The Fire Duke

by Joel Rosenberg

  Ian had to smile. “I hope not. I tried saber for a couple of months, but I’m better with a foil,” he said, raising a hand in advance protest. “And I am a lot better at it than I am at epée, and a lot better at that than I am at that freestyle stuff Torrie does.”

  Was there a faint sense of disapproval in Thorsen’s expression? Well, fuck him.

  When that so-called father of mine kicked me out, the only thing I knew how to do to support myself was what Benjamin Silverstein called “that silly Robin Hood shit,” and I have to be good at it. I’m good at foil, and—except for goddamn spring vacation, when the studio shuts down—there’re always beginning foil students to teach, and I don’t have the time to play around.

  Fencing might be a sport, a hobby for some, but Ian didn’t have hobbies. Goals and hobbies don’t mix. Ian had taken up poker, rock climbing, and fencing for the same reason—to support his eating habit—and had dropped the one he enjoyed the most, rock climbing, when it was clear that it was going to take too much time and money to get good enough to support himself as a trainer or guide. He had taken to the foil quickly, and any idiot who didn’t get emotionally involved with cards could make money in a poker game, if he picked it right.

  Just a question of knowing your game.

  “You don’t like freestyle?” Thorsen asked.

  “I wouldn’t say that, sir.” Ian shook his head. I might think it, but I wouldn’t say it. “It’s not that. It’s just that my reflexes are all foil, and it’s hard to turn them off and think in terms of epée targets, and forget about right-of-way and timing issues.” That didn’t go over well; the notion that non-foil fencers—advanced weapons fencers, they called themselves, too often with a sniff—forgot about timing wasn’t an idea with a lot of appeal to non-foil fencers.

  Even if it was true.

  He tried another tack. “Besides, I think I may have scored twice off Torrie in a couple of dozen bouts, and that’s frustrating.” It was an exaggeration, but not as much of one as he would have wished. Torrie was one hell of a fencer. And under freestyle rules, where the goal was to touch your opponent anywhere, with either the point or edge, he was even better.

  “I would imagine so.” Thorsen cracked his knuckles. “Foil is fine. Would you mind sparring for a few minutes? It’s been … some time since I’ve held a foil in my hands.”

  He was already heading for a gunmetal-gray cabinet at the far end of the room when Ian nodded.

  After hearing the way Torrie talked about some of his parents’ idiosyncrasies—and particularly after noticing how Torrie avoided talking about some of his parents’ idiosyncrasies—Ian wouldn’t have been surprised if Thorsen had pulled a suit of armor out of the cabinet; but all he extracted was a worn but remarkably ordinary set of fencing gear, the jacket old but serviceable, the glove of thinner leather than was common today, but not exceptional.

  Thorsen pulled his shirt off, revealing a muscular set of pecs and delts, Ian decided, although any of the buffers who hung around the gym would have been working on the slight give in the abs, and would long since have shaved off the mat of light hair that covered Thorsen’s chest and shoulders.

  Then again, the bodybuilder types Ian knew weren’t in their fifties, either. Not only was it unfair to judge Thorsen by the same standards he would use on men a generation younger, but Thorsen was a farmer, not a bodybuilder.

  Ian reached for his own gear bag.

  It might have been a while since Thorsen had done this, but clearly he hadn’t forgotten how to dress; in just a few moments, Thorsen had his fencing shoes and plastron on, not having bothered to change his jeans for more formal fencing trousers.

  He selected a foil from the rack, carefully examined the length and ritually tugged at the blunt point, then sliced it a couple of times through the air before coming to attention, then momentarily raising his foil in salute before pulling his mask down over his face.

  Ian came to attention, saluted, pulled down his own mask, and stepped back.

  “Let’s begin,” Thorsen said, dropping into a slightly off-looking guard, his point low.

  Ian dropped into guard. If Thorsen fought anything like Torrie, he would be heavy on beating—although not the way that beginners were, not clumsy at all.

  Thorsen closed immediately, his blade in sixte. Ian tried for the counter, but Thorsen beat his blade out of line and would have gotten the touch if Ian hadn’t returned the beat as he retreated. Ian beat seconde—his favorite beat move; it swept the lines twice—but Thorsen simply disengaged, beat Ian’s foil up, and lunged forward for a low touch to Ian’s side, his foil whipping through the air as though it was weightless, a holograph of a foil.

  Damn, but the older man had a powerful wrist.

  “Good,” Ian said. He couldn’t see Thorsen’s face behind the mesh mask, but he knew that the older man was smiling.

  Let him. It was Ian’s turn now.

  They squared off again, but this time as they closed, Ian was ready for the beat against his blade; he dropped his point and extended it in a perfect disengage and lunge, and went right through Thorsen’s defenses as though they weren’t there, scoring a touch on the outer hip.

  “That was good, as well,” Thorsen said, punctuating the sentence with a grunt, stopping his point a scant inch or so from Ian’s chest. “Your point.”

  After some preliminary feints and counterfeints, Ian made his second point with a deceptive lunge that started high and ended low, again touching the older man at the outer side of his waist. Thorsen countered Ian’s lunge on the next point with a perfect time thrust that gave him a touch on Ian’s chest while sliding Ian’s blade safely out of line, but when he tried the same move against Ian’s running attack on the next point, Ian used his longer reach and greater extension to touch Thorsen’s shoulder a bare moment before Thorsen could touch him.

  It was the same thing as with Torrie: Thorsen could force his mind to think in terms of right-of-way or first touch, but his reflexes betrayed him. His body just didn’t think of a point as ending with the first touch, not if his opponent’s point was in position to touch him after that. It was the problem that epée players always had when fencing with foils. Foil fencing was designed to simulate a deadly duel, where your objective was to kill your opponent or at least grievously wound him with a single blow: you scored by hitting in a limited area on your opponent, the triangle made up of both shoulders and the groin.

  If you really were fighting, any real wound in that triangle would be serious, and in a premedical culture, most probably deadly.

  Epée was a response to that, invented in a time when most duels were fought to the first blood, where any wound, no matter how minor, would end a duel: the whole body was the target, and most epée points were scored with a touch to the arm or leg.

  Thorsen tried, but he couldn’t help but fight epée style. On attacking, he would tend to follow a successful parry immediately with a riposte; he would avoid a running attack or any of the risky maneuvers that would speed his point to its target ahead of his enemy’s—he fenced against the foil, not against the fencer.

  But the old man was damned good, give him that—even with that edge, it was all Ian could do to get a five-three win.

  “Nice bout,” Thorsen said, pulling his mask back. His face was almost split in a grin. “Torrie said you were good with a foil, but he rather understated it—now, have you had enough, or would you care for a little freestyle?”

  Put that way, Ian could hardly refuse. He slid his mask down.

  “Have at you, sir!” he said.

  What Torrie called freestyle—Ian had never heard the term applied to fencing before—was basically epée scoring with some quirky variations: the bout didn’t stop with a touch, although the winner of a point was unable to score a point for at least two seconds following a touch; three touches on the arm ended the match prematurely.

  It had swept through the fencing club on campus, particularly among the novice players trying
to work their way up to intermediate: it was fun, and it encouraged a lot of beating of blades, and it involved a lot of jumping and swinging and dramatic moving, just like in the movies.

  It was also contrary to almost every reflex a good foil fencer had: after an opening flurry of disengagement play with the tips of the foils, the old man left an opening that didn’t quite turn out to be there, responded with a delicate croisé that simultaneously shoved Ian’s blade down, out, and out of line while touching him in the middle of the belly, then easily parried Ian’s free attack—Ian had learned from Torrie the value of attacking after a touch—until at least five seconds had passed.

  An arm touch, a touch to Ian’s exposed knee, another arm touch, and a final croisé ended the freestyle bout embarrassingly.

  It had all gone quickly, but not quickly enough: Ian’s T-shirt was damp, and his eyes were stinging so badly from dripping sweat that he wished he had put on his headband.

  God, what were you like twenty years ago, Mister? Ian thought to himself. If this was what you’re like, out of shape, out of practice, in your fifties, what kind of player were you at twenty? Olympic class, certainly—and Ian was sure that there had never been a Thorian Thorsen on any U.S. Olympic fencing team. It was one of the reasons he was skeptical about Torrie’s claims about his dad.

  Not the main reason, though. Down deep, Ian really didn’t believe in a father who didn’t drink himself into a stupor and beat the shit out of you whenever some case went sour, or when the plumbing broke, or when he had a hangover. Like it was Ian’s fault. Like it was Ian’s fault that Mom had died of cancer.

  But life isn’t fair. That was one of Dad’s favorite sayings, and he went out of his way to make it true.

  Thorsen was smiling, but just not as broadly, as he pulled off his mask and glove and extended his hand.

  “Well,” he said. “It’s good to see that I haven’t totally lost the use of a sword. You must give me another chance at you with a foil, later.”

  Ian took a moment to catch his breath. “My pleasure, sir,” he said, between pants.

  Thorsen nodded. “You’re quite good with foil, and very promising.”

  “Kind of you to say so,” Ian said.

  Thorsen’s smile dropped, and so, it seemed, did the temperature in the room. “No. Just accurate,” he said, then shook his head and held up a hand, “but no offense was intended, and I apologize for seeming to take some.” His smile was back. “Have you eaten recently?”

  “No, sir. And I haven’t drunk about a gallon of cold water recently, either. As soon as I take another shower and become acceptable company, I’d like to find one.”

  Thorsen laughed. “My wife has seen sweaty men in gym shorts before; let us get you watered and fed first. Besides,” he said, “you haven’t met Hosea yet.”

  The others were gathered around the kitchen table, Torrie and Maggie avoiding looking at each other in a way that instantly told Ian that they’d been at it again—although where? Right down the hall from Karin Thorsen?

  There was a glance from Thorsen to Karin—Ian couldn’t help thinking of her by her first name; she was just too gorgeous—and back.

  Now, now, he chided himself, Zayda Sol wouldn’t approve you thinking lecherous thoughts about your hostess.

  Which wasn’t true, not really. And he wouldn’t have cared if it was. His long-dead grandfather always emphasized that what went on between your ears was your own business, as long as you kept it there, and that what went on in your home was your own business.

  It was only one step from that to it didn’t matter how much you got drunk and beat the shit out of your son, as long as nobody else knew it.

  “Sit, please. Hosea’ll be back in a minute,” she said, leaning over to pour a stream of steaming coffee into two more of the old china cups, each with its saucer. Company manners, Ian decided.

  “Coffee?” she asked. “Or,” a quick glance at the clock, “something stronger? We’ve got—”

  Torrie shook his head. “Ian doesn’t drink.”

  She arched an eyebrow; Ian forced a smile. “It’s the secret of my popularity,” he said. “Ian ‘The Designated Driver’ Silverstein they call me.”

  Her smile brightened the room. “Sounds like a Jewish mafioso.”

  He returned the smile, trying to seem casual. But it was one of his nevers, and Ian was not casual about his nevers:

  Never drink alcohol, not even in cough syrup; if you never drink, you will never be a drunk.

  Never raise your hand to somebody you love, because if you never do that, you will never hit them.

  Never complain, because the world doesn’t give a shit.

  And never, ever stop looking for a chance to get some of your own back.

  He hated the idea of practicing law, instead of doing something useful, of making his profession the manipulation of rules passed by a bunch of legislators during brief breaks between being bribed and fucking their secretaries. That’s all that law was.

  But even if the tool was corrupt, it was still a tool. There would be a new legal specialty in a few years, and if Ian had anything to say about it, it would be highly paid. Child abuse—that horrifyingly inadequate term for what it was like to live in the fear that you’d say something wrong, do something wrong, and set the bastard off—was not confined to the children of the poor. Ian Silverstein was a living witness to that.

  It would be tricky, but he would do it—get some kids out of the homes of bastards like Benjamin Silverstein, and make the bastards pay, all in public embarrassment, and some in cold, hard cash.

  In ten years, twenty at the outside, the phrase Ian Silverstein’s on the phone would make any one of the bastards shit his pants.

  And if that meant that Ian Silverstein had to spend years learning law and more years paying off loans, then so be it.

  “Sit down, please. Torrie says you take yours black,” she said, bringing him back to the present as she set a plate of cookies in front of an empty chair.

  Ian levered himself into the chair, feeling like something that had come out of the barn in front of all these freshly washed people. Hell, Torrie and Maggie still had wet hair—had the two of them arranged to shower together?

  He sipped the coffee. It was black all right, but brewed in the weak tradition that Torrie had warned him about.

  Ian decided it made sense—for them: if you were determined to drink endless cups of coffee throughout the day, you had probably better make it weak, no matter how Norwegianly phlegmatic you thought yourself. Ian would rather have had one cup of coffee brewed strong and right, but he would rather have dropped his mask before saluting than insult his host and hostess by saying so.

  She sat down across from Ian, between her husband and son, although for just a moment Ian thought she was going to take the chair next to his. “So,” she said, “do you three have any plans for the next week?”

  Torrie shrugged. “I figured we’d just kick back a bit. Do some fencing, maybe some riding; visit some people and show Ian and Maggie what a real North Dakota farm is like. I was thinking about working on the riding pen, but I see Uncle Hosea beat me to it.”

  “And probably did a better job than you would,” his father said, idly.

  The skin over Ian’s temples grew right. He recognized that tone of voice, that silky threat and promise in front of—

  No. Torrie wasn’t tensing up. He was just frowning, the way you did when you disagreed with somebody, not the way you did when you were wondering where and when the next slap was coming.

  Ian lowered his hands below the table and clenched them together.

  Easy, kiddo, he said to himself. It’s not the same with them.

  “Probably,” Torrie said, his voice lowering the temperature in the room by a bare degree.

  Thorsen raised a hand in protest. “My apologies. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.” He grinned. “It’s hardly rare for somebody to be less handy than Hosea, after all.”

  Tor
rie eyed him levelly. “No problem, Dad. And you’re right—but I’ll take over mucking out the stalls, and let Ian milk the bull.” He looked over at Ian. “You did say that you didn’t mind doing your fair share of chores.” He eyed Ian steadily.

  “Not one little bit. But that one didn’t go over my head, honest.” Ian grinned. “I don’t know much about farming, but I don’t believe you have a bull, and I’m darned sure I wouldn’t want to try to milk it.”

  They all laughed at that, not stopping when the door squeaked open behind Ian.

  “Hosea!” Torrie was already out of his chair.

  Ian turned, and almost jumped out of his skin.

  There was something Torrie hadn’t told him about Uncle Hosea. Actually, there was a lot Torrie hadn’t told him about Uncle Hosea, but the two things that sprang instantly to mind were that he was well over six feet tall and that his skin was as dark as good mahogany.

  “Thorian,” he said, declining Torrie’s outstretched hand and wrapping his long arms around Torrie, “it is good to see you well.” There was something strange about his voice, some thin and reedy note in it that strangely reminded Ian of the hoot of an owl, although he couldn’t have said why. It was also ever so slightly slurred—but not drunk-slurred; it didn’t set off any fear or anger in Ian.

  He was tall and slender, almost as though he was a man of average build stretched a foot taller than he should have been, and the image persisted in his long face with high cheekbones and a long, pointed jaw.

  His smile was small, but real, and his teeth were bone white behind thinner lips than Ian would have expected. He wore the local uniform of plaid shirt and jeans, the hems of the jeans tucked into a battered but clean pair of work boots, but somehow on him it seemed more like he was wearing a costume than clothes.

  Torrie turned back to Ian and Maggie. “This is Uncle Hosea.”

  Ian was irritated. Torrie could at least have said something. The Thorsens had money, and there was nothing wrong with them having an old family retainer, and nothing whatsoever wrong with that old family retainer being black, but fucking Torrie could at least have said something.