At this rate, he’d be all done here in record time. Four-fifths of the wine and oil had already gone, and for good money. The flax, timber and spices had made nearly half as much again as he’d expected (which more than made up for his embarrassing mistake with the two thousand oil lamps in the shape of hedgehogs; might as well dump those in the harbour and make space for more return cargo). As for buying, he had pretty well everything he’d wanted, and the prices hadn’t gone up too much. The only commodities he still needed were padlocks and threaded bolts; just his luck to make the trip at a time when there was a freak shortage of both…
‘What’s happening?’
‘Hm? Oh. Sorry, miles away. This bit’s called the pleadings, it’s where the-’
‘Ssssh!’
He cringed, turned his head and apologised. ‘This bit,’ he went on in a low whisper, ‘is where they go through the facts of the case. It’s usually a bit technical-’
‘Why?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Why bother? I mean, if it’s going to be decided on the basis of who can bash whose brains out first, how can going through the facts help?’
Venart shrugged. ‘I don’t know, it’s not my legal system. Look, I’m not asking you to approve of it, just to know how it works. You want to be in business, you’ve got to know at least the basics of commercial litigation.’
Vetriz sniffed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I think it’s silly.’
‘Ssssh! ’
Eventually the pleadings ground to a halt and Vetriz, who would probably have fallen asleep if the stone seat had been slightly less uncomfortable, yawned and squinted down at the two men in white shirts who were now tentatively dancing round each other in the centre of the courtroom floor. The tall blond one was, apparently, the favourite; accordingly, she decided she wanted the other one to win.
He’d be short if he was an Islander, she decided; about average for these people. From what she could see this far back, he was older than the other man, shorter and slighter; but she still couldn’t understand why everybody thought he was going to lose. As far as she could judge, it was the other way about. Not, she reassured herself, that she knew the first thing about all the technical stuff – Venart had tried to explain some of it; she’d put up with a few minutes of fleches and mandrittas and Zweyhenders and the like before announcing that it all sounded rather like hockey, only sillier and slightly more dangerous. No; if she was going to place a bet it’d be on the shorter man. She asked herself why, and finally decided that it was because the other man looked brash and arrogant, which meant he was more likely to get careless.
I hope the short man wins, she said to herself. Because.
Then it all started to get rather violent; they stopped dancing round and began lunging at each other, and in the excitement Vetriz forgot for a while how silly it all was and leant forward in her small seat. She wanted to shout encouragement, as if it was a horse race; but everyone else was sitting absolutely still and quiet. A strange lot, these; where’s the fun in going to a show and not being allowed to yell?
‘Won’t be long now,’ Venart whispered, with the calm assurance of an old hand. (He’d been to precisely three of these performances, as she well knew, but that was Venart for you; probably what made him such a good merchant.) ‘He’s getting tired, look.’
Vetriz looked, and briefly wondered if they were watching the same fight. Not that she knew or cared to know the first thing about it; but she guessed that what her brother took for exhaustion was actually the short man cleverly moving into the centre of the floor, making the other fool do all the moving about. That, she reckoned, was experience over arrogance. The tall man was also starting to slash with the edge rather than lunge with the point, which she took for desperation. Yes, she agreed; probably won’t be long now.
The tall man aimed a terrific blow at his opponent’s head, which the other man blocked neatly and with a graceful economy of movement. Vetriz decided that she approved of the man; in a silly situation he was trying to be sensible. Now, wouldn’t it serve the other idiot right if, next time he tried one of those melodramatic slashes, his sword were to snap in two?
Loredan felt his chest tighten, and knew it could only be a matter of time. He sensed that Alvise had already won the fight in his mind; his intellect had lost interest in the matter, and he was no longer bothering to fence, relying on his superior speed, reach and strength and using the edge rather than the point. Quite safe; he knew as well as Loredan did that his opponent was too tired to do much by way of a convincing counterattack. It had all been over from the moment Loredan had allowed himself to be forced into the centre of the floor.
He wasn’t even reading the cuts any more, he realised; instead of anticipating them and trying to work out where the blow was going to fall, all he had time for was the instinctive parry, too much of a reflex after so many years to fail him completely, but merely prolonging a fight that could only have one outcome. Sooner or later Alvise would deceive him with a feint, and that would be that.
Alvise feinted high left, drawing Loredan into a backhand parry off the back foot. As he moved into position, he knew he’d got it wrong; the true blow would be directed at his knee and he didn’t have the time to do anything about it. Damn, he thought calmly, observing Alvise’s sword move as if he was watching from up in the gallery and not down here on the floor. A despairing reflex jerked him round, his left shoulder going forward as his right leg scraped back. The sword missed his knee by the thickness of a shoe-sole; and ten years in the business made him realise that Alvise was now out of position and vulnerable. He couldn’t spare the time to look where he was hitting; he cut at where he remembered Alvise’s neck to have been, and hoped he wasn’t making an even bigger mistake himself.
He hit something.
First, get out of danger – footwork, body movement, distance between him and the other man, sword back into guard, and then spare the time to see if the other man’s still got his head on.
Yes; but there was a fat bubble of blood swelling out of the side of his jaw, and he was stepping back, making time and distance. Immediately, Loredan lunged; a defensive move, more a prod than anything else, just to push him back a little further. Alvise turned the blow, but clumsily. He doesn’t like the pain, Loredan realised. Fancy that. He lunged again, this time rather less half-heartedly. The reply was somewhat more proficient, but still defensive. Alvise was now in the middle of the floor.
Quite suddenly, Loredan saw how it might be done. He lunged a third time, deliberately opening his left side by leaning his left shoulder over. He lunged low, so that Alvise would counterthrust high, and when the other man’s lunge came, Loredan quickly crossed his back foot behind his front and swayed right, dropping his sword under Alvise’s and hoping he’d done enough to get out of the way. He felt something touch his flank, ignored it and swung his arm for a short cut.
And realised he’d been tricked.
Alvise had circled too, and here was his blade coming straight down, with nothing between it and Loredan’s skull except the possibility of getting the basket of the hilt in the way; pointless, because the next cut…
Never came.
There was a crack, not a loud one, and the topmost eighteen inches of Alvise’s sword flew past Loredan’s cheek. As he followed through, probably only half-aware that his sword had broken, Loredan turned his wrist and poked a short, weak thrust at Alvise’s face. A rather feckless and silly stroke, if Alvise had had a sword to parry it with. Since he hadn’t, the point of Loredan’s sword hit him in the eye, killing him instantly.
‘Do we applaud, or what?’ Vetriz hissed.