The Folding Knife

by Parker, K. J.

  "Bassano." The First Citizen stopped there. It was a rule of his, when making an important speech, always to have the next sentence prepared in his mind while he was speaking. If he couldn't, he paused, and tried to make it seem like he was doing it on purpose. "We've never really talked," he said (it sounded all wrong). "About your father."

  Bassano looked at him. "Well, understandably," he said.

  Basso had always had the knack of knowing when he was doing something completely misguided and stupid, though only once he'd embarked on it, and it was too late to turn back. "Maybe we ought to," he said. "I mean, it's not something we can just ignore. Especially--"

  "I'd really rather not," Bassano said, "if you don't mind." He turned his head away and addressed the curtained window. "I think the town house is going to be a great success," he said. "Of course, so much depends on getting the basic colour scheme right before you start choosing furniture. Doing it the other way round's just asking for trouble."

  "Bassano--"

  "And how are the twins?" He was pushing with his head, straining against an imaginary rope. "The last time I saw them was at the Midsummer ball. Is Festo still mad about cockfighting? It was all he could talk about at one time."

  It was like tripping over something small when you're running flat out. "Cockfighting?"

  "Good heavens, you're not supposed to know. Forget I said anything."

  "No, it's all right." Basso frowned. "Since when?"

  Bassano grinned feebly. "I gather it was one of your coachmen who got him started on it. They used to sneak out at night and go to the fights at the racecourse. Festo said he'd made a lot of money betting. Chip off the old block, you might say."

  "Cockfighting?"

  "I know." Bassano shrugged. "Never could see anything in it myself. All that noise, and people shouting; mostly people who don't smell very nice, with fat stomachs and missing teeth. I imagine that's what Festo likes about it; so different from what he's used to."

  Basso was quiet for a moment. "You've been with him, then."

  Bassano nodded. "Just the once," he said, "that was plenty for me. There was this little skinny thing, like a stretched bantam, and they put it up against this huge redpoll. I put a nomisma on the redpoll, naturally, but Festo put ten on the skinny object, at twenty to one. I think the fight only lasted a minute, and then there were red feathers everywhere and bits of raw chicken, and the skinny bird didn't have a mark on it, apart from the other bird's blood. Two hundred nomismata," Bassano added with a sigh, "one of them mine, if you like to look at it in those terms. You're not going to get nasty with him about it, are you?"

  Basso laughed. "When I was Festo's age," he said, "I used to go to the prizefights down on the docks."

  "You're joking."

  "Quite true. You paid sixpence to get in, and a quarter if you wanted to fight. It was all quite organised, there were even rudimentary weight classes. I was a featherweight, naturally."

  "You fought?"

  "That," Basso said coldly, "could be interpreted as an insult. Of course I fought. I never could see the sense in just watching anything."

  Bassano was staring at him, eyes wide. "So what happened? How did you do?"

  "I got bashed silly, of course," Basso replied. "The first time, and the second, and the third. The fourth time I made it through to the third round, and the fifth time, I won. Fifteen nomismata, first money I ever earned. I fought an apprentice from the rope-walk; big lad, very fast, but no footwork. They had to carry him out on a door."

  "Is that true?"

  Basso nodded. "As a matter of fact, yes, it is. I think Antigonus knew about it, but Father didn't have a clue. He thought I'd got the bruises from falling down the stairs. Of course," Basso added, "I had to fall down the stairs to make it plausible. Scariest thing I've ever done, actually. So," he went on, "if Festo wants to go to the cockfights, good luck to him, and I'm delighted it's nothing worse. I'm just surprised at his choice of vice, that's all."

  "Sorry?"

  Basso shrugged. "Like you said," he replied, "it's so..." He made a words-fail-me gesture. "So commonplace. No, that's not what I mean. So uninspiring."

  Bassano raised an eyebrow. "As opposed to, say, prizefighting."

  "Well, of course. You go along, you watch poultry kicking shit out of each other, you come away. Big deal. With prizefighting, you're taking part, you're involved. Still," he added, "I'm glad he's winning money. At least that suggests he's got a good eye."

  Bassano had been staring at him; suddenly he burst out laughing. "Festo was sure that if you found out, you'd break his neck. Pio's livid with him about it, keeps telling him not to be such a bloody fool."

  "Ah well." Basso sighed. "I think what I'll have to do is organise a national cockfighting championship," he said. "Not a bad idea in itself. The people of this city are mad about sports, and I haven't done much yet to show I've got the common touch. Messano was nagging me about it only the other day. The Chancellor," Basso explained. "I can see you follow current affairs."

  "Sorry." Bassano cringed. "Not my thing, politics."

  "Very wise. Anyhow, we'll have this championship, and I'll make the twins come and sit with me in the presidential box for the grand finals. It'd be worth it just to see the look on their faces."

  He leaned back in his chair. Bassano was grinning, and for a moment he caught a resemblance to something he'd seen in a mirror once, a long time ago; but without the comic eyebrows or the absurd lower lip. "There now," he said, "you were right. So much more fun than talking about your father."

  Bassano's grin faded. "Yes," he said. "So I suppose we'd better. Do you play chess, Uncle Basso?"

  "Chess? No."

  "I'm surprised. I'd have thought you'd be good at it."

  Basso couldn't resist. "I am," he said. "That's why I don't play. It's a rule of mine: don't beat people unless you have to."

  Bassano nodded. "Good rule," he said. "Does the same go for killing people?"

  "Always." Basso wanted to look away, but didn't. "Unless you have to."

  "Quite." Bassano seemed to lose his energy. His hands dropped to his knees, and his neck bent. "Actually, I've found out quite a bit about my father; enough to make me wish I hadn't. People say he was good-looking, but apart from that..." He shrugged. "Oh, and he was good with horses. I don't take after him in that respect."

  "Horrible animals," Basso said. "Actually, he did have his good points. He could be charming, he was generous, he didn't bear grudges. Also, he could do the most amazing tricks with a coin and a handkerchief."

  Bassano looked up. "I remember that," he said. "When I was very young, he showed me one once. I was terrified, I thought he was a wizard." He shook his head. "I don't remember him much at all. He was never there, and when he was, he was drunk or in a temper, so Mother kept him away from me. I didn't like him much. He had a funny smell."

  "Really?"

  Bassano nodded. "Like oranges," he said, "only a bit sickly-sweet. I don't know, maybe it was some stuff he put on his hair, or something they put in when they washed his clothes. It always made me feel uncomfortable. And he used to wear a big gold ring on his left hand, with a stone that stuck out, and when he hugged me when I was small, it used to dig into my ear. Strange," he added, "stupid things you remember."

  "I don't remember any smell," Basso said. "But I remember the ring. He sold it, or pawned it."

  "He used to pawn Mother's jewellery. She'd notice and shout at him, and he'd just laugh. Didn't give a damn if the servants heard." Bassano reached across the table, took a goose-quill pen from the inkwell and started pulling the vanes out, one by one. "She always forgave him, though. At least, that's what the housemaids told me. They've been with us since I was a kid."

  Basso looked at him. "Do you think your mother will ever forgive me?"

  "No." Bassano put down the shredded pen. "She really loved him. Hasn't even looked at anyone else since he died, so they reckon."

  "In spite of what he was
like? My wife wasn't the first, not by a long way."

  "Oh, she knew." Bassano rubbed his eyes, as though he was tired. "She told one of her friends once--I was listening at the door, so I can vouch for this--she said that his messing around just made him more interesting. That's the word she used, interesting. As though he was some problem she'd set her heart on solving."

  Basso let his head droop forward. "She was genuinely talented at mathematics when she was young," he said. "Did she ever tell you? My father hired a special tutor, even though she was never going to do anything with it, obviously. She could look at a column of numbers and tell you what they added up to faster than you or I could read them."

  "I never knew that," Bassano said. "She doesn't do anything like that now."

  "I was bitterly jealous," Basso said, with a smile. "I never managed to learn the twelve-times table."

  "I think I'd like that glass of wine, if that's all right." Bassano waited for a nod of approval, then crossed the room and poured out two glasses. "It's a terrible thing to admit," he said, "but I know next to nothing about Mother. I know more about my father, come to think of it. I suppose you don't think about someone very much if you see them every day."

  "Let me see." Basso took the glass, pretended to sip it and put it down. "When she was a girl, your mother was rather a serious person. Oh, she had a sense of humour, but I believe that if she could've swapped it for a pony, say, or better still, a complete set of Strymon's Digest, she wouldn't have hesitated for a second. She was always a perfectionist, and she was never patient; if she couldn't do a thing perfectly the first time, she couldn't be bothered with it. She had a natural gift for music--playing instruments, I mean--but as far as she was concerned, music was just a noise that served no useful purpose." He laughed. "Me, all I can do with a lute is cut my fingers on the strings. I'd have loved to be able to play something."

  "That's weird," Bassano said. "She always told me she never learned."

  Basso shrugged. "She'd get to the point where she was technically perfect, and then when she played for people, she could tell they weren't enjoying it. There was no feeling in it, you see. Listening to her was like watching a play where the actors are foreign and don't actually understand what they're saying. The only one who ever genuinely liked listening to her was Father; your grandfather, I mean. He didn't know a thing about music; it all went straight over his head like the swallows flying south. But he loved the fact that his daughter was good at it."

  Suddenly, Bassano smiled. "You like talking about her."

  "She's the person I love most in the world," Basso replied.

  The cockfighting tournament was an outstanding success. The First Citizen's approval ratings soared, and Antigonus calculated that the revenue from ticket sales was enough to pay for replacements for the seventeen warships that had been lost in the Sclerian War. When Bassianus Severus took his seat in the Arena for the finals, accompanied by his two young sons and leading politicians of both parties, the roar that went up from the crowd was audible in Coronea, five miles away.

  "Now then," Basso said, when the noise had died down a bit and they could hear themselves think. "Festo, you'd better come and sit here next to me, where I can hear you. I need you to make my selections for me."

  Festo went white as a sheet. "Me?"

  "Of course you," Basso said. "I'm betting a lot of money today, so the people will know what a good sport I am, and I know bugger-all about chicken-fighting. So, what do you reckon for the first round?"

  Festo looked at his brother, who looked away. "Honestly, Dad, I don't know the first thing..."

  "Liar." Basso smiled at him. "Why, only last week you won a hundred and seventy nomismata betting on Spoildriver at the Horn, at seven to one. You practically never lose, so I gather. So, the least you can do is help your old man pick a few winners."

  Pio said something, but he was on Basso's deaf side and he didn't catch it. "Festo," Basso said, "you'll mark this card for me, and if any of your picks loses, you'll pay me back what I've lost, double. And then, if I find you've been within half a mile of a cockfight ever again, I'll have you castrated and put to work in accounts. You're a bit old for the operation, but you'll probably be all right. Understand?"

  "Yes, Dad."

  "Sorry, I'm a bit deafer than usual today. Say again?"

  "Yes, Dad."

  "Splendid. Now then, what about Bloodvane versus the White Death of the Sclerians in the first round? Bloodvane's got the form, but they reckon White Death always performs much better on sand."

  Basso won seven hundred nomismata betting on the cockfights, all of which he donated to the war widows' fund. That winter's issue of gold coinage bore the usual portrait of the First Citizen on the obverse and the winning cock, Rat-biter, on the reverse, crowned with laurel and with its claw raised, poised to deliver the winning blow.

  Four

  War, he'd often said, was an admission of failure. It therefore came as something of a surprise when, on the first anniversary of his election as First Citizen, Bassianus Severus declared war on the Kingdom of Auxentia.

  In his speech to the House, he set out his reasons. First, in spite of repeated requests, the Auxentines had done little or nothing to curb the activities of the pirates operating out of the coves and inlets around Enyalis. Second, a number of citizens of the Republic, innocent merchants, had been arrested by the Auxentine authorities on spurious or trivial charges, and were being held, in appalling conditions, in the King's jail. Third, the King had closed the vital commercial entrepot of Phrourion to Vesani commercial traffic, thereby interrupting the well-established trade route to the East. Finally, the King had unlawfully confiscated the property of three of the Republic's major trading companies, expelled their representatives and usurped their business interests. Although he was naturally reluctant to take military action unless absolutely necessary (ironic cheers from the Opposition benches), he felt that in the face of such a catalogue of provocation and abuse, he had no alternative. The Vesani Republic, he believed, had to prove to the world that its love of peace should never be mistaken for weakness or cowardice. Although (he continued) declaration of war was the prerogative of the First Citizen and therefore no vote of approval was necessary, he nevertheless called for a division on the issue, waiving his prerogative rights and undertaking to be bound by the outcome. A vote was taken, and the measure approved, ninety-eight wards to forty-one.

  "Because I felt like it," Basso snapped, turning away. "Look, do I have to have a reason?"

  They felt uncomfortable. It wasn't like Basso to refuse to answer a direct question; not to them. "All right, fine," Sentio muttered. "Sorry I asked. It's just, it's so unexpected. You could at least have told us, before announcing it in the House."

  Basso turned back and looked at him. "Why?"

  Sentio stiffened as if he'd been punched in the face. Cinio said, "Because we're on your side. We're here to help you."

  "I didn't need your help," Basso replied. "Standing up and talking for five minutes is something I can manage on my own, thanks all the same. When I need your help, I'll ask."

  Cinio stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "Right," he said. "Well, if that's everything, I've got work to get on with. Thank you so much for your time."

  He walked away. Basso didn't seem to have noticed. In fact, they might as well not have been there.

  "Basso," Tazio said quietly, "is anything the matter?"

  "No." He didn't look up. He was signing letters. "Should there be?"

  "Fine. In that case, we'll leave you to it."

  "That's right," Basso said to his desktop. "Oh, and see if you can find General Aelius. I suppose I'd better talk to him."

  They found Aelius in his garden, pruning the grapevine that grew against the back wall of the portico. He hadn't heard.

  "Why?" he asked.

  They looked at each other. Then Tazio said, "We don't know."

  Aelius frowned, and carefully closed up the blade
of his pruning knife and put it in his pocket. "Don't give me that," he said. "You're the Cabinet."

  "We used to think so," Sentio replied sadly. "Now we're not quite sure what we are. Somewhere between a messenger service and the enemy." Then he frowned, and added, "I'm amazed he didn't talk to you about it."

  "Me too," Aelius said. "I'm not a politician, but I'd have thought that if you're thinking of starting a war, it'd be common sense to ask your Commander-in-Chief if he thinks it'd be a good idea." He swept a pile of prunings off the paving slabs with his foot, then said, "Have you asked him?"

  "Yes. He didn't want to talk to us."

  "Oh." Slowly and carefully, like a surgeon preparing for an operation, Aelius took off his gardening shoes and pulled on his boots. "That's interesting. Did he say when he wanted to see me?"

  "Straight away," Tazio said. "Look, you've known him longer than any of us. Any ideas?"

  Aelius shook his head. "I scarcely know him at all," he said. "And he'll have his reasons."

  Although it was some way from the barracks to the Severus house, and he had a perfectly good chaise and a coachman with nothing else to do, and senior officers of state were discouraged from going about the City on foot, for reasons of security and the dignity of office, Aelius decided to walk. He'd never quite managed to get used to the idea that walking was somehow a shameful thing (like war; an admission of failure), an activity confined to the lower orders who couldn't afford transport. Where he came from--But he'd left home a long time ago, and he sincerely hoped he'd never ever go back. Even so, he walked.

  One reason was so that he could look about him. It always surprised him how inept the citizens of the Republic were at reading the mood of their own city, just by looking at it. He never had any trouble, but the politicians and bureaucrats he mixed with these days didn't seem to have a clue; probably, he reasoned, because they never walked anywhere.