He grinned. "So, exactly how do you intend to spend your newfound free time?"
Leif shrugged. "I'm sure I'll find something interesting to do."
They jacked out right after the train passed through the border customs station. Leif blinked to find himself lying in brilliant afternoon sun. It had been cloudy in Latvinia-an appropriate background for their goodbyes. Rubbing his face, he got off the computer-link couch and began wandering around the empty apartment.
What was he going to do with his newfound free time? He'd missed lunch with all the excitement over Roberta Hendry, but when he stepped into the kitchen, he discovered he wasn't really hungry. Warming up the holo in the living room, he flicked through several talk shows, a holosoap, and finally landed on an animated show he'd been meaning to check out. It was about an aging costumed crimefighter, the third generation in the business, who wants to pass along the torch-and the cowl-to his son. But the young man wants nothing to do with chasing criminals.
The old man was definitely not pleased. His face seemed to lean out of the holo display, shouting. "You think crime will just disappear if you turn your back on it? Not in this city. So what are you going to do? Go away? Leave other people to deal with the problems? Run away with your tail between your legs?"
With a sharp order Leif cut the broadcast. This was not what he wanted to be hearing right now. He slumped back on the living room couch, staring up at the ceiling.
This is ridiculous, he thought. Sitting in front of the holo with nothing on. Maybe I should take up stamp collecting….
Abruptly Leif sat up straight. He'd thought of something to do-clearing out some of the folders in his virt- mail system. Besides messages going back and forth, that was where Leif's Net robots were supposed to dump any information they'd been programmed to pick up.
Leif had a wide range of interests, from gossip about society friends to swimsuit models. His searchbots would wander the Net, finding a print reference here, a holoclip or a photo there, and deposit their finds into folders in a variety of categories. Now Leif began going through the files, deleting the obvious junk, filing other items, putting some aside to be examined further.
When he reached the "Fencing" folder, he hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.
You9 re not in Latvinia anymore, he told himself. The ceiling's not going to fall in because you show an interest in swords.
Telling the computer to open the folder, Leif shifted to a more comfortable position on the couch. There were a couple of gossipy items about adversaries he'd faced on the fencing strip, an offer for bargain saber blades- Russian steel, not the best. He deleted that.
Then came a reference to a new fencing-related multimedia display. Leif always left standing orders for his searchbots to store references to fencing in historical holodramas. Hollywood swordfights were often ridiculous-they went on way too long, and usually used techniques that would never work against a real opponent. But Leif never missed a chance to check one out.
This was something different, however-a documentary titled Fencing: From Martial Art to Sport. Leif checked the ordering information. The price wasn't exorbitant for a specialty item. In a few moments, Leif's credit account was a slight tad lighter, and the documentary was downloading.
Leif told the computer to play his new purchase. It started with a scene of fencers bouting in a modern salle. Leif made a face. These guys weren't all that good. Then the display shifted to a flatpicture engraving of an eighteenth century fencing school-the House of Angelo in London. A narrator explained that in this period, fencing was actually dueling practice. A flurry of images appeared-people from various eras getting skewered in duels.
The documentary editors were doing their best to keep the presentation visually interesting, but Leif felt his eyes glazing over as the story moved on about a hundred years, explaining how the rise of the middle class helped push the sword from its dominant position as a gentleman's weapon. Engravings and painted portraits began giving way to photographs. Leif began fast-forwarding, stopping only when he saw a saber in someone's hand.
He let the documentary run on when it discussed the influence of Giuseppe Radelli, the father of modern saber technique. But he sent the display zooming on again, slowing it to chuckle at the herky-jerky antics of a couple of fencers captured on flatfilm by somebody named Lumiere. He zipped ahead to another famous flatfilm swordfighting movie, The Mark of Zorro with a very athletic actor named Douglas Fairbanks.
Leif leaned forward on the couch. Something in that set of wildly flickering images…
He ordered the computer cue back to the earlier film, and then to proceed-slowly. He was just about to give up and fast-forward again when the computer displayed a hundred-and-something-year-old photograph. It was a short, thick-bodied guy with cropped hair and a funny- looking beard. He stood posing in an old-fashioned, almost prissy guard position, flat-footed, his free hand on his hip.
Leif knew where he'd seen that pose-and that face- before. He'd squared off against that guy in the palace gardens of Latvinia!
"Computer!" he barked, ordering the display back to that picture. "Does the presentation have any hypertext information on the subject of this photograph?
"Information available," the computer replied. Leif silently blessed the scholarly heart of whoever made this documentary. "Subject is one Louis Rondelle, French military officer and fencing master-"
Listening to Louis Rondelle's military exploits fighting German invaders in 1873, his training in the use of the sword, and the training he imparted to his students, Leif's eyes grew steadily wider.
I was lucky to get off as lightly as I did, he thought ruefully. This guy could have probably taken my head off!
He stopped the presentation, asking the computer instead to display all portraits of fencing masters shown in the documentary from 1880 to 1900, along with any hypertext biographies.
Yes-he began to spot several other familiar faces, those tough-looking guys surrounding Gray Piotr at the Latvinian court. There was another bearded Frenchman- Georges Robert Aine. A fierce-looking Italian Master glared over a bristling mustache-Luigi Barbasetti. Leif remembered another Frenchman, Augustin Grisin, for his brilliantined receding hair, his sharp eyes, and the wry twist of his lips.
Then there were the two fencing masters stripped to the waist and squaring off for a duel. One had craggy features, a hook of a nose, and muscles in his back, shoulders and arms like a woodcutter. That was Athos de San Malato. His opponent, smaller with a rounder face, curly hair, and a mustache, was Eugenio Pini.
Leif even found the face of the assassin who'd almost killed him-who was, of course, renowned for his mastery of the centuries-old art of fighting with rapier and dagger.
"Holy cow!" Leif muttered. "No wonder I got my ass handed to me in Latvinia. Alan Slaney has surrounded himself with the Murderers' Row of fencing!"
Chapter 13
P. J. Farris chuckled, ending his mad dash down the platform of the Herzen station, still waving to the departing Vienna Limited. To his left, the waiting locomotive gave a great chuff! of steam and began to move.
And behind him he heard a brief, surprised female cry.
That was Megan's voice!
P. J. whirled around. Both Megan's coachman and her bodyguard were down on the platform, while a quartet of well-dressed men dragged a squirming, cloak- wrapped figure toward the moving private train.
"The princess!" P. J. cried. "They're abducting the princess!"
Most of the crowd on the platform was either unaware of the scuffle, or prudently avoiding it. Now people began to turn. One of the struggling abductors-the one who'd donated his cloak for wrapping Megan-threw away the club he'd used to take out her protectors. His hand darted into his frock coat, coming out with a shiny automatic pistol.