Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Two: Venice

Alessandro looked at him. ‘You cannot kill any of these men,’ he said. ‘You would be imprisoned or killed. Their fathers are very important men.’

‘So is your father,’ Swan said.

‘My father is going to disown me,’ Alessandro said, and the keel of the boat touched the muddy shore.

He jumped ashore, and looked back. ‘Perhaps you should go back to your inn,’ he said, and pushed the boat off the strand. The six men were coming. ‘I’m sorry, Thomas. I didn’t think it would be this bad.’

Swan ran down the gunwale, as he’d learned to do on London wherries, and leapt ashore. He grinned. ‘What did you do?’ he asked.

Alessandro shook his head. ‘It is difficult to explain. It is an old matter.’

The six men were approaching.

‘Let me get this right. They outnumber us three to one, but I’m not to kill any of them.’

‘Yes. Do not draw your sword. They must make the first move.’ Alessandro was calmer now.

‘We wouldn’t want to have any advantages, would we?’ Swan said. He unrolled his sword belt and buckled his sword on. He swung his hips to make sure of the hang of the scabbard.

When the six men were ten yards away, they stopped.

‘Is this your butt-boy?’ shouted one.

All of them were younger than Alessandro. They were eighteen or nineteen. They were well dressed in loud colours, and they all had swords of extraordinary length, with complex hilts – curved knuckle-bows and finger rings in the latest fashion.

Alessandro seemed unable to speak. So Swan swaggered forward. ‘Each of us will fight one of you at a time. Who’s first?’

‘No—’ said Alessandro.

One of the young men shook his head. ‘I don’t—’

Swan drew his sword. ‘Coward,’ he said. This to the man who’d called him a butt-boy in his odd Venetian accent. ‘Poltroon, liar, fool, cuckold. Draw.’

Alessandro was stepping up behind him. ‘You are supposed to—’

Swan took another step forward. His sword was out, his buckler was on his hand, and he was in his favourite stance – sword under the buckler, pointed up at his opponent’s throat.

The Venetian seemed confounded by his advance. ‘What are the rest of you doing!’ he yelled at his friends. He didn’t draw, and Swan feinted and smacked him in the side with the flat of his sword and then stepped with one leg past him and threw him to the ground with his buckler arm while the young man felt his side to see if he was cut.

The other five were stepping back, and Swan put his sword-point on the fallen man’s sternum. ‘Why, exactly, can’t I kill him?’

‘He hasn’t drawn his sword yet!’ Alessandro said.

‘Oh,’ said Swan. He grinned down at the Venetian youth. ‘My apologies, messire. Please get up.’ He stepped back and saluted.

Alessandro turned as the young man scrambled to his friends. ‘You have rattled them. That was . . . well done.’

‘Bembo!’ shouted another. His voice rose too much. ‘Bembo, don’t hide behind your foreign assassin. You are here to fight me.’

Alessandro bowed.

‘Oh, it’s a duel?’ Swan said. He walked forward again, and had the pleasure of seeing the whole crowd of them take a step back. ‘It looked to me as if the six of you planned to murder him. Which one of you is the injured party?’

Alessandro sniggered. ‘He is the challenger.’

‘Is this the ground?’ Swan said, trying to remember everything he’d ever heard about duelling. It wasn’t very common in London. Street fights and tavern brawls, yes. Formal duels . . .

But he’d read a book . . .

‘Right here is good enough for me,’ said Alessandro. The seagrass was short and thick. The ground was flat, if a little damp.

‘Very well. You others, stand over here with me. Alessandro, this is your ground. Messire – I don’t know your name.’

‘What? How can you not know my name. Don’t you know who I am?’ the young duellist asked.

‘If you have to ask that . . .’ Swan said. ‘Never mind. Stand here.’

‘Jacopo Foscari!’

‘Splendid, Messire Foscari. Please stand here.’

‘My father is Francesco Foscari! The Doge!’

‘If you insist, although, to be fair, I should tell you that your father probably doesn’t approve of duelling.’ Swan bowed. ‘I read a pamphlet about it. Messire Foscari, who is your secondo?’

None of the other five volunteered.

‘I can fight him if he wants, or we can all watch from a safe distance.’

No one moved.

‘Very well. Let me see the swords.’ He was acting – enjoying himself. The young men were all too scared to interfere, and he knew – in his heart – that as long as he could continue his patter, he’d rule them, the way the snake charmer rules the snake.

Foscari’s sword was a handspan longer than Alessandro’s.

‘I am content,’ Alessandro said.

Swan had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he shrugged. ‘Very well. On your guards, then.’

Alessandro drew. He had a buckler, and he flipped a casual salute, and then cut at the face of his buckler, tapped it with his pommel and took up a guard.

Foscari did almost the same, moving with dancing steps.

The two men began to circle.

Foscari took a long, gliding step and cut from a high guard at Alessandro’s buckler. Alessandro collected the heavy blow on his sword and drove it into the ground with a counter-cut, and he stepped forward with his left foot and cut with the back edge of his sword, and Foscari sprang back, dropping his sword and swearing. He had a long line of blood on his forearm.

‘Fuck you, cocksucker.’ Foscari turned to his friends. ‘Get him.’

‘Uh-uh.’ Swan had his sword in hand. He’d never put it away. He stood between the five men and the action. ‘Fair play and all that.’

One of them – a blond man with a fuzzy blond mustache – reached for his sword.

Swan’s buckler licked out and caught him in the arm with a sharp crack. He swore.

Foscari realised that his friends weren’t coming to his aid, and he picked up the sword. ‘Your turn will come, Bembo.’

Swan continued to smile at the five young men. ‘If any of you would like to fight me,’ he said, suggestively, ‘I am completely at your service – now, or at any hour you would prefer.’

‘You are scum,’ ventured the one he’d thrown to the ground.

‘Alessandro? Can I challenge him?’ Swan asked.

‘No,’ Alessandro laughed. ‘That would be foolish.’

‘So I’m scum,’ Swan agreed. ‘And you are a coward, a poltroon, a cuckold, a fool, and a . . . damn. What was the other? Liar. Can we agree on this?’

The young man flushed bright red.

‘Bastard?’ Swan ventured.

The red on the man’s cheeks grew brighter.

‘Stop!’ Alessandro said. He was suddenly at Swan’s shoulder. ‘I order you.’

Swan smiled innocently at his victim. ‘Well,’ he said.

‘I will have you killed,’ the young man said.