by Bill Fawcett
“What can I do for you, young man?” he asked, in perfect English. I hadn’t been expecting that. I’d been all primed for five minutes of miming to get my point across.
I took my watch off and put it on the counter between us.
“It stopped last night, and I can’t get it going again.”
“Well, let’s have a look at it, shall we?” He studied it, reached into one of the drawers beneath the counter and brought out a little tool to screw the back off of it. He put a jeweler’s monocle in his eye. Using a fine pin he teased the mechanism, tutting like a mechanic about to tell me he could fix my car, but it was going to cost a lot because the gear box was shot, the manifold was blown, the gaskets were knackered, and a whole bunch of other technical terms that made no sense whatsoever to me was wrong with it. “I see what the problem is,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s broken.” He grinned at me. “But don’t worry, I can fix it. I assume you want me to fix it?”
“That’s why I’m here,” I said. “How much will it cost?”
“For you? Nothing, Steve,” he said, taking the monocle out.
“You know my name? How?”
“I know all my customers’ names, Steve. It’s just good business.”
“Yeah, right, sure, but how do you know my name?”
“I make it my business to. We’re all cogs, my friend; we’re all gears in the guts of the world. We tick, we tock, our orbits occasionally draw us close to one another, though more often than not they take us away.”
“Have we met before?”
He shook his head. “Now, let’s see about fixing this, shall we? Been losing a lot of time, has it? The spring’s loose. I should probably replace it, but I’m not sure you want me to do that.”
“Why not? I’m sorry, I don’t really understand. If you need to replace the spring to make the watch work again, why wouldn’t I want you to do that?”
“Because of the time that’s stored up inside it. Change the spring and it’s gone forever.”
I shook my head.
“Gone?”
“Yep, gone, vanished, spent, left behind, lived through, no more, a memory.”
“But that’s what happens. Time passes.”
“Oh, you know so much, do you? So how come you didn’t notice your watch was saving time?”
“It wasn’t, it was losing time.”
“Losing, saving, you speak like you don’t understand the difference,” the watchmaker said, sniffing. He screwed the lid back on and pushed the watch into the middle of the counter between us. “It’s all in there, all of that saved time.”
I looked at it.
It wasn’t ticking.
“You didn’t fix it?”
“Did you see me fix it?”
“No.”
“Then I didn’t fix it. I don’t think you want me to fix it. After all, there are two whole days stored in there. That’s a lot of time to throw away. It’s up to you, but I’d think long and hard about it. Two days. What’s happened to you over the last couple of days, and more importantly, are you ready to give it up?”
What had happened to me? I’d met an old couple who’d reminded me of just how incredible it felt when Isla said yes, and I’d met a painter who had captured the single most important moment of my life. In less than forty-eight hours they’d given me back two of my most precious memories of Isla. There was no way in a million years I’d give that up; but it wasn’t as though I’d just forget them either. They were etched on my soul.
“Forty-eight hours,” he said again. He picked up the watch and reset the time, rolling the hands back. “Think about it.”
I took the old moon-landing watch off him. I could feel the gentle tick of the hands moving. I put it on. “Thank you,” I said, and stepped out of the cramped little shop onto the Parisian street. I felt the padlock in my pocket. I wanted to go to the Les Pont des Arts because of Julio Cortázar’s book Rayuela. Isla and I had joked about fastening a padlock to the bridge like lovers do. I knew what was going to happen. I’d throw the key into the river, then walk down to the subway and meet an old couple looking at a photograph of Isla and me, and I’d be as happy and sad as I could remember ever being, both at the same time. Then I’d move on to Prague to scatter another one of her ashes, her St. Christopher.
I looked at the watch Isla’d given me for my birthday. It was losing time. No. It was saving time. There was a difference. It was saving a little bit every hour until it was full. Then it would stop. And when it stopped, I’d go to a little watchmaker’s shop in the Jewish quarter of Prague, and he’d say, “I know all my customers’ names, Steve. It’s just good business.” This time I’d know how he knew my name, because we’d done this dance before.
If he gave me that choice again, fixing it, or using it, I’d keep on using it until I was ready to go on scattering the rest of Isla Durovich’s ashes in Vienna—on a picnic blanket on the green in Bellevue Höhe overlooking the entire city—and Venice—on the Grand Canal—then Rome— taking in the breathtaking view of the Eternal City from Gianicolo Hill—and finally that little lake house in Garda that was just for us, our little dream house.
And when I was ready, I’d go on to the third battered paperback in my bag, but not yet, and I couldn’t go back four years, six months, four days, thirteen hours, and fifteen minutes to the moment I’d had Tom of Finland tattoo “be brave” over my heart, and live it all again, because forty-eight hours was forty-eight hours. The watch couldn’t save any more time. Not in the year I’d had it.
But I didn’t need to go back. As tempting as it was to wish I could save the child myself, or go back to that day we first met and be brave all over again, I couldn’t change things. This was the way it had to be.
All I needed to do was to let him rewind the watch on all of its saved time, and step out of his shop onto the moonlit Parisian streets. There would always be an old couple waiting for me on the platform with their Kodak moments, and a paint er on a bridge tomorrow desperate to share the happiest moment of his life with me.
That was Isla’s last gift to me, seconds saved here and there from our last year together that all added up to time to remember her.
Internationally bestselling author Steven Savile has written for Dr. Who, Torchwood, Primeval, Stargate, Warhammer, Slaine, Fireborn, BattleTech, Pathfinder, and other popular game and comic worlds. His novels have been published in eight languages, including the Italian bestseller L’eridita. He won the International Media Association of Tie-In Writers award for his Primeval novel, Shadow of the Jaguar, published by Titan in 2010, and has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award on multiple occasions. Silver, his debut thriller, reached number two on the Amazon UK e-charts in the summer of 2011. Steven has also worked in computer games, writing the story for the hugely successful Battlefield 3 from DICE/EA. His latest books include Tau Ceti (coauthored with Kevin J. Anderson); Each Ember’s Ghost, an urban fantasy set in his hometown of London; and the novelization of the computer game Risen 2: Dark Waters.
Bedding
An Homage to “Straw” by Gene Wolfe
DAVID DRAKE
On Gene Wolfe: Jim Baen published my first two Hammer stories in the October and November 1974 issues of Galaxy magazine. This led more or less directly to my subsequent writing career. Jim published “Straw” in the January 1975 Galaxy. I read it there and realized how far I had to go to write as well as Gene Wolfe. That remains true.
After the tumble I’d taken when the horse bunted me out of the way, I let Diccon do more than his share of stretching out the balloon to fill evenly. The boy was willing, full marks to him for that, and as strong as a draft horse. That was all this job required.
Fighting needed more, though. I’ve known draft horses smarter than Diccon, and I’m not saying that I’ve known any smart horses. The Captain was half his size, but the boy wouldn’t last three seconds with him; and even banged up like I was, he wouldn’t give
me much trouble either.
Siltsy moaned; he was coming awake again. Birgitta had bought all the lettuce cake in the village, but the biggest dose she could give Siltsy wasn’t enough to let him sleep. The saber had cut so deep into his upper arm that it had cracked the bone. The drug might help with pain, but the ache wouldn’t go away until he died.
The Captain was getting charcoal going in the brazier; I walked toward him. Siltsy must’ve seen the movement, because he sat up.
“Bagnell?” he called. He sounded like an old man. “You won’t leave me here, will you? We’re buddies, right? You wouldn’t leave a buddy!”
“Hush,” said Birgitta. She’d been wiping Siltsy’s forehead with a wet cloth; now she slid it down to cover his eyes. “Just go to sleep, darling. Just go to sleep.”
“Hey, don’t you worry, Siltsy,” I said. His face was red as fire; an infection must already have started biting. “You’ll load for me on our next contract, but you’ll have your job back after that.”
Siltsy was going to lose the arm if he didn’t die. Most likely he was going to lose the arm and then die. Even if he lived, a one- armed crossbowman wasn’t much use.
But it wasn’t my place to say that, not now and not ever. I wasn’t afraid of Birgitta, but I don’t pick fights where nobody’s going to pay me.
The Captain had a fire already. I’ve never known a man with such a talent for lighting charcoal. It wasn’t glowing, but I could see the air wriggle above the brazier.
He nodded toward the brightness in the east and said, “It won’t be long now.”
“It’ll be at least an hour before we start getting updrafts,” I said. “I’ve got some business to take care of.”
“You’re favoring your left leg,” the Captain said. “Should Birgitta take a look at you?”
“Fat chance that,” I said, but I kept my voice low. “She’d like to wring my neck for taking over as shooter. If she could’ve figured out a way to blame me for Siltsy, she’d have come at me with her halberd already.”
“You could’ve taken the shot yourself instead of passing the loaded bow, you know,” the Captain said. He spoke so softly that the only reason I knew what he was saying was that I’d been thinking the same thing ever since Siltsy went down.
“You’re the one who kept me loader!” I said, angry because half of me thought he was right. “I passed the bow to the shooter, because that was my job!”
I kept an eye on Birgitta, but she was so lost in coddling Siltsy that she didn’t hear—or anyway, she pretended not to hear. Dropping my voice again, I said, “He wouldn’t thank me, Captain. Not even now he wouldn’t.”
The Baron—that’s what he called himself, anyway—had placed the five of us at the ford. Our crossbows would’ve had better targets from a flank, but he was looking at the two halberds and figuring that we wouldn’t flinch the way his peasants with knives tied to poles would. He was paying, so we danced to his tune.
Four horse men had come at us out of a stand of birches fifty yards away. There was a swale in back of it. They must’ve led their mounts, then swung into their saddles and charged straightaway. Maybe we should’ve seen them earlier, but things had gotten hot on the left. Anyway, we didn’t.
Siltsy took the leader’s horse in the shoulder. It reared. The rider kept his seat for a moment, but then the horse went down and the rider still had his feet in the stirrups.
Diccon and Birgitta were ready with their halberds. I took the bow from Siltsy and handed him the one I’d just loaded. He shot as I put my left foot in the stirrup of the empty and brought the cocking lever back.
He didn’t miss, exactly, but he shot at the rider instead of the mount, and the fellow had a steel cap. The helmet spun off— I saw sparks where the quarrel glanced from just above the ear— but the fellow didn’t drop.
The Captain uses two swords, a straight one in his left to thrust with and in his right a yataghan sharpened on the inside curve. He could trim an anvil when he put all the strength of his right arm into a stroke.
This time he took the outside horse’s muzzle off. There was more blood than I’d ever seen, and a gurgling scream that was louder than all the rest of the battle. The rider went backwards over his crupper and broke his neck when he hit, though we didn’t learn that till things had quieted down.
Birgitta had the butt of her halberd in the ground and a foot on it to brace it there. She leaned the blade straight at the middle horse. It shied, like they mostly do. By the time the rider got it under control, the best choice he had was to gallop back the way he’d come. That’s what he did.
If Diccon had just done the same thing as Birgitta, there wouldn’t have been a problem. Instead he had swung his halberd like an axe and missed his timing, like you’d expect from a newbie. A halberd’s edge is out on a long pole and takes longer to get moving than an axe does.
Siltsy threw the bow, which didn’t help, and put his arm up, which meant the rider’s saber didn’t take his head off. That probably would’ve been a mercy, but I might’ve done the same if it’d been me.
The horse slammed Siltsy one way and me the other, but not before I got the spike of the bow I was trying to load in under the rider’s rib cage. I went ass over teacup, but the horse’s saddle was empty when I got a look at it again.
Now the Captain shrugged and made a face that could’ve meant anything. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, but he knew I was right. He turned his head slightly and said, “Diccon will load for you. We won’t make any other changes right now.”
“Right,” I said. That was going to slow our rate of fire, but the boy did okay with anything that didn’t require thinking. I could train him up. “Leaves us short a halberd, though.”
“I said we’ll leave it there for now!” the Captain said, angry that I was prodding him about Siltsy, and angry about Siltsy, too.
Hell, so was I. We hadn’t been buddies, whatever Siltsy said now, but we’d been some hard places together and come through the other side. Until this time.
“You could’ve made that shot, couldn’t you?” the Captain said in his quiet voice again.
“I wouldn’t have tried!” I said. “I’d have dropped the horse, the big target. If the rider decided to get up again when he untangled himself, well, I’d have another quarrel ready. I didn’t have anything to prove.”
And that was the cold truth of it: Siltsy had wanted to show us all that he was as good a shot as I was, that the Captain wasn’t just keeping him as shooter for old time’s sake. Siltsy was going to die now, because he’d been wrong about both those things.
The Captain made that sour face again. He looked to the east and said, “Start rounding up locals for the ropes. There’s not much breeze now, but it’s likely to pick up. I want at least eight on each rope.”
“We can belay one rope around the well curb,” I said, nodding. I’d paced the distance off last month, when we moved the balloon here to the village in two of the Baron’s ox wagons. “That’s as good as four men. But you’re going to have to find them yourself. Like I told you, I’ve got business.”
The Captain looked at me sharply. “You’d be better off just leaving, you know,” he said. “Everybody would.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m going to see her.”
He shrugged. “I always did, too,” he said to my back. “Which is how I know it’s a bad idea.”
I let myself back in without a fuss. Tige, the guard dog, was on the stoop, but he’d gotten to know me over the past three weeks; I think maybe he even approved. He didn’t bark or even raise his shaggy head, though his tail shook the boards with quick, soft thumps.
Janelle’s father—Janelle and Perley’s—had been Speaker of the village, which meant he talked to the Baron when there was something to talk about. Pretty much that meant saying, “Yes, sir,” but the title meant something anyway.
The house was wood frame, not wattle and daub, and had a half loft besides a shed for the animals so that
the family didn’t have to sleep with their livestock. Ordinarily, at least: Perley had been in the shed since I moved in with his sister.
He’d been trying to be the man of the house since their father died last year. I’d done the same when I was his age—but that age was ten, and there’s a lot you don’t understand when you’re ten. I was glad he hadn’t made a fuss when Janelle told him to move out for a while. Sure, he wasn’t that little; but I didn’t want to rub his nose in what was going on, either.
“Chris, is that you?” Janelle called. There was more relief than question in her voice.
The bedroom door was open, so she’d wakened since I slipped out and closed it behind me. She was sitting up in bed. When I came through the door she held out her arms.
I had the purse in my left hand. I set it on top of the chest beside the bed while I put the other hand beside her head. I kissed her hard, then straightened.
“You’re a hero, darling,” she said. She tossed the cover back; the mattress, waxed linen stuffed with straw, creaked as she moved. “Come, let me give you your reward.” She giggled. “Your reward again, I mean.”
“I’ve got to go, darling,” I said. “You’re a lovely girl.”
“Well, you’ll be back soon, won’t you?” Janelle said. “After you’ve said good- bye to your friends.”
“Love,” I said, “I’m not coming back. The Baron doesn’t want us around now that the trouble’s over. He’s given us fuel to get plenty far away, and it’s healthier all round if we take the hint. Ah—I left a purse on the hamper there.”
It was the equivalent of a gold piece, but I’d found it in copper so that she wouldn’t have trouble spending it. It was half my own share of the contract—and more ready money than anybody else in the village had ever seen. Siltsy would have told me I was crazy, and even the Captain would raise an eyebrow.
I wouldn’t miss the money once it was gone. And maybe I’d sleep better, or at least have less reason to sleep badly.