Aurel Kesk fought the first three minutes without committing to anything, which is not caution and is not fear either. He was waiting, in the way a man waits at a level crossing, since he had paid three relay houses to learn exactly what he was waiting for.
Vell spent those three minutes discovering that Yenna had been right at the tunnel mouth.
He fought the four days behind him rather than the man standing in front of him. He went at Kesk with a hand at zero and a night on a canal stair behind his shoulders, losing all eleven of the first exchanges.
Kesk did not punish a single one of those eleven exchanges in any way.
That is the thing about a man who counts, and it is the reason four Cup semifinals have his name on them. He took the eleven exchanges, banked them, then went back to waiting rather than spending anything on a fighter who was beating himself.
The gallery worked out what it was watching somewhere in the fourth minute.
