The Folding Knife

by Parker, K. J.

  "Mother..."

  Basso smiled. "The hell with her," he said. "You in for dinner, or going out somewhere?"

  "No plans," Bassano replied.

  "Have dinner with us, then," he said. "There's a halfwit who thinks he can get me to change my mind about a bad loan by sending me jugged hare in cider vinegar. He's wasting his time, but that's no reason we shouldn't eat it."

  Bassano's favourite. "In that case," he said.

  "Splendid. Get someone to tell the cook."

  Then an hour alone with some routine paperwork, to clear his head and calm him down. He started to write a letter, but his hand was shaking, so he left it for the morning. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and spent ten minutes gazing into the eyes of the gold and mosaic Queen of Heaven, seven feet tall and infinitely wise, who stood over him always. She was only bits of stone, paint, and gold foil beaten ridiculously thin, and for much of his lifetime she'd presided over a room stuffed full of redundant furniture; if he could pick her off the walls without destroying her completely, she'd be worth the price of a small ship. Probably just as well, he decided, that his father had never realised that.

  As the daughter and sister of two First Citizens, the lady Fausta Tranquillina Carausia was entitled to display on her carriage doors the double-headed lion of the Republic, in gold leaf, on a red background. The carriage itself was third-hand, elderly and badly in need of new rear springs; you could hear it coming from way off. She'd taken quotes from six painters and chosen the cheapest. Her lion, everybody said, looked more like an overfed spaniel, and the gold leaf had been so sparingly applied that big red blotches showed through its ribs, making it look as though it had just been gored by a bull. There was also, people said, the small matter of good taste; since it was no secret that she hated her brother to death, taking advantage of even so minor a privilege was questionable behaviour at best. If the lady Tranquillina was bothered by that, she gave no sign of it, and pretended not to understand why small boys made dying-dog noises when her carriage passed them in the street.

  Her various eccentricities weren't a problem as far as the Patriarch and governors of the Studium were concerned. A benefactress as generous as the lady Tranquillina was allowed a certain latitude. The older members of Chapter vividly remembered some of the great characters of the past: the lady Domitilla Secunda, for example, who stopped bathing or combing her hair when she was twenty-seven and lived to be ninety, or the lady Plautilla Sebastina Carausia, who insisted on walking the circuit of the City walls every morning, accompanied by the Studium choir and wearing nothing but a sack. Rich, dotty women's money had made the Studium the most respected institute of theological scholarship in the world. So long as they paid cash and didn't actually draw blood, they could do pretty much what they liked.

  In any case, Tranquillina's demands were far more modest. She required a private chapel in the temple, the services of a priest as her personal chaplain, prayers for her dead husband three times a day in perpetuity and, in due course, a granite tomb in the temple portico, the design for which was already on file: a skeleton carved in red granite, wearing a wedding dress and holding an effigy of her late husband in the regalia of the Invincible Sun, and on the base of the plinth, the following simple inscription;

  Fausta Tranquillina Carausia

  Murdered by her brother

  Bassianus Arcadius Severus

  She was at prayer in her chapel when Chrysophilus tracked her down. It wasn't her regular time for prayer; that was usually six till nine in the morning, then nine till midnight. Sometimes, though, when her soul was unusually troubled, she came to the chapel at noon and stayed for an hour or so.

  He cleared his throat, but she didn't seem to notice. Lately, she'd taken to pretending to be deaf in one ear, just like her brother, though Chrysophilus knew for a fact she had ears like a bat. Some days she wrapped a napkin stained with beetroot juice round her left hand, but not today.

  "My Lady," he said softly.

  She sighed and lifted her head. "What is it?"

  Well, he thought, here goes. "I have a message for you, from your brother."

  He had her attention. "What does he want?"

  She was still staring up at the iconostasis, so couldn't see him close his eyes. "Perhaps you might prefer to hear it in the ante-room," he said.

  "No. Tell me what he wants."

  Quickly he looked round for possible improvised weapons. Unfortunately, the chapel was full of them. The labarum would make a fairly useful club, and you could smash a man's skull like an eggshell with the solid gold globus arciger. He took a long step back and raised his voice slightly. "It's about Senator Olybrias," he said.

  It had been a smooth, efficient piece of work. Olybrias, otherwise as sound a businessman as any in the Republic, had a little-known weakness for mineral rights, gold in particular. Why go to all the trouble of earning money, he'd been known to remark to close friends, when you can dig it out of the ground or sift it out of the silt in a river bed? Accordingly, when two of his oldest and closest business associates approached him with news of a remarkable new gold strike in Fermia, he was only too pleased to hear them out. It was, they told him, a single rich, thick vein, exposed by the collapse of a section of cliff that had been slowly undermined by a river. Under Fermian law, all minerals belonged to the Duke--a chronically extravagant man who spent twice his revenues each year on a futile war with his northern neighbours. Since the Duke was even more desperate for ready cash than usual, he was prepared to sell the entire strike, including any further deposits in the same valley not yet detected, for six million Vesani nomismata.

  Olybrias objected that he didn't have six million; or at least, not that he could lay his hands on without mortgaging everything he owned. That was a great shame, his friends replied, because it was only a matter of time before Basso found out about it, and Basso could afford to pay six million out of his pocket change.

  So Olybrias went to the Bank of the Divine Intercession, the only major bank in the Republic in which Basso had no stake whatsoever. He was obliged to put up the deeds to all his real estate as security for four million, and write a note of hand against his shares, debentures and trading stock for the other two; a discount of three million in total, but he didn't really have a choice. Within forty-eight hours of his friends' initial visit, a courier brought him a transfer deed, signed by the Duke of Fermia and sealed by the Fermian High Council. By coincidence, it was the same day that Basso announced his engagement to that foreign woman.

  Olybrias' surveyors reported back a week later. There was gold in the vein, sure enough. Unfortunately, somebody had put it there; about two hundred nomismata's worth, stuffed into holes drilled into the clay. There was no chance whatsoever of finding anything else there. It was the wrong sort of rock. If you were very lucky, and you dug up the whole mountain, you might find a little iron, with an outside chance of a few handfuls of copper. Gold, however, was out of the question.

  An hour after the surveyors had left, Olybrias got a letter from Basso. So sorry to hear about the scandalous fraud he'd suffered at the hands of the Duke. It had come as a great surprise (Basso said) since the Duke was a friend of his, and he'd never have believed him capable of it. Naturally, Basso would bring all possible pressure to bear on his errant friend to make restitution, but he didn't hold out much hope; he happened to know that the entire six million had been used to pay off a long-overdue loan, to a bank right here in the City, so the Duke couldn't pay back what he no longer had. Accordingly, Basso had taken the liberty of buying Olybrias' debt from the Divine Intercession (at a premium, naturally); he felt bad about the fact that his friend had shamelessly deceived a distinguished Vesani businessman, and felt it was his duty to put things right. As a result, Basso said, he now had in front of him on his desk the deeds to all Olybrias' real property, together with his note of hand. It went without saying that there was no hurry at all about paying back the loan; in fact, as far as he was concerned, it c
ould remain outstanding indefinitely. The only favour he'd like to ask was that Olybrias should forget all about marrying the lady Tranquillina. It was harsh of him, he knew, but he couldn't allow his sister to marry a man who was staring ruin in the face, and therefore couldn't guarantee that he'd be in a position to maintain her in the manner to which she'd become accustomed. Devoted as he was to his sister, he was aware that she had her faults, and extravagance was one of them--her excessively generous gifts to religious houses, for one thing. The plain fact was, as things stood, Olybrias simply couldn't afford to marry Lina, and that was all there was to it. Undoubtedly, Olybrias could see the sense in that; however, for Basso's peace of mind, would Olybrias be kind enough to sign and return the enclosed declaration and undertaking, which would of course constitute a legally binding contract?

  She looked at him, but not the way anybody would look at another human being. Then she said, "Thank you. That's all."

  He stood up, took two paces towards the door, then stopped. She was, after all, a fellow believer in great pain, and he was supposed to be a priest.

  "If there's anything..." he said.

  "Get out."

  From where he was standing to the door, ten paces. He managed nine of them, but then she said, "Wait." Very reluctantly, he turned to face her.

  "Come back in an hour," she said. "I'll need you to take a letter."

  He read it a third time, but nothing had changed, so he folded it carefully and put it away in the rosewood box, along with the other four letters she'd written him since he'd killed her husband. Turning the key in the box's lock made him feel a little safer. He put the key away carefully and left the room.

  It wasn't often that Basso needed company, but when the occasion arose, the need was usually desperate. But Bassano was out of the question; Melsuntha wouldn't understand, though she'd try very hard; Antigonus was probably asleep by now, on the other side of the City on a cold, wet night. It was a pity Chrysophilus hadn't wanted to stay.

  Usually he'd have worked through it, drowning himself in paperwork until he couldn't hear her voice in his head any more, but he knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate. Ridiculous, he thought; I've just won a glorious victory over my enemies, as a result of which I can talk to my nephew and marry the woman I love; should be happy, should be celebrating, should be standing in the big window overlooking the square throwing handfuls of gold coins to the cheering crowds.

  He considered drinking himself unconscious, but decided against it. Lately, he'd lost any enthusiasm for alcohol; stupid enough already without making himself even more stupid. I feel nothing for you except contempt, she'd written, and she'd always been one to choose her words carefully. If that's what she said, that's what she meant. Not anger, not even hate, just contempt. Fine. Another victory like that and he'd have to give serious consideration to hanging himself.

  Melsuntha found him sitting on the top step of the middle flight of stairs. "I've been looking for you everywhere," she said.

  "I'm not here," he replied.

  She frowned at him. "What does that mean?"

  "It's an attempt to say go away without giving offence," he said. "I don't know, maybe it needs a bit more work."

  She sat down beside him, and he thought: actually, this is the first time I haven't been pleased to see her. "I met that priest earlier. He said he'd brought you a letter."

  He looked away. "I've been thinking," he said. "About Bassano. He's not going to be a priest after all, but he's got to do something. I won't have him in the Bank. What does that leave?"

  "You mean a career?" She shrugged. "Does he need one?"

  "I think so," Basso replied. "At least, he thinks so. He seems to feel that if he doesn't do something, he'll just drift amiably through life without any purpose at all."

  "So?"

  Basso nodded. "That's what he was born for, certainly. The hell with that, though. You were born to sweep out a wattle-and-daub hut, milk goats and die in childbirth. As far as I'm concerned, destiny is the enemy."

  She shrugged. "Not the clergy, then. What does that leave?"

  "You're the protocol expert, you tell me."

  "Let's see." She counted on her fingers. "Scholarship and literature. He could be a philosopher."

  Basso laughed. "He'd never finish anything. Besides, that's not a career, that's a hobby."

  "Very well. Politics."

  "Wouldn't last five minutes."

  "I'm inclined to agree with you," she said. "I know you don't want him to join the Bank, but what about some other branch of business? You could set him up as a merchant, or in manufacturing."

  Basso shook his head. "He'd be wretched," he said. "Ships and horses and lice in the bed. And I really don't see Bassano running a shipyard or a foundry, do you?"

  "I like him," she said. "He's one of the few clever men I've met who hasn't let his intelligence spoil him."

  Basso thought about that for a while. "Also," he said, "if I pack him off to Auxentia to buy carpets, I'll never see him. That'd be missing the point. It's got to be something he can do here. Otherwise, he could go and be a provincial governor."

  She smiled. As yet, the Vesani Republic had no provinces to govern, but that could be changed. "If you were him," she said, "what would you want to do?"

  "Join the Bank," Basso replied. "Because I'd want to take after my uncle Basso. Which is why he can't do that."

  She sighed. "It really is a shame about the priesthood," she said. "It would have suited him very well. I don't suppose--"

  "He tried to bash the Patriarch's head in with a candlestick," Basso said. "I've thought about getting a new Patriarch, but that'd be a step too far. The University's out, too. It's under the direct supervision of the Studium. I considered founding a new one, but..." He grinned. "Do you think the Invincible Sun had this much trouble, when he was deciding what to do with the human race?"

  She raised her eyebrows. "I don't believe in the Invincible Sun," she said.

  "I don't suppose you do." He leaned forward a little, his wrists lying on his knees. "What do they believe in where you come from?"

  "We believe that the world was created by the Skyfather out of the ribcage of a bear," she replied. "In the twelve hundred years of our recorded history, it doesn't seem to have occurred to anybody to ask why. I have no religious beliefs."

  "There's the law," Basso said doubtfully. "He could be a judge."

  She considered that. "He has a mind well suited to subtle and abstruse argument," she said. "It's possible that he might enjoy the fine points of legal interpretation, as a mental exercise."

  "You're right," Basso said, "it's a stupid idea. Besides, too political. I don't want there to be any danger of them hurting him just to get at me."

  "I'll think about it some more," she said, standing up. "Would you like to play a game of chess, or would you rather stay here?"

  He won five games, drew one and lost two deliberately, which made her quietly and furiously angry for a while. For some reason, that cheered him up.

  "Am I right in thinking," he asked her, "that where you come from, sex before marriage is a deadly sin?"

  She looked at him. "Yes."

  "But you don't think that."

  "Actually, yes I do."

  He nodded. "Tell you what," he said. "We'll play one more game. If I win--"

  "That's not fair," she said. "You're a better player than me."

  "I'll give you a knight handicap."

  She thought for a moment. "A knight and a rook."

  He considered that. "All right."

  "And a stalemate counts as a win for me."

  "No." He shook his head. "Stalemate, we play again."

  "Very well." She was fiddling with the beads of her necklace: an ugly, barbaric-looking thing, which he assumed was from the old country. "But I get first move."

  She was a very good chess player indeed when she really applied her mind to it. At the end, there were only seven pieces on the board. They'd been p
laying for well over an hour. He saw the winning move quite suddenly, as though he'd just walked into the room and looked over the players' shoulders. He could've sworn it hadn't been there a moment ago, or surely he'd have noticed it; or maybe it was just a slightly different way of looking at the world, a minuscule shift in perspective.

  She'd been building a trap for him for some time, a relatively clumsy one, which he knew he could avoid. He picked up his king, the piece that would set up his victory, and let its weight hang on his fingertips. It was the best game she'd ever given him, and he could see she was confident of forcing a draw, with some hope of winning. He thought: I am Basso the Merciless, who always gets what he wants. What do I want? I want to lose this game.

  He put the king back and moved his one remaining pawn instead. She winced; he'd wrecked her trap, which she'd worked so hard to build.

  "It's a draw," he said. "Neither of us can win from here."

  "You think so."

  He shrugged. "We can play it out if you like."

  She moved her rook; empty gesture of aggression. He defended his pawn. "I agree," she said, "it's a draw. That means we play again."

  The next game was possibly the best he'd ever played. He lost it without letting her see he was trying to lose, which took so much more skill than just winning. She was delighted; not, he was fairly sure, by the reprieve of her virtue, but because she'd beaten him at chess. It was a lie, of course, and properly speaking there's no place for lies in a good marriage. He understood why she got so angry when he cheated to let her win.

  "Best of three?" he said.

  She grinned at him. "Certainly not," she said. "I don't believe in pushing my luck."

  "That wasn't luck, it was skill."

  "If you say so." She started putting the pieces back where they belonged. "My people would say that Skyfather guided my hand, to keep me from sin."

  "I hope not," he replied. "That'd be cheating."

  She frowned. "I don't know," she said. "As I understand it, if Skyfather helps you with something, you're still entitled to take all the credit. It's certainly that way with battles, so presumably it holds true with chess as well."