I stared down at the ground where his sword had pa.s.sed. Dancing? Deadly circles? Had Mateo been imbibing the don's wine again?

"The first thing you must understand is that there are two types of sword fighters, the quick and the dead." His sword flashed as a blur before my eyes. "What type of sword fighter are you, b.a.s.t.a.r.do?"

"The quick!" I slashed out with my sword like I was chopping down a tree. The sword flew out of my hand, and Mateo's sword was at my throat. The tip of his sword was under my chin; his dagger pushed against my gut. He put pressure on my chin with his sword and I stretched onto my tiptoes. Blood ran down my neck.

"You are dead, Chico. I ask G.o.d to grant you one more life so that I can teach you to fight with a sword, but when your training is over, there will be no more mercy. The next man you fight will either kill you-or be killed."

Mateo released the pressure on my throat.

"Pick up your sword."

I scrambled to get the blade, wiping blood from my neck.

"Stand before me with your feet together. Now take a step toward me. Extend your sword as far as you can and mark a spot in front of you and to each side."

After I scored the dirt with my sword, Mateo drew a circle around me, more to the front than to the back.

"That is the circle of death. It is not one circle, but a thousand, moving with you, moving with your opponent. It is liquid, like ripples in water, constantly moving, constantly changing, flowing toward you, flowing back."

Mateo faced me and stood at the edge of the circle. "The circle begins at the point you can reach across and inflict a wound or death on your opponent. From here I can hit your face, your chest, your stomach." He moved slightly to the left. "From either side I can get the sides of your body. I move a little more and I can slice the hamstring behind your leg. Remember, Chico, the circle is fluid-it changes with every step.

"And it belongs to both of you. When you face another swordsman, one or both of you will close the s.p.a.ce between you. When you get close enough to strike, the circle is created for both of you."

Along with the physical combat, Mateo gave me much verbal instruction about the uses of swords.

The dress rapier most men carried in town was lighter and fancier than the military swords and much less lethal.

"It will serve you well to fend off an attacker on a city street or in a duel of honor, and it is good for thrusting or cutting, but when you are in the thick of battle you need a weapon that will kill an opponent who may be wearing padding or even armor, one that can cut off an enemy's arm or head. A military sword will allow you to drive back a group of attackers or even cut your way through."

He demonstrated how the basket hilt protected the hand on a light sword. "The sword you duel with should have this type of hilt that protects your hand from a downward slice. But neither the dress sword you carry on the streets or the military sword you carry for protection outside a city should have an elaborate hilt. Why not?"

"Because, uh, becau-"

"Estupido!" He attacked with his rapier, the sword a blur as he struck me again and again, raising painful welts on my arms and legs.

"When you reach for a sword, whether it be from a sudden attack in battle or a sudden attack on a street from a robber, you may have only a split second to arm yourself. If there is a fancy hilt guard, you will grab it instead of getting a good grip on the hilt. When that happens, b.a.s.t.a.r.do, you will have a sword sticking in your throat before your own weapon is free of its scabbard. Most duels are arranged in advance. Thus you can use an elaborate hilt guard to protect your hand because you do not have to draw your sword to protect yourself from a sudden attack."

Not all swords are right for a particular man, he told me. The weight of the sword depends upon the strength of a man. "Much attention must be given to the length you need for your height and the length of your arms. If your sword is too long, you will not be able to uncross the blade from your opponent's without stepping back and putting yourself off balance. If it is too short, the circle of death will be smaller for your opponent because of his greater reach."

He showed me how to discover the length I needed. I held my dagger out arm length in one hand, the arm horizontal to the ground but the dagger held upward, and my other hand with my elbow crooked so the sword hilt was at my hip. "The sword should reach the grip of the dagger but not extend beyond," he said.

Everything else being equal, a tall man will prevail over a shorter man because he has a longer weapon and a longer reach.

"If your sword is too heavy, you will lack the speed to attack, parry, or counterattack. If it is too light, your opponent's blade will break it."

I had to build up strength, and I did this by practicing with a much heavier sword than either my dress sword or my military sword. "Your arm will think it is carrying the heavier sword, and you will be able to use your swords with greater speed and strength."

The dagger is a useless weapon for warding off blows. It has one good purpose: "When your blade is crossed with your opponent's, you stab him with your dagger before he can get his weapon uncrossed."

Ayyo, my Aztec ancestors would be proud to see that I was learning the fine art of killing from a true master. Mateo may have been a liar, a purloiner of poetry and women, but when it came to the art of killing, he was a master.

"You must always be the aggressor," he told me. "Not that you should start all fights-but once they start, you must counterattack so aggressively your opponent is on the defensive. And when a fight is inevitable and your opponent chooses to talk about it, while he is still concentrating on insulting you with words, you must pay him the greatest insult of all-put your dagger in his gut."

The aggressor almost always wins a fight, he said. He who strikes first is most often the one who will live to fight again. "But what is aggression?" Mateo asked. "It is not the charge of a bull or mindless slashing. Successful aggression derives from a combination of great defensive maneuvers and brilliant offense. Even if you are hacking your way through a troop of the enemy, you must make every slash count because the one you miss may cost your life."

Mateo viewed fencing as another form of dancing.

"A swordsman must adopt the posture of a dancer, standing tall with body straight, but with knees flexible. Only then can we move quickly. Rapiers extended before us, our opponent at bay, our feet must move like a dancer's, never pausing, always in motion, but not capriciously. Dancers do not move their feet any which way but in harmony with the music, their partner, their mind, and the rest of the body. You must hear the music and dance to the rhythm."

"Where does the music come from?"

"The music plays in your mind, the tempo created by the movements of you and your opponent, and you dance to it. Thrust, parry, dance, standing straight up, your arm extended, keeping him from drawing a circle around you, dance, dance."

Mateo pranced like a young girl at her first ball, and I made the mistake of giggling-his sword whizzed by my cheek and cut a locket of my hair.

"Laugh again and they will call you One-Ear instead of b.a.s.t.a.r.do. En garde!"

When I stumbled with my footwork, Mateo cursed me. "It is my fault to ask a lowly lepero to wield anything more strenuous than a begging cup. If you cannot dance because your feet and your brain are not in the same body, then at least think of it as swimming. You must use all of your body at once when you swim. Swim toward me, b.a.s.t.a.r.do, step, step, thrust, parry, and step-small steps, you oaf! If you tread on your dance partner's toes, he will thrust his sword into your throat."

Each day I learned more about pain. And I noticed more and more scars on Mateo's face, arms, and chest when he took off his shirt to rinse the heat and sweat from his body. He had a name for every scar-Inez, Maria, Carmelita, Josie, and other women he had fought duels of honor for. There were even scars on his back, one particularly nasty one when an angry father's thrown dagger caught him in the back after he leaped from a girl's balcony.

I began to acc.u.mulate my own scars from Mateo's angry slashing.

"You must follow your body's instinctive reaction, not your eye. A flashing sword lies to the eye because it moves quicker than the eye can follow. You sword must be in position to ward the blow and counter, relying on the eye to follow the action. Your eye will lie to you and kill you.

"I have studied under Don Luis Pacheco de Narvaez, the greatest swordsman in all the world, he who was a student of Caranza himself. Caranza taught that the fluid, dexterous dance, what he called La Destreza, was the way of the swordsman."

After months of practice, Mateo made his judgment of me as a swordsman.

"You are dead, dead, dead. You might be able to hack your way through a side of beef with a two-handed sword or maybe an indio who has been tied up and thrown on the ground, but you are too slow and too clumsy to survive against a good swordsman."

That glint of cunning came into his eyes that I have seen when he is about to cut another man's purse or steal his woman.

"Since you will never be able to survive with the skills of a gentleman, you must learn how to be a tricky swine."

"I want to be a gentleman!"

"A dead gentleman?"

The lepero in me decided the issue. "Show me how to be a swine."

"You have as much strength and skill-or lack of skill-in your left hand as in your right. Swordsmen call the left hand the devil's paw for good reason-the Church frowns on the use of the left hand, and most men are taught to use the right hand for sword fighting only, even if their left hand is their superior one. You are not a gentlemen. You can fight with the left hand. But you must understand that simply using your left hand against a skilled swordsman will not give you a great advantage-unless you combine it with surprise.

"I will teach you a movement that you can use in desperation when you realize that the swordsman you are up against is going to slice pieces of meat off of you until you bleed to death standing up. You begin the fight with your sword in your right hand and your dagger in the left. When you are out of the circle, you suddenly let your dagger drop and switch the sword to your left hand as you step into the circle. It means dropping your guard for the briefest moment, and he would put his point in your heart if you did not ward off the thrust"

"How do I ward off the thrust?"

"With your shield."