The Hammer

by K. J. Parker

  “Nice to see you again,” Gignomai said. “How are you keeping?”

  “What is that thing?”

  Gignomai laughed. “It’s a furnace,” he said. “It melts iron out of rock. After the hammer, it’s our biggest project yet.”

  “Does it work?”

  “I bloody well hope so. We’ll find out tomorrow, when we fire it up.” He sat down cross-legged on the ground, and after a moment’s hesitation, Furio joined him. He felt very young, sitting in the leaf mould. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “How are you?”

  “What? Oh, fine. What rock?”

  Gignomai pulled an exasperated face, which flowed into a grin. “That’s where iron comes from,” he said. “Iron ore is a kind of rock. There’s a whole hillside of the stuff not two miles from here downstream. You don’t even have to dig, you can wander around filling buckets with it.”

  Furio frowned. “You can really get iron out of it?”

  Gignomai nodded. “We smash it up really small under the drop-hammer, then pack it in baskets with lime, sulphur and charcoal. There’s three tons of charcoal in the bottom of the furnace already. Tomorrow we tip the ore and the lime and stuff in on top and get it burning. That pipe you may have seen leads to the big bellows we’ve got for the drop-hammer forge. You need to blast lots of air in to get the fire hot enough. When it’s up to full heat, apparently, the whole thing’ll glow red. We won’t be in there with it, of course. We’ll be outside, chucking buckets of water on the shed walls to keep them from catching fire.”

  Furio thought for a moment. “That little door in the side?”

  “To tap off the molten iron when it’s melted,” Gignomai said. “It runs down a clay channel into a nest of about a dozen moulds, where it cools off, and then you’ve got a stack of iron bars, ready to make into stuff.”

  “Why keep it in a shed,” Furio asked, “if it gets that hot?”

  “Rain,” Gignomai replied. “A few drops of water on it when it’s good and hot, and there’d be a blast you could hear back Home. And it’d be raining droplets of iron right across the colony. Rain falling down the chimney’s not a problem, it evaporates before it would hit anything, but we daren’t risk it on the furnace walls. Besides,” he added, “if it burns the shed down, so what? We stand well back, and once it’s cooled down we build another shed.” He shook his head. “It scares the life out of me, but we need it. All the iron we can use for free.”

  Furio looked at him. There was genuine happiness in his grin, but his eyes were cold. “You got all that out of a book, I suppose,” he said.

  “Eutropius’ Concerning Metals. There isn’t one like it in the world, not any more. All the commentators say building one’s impossible, it wouldn’t work, it’d crack and blow up. They think Eutropius dreamed it up but never tried it out.”

  Furio blinked. “You don’t suppose they’re right, do you?”

  “We’ll find out, won’t we? If you’re sitting on your porch this time tomorrow and suddenly there’s a loud bang and it starts raining body parts, you’ll know Eutropius was a liar. I don’t think so, though. I think it’ll work.”

  “You’ve been busy,” Furio said.

  “You could say that,” Gignomai replied. “I’ll tell you what, though. This beats sitting in my father’s library reading law books.”

  Furio nodded slowly. “Gig,” he said, “where’s Aurelio?”

  Gignomai picked up a bit of twig and crumbled it between his thumbs. “You asked me that before,” he said.

  “Yes. You lied to me. Where is he?”

  “Third shed from the left as you come in.” Gignomai jerked his head in what Furio assumed was the right direction; he’d lost his bearings some time ago. “Don’t go telling anyone. His relatives are quite keen to meet him, but he doesn’t share their enthusiasm.”

  “Is he making guns?”

  Gignomai’s face went blank. Then he said, “Not whole ones. Parts for the lock mechanisms. He can’t start making barrels till we’ve got the furnace going.”

  “That’s what you wanted the snapping-hen for,” Furio said. “So you could copy it.”

  Gignomai smiled. “Rough copies,” he said, “none of the fancy stuff. The original’s a work of art, you couldn’t squeeze a hair between the parts, the tolerances are so fine. I’ll be happy with something much cruder, so long as it works.”

  Furio took a deep breath. “What do you want them for?”

  “To sell, of course.” Gignomai raised an eyebrow. “So that when the government sends soldiers to stop us doing all this, we can persuade them to go home and leave us in peace. If it comes to that,” he added quickly. “But it might, so there’s no harm in being prepared. Also, people will be prepared to pay good money. After all, your uncle wanted one, and he’s the most peaceable man I’ve ever met.”

  “Have you made one yet?”

  Gignomai’s face was empty. “I told you,” he said, “we can’t start production till we’ve got the furnace running. Aurelio says you need a special sort of iron for making barrels out of. You can’t just weld them up out of old rubbish.”

  “So the one you tested…”

  This time, he got a reaction. It was a little spurt of anger, quickly stifled and overlaid with a big grin. “You were watching me.”

  “Yes.”

  “You saw me…”

  “Miss a tree stump.” Furio nodded.

  “Quite.” Gignomai shook his head. “I’d always wanted to have a go with one, but of course Luso wouldn’t let me. It looked so easy when he did it. You hold it out at arm’s length, pull the trigger and bang! There’s a hole the size of your thumb in the middle of the target. Presumably there’s rather more to it. Anyway, I don’t plan on wasting much time on it. Just so long as they work, I’m not fussed. That’s why it’s got to be guns, you see. If we make swords and pikes and arrowheads and the soldiers come, chances are there’d be actual fighting. In which case, we’d probably lose and people would almost certainly get hurt. But if they show up and we start shooting at them, they’ll piss off back Home so fast they’ll make your head spin. Doesn’t matter a damn if we hit anything or not. They’ll assume they’re outmatched. All the noise and the smoke, you see. It’s why Luso’s so fond of the things.”

  “Fine,” Furio said. “So that explains about Aurelio. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Gignomai shrugged. “Be realistic,” he said. “The whole point is that I don’t want anybody knowing about it. Even my people here don’t know—just Aurelio and me. And now you, of course. You’re smart, Furio. How did you figure it out?”

  “Why not? Why the big secret?”

  “Because it’s illegal,” Gignomai said, with a big smile. “Not just breach of monopoly illegal, like making shovel blades. I should think it probably constitutes high treason, procuring arms for use in a rebellion, but I’d need to look it up in Father’s book. Anyway, it’s not the sort of thing I wanted anybody knowing about.”

  “But there won’t be a ship till the spring.”

  Gignomai nodded. “True,” he said. “But then cousin Boulomai shows up. It might suit him very nicely to play the good citizen and help foil a rebellion in the colonies, don’t you think? Good way for him and his loathsome sister to get back home. It’s what I’d do in his shoes. So,” Gignomai went on, shaking his head, “hence the deadly secrecy. I had to keep Aurelio hidden where nobody would see him.”

  “He was in the livery?”

  “You’re very smart. Yes, for a while, but that was no good, obviously. Had him stashed away in an old barn on the Gimalli place, and that was a risk I wasn’t happy about taking. And nobody could know about it. Not even you.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve told you. You’ve always been like a brother to me.”

  Lusomai and Sthenomai. “I hope you don’t mean that.”

  Gignomai laughed. “All right, I’m sorry, I’ll rephrase that. I do trust you, as much as I c
an trust anybody. I guess it’s not in my nature.” Something had changed. For a moment, Furio didn’t know what it was. Then he realised that the hammer had stopped. “It’s how I grew up,” Gignomai went on, “always having to hide stuff, or have it taken away from me. After a bit it turned into a sort of game, I suppose: how long could I keep something hidden from those two? And it was always something really stupid, like a bird’s nest or some rusty iron I’d found, or a book, or a toy sword made out of bits of shingle. But as I got older, there was a bit more of an edge to it, if you see what I mean. I was supposed to have grown out of all that, and I hadn’t.” He made a vague conciliatory gesture, all hands and shoulders. “So I don’t tell anybody anything. It’s not just you. I don’t expect you to like me for it, it’s just how I am.”

  It was a pretty good performance, Furio had to concede. The question was, to what extent was he supposed to believe it? Of course, Gignomai had a special way of lying, which involved mostly telling the truth.

  “The hammer’s stopped,” Gignomai said.

  “I’d noticed.”

  “I didn’t. Shows I’ve been here too long.” he stood up. “If it’s stopped, it must mean something’s bust. You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve told them how to fix most things, but they pretend they don’t understand.”

  “I’d best be getting back,” Furio said. “Good luck with your furnace.”

  “Thanks. You won’t tell anyone, will you? About the other thing. You can tell them about the furnace all you like.”

  The dozen or so leading citizens—the criteria for inclusion were vague and mostly consisted of being affluent enough to be able to spare the time to sit in the back room of the store during the day, when everybody else was working—gathered to discuss the forthcoming met’Oc wedding.

  They hadn’t warned Marzo that they were coming, and so they found him in his shirtsleeves, looking disreputable and smelling worse. He’d been digging a new soakaway for the outhouse, a job so fearsome that money couldn’t persuade anybody else to do it for him. He’d been tempted to beg leave to go and wash and change, but they’d assured him they’d only take a minute or so. Two hours later, the meeting was deadlocked.

  “It’s about keeping the peace,” said Rasso from the livery. His choice of words made Marzo want to smile. Rasso had borrowed the phrase from him and, like any man in the colony who borrowed anything, he seemed determined to use it till it fell apart before he was called on to give it back. “Ever since the mayor here had his big meeting with the met’Oc boys, there’s been no trouble.”

  “Not yet,” grunted Gimao the chandler. “Wasn’t any trouble at all before the youngest met’Oc boy ran away from home. Not for a long time, anyhow.”

  Marzo turned his head and scowled at him. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning,” Gimao replied aggressively, “we get trouble when we interfere in their business, or the other way about. Long as they stay up there and we stay down here and we don’t have anything to do with each other, things stay nice and quiet. Soon as they remember we exist, there’s trouble.”

  Marzo couldn’t have asked for a more succinct statement of his own deeply held belief. Unfortunately, for some reason, he was in the process of trying to argue the opposing case. That, apparently, was the sort of thing mayors did. “In the past, yes,” he said. “And you know why? Because we never talked to them before.”

  “Whose fault was that?” interrupted Stenora the horse doctor.

  “Let’s not talk about whose fault things were in the past,” Marzo said firmly. “Let’s be practical. Lusomai met’Oc is prepared to talk to me. He even listens to what I have to say. Sometimes,” he added, with a faint grin. “Take this latest thing. Someone goes poaching on the Tabletop and tries to stab one of their guards.”

  “So they say,” Gimao muttered. “Only got their word for it.”

  Marzo ignored him. “Not so long ago,” he went on, “there’d have been burnt hayricks and run off cattle and maybe worse. Instead, what happens? The two met’Oc boys come down here, they sit right where you’re sitting now, and we talk. That’s got to be progress, hasn’t it?”

  “Oh sure.” Stenora folded his arms and glowered behind them, like the defenders of a besieged city. “That’s after Luso’d been charging round the place firing off his gun and terrorising innocent folk. And what did we do about it?”

  “Lusomai gave me his word he had nothing to do with that stuff.”

  “And you take his word,” Gimao said bitterly, “over ours. And now you want to send the bastard a wedding present. Strikes me we’ve heard rather a lot out of you lately about what a fine man Luso met’Oc is, and you won’t hear a word against him. Ever since you went into business with his brother, seems to me.”

  “That’s garbage,” Marzo snapped, so fiercely that the others stared at him. “For a start, young Gignomai’s not exactly popular up there, or hadn’t you heard? They chucked him out, remember. Luso came burning and stealing just because we took the boy in. So don’t you try and make out I’m siding with the met’Oc just because of that.”

  Gimao shrugged, like a man walking through a waterfall. “That’s not what I’m saying,” he said, with a magnificently blank face. “What I’m saying is, you’re the mayor of this town; you ought to be on our side. I’m not sure you are, any more.”

  “Fine,” Marzo spat. “In that case, I resign. I won’t be mayor, and one of you buggers can go up there and be blindfolded and shit yourself for terror next time there’s trouble. No, really, I mean it. I never wanted the stupid job. I’m damned if I can remember anybody asking me if I wanted to do it. I’m damned if I know how I got stuck with it in the first place. It’s been nothing but misery, and I don’t want to do it any more.”

  “Yes, all right,” Stenora said briskly, “you’ve made your point, and Gimao’s sorry he made it sound like—”

  “No,” Marzo said firmly, “I mean it, I really do. I say we should do it properly and have an election and choose a real mayor. And I won’t be standing.”

  There was an awkward silence. Then Rasso said, “Pull yourself together, Marzo, nobody’s saying we don’t want you to be mayor any more. And we all appreciate everything you’ve done, and by and large you’ve done a good job. That’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here because you want the town to send a wedding present to the met’Oc. And we’re not convinced, is all. But if we all hold our water and talk about this like sensible people—”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” Marzo broke in. “I heard people talking about it in the store.”

  “You said you thought it’d be a good idea.”

  “I do.” Marzo stopped. He’d only said that because the people he’d talked to in the store had all seemed so certain about it, and he’d agreed to put it to the town council, that entirely non-existent body. “It’s a gesture of goodwill,” he said. “It’s polite. It’s good manners. And if it’ll stop the Tabletop mob coming down here in the middle of the night and shooting at people, I say it’s worth doing.”

  “If,” Gimao repeated. “Who’s to say it’ll have any effect at all?”

  Eventually, they thrashed out a compromise. Marzo would send Lusomai met’Oc a wedding present, at his own expense, with a covering note ambiguously phrased so that it could be taken to be on behalf of the town or not, depending on what anybody wanted it to say. In return, the council wouldn’t try to stop him.

  “What’ll it be?” Furio asked later.

  Marzo shook his head. “No idea,” he said. “What the hell do we have that somebody like that could possibly want?”

  Teucer looked blank. “There must be something,” she said.

  “There isn’t,” Marzo replied. “I know that for a fact. Because if there was something down here that Luso wanted, he’d have ridden in with his boys and stolen it years ago.”

  Furio grinned. “I can think of something,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Ten pounds of lead pipe,” Furio repl
ied. “For casting into bullets. Gig told me, they’re desperately short of the stuff. Every time Luso shoots at something in the woods and misses, he sends his men to find the tree where the bullet landed and dig it out so he can melt it down and use it again. He’d be really grateful if you gave him that.”

  Marzo decided that Furio was probably joking. “Any sensible suggestions?”

  Furio shrugged. “All right,” he said, “what about ten pounds of nails? I don’t know if Luso’d be pleased, but Stheno’d be absolutely thrilled. Apparently the nails they’ve got up there have been pulled out and straightened so many times they’re starting to break. You could give him some of the ones Gignomai’s started making. They’re not bad, actually. I can hardly tell them apart from the ones we get from Home.”

  “Not nails,” Marzo said, “and not lead pipe. Come on, there’s got to be something.”

  In the end they settled on an eighteen-month pedigree steer, because, as Marzo said, nobody can ever have too much beef. He paid for it with two buckets of Gignomai’s nails. It was an unpopular choice in the town, where people were saying that the met’Oc had had far too much of other people’s beef already and furthermore, sending up a steer of their own free will might not be such a good precedent. As it happened, Marzo had thought precisely the same thing, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Not very tactful, is it?” was Teucer’s verdict. “If I was them, I’d be offended.”

  Maybe Teucer was right. The steer was returned, with a letter from Luso saying that he was deeply touched by the gesture, but the met’Oc were doing their best to get along without beef these days, and it was hardly fair to remind them of what they were missing. Marzo, stuck with a bullock he had nowhere to keep, traded it to Desio Heddo for two barrels of barley flour which, when opened, proved to be damp.

  The hammer broke down. A pinion had broken in the primary drive, which meant taking the whole thing apart. Gignomai sent the partners out to collect iron ore, and did the job himself. It was a morning’s work, but he didn’t seem unduly dejected. As he told one of the men, it was a genuine pleasure to be able to hear himself think.