loser left the platform to a chorus of jeers. Another man climbed up, there was some exchange of words that Percy couldn’t hear, and the next thing he knew both men held swords. They bowed to one another and began sparring, with rather more clatter and elaborate footwork than strictly necessary, but Percy had to concede that they knew what they were doing. They both wore close-fitting garments and had their hair shorn close to the scalp. This, he supposed, gave their opponents fewer places to grab should the fight devolve into outright fisticuffs. His lip curled in distaste.
One of the men executed turns and flourishes to the wild enthusiasm of the crowd. Coins appeared from purses and pockets rather faster and more often than they had during the previous match. Percy wasn’t certain how the fighters were paid, whether their only incentive was the final prize awarded to the last man left standing at the culmination of the day’s battles, or whether they received a share of the amount wagered on the fight’s outcome. They fought like a small fortune was at stake, and Percy had a hard time prying his eyes away.
As he watched, he realized that the uncertain feeling in the pit of his stomach was jealousy—he wished he were on the platform, holding a sword. He missed the feeling of a hilt in his hand, a blade obeying his commands. Of course he couldn’t join in a public prizefight; the Marquess of Holland simply didn’t—
Except that soon enough, he wouldn’t have any standing to lose. And he could earn some coin, a prospect that he found rather thrilling in its novelty as well as probably a good idea for someone whose fortunes were, at best, uncertain. The idea of earning money through the one skill he possessed surely should not feel quite so daring, but Percy’s heart raced at the thought.
He let his feet carry him the short distance to Webb’s coffeehouse. When he opened the door, he was surprised to find that the overwhelming smell of tobacco and coffee was almost welcoming. He slid into a seat at the long table. Webb was nowhere to be seen, but Betty poured him a coffee. Her eyes slid right over him, and he realized that she didn’t recognize him in drab clothes.
Half the table was involved in a debate about taxes, a topic Percy found about as thrilling as a dose of laudanum. Instead of joining the conversation, he sipped his coffee and found that he could tell this pot had been brewed by Betty, not Webb, because it tasted like proper coffee rather than what Webb achieved by tossing in a chaotic array of herbs and spices. He glanced around the room, noting that the bookshelves were as distressingly disorganized as usual and that a spider was weaving a cobweb across the entrance to the staircase. Strands of silk caught the light, shimmering prettily through the smoke, and Percy regretted that it would be destroyed as soon as Webb knocked his stubborn head into it.
As if Percy had summoned him, Webb stomped into the room, not from upstairs but rather from the door that led outside to an alley. He banged his walking stick into the floor in an apparent attempt to get everyone’s attention. The stick didn’t even make that loud a noise, but the room quickly hushed.
“All right, you lot. Somebody’s been scribbling Tory nonsense on the privy walls.” Every eye in the room was on Webb, as if he were a magnet. He wasn’t even raising his voice above his usual scratchy growl. “You want to write Tory slogans, you do at it the coffeehouse across the way with the rest of the Tory scum.” As Webb spoke, he looked at his audience, and his gaze caught on Percy, and Percy knew he had been recognized. “Here, we serve Whigs and radicals.”
Webb turned away, and the room erupted in a chorus of whistles and cheers as if the man had just delivered a speech on the floor of the House of Commons rather than a scolding about his privy walls.
Webb was even more disheveled than usual, and the scruff on his jaw was a dark shadow. He looked like he hadn’t slept, and Percy didn’t know whether it was his imagination or whether Webb leaned more heavily on his stick.
And despite all of that, he looked good. Maybe because of it, even. Percy didn’t bother to pretend that he wasn’t looking—he never did.