Sharps

by K. J. Parker

  Corbulo laid down his pen. “In a brothel.”

  “Yes, but in the office. She keeps the books and looks after the housekeeping side of things. You know, wine, candles, sending out the laundry.”

  “In a brothel.”

  Phrantzes sighed. “I met her,” he said irritably, “at a concert.” Corbulo barked out a short, projectile laugh, but Phrantzes ignored him. “At the New Temple, in aid of the refugees. Lord Bringas’ house orchestra. They were playing the Orchomenus flute sonata.”

  “The hell with that,” Corbulo said. “What was she doing at a concert?”

  “Listening,” Phrantzes replied. “She’s very fond of music.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, really.” Phrantzes rolled up his right sleeve, so as not to disturb the counters, and began to make his calculation. “I was late arriving. I trod on her foot getting to my seat.”

  Corbulo sighed; a long sigh, the last third of it for effect. “I’m reminded,” he said, “of Paradaisus’ epigram concerning horticulture.”

  “Remind me.”

  “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”

  Phrantzes clicked his tongue. “Anyway,” he said, “in the interval I apologised properly for standing on her foot, and she was terribly nice about it, and we got talking.”

  “And?”

  “And that was all,” Phrantzes said. “But then I ran into her again at the post-Mannerist exhibition at the Cyziceum.”

  “Also an art lover.”

  “Yes. We looked round the exhibition together. I must say, she had a very interesting perspective on Zeuxis’ use of light and shade.”

  “Of course she did,” Corbulo said. “And then you went to bed together.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Later, then.”

  “Several weeks later, if you must know.”

  “For free?”

  Phrantzes sighed, and Corbulo pulled a face. “Sorry,” he said. “But you’ll forgive me if I reserve the right to be just a little bit sceptical. How old are you exactly?”

  “Fifty-one,” Phrantzes snapped. “Two years younger than you.”

  “Quite.”

  “But in considerably better shape. I exercise three times a week at the baths, and I fence most days at the school in Coppergate. The instructor reckons I’m very well preserved.”

  “That’s what they said about Tiberias the Third when they unwrapped the bandages.”

  “She doesn’t think I’m too old.”

  “She’s no spring chicken herself.”

  “Age,” Phrantzes said, “is irrelevant where two people have deep, sincere feelings for each other.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I didn’t expect you to understand,” Phrantzes said, jotting down the result of his calculation and sweeping the counters back into their box. “I think that at my age, after a long and frankly pretty tedious life, I deserve a little happiness.”

  “Of course you do.” Corbulo looked away. “Maybe this isn’t the best way of achieving it.”

  “How the hell would you know? You’ve always been miserable, for as long as I’ve known you.”

  Corbulo shrugged, a big, wide manoeuvre that in no way rejected the assertion. “I’m your oldest friend,” he said, “not to mention your business partner. In circumstances like this, it’s my duty to be miserable.

  Phrantzes turned his head and scowled at him. “You’re worried she might get hold of my share of the business.”

  “Yes,” Corbulo replied. “Among other things.”

  A frozen moment; then Phrantzes grinned. “It’ll be all right, I promise you,” he said. “She’s a lovely girl. You’ll like her.”

  “I’ll do my best. But no promises.”

  “Your best is all I can ask for.” Phrantzes opened the big blue ledger, and wrote in the date at the top of the page. “She’s making dinner for us tomorrow night. Bring Xanthe if you like.”

  “At the brothel?”

  “No, you idiot, at my house.” He took a pinch of sand from the pot and sprinkled it on the wet ink. “Will Xanthe come, do you think?”

  “When I tell her about it?” Corbulo beamed like a sunrise. “No power on earth could conceivably stop her.”

  “Well?”

  Corbulo took off his coat and hung it on the hook behind the door. “If you must know,” he said, “I think you’ve made a wise choice.”

  Phrantzes looked at him. “Wise,” he repeated.

  “Wise. Sensible, even.”

  “Sensible …”

  Corbulo nodded, and settled down on his stool. “I think she represents a sound medium-to-long-term investment, offering worthwhile returns with an acceptably low risk factor.”

  Phrantzes rolled his eyes, while Corbulo took off his gloves, stacked them on the edge of the desk and unstoppered the ink bottle. “Really,” he said. “I was sceptical at first, but—”

  “Sensible, for crying out loud.”

  Corbulo shrugged. “You’re a middle-aged bachelor, set in your ways, no experience of women. Quite suddenly you decide to fall in love. While I wouldn’t recommend such a course of action, if you feel you must do such a thing, you’ve chosen the right woman to fall in love with. I think,” he added.

  “You think.”

  Corbulo examined the nib of his pen, then reached in his pocket and found his penknife. “Yes,” he said. “And Xanthe agrees with me. In fact, she thinks you’re a very lucky man. She suggested,” he went on, reaching into his other pocket, “that you might find this useful.”

  He produced a book; old, its binding cracked and starting to crumble at the edges, the middle of the spine carefully repaired with scrap parchment. Phrantzes picked it up, squinted at the title and raised his eyebrows.

  “It belonged,” Corbulo said, “to my father.”

  “Ah.”

  “Quite. Even so,” Corbulo went on, “I gather it’s still pretty much the standard work on the subject. I haven’t read it myself, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Just dipped into it, here and there. It’s got pictures.”

  Phrantzes was blushing. “I’m not a complete novice, you know. There have been—”

  “I’m sure,” Corbulo said. “Didn’t mean to imply otherwise. But Xanthe said, and I agree with her – well, the disparity of experience could be a problem, if you see what I mean. It’s the same as any new venture. A little background reading is always helpful.”

  Phrantzes looked at the book as though he expected it to bite him. Then he grabbed it and thrust it into a drawer. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I won’t,” Phrantzes replied earnestly. “Ever again. And neither will you.”

  It was, everyone agreed, a charming wedding, in the circumstances. The bride disappointed nearly everybody by wearing a plain demure blue dress and a dark veil. She didn’t invite any guests. The four chairmen who carried her in the traditional covered litter from her lodgings to the Temple wore the livery of the Silversmiths & Clockmakers, but nobody could bring themselves to ask why.

  Corbulo and Xanthe opened the dancing in an estampie, a small man and a large woman moving with practised, almost telepathic grace. For a while, nobody moved, they were too busy watching. Eventually Astyages from the assay office and his wife joined in, and not long after that there was shuffling room only on the floor. Phrantzes and his bride opened the second dance, a slow and formal quadrille; his part in it was mostly standing perfectly still, which made sense to all who knew him. She proved to be an exquisite dancer, which surprised nobody.

  After the dancing there was music, from the Carchedonia Ensemble, and a calligraphy demonstration provided by Master Histamenus from the Lesser Studium. The main event, however, was an exhibition bout of single rapier between the two finalists in that year’s Golden Lily; Gace Erchomai-Bringas and Suidas Deutzel. It came as a complete surprise to the groom, who’d known nothing about
it. Corbulo had arranged it all, and the Association had been pleased to declare it an official match, in honour of a former triple gold medallist. They fenced with sharps (a superb case of antique Mezentine cup-hilt rapiers, the bride’s gift to the groom). After six three-minute rounds in which both combatants performed magnificently, Deutzel eventually won in the seventh with a half-inch scratch to the back of Erchomai-Bringas’ right hand. The prize, a silk handkerchief embroidered with the Association crest, and fifty nomismata, was awarded by the outgoing chairman of the Association, who made a short but witty speech saying that if Phrantzes had been twenty years younger, nobody would ever have heard of either of these two pretenders, et cetera. There was polite applause, and the two fencers were given something to eat.

  “Complete nonsense, of course,” Phrantzes said later, as he poured the chairman a drink. “Even at my best, either of those young thugs would’ve made mincemeat of me. It’s one of the few good things about getting old. I’ll never have to face one of the younger generation in a serious match.”

  The chairman nodded sagely. “The game’s changed a lot since our day,” he said. “People moan about it, of course, but I believe it’s no bad thing. When you think how much footwork has improved since we did away with amateur status …”

  “I agree,” Phrantzes said (and he noticed that his wife was looking sweetly patient, and realised he’d been talking to the chairman for far too long). “There’s no two ways about it, the standard of fencing is ten times better than it was twenty years ago. The only danger is, nowadays everybody’s watching, rather than fencing themselves. We’re turning into a nation of—”

  “Darling,” his wife interrupted, “I think the Senator is about to leave.”

  So Phrantzes had to go and say good night to the Senator, and once he’d gone the party cooled down quite quickly and people began to drift away. As they waited outside for their chair to be brought round, Corbulo said to Xanthe, “It’s a terrible admission to make, but I still don’t know the wretched woman’s name. I tried to catch it during the ceremony, but of course he mumbled, and obviously I can’t ask him now and I can’t spend the rest of my life referring to her as ‘your good lady’. Did you happen to …?”

  “Sphagia,” Xanthe said.

  “What?”

  “Sphagia,” she repeated slowly. “S-P—”

  “Good grief.”

  “It’s a Thelite name,” she said, “meaning ‘rose’. Or, if you pronounce it Sphagia, with the long a, ‘blood sausage’. I expect he’s got a nickname for her by now. You’d have to, wouldn’t you?”

  Their chair appeared beside the mounting block. As they climbed in, Corbulo asked, “Was that one of the Carnufex boys I saw?”

  “Yes. Addo, the youngest.”

  “Good heavens. I never realised Phran knew those sorts of people.”

  “From fencing,” Xanthe explained. “It’s a pity you never fenced. We might have got to meet some decent people, instead of all your dreary business contacts. Shit,” she added, as her foot slipped off the running board and landed in a puddle of icy water. “Now look what you’ve made me do.”

  Suidas Deutzel left the wedding early and went straight home, passing the Sun in Splendour, the Beautiful Revelation of St Arcadius and the Charity and Chastity without even stopping to sniff at the door. He hadn’t drunk anything at the wedding either.

  “Well,” she said, as he let himself in, “did you win?”

  He nodded. “Fifty nomismata.”

  “Thank God.”

  He dropped into the one functional chair and closed his eyes. “Sharps,” he said. “They made us fight with bloody sharps. I really don’t see the need for that sort of thing. It’s barbaric.”

  “The money,” she reminded him.

  “What? Oh, right.” He reached in his pocket and produced first the handkerchief, which he frowned at and threw on the floor, and then the purse of coins, which he held out to her. She snapped it up, teased it open and started to count.

  “It’s all there,” he said.

  “You counted it?”

  “They’re decent people.”

  “No such thing.” The coins clicked together in the hollow of her hand. “Fifty.”

  “See?”

  “Now then.” She sat upright on the floor, forming short columns of coins with the practised touch of a banker. “Ten for the rent. Ten for Taducian – we owe fifteen, but he can go to hell. Three for the poll tax. Twelve to pay back last month’s housekeeping. Fourteen for your cousin Hammo – it’ll be worth it just to keep him off my back, I’m sick of him pouncing on me every time I put my head round the door.” She held up one coin. “And that’s for us to live on, till you can earn some more.”

  He stared at her. “You’re kidding me.”

  “One nomisma,” she confirmed grimly. “And if you so much as look at a bottle, I’ll kill you. Understood?”

  He sighed. “I thought we’d be all right,” he said.

  “Oh, we are,” she replied. “At least, by our standards. We’re bloody rich, with one nomisma. Of course we still owe for the coal, the water and the window tax, but I can stave them off for another week.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said bitterly. She didn’t reply. Instead, she crawled across the floor and retrieved the handkerchief.

  “You can have it if you like,” he said.

  She was examining it. “I can get nine trachy on that,” she said.

  “It’s worth—”

  “Nine trachy,” she said, “to us, at Blemmyo’s.” She turned it over and picked at the hem with her fingernail. “Was the chairman there?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you ask him?”

  “I sort of hinted,” he replied defensively.

  “Did you ask him?”

  “Not in so many words.” Her face hardened. “Look, it was a social occasion, all right? People lolling around drinking and enjoying themselves. It wasn’t exactly the time and the place for touting for work.”

  “You didn’t ask him.”

  “I’ll go round to the office tomorrow,” he said angrily. “All right?”

  “Do what you like.”

  He sighed melodramatically and lay back in the chair, surveying the room. There wasn’t a lot to see. Except for the chair and the mattress (the bailiff’s men had taken the bed frame) there was nothing there apart from the range, which was built into the wall, and an empty fig crate, on which rested the three-foot-tall solid-gold triple-handed cup that you got lent for a year for being the fencing champion of the Republic of Scheria. She used it to store their arsewipe cabbage leaves in.

  “You could go back to work,” he said.

  She gave him a furious look. “Believe me, I’m tempted,” she said. “At least I’d be warm, instead of freezing to death in this icebox. But unfortunately they’re not hiring right now. Maybe in the spring.”

  His eyes widened. “You asked.”

  “Grow up, Suidas.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” he said awkwardly. “I thought maybe a few days a week in a shop, something like that. Just till we’re all right again.”

  “Suidas.” When she was really angry, she always spoke softly. “I was principal soubrette at the Palace Theatre. I’m damned if I’m going to work myself to death in a shop just because you’re completely useless with money.” She paused, to let him know she meant what was coming next. “If I go back to work, I’ll leave you. Up to you. Your choice.”

  He looked at her. “For crying out loud, Sontha,” he said wearily. “Do you think we live like this because I want to? It’s just …”

  He didn’t bother with the rest of it. No point. He had his ultimatum, and it was perfectly reasonable. He’d never been able to argue with her, because she had the infuriating knack of being in the right all the time; and Suidas had been a fencer so long that he’d become incapable of not acknowledging a clean hit.

  “Well?”

  “Fair enough,” he said (and her f
ace changed to unreadable). “I’ll go and see the chairman tomorrow, I promise. And anything that’s going, I’ll take.”

  It hadn’t been the right thing to say, and she slept with her back to him that night, while he lay awake and tried to think of something else he could possibly do, besides fencing. But he couldn’t; so just before dawn, he got up and shaved, using the cup as a mirror. His other shirt was being pressed under the mattress and he couldn’t very well retrieve it without waking her up; not a good idea at such an intemperately early hour. Luckily, the cold weather meant he hadn’t sweated too much the previous evening, so yesterday’s shirt was just about wearable. He buckled on his sword belt, thought for a moment and took it off again, in case he ran into the bailiff’s men in the street.

  In his sleep he heard someone repeating his name over and over again: Giraut, Giraut, Giraut Bryennius. He opened his eyes and saw light, which wasn’t what he’d been expecting.

  “I’m alive,” he said.

  “Indeed.” A woman’s voice, possibly the one he’d just heard, but he wasn’t sure. “There’s no justice.”

  A moment of confusion; then the joy of discovering that he hadn’t bled to death in the bell tower after all; then the horrible recollection of what he’d done, and what was going to happen to him.

  “Look at me,” the voice said.

  He turned his head. His neck hurt.

  She was middle-aged, with streaks of grey at the sides of her head; a stern, plain woman who immediately made him feel stupid. She was wearing black, and smelt very faintly of roses.

  “You’re in the infirmary of the Lesser Studium,” she said. “You lost a great deal of blood and you’re still very weak, but the brothers tell me you’ll live.” She smiled at him, cold as an archaic statue. “Perhaps that’s not what you wanted to hear. If I was in your shoes, I’d rather have died before they found me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think I know you.”

  Her face went through the motions of laughter, though she made no sound. “Of course you don’t,” she said. “You’ve never seen me before. You killed my husband.”

  Oh, he thought. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry,” she repeated. “Well then.” She picked up a jug and a cup from the table beside the bed, poured some water and handed it to him. “It’s all right,” she said, “I haven’t put poison in it. Go on.”