“Thank you. Our next and final bout will be épée For those of you who have been confused by my explanation of the right-of-way rules, you’ll be glad to know there is no right-of-way in épée! Whoever hits first, gets the touch!”
A brief ripple of applause and laughter greeted this announcement, which the director acknowledged with a grin.
“This is because the encounter épée is re-creating a duel from the period after the Code Duello was changed to accept ‘first blood’ rather than death to settle an affair of honor. First blood can be drawn from anywhere on the body, including the hands and feet, and accordingly the entire body is fair target when fencing épée.”
O’Donnel gathered up his mask and his weapon, plugging his body cord into the socket hidden inside the weapon’s bell guard. The movements were automatic and ritualistic as he began to mentally set himself for the upcoming bout.
“By watching the lights on the scoring machine,” the director was continuing, “it is easy to see who has scored the touch. The machine, which both fencers will be attached to by means of feed reels and body cords, determines within a twentieth of a second who hit whom first. If both fencers score a hit within that time frame, which happens more often than you might think, both lights will come on and it will be scored as a double touch. That is, a hit will be awarded to each fencer for that particular exchange.”
The major wished the bout would get under way. He was starting to feel the tension of the deciding bout creeping into his shoulders. Nervously he shook his sword arm to keep it loose. Tension meant stiffness, and stiffness meant slowed reflexes, a potentially fatal error in a sport where the winner and loser were often divided by split seconds.