“Ah, Rossano, you must have intelligence in every village in the north to be so quick?who is she?”
Rossano Erfredi was a little out of breath with hurrying to obey his chief's command. He spoke quickly, his words punctuated by little gasps which seemed, somehow, to enshroud the object of his inquiries in an exotic urgency.
“Her name, Sire, is Dorotea Caracciolo. She is the wife of Gianbattista Caracciolo, a captain of foot with the Venetians. She's here as a friend of the Duke and Duchess of Alfaro.”
“And her husband?where is he?”
“In Venice, Sire?the lady is quite alone.”
“Well done, Rossano?I'll save you a piece of the lady's garter for your pains.”
There was a gust of laughter which died away as one of the sports officials came to say that the champion was ready for his final challenger. Across the greensward, his muscles more extended than usual from his limbering efforts with earlier adversaries, the champion strutted in an orgy of self-congratulation from which it was clear he saw no likelihood of losing his crown.
“I wish you'd let me take him, Sire,” Rossano Erfredi said quietly. “He's an ugly looking brute and I could more easily afford to break a bone or two than you.”
“You don't trust my strength, Rossano? Come, is that worthy from a lieutenant to his captain?”
“Oh, Sire, forgive me, no!” Erfredi was covered with confusion. “It's simply that… if there were any risk?and I don't suppose for a moment there is?I'd sooner it were me than that you should risk a strain…” He was embarrassed now that he'd said anything which could be taken ambiguously when it had merely been an automatic statement of his devotion to the Duke of Valentinois.
“Yes, Sire,” another lieutenant added. “I wish you'd let any of us take him. He's not worth your trouble.” Cesare laughed.
“It's no trouble, Enrico, I assure you, and it's only reasonable that I should lead our spearhead into the sports. Rossano, I don't forget a man's concern for my skin. It's the highest tribute anyone could ask.”
A slight hush, broken with odd shouts, guffaws and other noises of movement and early tipsiness, had clouded over the green. Few doubted that the champion would be champion yet again. But the stranger provided a little more interest than was usually taken in a foregone conclusion. The fact was, that Cesare's victories had been so easy that they had lacked the impressive cock-strutting dazzle of his opponent's.
“Here's to the omen for the fair lady,” Cesare said, as he moved out, away from his little band of disguised officers, and walked alertly toward the approaching champion.
Both were dressed in tights. Cesare in shoes and the champion in boots. The muscles in their torsos contained no shadows from the dying sun, but veins stood out on them like marks traced heavily around the highland on a map.
They approached each other slowly, cunningly, surrounded at a distance by a crowd of several thousand villagers and countryfolk above whom the Duke of Alfaro's party looked on from the height of their perch.
Both men reached a point just beyond each other's reach and circled for a moment, sizing each other up. Then the champion, a man of uncomplicated reactions, who wanted a quick and spectacular victory to make him the undisputed wrestler of all time in his village, rushed in. Cesare caught his fist as he came, ignoring the other arm which reached out triumphantly for his neck. As the champion's fingers, all in a second, grazed his skin, he gave a quick twist to the fist he held. With a gasp, the champion jerked over off his balance and landed with a breath- shattering thud on his back. It was not for nothing that Cesare had had a Turkish instructor during his student days.
Quickly, Cesare was in with a full nelson on his opponent. The astonished referee counted according to the village rule, while the champion fumed and strained at the vise-like pressure on his neck, trying to jerk his shoulders from the ground. When Cesare released him at the end of the count, he got up slowly, easing his neck. The cheers of Cesare's lieutenants hailed over the green, followed, rather uncertainly, by cheering encouragement from the crowd.
The champion was furious, his eyes were the sparking color of red-hot coal in his blacksmith's furnace. He had not yet realized his danger. This was an accident. Some insolent, quick-moving stranger had taken him off his guard. Perhaps he'd been just a little too confident. But now he knew what his opponent was up to he'd crush his insolence out of him?but quickly before he lost face in front of his countrymen.
He came in again, caught Cesare's arms which came out to meet him and felt vague astonishment that his progress was completely checked. Those arms were as stiffly strong as the barrel of a cannon. For a second or two they stood there, leaning forward slightly, arms on each other's biceps and then the blacksmith swung Cesare and felt him going, sideways, apparently off-balance. He moved in to get his bear grip around the man's neck and suddenly, Cesare seemed to have righted himself. As the champion came to close quarters a sharp ankle blow knocked his legs together painfully and an even sharper jab under his chin sent him crashing on his back for the second time. There were fresh cheers and sounds of triumphant merriment from Cesare's little band of lieutenants. The rest of the crowd was hushed in something like awe.
Cesare leapt onto the heaving, almost deflated chest of his opponent, bent over him, so that their faces were close together and slipped a stranglehold around his neck with both arms. The champion flailed for a moment, grabbed at Cesare's shoulders, arms and then his hair, but sudden, sharp tightenings of the asphyxiating grip on his neck made him release his hold each time with squeals of pain.
“Lie still or I'll strangle the life from you,” Cesare gritted. Half-conscious only, with tears of strain in his eyes, the champion lay back, hardly knowing what had happened to him. The referee counted, slowly, it seemed, as if he could hardly credit the possibility of the title-holder being out for the second time in such a tiny space and with so little resistance.
When Cesare sprang to his feet, lithe as a gymnast, his opponent lay where he had fallen for a moment. Then he rolled over on his side and looked dazedly at Cesare with something like real fear in his eyes. He didn't move and the crowd began to shout for him, a shouting which slowly turned into a barracking as he turned a white face around the field as if he'd like to run for it.
“Had enough, my friend?” Cesare taunted. “Do you want to hand the title to me on a platter?”
A momentary gleam of hatred chased the fear from the blacksmith's face. All his dominance, all his respect in the village was dissipating. He had held a sure place in the set-up in this part of the world. Everybody knew who he was, what he was, how strong he was, what he could do to a man who questioned his position. And now, this fellow, this devil incarnate had arrived from nowhere to make what should have been a splendid, strength-displaying sports day into a farce in which he couldn't even seem to get near his opponent.
He struggled to his feet. He would make this effort. One more throw and hold and he was finished. The fellow was slippery, but he must be stronger. He must be stronger. Nobody could question that. If he could get the fellow before he had any chance to perform one of those dirty conjuring tricks, he'd have him crying out for mercy and then they'd see if they hadn't decided a little too early to flout his authority, to decide that if this fellow could beat him he wasn't so strong and wonderful after all.
On his feet, he moved slowly, carefully. His neck hurt with a searing pain when he moved it, but his eyes had cleared and the breath had come back to fill his big body. This time he'd keep hyper-alert for a nuance of a movement, ready to counter it.
Cesare knew, he knew what was going on in his opponent's mind and in his own the little warning that always came when things seemed to be going almost too much his way, spoke out. “Don't relax for a moment,” it said. “Don't assume that you've won just because if you keep your head it's a cakewalk. First you have to keep your head.”
So Cesare, too, moved slowly, hyper-alert, rather than dulled into carelessness by his near-victory.
Silence had come on the crowd again. They seemed to sense the desperate plight of the local champion, for whom no love was lost, certainly, but for whom there was a certain feeling of kinsmanship in that he was born and bred in the village in which they all lived and worked and made love.
During several seconds they circled each other, hands taut and moving slightly, arms taut and waiting. The blacksmith was unwilling to rush in this time and waited for Cesare to make the first move.
It came, suddenly. Cesare moved in, catching his opponent's fist again. But this time, the blacksmith flung himself in at the Duke's waist, not quick enough to avoid the knee which caught him a searing blow in the chest as he came in, but quick enough to get his great arms around his adversary's body so that, like a boa constrictor, he could slowly squeeze the life out of him.
