by K. J. Parker
It was like the time he’d put his full weight on the ice in the brook, believing it would take his weight. “Gignomai? But I thought…”
Stheno grinned at him. “Indeed. Father disinherited him. Formal document, grand gesture, very noble, very us. But what Father doesn’t know won’t upset him.”
“You wouldn’t tell him? Surely—”
“You’d be amazed what we haven’t told Father over the years. Learnt that lesson the hard way,” Stheno added with a frown, “but that’s none of your damn business. No, it’s ideal. You go to my brother and tell him to pay off this Fasenna character and we’ll handle Father. Fact is…” Stheno hesitated, then seemed to reach a decision. “Things may be happening around here quite soon. You didn’t hear this, but it’s possible the time’s coming when you might not have to worry about us at all. We’ll be out of your hair for good. No promises, mind, but that’s what we’re working towards, and it goes without saying, we really wouldn’t want to screw it up for the sake of some stupid local dispute with your people. Just think about it, Mister Mayor. Wouldn’t your life be so much easier if you woke up one morning and found we’d gone?”
Marzo felt stupid, as though he’d just walked into a door. “You mean, gone Home?”
“I didn’t say that. In fact, I haven’t said anything. But if you nagging Gignomai into parting with a few dozen thalers means not having to put up with us any more, isn’t it worth the effort? Well?”
Life without the met’Oc. Marzo realised his mouth was open, and closed it. What would that be like? He had no way of guessing, because it was unthinkable. “Well, yes,” he said. “No offence,” he added quickly. “But—”
“None taken. Now, I’m not saying it will happen. What I’m saying is, if there’s a blazing row between you and us and things turn nasty and word of it reaches Home, then I can more or less guarantee that it won’t happen, and I’m sure that’d make you very unhappy, thinking about how you had a really great chance and you blew it.” His face changed. Something that could almost have been a sly smile spread over it, like the rusting of metal speeded up. “For one thing,” he said, “there’d be this place. All the timber you could ever want. Lousy with small furry animals to help you meet your fur quota. Piss-awful grazing and growing land, but somebody might want it. We could do you a deal, maybe a document of title with your name on it.” Suddenly Stheno laughed, as if thinking of a private joke. “In twenty years’ time, you could be us. Now wouldn’t that be worth a bit of tact and diplomacy?”
Marzo thought hard as he drove home. He thought about Gignomai met’Oc, whom he’d always found pleasant and polite enough. His nephew’s best friend, so he’d made a bit of an effort, like you do. And then the deal had come along—the sword, unimaginable wealth, possibly even escape from the colony, the glittering prospect of Home, a gentleman’s life in the soft, fat countryside he’d never seen but could picture effortlessly in his mind. Then the reality of the deal, putting his business on the line, wheedling and cajoling his neighbours and customers, the exhausting burden of filling carts with barrels of flour and getting nothing in return. Then the first crates of finished goods, the exhilaration, the wild dance of selling and getting money. He grinned at the thought of how exciting he’d found that. He despised himself for it. The money was just flat metal discs for all the good it’d do him, at least until spring when the ship came, but it had been glorious, the apotheosis of shopkeeping. And now the eldest son of the met’Oc was tempting him with an offer of all the kingdoms of the Earth, if only he could persuade Gignomai met’Oc to do something he’d never, ever do.
I’m a simple man, he told himself, a simple, greedy man, a small man. All I ever wanted to do was screw my neighbours a little bit on a few small deals, make a nice profit and live quietly and peacefully, keep the peace, be on good terms with everybody. A greedy man, but not greedy enough. All you ask for is more than your fair share of a pound of sausages, and some bastard offers you the whole pig.
He couldn’t pretend to know Gignomai well, but he knew him a bit, enough for the job in hand. There was something going on. Gignomai was up to something. All that stuff about the bloodless revolution and freedom for the colony; it was possible, true and achievable, and Gignomai meant to do it, but only as a necessary chore of a step on the way to something else. And if Gignomai had wanted to be a member of the met’Oc, he’d never have left in the first place.
But if the met’Oc were to leave, go Home, abandon the Tabletop with its defences and its fine house, its barns and outbuildings and extensive estate of mediocre farmland—well, somebody would have to take it over, as public trustee, run it for the benefit of the people (the newly independent people; the new nation), and who better, who possibly other than the mayor? Chosen by the people, not a single voice dissenting. The obvious leader of the community, the one man who everybody trusted.
(That was going a bit far. Trusted with their lives, perhaps, quite possibly, but not necessarily with small sums of money.)
No use thinking that way, he thought, and gave the mule an unnecessary flick of the whip, which the animal completely ignored. Gignomai won’t pay, and that’s an end of it.
An idea emerged from his unconscious mind like the yoke from a cracked eggshell. A few dozen thalers, Stheno had said. To speak so airily of such a sum was of course the mark of a gentleman, even if that gentleman had only raised the subject because he didn’t have two quarters to rub together. A few dozen thalers was still a fortune, but Marzo Opello had a few dozen thalers. If he lent the money to the met’Oc, saying it had come from Gignomai, and the met’Oc paid off the Fasennas, and the peace was kept and everybody stayed practical and realistic long enough for the met’Oc to clear off back where they’d come from…
A few dozen. Could mean anything from twenty-four to forty-eight. He winced. Then he thought long and hard about the Fasennas, the cost of lumber and day labour, and came to the conclusion that the whole thing could be done for twenty-eight thalers, no bother. Twenty-six if he could do a deal on the lumber. Twenty-five if he twisted a few arms over the labour cost. With Gignomai making nails at his factory, twenty-four.
On the other hand, he thought, do I really want all the kingdoms of the Earth?
That question troubled him for a long time: what do I really want? As opposed to what I should want, as a properly greedy man. The sword money should be enough, more than enough, but what if there could be more? I ought to want it. Do I?
There’s young Furio to think of, he told himself (he knew he was lying, but he lied well enough to get away with it), and Teucer—she deserves better. They both of them ought to have the chance of going Home, making something of themselves.
Since he’d raised the matter, he thought about Teucer. Back home she could be a comfortable housewife in a comfortable house, probably spend most of her waking life doing embroidery. Here, give her a few books from the met’Oc library and in a year or so she’d be the colony’s only competent surgeon.
I only want to do what’s for the best, he told himself. For the colony, for my family, but most of all for me.
Furio found what he was looking for in the pile of scrap metal outside the back door of the store. It was, of course, bound for the factory, not that there was very much of it, since Gignomai had already used up nearly all the rusty and broken iron in the colony. But Uncle Marzo had sent a cart round the outlying farms in the valleys. The carters had taken two days, and come back with about a quarter of a full load.
He unearthed the nozzle of a household bellows, crumbly brown and blocked with mould and soft black dirt from under a rusted bucket. He carefully rodded it out with a bit of thin stick. Then he took the pebble and a scrap of waste cloth and made his experiment. As he’d anticipated, the pebble could be lodged good and tight. It wasn’t conclusive, because he didn’t really understand the science behind it, but it left a case to answer.
Getting the pebble out again turned out to be awkward; he tried driving it out
using the stick and a stone as a hammer, but the stick snapped off, increasing the blockage. He wasn’t quite sure how to interpret that data—either it strengthened his hypothesis or completely disproved it, and he had no way of knowing which.
Gignomai was stitching up a broken drive belt when they found him. The hammer was quiet, waiting for him to mend the belt. He looked up and said, “Well?”
“You’d better come,” they said.
“I can’t, I’m busy,” Gignomai replied. “Can’t someone else deal with it, whatever it is?”
“Not really,” they told him. “You’d better come and see for yourself.”
He shrugged, looped the half-mended belt over the branch of a tree, and followed them down to the river. There he saw a party of strangers, sitting on the ground. They were wearing long coats without pockets and absurd-looking round hats, all except one man, the oldest, whom he recognised. He hesitated, then went down to greet them.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
The old man looked up at him and didn’t smile. He looked sad, and lost. “They insisted,” he said. “I had no choice.” The old man breathed in as though drowning in air. “You told them you would give them snapping-hen pistols.”
“That’s right,” Gignomai said.
“The demonstration you gave them had a considerable effect.” The old man wasn’t looking at him. “After you’d gone, the news spread quickly. Dozens of our people came to see. They stuck their fingers in the hole the bullet made.” He frowned. “Many of them feel it was the most important thing that has happened to our people for centuries. There has been…” He shivered, “a great deal of debate.”
Gignomai glanced at the other strangers. “Do they want the guns or not?”
“We now have two factions in our society,” the old man went on, “those who believe, and those who do not. The former are a small minority—most of them are here with me now—but more and more of my people are coming round to their way of thinking every day. If you give them the snapping-hens, they propose to use force to make the rest of us believe. They have compelled me to be their spokesman. I didn’t want to come here, but I had no choice.”
Gignomai nodded slowly. “So they’ve decided we’re real after all.”
“They saw the hole the bullet made,” the old man said. “They pushed down into the hole until they could feel it. They said that any agency that could do that must be real, existing in our reality, sharing our time and space.” He paused, then went on, “They saw what you could do. They are afraid that unless they acquire the same power, sooner or later your people will attack them and destroy them. I told them that your people are a noble, enlightened race. I tried to explain to them about the wonders I saw in the Old Country, the beautiful way in which your people live, the magnificent houses, the well-ordered streets, the fine clothes, the books. I told them that if your people had wanted to destroy them, they could have done so effortlessly at any time in the past seventy years. A few of them may have listened to me, but most are too afraid. They refuse to take my word for it. All they’ve seen for themselves is the bullet hole. They said, ‘If he will give us the power, we have to take it.’ So,” he said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand, “here we are.”
“I’m sorry,” Gignomai said.
The old man stared at him, hesitated for a moment, then burst out, “Why would you want to do such a thing? We were never a threat to you. We didn’t believe you existed.”
“You did,” Gignomai said.
“I was a crazy old man,” the old man replied. “I was a joke. Children came and asked me about the place where I grew up because they thought I was funny. They didn’t believe what I told them.”
“But it was true,” Gignomai said.
The old man shook his head. “I realised a long time ago,” he said, “it was all for the best. I was comfortable, and they were happy. Now you’ve changed everything, and these people want weapons. You do realise what they want them for, don’t you?”
Gignomai nodded. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “It’s just one of those things that had to be done.”
The old man sighed. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I can see no possible benefit, to your people or to mine. Quite the reverse. Do you want my people to fight the colonists on behalf of the met’Oc? Is that what you have in mind?”
Gignomai shook his head. “That’s the last thing I want,” he said.
“Then it makes no sense,” the old man roared at him. “You will pardon my stupidity, but I can see no advantage to be gained from starting a war between my people and the colonists. There are so many more of us than you, and your people have no weapons, only farm tools and axes. It makes no sense. Unless,” the old man added, his head slightly on one side, “you aim to arm my people and then sell guns to your own people so they can defend themselves. I can believe there are human beings who would do such a thing, but I doubt very much that you would. For one thing, your people are so poor. And there must be easier ways to make money.”
Gignomai smiled bleakly. “What I want,” he said, “money can’t buy. I really am sorry,” he said, “but I knew what I was doing. If they want the snapping-hens, they can have them. At least, I can let them have a dozen. That’s all I can spare right now.”
The old man was looking past him, towards the factory. “You made them yourself,” he said.
“That’s right,” Gignomai replied. “It was a lot of work. But we got here in the end.”
The old man nodded slowly. “All that,” he said. “Just to make the guns?”
“Mostly,” Gignomai said. “There were other reasons, but that was the main one. They’re good copies,” he went on. “Not pretty, like the real ones my brother has. They’re just a pipe clamped to a bit of wood, with a bit of a mechanism to make the spark. But they work.”
The old man bowed his head. “You will have to show us what to do,” he said. “If you would be so kind as to explain to me, I will pass it on to them. I promise I’ll translate accurately,” he added, with a faint grin. “I know what would happen to me if I didn’t. I’m ashamed to say I still value my life, although I really can’t say why.”
“Wait there,” Gignomai said, and he left them and went to the shed that housed the drop-hammer. He’d stored the finished snapping-hens under a loose floorboard. There were sixteen left. He chose a dozen and put them in an empty grain sack, along with two hollowed-out cow horns full of powder, a five-pound bag of lead balls and a handful of spare flints. He walked back and went through the loading procedure slowly and carefully with the old man, loading four of the pistols and making him load the fifth, to make sure he’d understood. Then he showed him how to prime the pan, close it and cock the hammer.
“Then all you do is point it and pull this lever here,” he said. “That releases the hammer, which hits the steel, which strikes a spark, which sets off the powder in the pan. Simple as that.” he handed the cocked pistol to the old man, who looked at it nervously. “If you don’t want to fire it, give it to one of them.”
The old man shook his head. “You do it,” he said. “They need to see you do it. Otherwise…”
Gignomai shrugged, took back the snapping-hen, pointed it at a tree trunk and pulled the trigger. When the smoke had cleared, he went forward to inspect the damage. He’d missed the tree he was aiming at—it was about five yards away from where he’d been standing—and hit the one next to it. He poked his little finger into the bullet hole, up as far as the second joint.
Dalo Tavio’s eldest son fell through the rotten floor of a hayloft into the firewood store below. He broke his left arm and leg, and the splintered end of a branch left sticking out from a badly trimmed log punched a hole in his face on the left side next to his nose. Remarkably, the boy wasn’t killed. When his father tried to move him, the branch snapped off, leaving an inch of wood trapped in the bone. It was generally accepted that the wound would go bad and the boy would die, but the boy’s mother insisted
on sending to town and asking the mayor for help. If anybody knew what to do, she felt, it would be him. Tavio, who’d known Marzo Opello all his life, doubted this but couldn’t bring himself to say so. Also, he vaguely remembered hearing that Opello’s nephew was training to be a surgeon. He filled the cart with straw and put the boy in it, and drove straight to town, arriving in the early hours of the morning.
“Not my nephew,” the mayor told him. “My niece.”
Tavio looked at him as though he’d been drinking (which of course he had, but no more than usual). On the other hand, he thought, the boy will probably die in any event, and we’ve come all this way. “Fine,” he said. “Call her.”
Teucer came down in her nightdress, with two fat brown books under her arm. Tavio held a lantern over the cart while she examined the boy. He was deeply impressed at how calm she was about it, although there was something about her manner that disturbed him a little—too calm, maybe, and almost as if she was enjoying herself. She told her uncle and her cousin Furio how to lift him out of the cart without hurting him more than necessary, and she really did sound as though she knew what she was talking about. They laid the boy on the kitchen table, and Teucer carried out a closer examination.
“The leg shouldn’t be a problem,” she said. “The arm’s an awkward break and it won’t mend quite right, but I’ll do the best I can. The piece of wood in his skull will probably kill him unless I can get it out.”
Tavio, who’d felt mostly frozen up till then, felt as though he’d been hit across the face. But the girl was clearly something else. If he’d closed his eyes and ignored the pitch of her voice, he could have believed he was talking to a man. “Can you do that?” he asked. “Get it out, I mean.”