This time he was standing beside a fountain in the middle of a courtyard. He was much younger here, and his reflection in the edge of the pool showed him a round, slightly chubby face topped by a tangle of reddish curls and with the first scruffy traces of a beard. He turned his head, because there was someone standing behind him.
'Ready?'
He watched himself nod, as the other man (perhaps a year or two older, dressed in the same plain white shirt and rather elegant grey trousers) opened a wooden box and handed him a knife. He picked it up and looked at it thoughtfully, examining it as if the details mattered to him. It was a good-looking knife, as knives go; the blade was about seven inches long, double-edged and gently tapering to a point, the hilt was ivory, carved with a spiral pattern. It looked expensive and either new or very carefully looked after. He wondered why it was important.
'Remember,' the other man said, 'he'll start off going for your face, trying to scare you. Keep your guard up, don't let him in close, you'll be fine. What you'll need to be doing is using your feet-don't let him make you play his game, up and down in a straight line. Use your back foot, try and get round him all the time, don't be afraid to use left-hand blocks-you're quicker than him; he's bigger and stronger but that really shouldn't come into it. Let him wear himself out, and then he'll get sloppy and drop his guard. He's only got to do it once, after all, and you're home and dry. Got that?'
For a moment, he hadn't been paying attention; he'd been looking at the statue that formed the centrepiece of the fountain. Not beautiful, by any stretch of the imagination, but striking: a crow, very realistically rendered, holding a gold ring in its beak.
(Ah, now I know where I am, I'm back inside my memory. So that's all right.)
He nodded. 'It's all right,' he said, 'I ought to be able to handle this. To be honest, I'm more concerned about what's going to happen afterwards.'
That seemed to annoy the other man. 'Don't think about that,' he said. 'Really, you mustn't. Anything like that could distract you, put you in two minds at the crucial moment. As far as you're concerned, all you're here to do is stick that knife in his ribs. We'll handle the rest, don't you worry.'
It was beautifully cool in the courtyard, near the water. When the other man wasn't looking, he reached out and cupped a little in his hand; when he sipped, he made a soft slurping noise and immediately felt embarrassed.
'All right,' the other man said, peering round a column and through the courtyard gate, 'he's coming. You know what to do. Good luck.'
(I know what to do, do I? This'll be interesting.)
He grinned in reply, slid the knife into his sash behind his back and moved away from the fountain towards the gateway, where he couldn't be seen by anyone coming in from the main yard. The other man sat down on a bench in the shadows on the west side of the yard, pulled out a book, opened it at random and started to read. Not long afterwards, he saw a shadow coming in through the gateway and recognised it as his cue. Timing was important here; he counted under his breath, one, two, then started to walk briskly towards the gate. After five steps he collided heavily with the man whose shadow he'd just seen. Without stopping to catch his breath, he said his line, 'Watch out, you bloody fool. Why can't you look where you're going?'
The man he'd just walked into had caught him, holding him by the elbows so he wouldn't fall over. 'I do apologise,' he said. 'My fault. Terribly sorry.'
A big man, this newcomer, over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, with long, straight black hair, a thick beard with maybe five or six grey hairs in it, and noticeably gentle brown eyes. He was smiling. No good at all.
'That's not good enough,' he improvised. 'Crashing into me like that, you could have done me an injury.' He sounded nervous, and he had an unpleasant feeling that the big man had picked up on it. Nevertheless; 'Someone ought to teach you a lesson,' he went on, trying to make that nervousness sound like anger and not making a very good job of it.
'I said I'm sorry,' the man replied, letting go of his arms. 'I'm in a bit of hurry, that's all, and I wasn't thinking. You aren't hurt, are you?' he added.
'No. That's not the point.' This was all wrong; this dreadful man, this enemy of the empire, should be as easy to provoke as a wasps' nest. Instead it was like trying to pick a fight with a pillow. 'You barge around like you own the place-well, you don't. Not yet, anyhow.'
That got his attention; but instead of getting angry he just seemed curious. Damnation, he's figured it out, I've given the game away. He knows he's being set up.
'What a strange thing to say,' the man replied. 'And I'm very sorry I've upset you. It was just an accident, that's all.'
'I don't think so.' Out of the corner of his eye he could see the other man, his friend, looking embarrassed, shooting him a trust-you-to-cock-it-up look from behind the pages of his book. Now that did make him angry. 'I think you did it on purpose-'
'How could I have? I didn't even know you were there.'
'You did it on purpose,' he ground on, 'because you enjoy pushing people like us around, you like shoving us about because it makes you feel big. Well, we'll see how big you are.' And, on that really quite unsatisfactory line, he pulled the knife out, took a step back and crouched in the best coaching-manual fashion.
The big man looked at him and sighed. 'I see,' he said. He didn't move. 'Your idea?' he asked.
'I don't know what you mean.' It was exquisitely embarrassing standing there in the second defensive guard (weight on the back foot, head and arms well forward, left elbow up, right hand low), talking back to an enemy who was upright, unarmed, with hands folded across his chest. 'Come on,' he said, aware that his voice was getting higher and higher the more flustered he became. 'Scared, are you?'
'Yes,' the man replied (he didn't look it). 'People waving knives at me generally have that effect.' Damn it, he was starting to walk backwards, he was getting away. This wasn't meant to happen-it was time to do something. If he just walked away, and then told people about what'd just happened, how he'd been set up… Feeling wretchedly stupid, he stepped forward sharply with his left leg, threw a feint to the head and converted it into a thrust to the groin. The man blocked him easily with his left hand and punched him on the nose with his right.
He hadn't been expecting that; it was bad form, common, to punch in a knife fight. And it hurt… He staggered back three or four steps, managed not to drop the knife; if the man had followed up, he'd have had no chance. But he didn't; he was turning his back, leaving. With a shout of dismay he jumped forward again, misjudging the distance because the punch had left him groggy, but he managed to grab the man's shoulder and pull him round. The man's right hand came up fast to take the knife away from him; as he pulled it away, like a child protecting a toy from an angry parent, the side of the man's hand brushed against it and drew blood.
He was appalled at the sight of it, for some reason; he felt so stupid… But the man was still trying to get the knife; he hopped back two-footed and steadied himself. 'For God's sake,' his friend was shouting behind him. He made a conscious effort, pretended he was back in the fencing school, about to perform an exercise. Come on, he was good at this… He struck out, narrowly missing the ball of the man's right shoulder (but at least it was a legitimate fighting shot, not like that horrible confused grabbing and pulling away), and brought his arm back and down for a stomach thrust. The big man (his eyes were cold now) blocked that with his left forearm to the wrist, reached behind his back and drew his own knife (at last; I thought we'd never get there…). He was so relieved that he didn't realise he was out of position and horribly open until it was almost too late.