by K. J. Parker
It was a cold night—just right for fowling; not so good for a swim—and they all got fairly well soaked hauling the boy out again. By the time they’d done that it was about an hour before dawn, the coldest time of all. The boy was shivering and moaning, and the elder Fesenna was worried. He’d neglected to tell his mother he was taking the kid, and he had a fair idea what she’d have to say if he brought him home with pneumonia. It was a two-hour walk back home. Glabrio would still be in bed. Fesenna decided to light a fire to dry them all out.
Lighting a fire in the sedge wasn’t a problem. The leaves were dry and papery and burnt hot quickly. The boys tore up armfuls and piled them on, delighting in the wild flames. One of them suggested plucking and roasting a duck for a field breakfast. They were debating the motion when a stiff wind got up.
It shouldn’t have, not at that time of day in that season, but it did. The fire blew into the tall stand of sedge at the foot of the ridge, which went up like gunpowder. The boys dumped the ducks and ran.
Glabrio saw the smoke as he came out of the chicken-house. By that time, with the sun well up and the wind dropped back. It was just a tall, thin plume and he assumed it was somebody camped out on their way somewhere. Trespassing, by definition. He called up his dogs and set off, grinning, to shout at them.
By the time he got there, all the sedge on the south side of the pond had burnt down to black ash. Glabrio, who relied on the sedge for winter bedding, stood still and breathless for quite some time, then trudged miserably down the ridge to investigate. He found half a charred long-net and the incinerated bones of eighteen ducks, piled up in a heap.
He wasn’t the world’s greatest analytical thinker. He didn’t have to be.
Melo Fesenna, the boys’ father, apologised fulsomely and with a grim, strained face. He’d see to it that both boys wouldn’t lie down comfortably for a fortnight, and he’d make up the lost sedge with straw and reed from his own barn. Glabrio wasn’t satisfied. There was also trespass, poaching, fire-starting and reckless endangerment (neither of them knew what that meant, but it sounded ominously legal), all of which amounted in Glabrio’s estimation to ten silver thalers. Fesenna, who’d had enough of his neighbour by this point, laughed in his face. Glabrio’s whole place wasn’t worth ten thalers, he said. He wouldn’t pay such a sum even if he’d got it, which he hadn’t. Two carts of reeds and one of straw, take it or leave it. Glabrio swore at him and walked away.
And there the matter festered for quite some time. From time to time, one of the Fesennas would run into Glabrio on the road or out on the boundaries. Glabrio would yell abuse, the Fesenna would ignore him, no big deal. When Melo Fasenna cut his reeds, he had two carts loaded and sent round to Glabrio’s place. Glabrio wouldn’t let the men unload, and threw stones at them until they drove off. When Melo heard that, he shrugged and said that’d have to be an end of it.
Around the time that the news of Luso met’Oc’s wedding broke, there was a fire one night in the Fesennas’ barn. All the reed went up and a good quarter of the straw, but they managed to get the animals out and save the hay. The next morning, while they were damping down, Melo Fasenna noticed something unusual about the barn door. At first glance it looked like a knot-hole, but there hadn’t been such a hole in the door before, and he’d known that door for fifty years. He took out his pocketknife and probed about in the hole, and found something soft.
They had to drill it out from the back with a bit and brace. It proved to be a squashed lump of lead, about thumbnail size.
Melo looked at it for a while, then he called for his eldest son and told him to ride into town and fetch the mayor.
“It’s possible,” Marzo reluctantly conceded.
“Possible be damned.” Melo was one of those people whose anger is slow and steady. By this time, it was starting to get good and hot. “Any fool can see what happened. He set the barn on fire to draw me out, so he could take a shot at me and kill me. Here’s the hole, look.” He turned round and pointed in the opposite direction. “Straight line from that clump of briars. That’ll be where he was sat waiting.” He stood with his back to the door. The hole was a foot higher than the top of his head. “And that’s how much he missed me by. Too damn close, I reckon.”
Marzo knew what the reply would be, but he had to ask. “And who would he be?”
“Scarpedino Heddo, of course.” Melo closed his fist hard around the lead lump. “Everybody knows he’s up on the hill these days, and everybody knows he’ll have Glabrio’s place when he’s gone. Obvious. Glabrio went to the boy and told him to kill me, because of that business back along.”
Marzo thought, If I was Scarpedino, and if Scarpedino was the sort of monster who’d kill a man because his crazy grandpa told him to, I wouldn’t do it like this, because it wouldn’t work, and it didn’t. No, I’d have wedged the house door with a bit of plank and set fire to the thatch. “It’s going to be hard proving it,” he said.
“Like hell.” Melo swung his fist under Marzo’s nose and opened it. “What’s this, then? It’s a pistol ball. Who’s got pistols? The met’Oc. Where’s Scarpedino now? Well, is that proof or isn’t it?”
As delicately as he could, Marzo lifted the lump off Melo’s palm and dropped it in his pocket. “If it was Scarpedino—”
“No if about it.”
“Then,” Marzo went on, “I’ll take it up with Lusomai met’Oc, I promise you. But you said, you didn’t hear a shot fired. Those things make a hell of a racket.”
“Means nothing,” Melo snapped at him. “All the noise of the fire, everybody yelling, there were beams falling in. That’s all my winter reed gone and a good part of the straw, and who’s going to pay for lumber and time for fixing the barn? You’re damned right you’re going to take it up with the met’Oc, and Glabrio too. That crazy old man wants stringing up.”
“I hate to say it,” Furio said, “but he’s probably right.”
“Don’t,” Marzo replied, lifting the scales with his left hand. The pans danced, and he dampened them with a finger. “I’ve known Glabrio all my life. He’s a nasty mean old man with a vicious temper. He’s not a killer.”
“Scarpedino is.”
Marzo put the crushed lump of lead in one pan, and an unfired ball in the other. “How’d he get hold of a snapping-hen? Luso wouldn’t just lend him one, and he keeps them locked up.”
“In which case, Luso must’ve done it. Come on, which is more likely?”
The pans weren’t balancing; nowhere near. Marzo frowned, laid them down and took the bullets out of the pans. “I think we can rule out Luso,” he said.
“And Boulo met’Ousa?”
Marzo didn’t reply. He’d laid the two bullets side by side. Even allowing for loss of metal as a result of being shot into and dug out of a door, it was definitely smaller than the unfired specimen. He looked up. Furio was looking straight at him.
“Would Boulo met’Ousa lend Scarpedino his gun?” Furio asked.
“Or Boulo doesn’t lock his bedroom door,” Marzo replied. He picked up the bullets and put them in a drawer of his desk. “Didn’t you say you’d seen Scarpedino at Gignomai’s place?”
Furio nodded. “Surprised me,” he said, “but I didn’t ask about it.”
Marzo sat down. The bottle was empty. “If I wanted to kill Melo Fesenna, I’d burn him in his house. It’s no bother to do, most likely people would think it was an accident, and I’d be sure of getting him. Setting a fire so I’d have a shot at him, in the dark, at thirty-five yards’ range; you’d have to be a bloody fool to do it that way.”
Furio thought for a moment. “If you burnt the house you’d kill them all,” he said. “Maybe…”
Marzo shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “If it was Glabrio, and he was mad enough to do something like this—Only he’s not.” He sighed. “Maybe Scarpedino’s got principles,” he said. “I don’t know him well enough. But I don’t suppose Luso himself would bank on hitting a moving target at thirty-f
ive yards, and he practises every week. Scarpedino…”
“Didn’t mean to kill Melo, just give him a good scare?”
“You aren’t helping, you know.” Marzo opened the lid of the rosewood box, lifted the scales and dropped them on the floor. “I want you to tell me how it couldn’t have been Scarpedino, or Luso, or Boulo met’Ousa.” Furio stooped, gathered up the scales and put them back in the box. “All right,” he said. “The hell with who actually did what. Tell me what I’m supposed to do about it.”
“Go to Luso,” Furio said. “Sort it out.” Suddenly he grinned. “Be practical.”
“Two words I wish I’d never heard,” Marzo said, sweeping the rosewood box into a drawer, “are practical and mayor. Odd, isn’t it, how two little words can really screw up your life?”
“Go to Luso,” Furio repeated. “He’ll know what to do.”
Lusomai met’Oc presented his compliments to Mayor Opello, but regretted that he was unable to meet him at that time, being engaged in preparations for his forthcoming wedding. If the mayor would care to call again in twenty-eight days’ time, Lusomai met’Oc would be delighted to speak to him.
The guard had recited this with his chin raised and eyes averted, as though repeating by rote some incantation in an unknown dead language. Marzo winced, but stayed put.
“Fine,” he said. “In that case, I’d like to see Sthenomai.”
The guard looked at him. “You know the difference between luck and a wheelbarrow?”
“Go on.”
“Pushing a wheelbarrow doesn’t get you a smack on the head.”
Marzo nodded. “Heard it,” he said. “Now go and tell Stheno the mayor wants to see him.”
The guard withdrew, and Marzo collapsed against a fortuitous tree trunk, breathing hard and reflecting that he might have been hasty in his judgement. Marzo Opello would never have dared talk to a Tabletop guard like that. If he had, he’d probably have carried his teeth home in his hat. The mayor, apparently, could get away with it.
He stayed leaning against the tree for quite some time. Then he sat down on the ground, trying to look dignified. Twenty yards away, the mule was happily guzzling the long, unmown meadow grass, a luxury it never usually encountered. It wasn’t his mule, of course. He’d borrowed it from the livery. Mayor’s privilege.
After a very long time, a different guard came down to him. “This way,” he said.
Marzo hesitated, then said, “No blindfold?”
The guard shrugged. “Nobody said anything to me. You can have one if you want.”
“No, that’s fine.”
Not that it made the slightest difference. Marzo had always lived in and around town, where trees were landmarks. In the first ten yards, he saw more trees than he’d seen in his whole life put together. He kept very close behind the guard so as not to get hopelessly lost.
After a long walk through the forest, uphill (his calves ached until he was sure the muscles were going to burst out through the skin), they came out into the open into a twenty-acre field of poor grass, with flints showing through. They crossed it and came to a post and rail fence. There was a gateway. The gate was off its hinges. A huge man was slowly, carefully pulling it apart. For a moment, Marzo couldn’t think why then he saw that the crosswise bar had splintered, and was about to be fixed.
“Lucky for you,” the man said without looking round, “I happened to be up here doing this rotten bloody job. Might as well talk to you while I work. If I’d been out the far side, you’d have had a wasted trip.”
Marzo couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Right.” Stheno had prised off both parts of the broken rail and laid them on the ground. He took a step back and looked at them. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about the attack on Melo Fasenna.”
“I see. Who the hell is Melo Fasenna?”
Marzo debated with himself whether he should go round the other side, so Stheno would have to look at him. He decided it would be the best course of action, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He felt about twelve years old. “The Fasennas are farmers out by East Ford. Someone fired a shot at Melo Fasenna, with a snapping-hen pistol.”
Stheno turned round slowly. “Is that right?”
Marzo opened the fist in which the squashed ball lay. “We dug this out of his barn door,” he said. “Someone set light to his reed store, then shot at him when he went out to see what was going on.”
“Missed?”
“Yes. A foot high.” He hesitated, then added, “We think it might have been your brother’s man Scarpedino.”
“That little shit,” Stheno said. His hand dipped into his coat pocket and came out grasping a tangled ball of plaited-straw twine. “Evidence?”
“The Fasennas are on bad terms with their neighbour Glabrio. Glabrio’s Scarpedino’s grandfather, and Scarpedino’ll inherit the Glabrio farm.”
Stheno shrugged, then knelt down and started binding the two broken ends of the bar together. “Sounds like a motive,” he said. “Not that that bastard’d need a reason. I gather he killed a man’s wife.”
“We think so, yes.”
“Nasty piece of work,” Stheno said, exerting an impossible force on the ends of the twine. “But he’s not here.”
Marzo took a moment to understand. “Not on the Tabletop?”
“Haven’t seen him in a while,” Stheno replied. He tied a complex knot, then stood up. “Go on,” he said, “ask me why I’m trying to mend a busted gate with string.”
“It’s none of my—”
“Because I can’t be fucked to walk all the way back to the house for a hammer and a bucket of nails,” he said. “Because I’ve got too much to do. So I mend it with string, because string’s all I happen to have on me. Makes a piss-poor job, won’t last five minutes, but it’s very slightly better than nothing. I can’t swear you a solemn oath the Heddo boy’s not up here somewhere, but I haven’t seen him for a long time, and I’m pretty sure I’d have seen him if he was here. He tends to lounge around the steps of the long barn, along with the rest of Luso’s thugs. It’s not like they’ve got much else to do, except when Luso’s hunting.” He knelt and lifted the lashed-together bar. It sagged unhappily around the splice, but Stheno laid it in position on the carcass of the gate, and picked up a twice-fist-sized lump of flint. “Lazy man’s hammer,” he explained. “I suppose you’re going to go home and tell everybody who comes in your store how this is the way the high and mighty met’Oc do things.”
Marzo hesitated. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
Stheno laughed. The sound bounced back off the forward ridge. “Doesn’t bother me,” he said. “Might do some good if your lot knew how we really live. Just poor farmers, same as you. Anyhow,” he went on, lining the bar up, “I wouldn’t spit on Scarpedino if his arse was on fire, but it can’t have been him if he isn’t here. Setting the fire could be him, but not shooting. We’d all know about it if one of Luso’s precious toys had gone missing.”
“It wasn’t Luso’s gun,” Marzo said, in a rather small voice. “We think it could have been your cousin Boulomai’s. It’s a smaller bullet.”
Suddenly he had Stheno’s attention. He put down the stone and stood up slowly. “Boulomai’s gun.”
“Lusomai explained,” Marzo said, “that Boulomai’s snapping-hen shoots a smaller bullet. I weighed this one and it’s quite a bit lighter.”
Stheno nodded to stop him wasting time with further details. “Boulo’s got three of the things,” he said, with a curious mixture of disapproval and awe. “Two half-inchers and a three-quarter. Oh, and Cousin Pasi’s got one, a little wee tiny thing, shoots a ball like a pea. You’d have every right to be annoyed if she shot you in the arse with it and you found out about it.”
Marzo waited for a moment, then said, “Would Boulomai have noticed if one of his was taken?”
Stheno shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “He wears them as ornaments sometimes, rest of the time
I assume they’re in his bedroom. Boulo’s got all manner of stuff in there. Probably hasn’t unpacked half of it yet.”
“So Scarpedino could have…”
“It’s possible. Mind you, he’d need balls like boulders. Luso’d snap his neck like a carrot if he got caught.” He paused and rubbed his eyes, the weariest man Marzo had ever seen. “All right,” he said. “You say a barn was on fire. Anyone hurt?”
“No.”
“Damage?”
“The whole winter store of reed, quite a bit of straw, and the barn’ll need a lot of work with winter coming on.”
“Shit,” Stheno said. “Luso’s stupid wedding complicates things, of course.” He lifted his head and looked Marzo in the eye. It felt like carrying a hundredweight sack on your head. “Fact is, Mister Mayor, we’re broke. Can’t offer you money because we haven’t got any. Can’t offer you much in the way of goods or livestock because we’ll be eating beetles before too long thanks to Luso’s big day using up all our surpluses. Can’t give you Scarpedino because he ain’t here.” He grinned, a huge expression. Marzo caught sight of the back of his left hand; it was a mess of briar-scratches. “I don’t suppose that’s what you came all this way to hear.”
Marzo shrugged. “I just want to sort it all out.”
“Keep the peace, I know,” Stheno said. “It’s a pain in the arse Luso can’t deal with it; he’d send you away with fuck-all and make you feel he was doing you a grand favour.” His shoulders sagged, and he said, “Don’t suppose you’ve got any suggestions?”
Marzo struggled with himself, then said, “You haven’t got…”
“Anything. Take my word for it.”
“In that case,” Marzo said, “I’m sorry, no.”
“Fine. So you’ve come asking politely for justice, and the met’Oc spat in your face and told you to get lost. What do you do next?”
“Your cousins—”
“Ask them for a loan? Father’d burn the house down with his own two hands rather than think of it. Guests, see. Also, it’d mean admitting to them we’re broke, and that’s not an option. They know, obviously, they’re not blind, but there’s some things you can’t say out loud. No, forget them.” He paused again, ground something out of his eye with his knuckle. “Which just leaves my kid brother Gignomai. He’s got money, hasn’t he?”