Claws of the Tigress, The Firebrand & The Pearls of Bonfadini (3 Historical Adventures in One Edition). Max Brand
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Tizzo, looking at him, felt as though he had crossed swords with a master in the mere exchange of glances. He saw a tall man, dressed gaily enough to make a court figure. His short jacket was so belted around the waist that the skirts of the blue stuff flared out; his hose was plum colored, his shirtsleeves—those of the jacket stopped at the elbow—were red, and his jacket was laced with yellow. But this young and violent clashing of colors was of no importance. What mattered were the powerful shoulders, the deep chest, and the iron-gray hair of the stranger. In spite of the gray he could not have been much past forty; his look was half cruel, half carelessly wild. Just now he was pointing with the half consumed leg of a roast chicken toward the spit and warning the cook not to let the tidbits come too close to the flame. He broke off these orders to glance at Tizzo.
“Sir,” said Tizzo, “are you Henry, baron of Melrose?”
“I am,” answered the baron. “And who are you, my friend?”
“You have sent out word,” said Tizzo, “that you want to find in this village a servant twenty-two years old and able to use a sword. I have come to ask for the place.”
“You?” murmured the baron, surveying the fine clothes of Tizzo with a quick glance.
“I have come to ask for the place,” said Tizzo.
“Well, you have asked,” said the baron.
He began to eat the roast chicken again as though he had finished the interview.
“And what is my answer?” asked Tizzo.
“Redheads are all fools,” said the baron. “In a time of trouble they run the wrong way. They have their brains in their feet. Get out!”
Tizzo began to laugh. He was helpless to keep back the musical flowing of his mirth, and yet he was far from being amused. The Englishman stared at him.
“I came to serve you for pay,” said Tizzo. “But I’ll remain to slice off your ears for no reward at all. Just for the pleasure, my lord.”
My lord, still staring, pushed back the bench on which he was sitting and started up. He caught a three-legged stool in a powerful hand.
“Get out!” shouted the baron. “Get out or I’ll brain you—if there are any brains in a redheaded fool.”
The sword of Tizzo came out of its sheath. It made a sound like the spitting of a cat.
“If you throw the stool,” he said, “I’ll cut your throat as well as your ears.”
And he began to laugh once more. The sound of this laughter seemed to enchant the Englishman.
“Can it be?” he said. “Is this the truth?”
He cast the stool suddenly to one side and, leaning, drew his own sword from the belt and scabbard that lay nearby.
“My lords—my masters—” stammered the cook.
“Look, Tonio,” said Tizzo. “You have carved a good deal for other people. Why don’t you stand quietly and watch them carving for themselves?”
“And why not?” asked Tonio, blinking and nodding suddenly. He opened his mouth and swallowed not air but a delightful idea. “I suppose the blood of gentlemen will scrub off the floor as easily as the blood of chickens or red beef. So lay on and I’ll cheer you.”
“What is your name?” asked the baron.
“Tizzo.”
“They call you the Firebrand, do they? But what is your real name?”
“If you get any more answers from me, you’ll have to earn them,” said Tizzo. “Tonio, bolt the doors!”
The cook, his eyes gleaming, ran in haste to bar the doors leading to the guest room and also to the rear yard of the tavern. Then he climbed up and sat on a stool which he placed on a table. He clapped his hands together and called out: “Begin, masters! Begin, gentlemen! Begin, my lords! My God, what a happiness it is! I have sweated to entertain the gentry and now they sweat to entertain me!”
“It will end as soon as it begins,” said the Englishman, grinning suddenly at the joy of the cook. “But—I haven’t any real pleasure in drawing your blood, Tizzo. I have a pair of blunted swords; and I’d as soon beat you with the dull edge of one of them.”
“My lord,” said Tizzo, “I am not a miser. I’ll give my blood as freely as any tapster ever gave wine—if you are man enough to draw it!”
The Englishman, narrowing his eyes, drew a dagger to fill his left hand. “Ready, then,” he said. “Where is your buckler or dagger or whatever you will in your left hand?”
“My sword is enough,” said Tizzo. “Come on!”
And he fairly ran at the baron. The other, unwilling to have an advantage, instantly threw the dagger away; the sword blades clashed together, and by the first touch Tizzo knew he was engaged with a master.
He was accustomed to the beautifully precise, finished swordsmanship of Luigi Falcone, formed in the finest schools of Italy and Spain; he knew the rigid guards and heavy counters and strong attacks of Falcone; but in the Englishman he seemed to be confronting all the schools of fencing in the world. His own fencing was a marvel of delicacy of touch and he counted inches of safety where other men wanted to have feet; but the Englishman had almost as fine a hand and eye as his own, with that same subtlety in the engagement of the sword blade, as though the steel were possessed of the nerves and wisdom of the naked hand.
Moreover, the Baron Melrose was swift in all his movements, with a stride like the leap of a panther; and yet he seemed slow and clumsy compared with the lightning craft of Tizzo. The whole room was aflash and aglitter with the swordplay. The noise of the stamping and the crashing of steel caused Giovanni and others to beat on the door; but the cook bellowed out that there was a game here staged for his own entertainment, only. The cook, in an ecstasy, stood up on his table and shouted applause. With his fat hand he carved and thrust at the empty air. He grunted and puffed in sympathy with the failing strength of the Englishman—who now was coming to a stand, turning warily to meet the constant attacks of Tizzo; and again the cook was pretending to laugh like Tizzo himself as that youth like a dance of wildfire flashed here and there.
And then, feinting for the head but changing for the body suddenly, Tizzo drove the point of his sword fairly home against the target. The keen blade should have riven right through the body of Melrose. Instead, by the grace of the finest chance, it lodged against the broad, heavy buckle of his belt. Even so, the force of the lunge was enough to make the big man grunt and bend over.
But instead of retreating after this terrible instant of danger, he rushed out in a furious attack.
“Now! Now! Now!” he kept crying.
With edge and point he showered death at Tizzo, but all those bright flashes were touched away and seemed to glide like rain from a rock around the head and body of Tizzo. And still he was laughing, breathlessly, joyfully, as though he loved this danger more than wine.
“Protect yourself, Tizzo!” cried the cook. “Well done! Well moved, cat; well charged, lion! But now, now—”
For Tizzo was meeting the furious attack with an even more furious countermovement; and the Englishman gave slowly back before it.
“Now, Englishman—now, Tizzo!” shouted the cook. “Well struck! Well done! Oh, God, I am the happiest cook in the world! Ha—”
He shouted at this moment because the combat had ended suddenly. The Englishman, hard-pressed, with a desperate blue gleam in his eyes—very like the same flame-blue which was in the eyes of Tizzo—made at last a strange upward stroke which looked clumsy because it was unorthodox; but it was delivered with the speed of a cat’s paw and it was, at the same instant, a parry, and a counterthrust. It knocked the weapon of Tizzo away and, for a hundredth part of a second, the point of the baron was directly in front of Tizzo’s breast.