P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

“You’re right, sir,” he said, “this is the wrong sword for you. May I ask where you got it?”

“It’s mine. My brother gave it to me.”

“Ah. I see, sir. And I expect your brother is a couple of inches taller and wider-shouldered? Well, I can certainly make a part-exchange. Shall we allow an angel for the old sword and thus I will require fifteen shillings.”

Dodd thought that was very reasonable for a ready-made sword and so Enys handed over the greater part of what Hunsdon had paid him for his court work to date, buckled on the new weapon, and went to admire his fractured reflection in the window glass.

“Sir, I should tell you that I’ve seen this sword before,” said the armourer quietly to Dodd. “Seeing as you’re Sir Robert’s man.”

“Ay?” said Dodd.

“I sold it to a man who called himself James Enys but who was not that man.”

Dodd found his eyebrows lifting. “Ay?” he said, rubbing his lower lip.

“Taller, broader-shouldered, something similar in the face and just as badly marked with smallpox.”

“Hm.”

“Also, he was wearing the exact same suit. But it wasn’t him, sir, I’d stake my life on it.”

Dodd quietly handed over sixpence, ignoring the small voice at the back of his head that protested at this outrage. “Thank ye, Mr. Armourer,” he said, quite lordly-fashion, “That’s verra interesting.”

He went out into the sunny street where Enys was waiting for him and gave the lawyer a considering stare.

“Now where shall we practise?” asked Enys. “Will you teach me to disarm people?”

“Ah’m no’ gonnae teach ye nothing special,” said Dodd with a shudder. “Just the basics.”

On a thought he went back into the shop and came back out with two veney sticks the armourer had sold for a shilling-he liked them because they had hilts and grips like swords but were still sticks. They made adequate clubs, but were best for sword practise with someone who was unchancy and ignorant.

As they made their way to Smithfield, Dodd was thinking hard. There had always been something not quite right about Enys and it seemed Shakespeare had found it out. Perhaps Enys had killed his brother and taken his place and then pretended to look for him afterwards? Perhaps Enys’s brother was still in the Thames as the priest had been?

Or perhaps he was playing cards at Pickering’s? The man Dodd had thought was Enys-what was his name, Vent? — fitted the armourer’s description exactly. And what about the sister? Where was she? He’d heard her voice but…Why had Enys locked the door of his chambers when his sister was within? Was she his prisoner?

Eyes narrowing, Dodd led the way to a corner of the Smithfield market that was not already occupied by large men loudly practising their sword skills, generally sword-and-buckler work which was the most popular fighting-style. Some of them watched him cautiously out of the corners of their eyes. In another corner were better-dressed men doing what looked like an elaborate dance composed of circles and triangles and waving long thin rapiers. Foreigners, no doubt, doing mad foreign things.

Dodd gave Enys one of the veney sticks and decided to see if the man was faking his cack-handedness. He took him through the en garde position for a sword with no shield or buckler, with his right leg and right arm forward as defence, and showed him the various positions. They went through a slow and careful veney using the main attacks and defences that Dodd’s father had first taught him when he was eight. Dodd’s face drew down longer and sour at that thought.

Once Enys had corrected his feeble grip and got out of the habit of putting his left hand on the hilt for the cross-stroke, as if he were wielding an old-fashioned bastard sword, Dodd bowed to him, saluted, and attacked.

Enys struggled to do what he’d been shown but that was not in fact the problem. He defended slightly better now, but even when Dodd spread his hands, lowered his veney stick and stood there completely unguarded, Enys still did not attack. Dodd scowled at him ferociously.

“Och?” he said, “whit’s wrong wi’ ye, ye puir wee catamite of a mannikin? Want yer mother? She’s no’here, she’s down the road lookin’ for trade.”

Enys stopped and blinked at him with his veney stick trailing in the mud. Dodd, who had never seen anything so ridiculous in his life, lifted his own veney stick and hit Enys hard across the chest with it. Enys yelped, staggered back clutching the place, and nearly dropped his stick.

“It’s ay hopeless,” said Dodd disgustedly. “If ye willnae attack me when I’m open nor when I strike ye…”

For a moment he thought there were tears in Enys’s eyes, but then at last the man made a kind of low moaning growl and came into the attack properly. Dodd actually had to parry a couple of times and even dodge sideways away from a very good strike to his head. There was a flurry when Enys came charging in close trying for a knee in Dodd’s groin and Dodd trapped his arm, shifted his weight, and dropped the man on his back on the hard-trampled ground in a Cumbrian wrestling throw he hadn’t used for ten years because everyone in Carlisle knew it too well. Enys was still struggling, mouth clamped, face white, so Dodd twisted his arm until he yelped again.

“Will ye bide still so I dinna have to hurt ye?” shouted Dodd in his ear, and Enys gradually stopped. He was heaving for breath and even Dodd was a little breathless, which annoyed him. “Now then. That was a lot better. Ye had some nice blows in there and ye came at me wi’ yer knee when ye couldnae touch me wi’ yer weapon, that’s a good thing to see. Ah like a man that isnae hampered by foolish notions.”

“What?” Enys was still gasping.

“Ye’ll need tae watch yer temper,” added Dodd, helping the man up and dusting him down. “Ye cannae lose it just because ye got thumped on the chest.”

“You deliberately made me lose my temper?”

“Ay. Ah cannae teach nothing to a man that willnae attack and if ye’ve the bollocks to attack when Ah touch ye up, then there’s something to work wi’? Ye follow?”

Dodd was aware that Enys’s eyes were squinting slightly as he tried to follow this and so Dodd said it again, less Cumbrian. He was getting better at that, he thought. Enys laughed shortly.

“So should I get angry or not?” he asked, still rubbing the bruise on his chest. “Lose my temper or not?”

Dodd shrugged and took the en garde position again. “It depends. If ye cannae kill wi’out losing yer temper, then lose it. But if ye can get angry and stay cold enough to think-that’s the best for a fighting man. Not that ye’re a fighting man, ye’re a lawyer, but still…There’s nae harm in being able to kill if ye need to.”

Enys nodded, and guarded himself. Dodd attacked again. He was still as careful as he could be and pulled most of his blows, but Enys was at least taking a shot at him every so often, even if he generally missed or was stopped. He lost his stick half a dozen times before he learnt not to get into a lock against the hilt since he wasn’t strong enough for it. And on one glorious occasion, he caught Dodd on the hip with a nice combination of feint and thrust. Dodd put his hand up at the hit and grinned.

“Ay,” he said, “that’s it. Well done.”

Dodd decided to stop when he saw that Enys was alarmingly red in the face and puffing for breath again, even though they had only been practising for an hour or two. Dodd had taken his doublet off and was in his shirtsleeves, but Enys seemed too shy to do it.

He seemed relieved when Dodd lifted his stick in salute. “Ah’m for a quart of ale,” he said. “Will ye bear me company, Mr. Enys?”

“God, yes.”