To Kingdom Come

knows what else flew at the faces of O’Casey and McKeller. They flinched and stepped back just enough for Barker to get to our sticks. He spun around and tossed one to me.

Sporting a fresh cut on his cheek from one of Barker’s sharpened coins, McKeller came toward me, his stick raised. “What’s your real name, you blasted Welsh trash? I want to know who it is I’m thrashing.”

“Thomas Llewelyn, at your service.” I stood up to him. “Are you going to fight or merely talk me to death?”

McKeller came at me with an overhead smash, but I’d fought him enough to know he would begin that way. Instead of my head, he met my stick with the sharp smack of wood upon wood.Behind me, I heard the first clash of my employer and O’Casey.McKeller began a series of blows, swinging the stick about his head-left, right, left, right; high, low-but I blocked each one.Then he feinted, I blocked too cleanly, and his stick got under it, raking across my ribs like a willow wand along a fence. I grunted in pain. He’d scored the first point.

“You can do better than that, Welshman,” McKeller taunted me. “Or can you? Best set down your stick and run away.”

I came in with my own overhead strike, but it, too, was a feint. While my stick cracked against his, my foot was already up, and I caught him in that ale-heavy paunch of his. It was necessary to show him that I was a better fighter than I had been the last time I faced him. If I lost or was incapacitated, it would be the two of them against Barker, and should the unimaginable happen and the two of them get by him, heaven help London.

McKeller shook it off and lashed out, catching me on the knuckles of my stick hand. I dropped my stick but managed to pick it up with my other hand and roll out of the way with only a thump across my spine for my troubles. I came up and blocked again, and again, and again.

Strategy. Though Barker was in a pitched battle with O’Casey behind me, I could hear his voice in my memory, and the dozens of instructions and axioms he and Vigny had said to me in the garden of our home and in the sparring ring.

Split your thoughts while fighting, lad. Forget your past mistakes. Be in the present, blocking the attack or launching your own, while planning your next.

I blocked a move, ducked away from a second, and lashed out a strike of my own.

Look for weaknesses. Is he left- or right-handed? Does he favor the same moves too often? Does he leave any area exposed?

I ducked as McKeller’s stick whistled over my head. I held my left hand out to balance myself and my stick in front of my face.

Keep a rhythm to your movement, Thomas, like a drumbeat in your head. Communicate that movement to your opponent. Get him moving to your cadence. Then, when he’s set into it, break the rhythm, and while he’s recovering, attack!

Barker’s words had kept me alive so far, but I was getting bruised. McKeller clipped my eyebrow, spilling the first claret, and caught me a whack across the right knee which hurt like the deuce. I’d done little beyond the kick, which he’d recovered quickly from, and a blow to his elbow, but he showed no signs of flagging. In fact, he was taunting me.

“You’ll have to improve if you’re going to beat Fergus McKeller, Welshman!” he said, his face red with bloodlust. “I was born with one of these sticks in my hand. I think we’ll tie you up and circle you in your own bombs. Won’t that be a nice present for the Queen?”

“I’m not done, yet,” I warned him, and launched a flurry of attacks, most of which he parried easily. Secretly, however, I knew he was right. My arms were tired and my energy flagging. If I didn’t think quickly, I was going to lose.

I gathered my thoughts and drew back into myself mentally.What would work against this man? He was taller than I, and stronger. He was more experienced and had a longer reach. He seemed to have no weaknesses beyond a slightly injured arm, and, so far, breaking rhythm hadn’t worked. For a moment, I wondered if I could just hold my own long enough, perhaps Barker could overcome O’Casey and come to my rescue. No, I told myself. I wouldn’t allow myself to be rescued. I had to win this match for myself.

Then at last, it came to me, some advice Barker had given me weeks before, but I had almost forgotten.

When all else fails, sacrifice. Offer a target, like a wounded bird.When he commits to it, throw all you have into an attack from a different direction. Shoot your bolt, lad. It’s your final option.

McKeller caught me a heavy clout across the head, which set my ears ringing. I’d been too caught up in thinking for a moment.He smacked a second across my shoulder and a third on my left forearm. I blocked the fourth and fifth. It was time to do something or I was going to lose.

I brought my stick up in front of my face horizontally, with most of it to my right, but half a foot or so of ferrule protecting me in front. I tried to pretend I was mostly through, that one final attack would bring me down. Confident that I was near done, McKeller smiled and brought his stick up high. He’d finish the fight as he’d begun it, with an overhead smash through my feeble guard. I saw him commit fully, not realizing that his attack would spin my own stick back in his direction. My stick gave way with the force of his attack and the heavy knob of his bata struck my nose, smashing cartilage and letting loose a torrent of blood, but as he did so the knob of my stick, from the force of his blow, caught McKeller full on the temple with a dull thump, felling him like an ox. I believe the two of us struck the floor together.

“Lad?”

I was sitting. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been there. My head was ringing, and my vision blurred. My hands were wet, and my entire shirtfront was thick with my own blood.

“I think he broke my nose.”

“It appears so,” Barker said, handing me a handkerchief to stanch the blood. “And you’ll have a couple of black eyes by tomorrow, but you brought him down, Thomas. We have stopped the faction. That’s the important thing.”

I looked over to where McKeller lay motionless on the floor.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“No, but half an inch to the right and he would have been. I’ll wager you’ve cracked his skull.”

I focused on O’Casey, who also lay flat on his back on the other side of the room. I wondered if he was alive also, but after a moment, he raised a knee and moaned.

“Get to work, lad,” Barker said. “Let us finish disarming these last few bombs.”

There was a tramping of feet in the hall, and the doorway was suddenly full, as Inspector Poole and Special Irish Branch Inspector Munro attempted to push in at once.

“Good lord!” Munro cried, when he saw us among the rows of bombs spread out along the room. “Was this it, your wonderful plan, to hand over a few dozen bombs and then fight them for it? It’s a wonder the town is still standing!”

“We’ve got Dunleavy and the faction boys under arrest, Barker,” Poole said, “along with half the Harp.”

“Are all of the faction members accounted for?” Barker asked.

“Yes. We’ve got Dunleavy and the Bannons, and here are the last two. That’s the lot.”

“What about Garrity?” Barker demanded.

“Niall Garrity?” Poole asked. “What about him? He’s in Paris.”

“He is here!” my employer bellowed. “He took two bombs. I thought you had this building surrounded.”

“We did!” Poole leaned back into the hallway and bawled out to a constable. “There’s a suspect hiding in the building, blond hair, mustache. His name is Garrity. Find him.”

“He is probably long gone,” Munro said with glee. “You’ve blown this one, Barker. You’ve provided an I.R.B. bomber with special explosives and set him free in London. I’ll bet the public would love to hear about this.”

“I suggest we stop arguing among ourselves and try to find this fellow,” my employer replied. “We’ll assign blame later.Come, Llewelyn, let’s clean you up a bit.”

I washed the blood from my face in the icy water left over from our bomb making, though my shirt was beyond redemption.

“The Queen is not in residence, correct?” my employer asked the inspector.

“She’s in Scotland at Balmoral.”

“Where is the Prince of Wales?”

Munro thought a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “He’s in town, I believe, but he has no