Page 41 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
Percy watched as his valet placed a pair of black leather boots before him. They were soft, probably kidskin, and laced up the front in the way a woman’s boots might. But unlike a woman’s boots, they were tall enough to almost reach Percy’s knees.
Next to the boots, Collins laid out a pair of black breeches. They, too, were made of soft black leather, far softer and thinner than even the kidskin of the boots.
“I understood that your lordship wished for ease of movement,” Collins said in the tones of a man who believed ease of movement an unworthy goal for the son of a duke. “Nankeen would be the obvious choice, but I inferred that your lordship desired some protection in the event of . . . falls.” The last word came out on a frigid whisper.
All theyour lordshipsand the pained tones gave Percy to understand that he would be giving Collins several afternoons out in the near future. “You are a genius and a saint, Collins,” he said, already stripping out of his buckskins. “A credit to your profession and Englishmen in general.”
It took some doing to squeeze into the leather breeches. They were soft enough to move in. They were also scandalously tight. Percy was delighted with them.
The boots, too, fit precisely. He laced one as Collins did up the other, then regarded his reflection in the cheval glass.
Aside from the white of his shirtsleeves, he wore black leather from the top button of his jerkin to the tips of his toes. His hair was tied tightly into a queue, as he typically wore it while fencing. On an impulse, he untied the leather cord and let his hair fall in a curtain around his shoulders, half concealing the false scar Collins had once again affixed to his cheek.
The black leather made a sharp contrast with his pale skin, pale hair, and pale linen shirt. His hair would be in his eyes while he fought, which was annoying, but—he turned quickly on his heel and watched in the mirror as his hair whipped around him. Yes, that was good. After all, the purpose of this was to entertain the crowd. Swordsmanship had to come second to showmanship today. This would have bothered him not so long ago, but he found that having thrown out a good number of his principlesand reorganized the remaining ones, it was getting easier and easier to make room for new ideas.
“Oi, if it isn’t the Baron,” said Brannigan when Percy arrived, joining the other men beside the scaffold. “Didn’t think we’d see you again. We thought you were scared off after Meredith sliced you up last time.”
“If by sliced up, you mean received a two-inch paper cut, then I’ll gladly let all you gentlemen slice me up so long as you give me half the fight Meredith did,” Percy said, taking his swords from their cases and checking each blade.
“Meredith,” Brannigan called, “I think the Baron paid you a compliment.”
“He can go fuck himself, whoever he is,” called the man who must have been Meredith.
Percy raised his hand in a salute.
“Oh, Christ, it’s you again,” said Clancy. “Can you make sure each fight lasts more than two seconds this time?”
This time, Percy didn’t enter until the third fight, and he did make it last, even though it went against every instinct he possessed. When he was perfectly poised to knock his opponent to the ground, he instead twirled away and made it look like he had managed a narrow and dashing escape. He heard the crowd gasp. He let his opponent get his blade within inches of Percy’s sword arm and then ducked and rolled in the way Kit had shown him. His Florentine fencing master would have wept from the inefficiency of it all, but the crowd fell silent, and that was more important, because at that moment Percy was more worried about rotten vegetables than he was his opponent’s swordsmanship. He carried on like that for fifteen minutes before disarming his opponent.
Before the next match, Clancy returned to the scaffold. “Blood,” he shouted in Percy’s ear, making himself heard over the din of the crowd. “They’re going to want blood. No more of this disarming shite.”
If he had to, Percy would cut an opponent; he was used to fighting with practice swords that had blunted tips, but he supposed he could scratch his opponent’s arm in such a way as to spill a satisfying quantity of blood without causing the man any serious harm. He really, really did not want to do so, however. He had, he supposed, the usual qualms about harming his fellow man. But, more importantly, he did not want to risk a fainting spell in the middle of a sword fight. That was not at all the effect he was aiming for.
Next, he was paired against a man who called himself Friedrich and spoke with a heavy Continental accent. For this match, they were to use sabers, according to some method or whim of Clancy’s. The most Percy could say about the saber was that he enjoyed the sound the curved blade made when it sliced through the air. In every other capacity it was inferior to the smallsword and even the clumsy rapier.
The crowd oohed and aahed when Percy’s opponent demonstrated the sharpness of his blade by slicing through a piece of canvas. Percy rolled his eyes.
While they fought, Friedrich muttered under his breath in what Percy assumed was German. He was very good, possibly as good as Percy, but Percy could tell he was used to fighting with a lighter weapon, because he quickly began to pant.
To give the man time to catch his breath, and to give the audience their money’s worth, Percy began leading his opponent around the scaffold, dancing backward and not attempting anykind of offense. Percy ducked under the other man’s arm, tumbled out of reach, and spun with a flourish of his sword.
Eventually, when he was beginning to worry about exhausting himself, he disarmed the man. Instead of simply taking hold of the hilt, he tossed it high in the air. As he watched the weapon turn over, he hoped that from the audience’s perspective it looked like the weapon had been thrown when Friedrich let go.
Percy caught the saber by its hilt, held both weapons out to the side, and bowed first to Friedrich, and then to the audience.
Friedrich said something that Percy strongly suspected was German profanity when Percy handed him back his sword.
“No blood,” Percy said to Clancy, who was not paying him any attention, because he was busy collecting coins while his assistant took bets.
Next were backswords, then an appallingly clunky broadsword, which Percy had to borrow from another fighter, as he did not possess one of his own. Then came a rather amusing fight against Brannigan with a smallsword in one hand and a dagger in the other. The last fight was once again smallswords, and Percy made sure it lasted a full half hour before he threw the sword in the air and caught it with a flourish.
When Percy was presented with the purse at the end of the afternoon, he figured he needed to buy some goodwill with these fellows if he wanted to fight them again. “I see a tavern on the corner,” he said as loudly as he could. “I’ll stand you all a pint and a supper as thanks for the most entertainment I’ve had in months.”
His first thought had been to figure out some way to fairly split the purse among the lot of them, but he thought that would come across as too high-handed, and—for reasons he could not quite articulate—he wanted these men to like him. It had, afterall, been a long time since he had enjoyed anything that could be called an evening out with friends. All the swordsmen except the German, and including Clancy, who Percy definitely had not invited, joined him at the tavern.
Percy spent half his winnings on ale and beefsteak that night. The rest would go to Collins. In the future, he’d need to save that money. The idea of saving money that he had earned, even such a small sum as this, felt better than clandestinely selling jewels and snuffboxes.
He felt like he had accomplished something. And he realized that this might have been the first time he had ever felt anything of the sort.
