by K. J. Parker
During the long, intimidating silence that followed, all Marzo could think of was that if Gignomai was serious about the business, and having Furio to run the trading side, why would he make it possible for Furio to go Home? It made no sense. Look at him, he’s a real met’Oc. He can make them do and think whatever he likes; he’s got the touch, like his brother. Like both his brothers. Only when they do it to you, you know. They want you to know. Gignomai makes you believe it’s inside yourself, and that’s scary.
And what about the bloodless revolution and the new republic? He wants shot of his family, he wants shot of Furio and me. So who would that leave here?
“Well?” Gignomai said.
It was as though he’d smacked every man in the room across the face. They looked at him, suddenly and painfully aware they had no choice now, they had to make the decision. Telling them about his sister had dragged them all across the line. If they kept quiet now, and started to slip away, then nothing would be done, nothing would ever be done, because he’d be disgusted with them, he’d leave them, to the savages and the met’Oc and the government, and presumably the wolves and the bears and all their natural enemies, with nobody but Marzo the mayor to lead them. He’s got them, Marzo thought. The hook’s in their lips, the halter’s on, he can pull them along by their pain, and he lied to me. He had no call to go doing that.
And if he lied, then where’s Furio?
He knew, in that moment, exactly what he had to do. He had to get to his feet, denounce Gignomai as a liar and a deceiver and quite possibly a man with his eyes on a crown. How he’d convince them he had no idea, but it had to be done. He thought, I’m a short, fat, middle-aged man who wants nothing more out of life than to sell things to people for slightly more than they’re worth. I shouldn’t have to do this. But he felt the beginnings of movement in his knees and back, which told him he was about to stand up (and if he stood up, he’d have to speak, and if he spoke, he’d have to tell the truth).
Under his feet, the packing case rocked ominously. If I stand up, he thought, I’ll tip the case and go flying arse over tip, possibly break an arm, definitely never live it down.
He stayed where he was.
“Well?” Gignomai repeated, and the pressure in the room was more than flesh and bone could stand. It tried to vent itself through Rasso the liveryman, who said, in a voice as slim and fragile as an icicle, “What do you think we should do, then?”
Gignomai waited a heartbeat or so before answering. “Go up there,” he said. “Flush them out. If needs be, kill them. It’s the only way. I’m sorry, but there it is.”
“We can’t do that,” someone said, deep in the pool of faces. “They’ve got weapons. They live in a fucking castle. We’d be slaughtered.”
Gignomai didn’t smile as he answered, but Marzo knew him well enough by now to recognise the faint light in his eyes, the firmness of the line of his mouth. Inside, he was grinning like a skull. “No,” he said. “You think I’d suggest it if there wasn’t a way? We can take them, I promise you. I can tell you how. That’s not the question. The question is, do you want to?”
There are silences that mean yes, and silences that mean no. This one was unambiguous.
“That’s easy said,” Rasso replied. He was having trouble with his words, like a drunk. “What makes you think we can take out your family without a whole lot of us getting killed?”
“Because I’ve thought about it,” Gignomai replied, quiet and calm, just right; tall and skinny, like a spider on a stick. “I’ve given it a lot of thought over a long time. Also, we’ve got two wonderful advantages that’ll make it easy. I can tell you about them if you’re serious, otherwise I’ll keep them to myself.”
There was a terrible silence, then someone said, “Go on.”
Gignomai nodded, acknowledging the formation of the contract. They all saw him, and nobody could have been in any doubt about what that slight movement meant. “First,” he said, “I know a way of getting up there without being seen. It’s not guarded. It’s well away from anywhere Luso posts guards. They don’t know about it; nobody does, except me.” He paused for a moment, then said, “It’s how I escaped. Twice. And I know Luso hasn’t found out about it, because I’ve been back to look. If he’d found it, he’d have blocked it up. He hasn’t. They don’t know.”
It was the performance of a miracle—sand into flour, water into wine. They looked at him, and Marzo knew what they were thinking: that’s one, what’s the other?
“The other thing,” Gignomai went on, “is my brother Luso’s wedding. If we go up there while the wedding’s going on, they’ll all be in the house, every single one of them. They’ll be drinking and dancing, playing music. We could walk up to the front door shouting our heads off and they wouldn’t know we were there. We can take them all together, too pissed to fight, all the weapons in the racks in the armoury. Believe me,” he added, with a perfect smile, “I wouldn’t dream of taking you up there if I thought there was a chance in a million you’d have to fight. You’re not fighters. That’s a good thing. I grew up among fighters, and it’s not a good thing to be. You’re better than that, and I’m not going to turn you into the sort of people we’re going there to get rid of.”
“What about your brother?” Rasso said. “I don’t see him coming quietly.”
Gignomai’s face was suddenly dead. “Leave him to me,” he said.
“That’s easy to say—”
“I can guarantee it,” Gignomai said. “By the time you’re on the Tabletop, I’ll have taken care of my brother. That’s the whole point. I can tell you exactly when the wedding’s going to be, because the only thing they’re waiting for is me. Luso’s said, he won’t get married unless I’m there. So, I’ll go to the wedding. And Luso won’t be a problem. You have my word.”
His word, the met’Oc word. Marzo thought about Luso, of the bond between them. He was nice to me when he didn’t have to be, he thought. He gave me his word, but Gignomai deceived me. And Furio…
Suddenly he felt very cold. Furio was missing, but he had no doubt at all in his mind that Gignomai knew where Furio was. Not a business partner, then. A hostage. He lifted his head, and found that Gignomai was looking at him. He looked away, and at that moment someone called out, “Mayor, what do you reckon? Should we do it?”
As if the whole weight of the building was resting on his neck. Marzo knew exactly what he ought to do. Whoever it was had given him the chance. All he had to do was say no, and he could stop it right there.
“I’m not your bloody mayor,” he said. “I wish you’d stop calling me that. If you want a mayor, then bloody well elect one. I quit.”
Someone laughed, presumably thinking he was making a joke.
“What do you think?” Gignomai said quietly.
At that moment, Marzo hated Gignomai more than anyone else he’d ever met. He knew what had to be done, and what he’d just said was a lie. By negotiating with Luso met’Oc, trying to help, do the best he could, and never losing sight of the fact that respect and popularity would do business in the store no harm at all, he’d accepted the ridiculous, idiotic title and everything it implied. Now, for Furio’s sake, he was going to have to do the wrong thing. And wasn’t Gignomai clever? he thought. He’s given me Furio as an excuse, so I can do what I do best and be weak.
“I think it’s got to be done,” he said. “Now, or later. Now would be easier. If we leave it, people are going to get killed. And if Gignomai’s telling the truth about what they did to his sister, I don’t think we need to bother ourselves with the rights and wrongs.” He looked at the faces. He knew all of them, he’d known them all his life, and he was betraying them to the met’Oc sitting next to him. “I’m not your fucking mayor, but I think we should do it, yes. I really don’t see where we’ve got a choice.”
There was a moment when the lock tripped and the hammer fell. Someone said, “But what are we going to do for weapons? We can’t just go in there empty-handed, no matter wh
at he says.”
Gignomai smiled this time, and lifted his foot and stamped it lightly on the packing case under him. “In this box,” he said, “there’s five dozen quality billhooks. You won’t find a better weapon anywhere.” (And Marzo understood, and cursed himself for being a fool.) “Right now they’re the property of Marzo here, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind giving us the loan of them. And if you want a little bit more to make you feel better, there’s knives and axes, and I know some of you have bows. We’ll be better kitted out than Luso’s men, I promise you.”
Marzo felt himself nod helplessly. It was as though the command that made his head move came from Gignomai, not himself. Sale or return, he thought. I really should have seen it coming.
After that, it was mostly practicalities, tedious military stuff which Marzo found both terrifying and boring at the same time. Once he was satisfied that he wasn’t expected to play a part in the great plan of campaign, he disengaged himself from it and fixed his eyes on the corner of the room, letting his mind drift while Gignomai instructed his troops. So the end of the meeting took him by surprise, and the room began to empty in silence. It wasn’t long before he was alone with Gignomai, the two of them sitting on the piled-up boxes, like emperors without an empire. He looks shattered, Marzo thought, hardly surprising, bearing in mind the performance he’d just given. But he’d been expecting to see a buzz, a gradual winding down from feverish intensity of feeling, and instead, Gignomai looked as though he’d just spent a day shovelling gravel.
Gignomai turned his head and looked at him. “The trick’ll be,” he said, “getting down from here without dislodging the boxes. Slow and very careful is my suggestion.”
Marzo felt his face twitch but kept the laugh squashed down. He stood up defiantly and walked down the cases as though they were stairs. It’d have been fine if the penultimate crate hadn’t skipped out from under his foot and shot him onto his backside on the floor.
A moment later Gignomai was bending over him. “You all right?”
Marzo had jarred his spine and his head was hurting. “Fine.”
Gignomai stretched out his hand to help him up. He could have refused to take it. “Thanks,” he muttered, as he regained his feet, and Gignomai let go. He had nothing else to say.
“For what it’s worth,” Gignomai said, “I’m sorry.”
“Well.” Marzo tried putting his weight on his front foot. His ankle twanged like a harp string. “That’s all fine and splendid, but it doesn’t change anything, does it?”
“No. Never claimed it did. But I’m sorry.” Gignomai was about to walk away, but hesitated. “Furio’s fine,” he said.
“He’d better be.”
“He’s my best friend.”
Which sounded ridiculous, like Death having a wife and children, and a dog.
Aurelio, formerly smith to the met’Oc, had an extraordinary, inhuman, incredible, unnatural ability to stay awake. Throughout their joint captivity—Furio had no idea how long it lasted; the only unit of time was the Meal, presented at wildly irregular intervals—the last thing he saw before he drifted into sleep and the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the old man’s insufferable eyes, watching him like an elderly, patient cat at a mousehole. Saying things, shouting them, had absolutely no effect. No matter how he pleaded, yelled or threatened, Aurelio continued to watch over him like an all-seeing, powerless god, and his foot stayed firmly planted on the fragment of saw-blade which was, as far as Furio could see, the only way out of there.
He’d considered other options, but none of them held any realistic prospect of success. Even if he managed to overpower Aurelio (a fight in a darkened room between two men with their hands tied together; he had no idea how that would work, but he had a shrewd suspicion that Aurelio the blacksmith, though more than twice his age, was probably stronger than he was, and almost certainly knew more about fighting dirty), in doing so he’d make a hell of a racket, and that would bring the guards. His only chance was to get the saw-blade out from under Aurelio’s foot while the old man was sleeping, and the old man never slept.
Like Marzo and Gignomai’s sword, he thought, all I need to get out of here is one miserable artefact.
He was dreaming. In his dream, he was back in the store, except that the store was this room he was confined in, and he was tied to the chair he was sitting in, and the chair was clamped to the floor with brackets Aurelio had made, and Teucer had sewn his lips together, scolding him for being a baby when he winced as the needle sank into his skin, and Gignomai and Uncle Marzo and the old savage, and Aurelio, of course, were all sitting in the dark watching him, waiting for him to die. He tried to struggle against the utterly immovable rope that bound him to the chair when the rope suddenly gave way, and he fell forward onto the floor, and realised he was awake.
Next to him, two inches from his nose, was the toe of Aurelio’s boot. Between the boot’s sole and the floor, he could see a little grey strip, no more than a sixteenth of an inch wide, metal crystallised by fracture. He craned his neck, keeping his body as still as he could, and saw Aurelio’s head lolling forward on his chest, his eyes shut.
Glory and wonder, the old bastard had finally nodded off.
Furio considered the tactical position. If he tried to shift Aurelio’s boot off the saw-blade, and he got it wrong and the old man woke up, with Furio’s nose less than a finger’s length from the toe of his steel-capped boot, the outcome could well be distressing, anything from a broken nose to concussion and a fractured skull. On the other hand, the opportunity was too good to waste.
He wriggled his tied at the wrist hands across the floor until his fingernails were resting against the sewn-down welt of the boot. Then, horribly afraid, he used the fingers of his left hand to raise the boot off the floor, proceeding by slow multiples of the width of a strand of a spider’s web. His nerve failed by the time he’d lifted the boot an eighth of an inch, but in theory that ought to be enough. With the tips of his bruised, crushed right-hand fingers, he pecked and scratched at the bit of saw until he felt it come loose from under the old man’s foot. He pulled it towards him—it proved to be considerably longer than he’d imagined it would be—then lowered the boot, gentle as a mother finally getting her baby to sleep, until its whole weight was once again resting on the floor.
Victory.
But don’t celebrate yet. He inched and edged and squirmed his way back onto his chair, looked quickly to make sure Aurelio was still asleep, then began the difficult, painful and exquisitely awkward job of sawing through the ropes around his wrist with a sliver of saw-blade wedged between the pads of his left and right index fingers.
The saw-blade was largely blunt, and its teeth were widely spaced, just fine for rip-sawing rough lumber into planks, but nearly useless for nibbling through hemp rope. By the time he finally got there and the ends of the severed rope fell away to the floor, he’d ripped open his fingertips on the blade’s serrated edge, and gouged several caverns into his wrist and the heels of his hands with the sharp, fractured end.
The sense of achievement, though…
No time for fooling about. He flexed his newly released hands, like a man working his fingers into tight new gloves, then sat in the chair again, shuffled about to find the least uncomfortable position, and drew his hands together in his lap, so that nobody would guess just by looking what he was up to.
He sat motionless and quiet. Aurelio, still asleep, didn’t stir.
An infinity of time later, a guard came in with a wooden trencher bearing the usual stale bread and grindstone cheese. Furio made himself wait till the man was close enough for him to smell butter on his breath, then kicked with both heels against the man’s shins. The guard yelped, of course, but Furio was out of the chair and squeezing his throat before he had time to draw breath.
Furio had no idea how to kill a man with his bare hands. It turned out to be one of those things you can pick up as you go along.
He hadn’t meant
to do it. Right up to the point where the struggling stopped, he hadn’t even thought about the man as a man at all, just as an obstacle, a really difficult and awkward problem he didn’t know how to deal with, a writhing, twisting, horribly strong thing that’d be the death of him if he relaxed his grip for a moment. Then it went still; then it started jerking again; then there was a revolting smell. Then he let go, and the dead man slithered down him, down his chest and his leg, and slid onto the floor like a drunk’s discarded clothes. Furio jumped back, horrified by its touch, and realised he’d just killed someone.