The Folding Knife Part 5

"Partly." Ba.s.so folded the penknife, turned it over a couple of times in his hands and put it in his pocket. "Mostly, though, I want you to mind the store for me for a day or two. Now this thing's safely over, I fancy a break and a breath of fresh air. I'm going to go home, sweep up Cilia and the twins and head for the Horn. Business is all very well, but there's other things in life."

Antigonus got up. "So I gather," he replied. "Well, enjoy yourself. I'll tell the lynch mob you neglected to leave a forwarding address."

Once Antigonus had gone, he spent half an hour dealing with the things that really couldn't wait, then slipped out of the office by the back door, past the coal shed and the stables and into the street. On his way home, he stopped in the covered market and bought flowers for Cilia and honey-cakes for the twins. The steel-grey clouds that had hung over the City for the last three days were beginning to splinter, though he had no idea what the weather would be like at the Horn.

The porter seemed surprised to see him; reasonably enough, since he hardly ever came home before close of trading. "Is my father in?" he asked.

The porter shook his head. "Went out soon after you did, sir," he replied. "Not expected back till tomorrow."

No point asking if he'd said where he was going. "When he gets back, tell him I'd like a word." He walked quickly across the courtyard and ran up the back stairs to the day gallery. It occurred to him that at this time of day he was a stranger in this house, unaware of its routines and operating procedures. There didn't seem to be anybody about, so presumably the maids had finished the morning ch.o.r.es and the twins were with their tutor in the schoolroom. She wasn't in the day solar; the sampler she was working on lay on the table by the window, next to a stack of books and a chequers board. She wasn't in her dressing room either, so he tried the bedroom.

She was there all right. She had her back to him as he pushed open the door; she was kneeling, naked, on the bed and he could see a man's feet and legs sticking out under her. For a moment he simply didn't understand. Then a man's voice said, "s.h.i.+t"; he recognised it. Palo and Cilia, which was impossible.

She couldn't have heard him, or didn't detect the sudden change in his voice; she carried on shoving with her hips, but he was trying to scramble to his feet, pus.h.i.+ng with his hands against the sides of the bed. Ba.s.so opened his mouth, but he couldn't think of anything to say.

Palo must've pushed her, quite hard, because she toppled sideways and landed on the floor with a b.u.mp. Palo was on his feet, grabbing for his s.h.i.+rt; no, for something under it, something hanging off the back of the chair it was draped over. He looked ridiculous. Cilia had turned to see what he was staring at. Their eyes met. He saw anger.

"Palo," she said. "Do something."

Palo was still fumbling with the s.h.i.+rt. Whatever he was trying to get at was jammed in one of the sleeves. Ba.s.so heard himself say, "Cilia, what the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?" and wondered what had made him say that. Mostly he felt numb, but also embarra.s.sed. He'd been taught it was rude to walk in on people with no clothes on.

"Palo, for G.o.d's sake," Cilia said, and Ba.s.so realised what was slung over the back of the chair, tangled in the s.h.i.+rt. Palo, a conscientious follower of fas.h.i.+on, had adopted the soldier-of-fortune look that was so popular in the City right now, mostly with junior clerks and apprentices. Palo liked to dress common, in a savagely expensive way.

It was, of course, only a dress dagger, jewelled gilded hilt and a bit of old tin for a blade. But Palo was coming straight at him, the dagger held overhand and low; he was doing the exaggerated crouch, the mark of someone who's watched a few exhibition bouts and wrongly a.s.sumed he's learned something. "Palo, don't be so b.l.o.o.d.y stupid," he said, but then Palo lashed out at him, and the tin blade slid across the muscle of his forearm. He didn't feel anything, but out of the corner of his eye he could see a big, gaudy patch of red, like a rose petal. He jumped backwards and found he had his back to the wall, and Palo was crowding him, to stop him using his arms.

For some reason, that cleared his mind, and he was able to decide what to do. His right hand let go of the flowers, dropped into his pocket and found the gold-handled penknife; he pinched the blade between forefinger and thumb and shook hard, opening the blade until the spring clicked in place. Palo chose that moment to stab him. With his left hand, he caught the blade, gripping tight. He felt the blade cut him, but that really didn't matter. Palo froze; he hadn't been expecting that, and for a moment he didn't seem to be able to decide what to do next. Then he tried to tug the knife out of Ba.s.so's hand. That made it cut deeper, but Ba.s.so tightened his grasp, at the same time working the penknife back a little further into his right hand, until he had a sort of a grip.

Palo hadn't registered the penknife; he was staring into Ba.s.so's eyes with a weird mixture of fury and terror, as he yanked on the dagger-hilt. Maintaining eye contact, Ba.s.so reached wide round behind Palo's head with his right hand, applied the point of the penknife to where he guessed the jugular vein must be, and pressed. He was shocked at how little pressure it took; and then a jet of blood hit him in the face. He let go of Palo's knife and jerked sideways, hoping very much that the fight was over, since he couldn't see a thing. He heard a b.u.mp while he was mopping at his eyes with his sleeve. He breathed in, which took some doing. His left hand had started hurting, and the pain made him feel sick.

Someone was yelling, making a fuss. "Palo," she screeched, and the sound of her voice disgusted him. The first thing he looked at was his left hand, which was a sodden mess of red around two deep purple lines. Then he looked at her. She was standing at the foot of the bed, and there was so much hate in her face, in every line and contour of it, that he realised there was only one thing he could do. He looked down at the body (it was a body now, not his brother-in-law; a man he'd never really liked much, but hadn't seriously wished any harm to) and stepped carefully over it, to avoid slipping in the blood. He didn't know whether he'd expected her to try and get out of the way. She didn't. Presumably it simply didn't occur to her that she was in any danger. She was too blazingly angry with him for that.

Three paces (he didn't hurry) and he was close enough. He grabbed for her hair with his left hand, caught a handful but his fingers wouldn't close. She smacked him across the face, spitefully hard, and was drawing her hand back for another strike when he stuck the knife under her chin and gave it a flick, like opening a letter. She opened her mouth to say something, but simply couldn't. Then her eyes went blank, and she dropped.

Ba.s.so had never seen anyone die before. It was only later that he figured out what it reminded him of: a gla.s.s of water being poured out, one second full, the next empty. Her lips were still moving when the last drop left her, and then she just fell sideways, like a piece of furniture carelessly knocked over. Her head cracked against the leg of the bed, making a wooden sound, like a stick hitting a ball. From a woman to a thing in the time it takes to blink.

He heard someone calling him. Not Ba.s.sia.n.u.s, not Ba.s.so, the other thing he was called. Oh, he thought, and turned round. The twins were standing in the doorway, looking at him.

"Daddy?" he heard.

For some reason, he folded up the knife and put it back in his pocket. "Go to your room," he said. "Now."

Neither of them moved. They were staring at him, and it occurred to him that the look on their faces must be very much like the look on his own, when he'd first come in. "Now," he repeated, raising his voice as though he was angry, as though they were the ones who'd just done something bad.

They were properly brought-up children, and did as they were told. Once he was sure they'd gone, he stepped away from the bed and looked at her, slumped on her side, as though n.o.body could be bothered to pick her up and put her away. She lay with her back to him, so he couldn't see the huge red gash, but there was no way he could've mistaken her stillness for sleep. I did that, he thought.

The pain in his hand made him s.h.i.+ver. He looked at it again, and tried flexing it. Something was badly wrong, it wasn't working properly. Well, he told himself, it was that or be stabbed. I had no choice, with either of them.

And it had started out to be such a nice day. He had to close his eyes before he could turn away, as though some kind of lock or latch held him in place as long as he could see her on the floor. Blood everywhere. Mess. He breathed out slowly, in again slowly. Now he was going to have to clear it all up.

He went to the doorway, opened his mouth, and realised he couldn't remember the names of any of the maids; and without names, he couldn't call them. That was ridiculous, so he shouted, "h.e.l.lo," as loudly as he could. It came out thin and squeaky, like a non-singer trying to sing a hymn in temple. "Here," he shouted, "quick as you can." Pathetic, he thought.

Probably just as well that it was a footman who came first, rather than a maid. He didn't scream or anything like that. He stood in the doorway, mouth open, eyes bulging, throat moving. For crying out loud, Ba.s.so thought.

"Run to the guardhouse and bring the duty officer," he said. "Now, come on. And get the house steward to round up the maids." He paused. Properly speaking, nothing should be touched till the Guard got here. "Tell them to stand by," he added, though he wasn't quite sure what he meant by it.

The footman bolted and left him alone. He wanted to sit down, but he couldn't bring himself to sit on the bed, and the chairs were soaked in blood. He knew he should be thinking, calmly and methodically; figuring out what his position was, what he needed to do in order to secure it. Maybe; but he couldn't. How long was it since he'd come bounding up the stairs? It couldn't have been long; maybe about as much time as it takes to make an omelette. Surprising how much of a difference you can make in a few minutes.

The guardhouse was on the corner of the Clockmakers' and the Ropewalk. The footman would run there; then there'd be a short exchange with the sergeant, who'd go and fetch the captain, who'd probably, in the circ.u.mstances, send out for the ranking officer of the department before setting out himself. He'd walk, but quickly, and he'd bring two, no, four troopers with him. He went into the dressing room, picked up a chair and carried it through into the bedroom.

The Guard arrived sooner than he'd antic.i.p.ated. There was a tall man with a short ginger beard, about eight years his senior, followed by six soldiers. The officer (no brigandine, just an arming s.h.i.+rt-hardly regulation) looked at him and said, "You."

Ba.s.so wanted to laugh, but he knew it wouldn't be seemly. "I know you," he said. "What's your name?"

The officer was looking past him, at the bodies and the blood. "Major Aelius, Seventeenth Auxiliary. You're..."

Ba.s.so allowed himself to smile. "You'll have to speak up," he said, turning his head slightly. "I'm a bit deaf in this ear."

Aelius looked straight at him. "Of course you are," he said. "All right," he added, turning to the soldiers, "one of you on each entrance to the house, n.o.body comes in or out. You, go to the Senate House, speak to Minister Honorius Severus and bring him here." He turned back and asked Ba.s.so, "He's the head of the family, right?"

Ba.s.so nodded. "But I think you'll find the proper complainant would be this man's wife. My sister," he added. "Fausta Tranquillina Carausia. I imagine she'll be at the Carausius house on the Horn; if not, they'll know where to find her."

Aelius nodded. "You know your law," he said. "What about her? Her father?"

"Aulus Licinius," Ba.s.so replied. "But he has no standing, it was a strict form marriage. So I guess you're right, the proper person to file a complaint would be the head of our family, my father."

"Fine," Aelius said. "Right, you heard him. You, fetch the Minister. You, go back to the guardhouse and get a messenger sent to the Carausius house at the Horn." He frowned, then asked Ba.s.so, "What was that name again?"

"Fausta Tranquillina Carausia," Ba.s.so said slowly. "Shall I write it down?"

Aelius shrugged. "Might be as well," he said. "All right, you, go downstairs and find an inkwell and something to write on. Ask a servant or something. That's all."

The soldiers left quickly. When they'd gone, Aelius closed the door. "So," he said, "what happened?"

Ba.s.so told him. He pointed out the toy dagger, lying on the floor, and showed Aelius his hand.

"I see. And what about her?"

Ba.s.so shook his head. "That's my business. At least, I suppose it's between me and my sister."

"I remember her," Aelius said. "You beat up a soldier for looking at her."

"Something like that." Suddenly Ba.s.so felt very tired. He sat down. Aelius shrugged, and sat down on the bed. "So, it's major now, is it?" said Ba.s.so.

"Six months ago," Aelius replied.

"Impressive, a man of your age."

"You run the bank, don't you?"

Ba.s.so nodded. "Family business," he said. "The clerks run it, I just sit in a chair and sign letters."

"Is it true," Aelius asked, "you're deaf in that ear?"

"Yes."

"But you never raised a complaint."

"Nothing to complain about."

Aelius was quite still for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and said, "I'll need everything left as it is until I've written up a formal deposition. It'll go on file, but it'll be restricted, unless a complaint is made." He paused, then asked quietly, almost gently: "Is that likely?"

Ba.s.so smiled. "No," he said.

"In that case..." Aelius was looking away now, not at Ba.s.so, not at the bodies or the blood. "If there's no complaint, it's a family matter and none of our business. You don't want to make any further statements." He stood up. "Is there somewhere I can use to write my report?"

Ba.s.so said, "Shouldn't you wait till my sister gets here?"

"Yes," Aelius said. "But what the h.e.l.l." He stood up. "You might as well get started on your arrangements. I've seen everything I need here, and you've been very cooperative."

Ba.s.so nodded his thanks. "I'll show you to the library," he said. "You can use that."

At that moment a soldier reappeared, clutching an inkwell, a pen and a sc.r.a.p of cheese-wrapping. Ba.s.so wrote down his sister's name and address and gave it to him, and he left quickly.

No complaints were filed. Some time later, his father said to him, "You did the right thing."

Ba.s.so wasn't sure he agreed, but he didn't like to contradict his father. "The trust fund," he said. "I guess that comes to us now, till Ba.s.sano turns eighteen."

Father frowned. "I hadn't thought of that," he said. He was an indifferent liar.

Three.

Ba.s.so's father died on the day of the election. He suffered a ma.s.sive stroke in the middle of a shouting match with Ulpius Lorica on the steps of the New Reform Temple (the only time, Lorica said afterwards, that Elio had ever won an argument with him, adding that at least he'd have died happy). Given the dramatic nature of the election, it's likely that he died believing his son was about to lose, and he missed the unforgettable midnight scene in the House when the final result was brought in: Ba.s.sia.n.u.s Arcadius Severus, by seventy-one wards to sixty-eight.

The death of the elder Severus would have been the talking point of the City under any other circ.u.mstances; as it was, it was noted in pa.s.sing and hardly discussed. The events of that day-the outrageous pageantry of the twins' coming-of-age ceremony in the morning, the extraordinary scenes attending the Charity & Social Justice's hostile takeover of the Merchants' Benevolent Fund, followed by the vote itself, with its attendant riot and the unprecedented deployment of troops inside the City walls to restore order, culminating in Vipsanius Severus' death and the astounding denouement in the House-left the City too emotionally exhausted to react with anything more than stunned acquiescence when the King's envoy arrived with the news that the peace proposals had been rejected and accordingly the Vesani Republic was now at war with Scleria.

Under the circ.u.mstances, the new First Citizen would have been forgiven for not attending the House the next morning. But he was there, magnificent in purple and gold mourning robes that must have been designed, fitted and sewn in a matter of hours, to deliver a sombre but defiant reply to the King which most commentators place among his finest speeches. He said that in the three hundred years since the Republic had won its freedom, it had always gone out of its way to respect the King's interests; the citizens of the Republic regarded Scleria as a parent with whom they had had occasion to quarrel bitterly, but that they had always remembered where they came from and what had made them what they were: Sclerian justice and wisdom, Sclerian civilisation and inst.i.tutions, the Sclerian dream of a better, fairer society; in a word, Sclerian freedom. If that love of freedom had withered in the mother country, it was the duty of its estranged but still loving offspring to remind her of what she had once been, and what she could be again.

Ba.s.so left the House with a headache, brought on by the dreadful noise of shouting and cheering in the bell-like acoustic of the debating chamber. He hadn't touched a drop for a week but he felt like he had the worst hangover of his life: splitting head, raging indigestion, nausea and an appalling mental numbness, the feeling of being temporarily but intolerably stupid. He collapsed into his seat in the covered coach and scrabbled for the blinds, unable to cope with the sight of the solid, howling wall of his fellow citizens, yelling his name and scrabbling at him with their outstretched hands. His mind felt like porridge, and he tried in vain to remember what he'd just said to the Sclerians. Given the situation, he was fairly sure he hadn't made matters worse (that would be impossible), but he had no idea whether he'd just made a fool of himself in public or not. A h.e.l.l of a way, he decided, to celebrate his fortieth birthday.

Antigonus was waiting for him in the lobby. "Am I glad to see you," Ba.s.so said, stumbling on the threshold and barging the old man's shoulder. Then he saw the expression on Antigonus' face. "What?" he said. "Not something else, for G.o.d's sake."

"Your sister's here," Antigonus said quietly.

"Wonderful." Ba.s.so stuck out a hand and steadied himself against a pillar. "All right, I'd better see her. Can you...?"

Antigonus nodded. "All being taken care of. The twins are in temple, your mother's in her room and doesn't want to see anybody, I'm meeting the Patriarch's office in an hour to discuss the funeral, followed by the Merchants' Benevolent board at noon and your cabinet at three, so you're clear till the inauguration rehearsal at six." He smiled. "Enjoy your day off," he said. "Tomorrow you'll wish you'd never been born."

Ba.s.so nodded. "Thanks," he said.

Antigonus did that nod-bow thing, half ironic, half sincere. "I live to serve, as we used to say in the slate quarries."

Ba.s.so laughed. "When the h.e.l.l were you ever in a slate quarry?"

"Actually, I visited one once. Interesting, but you wouldn't want to work there. Go on," he said, "I'll take care of things."

Ba.s.so pushed open the front door, then stopped. "Where's Ba.s.sano?" he asked.

"Music lesson," Antigonus replied, "followed by double rhetoric, fencing and lunch. Routine is the best anaesthetic, in my opinion. Do you want to see him?"

Ba.s.so nodded. "But later," he said, "after I've seen Lina. Good work," he added, "I'm obliged to you."

"I know," Antigonus replied, and Ba.s.so walked through into the hall.

He looked up at the middle gallery, still garlanded from the twins' reception, and thought, I feel like a stranger in my own house. That was an uneasy feeling, because now it really was his own house, its previous owner having just died. He didn't want to climb the stairs; he didn't have the energy. If Antigonus was any good, he'd have arranged for a doctor.

A man he didn't know appeared from the west wing door, holding a blue gla.s.s. "Drink this," he said, "you'll feel better."

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?"

The man (long black beard and the cleanest fingernails Ba.s.so had ever seen in his life) bowed efficiently. "Nestor Antimachus," he said, "president of the Grand College of Surgeons. It's just a basic tonic."

Oh, Ba.s.so thought. He drank the contents of the gla.s.s, which tasted like something from his mother's collection, and felt as though someone was squeezing his head in a giant pair of tongs. Then, as promised, he felt much better. "Thanks," he said. "You're hired."

"I'm not available," the doctor said, took the gla.s.s from his hand and walked away. Ba.s.so scowled, then decided not to worry about it. His head was still hurting, but at least he could think.

She was in her sitting room on the third floor, perched on the edge of the window seat, with a book open on her lap: a picture of something, Ba.s.so thought, by a good but not great artist. She looked up as he opened the door, then turned away.

"So you're here, are you?" she said.

"I live here," he replied.

"I'm moving out," she said to the window. "I'll need furniture and bedlinen, and you'll have to pay me a regular allowance."

He decided not to say anything, and after a moment or so she went on: "I'm going to have the lodge at Curcuas. It's plenty big enough, and you never use it for anything. I want it made over into my name."

"Why Curcuas?"

"It's a long way from the City. Less chance of meeting you there."