by K. J. Parker
Which makes me…
But he didn’t have time for that. It occurred to him, as he observed the thing on the floor not moving, that no matter how deeply asleep he’d been, Aurelio must’ve woken up with all that going on. He turned and looked at the old man, his head still slumped forward, and thought, Oh. Then, to be sure, he stretched out two fingers and touched the neck. No pulse.
Furio had never seen a dead body before.
The most important thing, so essential that it blotted out all other considerations, was to get out of there, before the dead men crowding in on him changed their minds and woke up. The door was ajar. He was through it and out the other side before he knew it, and found himself in blazing, glaring light, stunned and helpless for a good, long five heartbeats. Then he sprinted across the clearing for the nearest line of trees. If anybody saw him, they didn’t do anything about it. He ducked behind a waist-thick oak and slumped down onto the wet leaf mould.
I didn’t mean to. The skin under his fingers had been warm. It had been fear and horror that had given him the strength to squeeze. He knew from experience that he’d probably strained one hand. Neither of them would be any good the next day, when they’d had a chance to stiffen up; he wouldn’t be able to make a fist for a week. I didn’t mean to, he told himself. It sounded pathetic. It had been a stranger, one of Cousin Boulo’s crew, who’d gone to give two men something to eat, who’d died because he was in the way. Some reason.
Time to go, urged a voice in his head, but he couldn’t move. Communications were out between his head and his legs; orders weren’t getting through. It was a bit like the way you feel in bed on a very cold morning—you know you’ve got to get up and go outside and feed the pigs, but you can’t quite make yourself do it, even though you know perfectly well that the longer you leave it, the later you’ll be and the more you’ll have to hurry for the rest of the day to make up. He reasoned, I escaped from there because I’ve got to get to town and tell them that Gignomai’s gone off his head, he’s cooked up an appalling scheme to start a war. I’ve escaped and it’s cost a man I didn’t even know his life. If I don’t go, what an unforgivable waste that’d be, like killing a chicken and then not eating it.
The opposing view said, Gig had a reason, a bad one, but very strong. You just killed that man because he was an impediment.
In the distance, he saw two men walk from the foundry to the store shed. The voices in his head went quiet while he considered: nobody had any reason to go in the hammer-house, not till it was time for the prisoners’ next meal. Yes, but someone’s going to miss the man I killed. How long, before they find I’ve gone and come looking? Can’t afford to sit here a moment longer. He stayed where he was.
Deliberate murder, he thought. The colony had its own way of dealing with that on the extremely rare occasions when it happened. If there were adult males in the victim’s family, they took care of it; if not, there were always neighbours. It was always done quickly, with a rope whenever possible, but if the murderer was liable to make a fuss, then anything would do—an axe or a big hammer or a knife. It was generally considered not to be murder, provided you made no effort to conceal the body. There had been two feuds in the colony’s history, both long since resolved. People still talked about them: the South Room War and the Sesto War. The general consensus was, nothing like that should ever happen again. And now, of course, they had a mayor, who’d be sure to see justice done.
In spite of everything, the thought of it made him grin.
Not deliberate murder: heroic action, justified force. In an ideal world, he’d have smacked the man on the point of the chin and he’d have gone out like a snuffed candle and woken up an hour or so later with a splitting headache. But instead he’d died. Gignomai, on the other hand, had been at great pains not to hurt anybody. He’d shot bullets into doors, which don’t bleed or die. For some reason, Furio got the impression that he’d just lost the argument.
For the first time, he thought about the old man, Aurelio. For the first time, he realised that he hadn’t seen the old man eat anything, or drink anything. He’d been so hungry he hadn’t bothered to look, and so bored that eating the food was the absolute highlight of each time period. Or maybe he had a weak heart, or perhaps it was a stroke, brought on by confinement, fear, lack of sleep. People don’t just die, but, yes, sometimes they do.
I’ve got to make a move, he told himself.
When he stood up, his legs proved to be treacherously weak. He staggered, just managed to fling his arms round the tree, steadied himself and hung on tight, like a child clinging to its mother. The thought of climbing the rather steep hill was miserably daunting. I didn’t mean to, he told himself for the third time, and it sounded even weaker now than before. Legs stiff, one step at a time, he walked away up the hill.
Luso grabbed Gignomai, pinning both his arms, and crushed him till he couldn’t breathe. His fingers lost the strength to hold the strap of the bag he was carrying, and he heard it hit the floor with a bump.
“Leave off,” he whispered, with the very last wisps of air in his lungs. “You’re suff—”
“Sorry.” Luso let go and Gignomai reeled backwards, dragging in air. His throat was raw, as it had been the few times in his life when he’d completely exhausted himself. “I’m just so pleased you came,” he heard Luso say. He’d have replied if he could, but he had other priorities.
“You’ve lost weight,” Luso went on, clamping a massive hand over his right shoulder. “God, you’re a bloody skeleton. When Mother sees you, she’ll have a fit.”
Indeed, he thought, death by starvation. Enough to upset anybody. “I’m fine,” he wheezed. “At least, I was, before you started strangling me.”
He looked his brother in the face, and saw happiness, and love. “So,” he said, “how’s it been around here while I’ve been away?”
Luso laughed, a brief, intense roar, abruptly cut off. “Guess,” he said. “And guess who’s had to take the brunt of it. I ought to smash your face in, after what I’ve been through.”
Gignomai grinned feebly. “Father wasn’t happy, then.”
“You could say that.” Luso let go of him, and smiled instead. “And of course it was all my fault. Apparently I was responsible for your moral welfare. He wouldn’t even speak to me for a week. For crying out loud, Gig, what the hell made you do a thing like that?
Gignomai took a step back; it brought him up against the wall. “We can talk about that,” he said, “or we could keep our mouths shut and thereby not spoil your wedding. Up to you, really.”
“Fine.” Luso held up his hand, which meant it was decided. “You’re right. You’re here now and that’s all that matters. Bloody hell, though, it’s good to see you again.”
“I’m not staying,” Gignomai said.
“Whatever. We’ll talk about it later.”
“No,” Gignomai replied. “We’ll get it straight right now, or I’m leaving. After the wedding, I go. Agreed?”
“If you say so.” You couldn’t beat Luso down in an argument like this. It was like fencing with him—you lunged, and he simply wasn’t there. “Now, for God’s sake, let’s find you something to wear, instead of those rags. And a bath. When was the last time you had a bath?”
“This morning, actually.”
“You mean you waded about in the river for two minutes. Not the same thing, and you know it.”
The hand was on his shoulder again, propelling him out of the room. It was like being a dog on a lead. “So,” Luso was saying, “was she worth it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The girl. No, don’t do the gormless stare, it must’ve been some girl, in the town. I’m guessing it’s Opello’s niece, the smart one from Home. Well? Any good?”
“You’re an idiot, Luso,” he said, and got no further, as his brother accidentally on purpose steered him into a door frame. He banged his chin. It hurt.
“Anyway.” Luso guided him through the door. “Let’s
talk about something really important. Where’s my present?”
“What?”
“My wedding present, you half-wit. Even a no-good waste of space like you wouldn’t show up to a wedding without bringing a present.”
“Actually, I did,” Gignomai said, and that was enough to stop Luso in his tracks.
“Did you?”
“Yes,” Gignomai said. “It’s in the bag I brought, but you made me drop it. If it’s broken…”
“Gig, I was just kidding.” Luso was looking at him, a curiously subdued, puzzled look. “I never expected—”
“Well, I brought you something. At least,” he went on, “it’s not for you and it’s not mine to give, and I know for a fact you’ve got one already. But it’s the thought that counts.”
He could see the thought take shape in Luso’s mind, and made a bet with himself: would Luso say it, or just wait? He lost the bet.
“It’s the sword,” Gignomai said. “You know, the one I—”
“But you sold it to Marzo Opello,” Luso said, “to pay for the supplies for your factory.”
Gignomai allowed his eyebrows to lift. “You really are going to have to tell me how you know all this stuff, Luso. Anyone would think you’ve got someone in town keeping an eye on me.”
“You stole it back.”
Gignomai shrugged. “I reckon the true ownership of that stupid thing is such a grey area, it really doesn’t matter any more. I just thought it might be good politics to return it, that’s all.”
Luso beamed at him. It wasn’t the diplomatic smile; it was the real thing. “Thanks,” Luso said. “It’s appreciated.”
“He’s been going on about it, I take it.”
Luso rolled his eyes. “You could say that, yes. Actually, I can just about put up with the gross betrayal of trust speech, all I do is look solemn and nod occasionally. But the been in our family for seven generations speech is starting to get on my nerves, because anybody with half a clue about swords can tell just by looking at it, it’s simply not that old. But what the hell.” He grinned, a huge grin, a sunburst. “Best present I could’ve asked for, little brother. Thanks. Now,” he went on, renewing his grip on Gignomai’s shoulder, “clothes. And a bath. And then, I guess, we’ll have to go and see Father.”
Some time later, he closed the door of his old room and lifted the lamp, letting the light soak into the shadows.
The stupid thing was, he’d never really thought of it as his, not when he’d lived and slept there, perched next to the window just before dawn, waiting for the first glow of light so he could carry on reading a stolen book where he’d left off the night before (a lamp or candle would show light under the door; his father had a suspicious and sharply analytical mind). He’d never dared think of it that way, just as he’d never considered his clothes or his shoes to be his own. He’d been issued with them, like a soldier’s kit. They were liable to be inspected at any time, without notice, and he would be held to account for loss, damage or neglect. The only property he’d owned had been junk salvaged from the sheds and barns, things Stheno had lost or forgotten about, or couldn’t be bothered with, and which Gignomai had lovingly renovated, modified, converted to his own use: a small knife slowly, painfully ground out of a worn-out file; a pair of sacking leggings to keep mud off his trousers; a derelict coat thrown over the harrow to keep off the damp, which he’d surreptitiously worn for a year until Father saw him through the window and ordered the offending item confiscated and burnt. As a boy he’d always thought of Furio as fabulously, obscenely rich, and of his house as a sort of royal treasury.
His room, accordingly, shouldn’t have hurt. The memories should have been resentments, further arguments to support his case. It shouldn’t have felt, it had no right to feel, like home. Force of habit, he told himself. Perhaps a released prisoner would get a little misty-eyed, revisiting his old cell. For the room to argue that he belonged here was an insult. He lowered the lamp a little to cast light on the small, straight chair in the corner. His sister used to sit there, when he was small, when she heard him crying in the night and came to shut him up before he woke Father, to tell him stories, to make him laugh. He summoned her, chief witness for the prosecution, and dutifully she came, but she was faint, a forced recollection of the memory of her that had haunted him lying in that bed, looking at those rafters. The truth was, she’d died too long ago, and he’d been too young at the time. He let her go, no further questions, in case the other side found out she was an unreliable witness.
He put down the lamp and sat on the bed. It was, he remembered (he hadn’t given it any thought since he’d left) a moot point whether his sleepless nights here had had more to do with the lumpy, compacted mattress than the unquiet spirit of his murdered sister. Same thing, in a way: the mattress woke him up, the ghost kept him from getting back to sleep. Query, therefore, whether a comfortable bed would have made a difference, back then, when he was still red-hot under the hammer and capable of taking a shape.
But, he reflected, easing off one savagely uncomfortable borrowed shoe, he’d learned a thing or two since then. This room wasn’t the forge any more, and the bed was too lumpy for an anvil. Just because the memory was no longer sharp didn’t mean it had never happened. The chair in the corner was a scar, to mark the place where the wound had been.
Stupid, to let his old room upset him so much, when he’d made himself so cold and hard that the hammer glanced off and the file skidded. Yet again, his mind turned back to what the crazy old savage had said, about the quaint beliefs of his misguided people. The old fool had known all that stuff was mere nonsense, but had been shocked and dismayed when the snapping-hen disproved it. Why? he wondered. Why would the old man have minded being proved right, after a lifetime of being considered insane for trying to tell people the truth? He frowned, aware that he’d missed the point. Look at it rationally, he told himself. One man says one thing, everybody else believes otherwise. What possible value can there be in a truth that chooses to manifest itself to one outsider only? Justice, of course, doesn’t work that way. As far as justice is concerned, truth is defined as the shared opinion of the majority of twelve jurors, and that criterion is reliable enough to hang people by. Therefore, for the purposes of a court of law, the old man was crazy and the others were right, at least until Gignomai met’Oc shot a goat.
But Gignomai met’Oc is a notorious deceiver, plotter, contriver and traitor, so his evidence can’t carry too much weight. Disregard his evidence, and the case collapses. Therefore, the old man must be wrong and the accepted view must prevail; therefore, the savages share the country with images from the past and the future but not the present, with people who aren’t really there at all. Imaginary friends.
Such as my sister, Gignomai thought, for whom I seek to achieve justice (a jury of one). She’s still here, in that chair, and I’m still here, in the bed, which accounts for my discomfort here, being torn in half between the present and the past, one place, two times. A touch on the trigger, the fall of the hammer, makes no difference really. She’ll always be here, no matter what I do, and all I can reasonably expect to achieve is to disturb the peace.
So, which is it? he demanded of himself, justice, revenge, spite, a blood sacrifice to appease the angry spirit of his imaginary friend? Yes, he replied.
He put the shoe back on. It pressed on his instep and cut into his heel.
Gignomai had drawn a map, a remarkably accurate one. Even so, finding the place wasn’t easy. They walked right past it three times, staring up at the hole in the sheer cliff face without seeing it, until the sun came out for a moment and cast a faint shadow on a crease in the rock, faint and alluring as make-up under a woman’s eye.
They stood and considered it for a while. The advance party had brought a long ladder, and half a dozen scaffolding poles, rope and an assortment of tools, loaded on a couple of donkey carts, along with packed lunches and a small barrel of cider, and the billhooks, still in the crate. They lo
oked as if they were off to mend someone’s roof.
Needless to say, the ladder was just too short, so they unhitched the donkey from one of the carts and stood the ladder on the bed, its feet secured by wooden battens nailed to the floor. Nobody wanted to be the first to go up.
“Don’t look at me,” Marzo said. “I’m too fat, for one thing.”
No arguing with something so self-evidently true. Eventually, the youngest Fasenna shrugged his shoulders and scrambled onto the cart. They handed him a trowel and a hoe with the shaft cut down to ten inches, and he began to climb. Nobody could bear to watch as he disappeared into the hole, dragging himself up by his hands and elbows, his feet dangling uselessly, so that he looked like a dead mouse in a cat’s mouth.
Marzo was thinking about Gignomai’s description of his escape. As far as he could remember, Gignomai had slithered down a lot of the way, because of the steepness of the gradient. Climbing up would be an entirely different proposition, not so much danger of getting hopelessly wedged, of course, and young Fasenna had the advantage of knowing that the shaft really did go all the way through.
After a disturbingly long time, during which there was nothing at all to see, Fasenna’s toes poked out of the hole, then his legs, waving wildly, feeling for the top rung of the ladder. When at last he got down, his hands and face were a horrible mess of grazes and cuts.
“Can’t cut it,” he said, feebly brandishing the bent hoe; he’d abandoned the trowel. “Rock. Hammer and a cold chisel.”
Another uncomfortable silence. Then Ilio Jacolo, who was a bit of a stonemason when he needed the money, muttered, “Oh, for crying out loud,” pulled a lump hammer and three chisels out of the tool bag, and slowly climbed up out of sight. They couldn’t see him, either, but at least they could hear the soft, woodpecker taps, and from time to time, gravel and small stones dropped out of the hole and rattled on the bed of the cart.
“Does he have to make so much noise?” Rasso demanded, loudly. “If we can hear it, so can they.”