Capítulo 1491: Chapter 244: Darkness! Damn It’s Dark!
The embers in the fireplace were nearly extinguished. Arthur leaned against the carved oak bedpost, as the morning light seeped through the foggy glass window, clearly illuminating the bruise on his left cheekbone.
The maid Martha knelt on the Persian carpet, her coarse fingertips dipped in ointnt, yet her movents were exceptionally gentle.
She thought to herself, this British gentleman’s skin was as pale as the saints in the church murals, as if it would shatter with the slightest force.
Thinking of this, the maid Martha’s fingers paused in applying the ointnt. She glanced at the gold pocket watch on the bedside table, its chain snapped, stained with dried blood left by the robbers’ tugging last night.
“You should be thankful they didn’t take your nose snuff bottle, sir.” Martha lowered her head, a strand of brown hair slipping from under her gray headscarf, “The wild dogs in Moscow now dare even to lick the Emperor’s boots. Last month, Ivan the liquor vendor’s granary was burned to ashes, and the police didn’t catch the arsonist but first seized the last barrel of vodka from his cellar.”
Arthur’s cheekbone still ached dully, yet he was in the mood to joke: “Maybe I should wear a Madonna. I hear people say only Holy Mary can keep safe while walking at night in Moscow.”
Though Arthur got solidly clubbed by the robbers, it sohow sparked the long-dormant thrill in this old London policeman’s life.
On the way back from the Moscow theatre last night, engaging in swordplay with thugs in the snow, Arthur exhibited a certain youthful exuberance of an old man rekindled.
Moscow’s night was like a giant beast skinned, the cold wind and snow pellets scraping the stone walls of Kitegrode.
The raven decoration on the silver-tipped cane was crusted with ice crystals, and Arthur’s thumb brushed the sharkskin-wrapped handle.
The short thug attacked first, his dagger tracing an upward arc, using the bone-picking style favored by the Novgorod gang to impart Russia’s rustic charm on this British knight.
Arthur spun and retreated half a step, the cane lightly tapping the assailant’s wrist, the Fiore Style’s backhand sword technique “Bee Sting” bared its fangs in the negative twenty-degree weather, the silver tip of the cane precisely gouging into the gap between the radial and ulna bones, flipping the short thug’s dagger into a firewood-laden cart by the roadside.
As the burly thug staggered back, Arthur’s deerskin boot sole ground onto his foot, and the cane slashed toward his collarbone with gathered montum.
The classic Fiore Style leg-locking technique paired with the “Woodcutter” vertical slash instantly routed this gang of thugs.
How should one put it, ever since leaving the frontline of Scotland Yard, Arthur hadn’t fought this heartily in a long while.
Even in Gottingen, where he had Bismarck, a self-proclaid ‘Gottingen Sword Wolf’ student as a sparring partner, sword dueling couldn’t quite compare to this life-and-death gamble, at best it was a ager appetizer.
Arthur had to admit Bismarck’s skills were indeed not bad; his favored “Storm Triple Strike” was particularly noteworthy.
Such a tactic, feigning a stumble to lure in the enemy, then abruptly smashing the poml into the cheekbone, kneeing the abdon, and down-striking the opponent’s sword backhand, matched Bismarck’s sly nature well.
If it was a first-ti encounter with Bismarck, not knowing his tricks, it could indeed be easy to suffer a big loss.
But once you saw through Bismarck’s routine, and broke his three-axe strikes, you could basically toy with him at will.
Arthur narrated his rigorous schooling past to Martha with a grin, while Martha, looking at the smug master, secretly mused: “After all, still a lad in his twenties.”
If it was when she was still a girl, she might have adored such a lad, but now being forty and a mother, she just thought such a lad was downright foolish, utterly irresponsible with his own life.
Martha couldn’t help but speak up: “Thank God you won in the end. If your old mother knew you were fighting in the snow with a bunch of thugs, she’d be scared out of her wits. Please do a favor, and don’t do sothing so reckless again. Why give robbers a chance by taking a sleigh instead of a perfectly good carriage?”
Arthur scratched his nose, not yet shaken off the thrill from last night: “What’s wrong with taking a sleigh? I see the nobility in St. Petersburg and Moscow all take them, plus, with the icy roads these days, a sleigh might actually be safer than a carriage.”
Martha let out a short laugh, and the dicine jar clinked on the silver tray: “Those thugs, were they finally sent to the police station?”
Arthur nodded gently, saying: “They’re locked up now with the arsonists caught in the theater last night. Later, I still have to go to the police headquarters to assist the investigation as a witness.”
Speaking of last night’s intentional arson, Martha couldn’t help but exclaim: “These people are simply insane! Yesterday, when I went to the Suharev Tower to buy cod, there was already a fire, did you see it, that fla was like a red snake crawling along the wooden row houses. I thought at the ti, at most this would be it for today, right? Who knew, at night soone would go to the Emperor’s theater to commit arson.”
Arthur jested: “Luckily they didn’t succeed, because I’m not interested in dueling with fire snakes.”
Martha put down the silver tray with the dicine jar and picked up her knitting needle to continue her work: “Such a pity for a fine play. You’re a guest in Moscow, coming all the way here, you ought to be received with top hospitality. Yet now, not only did you not get to see the play, you almost got robbed by a few hooligans. With the police being so negligent in their duties, no wonder the Emperor would be furious.”
User Comments
0 comments from readers