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vicious brawlers in the university. After drinking quantities of stout these notorious young men had adjourned to an alley to pummel each other in the autumn moonlight. A crowd gathered and bets were taken while the sweating fighters stripped to the waist.
    The alley was narrow. Strongbow happened to enter it just as the brawlers went into a crouch. Having spent a long day in the countryside collecting specimens, the wild flowers he now carried in his hand, he was too exhausted to turn back. Politely he asked the mass of fighters to stand aside and let him pass. There was a brief silence in the alley, then a round of raucous laughter. Strongbow’s bouquet of flowers was knocked to the ground.
    Wearily he knelt in the moonlight and retrieved his specimens from the chinks in the cobblestones. When he had them all he moved forward, flowers in one hand and the other arm flailing.
    Because of his extraordinary reach not a blow fell on him. In seconds a dozen men lay crumpled on the pavement, all with broken bones and several with concussions. The stunned onlookers pressed against the walls as Strongbow carefully dusted off his flowers, rearranged his bouquet and continued down the alley to his rooms.
    The second incident involved England’s national fencing tournament, which was to be held at Cambridge that year. Although unknown as a fencer Strongbow applied to enter the preliminaries to the tournament, a kind of exhibition for amateurs, on the basis of letters of recommendation from two Italian masters with international reputations. When asked which event he wished to enter he said all three, foil and épée and sabre as well.
    The proposal would have been ridiculous even if he had studied privately under two masters. But in the end he was allowed to enter all three classes because the letters from Italians, as he pointed out, failed to mention which event was his specialty.
    Actually none of them was, nor had he ever studied under the two Italians or anyone else. A year earlier, aware that his rapid growth might render him awkward, he had decided to improve his balance. Fencing seemed as useful as any exercise for that, so he read the classical manuals on fencing and dueled with himself in front of a mirror an hour each day.
    The time came for him to go up to Cambridge. While passing through London he learned that two famous Italian masters were in the city instructing members of the royal family. Curious about several techniques he was using that didn’t seem to be in any of the manuals, he offered the Italians a large sum of money to pass some judgment on his moves.
    An hour was duly arranged. The masters watched him do his exercises in front of a mirror and wrote the letters of praise he carried on to Cambridge.
    But secretly the two men were less enthusiastic than alarmed by what they had witnessed. Both realized Strongbow’s unorthodox style of fighting was revolutionary and perhaps unbeatable. Therefore they canceled their engagements and left London that same night to return home in the hope of eventually mastering his techniques themselves.
    At Cambridge, meanwhile, the national tournament opened early in December. Refusing to wear a mask because he wasn’t used to one and refusing to reveal his methods, Strongbow won straight matches in the foil and épée and sabre and advanced from the preliminaries into the main competition. There he continued to fight maskless and continued to win with as much ease as ever.
    At the end of two busy weeks he had reached the finals in all three events, itself an unprecedented accomplishment. The finals were meant to occupy most of a weekend but Strongbow insisted they be held one after another. All together they took less then fifteen minutes. In that fierce span of time Strongbow consecutively disarmed his three masked opponents while himself receiving only one slight prod in the neck. Furthermore, two of the champions he defeated had dislocated wrists by the end of their