Free Dark Tunnel by Ross MacDonald Page B

said nothing, but he turned green like old bronze. He turned and walked stiffly out of the room.
    “We’d better skip it,” I said. “Your father seems to object.”
    “Of course not. There is plenty of time. My father is a wet blanket. Do you care to select a foil and a mask?”
    “If you wish.”
    We put on masks, faced each other on the rubber mat, and saluted with our foils. The blunt, harmless blades crossed and disengaged. He lunged and I parried and lunged. He moved away very quickly and parried and lunged.
    If you have once learned to swim, your muscles never forget what to do in the water. Though I had not fenced for years, my muscles remembered the parries and ripostes that had been trained into them. My footwork was slow but the foil lightly held in my fingers followed their direction like an extension of my hand. I touched Peter three times while he touched me twice.
    He laid down his foil and took off his mask and I took off mine.
    “You are quite an expert fencer, Dr. Branch.” He spoke with what used to be called old-world courtesy before the old world lost its manners. But his fair skin was strained tight over the bones of his face.
    “Hardly,” I said. “I’ve probably spent more time with the foils than you have.”
    “No doubt you have. The sabre is my weapon. The foil is a pretty toy but the sabre is an instrument of war.”
    He moved quickly to the doorway and took down the two sabres from over the door. He thrust the hilt of one towards me and said, “Just feel it, Dr. Branch, the weight and balance and versatility.”
    While he stood opposite me on the mat and made his sabre whistle in the air, I looked at the one he had given me. It was not an Italian fencing-sabre with truncated point and blunted cutting-edge. It was a cavalry sabre, heavy and long, pointed like a pen and sharp enough to cut bread or throats. It was an instrument of war, all right.
    Peter said, “On guard,” and I looked up to see him giving me the fencer’s salute with the other sabre. His blade whirled in the air and leveled out towards my bare head. Fear came down on me like a cold shower but there was exhilaration in it, too. My blade sprang up almost without my willing it to keep my skull from being split, and I parried the cut.
    The sabres crossed and arced in the air. He struck at my head again and I riposted and tried to kill him by sinking my blade in his neck. He parried very easily and smiled at me. He struck at my head and I parried. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and tickled the end of my nose. I was sweating with exertion and with the terror of death. The movements of my raised arm began to feel laborious and remote.
    Two well-matched men can carry on unbroken play with sabres for minutes at a time, but we were not well matched. After the first few strokes, I could hardly meet his descending sword. My weapon became a burden too heavy to hold and the flashing metal dazzled my eyes.
    He forced me back steadily towards the wall, his sabre falling like steady hammer-blows. The sweat ran into my eyes and clouded my glasses. Through them I saw the skull-grin shining in his face like a sign of death. My left heel struck hard against the wainscoting and ended my retreat. He struck at my head and I parried and he changed his tactics and thrust at my throat.
    My nerve broke down and I forgot about everything but saving my neck. I dropped my sabre and moved sideways along the wall and his point crunched into the plaster. I started running across the bare room and his sabre came between my legs and tripped me. I went down hard on the concrete floor and my glasses fell off and smashed in front of my face. The back of my neck tingled for the final blow.
    No blow came, and Peter’s footsteps went past me towards the doorway in the second that I lay breathless. I raised my head and looked towards the door. My eyes were dimmed and stinging with salt sweat, but between his moving legs I thought I saw a woman in the