This was more like it. This fellow almost certainly did something that involved lifting and moving heavy things. And obviously liked a good fight just as much as Ruy did. He was taller than Ruy by half a head, a good deal wider, and was built like an ox. And plainly wasn't even thinking about buying him a drink.
Beside him, he heard the pimp draw a blade. Something short. Ruy hadn't lived to his mature years by being slow, however. Without really thinking about it or doing more than glance to his side, he had a stiletto against the fellow's scrawny throat. "Put it away, little pimp, or I shave you real fucking close."
He pressed the edge of the blade against the man's Adam's apple. It was a stabbing weapon, with no edge to speak of, but where he was holding it the pimp couldn't see that. The pimp's knife went back into its sheath, which it had hardly cleared.
Ruy looked back at the big guy. "You want to make something of it?" he said, ostentatiously returning his stiletto to his belt. He didn't want anyone to get the idea this was a knife-fight. A few bruises and broken furniture was no one's concern, but if there were dead bodies it would be an effort to clear up.
There was doubt in the big man's eyes now. Ruy knew his speed had that effect on many people. Nevertheless, and credit the fellow for courage, he took a step forward, curling up his fists. "I got no knife, Spaniard," he said. "You man enough to face me without?"
Ruy spat in front of his new opponent. Behind him, he heard the fellow he had originally challenged backing away and getting the hell out. Good, he thought, fighting the likes of that milksop would be no fun at all. He heard the others who'd stood up resume their seats, and around the place there were knowing grins. Clearly this fellow was the local hero. Best to get him good and mad. "I'd face you without hands, you fat fuck, and beat you with my cock. You ever seen a real cock, bitch?"
That did it. Elegant and flowery insults were wasted in a place like this. The fellow charged. Ruy's sidestep would have done a matador proud, and it was hardly any effort at all to trip the lumbering mass so he went into a table full of revelers, scattering their drinks and spilling the two whores who were with them to the floor. That got them up and advancing on Ruy with blood in their eyes, while Big Fellow got to his feet, shaking his head to clear it.
A quick step forward, and a couple of punches rocked one of them back on his heels. A space cleared, Ruy stepped back, grabbed a vacant stool and threw it at the others. The rebound cleared another table, they barged two more tables, and suddenly—the speed at which these things happened was too fast for even Ruy to follow—everyone in the taverna was on their feet jostling and shoving and shouting and in the ruckus, and the original cause of the disturbance was starting to feel quite surplus to requirements.
It was still a good imitation of pandemonium. Fighting his way to the door, Ruy had to hit another guy with a stool, then two more with the leg of the stool that had somehow come apart in his hand—damned shoddy Italian carpentry—and finally kicked a fourth in the crotch and whacked him in the ass with the makeshift club as he doubled over.
He paused at the door, waiting his turn in the stream of people leaving before knives came out, and looked back to survey his handiwork. Complete chaos and mayhem, he felt, quite compensating for the tedium of the evening so far. And, yes, the pimp was on the floor with blood running from his head. Accident, or a score settled in the confusion, Ruy didn't care. Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. He took one last look around before dodging out, and froze. Then, he uttered a whole stream of swearwords under his breath.
"Not him," he murmured, "anyone but him."
There, across the room, flanked by a couple of bravos, holding off the swirling brawl from their corner table with stools and chairs with unmistakable whores cowering behind him for protection, was Francisco de Quevedo y Villega, in the flesh. Ruy Sanchez had sat in plain view in the same tavern for nearly an hour before standing up and picking a fight.
"Fuck," he said, and left.
"So why's this guy such a problem?" Sharon asked.
"Gah!" Ruy was pacing back and forth like an agitated cat. "Say better how is Francisco de Quevedo y Villega not a problem! Say, rather, is there any way in which his presence is not an omen of the direst deeds, the most ridiculous catastrophes, the follies most lacking in sanity! The man is born to make trouble!"
Sharon's mockery was well placed in reply. "Sounds like a fellow you'd get on with then, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz."
"The difference, mi corazon, to use your charming American phrase, is that I know my ass from my elbow. I am not, to pick just one example of many, away abasing myself in a Venetian whorehouse when I ought to be organizing a coup d'etat, thus leaving my compatriots to get out of town one step ahead of an angry mob."