Libertines 13: Overreactor
The thrown dagger passed harmlessly. The girl on the post burst into tears and Ferrovache turned, forgetting about her in an instant. A slave scurried up to him and whispered something in his ear… “Dinner is served,” he said, beckoning us to an outdoor path the led, doubtless to the greenhouses. We entered a small house in the rear, and to the dining room.
Living trays scattered around the trembling, heaving dinner table served drinks and ices… The table consisted of an elaborate construction of grotesquely twisted slaves, contorted into a figuration that served as a table and chairs… Hot plates were placed sizzling on tender backs, and muffled agonies escaped the table regularly, accompanied by shivers and slight quakes as the table absorbed involuntary movements. In front of each place setting was a lush behind, and we sat bare-bottomed on hapless slaves’ faces. The head of the table, where Ferrovache sat with his still-alive body slaves, was constantly in slight disarray as he regularly irritated and worried the tender surfaces under him, now with knives, now with candles, now with quills. He took a long draft of finest Madeira and indicated his folly. ’Allow me, friends, to enlighten you by sharing a bit of my philosophy. Just a bit, not to worry!’ he stated, laughing. He swept a cold glance around the table at his guests:
“Can we agree, dear guests, that this entire collection, this party, this night, these slaves, and all of the pain and death attendant are merely formless vapors? Can we all agree that existence as we know it is a sham? And this radical declaration follows directly from the easily arrived at assumption that God is another vapor… without existence, created in the mind of man like so many other atrocities! Nature only holds the reins, flexes the muscles of her vast body, smiting down and raising up as mindlessly as a worm chews his path through dirt, stone and corpses! And to say that God and Nature are one, how deplorable! Might say the watch and the watchmaker were one!” Here he paused and drew a packet from under the table and indicated it. Each guest’s eye was drawn immediately, avaricious lights shone forth. He continued thus: “Here we have the fruits of many labors and long, think not otherwise. Slaves upon slaves have suffered and died to bring us this bounty, and more shall perhaps! As we think on the elimination of God from our purview, think also on the new liberation that this gives us, new moral liberation, to sully and be sullied, to abuse and be abused, to debase at the foul bloody altar of libertinage with no qualms whatever, having given our God his walking papers much more easily than we raised him on his transparent and flimsy pedestal… Ingest what you will, I say, no matter the murder that brings it to your mouth, your nose, indeed your veins… use what you will, as I will use what I will!” At this, he tore the package open and withdrew another from within, a full kilo. He weighed it and cast a glance at the place of dubious honor on his right hand. There sat a young and accomplished procuress, trembling slightly and bathed in a sweat that surely annoyed her seat. Ferrovache slit the package and dipped his knife… a small pile of purest powder rested on the tip… He moved the knife’s razor edge to her face, and she dipped forward in anticipation, unconsciously.
Each guest looked on in exquisite horror… Bankers, captains of industry, underworld types and a few buttoned-up saps like us three… who sat in the next position after the unfortunate procuress.
The process of cleaning up the three dead bodies after Ferrovache’s savage outburst took the better part of an hour, after which we settled at the reconfigured table, and no matter how we tried we could not avoid the ‘place of honor’. In front of us lay two kilos, the slit one, and a fresh one. We would receive the procuress’ bounty should we survive the coming encounter, which happened far more quickly than I anticipated.
Ferrovache wasted no time. ”Gentlemen, stand and present your offering.” We looked at each other and stood. Stepping aside slightly, we presented Genia, in all her glory, clad in the filmiest of gauze, head down, hands clasped in front. Ferrovache sipped his wine and bade her lift her head. She complied, and he looked deep into her eyes, the dilated pupils, the slightest sheen of sweat… “She will do. Come to me, my dear.” Genia stood stock still, trembling. She looked to us and we addressed Ferrovache: ”We did not prepare her as a permanent offering, sir. Only a gentle display, which we hoped would…” Ferrovache lifted his hand and I trailed off. ”I understand what you mean, Mr. ______ . ” He took another two kilos from his pack and placed them at our setting. Win started and gripped the table edge, an unexpected hip. ”Four kilos!” he hissed, looking to me. I shook my head. ”Sir, she is not for sale as such, we have expen…” Ferrovache’s inarticulate roar cut me off as he leapt up onto the table. It heaved and shifted to accommodate him, and he pointed to me. ”Refuse me not, or I shall destroy all three!” ”Wait!” I shouted. “I propose single combat… to satisfy the insult to both of us!” The guests gasped as one and he recoiled… and amazingly, considered. ”A rare entertainment, to be sure… I accept. Prepare the ground!”
The dueling ground was laid in a rectangular area of one of the greenhouses where he had just harvested. Semicircular arches of steel, half-hoops, held the glass that admitted the light but held the heat. Dripping, hissing sounds of irrigation surrounded us as slaves bent to the work that supplied us all, a chest-high wall of beautiful specimens of Persian White poppy plants edging the ground. Ferrovache stood waiting in the rectangle, as my second approached me with sword and arm-guard. The sword was a modified rapier, lighter, with a wider blade meant for fast, doubletime fencing. No buckler or duelling dagger was offered, as we would parry and riposte with the naked blade alone. This choice of weapon was telling, and said that Ferrovache was knowledgeable, but he could not know that I had made a very thorough study of Agrippa and the attendant techniques… indeed, smallsword fighting was quite natural to me. I hefted the weapon and immediately assumed the terza, or third position, stepping forward to meet Ferrovache who approached cautiously in seconda, sword raised above his head and pointing down. Two steps were all it took for us to meet.
The first strokes were his… vicious downward cuts that came so fast I had no chance to end the contest quickly by stepping into his blow and slashing his throat… I defended clumsily and gave ground as he advanced viciously, completely belying his earlier caution. Here was a violent attacker, nearly foaming at the mouth. His third cut was mistimed, however, and I moved inside his guard for a split second before he kicked me free… I managed a shallow slash along his ribs that bled immediately… first blood to me. He fell back and regrouped, inviting me to press. One step followed by an unexpected demi-lunge brought me to grappling distance, alas, he parried quickly and offered a thrusting riposte that would have skewered me had I not stepped aside, anticlockwise, keeping my blade low in quarta as he had shown he liked to attack my left side. I continued the turn for another heartbeat and leapt at him, cutting horizontally, screaming to distract him. His blade turned vertically to meet the slash, and he managed to turn my blade almost to the disarming point… I rolled to ease the twist and came up on his undefended left flank… He brought his blade to bear on the opposite side with surprising swiftness, an awkward defense that nonetheless deflected another horizontal cut… he turned to meet the next flurry of blows, blocking one, two, three, and after the fourth he riposted to my right, his heel marking a long slash in the dirt that ended between my own feet… a long lunge that stung my right arm, not deep enough to slow me, however… I stamped down on his foot and retreated a step… he recovered and pressed me mercilessly… he had tasted the blood and was ready to murder… the duel of course, was to the death.
Sweeping horizontal slashes, swung from the shoulder in the classic stramazzone came at me as I took small leaps backward to allow them to pass harmlessly, not blocking at all. I was forced to the edge of the poppies before he overextended just the slightest bit, drawing his arm back a fraction more to add more force to his cut… giving me the split second opening I needed. One smart passata, drawing my arm deeply back for the mortal thrust… I stepped and thrust in one motion, driving the blade clear through his chest. I immediately released the hilt and turned as he fell to the dirt, bubbling. I stepped away as his seconds rushed to him… he died quickly.
I looked to the breathless guests. ”To the hall so that we may finish dinner.” We returned to the hall in as civilized manner as possible.
