Author's note: I should add a disclaimer. Embarrassing to admit though it is, I do not actually know any French! My thanks to Slytherinsal, who was good enough to notice some mistakes in the previous chapter and help me to correct them. There is more French in this chapter, and still more to come in later chapters. I tried my best, using online translators, but there is a good chance that these will also be wrong. I apologize in advance, and if anyone sees any grievous mistakes, please let me know!
Also, I found another mistake in the previous chapter. I had the Vicomte mention D'artagnan, of Three Musketeers fame; however, Dumas didn't right that novel until many years later (in fact, he wrote several novels that were set in the same time as the Pimpernel stories). So the Vicomte could not possibly have known about D'Artagnan, some fifty years before 'The Three Musketeers' was written! Whoops! Let's just assume that the D'Artagnan he mentions is the real historical figure, Charles de Batz Castelmore d'Artagnan, on whom Dumas based his character. (I think Orczy briefly mentioned musketeers in 'I Will repay' - so there!)
Poor language skills and historical inaccuracies aside, please enjoy - I'm sorry that the next chapter took so long!
~ W. J.
Edit: my thanks to Artemis XIII, who gave me the information on the real D'Artagnan, and who told me that my line of French was correct - but the chapter's title was spelt wrong! I guess I dodged the hunter but fell into the snare. It is fixed now. Also, some people have told me that the Vicomte's name is 'de Tournay', not just 'Tournay' as I have written. However, I am using the traditional convention of omitting the 'de' when you refer to someone by surname alone, without a title (since 'de' translated as 'of', it makes sense). So, on with the newly-corrected chapter, without further ado!
Chapter 2: En Garde!
Sir Percy's heavy eyebrows rose up towards his crown of fair hair; his lazy eyes widened in wonderment as they followed the glittering line of the bare blade. "Do all Frenchmen entertain themselves with such energetic and dangerous pursuits? My good Viscount, when I came here in answer to your most eloquently-written summons, I had no intention of accepting your challenge. I find that challenges are best avoided – beastly uncomfortable things, these old-fashioned duels, which is why, I suppose, they have gone quite out of style. You may not be aware of this, sir, since you are newly arrived in our fair land, but it is strictly forbidden, by royal decree, to engage in a duel upon English soil. I suggest you shake the habit, sir, and concern yourself with another sort of engagement."
Each unconscious reference to the poor man's marital wishes seemed like coarse salt poured onto an open wound. "Zat I cannot do, monsieur," he said heatedly. "Mine honour dictates zat I must seek reparation from you for my wounded pride. Refugee though I am in your land, monsieur, I cannot build a future in your good country with mine and my family's honour already trampled so low in ze mud upon our very arrival."
"You will build a very fine future here, dear fellow, if you have already learned to speak the lingo thus; your language is quite exquisite. On the other hand," Blakeney added rather dryly, "you will have very little future if you insist on duelling with your hosts on their own grounds, at their very own garden parties."
He indeed brought to the Vicomte's attention the precariousness of his current situation. To threaten an unarmed man on his very own estate, at the very occasion to which his host had invited him - which was to say nothing of the conventions of the time, which strictly forbade duels from being instigated, even between noble gentlemen. Sir Percy was a renowned society figure; at any moment, his other guests might come along, seeking out their absent host. The Prince of Wales himself was in attendance, and if the Vicomte were to be caught in this hostile attitude, the repercussions for him would be extremely unpleasant…
However, young Tournay's blood was already ignited with anger and with love; these two turbulent forces combined to make the youth feel invincible, even in the face of such an immense and influential adversary. "I have no intention of accepting refusal, Monsieur. I suggest you draw, else you fall as a coward where you stand." Whilst he spoke, he took a second sword from his belt, a duplicate of his own, and tossed it at the feet of the Englishman.
"You will not have it any other way, my dear Vicomte?" Blakeney asked, his looks and tone finally becoming a trifle more serious.
"Non, monsieur," the other replied, reverting to his native tongue in his overmastering determination. His opponent's only reply to this grim vision was to again shrug nonchalantly, like a man merely humouring the will of the inevitable; he bent gracefully at the waist and lifted the sword from the ground.
"If you think I be unfair, Monsieur," Tournay suggested, still willing to uphold the conventions of duelling etiquette despite his apparent hostility, "You might have your choice of the two swords, so you know zat neither is defected…"
"Bah! One sword is as good to me as any other," Blakeney retorted carelessly. The Vicomte scowled, but remained silent. The pair of swords was his father's; both were priceless heirlooms of the finest forging, passed down through the family for generations. They had been brought to England on the Vicomte's own person, on that danger-fraught journey from bloodthirsty Paris. He almost winced to see one of his family's few remaining treasures being held by such a boorish hand.
"Well, sir," Sir Percy said, still in measured tones despite the situation, "since you would insist on doing me the honour; as they say in your country, en garde!" And he drew the sword with an ease which surprised Tournay, giving him the very first vague inkling of what he had truly come up against.
The first few clashes of the swords did not worry the Vicomte very much; however, as though this first engagement had been a mere test of his form, or else a means to lull him into a false confidence, he began to find himself being pressed increasingly hard. The Vicomte had the swiftness and agility of youth; and yet, the English gentleman moved with a speed which betrayed his lumbering size. What was more, strength was assuredly on his side. The Vicomte could feel that with each parry and thrust, the force of his opponent's arm was ever increasing, wearing down the youth's own, comparatively paltry, reserves of stamina. Though the summer sun had now almost set, making way for the coolness of evening, the younger combatant found it to be very hot work. The Englishman was elusive in his retreat, and a reckonable force in his riposte.
The English turkey was proving to be a falcon in disguise.
The French bantam found himself rather taken aback. He had expected that due to Sir Percy's considerable size, his opponent might have caused him some initial trouble; but given the man's universally acknowledge buffoonery, the Vicomte had been confident that he could soon outmanoeuvre such a dullard by battling with wit. However, Blakeney seemed an indefatigable combatant, and one of immense skill, able to recognize every feign and counter-parry Tournay might attempt, returning each with a precise stroke of his own. The Vicomte's ability, though substantial, was nevertheless limited by his inexperience; as both the instigating party, and the party with most to lose by his defeat, his actions became increasingly audacious, to his own detriment. At one point, a sweeping cut from Sir Percy's blade came perilously close; it sliced a single lace ruffle from the edge of the Vicomte's sleeve. This seemed to galvanize the young Frenchman into an ever-more desperate bid to gain the upper hand. His attacks became wilder, as he attempted with each thrust to bring the duel to a swift conclusion. Blakeney, however, seemed to divine his every move in advance, and the match wore on, gradually taking its toll on both his strength and his nerves.
All the while, pretty Sally watched from the rose arbour with bated breath, her hands to her face and many times peering through her fingers, barely daring to watch. When Sir Percy's blade sliced a fragment from her lover's sleeve, the maiden smothered a shriek of terror in her throat; a terrible feeling of foreboding seemed to linger over her. It looked inevitable that her beloved would lose; and yet, even if he were to win, the price of wounding, perhaps even killing, the famed Sir Percy Blakeney would lead to a fate much the same. Whatever the outcome, it could be naught but disastrous for her proud lover.
The end came soon enough. The Vicomte, his endurance swiftly waning, made one last strength-consuming lunge; his strike met no resistance and, stumbling forward, he measured his length upon the ground. He instantly struggled to one knee, but looked up just in time to see a sword hilt, and the fist that held it, hurtling down toward his prone head.
Pretty Sally could bear no more. Unbeknownst to her, another figure had lingered in the arbour just behind her, unseen and unheard from where she had stood, transfixed by each flash of blades in the gathering dusk. Only half-felt through her fainting senses, a pair of gentle hands was there to catch her as she fell.
The Vicomte waited for the finishing blow to fall with gritted teeth; however, it never came. Confused, he raised his head, and found his opponent's sword hilt poised above his head, as though about to strike him. The graceful hand, which many ladies of the court so loved to pet and praise for its beauty, was now curled tightly in a hard fist. Tournay had a good view of it from his position; and he saw quite plainly, upon the second-to-last finger, a gold signet ring, consisting of a flat gold shield emblazoned with a single design – a flower with five pointed petals, done in red enamel.
The Vicomte's inner thoughts were instantly thrown into turmoil. The sight of that simple device recalled for him so many emotions. It represented so much that he owed on behalf of himself and his family to a miraculous and mysterious entity: the notorious Scarlet Pimpernel. The appearance of this symbol upon the hand of his own self-declared nemesis – particularly when the Vicomte remembered that Blakeney derided the nation's great hero at every given opportunity, yet another way in which the man regularly invoked his ire – it only made him still more puzzled.
Then, as though to even more completely stun his young opponent, dissipating any doubts which might remain in Tournay's torturously chaotic mind, a nearby voice said, with Sir Percy's drawling tone, yet in perfect French:
"Cédez, mon jeune ami; cette folie est allée assez loin."
Author's note: since I fear that anyone who uses an online translator (or indeed, actually speaks French) will get a different result to what i intended, that last line is supposed to read: "Yield, my young friend; this foolishness has gone far enough."