Johannes Cabal the Detective

CHAPTER 2 in which a speech is delivered and there is a falling-out

“I should like my own clothes back,” said Cabal. “And my cane.” He was setting up an odd device consisting of a small diamond-shaped mirror on an armature over the recumbent emperor’s head. Cabal spun it experimentally with the tip of his finger and the reflected light flickered rapidly across the emperor’s eyes. The eyes, which had shown no inclination to cooperate, or even an acceptable job of tracking objects individually, twitched crazily before finally settling their gaze on the mirror.

Count Marechal watched, his arms crossed. “Your cane?” He remembered seeing it among Cabal’s possessions: an elegant ebony stick topped with an ugly silver skull headpiece, the high sheen of the smooth surfaces contrasting strongly with the tarnish in the eye sockets and between the teeth. “Sentimental value?” he said, sarcastically.

“As it happens, yes.” Cabal walked over to the count and took the emperor’s speech from him. “I bludgeoned my first failed experiment back to death with it. Thank you.” He returned to linking the mirror to a small electrical motor.

The count walked over to where Lieutenant Karstetz waited. “Get him what he wants, Lieutenant,” he said. Then he added softly, “We won’t have to put up with him for very much longer.”

“Good thing, too,” whispered Karstetz. “The people are getting very troublesome. We’re having to put down little demonstrations almost constantly.”

“That will all change in a few hours when the emperor gives his greatest — and last — speech.” He nodded in Cabal’s direction. “It would be a useful trick to be able to trot dead people out when necessary. Has any progress been made on Cabal’s notes?”

“All a bit technical for me, I’m afraid,” said Karstetz, who found getting dressed unassisted all a bit technical for him. “The cipher boffins are very impressed that he does it all in his head, though. They said something about a rolling key, but they lost me after that.”

“What’s a ‘rolling key’?”

“That’s the bit that lost me. Sorry.”

“It hardly matters if they take a little while to break it. Anybody who’s going to be dying in the next week or so can stay that way with my blessing.”

Cabal folded his legs under him into a corrupt lotus position beside the emperor and flicked through the speech. “Your work, Count?”

“Yes, as it happens. Yes, I wrote it. Why?”

“No reason,” said Cabal, holding the paper with his fingertips. “Very … rabble-rousing. Very appealing to the mob.”

“All the best speeches are,” said Marechal, scenting dissent. “The intention is to get the hoi polloi behind a little healthy expansionism, not dazzle them with a philosophical discourse.”

“No danger of that,” said Cabal. He leaned over and flicked the mirror with his finger. It started spinning rapidly, powered by the motor. The late emperor’s gaze settled on the glittering object and stayed focussed there. Cabal leaned forward and read in an intense whisper, “People of Mirkarvia. Friends. I come before you today to share a vision I have of the future. Not just the future of our own great and noble country but also that of our neighbours …”

Marechal gestured curtly at Karstetz and the two men tiptoed noisily out, their boots clacking and squeaking in the great echoing room. When they were gone, Cabal paused. He looked at the emperor, then he looked at the door through which the two officers had just left. Then he smiled a smile that had no intention of getting anywhere near his eyes.

Brocade, Your Imperial Majesty, your favourite!” It is always a little disappointing when somebody fulfils a stereotype to several decimal places. Prezof, the emperor’s tailor — more of a costumier, really — would have been laughed off the stage if he’d ever played his job. Tired, dull clichés, the critics would have said. Isn’t the playwright living in the present? Surely no respectable theatre would dare turn out a production of anything other than farce in which a personal tailor is a flouncing, pompadoured, powder puff? A pathetic, simpering, mincing … and so on and so forth. Prezof was all these things. He lived alone but for an obese cat that he called Felice. He had a well-thumbed copy of The Castle of Otranto, with his favourite passages underlined in green ink. He had an impressive collection of embroidered antimacassars on all the armchairs in his house which he changed daily whether anybody had sat there or not. There was nothing more important than the creation of fine clothes for His Imperial Majesty and not an hour went by when he wasn’t actively pursuing the muse. The materials were of the finest, the workmanship superlative, the design execrable. For Prezof may have been dedicated, hardworking, and diligent, but he was not in the least talented. It summed up Mirkarvia very nicely that nobody noticed. Even Cabal, whose artistic eye had been allowed to atrophy, found it painful to be too close to the exquisite robes in which the emperor was due to make his speech. As Prezof bustled the unusually silent emperor into his new clothes, Cabal took his blue-glass dark spectacles from his pocket, polished them on a small piece of chamois that he kept handy, and put them on. That was much better.

Prezof favoured him with a sour glance. Cabal’s black suit had been returned to him, repaired, cleaned, and pressed. A new white shirt, cravat, and shoes made him feel like himself again. His cane lay across his lap. He’d stunned Karstetz by thanking him for its return and almost sounding as if he meant it. All Prezof saw was an unexciting, conservative ensemble. Still, black was always good — but as a cloak? Yes, a cloak! Cabal tended to stride — a cloak would look marvellous billowing about him as he did so. So far, so obvious. Then Prezof demonstrated that he hadn’t lost his knack by mentally adding mauve galoshes and a tall fez with a feather. Cabal was not a vain man but he did stand upon his dignity, and if he had only been able to see that image in Prezof’s mind he would certainly have considered murder.

“Your Imperial Majesty is very quiet today,” said Prezof. “And a little pale, if I might make so bold. You are well?”

Antrobus looked down at Prezof and his eyes were black ports into an empty pit where a soul used to live. His lips slowly formed the words, “People of Mirkavia … Mirkarvia …” Prezof prided himself on being a sensitive person but, then again, he prided himself on being a great artist, and he was deluding himself there, too. He smiled at the dead man and told him there was a bit of mild flu going around and that was certainly the problem.

Cabal was getting bored waiting. He had one last syringe to inject just before they presented the imperial carcass to its public which would give the grey, marbled flesh the semblance of humanity. After that — well, he would have to see. The Count Marechal was clearly a career soldier, a political meddler, and an ambitious aristocrat, and any of these occupations in itself would have boded ill. How he managed to be all three simultaneously without tearing down the seams, and the mendacity and ruthlessness with which he was stuffed leaking out, was a small miracle. Cabal briefly wondered what mendacity and ruthlessness looked like as stuffing and imagined something like wet poppy seeds before his personality turned up and quashed such frivolous whimsy. He had to remain focussed if he were to stay alive.

Lieutenant Karstetz came in and stamped to attention because he liked it. “The Count Marechal requires your presence, Herr Cabal, at the imperial balcony. Oh, and take the corpse with you,” he added as an afterthought.

“Corpse?” said Prezof, appalled, stepping out from behind Antrobus’s bulk, where he had been brushing nap. Then he looked up at the pale emperor and a penny audibly dropped. He gasped and stepped back.

“Oh,” said Karstetz, miffed, “I say, the dressmaker. That’s a bind. This is all supposed to be terribly hush-hush. The count will have my guts for garters for letting the cat out of the bag.” He walked over to Cabal. “Be a brick and take his Imperial Deadness to the balcony, will you?” He looked at Prezof without rancour and drew his sabre. “’Fraid I’ve got a bit of cleaning up to do here, don’t y’know?”

Cabal took the emperor by the elbow and guided him to the door and out into the corridor. As he turned to close the door behind him, he saw Karstetz bearing down on the terrified Prezof. He loathed unnecessary killing but, then again, he loathed Prezof. Still, he felt it was necessary to at least register his disapproval. “You can’t go around killing people to cover up your mistakes,” he said. “You’ll kill off half the country at that rate.”

Karstetz paused. “You’re right, of course,” he admitted, apparently missing the implication. “I think that’s a very good point. I shall start being more careful — ” He turned back towards Prezof and raised his sabre. “Tomorrow.”

Cabal narrowed his lips and closed the door behind him. Halfway down the corridor, he heard a reedy scream from the room.

“This is a fine country you’ve got here,” he said to Antrobus II. “Such a fine place. A nominal leader who should have been in a sepulchre a week ago and a military full of inbred psychopaths.” They walked a little further. “A little bit like Imperial Rome, really.”

Marechal was crushing a dead cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray when Cabal entered. “Where have you been?” he demanded, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder at an ormolu clock. “Have you seen the time? Is he ready? Gott! Look at the state of him.”

Cabal produced a syringe and jammed it in Antrobus’s neck. Antrobus seemed wholly unconcerned. Within a few seconds, a spreading perimeter of good skin colour was expanding out from the needle mark. Where it passed, the pallid corpse tones were replaced with a glow of rude health, the dead eyes twinkled, the hair bristled. Lieutenant Karstetz entered as the transformation was well under way. “I say, I could do with a jigger of that stuff after a heavy night.”

“I’ll give you the formula,” said Cabal in the full knowledge that the stuff was toxic to the living.

“Does he know the speech?” asked Marechal.

“He knows every word he’s been taught,” Cabal replied. “He can be relied upon to play his part.”

“Excellent.” The Count Marechal went to the curtain that divided the room from the balcony. It was a good day for a speech. The weather was clear and cool without being cold. A national holiday had been called and the people were feeling well disposed toward the ruling class. They showed this by milling around eating sausages, swilling beer, and slapping one another on the back while laughing too loudly. This, from Marechal’s perspective, was a vast improvement over them running around with flaming brands, torching government buildings, and stringing up tax collectors. He watched the crowd for a few moments, the faint sneer that lurked beneath his nose twisting his moustache.

Across the square, the basilica clock sounded the hour and the people grew quiet. Marechal stepped away from the window. “It is time,” he said, purely for effect. “This had better work, Cabal.”

“I’ve done my work properly,” said Cabal as he led the emperor forward. “You should be worrying about the standard of the speech.”

The curtains were drawn back, Cabal whispered a word of command into Antrobus’s ear, and the dead man stepped forward for his finest hour. Cabal stepped back into the shadows as Marechal and the other dignitaries formed in a line behind the emperor. Marechal curtly gestured to Karstetz. “Watch Cabal,” he whispered.

“Bit late in the day for him to try anything, isn’t it, old man?”

“A bit late?” He looked at Karstetz with mild disbelief, as if just realising that he was talking to a chimp in a cavalry officer’s uniform. “Just watch him, will you?” He joined the line.

Karstetz moved back into the room and perched on the corner of a table, an unconscious echo of how Cabal had first seen the Count Marechal. But where Marechal had watched him closely, Karstetz only grinned amiably, looked around the room with little interest, and started to hum an unlovely melody for the tuba. Cabal found an antique high-backed chair and made himself comfortable.

The crowd went deadly quiet as the emperor, Antrobus II of Mirkarvia, made his appearance. There had been plentiful rumours of his death floating about; despite Marechal’s threats and Karstetz’s enthusiasm, the imperial household leaked gossip like a buckshotted bucket. The people had been half looking forward to a nice revolution. And now up popped Antrobus, quite spoiling things. Still, they gave a cheer. The beer and sausages were free and they didn’t wish to appear churlish. They’d let him have his say and then have a revolution next week, after a decent interval. They were a downtrodden mass, but they had been brought up nicely.

Antrobus stepped up to the balcony rail and paused. And paused. The moment grew to impolite and impolitic length. The dignitaries in the line shot glances at one another. The crowd began to mutter, a distant susurration of uncertainty. Marechal’s expression never changed, but he made sure that the captain of the guards down in the square would be able to see his signal to shoot into the crowd if necessary. Then things would need to be done, and done quickly. Still, it would take only a moment to shoot Cabal through the middle of his supercilious face and blow recondite grey matter over the walls. He’d intended to do it anyway, but it would be so much more satisfying seasoned with revenge. Then he forgot about the pale pleasures of cheap brutality as the emperor raised his hands and the crowd fell silent once more.

“People of Mirkarvia …” He spoke in a pleasing baritone that carried easily across the square. “Friends …” He said it with such sincerity that commoners who had long referred to him as “lard arse,” “flobber features,” “cancer borne on the backs of the proletariat,” and other things less kind, suddenly felt unfamiliar but not unpleasant pricklings of admiration for their emperor. They hung on his every word. This was going to be important. “I come before you today to share a vision I have of the future. Not just the future of our own great and noble country but also that of our neighbours …”

It was powerful stuff, and those of a romantic, nationalistic nature in particular were borne along by it. Karstetz was all that and stupid to boot. He rose from the table and walked slowly towards the fluttering curtains as if drawn by siren song. He stopped and listened, transfixed. Cabal watched him as a scientist watches a beetle on a tombstone. After a few seconds, it was plain that Karstetz had forgotten all about him. Quietly, Cabal climbed to his feet, picked up his bag and cane, and walked softly, staying on the thick carpet, in the direction of the door.

On the balcony, Marechal glowed inwardly. This was exquisite, far better than even his fondest hopes. The crowd were eating this with an even more avaricious appetite than the one they’d used to demolish several tons of state-owned sausage. The rumours of the emperor’s death could now be skilfully twisted into the people “knowing” about the emperor’s fragile health. Yet he’d heroically torn himself from his deathbed to deliver this, his last and greatest gift to his people, his wish for the future. This wasn’t going to be some grubby little land-grabbing campaign. It was going to be a crusade.

“The disputed lands are ours,” roared the emperor. “Historically ours. Rightfully ours. They shall be ours again!” In the crowd’s collective consciousness, their neighbours turned from trading partners and allies into a bunch of thieving Gypsies, ripe for extermination.

Marechal smiled and looked at the others in the line — the generals, the marshals, the admirals of the Aerofleet, and the commodore of the tiny Gallaco Sea Fleet. They were entranced, enraptured. War was in the air, and it smelled good.

Then he noticed Karstetz standing behind the curtains, his attention entirely given over to the wrong subject. Cabal was nowhere to be seen. Marechal felt suddenly cold. So Cabal had escaped, so what? Marechal remembered a sack of cat hair and Cabal’s strange sense of humour, his loathing of war in general, and Marechal’s ambitions in particular. His suspicions deepened.

Karstetz didn’t respond to Marechal’s attempts to attract his attention while not distracting the crowd. He didn’t feel the intense gaze, see the sharp flicks of the head, hear the snapped fingers. He had ears only for the emperor’s speech. “Make no mistake,” Antrobus was saying, “these fair-weather friends, with their deceitful ways and their foul plans, are our enemies!” The crowd roared. “Our mortal foe!” They screamed for blood. “Our prey!” They gave voice to a full-throated howl of fury. It went half-throated when, belatedly, they realised what he’d said.

Marechal flicked his attention from Karstetz to Antrobus. Prey? He’d never written that. “We shall hunt them! Kill them! Eat them!” cried Antrobus in a passion. “They are our meat! We shall tear the flesh from their bones with our bare teeth and devour them!” Marechal realised with horror that the emperor was drooling, dark saliva bubbling from his lips. Down in the square, the people were looking suspiciously at their sausages.

“Ach, du lieber Gott,” he whispered. Then to Karstetz he barked, “Lieutenant! Get him!”

“Wha’?” Karstetz looked around as if waking. “What? Who?”

“The emperor, you dolt! Get him inside before it’s too late!”

“Brains!” The emperor was shrieking now. “If we eat their brains, we have their strength, their very souls. Brains!” The strength of his voice was going, quickly turning to a shambling imbecilic tone. “Human brains … must eat … brains …”

“There, there, old fella,” said Karstetz, appearing beside him. “Let’s get you indoors and into your coffin, shall we? Have a lovely state funeral. That’ll be nice, won’t it?”

“Brains,” said Antrobus unheeding, the drool dripping into a dark stain on his robes. “Must eat … brains …” He finally noticed Karstetz and decided to start with a light snack.

The crowd gasped and gagged, and some of them fainted as their Imperial Majesty fell upon a surprised cavalry officer. Karstetz may have started to scream before Antrobus smashed his head open on the marble balcony rail, threw him to the floor, and began to feed. It was so hard to tell amidst all the other screams.

Marechal’s mind worked quickly. He needed a ploy, and he needed it now. The French gambit, it had to be. “We are betrayed!” he shouted, and signalled to the captain of the guards. Sporadically at first and then with increasing discipline, rifle fire started to pour into the crowd. Marechal signalled three volleys and ran into the room. The door at the far end burst open and guardsmen rushed in. “Get that thing in here,” he bellowed at them.

“The emperor?” asked the sergeant at their head.

“Emperor? That’s not our emperor! We are betrayed! Drag it in here and kill it!”

He left them grappling with the foul thing that screeched and whooped at them. The situation was still controllable. The massacre in the square could easily be put at the door of enemy agents. The sudden panic he had caused would drive those last few moments into a strange world of uncertain memory. Had the emperor really turned into a monstrous cannibal before their eyes? Of course not. He’d been attacked by … by … a traitor! Karstetz had attacked the emperor. A life-and-death struggle — the heroic efforts of the emperor killing his own assassin even as he breathed his last. Yes, yes! It could work!

It was a shame about Karstetz, though. He’d owed Marechal money.

He ran through the palace unheeding of the precise course he was taking, uncertain even what he was looking for. He swung two doors open and found himself in the great banquet hall of the palace. It was one of the more medieval parts of the place, a long table running down its centre, a balcony running around from the end of the great staircase on the northern wall, a minstrels’ gallery. At the far end, unsuccessfully trying the doors there, it also had Johannes Cabal.

Marechal smiled bitterly, closed the doors behind him, and loosened his revolver in its holster. This was what his subconscious mind had been up to, hunting this man, this hated man. Sometimes he got a great sense of job satisfaction.

Cabal had heard the sound and already turned to face him. He drew his pocket watch and studied the face. “Have the emperor’s dietary mores changed already?” he asked in a tone of polite enquiry. “Test batch 295 always was unreliable.”

“You knew this would happen?” Now the Count Marechal could relax a little. What was occurring outside could wait for a few minutes. He had time to pause a moment, take stock, kill Cabal.

“Two ninety-five yields remarkable results. Right up to the moment the subject becomes a maniacal cannibal. I had hoped for a few more minutes’ grace, though. Any casualties?”

“Lieutenant Karstetz.”

“No loss there, then.”

“None at all.” Marechal drew his gun. “What am I to do with you, Herr Cabal?”

“It would seem that you’ve already made up your mind on that point.” Johannes Cabal placed his bag and cane on the end of the long banquet table, took off his jacket, folded it, and put it down, too. Then he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.

Marechal watched him with curiosity. “You seem to be taking this very well.”

“Not at all,” replied Cabal. He picked up the cane, twisted the head, and drew three feet of razor-sharp steel from it. Before Marechal’s bemused eyes, he placed the cane body on top of his jacket, presented himself to Marechal as a fencer, and saluted him with the sword cane.

Marechal laughed. “You simply cannot be serious, Cabal! Are you challenging me?”

“I appreciate that it is customary to slap you with a glove or some such, but I think you would shoot me long before I got near you.” He studied his stance and corrected the position of his feet slightly. “You must forgive me, I’m rather rusty.”

“Don’t be a fool and think I’m a fool. Why should I waste any more time with you?” He levelled the gun. “You don’t deserve a chance.”

Cabal flicked the tip of his sword through the four quarters. “Sixte. Quarte. Septime. Octave. It’s got nothing to do with chances, Count. At least not from your perspective. You’re a petty little man. You could just shoot me. Indeed, the probability is that you will just shoot me. And you will spit upon my corpse and walk away. And in a week or so the situation outside these walls will probably have deteriorated to the point where controlling your unimpressed civilians will be taking up much of your time. You will curse my name and wish me dead a dozen more times. But, in truth, you will not have killed me even once. That, Count, will gall you more than you can bear.”

“A student of human nature, are you now?” The count drew back the hammer of the revolver. “You will die and I will be the one to kill you, make no mistake.”

“No, Count. You won’t have killed me. Several grains of lead will have killed me while you stayed snug and safe on the other side of a large hall. That gun will have killed me. You won’t have the satisfaction. You’re a soldier, Count; that I don’t dispute. But I also believed you to be a warrior. There I was wrong. You’re no more interested in the martial art of it than a conscripted peasant with a musket shoved into his hands.”

“You cannot goad me, Cabal. I’m past that stage.”

“A drunken grognard of the levy.”

“It would be a shame to lose your dignity in your final seconds.”

“An artillery officer.”

Marechal’s skull tightened with rage. “What did you just call me?”

“An artillery officer. Safe behind the lines.” Cabal lowered his sword and gestured at the gun. “A mechanic.”

Marechal knew that it was sheer foolishness to throw away a great advantage for a slightly smaller one. Madness. But there are only so many slurs a cavalryman can countenance. When Cabal died, when his face took on that delicious expression of mortal surprise, Marechal wanted it to be because there was a sabre through his heart. More than anything, Marechal wanted to feel Cabal’s ribs grating on the edges of his blade as he twisted it in the hated necromancer’s chest. That would be a thought to keep him warm in the difficult times that were surely ahead. His rage settled and became cold and hard. With economical movements, he opened his revolver and ejected the cartridges. They bounced sharply, sending echoes around the hall. Then he threw the gun to one side. The next sound was the hiss of his sabre leaving its scabbard.

“What have you got there, Cabal? A foil? A rapier? A sword for boys. This” — his sabre whirled in a vicious figure of eight — “is a man’s weapon.” His free hand fisted on his hip, he advanced. “En garde.”

Cabal’s blade flicked up to quarte. “I’m always on guard, Marechal, one way or the other.” He watched the count advance for a moment more before adding, “You’re sure you’re up to this? I fenced for very nearly a year in my youth. I was considered quite competent.”

“Don’t patronise me, Cabal.”

“It’s just that I wonder how much technique a man can learn, cutting down unarmed yokels from horseback?”

Marechal stopped just before the blades crossed. “This isn’t one of those effeminate fencing sabres the Italians came up with. It is a real weapon and it really kills, and it shall be my very real pleasure to hack you into pieces with it, Cabal.”

Before Cabal had a chance to reply, Marechal launched into a progressive attack. Cabal fell back immediately under the ferocity of the advance. Marechal was a strong man, stronger than Cabal, and the beats that rained down upon his rapier struck sparks and generated vibrations to his wrist that felt as if they might numb it, given enough time. If he lived that long.

Cabal considered his options. Marechal was no sporting fencer. He fought to kill. The strength of his attack was clearly intended to destroy Cabal quickly, and the physical power of the heavy horse sabre might do it, too. Fortunately, his sword cane was designed for practical combat, being far more forte than foible but without brittleness. Still, he was already running out of room into which he could retreat. He needed to make Marechal think again if he were to stop this dreadful hail of steel. A poor feint, followed by a quick step back to give him the room for a stop hit with rassemblement, allowed him to pink the top of Marechal’s wrist. Cabal used the moment of surprise to run past the head of the table and gain more space.

The count didn’t follow him at first, but paused to pull up his cuff and check his wrist. “First blood, Count Marechal?” called Cabal as he returned to his guard position.

“Touché, Herr Cabal. A scratch,” he said, and Cabal could see that it was no understatement. “I can see that I’ve underestimated you again.” He saluted and allowed the wry smile to evaporate from his face. “But now I have your measure.”

“Really? Tell me, Count, how did you learn to fence? Correspondence course?”

Marechal said nothing, but moved to reengage, his face like thunder. This time, there was none of the brutal slashing that had accompanied the first attack. Cabal suspected that had as much to do with the count’s regaining his strength as anything else. He would certainly employ it again should he spy an advantage in doing so.

They traded attacks and parries for a few moments, the count clearly probing Cabal’s defences. Although he didn’t show it, Cabal was getting more worried with each clash of steel. His sword cane was outweighed by the sabre, his experience was outweighed by the count’s, and his aggression was a pale shadow in comparison. He was defending, Marechal was getting all the information he needed for a telling attack, and there was always the chance of guards wandering in at any moment. Cabal needed a way out of this situation quickly, and he doubted that it would hinge on his skill on the piste. He needed to look at the whole picture and find an escape. For the moment, however, it eluded him, and then Marechal launched an attack and Cabal didn’t have time to think about anything else.

It ended with a cutting blow that Cabal parried with difficulty, although he made it look easy — half the psychological game in fencing. He countered with a type of sabre riposte he’d seen the count make, from tierce to the head. Marechal parried it easily but made it look difficult — the other half of the psychological game.

Cabal had looked death in the face on numerous occasions, but he had always been careful to give himself some chance of survival. There were very few grounds for hope here, though.

“You look worried, Herr Cabal,” said Marechal. “Something on your mind?”

“There is, since you ask. I was just thinking that this is all a dreadful waste of resources. I appreciate that you intended to kill me whether I succeeded or not, but that was politics. But think! Nobody else knows about me. Wouldn’t it make sense for you to supply me with a laboratory and I work for you? I’m sure I could be of use.”

Marechal made no attempt to hide his sneer. “Are you begging for your life, Cabal?”

“Not at all. Just attempting to make something constructive of this debacle. By the same coin, if I were to kill you” — the count laughed contemptuously — “if I were to kill you, Count Marechal, this country would certainly fall to pieces. There’s nobody around to take your place. Think on it.”

The count reflected for a moment, their sword tips just touching. “I’ve thought about it. You’ve forgotten two important details. First, I’m not going to lose this duel. Second, I want you to die. Now.”

Cabal considered. “I suppose I could see my way clear to begging for my life as long as you didn’t insist on any outright grovelling?”

Marechal’s blade supplied his answer. Cabal tried to break ground and disengage, but Marechal covered the distance with an impressive flèche that Cabal had to dodge, followed immediately by a passata soto — known outside fencing circles as ducking — to avoid being decapitated.

This was an unwelcome development. Cabal had gained the impression that Marechal probably started duelling as a student, in the fashion of the Prussian schläger, a bizarre contest in which the combatants’ main goal is to supply each other with scars about the face which impress the ladies no end. Apart from the armour the two parties are covered with in order to reduce all wounds to a cosmetic level, its only notable feature is that the duellists never move from the spot. The count’s unexpected and unwelcome entrée into the world of combat ballet — that damn flèche must have carried him the best part of ten feet — was just one more thing that Cabal didn’t want to have to deal with at this precise moment.

It was only when Marechal said, “Touché, Herr Cabal,” and smiled malevolently, that Cabal realised he’d been hit. His shirt was ripped high on his left breast, the thrust having penetrated the cloth, scored his chest, exited beneath the shoulder, and done the same to his left upper arm. Against the white linen, there seemed to be a lot of blood.

Cabal looked straight at Marechal. “You wouldn’t accept my offer, Marechal. Now let me tell you one thing you couldn’t know. I won’t let you kill me. There’s more at stake than you could possibly imagine in your blinkered little world. I don’t have time for your stupid games.” All the fear was leaving him. The doubts and uncertainties that had blurred his vision were going now, and the world was coalescing into a beautifully clear picture of what needed to be done and why. All that was left was a single motivation that glowed within him like white fire. His soul, his poor mistreated soul, tended him and directed him. Marechal stopped being the only thing in the world and became a rather pathetic man with a silly moustache who believed his puerile plans for grabbing a few useless square inches on the map actually mattered. “I am leaving here. If you attempt to stop me, I shall kill you. Is that understood?”

Marechal’s opinion of Cabal may have changed in that moment, but it certainly didn’t improve. “You insolent cur!” he roared, and launched a terrifying attack, culminating with a mollinaro that could have cored a rhinoceros. They found themselves momentarily corps à corps. Marechal called him a lowborn bastard and backhanded him so hard that Cabal spun away and rolled onto the table.

Cabal blinked, saw Marechal appear above him, his sabre held high like a meat cleaver, and rolled to his left, dodging the blade that swept past him like a guillotine. He quickly climbed to his feet as Marechal pulled the sword from the ruined surface and, as they seemed to be extemporising and as the table gave him a substantial height advantage, he kicked the count in the face and broke his nose.

The Count Marechal staggered back, rallied, and ran to the far end of the table, where he could mount it, using a chair as a step, without opposition. Cabal and Marechal faced each other along its length, blood on both of them. They paused: Cabal expressionless and cold; Marechal with teeth bared.

Now they knew each other. There would be no more talking. Marechal saluted, but this time it finished with a slash of the blade that left an almost tangible cut hanging in the air. Cabal saluted, and it was a staccato, precise thing. His sword tip travelled to precise points, his wrist moved through exact angles.

Then they fought.