“Damn you, Rovzar!” Emsley roared. “This is insane! There’s no value in all these ... calisthenics! Do you think it matters in a fight whether my leg is straight or my arm moves first? I’ll tell you what matters: speed! Listen—I’ll lay a wager with you. These ten malories say I can beat you, your style against mine.”
The lord flung ten one-malory notes onto the floor.
“Okay,” said Frank, picking them up and putting them on the table. “You’re on.” Dammit, Frank thought. I can’t fence today. Every muscle in me is tight as a guitar string. But I’ve got to show this blustering idiot where he stands. Let me see, what are his weakest points? He doesn’t parry well in sixte, when I come in over his sword arm. Let’s see if I can do something with that.
“Here,” he said, tossing Emsley a mask. He put one on himself and picked up one of the left-handed epees. God help me, he thought as he pulled on a leather glove. “On guard,” he said. Emsley lunged immediately, and Frank parried it; but his riposte was slow, and the lord parried it without difficulty. Don’t be lured into attacking, Frank told himself. Wait for another one of his stupid lunges.
A heavy knock sounded at the door. “Just a minute,” Frank said, turning and raising his mask. Emsley drove his sword at Frank’s back, and the blade flexed like a fishing pole as the padded tip struck a rib. The breath hissed painfully through Frank’s teeth.
“You owe me ten malories, Rovzar!” crowed Emsley.
“Shut up, you ass,” Frank said. He crossed to the door and opened it, and his heart froze. Three Transport policemen stood on the doorstep, and one of them, a captain, wore an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster.
“Yes, officers?” Frank said.
“Are you Francisco Rovzar?” asked the one with the pistol.
“Yes. Why?” Can I kill all three? he wondered. I don’t like that gun. Emsley will be no help, that’s certain, and I’m not in top-notch shape anyway. Better talk to them.
“Can we come in?” They were already walking in, so Frank nodded and bowed. “We stopped by yesterday, but you weren’t here. We want to ask you about an incident that took place in the street two days ago. Did you see or hear or ... do anything out of the ordinary on that day?”
“Friends of yours, Rovzar?” sneered Emsley.
“Who are you?” asked the captain sharply.
“Christopher Marlowe.”
“Write that name down,” barked the captain to one of the other officers. The man whipped out a small pad and scribbled in it. “Now get out of here, Marlowe. Rovzar, maybe you can explain how it is that four Transport policemen were found killed in the street two days ago.”
“No,” said Frank. “I didn’t hear about it.”
“Well, let me fill you in. They were killed in a swordfight. Your fencing school is less than a hundred yards from the spot, so you’re implicated. We’ve come to take you topside for interrogation. Any objections?”
The captain stood a good distance away, with his hand near his pistol.
“Not at all,” Frank said with a smile. “I assume you’ll provide lunch?” He hung up the sword and mask casually. I could dive through the river window, he thought, but that would be a pretty clear admission of guilt; I’d never dare come back here. I guess I’ll have to kill all three. If they get me topside they’re likely to see my tattoo and remember that Francisco Rovzar who escaped from Barclay six months ago. How long, though, can I keep killing every Transport who wants to question me?
He turned to the officers cheerfully. “Lead the way, gentlemen,” he said. The captain strode out while the other two officers seized Frank by the arms and frog-marched him through the door.
“Take it easy, for God’s sake,” snapped Frank, wincing at the pain in his arm sockets. Four more Transports waited outside in the street, and fell in behind the two who held Frank.
“Only one thing really puzzles me, Rovzar,” remarked the captain over his shoulder as the grim procession set off down the street. “Why didn’t you change your name?”
“Change my name?” panted Frank.
“Yeah. Did you think we wouldn’t check? That we don’t keep records? When you jumped over the fence at Barclay and killed those two patrolmen, it was assumed that you’d drowned in the Malachi; but we didn’t throw away your file.”
Frank didn’t answer but cursed inwardly at his foolhardiness. I’ve had it. They’ll ship me off to the Orestes mines, and it will be as if I’d never set foot in Munson Understreet.
A heavy sense of final doom settled over him, and he felt close to tears. He had to forcibly strangle an impulse to beg the captain to let him go.
They turned onto Harvey Way, and Frank knew they must be planning to ascend to the surface by way of the Baldwin sewer. His arms had become numb from his captors’ tight grip, and he realized that the time to make a break for it, if there ever was one, had passed.
They had marched a hundred yards down the lamp-lit length of Harvey Way, the soldiers’ feet clumping in unison like a monotonous military tap dance, when a sharp explosion sounded up ahead and the Transport captain abruptly sat down on the street. Surprised, Frank looked at the man, and saw blood runneling onto the pavement from a gaping wound in the back.
“It’s an ambush!” cried the policeman who held Frank’s left arm, a moment before a slung stone cracked his forehead and he sprawled on the street. The other man released him in order to draw his sword, and Frank fell helplessly forward onto the sitting corpse of the captain. He heard swords clash behind him, but centered his attention on the task of getting his numb hands to pull the captain’s pistol out of its holster. At last he fumbled it out, and rolled over so he could see the fighting. There were four Transports standing in a circle, fighting off about a dozen understreet brigands. Frank waited patiently until he had a clear shot, and then sent six bullets into the desperately tight police formation. By the time the echoes of the last shot had dissipated, several of the brigands had bolted in terror and every Transport was dead.
Frank dropped the empty gun and scrambled to his feet. One of the bandits thoughtfully fitted a stone into his sling, but a voice barked at him from farther up the street: “Drop it, Peckham. He’s one of ours.” Frank turned toward the voice and saw Orcrist step out of a shadowed doorway and wave at him with the tiny silver pistol.
“So it was you they were after, Frank! Come on, all of you! Down this alley here.”
In spite of his dizziness Frank managed to keep up with Orcrist and his unsavory followers. They fled west, through several of the more dangerous understreet districts, to Sheol Boulevard, and soon they were all filing down the dark stairway under the sign that read “Huselor’s.”
Huselor’s was a big, low-ceilinged bar, lit only by candles in glass jars on the tables. The floor was carpeted and the cool air smelled of gin. Orcrist led his band to a long table in the back, and they sat down silently, looking like a committee of especially disreputable senators.
Orcrist handed each of his hired swordsmen a one-malory note and they all stood up and exited, tipping their hats gratefully. Skilled labor is dirt cheap these days, Frank thought. That can’t be a good sign.
When they were alone, Orcrist moved to a much smaller table and waved at a waiter.
“So, Frank,” he said in a low voice. “How is it that those boys were leading you off so heavily guarded?”
“Two reasons. They’re almost certain I helped kill those four cops the day before yesterday, and they know I’m the same Francisco Rovzar who escaped from Barclay six months ago. As that captain said, I should have changed my name.”