by K. J. Parker
“Gignomai said they’d all be at the house,” Marzo replied.
“Yes, but what if he’s wrong?”
Marzo shrugged. “Then we’re in trouble.”
Jacolo came down eventually, brown with stone-dust with a gleam of red showing through on his skinned knuckles, turning the dust to mud. “Just give me a while,” he said, and flopped on the ground, his back to the cart wheel, and fell asleep.
Marzo looked round. He really didn’t want to be the man who gave the orders, but someone had to do it; the supply of volunteers had dried up completely. “What we need,” he said, giving the Grado twins a long, thoughtful stare, “is someone who’s used to working up ladders.”
The Grado twins were the colony’s best thatchers, only using their slender, miserable tongue of land between the river and the marshes to grow reed. They took it better than he’d anticipated. Also, Marzo noted with approval, they’d brought their gloves.
Piro Grado went first, with Gelerio close on his heels. They were short, slim men, with forearms like legs, used to working fast because they were paid by the job, not the hour. Chips and stones rattled on the cart-bed like hail, and the rest of the company began to relax, the way you do when finally someone who knows what he’s doing takes charge and gets on with it. Everybody except Marzo, of course. He was watching the sun. The simple fact was that, when Gignomai drew up the plan, he seriously underestimated how long it’d take to widen the hole enough for the company to get through. Since Marzo didn’t actually know what Gignomai had in mind—you leave that side of things to me, he’d said, and they’d been delighted to let it go at that—he couldn’t tell what ill-effects the delay would have: whether the worst of it would be Gignomai waiting impatiently for them on the doorstep, tapping his foot, or whether they’d all end up walking into a lethal trap. He wondered, as mayor, if it was his duty to share his misgivings with his fellow citizens, but decided against it. One thing he was absolutely sure about: if they gave up now and went home, they’d never come back and try again, not if Luso and a thousand armed savages burnt a farm a day and nailed their victims’ heads to every tree in the colony. And the job had to be done; he knew that now—he believed. Cattle raids and bullets in doors were one thing. People were used to putting up with that sort of nuisance, just as they were used to rooks trampling down the barley and the water-troughs freezing over in winter. But the savages—that was, of course, a different matter entirely. Anybody insanely irresponsible enough to unleash a force that powerful had to be stopped and put down.
Piro Grado’s head appeared in the hole, upside down. “We’re through,” he called out. (How the hell was he doing that? Must be hanging by his toes, like a bat.) “We’ve cut steps where it’s too steep to crawl. We’re going on ahead.”
There was a moment of shocked stillness, as sixty men who’d secretly believed the passage would prove impassable and the mission would be called off were suddenly faced with the prospect of going through with it after all. Piro’s head had already vanished back up the hole. Nobody wanted to go up the ladder, but everybody knew they couldn’t just abandon the Grado boys. There was still, of course, the awkward matter of who was going to go up first. Marzo was just about to talk himself into believing it had to be him when Gimao the chandler, who’d had unnaturally little to say for himself so far, sang out, “Here goes, then,” and scampered up the ladder like a twelve-year-old picking apples. Marzo would’ve been at a loss to know what to make of it if he hadn’t met Gimao’s eye, as he stooped to pick a billhook out of the crate. Sheer blind terror, the sort that makes you do the thing that’s freezing you to the marrow, just so it’ll be over and done with.
The thing is, Marzo thought, we’re supposed to be the aggressors. We shouldn’t be terrified like this, we’re predators, we’re the ones starting the fight. Suddenly he grinned, and people standing next to him must have wondered what the joke was. I don’t feel the slightest bit like a predator, Marzo thought. I couldn’t be Luso met’Oc if I practised for fifty years.
They were scrambling up the ladder now, grimly quiet, concentrating on what they were doing, and a whole new motivation had taken hold of them, the desperate urge not to show themselves up in front of their neighbours and friends. Seeing the looks on their faces, Marzo understood. All the causes and dangers and injustices in the world wouldn’t be enough to force a civilian up a ladder into a narrow tunnel leading to a war, not even if the alternative was fire in the night and the charred bones of their children in the ashes in the morning. But fear of shame would be enough to make them do anything, and that trigger had been pulled as soon as Piro Grado had told them he was going on ahead. Ridiculous, Marzo couldn’t help thinking. Completely stupid, he thought, as he put his foot on the first rung of the ladder and hoped like hell that nobody could see he was shivering.
Furio limped into town, too preoccupied to wonder why there was nobody about in the middle of the day, and headed straight for the store. He found Teucer in the main room. She’d cleared everything off the long table, which she’d dragged into the middle of the room. She was sharpening a filleting-knife on a fine whetstone.
“There you are,” she said. “You missed the meeting.”
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Getting ready,” she replied.
She’d pulled out another, smaller table. It was neatly piled with rolled-up strips of cloth, tin basins, various incongruous tools—pliers, a hacksaw, a spread-out roll of needles. “What’s all this junk for?” he asked.
“Like I said,” she told him, “I’m getting ready.”
And three books: two closed, the third open and face down, to mark the place if she needed it in a hurry. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“You don’t know.”
“If I knew…”
She frowned. Such inefficiency. “Uncle Marzo and Gignomai and a load of other people have gone to fight the met’Oc,” she said. “I’m not entirely sure why, they wouldn’t let me listen. I think it’s because the met’Oc have given guns to the savages so they can attack us.”
He stared at her. “Gignomai—”
“He made a speech,” Teucer said. “He said something about his sister, but I couldn’t hear enough to make any sense of it. Anyway, they’ve all gone off, so I thought I’d better make a few preparations, in case anybody gets hurt.” There was a sort of wild hope under her flat, calm voice that turned his stomach. After all, what better chance could she possibly ask for?
“When did they leave?” Furio asked.
She shrugged. “Five hours ago, more or less. They’ve gone to the Tabletop. They took a couple of carts full of tools and Uncle’s long ladder. I’m guessing Gignomai’s going to show them the place where he got out, when he ran away.”
Furio stood perfectly still. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do now, he thought. Five hours. How long would it take him to run to the Tabletop? Not that he was capable of running that far; he’d be lucky to make it at a slow hobble. But there were horses in the livery. Of course, Rasso would most likely have joined the posse, so the livery would be closed for business, so he’d have to break in and steal a horse, which was against the law. “Are you going after them?” he heard Teucer say. It was one of her flat questions; she might just as well have been asking him what he fancied for dinner.
“I don’t know,” Furio replied. “I mean, what use would I be?”
“Gignomai’s your friend. I’d have thought you’d have wanted to help him.”
No point in even starting to explain. “Do you happen to know if Rasso was with them? You know, at the livery.”
“I heard his voice,” Teucer said, “at the meeting. So presumably yes. Why?”
She’d finished with the oilstone and was stropping the blade on one of Uncle Marzo’s belts. You’d need the finest possible edge for surgery. He shivered. “Thanks,” he said, and made for the door.
“You’ve hurt your ankle,” she called after him. “Want me to tak
e a look at it?”
He fled without answering and hobbled and skipped as quickly as he could down the street to the corner, where the livery stood. The main gate was closed and the bar was down, but there was no padlock in the hasp. No point stealing a horse in the colony, where everybody knew every horse, pony, donkey and mule by sight, along with who owned it. He chose a short-legged chestnut cob, purely because it was closer to the ground than any of the other horses, so less far to fall. He knew how to tack up a carthorse, but he’d never put on a saddle before. He was a lousy rider at the best of times.
He led it outside, lined it up with the mounting-block, climbed the two short steps and put his foot in the stirrup. “Nice horse,” he said.
The first ten yards were fine, then the saddle slipped. He dismounted, and tightened the girth, which had been plenty tight when he’d put the saddle on. Bloody thing must’ve been holding its breath, he rationalised. He led it back to the block and tried again. Gripping the pommel of the saddle with the fingers of both hands, he nudged firmly with his heels. The horse carried on ambling, like a prosperous citizen taking a turn round the square after dinner. He kicked harder, and harder still. The horse broke into a grudging trot, which threatened to hammer his spine into his head like a nail.
The earliest version of the met’Oc wedding ceremony to survive dates from the reign of the Sixth Emperor. Inscribed on four bronze shields installed on the central pillar of the north transept of the New Temple, they are largely illegible on account of corrosion and the extremely archaic script in which they are written, but a transcript made in the fifteenth year of the Twenty-First Emperor survives in the archives of the Studium. The version generally used, up to the family’s exile in the ninth year of the Fortieth Emperor, was the Seventh Revision, compiled on the orders of Lambanomai met’Oc on the occasion of his eldest son’s wedding to Anser, youngest daughter of the Nineteenth Emperor in the last year of his reign. The Seventh Revision requires that the bride be brought in procession from her father’s house, preceded by twelve Knights of Equity on white horses and accompanied by ninety halbardiers, who will in due course comprise her honour guard during her first three years of married life. The groom meets her on the steps of the White Temple, escorted by the Senate and the heads of the six Departments in military dress and representatives of the Studium, the Hospital and the three Orders Martial. The bride is permitted to wear the customary costume of her family, but the groom must be dressed in his formal regalia as Count of the Stables and Chaplain Domestic. The ceremony is conducted by the City Patriarch, assisted by the Provost of the White Temple, the bride’s family chaplain and the met’Oc Chaplain-General. After the ceremony it is optional, but customary, for the groom’s honour guard to distribute gold angels, struck with the groom’s head on the obverse and the bride’s on the reverse, to the crowds in Temple Square. These coins are recognised as legal tender by a special Act of Senate.
The met’Oc in exile used the Ninth, or Emergency, Revision for the wedding of Lusomai met’Oc. Dating from the sixth year of the Twenty-Second Emperor, it was compiled by government draughtsmen on the orders of the Senate to facilitate the wedding of Thanomai met’Oc to his cousin Passer as he lay dying in his tent after the Battle of the Field of Roses, thereby ensuring the smooth transition of the family honours and properties to Passer’s brother, Lanthanomai, who served as Steward Regent until Thanomai’s son by his previous marriage came of age. Since the Ninth Revision, of necessity, provided for a morganatic marriage, the terms were amended for Phainomai’s wedding. Copies of the amendment were sent to the Senate for ratification, but no reply was ever received.
In the third book of his Commentaries on the House Law of the met’Oc, a copy of which, in his own hand, was lodged by met’Oc sympathisers in the Studium archives at some point before his death, Phainomai met’Oc came to the conclusion that the validity of the Ninth Revision depended on the groom being entitled to the status of sun hoplois—that is to say, on active service as a commander of forces in the field, and therefore exempt from the formal requirements of certain aspects of matrimonial, property and testamentary law. Phainomai argued that the second son of the met’Oc in exile was, by virtue of his position as House Constable, inherently and permanently sun hoplois until such time as his elder brother succeeded to the family honours, maintaining that the perilous nature of the met’Oc’s existence, surrounded on all sides by potentially hostile neighbours, meant that the Constable’s service was, in theory and often in practice, continuously active. Nevertheless, quite possibly under pressure from Boulomai met’Ousa to ensure the irreproachable legitimacy of the marriage, Phainomai formally invested Lusomai met’Oc with an active commission against the colonists and the savages before allowing the bride to be admitted to the Great Hall for the public part of the ceremony.
To reflect this, the full-strength house garrison paraded in the courtyard throughout the ceremony. Lusomai protested about this, expressing grave concern about leaving the Gates and Doorstep unguarded. His father overruled him, citing the case of Coptomai met’Oc in the reign of the Fourteenth Emperor, whose commission in the Fifth Vesani War was retrospectively invalidated because two regiments of his army were not present in the encampment when Coptomai assumed his command. Phainomai’s interpretation was supported by Boulomai met’Ousa, referring to the practice of his own family, and Gignomai met’Oc, who also drew attention to the fourth section of the Dispensations, concerning commencement and transfer of commands. Lusomai gave way with his customary good grace, and ordered the muster of the garrison.
He had to stand on the raised platform at the far end of the Hall, next to Stheno and Boulo. He could see the back of Luso’s head, and beyond that the faces of the two dozen or so farmhands and servants standing on either side of the strip of faded blue carpet along which the bride would walk. Off to the left, Father was waiting in the cheese store to make his grand entrance. He saw his mother in the front row. They’d let her have a chair to sit in. He couldn’t see from where he was standing, but he doubted the chair legs were fastened to the floor.
Someone had made an effort. The sconces in the walls (no longer used; they made do with tallow candles these days) were draped with swathes of ivy and fir branches. Someone had knotted a rope of wild roses, twenty feet long, and looped it through the crossbeams of the roof, too high to be properly seen unless you stood with your head right back. It looked ridiculous and faintly sad, like children dressing up as people from history, using their imaginations but having to make do with what they could find in the hedgerows or the dressing-up basket.
His mother was staring at her feet. He hadn’t seen her for months. If she’d looked up at him, it must’ve been when he was looking the other way. Stheno’s boots were black and shiny with the stuff they used for blacking the fire-irons. He only had the one pair, but they’d come up really well. As for Boulomai, he looked like the rich kid at the party who doesn’t fit in. His parents have had a proper costume made for him, while all the other kids are wearing painted paper armour and old sheets. There were oil-stains on his sash where a snapping-hen pistol usually rested, but he hadn’t felt the need to come armed to his sister’s wedding. He was picking at the buttons on his tunic sleeve.
“Hello, Cousin Boulo,” Gignomai said quietly.
“Gignomai.” Boulo frowned, looking straight ahead. “Thanks for coming back. I know how much it means to your brother.”
“Well.” Gignomai glanced sideways at him. Less to Cousin Boulo than meets the eye. “This is the sort of occasion when the whole family needs to be together. It’s just a shame my sister couldn’t be here.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“She’s away at school,” Gignomai said, “back Home, under a false name. That’s why we don’t talk about her in front of strangers. But you’re family. I guess the rule doesn’t apply.” He was about to add, “Ask Luso about her; he’s got lots of stories,” but bit the words back. No point, and no need.
Forgive me, he mouthed silently, as the nail forgives the hammer. But Boulo was still looking dead ahead, and didn’t notice.
The Ninth Revision was silent on the subject of appropriate music, so Father had given orders for the house musician to play a solemn air on the rebec until the arrival of the bride, at which point he was to strike up the met’Oc march. This was his debut performance (he usually worked for Stheno, doing odd jobs) and he was out of practice, or just not very good. The rebec was two hundred years old and had belonged to an emperor’s daughter; its soundbox was cracked and two of the strings had gone soft.
I must watch all this, Gignomai told himself, and make sure I remember. This time tomorrow, I’ll be the only one left, and I have a duty to posterity to bear witness.
The double doors at the far end of the hall opened, and the bride came through. At least, there was a figure dressed in a great swathe of material, and he assumed she was in there somewhere. Gignomai frowned slightly. He knew the contents of every trunk and box in the store rooms, the sculleries and the barns. He’d have noticed enough fine white silk to cover a hay-rick. She’d brought it with her, then, her wedding dress, and presumably not just on the off-chance. She looked lonely and barely human pacing slowly up the Hall. He guessed she was taking her time so as not to tread on the trailing excess of hem and end up flat on her face. It could just as easily have been a bear under all that veil, but nobody here had that sort of sense of humour.
Eventually she halted, like a ship drifting into harbour on a flat wind. Beside him Stheno coughed loudly, whereupon the cheese-store door opened and Father came out. He was an extraordinary sight, in the full formal court dress of an Elector of the Empire, complete with brocaded gown, wig and sword. He walked painfully, taking short steps. The costume was his father’s, and Phainomai was several sizes bigger. He looked like a man wearing his wife’s clothes for a bet.
Even in the Emergency Revision, the words of the ceremony were in the old language. There was a speech to begin with, a general address that lasted for as long as it takes to pluck a chicken. Then Luso was allowed to take two steps forward. He and Pasi knew their lines reasonably well, though since nobody in the room except Father could understand what they were saying, it didn’t matter terribly much. Cousin Boulo kept his eyes tight shut until the last response had been given, then breathed a long sigh, which Gignomai assumed was relief. He knew how he felt.