Davis closed on Jenny at once, swinging his axe through a figure of eight. The iron blade emitted a thrumming noise as it cleaved the air and she retreated, raising her hands.
“Put it down,” she pleaded. “I can’t fight you.”
Davis continued to advance, grinning like a bully; the axe-head was a blur and Jenny found herself pinned against the battlements. She shrank against the masonry, but there was nowhere to go except down. The blade hummed closer, preparing to bite into her neck, severing her spinal column, and Jenny flinched and screwed up her eyes …
The humming stopped. Strong hands grabbed Jenny by the wrists, spinning her around, forcing her into a prone position. A knee pressed down on her neck, making her prisoner. So she had a sideways view as Jake Wolsey and Charlie Waits locked horns at last.
Waits moved with grace when armed, swishing the blade before him, languid and playful. The weapon seemed to have unleashed his inner ballerina; he was light on his feet and he advanced side on. Jake knew there was only one way to survive this: he had to kill Waits and then Davis, one after the other. He jettisoned the papyri and faced his foe, waggling the sword.
In a few seconds I’m going to be actually fighting this guy.
Jake swung at Waits then – a lover’s blow, crude and lunging. The spy parried the swipe and laughed, as though Jake had revealed himself a trifle gauche at the club bridge night. He’d used no strength whatsoever to render the blow impotent; it was all in the technique.
The realization crashed over Jake like fractured ice.
Must have learned it at Eton or somewhere.
Now Waits assumed the classic fencer’s stance: side on, knees bent, fist behind back. His blade was extended and slightly lowered and he advanced on Jake with a series of half-skips, like a bouncing crab.
“Huzzah!”
The blade fizzed out of nowhere, knocking Jake’s own sword aside, jarring his wrist.
“Huzzah!” cried Waits again, sword shivering forward once more. The journalist’s defence was blown open with a clang.
“Huzzah!” An elegant swipe this time, placed on Jake’s shoulder.
The flexibility of the blade introduced an element of whiplash to the strike and it spun Jake around. The cut was a half-inch deep, clean as a surgeon’s incision. The journalist felt a wave of panic. I’m fighting for my life here.
Tourists gathered in the courtyard below – the fire alarm must have been a ploy to move them outside so they could admire the performance theatre. But Jake wasn’t conscious of the audience. The blade grew heavier by the second and already he had a dead arm. Waits could have run him through with ease, but he was playing to the crowd. The spymaster’s swings had built to a rhythm, a grand slam tennis player with an opponent on the ropes. Each stroke was met with an ‘ooh’ and an ‘aah’ from the crowd and Jake’s blade bounced from left to right. He gripped the sword two-handed now – he no longer had the strength to wield it with one arm. The smile fell from Waits’s face, as though the stance outraged his sense of fair play, and he flicked out with the sword of King George III.
“Huzzah!”
The blades met in a shower of sparks and Jake found he was holding the sword one-handed again.
“Huzzah!”
Another clash, and Jake stumbled backward, bumped against stone. Below them the crowd roared, sensing blood.
“Huzzah!”
Waits’s sword nuzzled Jake’s, as if docking with it; then in a twirling motion the royal blade seemed to wrap itself around that of Oliver Cromwell, causing it to turn with force. Jake was forced to let go: his sabre sang through the air before crashing onto the battlements. The applause from below was spontaneous and prolonged.