“M’lords,” repeated Scharley, slowly, patiently and emphatically as though speaking to a child. “If you wouldn’t mind taking your leave, m’lords, and engage in something you are familiar with. Like sodomy. Otherwise you’ll receive a damned good thrashing before any of you gentlemen have time to say credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem.”

The first fop swung his cane. Scharley nimbly dodged the blow, seized the stick and twisted. The fop turned a somersault and landed in the mud. The penitent used the cane to hit the second dandy over the head, sending him into the beer stall, and quick as lightning rapped the third one’s knuckles. Meanwhile, the first one had sprung up and lunged at Scharley, roaring like a wounded bison. Without visible effort, the penitent stopped the charge with a blow that folded the dandy in two. Then Scharley elbowed him powerfully in the kidney and kicked him nonchalantly in the ear as he fell. The man curled up like a worm and didn’t try to stand.

The other two looked at each other and drew daggers in unison. Scharley wagged a finger at them.

“I advise against that,” he said. “Knives can cut!”

The fops ignored the warning.

Reynevan thought he’d been watching the incident closely, but he must have missed something because he couldn’t comprehend what happened next. Juxtaposed against the dandies rushing at him and whirling their weapons like windmills, Scharley appeared almost motionless, and the movements he made when they fell on him were subtle, almost too quick to apprehend. One of the fops dropped to his knees, lowering his head almost to the ground, wheezed and spat teeth out into the mud one after another. His companion was sitting, screaming unremittingly in a thin, high ululation, mouth wide open like a very hungry infant. He was still holding his own dagger, but his comrade’s knife was plunged up to its gilded guard into his thigh.

Scharley looked up at the sky and spread his arms as if to say, What did I tell you? He took off his ridiculous, over-tight tunic and went over to the man spitting teeth. He nimbly caught him by the elbow, jerked it up, grabbed a sleeve and ejected the dandy from his quilted jerkin with several well-aimed kicks. Then donned it himself.

“Handsome is as handsome does,” he said, stretching luxuriously. “But only when a man is well attired does he feel true dignity.”

Then he leaned over and tore an embroidered pouch from the fop’s belt.

“Wealthy city, this Strzegom,” he said. “Wealthy indeed. Money’s lying around in the streets, just look.”