Flashman And The Tiger

I couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t care; it was my life in the balance too, and even my wound was forgotten as I watched the shuffling figures and flickering blades, clash-clash and pause, clash-scrape-clash and pause again, but the pauses were of a split second’s duration, for she was fighting full tilt with a speed and energy I’d not have believed was in that slight body, and with a skill to take your breath away. I’m no great judge, and am only as good a cut-and-thruster as the troop-sergeant could make me, but I know an expert when I see one; there’s an assurance of bearing and movement that’s beyond technique, and Caprice had it. When Willem attacked suddenly, hewing to beat her guard down by main force, she stood her ground, feet still and warding his cuts with quick turns of her wrist; when he feinted and bore in at her flank she pivoted like a ballet-dancer, facing me with her back to the lake, and I saw that the girlish face was untroubled; I remembered fencing against Lakshmibai at Jhansi, the lovely fierce mask contorted and teeth gritted as she fought like a striking cobra, but Caprice was almost serene; even when she attacked it was without a change of expression, lips closed, chin up, eyes unwavering on Willem’s, as though all her emotions were concentrated in point and edge.

Once I thought he had her, when her foot slipped, her blade faltered, and he leaped in, smashing at her hilt to force the sabre from her hand, the bully-swordsman’s trick that I favour myself, but he hadn’t the wit or experience to combine it with a left fist to the face and a stamp on the toes, and she escaped by yielding to the blow, dropping to one knee, and rolling away like a gymnast, cutting swiftly as she regained her feet. At that moment a sudden spasm of excruciating pain in my side reminded me of more immediate troubles; my head was swimming with that dizzying weakness that is the prelude to unconsciousness, and in panic I clutched at the oozing gash in my side—dear God, I was lying in a pool of gore, if I fainted now I’d bleed to death. I pressed with all my might, trying to stem the flow, dragging myself up on an elbow with some idiot notion that if I could bend my trunk it would close the wound, and sparing a stricken glance at the combatants.

Joy was followed instantly by dismay. Willem’s left sleeve was bloody where she’d caught him in rolling away, but she was falling back now, and he was after her relentlessly, cutting high and low as she retreated; her speed was deserting her, her strength, so much less than his to begin with, was failing under those hammering strokes. He had a six-inch advantage in height, and as much in reach, and he was making it tell. He was laughing again, harsh and triumphant, and as she circled, all on the defensive now, he spoke for the first time, the words coming out in a breathless snarl: "Drop it, you bitch! Give over … you’re done … damn you!"

My heart sank, for her mouth was open now, panting with sheer weariness, and she fairly ran back several steps to avoid his pursuit, halting flat-footed to parry a cut at her head before breaking away again towards the lake. Another wave of giddiness shook me, I could feel myself going, but as he wheeled and drove in and she was forced to halt, guarding and parrying desperately, I summoned the last of my strength to yell:

"Look out, Starnberg—behind you!"

He never even flinched, let alone looked round, the iron-nerved swine, and as she took a faltering side-step that brought them side-on to me, her blade swept dangerously wide in a hurried party, exposing her head, and he gave an exultant yell as he cut backhanded at her neck, a finishing stroke that must decapitate her—and she ducked, the blade whistled an inch above her curls, and she was dropping full stretch on her left hand like an Italian, driving her point up at his unprotected front. He recovered like lightning, his sabre sweeping across to save his body, but only at the expense of his sword-arm; her point transfixed it just below the elbow, he shrieked and his sword fell, he tottered back a step … and Caprice came erect like an acrobat, poised on her toes, her point flickered up to his breast, for a moment they were still as statues, and then her knee bent and her arm straightened with academic precision as she deliberately ran him through the heart.