The Folding Knife

by Parker, K. J.

  No exaggeration. They must've worked like men possessed to do so much damage in such a short space of time. I'm guessing: either it's the old ritual-killing-of-objects thing, where you don't just kill your enemy but everything he ever owned or associated with, to wipe him off the face of the earth totally and for ever; or maybe it was to deny a hated enemy food in the afterlife; or maybe even to provide food for the slaughtered enemy in the afterlife as a way of apologising for killing him in the first place. Who knows? Who gives a shit? The point was, there wasn't an unsmashed bacon jar or an unburnt wheat grain or a dried cod fillet not trodden into the mud and jumped on in the whole wreck of our provisions train. Oh, and they'd killed the packhorses too, and gutted them and filled up the body cavities with mud, so we couldn't eat them either.

  Your sylvan poets, Tarchannius and the Elemental school, would have you believe that living in forests is the natural, unpolluted state of Man; that all you've got to do is trudge your merry way through the greenwood, plucking this, killing that, washing it down with crystal-clear water from unsullied streams, and you're back with our ancestors in a state of pure and natural virtue, before greed and ambition were our racial downfall. Well, yes. Maybe you, or you and your own true love at a pinch, in berry season. There were twenty thousand of us, and we were starving hungry. Forget food--there wasn't enough water. I used to think the stuff in the old histories about armies drinking rivers dry was dramatic hyperbole, like arrows blotting out the sun. ("In which case," replied our indomitable ancestors, "we'll just have to fight in the shade." All cheer, and sing the School Song.) Actually, it's frighteningly easy. You don't drink it right down to the gravel and the clay, of course. What happens is, you drink off the clean water and kick up the silt at the bottom, which means the river--which in the forest means the big stream--fouls up into a thick silty muck and stays foul for hours. You can't afford to wait till it clears, because all that means is another five thousand out of your twenty thousand get to swallow a few brackish mouthfuls; in ten hours, ten thousand of your twenty thousand have each drunk a pint of water. It simply doesn't add up. No big deal while we still had barrels and water-skins and bottles: fill 'em at night, in rotation, making sure you get all your capacity full whenever you get the opportunity, like a big enough river or a freshwater lake. But most of us had nothing to carry water in, on account of having left our kit behind when I ordered the retreat during the ambush.

  Oh well, I thought, at least we killed a lot of them before we starved and parched ourselves to death. You know what? I actually thought that. Seriously. Like it made it better, as opposed to worse.

  After a while my inner logic started telling me: fine, and you'd have had exactly the same problems if you'd read the sun right and managed to lead the army north instead of round in a circle; we'd still all have died of thirst and starvation, and then the savages would've come screaming out of the forest and slaughtering our brave lads in the forts. Some degree of truth in that, but I definitely rationalised it after the event, to excuse myself for the original purely spontaneous thought.

  After that, I decided to play a game. Obviously, I told myself, I'm not going to be able to get twenty thousand of us out of this forest alive. Fact faced: can't be done. Accepted. But how'd it be if I played this game: guess the number of survivors I actually do manage to lead out into the sunlight. Five hundred? A thousand? Five thousand? For every five hundred saved, I get a prize--a sausage, or a cup of water, or a century let off my time in Hell being trampled under the hoofs of the horses of the Invincible Sun. Of course, the game would presuppose me being alive at the end, to see if I'd won, so I'd have to survive too. Just a silly game.

  Sometimes, that's all it takes. We scraped up as much edible food as we could with potsherds and our fingers, and tied it up in pockets torn from dead men's shredded coats. We figured: the bottom of a smashed gallon jug will carry a pint of water; one pint between ten men may be enough to save one man's life. We were ridiculous, laden down with stupid little parcels and packets, nursing broken barrels and scraps of crockery in our hands as we walked, like put-upon husbands carrying their wives' shopping. Of course, it was far too little to make any difference, and it slowed us right down, so in that sense it was counter-productive. But it got us into the game, and it was the game that saved us.

  How it saved us isn't quite so uplifting and edifying.

  As I just said, nursing all that junk slowed us down. It also made us rather quieter, less obvious than the average army on the march. Which, I guess, is why we escaped the notice of the insurgents' wives, children and livestock, coming up the road to meet us.

  More guessing: that as soon as the ambush struck and we ran for it and the initial pursuit was called off, they sent for the women and children and food to rejoin them as soon as possible--scared because there were lots of enemy still loose in the woods, I guess, or maybe they were hungry too, or just lonely. Don't know. Don't care. We practically bumped into them; just enough advance warning for a three-quarter envelopment manoeuvre.

  Which worked fine. We charged in on three sides, making a hell of a noise. The women and kids ran like hell out the fourth side. Naturally, we didn't pursue. We had no interest whatsoever in massacring innocent, harmless civilians. I expressly ordered, not one of them to be harmed, if at all possible. All we wanted to do was steal all their food and livestock and leave them alone in the heart of the merry greenwood to fend for themselves. I regard that as the mark of a civilised man. Of this particular civilised man, at any rate.

  Who knows? Some of them may make it, especially if they figure out their own version of the game. Point is, they may be women and kids, but they're still the enemy. Or at least, they're not Us. Us and Them. Sides.

  Dear Uncle Basso, I know perfectly well what I've become, what I've turned into. Maybe it's an effect of the place, or the situation. Maybe, when I'm home again, I'll get better. Right now, I really don't care. No: rephrase. I really don't mind. There's a difference.

  Anyway, that's enough from me; how are things at home?

  I imagine I'd rather not know. But, as far as I can see, in my capacity as acting unconfirmed viceroy of Mavortis, we will start digging iron, copper, silver and lead precisely on schedule.

  Love,

  Bassano

  "General Aelius," the lawyer said, "filed a will with the probate registry two days before he left. I have a certified copy here." He lifted the plain brass tube out of his pocket as if slowly drawing a sword at the start of an exhibition bout, and placed it on Basso's desk, gently, so as not to wake it. "He appointed you, myself and your nephew Bassianus Licinius as his executors. I have to ask you if you are prepared to accept the appointment."

  "Yes," Basso said.

  "Very well." The lawyer pinched the tiny collar of parchment just showing above the rim of the tube, and carefully drew out the roll. "I have, of course, read the will, which is quite short and simple. As required by standard procedure, General Aelius listed his assets in the opening declaration. You might care..."

  Basso nodded, and the lawyer unrolled the paper and held it down on the tabletop to stop it curling--a curiously brutal movement, like soldiers with a prisoner.

  "That's all he had, was it?" Basso said.

  The lawyer's eyebrow nearly lifted. "Quite a substantial estate for a man of his background and antecedents. Valuing the house at seven hundred nomismata, we arrive at a total of just over six thousand."

  Basso looked down at his hands. "I spent more than that on a book once," he said.

  "No doubt it was very rare and precious," the lawyer said briskly. "Since the general died on active service, his estate is exempt from death duties and foreign-born citizens' capital transfer tax. Likewise, his funeral and testamentary expenses will be borne by the government."

  "They couldn't find his body," Basso said. "So we're getting a bargain there."

  The lawyer couldn't have heard, because he went on: "The general kept very precise and well-ordered hou
sehold accounts, and his wants and pleasures were few. Unless there are debts we don't know about, the liabilities to be deducted from the estate amount to something in the order of fifteen nomismata."

  "Fifteen nomismata." Basso scowled, as though the concept of fifteen nomismata was utterly alien to him. "The hell with that," he said, and dug his hand in his pocket. "Here's fifteen nomismata. Pay the bills with that." He almost ground the coins into the table, then took his hand away. "Right," he went on, "who gets the money?"

  The lawyer nodded, as though Basso had just passed a test. "There are five specific legacies, of twenty-five nomismata each, to named military welfare funds: the Army Benevolent, the Salt Fund, the Boots Fund, the Widows and Orphans and the United Disabled. A further legacy of one hundred nomismata is made to the Cazar Salt Brotherhood, as trustees, to hold and use for the relief of poverty and want among his clan resulting from the deaths and injuries of clansmen serving in the Mavortine war. I should point out that this legacy is unenforceable, since it conveys the property of a Vesani citizen to foreigners resident abroad. The government can, however, authorise payment..."

  "It just has," Basso said grimly. "Go on."

  The lawyer was jotting down a note in the margin, using Basso's own gold and silver pen and inkstand. Churlish to object, but he might have asked. "The balance," he said, "amounting to something in the order of five thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five nomismata, he leaves to you."

  Basso didn't move. He couldn't; it even crossed his mind, for a fraction of a second, that he'd just had a stroke. Then something gave way, painfully, in his mind, and he said: "No, scrub that. Divide it up between the army funds and the clansmen."

  The lawyer looked at him. He'd clearly done something very bad. "It's not as simple as that, I'm afraid," he said.

  "It had better be."

  "Sadly," the lawyer said (a man who knew no fear; reminded Basso of Tragazes), "it isn't. As residuary legatee you are, of course, entitled to refuse to accept the legacy. Should you do so, however, the residue--the five thousand, seven-seven-five--devolves by intestacy to his nearest of kin; since he had no relations who are citizens, we are left with the default position, which is that the entire estate, including all the legacies, passes to the Treasury."

  Basso blinked, as though he'd had a bright light shone in his eyes. "That's the law?"

  "Yes."

  "Fine, I'll change it."

  "An admirable idea," the lawyer said, "of which I'm sure my profession will approve. We've been lobbying for such a change for thirty years. However, such a change could not be made retrospective, for obvious reasons."

  Basso sighed. "All right," he said. "If that's the law, it's the bloody law. I'll just have to take the money and give it to the boot people and the rest of them myself."

  The lawyer nodded slowly, which meant awkwardness. "You certainly can do that," he said. "However, I should point out that if you make such gifts within two years of the death of the deceased, the Treasury can, and most certainly will, apply its anti-avoidance powers and confiscate the money from you. This includes any gift made on your behalf by intermediaries, or any gift by a third party that can be shown to have been funded by you, directly or indirectly; or any loan you make to the funds in question with the intention of cancelling the debt at a later date; or any such loan where the Treasury has reason to suspect that you intend to cancel at a later date."

  "Two years," Basso repeated. "Are you mad? The Opposition..."

  "I am simply stating the law," the lawyer said, so politely it was clear he was deeply upset; "the law which you oversee, and which you could have amended at any time during your term of office. In fact, the specific provisions relating to estates of Vesani citizens of foreign birth are drawn from your own Enfranchisement Acts. I fear," he went on, "that you have no option but to accept the legacy with a good grace. In two years' time, you will of course be at liberty to make whatever dispositions you may wish."

  Basso sat perfectly still for a while; then he said, "You're a lawyer. How do we get round this?"

  Nothing changed in the lawyer's short, thin face. "Given your rather exceptional circumstances, I suppose it would be feasible for you to refuse to accept the residuary estate, thereby causing the entire estate to pass to the Treasury; whereupon the Treasury might be induced to make ex gratia grants to the funds named in the will of sums equivalent to such sums as they would have received had your original intentions been legally feasible."

  "Give the whole lot to the Treasury, and then they give it back."

  "Essentially, yes. However, such a course of action would require the exercise of political influence, which is of course outside my field of knowledge."

  "Thanks, I see." Basso blinked and rubbed his eyes, like someone waking up from a strange dream. "I suppose we'll do that, then. I imagine there's a certain amount of paperwork involved." The lawyer nodded. "No surprise there, then. Go away, do it and fetch it here for me to sign." He frowned. "You're sure that's all there was," he said. "Six thousand nomismata."

  "Quite sure."

  Later, for a while, he made sense of it by assuming Aelius must've sent all his money home, to support his family and his clan and probably most of his tribe as well. But that turned out not to have been the case. He'd sent home three hundred nomismata a year--considerable wealth over there, but not enough to make much of a hole in Basso's vague, unsatisfactory sense of guilt. When the mines are running, he promised himself, and everything's back to normal again, I'll have to see about raising army pay, at least for the senior officers. But he knew that was a promise he wouldn't keep; not for malice or treachery, but because in six months' time he'd have forgotten the way he felt now, remembering only that he'd felt ashamed about something when Aelius died, and he'd made a rash promise about army pay that fortunately nobody else had witnessed.

  In conclusion, he told the House, he urged them to consider two brave men; one dead and one alive, one a dedicated, experienced soldier who gave his life for the city that had adopted him, the other a young man from a privileged background who had risen to a challenge that few would have dared to face, who by his resourcefulness, courage and sheer determination had saved the army and the honour of the Republic. Two very different men; but they had one thing in common: they were Vesani citizens, equal participants along with every man, woman and child in the City in the greatest and most fascinating project the world had ever known, shareholders in the greatest enterprise in history: the Vesani Republic. He had no desire to detract in any way from the extraordinary things accomplished by his friend and his nephew; but it hadn't been Aelius' victory or Bassianus Licinius' victory. It had been the triumph of the Republic itself, in which every citizen had a right to share.

  All that remained, he concluded, was for him to propose the motion than Bassianus Arcadius Licinius be confirmed as the new Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Republic, with the rank of field marshal and the honour-name of Mavortinus.

  Passed unanimously.

  Basso to Bassano:

  ... You can, of course, be sure that nobody will ever call you that, not to your face and most certainly not behind your back. But they'll call you something, though a consensus has yet to emerge, as far as I can tell. Round-in-Circles is one I've heard in a few places; I'd be perfectly happy with that if I were you. I've also heard Golden Boy, the Fighting Toff and Camel's Balls (which I take to be a reference to your courage and fortitude). Any of them would do me. As you know, my only vanity is the wish to have a name like that for my very own: the Magnificent, the Great, the Wise, the Fortunate. Now it looks like my last, best chance is Bassano's Uncle. With which, I hasten to add, I shall be hugely content.

  My first order to you in your new job is to come home as soon as you possibly can, for urgent high-level debriefing, making your formal report, intensive discussions concerning short-, medium- and long-term policy issues, and any other damn thing it takes to get you back here. And if you ever scare me li
ke that again, I'll skin you alive.

  If anything had happened to you out there, I'd never have forgiven myself. But, now it's over, I have to say how enormously, incredibly proud I am--of myself, of course, for having spotted long before anybody else just what a clever little sod you are. I venture to suggest that I saw it rather earlier than you did; I guess I've always known. You know what I'm like with reasons. I think you're the reason that explains and justifies me. I've done what I've done so you can follow on after me; and when people look back on me, in a hundred years' time, they'll say that Bassianus Severus was the necessary evil that made Bassianus Licinius possible; and that, just for once, the end absolved the means.

  I've been thinking a great deal about what you wrote about sides. I'm inclined to go along with most of it, though I wouldn't go so far as to say I agree. I do firmly believe that the wrong fails and the right prevails, like they taught me to say in Temple. Experience has shown me that nine times out of ten, you can't hope to make your mind up what's wrong and what's right until the fighting's over and the winner has won; the judges' decision, in other words, is final. Ever since I read that Aelius was going into the forest, I held my breath; if we'd lost, quite apart from everything else, I'd have had to accept the decision that I'd been wrong, everything I've done's been wrong, everything I am is wrong. You know how everybody always goes on about my marvellous luck; how everything, even disasters, turns out right for me. Well, that last phrase is the key: turns out right. I don't believe in luck, never have. I believe that things happen, and the good come out of them well and the bad badly. All my life I've been waiting for the time when I come out bad; at which point I'll know, and I'll abide by the referee's decision. Till then, I know I'm right. I was right about you.

  The biggest thing I ever did (we're not using good and bad, remember) was killing your father and my wife. I couldn't possibly see how any good could come out of that. I tried to make sense of it by looking out for you. To begin with, it was more guilt than anything: I may have killed his father, but I'll see to it the kid gets the best possible start in life, that sort of thing. But you grew up and I came to know you, and I realised that you were someone completely out of the ordinary; someone recognisably connected with me--we share some key qualities--but sufficiently different to make all the difference, if you follow me. By killing your father, I gave myself an opportunity to help and guide you that I wouldn't otherwise have had. And look how you've turned out, and think what you're going to do. And then I look back to what I did, all those years ago, and I can make sense of it now. Didn't turn out so bad after all.