The Flesh and the Devil (68 page)

         
Tristan's pose of watchful patience did not alter, but his
lean frame was suddenly, tautly alert. The slanting eyes were as green as a
cat's as he said tonelessly, 'I have had a fairer welcome in my time, Senor de
Frontenera.'

         
Someone's breath caught in a gasp, and another voice said,
'You expected us, then?'

         
'No, senor, but I am no more deaf than another, and your
brother still holds to that orange-flower water he holds so dear. To my mind it
would become a woman better, but each to his own.'

         
'You are bold with us, senor.'

         
Tristan counted the shadows again before he answered: four,
perhaps five. He said levelly, 'You did not waylay me for an exchange of
compliments at such an hour, I am assured.'

         
'No.' It was the first voice, Francisco's. 'We would not
expect the behaviour of a gentleman from one who dishonours our family so
openly.'

         
Two of the other shadows edged forward, and Tristan sensed
the presence of at least one other close behind him.

         
'A large family,' he commented dryly.

         
'The disgrace you have done us does not warrant an
honourable answer - we would be favouring you above your desert if we
challenged you according to rule for sullying our sister's reputation!'
Agostin, always quicker to anger than his brother, was already losing his
temper.

         
Tristan nodded, looking in the direction of the unseen
speaker.

         
'Is
that
 
your
quarrel? Then I understand this better.' The sardonic voice embraced the
darkened street and the crowding, dark-cloaked shapes. 'You would be laughed at
for your honourable fury if the world knew - better to defend your sister's
virtue in darkness.'

         
'Why? Why should they laugh?' Agostin was almost choking,
and his brother put a restraining hand on his arm. I Tristan's keen eyes caught
the movement. 'Because your sister is well known as the town whore, and her
reputation is long past healing by your good swords. Your pardon, senors.'

         
His brief bow was pure satire, but the green eyes were
without amusement as he took an unhurried step forward.

         
Agostin clutched his shoulder. 'Stand fast, you dog.' Any
scandal about Elena is of your making, not hers! She-'

         
Without apparent effort, Tristan shook free of the younger
man's grip.

         
Francisco intervened, his tone more controlled than his
brother's. 'What a few peasants say about my sister does pot concern us, senor.
Our quarrel is that you have been the cause of this.' A sheet of paper showed
grey in the darkness. 'A letter writ to us, complaining that you have done
damage to her reputation by living openly as her lover. Gossip we might ignore,
but never such a denunciation

         
- it touches us too nearly. And no peasant wrote it.'

         
'Who did?'

         
The question made Francisco's hair rise on the back of his
neck, but he replied with creditable calm, 'It is unsigned, senor. Do you deny
what it says?'

         
'No.' The monosyllable came measuredly. 'It is true that I
have been bedding with your honourable sister, no matter what the circumstance.'

         
'Take him.'

         
Francisco's command was like a trigger, but it came too
late. Tristan had spun round with his back to the adjacent wall, commanding a
view of all his assailants, and was already fending off a hail of blows from
Agostin. for a moment it seemed that he was letting the younger man exhaust
himself by pounding futilely at his ribs, but suddenly he picked him up off his
feet, with the calm of an adult tiring of a child's monotonous game, and hurled
him bodily at the opposite wall. His body brought down two of his companions,
bowling them over like skittles, before he hit it. The three collapsed in a
sprawling, semi-conscious tangle, and even before Agostin had finally landed,
Tristan had drawn his sword.

         
'A duellist.' Francisco sneered. 'Did my sister's wealth'
purchase you the right to a weapon?'

         
'No, senor, only the sword.'

         
'Let us see how well you can use it, then!'

         
The blades clashed; the two other men fell back
instinctively, making a clear space. The narrowness of the street made fighting
difficult, and the opponents circled each other warily, feeling with their feet
for the ground they could not see. Then Francisco launched himself forward, his
blade slicing upwards at his opponent's neck, and the tight was joined.

         
Francisco de Frontenera was neither a reckless youth nor a
fool. He had gambled on the well-known truism that very tall men were clumsy
fighters, that they gave away in speed and lack of co-ordination what they
gained in strength and reach, and he had never been more wrong. He found
himself fighting a man whose sword seemed to have a life of its own, flickering
through feint, deflection and intricate parry like a flame of steel while its
owner stood idle, moving lightly forward a step at a time.

         
That swift despatching of his brother should have warned
him, Francisco thought, but he had supposed it no more than a lucky feat of
brute strength. Now he found himself overmatched in almost every way he could
think of, his most devious strokes parried effortlessly, his most successful
stratagems coolly foreseen and countered before they could be employed.
Whatever he attempted, he could not surprise the Englishman; the other blade
always met his, patiently, remorselessly, and he had begun to give back. Those
inhuman eyes, watching him detachedly in the dark, were beginning to unnerve
him.

         
'Does my skill content you, senor?' Tristan's breathing was
barely hurried.

         
'Well enough. Where did you learn it?'

         
'First in Seville, then in Toledo. Have you heard of the
fencing-school there?'

         
Francisco just managed to parry a singing thrust, and said
scornfully, 'Who has not? But I did not know that it accepted-' he
lunged-'foreign scum as pupils.'

         
Tristan's blade deflected his almost casually. 'They do
not. I was a master there, for my sins.'

         
Francisco bared his teeth. 'I was deceived, then. The place
has a good reputation.'

         
'It must be your vice to trust unwisely,' Tristan agreed
lightly, with deliberate provocation.

         
There was a swift flurry of blades, and Tristan advanced a
foot. Francisco felt his arm beginning to tire; his blade wavered, then
recovered, and he found himself staring up into Tristan's eyes like a sparrow
before a peregrine falcon. He had never seen such eyes, he thought
irrelevantly; brilliant green, unreadable and remote, utterly soulless.
Unnerved, he took a careless pace back and stumbled over something that lay on
the ground. There was a cry of pain from the wounded man he had trodden on, and
Francisco heard himself shouting frantically, 'To me!

         
To me!' Tristan glanced past him, his gaze measuring. 'One
of your cohorts has left you,' he said quietly.

         
Francisco risked a look; there was only one man on his feet
at the perimeter of the fight. With a sob that was partly fury, partly shame at
his own cowardice, he struck out afresh.

         
Tristan parried and said, 'I would have given you back that
disadvantage.'

         
and then his hand moved to the clasps that held his silken
cloak. While Francisco's confederate was still hovering, waiting for his best
chance to attack, Tristan had wound the cloak round his left arm and had turned
slightly to confront both men.

         
The sheer artistry of what happened next held Francisco
momentarily spellbound. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his confederate
move in for the attack, saw Tristan's left arm move, the right still holding
his sword at ward, and the cloak slashed swiftly and blindingly at the other
man's head. The man managed to duck and fell halfway to his knee as Francisco,
recovering, pressed forward; he felt his sword parried quickly and cleanly,
while the other man's blade was taken in the folds of the cloak and wrenched
forcibly from his numbed hand, caught and tossed, ringing, over the nearby
wall.

         
Reading the intent in his antagonist's scarred face,
Francisco tried to wind his own cloak round his arm, but he lacked the
dexterity to free it from its fastenings without lowering his blade. His
backward steps were quickening, his breath rasping in his throat, when a sound
like an explosion made both combatants freeze in sheer surprise. For an instant
no one moved at all.

         
Then, without a sound and with a suddenness that was
somehow shocking, Tristan crumpled and fell. His body dropped, twisting, to the
ground and lay still, and as he raised his eyes from it Francisco saw beyond
the gleam of a pistol-barrel, fired from the ground by Agostin. Fittingly the
brothers' eyes met as though they tasted their mutual dishonour, and then the
others scrambled to their feet and rushed forward, kicking the lifeless body
savagely.