But there was something vaguely puzzling and disturbing about the baron’s reaction. Despite his obvious unhappiness at the easy wins for Michael and J.B., there was something else going on behind the white beard and cheery smile.
While Ryan stripped off his coat and gave the Uzi to Dean to look after, Guiteau ghosted up to him again. “That’s two bad mistakes, now.”
“Want to explain?”
The sec man touched his scarred left cheek in an unconscious movement. “No.”
It was like the sort of “safe” fight that Ryan had seen in dozens of frontier pesthole drinkers, where an argument had been fueled by jolt or gut-rotting whiskey but hadn’t become serious enough for blood to be spilled.
Ryan and his opponent were each given a long-hilted dagger, the blade nine inches long. But the steel was well protected with layers of thin muslin tied tightly in place, and then soaked in painttraditionally redso that any hit would be marked.
It was yet another sec man. This one was young, barely out of his teens, slimly built and light on his feet, wearing tight pants and bare to the waist. He carried a star-shaped scar above his right eye. Ryan was impressed with the catlike balance and ease of the youth, guessing that he’d be both quick and cunning.
“Want some free advice, outlander?” The sec sergeant had joined him again.
“No, but you’re going to give it to me anyway, aren’t you, Guiteau?”
“Sure.”
“Well?”
“Be easy to slip on the grass. Late afternoon. Could be getting greasy. Take a streak of paint and then everybody’s happy. Know what I mean?”
“If I lose, it’s because that wet-behind-the-ears kid’s better than me.”
Guiteau spread his hands. “You don’t know what good advice that was, too.”
“Will I find out?” He tried to work out what precisely was going on.
“Sure. Keep winning. But it might be your friends have gone too far down the road.”
But Harry Guiteau wouldn’t say any more about the enigma and walked slowly away to settle down on the turf near his baron’s throne.
“Watch him come in low,” J.B. said, strolling casually over to where Ryan was getting the feel of the knife. “Went to take a leak, and a couple of those fop bastards were jawing. Reckon the boy’s fast and clever.” He turned, then checked himself. “What did old Harry want?”
“Nothing.”
“Go!” the baron snapped, his hand cutting down as the signal to them.
The crowd immediately began to bay for a success for the ville. Ryan sensed that the young man was genuinely popular with the watching servants and that this time their shouting wasn’t inspired by fear of their baron.
The sec man grinned nervously, coming in toward Ryan in a slow crabbing circle, the paint-smeared knife held, as J.B. had predicted, very low.
For a minute or two they fenced, the sodden cloth making no sound as they thrust and parried, almost like swordsmen. Twice the younger man tried to duck and step in, aiming for Ryan’s lower stomach and groin, in a classic knife-fighter’s move. But each time the one-eyed man spotted the attack coming and easily stepped away from it.
Mandeville’s champion was very good indeed, making Ryan aware of a passing relief that they weren’t going at it for real with naked steel.
Once, as Ryan dodged back, his feet slipped on the damp grass and he nearly went over, but the youth held off, suspecting a trick to lure him in. Guiteau had half risen, sitting down again, catching Ryan’s eye with a wry grin.
The climax came, as it would in a true combat, in the flickering of an eye.
The young sec man feinted low and then gambled all on a cut at Ryan’s throat. The one-eyed man had nearly fallen for the ruse, starting to drop his guard, only checking himself at the last splinter of a second, driving instead for his opponent’s stomach.
He felt his knife land, hard, and a moment later had a sensation of cold across the front of his neck, realizing that the counter had come close to working.
Ryan stepped back smiling, holding out a hand. “That was good, son. Nearly had me.”