be paired with in the first matches. He knew he could do it, moreover, without even tiring himself. He could use that time to be as showy and theatrical as possible, and to give the crowd time to take out their purses and send for their friends to do the same.
He was almost certain he could also best the more competent swordsmen he’d go up against in the following matches. Over the past weeks, he had watched them fight, studied their habits, and learned their weaknesses.
“What’s your name?” asked the man.
Bugger. Percy hadn’t thought of this. “Edward?” he said, hating that his voice seemed to want to make it into a question.
The man rolled his eyes. “Edward,” he repeated flatly. “No. You’re . . .” He gazed heavenward, as if looking for inspiration. “The Baron,” he said, apparently satisfied.
“No, my good man, I’m afraid not,” Percy responded, displeased with the stupid moniker and vaguely annoyed at being demoted to baron.
“Aye, my good man,” the fellow responded in what Percy gathered was meant to be an imitation of his accent. “Now, bugger off, Baron.” He flashed Percy a smile that contained far too many broken teeth.
Percy took himself off to stand with the other men.
“Smallsword,” said a man with closely cropped red hair, addressing the word more to the weapon at Percy’s hip than to Percy himself. He spoke in a thick London accent and appeared to be about thirty. Percy recognized him as one of the less skilled fighters he had watched on his previous visits. “You’re new, ain’t you. You take the nick, then.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, lud. A toff. Clancy’s barmy. You. Take. The. Nick,” he repeated slowly. “I scratch you, you fall, and the next time we switch.”
That was not going to do at all. “Is that customary? Are all the matches prearranged?”
“The ones early in the day are. Why tire yourself out, right?”
“Right,” Percy said slowly. That made sense, in a way. However, he had not gotten dressed and disguised and given his valet a heart attack only to be taken out in the first round. “I’m about to be a very bad sport, I’m afraid,” he said. “I apologize in advance.”
“Clancy!” the redhead bellowed. “I thought this was a quality establishment. Are you letting anybody fight, now?”
“How else would you be here?” the man with too many chipped teeth—evidently Clancy—shouted back.
“But do you really need to saddle me with gentlemen?”
“Get fucked, Brannigan,” Clancy called cheerfully.
“I do apologize,” Percy said. “It’s just that I don’t fancy getting, ah, nicked.”
Brannigan stared pointedly at the scar that sliced across Percy’s face. “Oh, you don’t, do you?”
“A lesson learned the hard way, shall we say?”
Brannigan sighed heavily. “Fine, have it your way.”
Percy watched as the crowd before the scaffold grew. He had never fought for any audience greater than the handful of people who might be gathered in a fencing studio. And some of these people had what looked like cabbages and turnips, no doubt to use as missiles in the event that the show wasn’t sufficiently entertaining.
To his horror, he grew faint. This was not the time, damn it, for his latent cowardice to assert itself. He needed to keep his wits—and his consciousness—about him.
“Come on,” Brannigan said with a sigh, tugging him by the sleeve. “We’re up.”
They went through the motions of bowing to one another. As he suspected, Brannigan wasn’t up to snuff, and Percy had him disarmed within two minutes.
To his surprise and horror, the crowd booed, and a cabbage landed at his feet.
“Too fast, idiot,” Brannigan hissed at him when he got to his feet and Percy restored his weapon to him. “You’ve got to give them their money’s worth.”
“They aren’t paying admission,” Percy argued.
“It doesn’t fucking matter,” Brannigan said. “Next fight, make it last.”
Brannigan’s words were still ringing in his ears as he started the next match, this time against a grizzled man who had to be twice his age.
The problem was that Percy didn’t know how to make a fight drag out longer than strictly necessary. He knew how to be ruthless, efficient, and spare. He didn’t know how to be entertaining.
Now he felt foolish for having thought he could take his one talent and use it to earn money. He was utterly unfit for earning a living. He didn’t know how to take a skill that he sometimes thought might be an art and make it into something fit for the consumption of—he let his attention get drawn to the crowd—rabble.