Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'Is the Earl of Avebury a member?' Sandman asked.

Skavadale hesitated. 'I really cannot divulge who our members are, Captain. This is a private club. But I think it is safe for me to tell you that we do not have the honour of the Earl's company.'

'Did you know the Countess?' Sandman asked.

Skavadale smiled. 'Indeed I did, Captain. Many of us worshipped at her shrine for she was a lady of divine beauty and we regret her death exceedingly. Exceedingly.' He put his half-drunk coffee on a table and stood up. 'I fear your visit to us has been wasted, Captain. The Seraphim Club, I do assure you, commissioned no portraits and Mister Corday, I fear, has misinformed you. Can I see you to the front door?'

Sandman stood. He had learnt nothing and been made to feel foolish, but just then a door crashed open behind him and he turned to see that one of the bookcases had a false front of leather spines glued to a door, and a young man in breeches and shirt was standing there with a fencing foil in his hand and an antagonistic expression on his face. 'I thought you'd seen the culley off, Johnny,' he said to Skavadale, 'but you ain't.'

Skavadale, smooth as honey, smiled. 'Allow me to name Captain Sandman, the celebrated cricketer. This is Lord Robin Holloway.'

'Cricketer?' Lord Robin Holloway was momentarily confused. 'I thought he was Sidmouth's lackey.'

'I'm that too,' Sandman said.

Lord Robin heard the belligerence in Sandman's voice and the foil in his hand twitched. He had none of Skavadale's courtesy. He was in his early twenties, Sandman judged, and was as tall and handsome as his friend, but where Skavadale was dark, Holloway was golden. His hair was gold, there was gold on his fingers and a gold chain about his neck. He licked his lips and half raised the sword. 'So what does Sidmouth want of us?' he demanded.

'Captain Sandman was finished with us,' Skavadale said firmly.

'I came to ask about the Countess of Avebury,' Sandman said.

'In her grave, culley, in her grave,' Holloway said. A second man appeared behind him, also holding a foil, though Sandman suspected from the man's plain shirt and trousers that he was a club servant, perhaps their master-at-arms. The room beyond the false door was a fencing room for it had racks of foils and sabres and a plain hardwood floor. 'What did you say your name was?' Holloway demanded of Sandman.

'I didn't,' Sandman said, 'but my name is Sandman, Rider Sandman.'

'Ludovic Sandman's son?'

Sandman inclined his head. 'I am.'

'Bloody man cheated me,' Lord Robin Holloway said. His eyes, slightly protuberant, challenged Sandman. 'Owes me money!'

'A matter for your lawyers, Robin,' Lord Skavadale was emollient.

'Six thousand bloody guineas,' Lord Robin Holloway said, 'and because your bloody father put a bullet between his eyes, we don't get payment! So what are you going to do about that, culley?'

'Captain Sandman is leaving,' Lord Skavadale said firmly, and took Sandman's elbow.

Sandman shook him off. 'I've undertaken to pay some of my father's debts,' he told Lord Robin. Sandman's temper was brewing, but it did not show on his face and his voice was still respectful. 'I am paying the debts to the tradesmen who were left embarrassed by my father's suicide. As to your debt?' He paused. 'I plan to do nothing whatsoever about it.'

'Damn you, culley,' Lord Robin said, and he drew back the foil as if to slash it across Sandman's cheek.

Lord Skavadale stepped between them. 'Enough! The Captain is going.'

'You should never have let him in,' Lord Robin said, 'he's nothing but a slimy little spy for bloody Sidmouth! Next time, Sandman, use the tradesman's entrance at the back. The front door is for gentlemen.' Sandman had been controlling his temper and was moving towards the front hall, but now, very suddenly, he turned and walked back past both Skavadale and Holloway. 'Where the devil are you going?' Holloway demanded.

'The back door, of course,' Sandman said, and then stopped by the master-at-arms and held out his hand. The man hesitated, glanced at Skavadale, then frowned as Sandman just snatched the foil from him. Sandman turned to Holloway again. 'I've changed my mind,' he said, 'I think I'll use the front door after all. I feel like a gentleman today. Or does your lordship have a mind to stop me?'

'Robin,' Lord Skavadale cautioned his friend.

'Damn you,' Holloway said, and he twitched up the foil, swatted Sandman's blade aside and lunged.

Sandman parried to drive Holloway's blade high and wide, then slashed his foil across his lordship's face. The blade's tip was buttoned so it could not pierce or slash, but it still left a red welt on Holloway's right cheek. Sandman's blade came back fast to mark the left cheek, then he stepped three paces back and lowered the sword. 'So what am I?' he asked. 'Tradesman or gentleman?'

'To hell with you!' Holloway was in a fury now and did not recognise that his opponent had also lost his temper, but Sandman's temper was cold and cruel while Holloway's was all heat and foolishness. Holloway slashed the foil like a sabre, hoping to open Sandman's face with the sheer force of the steel's whiplike strike, but Sandman swayed back, let the blade pass an inch from his nose and then stepped forward and lunged his weapon into Holloway's belly. The button stopped the blade from piercing cloth or skin, and the weapon bent like a bow and Sandman used the spring of the blade to throw himself backwards as Lord Robin Holloway slashed again. Sandman stepped another pace back, Holloway mistook the move for nervousness and lunged his blade at Sandman's neck.

'Puppy,' Sandman said, and there was an utter disdain in his voice. 'You feeble little puppy,' he said, and began to fight, only now his rage was released — an incandescent and killing rage, an anger that he fought against, that he hated, that he prayed would leave him — and he was no longer fencing, but trying to kill. He stamped forward, his blade a hissing terror, and the button raked Lord Holloway's face, almost taking an eye, then the blade slashed across Lord Holloway's nose, opening it so that blood ran and the steel whipped back, fast as a snake's strike, and Lord Holloway cringed away from the pain and then, suddenly, a pair of very strong arms was wrapped about Sandman's chest. Sergeant Berrigan was holding him and the master-at-arms was standing in front of Lord Robin Holloway while Lord Skavadale wrenched the foil from his friend's hand.

'Enough!' Skavadale said. 'Enough!' He threw Holloway's foil to the far end of the room, then took Sandman's blade and tossed it after the first. 'You will leave, Captain,' he insisted, 'you will leave now!'

Sandman shook Berrigan's arms away. He could see the fear in Lord Robin's eyes. 'I was fighting real men,' he told Lord Robin, 'when you were pissing your childhood breeches.'

'Go!' Skavadale snapped.

'Sir?' Berrigan, as tall as Sandman, jerked his head towards the front hall. 'I think it's best if you go, Captain.'

'If you discover the person who commissioned the portrait,' Sandman spoke to Skavadale, 'then I would be grateful if you would inform me.' He had no realistic hope that Lord Skavadale would do any such thing, but asking the question allowed him to leave with a measure of dignity. 'A message can be left for me at the Wheatsheaf in Drury Lane.'

'Good day, Captain,' Skavadale said coldly. Lord Robin glared at Sandman, but said nothing. He had been whipped and he knew it. The master-at-arms looked respectful, but he understood swordsmanship.

Sandman's hat and greatcoat, both of them half dried and wholly brushed clean, were brought to him in the hallway where Sergeant Berrigan opened the front door. The Sergeant nodded bleakly at Sandman, who stepped past him onto the front step. 'Best not to come back, sir,' Berrigan said quietly, then slammed the door.