Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [92]
The blade came free in a shower of white wood and he swung round, sweat coursing down his handsome face.
Stanislaus straightened to his full height and put one hand on his hip. Then, his lip curling into a sneer, he began to advance towards Winter, his cutlass flashing back and forth like a pendulum.
Winter parried every blow with expert skill, her own weapon scraping and clashing against the shining silver blade of her opponent.
‘Ha! Who’s the cripple now, Stanislaus!’ cried Winter, pressing forward.
Stanislaus redoubled his efforts, attempting to deflect Winter’s blows long enough to undercut her and sink his cutlass into the captain’s ample stomach.
But Winter was quite the Pole’s match. She seemed to positively radiate confidence as she smashed repeatedly into Stanislaus’s attack.
‘You are nothing!’ spat the Pole, breathing hard. ‘A booby! A peg-legged, one-eyed, tin-nosed bitch not fit to command a barge!’
Godley, who had muscled his way to the front of the baying crowd, seemed amused. He dabbed his mouth with his handkerchief and raised an eyebrow.
‘’Sblood, if the cripple ain’t got you beat, Captain Stanislaus!’
Stanislaus fell back on his haunches as the massive woman bore down on him.
He shot Godley a vicious look and rammed his cutlass against Winter’s, striking again and again and again, his teeth sinking into his lip until it bled.
‘God damn you, Winter!’ he screeched. ‘What do you want of me?’
‘I want your soul, you filthy cur!’ hissed Winter. ‘All these years I’ve followed you, hounded you, waiting for the right moment to take my revenge.’
Stanislaus slid across the deck, fighting a desperate rearguard action against the onslaught of Winter’s cutlass.
‘Revenge? Revenge for what? For breaking your heart?
Christ almighty, ‘twas half a lifetime ago!’
Winter stamped her peg leg against the deck with savage fury. ‘Nay, you scum. I was a mere slip of a thing. And girls get over such trifles. It is for this that I hate you!’
She placed her thumb and forefinger on the tip of her silver nose and flicked it. The strange metal shape clanged like a miniature bell.
‘It is for this that I despise you. And for this that I have sworn to eviscerate your filthy Polish hide!’
Stanislaus was tiring, his arm falling further and further back as he fought off Winter’s blows.
Exhausted, he glanced up and saw the shadow of the great ship’s block and tackle hanging above him. His face brightened as a possible avenue of victory opened up. His gaze darted rapidly from the block and tackle to Winter and to the side of the Teazer.
He leapt to his feet and blew air out of his cheeks as though infusing himself with renewed vigour.
‘That bauble?’ he replied acidly. ‘What have I to do with that? For, God strike me down if I lie, I have no recollection of cutting the blessed thing off.’
The crew laughed loudly, cheered by their captain’s recovery.
Winter glanced quickly round and neatly sidestepped the resurgent Pole’s attack.
‘You did not have to cut off my nose, Stanislaus. But I nevertheless lay its loss at your door.’
Stanislaus grinned and threw another quick glance at the block and tackle. If he could only manoeuvre Winter around and then make a dash for the poop deck...
‘I’faith, I can remember our liaison,’ he cried. ‘She wrote me such Ietters! And I kept them, just as I promised. You cannot imagine it now, gentlemen, but she was once a pretty thing!’
Again the crowd laughed and Winter swung her sword down, catching Stanislaus on the shoulder. The blade bit into the thick cloth of his coat but the Pole ignored it, pressing on and attempting to force Winter into the position he wanted.
‘I was!’ shouted Winter. ‘Indeed I was most comely. Until the Captain here afflicted me with Cupid’s love.’
Stanislaus almost stopped in his tracks, genuinely surprised. Then he began to laugh and used this as his means to break off the fighting and jump on to the poop deck, the block and tackle just a foot or so in front