Chapter 14: Family Traditions

"You have to ask? Of course I do. This is amazing. Can we start right now"

A sleek black Mercedes limousine pulled up at the edge Circus Gehlhaar's campground drawing curious stares from everyone nearby. It was impossible to see who was behind the dark tinted windows. Wolfgang slid across the leather seat and went to open the door. He had barely pulled the lever up before the driver jumped out and opened the door for him.

"Thanks, but honestly, I can get out of the car on my own." Wolfgang said.

"Yes Sir." The driver said.

"I told you you could call me Wolfgang." He wished his father had let him take the bus. They had argued about it for nearly an hour until Wolfgang finally conceded to being driven in the family's limousine.

The driver popped open the Mercedes' voluminous trunk and pulled out Wolfgang's suitcase, then a long streamer trunk, which he heaved to the ground with a grunt.

"Where shall I take them Sir"

"Just leave them here." Wolfgang said. "I can take care of it."

"I don't mind carrying them, Sir." The driver said, picking up the suitcase in one hand and grasping the handle of the trunk in the other.

Wolfgang sighed. "Oh, all right. And please call me Wolfgang." He picked up the handle on the other end of the trunk. "We're going to that trailer over there." He said and pointed to his rather shabby looking office/quarters. The driver made a face.

They left the trunk outside the trailer, but the driver insisted on carrying the suitcase in and began unpacking it for him. Wolfgang held up his hands.

"Okay, that really is enough now." Wolfgang said. He shut the suitcase and gently steered the driver towards the door. He walked with him back to the car. "Tell my father thank you for the ride."

"Of course, Sir."

"Thanks. And next time, please remember to call me Wolfgang."

"I will Sir. Farewell."

Wolfgang watched the Mercedes retreating in a cloud of dust along the dirt and gravel road that lead away from their campground. He tried not to laugh. At least being called "Sir" was better than the "Young Master" they used to use. Kurt popped out from behind a small stand of trees.

"Good Afternoon Sir." He said.

"Shut up blue elf."

Kurt laughed. "Who was that? Is that your car"

"Both of them belong to my father." Wolfgang said with a frown. "I was just hitching a ride for the day. I guess it's bad enough that I work for a circus so he had to make up for it by sending me back here in that thing. The neighbors might start talking otherwise. I really shouldn't complain though."

"We missed you." Kurt said. "Did you have a nice visit home"

Wolfgang shrugged. "It was okay I guess. I didn't do very much; my father was too busy with some hotel deal in Prague. I did have lunch with mother several times though. And I got to see my brother Siegfried for the first time in years. "

"Siegfried"

"Yeah" Wolfgang said, shaking his head "Isn't that terrible. Our surname is Wagner and my parents go and name their kid Siegfried. I think I almost got named Fafner. Ridiculous."

Kurt burst out laughing. "It could have been worse. What about Wotan"

Wolfgang cringed. "Oh my God, you're right. Wotan would have been the end of me. Come with me, I've got something to show you." Wolfgang led Kurt back to his trailer and snapped open the locks on his trunk. He lifted the lid and they looked inside.

"Wow. Are all those swords yours" Kurt asked.

"Yes. But they're more like rapiers actually. Nothing in there really qualifies as a sword." He removed the topmost weapon from the box. "This is the fancy one." He said as he grasped the backswept clamshell design hilt and slid the blade from its scabbard. "It's just for show really. The rest of them are more utilitarian."

Kurt crouched beside the box. He reached in and pulled out a very thin bladed weapon with a very oddly shaped handle. "What's with this" He asked, pointing to it.

"You have good taste." Wolfgang said. "That is my absolute favorite fencing foil. I owe quite a few trophies to that baby."

Kurt squinted at the odd grip and tried to grasp it in one hand.

"That's called a pistol grip. Unfortunately, you need four fingers and a thumb for that particular handle." Wolfgang said. He took the weapon from Kurt and demonstrated, the curves fitting within his hand exactly. "It's like an extension of your arm this way." He pulled a similar weapon from the box that had a more traditional looking French grip. "Try this one instead." He said.

Kurt took it and wrapped his hand around the hilt. "It's very nice." He said.

Wolfgang knelt down and started pulling more things from the box, naming them as he went. "This is called an epee. You can see its blade is a bit thicker than the foil. The targets on the body are different too. This is a sabre, in competition you can do a slash attack as well as a thrust. And here's another foil like the one you have there; it's lightest of the three weapons."

Kurt noticed that there was several of each weapon. Some of them had the funny looking pistol grip, but there were others with more traditional looking handles. He put the foil he had been holding down to inspect them. "What is all this for" Kurt asked.

Gesturing grandly at the box and its contents, Wolfgang said"This is our family sport."

"Sword fighting is a sport"

"No, but fencing is. The Wagner's have been fencers for generations. There are even a few Olympic medalists in the family. " Wolfgang laughed. "It's the only reason to go to any of our family affairs in my opinion. After we eat, during the time when everyone would normally be lounging gossiping about the people who couldn't come, we fight each other. There are grudge matches that go back decades."

Kurt laughed. "I can't even imagine that" he said.

Wolfgang nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's pretty funny looking, but it sure beats the usual crap people do at their family gatherings." Wolfgang pulled a few more things from the box including several white jackets and a pair of strange mesh covered masks.

"That's cool, but why did you bring all this here"

"You're a Wagner now. It seems only fitting that you be schooled in our most noble and worthwhile family tradition." Wolfgang said.

"You want to teach me to sword fight" Kurt asked.

"If you want to learn." Wolfgang said.

"You have to ask" Kurt cried. "Of course I do. This is amazing. Can we start right now"

Wolfgang laughed. "Maybe I could unpack first, and then look for a place to store all this stuff while we're not using it. After that, sure." He and Kurt started putting everything back into the box.

Wolfgang started teaching Kurt to fence the next day. They used the smooth floor that was laid down inside the main tent and Wolfgang used white gaffer's tape to mark out a strip.

"The rules are simple." Wolfgang said. "All combat is done within this narrow box here. If you step outside it's a foul and the fencers have to go back to their starting points. There are three weapon types: foil, epee, and sabre, though sabre is kind of going out of fashion. Besides the differences in the types of blades, they have different target areas.

"In sabre the target area is everything from the waist up. For epee, anything goes. The target is the whole body. That's why the bell guard is so huge. The wrist is a really common target. Foil has the smallest target area, just the torso, no arms or head.

"A match is 5 points, or touches on your opponent. Who ever reaches five first wins.

We'll start with foil I think. It has the most discipline and I happen to like it best." Wolfgang grinned.

"I hope you're right handed." Wolfgang said as he handed Kurt the French grip hilt foil from the other day. Wolfgang picked up his pistol grip foil and demonstrated the basic en garde position, his right foot in front of the left, his knees slightly bent, the foil held at waist level and tilted slightly upwards, and his left up with the elbow crooked.

Kurt was starting to get the whole step forward, step back, and lunge thing when he noticed Lars watching from the stands. He stopped and waved. Lars walked down the aisle.

"What are you doing" He asked.

"Wolfgang is teaching me to fence. En garde" He jumped into position with his foil at the ready. Lars pushed it away.

"How come you get to learn to fence" He asked.

"You can learn too if you want." Wolfgang said, already reaching into his box to pull out another weapon.

"Yeah, but you have to do something really embarrassing first to prove you're worthy." Kurt added grinning.

"Oh, you mean like fall off the tight wire and knock Sven out of the air"

"Exactly."

Wolfgang glanced at Kurt and laughed. Obviously there was some history there that he didn't know about, but he could imagine Kurt doing something like that. Lars looked around. "I can't think of anything just now." He said.

"Okay" said Kurt"But you owe us."

The three of them quickly got into a routine, pulling out the fencing gear an hour or so before show time. Wolfgang was an incredible fencer. Kurt didn't know much but he had learned enough to see that he would most likely never achieve the same level of skill. Wolfgang adjusted his fencing to be fair to his opponents, but every so often he played to win and Kurt wouldn't even see it coming.

It became clear that having an uneven number wasn't nearly as fun and to their surprise it was Amanda who asked to be their fourth. Wolfgang never thought of Amanda as the physical type, but she quickly proved him wrong. She was equal with Lars and the two of them were slightly behind Kurt, but that was because he had the benefit his tail as a counter balance.

They would spend the most of their practice time drilling each other and putting on masks and jackets to pair up and spar each other. Once they were proficient in the basics Wolfgang started ending practice by showing them the traditional rapier techniques. Kurt actually liked this better. The narrow grip on the foil always felt wrong in his hand and the confinement to a thin strip of floor was, well, confining.

The rapier on the other hand was a much longer weapon with a much heavier blade. The handles of Wolfgang's practice rapiers were much sturdier and easier to hold. The best part was that it was much more open; instead of a strip they were free to go anywhere they wanted. The footwork was less confining as well. And most importantly, it looked much more like the sword fighting in Wolfgang's pirate movies than foil fencing did. Kurt could see how learning the basics of sport fencing were important, but he always looked forward to the second half of their practice sessions.

Though he had been skeptical at first, Kurt was beginning to see that being Kurt Wagner had more fringe benefits than he had first realized.

Author's note: Siegfried, Fafner, and Wotan are all characters from Wagner's Ring Cycle.