“Go to him,” I said, “and tell him you saw me. Tell him I shall be glad of a meeting, whenever he wishes.”
“Do not be a fool! He has one of the largest mobs of rascals in London! Thieves, cutpurses, and outlaws of all kinds!”
“Then perhaps I shall meet him,” I replied, “for I am often about London and we have an old duel left incomplete.”
“He is the greatest swordsman in England, perhaps in all Europe! Look you, I meant you no harm then, nor do I now, but Leckenbie is evil, totally evil.”
“And you yourself? Why do you not leave him?”
Despite his drawn cheeks and tortured eyes he was a handsome enough lad, I suppose, but he shook his head. “He would only follow and kill me, and I have no wish to die.” He sighed. “Yet even that might be better than this. You do not know him. He lets no one escape him, neither friend nor foe.”
When he had gone Jacob Binns studied me with his wise old eyes. “You have an enemy, lad, and I have word of him. Do not think you will face him alone.”
Then he hesitated. “Tatt, do you go to this tavern,” he wrote a name for me on a bit of paper, “and give it to Robin Greene.”
“The playwright?”
“He is the one, a bold, handsome man, tall and with a red beard. A dissolute man much given to drink, a very gifted man who has wasted his gifts, but an able one, and shrewd enough. Tell him nothing about yourself before you met me in the Hebrides. It is well that he think the islands your home … but tell him about Leckenbie. Tell him first that you come from me or else he might not talk at all, or might even be rude. He is a very abrupt and sharp-tongued man.”
He handed me a note on which was written: If there is a fight let it be man to man. Speak to Ball. The note was signed simply, Binns. But after the signature there was a figure set in a triangle.
“Waste no time,” Binns advised, “and do not try to escape Leckenbie. You cannot.”
Oddly, at the moment, I was not thinking of Rafe Leckenbie, nor of any danger for me, for my thoughts were upon this old man with whom I had escaped from the sea.
Who was Jacob Binns? What was he?
18
When I came upon Robin Greene it was in the Belle Savage on Ludgate Hill. He sat alone at a table with an empty glass before him and a half-empty bottle. He wore a green cloak, a flat hat of green velvet, and his face was somewhat flushed from drinking.
He looked up as I entered and his eyes fastened upon me. He started to speak, but I was already crossing the room toward him.
At a table a dozen feet away sat four roughs, one of them a lean, savage-looking man who was also watching me.
I walked directly to Greene’s table and placed the note before him. There was an ugly look in his eyes as I walked up and he seemed in an aggressive, quarrelsome mood. “I come from Jacob Binns,” I said.
His expression changed as if by magic. I had never seen such a complete transformation in a face. He put a hand over the note and gestured to the bench opposite him. “Sit you,” he said.
He glanced at the paper, then looked up at me. Carefully, I explained my situation, as Jacob Binns had instructed me. He listened, and I would have wagered all I possessed that he could have repeated my story word for word when I was finished.
“Leckenbie, is it?” He lifted a finger and a man from the nearby table joined us. Very concisely, Greene explained, “This be Cutting Ball. He is about when needed.”
“You know Rafe Leckenbie?” Ball demanded. “You have actually met him?”
“Aye, but far from here. We fought then.”
“Fought? And you live?”
“We fought, and I seemed to hold my own for a time, then he had all the better of it. I think he was about to kill me when I stepped back over a steep bank. I fell … very far. We were in the mountains, you see. To reach me was a long way around and I escaped him.”
“It is said he never failed to kill a man once he began it.”
“I was fortunate. Soon he will know I am here, and when he does he will come seeking me. We will fight again.”
“What do you need from me? What can I do?”
“Keep the others away.”
“But what of him? You confess he had you bested. What then?”
“I am older now, and I have learned much. Perhaps he cannot beat me now.”
“Don’t wager a penny on it,” said Ball. “I have seen him fight. I think I have never seen better, although I hate the man and would gladly see him dead.”
Greene smiled wryly. “Ball does not like him because he has usurped power that Ball once had, and such a lion leaves little for the jackals.”
“Nonetheless,” I insisted, “I will fight him if need be. I have learned much since last we met, and I am older and stronger.”
“So has he, and so is he.” Ball studied me cynically. “Who did you learn from?”
“Fergus MacAskill.”
Cutting Ball whistled. “MacAskill, is it? A great fighting man, perhaps the greatest. I do not know how much he can teach, for some of the greatest cannot explain how it is done. You fenced with him?”
“For months.”
“You must be good then, but that is not enough. It is not enough to be brave, and to have skill, for you must know what the other man might do. Such a man as I am, for example,” he smiled, revealing broken teeth, “I would not fight as the gentry do. There are foul and evil tricks … I know them all.”
“Teach me, then.”
“I am no teacher, but there is another who is. He is skilled in the art of fence, but he knows the other things, too. He is Portuguese, and was twenty years in India, China, and the Indies.”
My attention returned to Greene. “It is an honor,” I said, “to speak with you. It is said you are the greatest writer in London.”
He stared at me, his old truculence returning for a moment. “I? No.” There was an edge of bitterness in his tone. “Perhaps once … I do not know. There are others now.” He paused a moment. “Too many others. Writers come from under every rock, from behind every village wall! Bah! Most of them know nothing! Are nothing!”
I started again to speak, then thought the better of it. Let him have his say. The last thing I should mention was that I, too, thought of writing, although I did not think of myself as a writer.
He railed at English readers, at the playhouses, the managers, and at the Stationers’ Company and their grip upon publishing.
Finally, I made my escape and Ball followed me outside. For a few minutes he talked, warning me of places to avoid, and suggesting I make myself small in London until I knew more. It was good advice, and I fully intended to take it.
The streets were crowded with people, sweaty, struggling people, open-faced innocents from the villages nearby, the wise and the tough from the city, the proud in their velvets and laces. Yet often the laces were not too clean, and the velvets were stained. Many carried burdens on their backs and shoulders. Occasionally a rider came through the streets, scattering the walkers, heedless of their safety. I kept close to the buildings as I went along the street, seeking my way back to the inn.
Yet even as I was aware of all that went on around me I was wondering about the odd effect of the name of Jacob Binns on Greene. Robin Greene was a bitter, scoffing man, yet the name of Binns had suddenly made him an attentive listener. I wondered why. There were secret societies in Europe, some of them very powerful, and I suspected Binns was a member of such a group. Back at the inn all was quiet, yet I was uneasy. Was I afraid of Rafe Leckenbie? I considered that, and decided I was not. I was worried about his followers, men of whom I knew nothing, and the thought of that bitter night upon the mountain returned to taunt me. I had been beaten then, saved by an accident … There would be no cliff to fall over in London! Nor any to save me here. The fight was my own, and by the gods, I must win it myself. Yet if I had become a better swordsman, had not Leckenbie also? And he had fought … I had not. My training was from a master, yet it was training only. A sham fight remains a sham fight, no matter what. It is another thing when men draw the sword for blood.