blade aside the best he could and back away another few steps to find breathing room.
Now Greathouse, grinning like a demon, cut at Matthew’s legs but Matthew saw the strike coming, locked his thumb down, and parried the blade away with a blow that sounded more like the crack of a pistol than the meeting of steel. For an instant Greathouse’s torso was open and Matthew thought to bring his blade back in line, lunge forward, and give the brute a scare, but almost as soon as the thought took hold his rapier was knocked aside and he jerked his head back as a glint of steel flashed two inches away from the tip of his nose. It would not do to return to New York noseless, Matthew thought as he again retreated, the sweat beaded on his face and not all of it from simple exertion.
Still Greathouse came on, feinting left and right though Matthew had begun to read cues in the man’s movements-extension of shoulder and set of the forward knee-to determine strike from disguise. Greathouse suddenly went low and then angled the rapier upward in a lunge that Matthew thought would have driven through a man’s lower jaw and out the back of his neck, but fortunately Matthew was having none of it and had put more distance between them.
“Ha!” Greathouse suddenly shouted, combining the noise of insane joviality with a thrust at Matthew’s ribs on the right side that Matthew was just able to clash aside. But it was a weak blow, for Greathouse’s sword swung around like a deadly wheel and now came for Matthew’s ribs on the side sinister. This time Matthew stood his ground. He gritted his teeth and parried the strike with his rapier as the man had taught him, forte against feeble.
Yet there was nothing remotely feeble about Hudson Greathouse. He backed up a step only and then came on the attack again with tremendous power, a lion in its element of mortal combat. When Matthew parried the blade-this time only by the thin whisker of a skinny man’s beard-he felt the strength of Greathouse’s blow nearly not only remove the sword from his hand but his shoulder from its socket. Another strike darted in at his face almost before Matthew could see it coming, more a silvery glint like a fish streaking through dark water. Matthew jerked his head aside but felt a bite as his left ear was nicked before he could get his own rapier up on guard.
My God! he thought with a surge of mortifying fear. I’m bleeding!
He backed away again, his knees gone wobbly.
Greathouse slowly advanced, his rapier held out at extension, his face damp with sweat, and his red-shot eyes turned toward some remembered battlefield where heads and limbs lay in bloody heaps.
It came to Matthew to shout for help. The man had lost his mind. Surely if Matthew yelled loudly enough, Mrs. Herrald would hear it. He presumed she was in the house, though he hadn’t seen her today. God only hope she was in the house! He started to open his mouth to let loose a caterwaul and then the frightening mass of Hudson Greathouse sprang upon him swinging the rapier’s brutal edge at Matthew’s head.
Matthew could only respond instinctively, trying to put order to the collection of bewildering sword-facts that rattled in his brain. He locked his thumb down tight, tighter than tight, breaking-point tight, judged the distance and speed, and deflected the attacking rapier with his own blade. But suddenly Greathouse’s sword was coming at him from a lower angle-a silver blur, a murderous comet-and yet once more Matthew turned aside the blow, the noise ringing through the carriage-house and the shock almost loosening his teeth. Greathouse himself seemed to be a distortion of the heated air, a monstrous creature half-human and half-weapon as the rapier flashed and feinted high, feinted low, flicked to left and right, and then struck like a serpent. Again Matthew parried it aside just short of his chest, but when he retreated two more steps his back met a wall.
He had no time to scurry away from this trap, for his enraged teacher was on him as the thunder follows the lightning. Matthew just had an instant to get his sword angled up across his body and then Greathouse’s blade slammed into his rapier, locked forte to forte as the man pushed in on him with crushing strength. Matthew held on to his sword, trying to resist what he knew to be Greathouse’s intention to tear it from his hand by brute power alone. The blades made a shrieking sound as they fought each other, steel sliding against steel. Matthew feared his wrist was about to break. Greathouse’s face and glaring eyes seemed as big as demonic planets, and it occurred to Matthew at this moment near bone-breakage that the man smelled like a goat.
Abruptly the pressure against his rapier was gone. Greathouse said, “You are dead.”
Matthew blinked. He felt something sharp jabbing into his stomach and when he looked down he saw the black handle of a six-inch-long dagger gripped in the man’s left hand.
“Some hide documents,” Greathouse said, with a tight smile. “Others hide knives. I just sliced your stomach open. Your insides should begin to boil out in a few seconds, depending on how much you scream.”
“Lovely,” Matthew managed to reply.
Greathouse stepped back and lowered both rapier and dagger. “You never let your opponent get that close to you. Do you understand? You do whatever you have to do to keep a sword’s distance. You see my thumb, how it’s locked on that handle?” He lifted the dagger to show Matthew his grip. “Nothing but a broken wrist could stop me from driving that blade all the way through your bread-basket and, believe me, into the stomach is where a knife will go when you’re caught at close quarters. The wound is painful and gruesome and puts an end to all arguments.”
Matthew took a deep breath and felt the carriage-house spin around him. If he fell down right now he’d never hear the end of it, so by God he was not going to fall. One knee may have sagged and his back bent, but he kept on his feet.
“You all right?” Greathouse asked.
“Yes,” Matthew answered, with as much grit as he could muster. He wiped sweat out of his eyebrows with the back of his hand. “Doesn’t seem a very gentlemanly way to kill someone.”
“There is no gentlemanly way to kill.” Greathouse slid the dagger into the sheath at his lower back. “You see now what a real fight is like. If you can remember your technique and use it, fine. That would put you at an advantage. But a real fight, when it’s either kill or be killed, is a nasty, brutish, and usually very quick encounter. Gentlemen may duel to draw blood, but I can promise-warn is the better word, I suppose-that you’ll someday cross swords with a villain who’ll long to get a short blade in your belly. You’ll know him, when the time comes.”
“Speaking of gentlemen and time,” came a quiet voice from the doorway, and Matthew looked over to see Mrs. Herrald standing framed in the sunlight. He had no idea how long she’d been there. “I believe it’s lunchtime for you two gentlemen. By the way, Matthew, your left ear is bleeding.” She turned around and, regal as ever in a dark blue dress with white lace at the collar and cuffs, walked away toward the house.
Greathouse threw a clean cloth to Matthew. “Just a nick. You dodged the wrong way.”
“But I did do well, didn’t I?” Matthew took note of the man’s sour expression. “All right then, fairly well?”
“You only struck one offensive blow. Or attempted to strike one, that is. It was weak and completely undisciplined. You did not keep your form, as your body was too wide a target. You have to remember to keep your body thin. Never once did you step forward to meet an attack, even as a feint. Your footwork was pure panic, and you were always retreating.” He took the rapier from Matthew and wiped it down before placing it in its scabbard.
“So,” Matthew said a little indignantly to hide his disappointment, “I did nothing right?”
“I didn’t say that.” Greathouse put Matthew’s rapier on the armory’s hooks. “You met two of my best blows with very well-done parries and you were reading some of my feints. The rest I let you get away with. In fighting even a middling swordsman, you would have been punctured at least six times. On the other hand, I left myself open several times and you did nothing to seize the advantage.” He looked at Matthew as he wiped down his own rapier. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see your opportunities.”
“I told you before, I’m not a swordsman.” The more he fiddled with his ear, which was cut near the top, the more it stung so he left it alone. The cloth was marked with a blotch of blood, but the wound was not so large nor as grievous as it felt.
“That may be so.” Greathouse sheathed his sword and put it on the hooks. “But I intend to make you one, in spite of yourself. You have a natural speed and balance that I find very promising. Also, you have a good sense of measure. I like how you kept your sword up and didn’t let it fall. And you’re a lot stronger than you look, I’ll say that for you. The most important thing is that you didn’t let me run over you, and twice I really tried to knock that sword out of your hand.” Greathouse motioned with a lift of his chin. “Come on, let’s get our lunch and we’ll return to this in an hour or so.”
This waking nightmare was not yet over, Matthew realized with a sinking heart. He bit his tongue to keep from saying anything he might regret and followed Greathouse out of the humid interior.
