I applied far too much pressure to my weak leg, and the pain, shooting through my body, distracted me for an instant. It was an instant too long, for Sir Owen took advantage of my confusion, and spinning his hangar deftly, he deprived me of mine, which arose in a high arc and clattered to the ground some fifteen feet from where I stood.
I thought that he would now surely flee, but his own rage and terror clouded his judgment. I have rarely in my life seen anything so horrific and yet comical as his face, now deep red—almost purple—in color, except for his lips, pressed together so hard as to be ghastly white. He stared at me, holding his blade outward. “You have ruined me,” he said in a low growl, barely audible over the noise of the terrified crowd.
He intended to run me through. I was sure of it. I could have escaped, I suppose. I might have gotten away unscathed, but I could not bear the thought of fleeing, of running from this villain whom I had labored so hard to find. So I did what he no doubt never imagined an unarmed sane man would do to a sword-bearing adversary; I rushed him.
I lunged forward, ignoring the sting that made me feel as if my limb should snap in two. Surprised at first by my dash toward him, Sir Owen held forth his sword in the hopes of running me through, but I was on no self- destructive course. Instead, using a trick I had learned fighting upon the streets, I dropped downward and tackled his legs, hoping to topple him as one does pins upon the bowling green.
Sir Owen dropped his sword and, propelled by his efforts to flee, fell backward. He escaped my grip and scurried back upon his legs like a crab, reaching his feet again at the time I did. Now, against the rail of the balcony, he stepped up, I suppose to gain greater leverage, and aimed a blow at me. We had been reduced to two men, deprived of rank and station, matching our strength in a contest of rage. And it is no idle boast, reader, that, in a contest of this order—of fist and brawn and willingness to take punishment—a lazy, well-fed baronet stood not a chance against me.
Sir Owen swung and missed.
Unbalanced by the exertion of the blow, he propped himself up against the railing of the balcony. He swung again—recklessly and aimlessly. He knew not what he did, and he flailed about wildly. In the confusion caused by this mad offense, and the further force of the impressive blow with which I responded, the baronet lost his balance, and with a fearful yelp, fell backward, thirty feet down, onto the stage where the actors had been intrepidly continuing with Elias’s play. Their efforts had been valiant, but I suppose even those most disciplined of players could not ignore the arrival of a large baronet flung from the heavens.
I remained still, breathing heavily, my heart pounding and, indeed, my limbs shaking. I could not think of what to do next. I think but a moment passed, though it felt to me an endless expanse of time, before it occurred to me to determine if Sir Owen still lived.
I leaned over the rail to see if Sir Owen was dead, merely unconscious, or perhaps unharmed and ready to flee. But before I could gather a look, I was grabbed by countless hands who forced me to the ground and held me immobile. I was no longer Sir Owen’s accuser. I was no longer the man who stood between a deranged fool with a pistol and the innocent theatre-goers. I was now a Jew who had attacked, perhaps killed, a baronet.
Two stout-looking gentlemen held me in place. They struck me as capable-enough bucks, but I could probably have evaded them if I chose. But I did not so choose. I should have to face the law sooner or later, and I had no desire to risk an injury in an attempt to escape.
Around me the crowd swarmed violently. Some ran to view the form of Sir Owen on the stage below. Others milled about, looking as dazed as cattle. The copper-haired woman in gold and black who had sat in Sir Owen’s box screamed violently while a young gentleman attempted to comfort her. She cried out for some minutes and then she began to sob more gently. The young gentleman wisely began to move her closer to the stairway that he might deliver her of the theatre.
“You must be calm, Miss Decker,” he said. “You must not agitate yourself.”
I stared. I knew not what to think. “Decker,” I said aloud. “Sarah Decker?”
One of the men who held me looked at me quizzically. He surely found my curiosity as unaccountable as it was inappropriate. “What of it?”
“Do you know her?” I asked him. “Do you know that woman?”
“Yes,” he said, his face wrinkled with confusion.
“That is Sarah Decker?” I asked. I began to feel disoriented, even a little dizzy.
“Yes,” he repeated, somewhat irritably. “She is to marry the very man you have tried to murder.”
I could do nothing but let the men lead me away.
THIRTY-FOUR
I THOUGHT THAT I should be brought before the magistrate that night, but this proved not to be the case. Perhaps there were far too many witnesses to call on—witnesses of degree and rank—and the hour was too late to begin such an affair. In any case, the gentlemen who held me turned me over to the constables, who locked me in the Poultry Compter for the night. I fortunately had enough silver on me to procure a private closet on the Master’s Side that I might avoid the horrors of that jail, for the Common Side is among the most foul and wretched of places upon this earth.
My closet was small, smelling of mold and perspiration, and furnished with naught but a broken wooden chair and a hard straw bed, which, had I used, I would have been forced to share with a colony of gregarious lice. I sat down on the chair and attempted to think of some course of action. It was hard to know what to think or how to proceed, for I knew not with what I would be charged come morning. Much would depend not only on Sir Owen’s condition but also on the nature of the witnesses the constables brought forward.
My case was dire, and I concluded that I had few options other than to impose on my uncle, and ask of him to offer something to the magistrate that I might not be bound over for trial. I could in no way be sure that a bribe
