How predictable.
“You shouldn’t be afraid to bet-unless you’re afraid to lose.” She looked at the clock. She must leave soon.
“You can’t possibly win, not with your limited experience. It’s not a fair wager.”
“I’m not worried. If you do win, I know you’ll pick a forfeit I can easily make.” She had to do this quickly.
“You know that for a fact?”
I know you.
“It’s your character, Quinn. Charles tells me you’re the quintessential gentleman-I know the breed.”
“You’re right. I would never ask a forfeit you couldn’t afford. So I’ll concede that you know me very well.” He stood up and turned to face the clock. “But no one knows very much about you, Mallory-not even the people who knew you best.”
He moved to the window and spoke to the glass. “Your origins are a complete mystery. You wouldn’t give the necessary information to the Markowitzes so they could formalize your adoption. Child Welfare made an exhaustive search, but they could never trace your family. Juvenile Hall records show two brief incarcerations at ages eight and nine, but no success in learning your right name. And they were never able to hold on to you for more than a few days each time. There’s a note in a folder with your photograph. It says, ‘Brilliant child.’ ”
He turned around to see what effect his words had on her. He seemed pleased with the result. “My own investigators are very thorough. They’re the best in the world, and they have no idea where you came from. Suppose your forfeit was to tell me everything I wanted to know about you, your history, everything. Could you afford that?”
She had underestimated him.
“I keep them in here.” Charles stood aside to let her pass through the door. Mallory had never been in his bedroom before. She did not seem overly excited by the seventeenth-century dower chest at the end of his hand-carved bedstead. She probably thought if she had seen one precious antique, she had seen them all. What captured her attention was the glass case mounted on the wall over the chest. It contained a pair of crossed swords.
“Charles, they’re wonderful. These are nothing like the sabers we used at school.”
“You trained with a blunt saber, right?” He opened the closet and took out a long brown leather bag and unzipped it. He carefully lifted out a pair of swords. Holding one in his right hand, he sliced the air with its tapered rod. “Now this is what you’ll be using with Quinn. It’s a competition saber. It’s wired so you can be scored on a machine that-”
She wasn’t listening. She put one knee on the carved chest and reached up to the case, looking to him for permission. He nodded. She opened the case and removed one saber from the rack. She eased off the chest and stood at the center of the large room, hefting the sword in her right hand. Now, with utter disregard for the weight of the steel and its sharp edge, she easily slung the handle through the air from one hand to the other. She held the edge up to examine it. She smiled to say, Now this is a weapon.
“This has a really wicked point.” She touched the sharp edge of the blade. “It could use some sharpening, but not bad.”
“Well, it’s the real thing. It’s much heavier than what you’re accustomed to.”
“No, it’s about the same.”
What? Oh, of course. She was comparing the weight of the sword to the weight of her gun.
“The pair was an heirloom of the Quinn family. Jamie made me a present of them after I’d scarred him. It was an outrageous gesture. They’re very old and quite valuable. I think he gave them to me because he was afraid that the accident might put me off the idea of fencing.”
“He is a gentleman, isn’t he?”
“To the nth degree. He’s also the finest swordsman I’ve ever met.”
“But you scarred him.”
“That was an embarrassment, not a victory.” Oh, wait. That wasn’t properly translated into Malloryspeak. “It was a pure accident, a fluke.” He held up the competition saber. “This is a very good blade. You’ll need a mask-I’ve got that. Now the fencing jacket. I have an old one that might fit you. And the vest, the body wire- the club will have those items, no need to buy them.”
She kept her eyes to the sword in her hand. “I wish we could fence with these.”
“Not a chance. He’d never agree to that. These are not sporting weapons. He wouldn’t risk hurting you. You know, you can’t beat him, Mallory.”
“I have to beat him. The stakes are very high.”
“I know this man. He won’t hold you to the bet. I’m sure he didn’t want to make it in the first place.”
“I have to win.”
“I don’t think you understand what it means to be an Olympic champion. You don’t respect your opponents, and that will cost you.”
He took the cavalry sword from her hand and replaced it with the competition saber. Next, he handed her a white fencing jacket he had worn as a child, albeit a rather large child. “See if this fits.”
When she had zipped up the jacket and fastened the high collar, only the wide shoulders were outsized.
He reached up to the top shelf of the closet and pulled out two white helmets with dark steel mesh. “Put this on.” He threw her one mask. She caught it easily and put it on, slipping the strap over the back of her head, and settling her chin into the screen cage. He didn’t like the sight of her in the mask. It made her face a near-black oval, and gave her the appearance of an unfinished machine, an imitation of a human without a face.
He pushed the few pieces of obstructing furniture to the wall and moved to the center of the wide room. She gracefully followed him into the en garde position, feet placed at right angles with space between them, her body straight and evenly balanced between her heels.
She did not wait for the courtesy of the saluting swords. With no warning, she lunged, arm and sword extended for the thrust to his midsection. Her speed was astonishing, but he easily parried the thrust and sent her blade away from his body.
“If you’re counting on the element of surprise to beat him, you will lose in that first move, and you’ll have nothing left. Strategy is everything, and it’s intricate.”
He lunged and feinted the sword to her left, then quickly described a half circle in the air to make a strike to her right side. She parried, but badly and too late. One hour later, he could not fool her with that maneuver, but she had made very few strikes and lost every bout.
He ended the last round by removing his mask and saluting her. She followed his every move, bringing the hilt of her sword to her lips, blade pointing straight up, and then down.
He settled into a chair by the wall. She sat on his bed.
“You need a strategy to win, Mallory. But you haven’t the experience to formulate one. Every move you can make will be predictable to him. Experience and skill are everything. Your reaction time will be twenty-five years younger, but that won’t save you. You’re very fast, but he’ll destroy that edge by always being moves ahead of you.”
She seemed skeptical of this.
He sighed. “It’s rather like a chess match. Now aren’t you sorry you wouldn’t let me teach you that game?” Apparently she was not. She only stared at the tip of the sword.
He stood up and crossed the room. Gently, he lowered the point of her blade to get her attention away from it. “Every time you angle your saber, you telegraph the move you’ll make, and he’s there before you. You see?” No, she didn’t. She saw nothing but the sword in her hand.
“Mallory, you can’t beat me, and I can’t beat him. You are nothing if not logical. So, you can see that this is a lost cause.”
Riker looked up as she walked into her office with a leather bag slung over one shoulder. It was shaped like a basketball with a rifle barrel.