by K. J. Parker
Father was waiting for something. He knew he wouldn’t say what it was, because Gignomai was supposed to know without prompting or hints, and the audience couldn’t end until Father was satisfied. “Thanks,” Gignomai said, but it wasn’t as simple as that. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll take good care of it, I promise.”
Either that was it or Father was getting restless. “Mind you do,” he said. “Put some logs on the fire before you leave.”
Gignomai waited for as long as he could—six days—then broke out again. He took the sword with him. There weren’t any guards this time, the perceived threat of reprisal having faded, and he went straight to Furio’s house. He thanked Furio for his gift, gravely and seriously, then asked, “How did you know it was my birthday?”
Furio looked at him. “I didn’t. Was it?”
“Yes.” Gignomai felt disappointed. “Well anyway, it was a great present. Thanks.”
That was more thanks than Furio was equipped to handle. He looked away, keen to change the subject. “What else did you get?”
“This,” Gignomai said. He’d wrapped the sword up in a big, slightly mouldy sack, to disguise what it was. “And now I’ve got to have fencing lessons.”
Furio was staring at the sword as though he’d never seen anything like it. Well, of course, he hadn’t. “That’s amazing,” he said. “Your family gave you that?”
He found the enthusiasm annoying. “Well, it’s not really mine. I mean, Luso had it before me, but he didn’t like it, so…”
“That must be worth an absolute fortune.”
It hadn’t occurred to Gignomai to think of it in terms of value. He couldn’t imagine anybody wanting it. “Really?”
“You bet. Hey, Dad.” Furio’s father was passing the stock-room door. “Have you got a minute?”
Furio’s father was even more impressed than his son had been. “Extremely valuable,” he answered, when Furio asked him. “I’m no expert, of course, it all depends on the maker and the condition.”
“It’s bent,” Gignomai pointed out. “Luso bashed it against a wall.”
Furio’s dad had drawn two inches of blade out of the scabbard. He was gazing at the patterns in the steel, the slender, semi-abstract design of wreathed foliage chiselled into the ricasso. He stuck his hand in his pocket and produced a lens (who on earth carried something like that about with him?), through which he stared closely at the name engraved just below the pas d’âne.
“Well?” Furio asked.
“At least twelve thousand,” his father relied. “Could be twice that. I don’t know.”
“Twelve thousand thalers,” Furio whispered, as if in the presence of some dark angel. “Your dad gave you a present worth—”
Gignomai said it before he could stop himself. “Is that a lot of money?”
Furio’s dad laughed. Furio scowled, and said, “You know the Glisenti place? Out on the south road. Freehold. It sold last week for eight hundred.”
Worth more than a whole farm—Gignomai felt slightly sick. His first thought, he realised, had been, I could get a long way away with that kind of money.
“As I said,” he said, “it’s not really mine, it belongs to the family.”
“I’m not saying you could get twelve thousand for it here, of course.” Furio’s dad’s voice had changed very slightly, and Furio was glowering at him behind his back. “I mean, nobody here’s got that sort of money, and if they had, they wouldn’t spend it on a status symbol. You’d have to find a merchant from Home, and of course he’d want his percentage, and then he’d probably pass it on to a specialist dealer. But definitely five thousand. Definitely.”
Furio was getting angry, so Gignomai took the sword, gently but firmly, and put it back in the sack. For a split second Furio’s dad looked very sad. Then he said, “If ever your family does think of selling…”
“They wouldn’t,” Gignomai said. “Not ever. We don’t sell stuff. We keep it till it rusts, or we’ve forgotten where we put it.”
Shortly after that, the bad thing happened, and Gignomai didn’t break out again for a long time.
Seven Years After
“Do you think he’ll like me?” she said for the fifteenth or sixteenth time, and Furio pretended he hadn’t heard. He glanced sideways at the clock (for the fifteenth or sixteenth time). The hands didn’t seem to have budged since he last looked.
“Do I look nice?” she said.
He nodded.
The clock was, of course, a joke. In a life dominated (as he saw it) by jokes, it was one of the biggest. It was the only clock in the colony, unless the met’Oc had one (and if they had, Gig had never mentioned it), and the function of a clock, surely, is to share a common truth, or at least a common belief, with other clocks. A solitary clock is the proverbial one clapping hand. No earthly good saying to someone “I’ll meet you by the customs shed at ten minutes past eleven” if you’ve got the only clock in the country. It might have had some semblance of purpose if it had been set up in a tower in the square, but it wasn’t. It lived in the back room of the store. While Father was alive, it had been on display in the store itself, but when he died, Uncle had moved it. He was afraid someone might steal it.
“Do I look all right?” she said.
“Yes, for crying out loud,” he snapped. “You look absolutely fucking stunning.”
Also (and this was something nobody knew, except him), the clock was wrong. For the first sixty-three years of the colony’s existence, it had been carefully tended, almost worshipped, first by Grandfather, then by Father. They wound it, thirty-six turns of the key, at six in the evening every day, without fail, and once a week they advanced the big hand two minutes. Anybody looking at it could therefore rely on the information it displayed. Here, or back Home, or anywhere at all, if the clock said it was six o’clock, it was six o’clock. It was a truth that bound them together and connected them, as if by some mystical bond, with the place they’d all come from. But when Mother died and Father got depressed for a while, he’d forgotten to wind it one day, and it had stopped. He’d set it next day by the sun, making his best guess at noon, and it wasn’t far out. But the link had been broken, and now the clock was a lie. Or, as Furio preferred to interpret it, a joke.
“Where’s Tissa?” she asked. “She should be here by now.”
“Tissa’s always late,” Furio replied. “Sit down, can’t you? You’re giving me a headache, wandering about like that.”
“Charming,” she replied, and she perched delicately on the edge of a table, like a carefully arranged ornament.
Which, of course, she was. By universal consensus (and it was a subject much debated), Bonoa was the prettiest girl in the colony. She was also acknowledged to be clever, a good talker; she could be relied on to laugh at jokes; she even made jokes of her own, when appropriate. She’d been the obvious choice. She was clearly pleased to have been chosen. It was just a pity she was such a fidget. He wondered if that would matter, and decided probably it wouldn’t.
The door opened, but it was only Tissa. She smiled at him. He grabbed her, gave her an absent-minded sort of a kiss and let her go. She moved away and started talking to Bonoa—you look nice, so do you stuff, a conversation to which he was thankfully irrelevant.
“He’s not here, then,” Tissa said.
Furio smiled at her. “Correct,” he said. “How’d you guess?”
She flicked her hair away from her face. “You drag me over here to meet the legendary Gignomai and he’s not here.” She looked at the clock. Everybody did that, when they came in. It was remarkable how many people in the colony could tell the time. “He’s late.”
Furio shrugged. “Maybe he’s had trouble getting out.”
The girls looked at each other and, for some reason he couldn’t be bothered to guess at, giggled. “Surely not,” Tissa said, “not the amazing Gignomai. Didn’t you tell me he can make himself invisible?”
“Or fly like a bird,” Bonoa said.
“Or transform himself into a—”
“Quiet.” Furio held up his hand. He’d heard a footstep outside. He scowled horribly at Bonoa, then glanced at Tissa and mouthed, “Behave.” Then the door opened.
Gignomai was soaking wet. For a split second, Furio was bitterly angry with him for not making the entrance he’d expected of him. He dismissed the anger as ridiculous, grinned at his friend and said, “You’re late.”
Gignomai shrugged. “Luso called an unscheduled fencing session,” he replied, and while he was speaking, Furio noticed a cut above and to the right of his left eye just starting to clot. Of course, he might have cut himself scrambling through the woods. “Anyway, sorry.”
“You’re all wet,” Furio said.
“Had to swim the river. We’ve taken to posting a sentry to watch the ford. I had to go a mile upstream.” Gignomai shrugged again, as if wriggling out of the subject of the tribulations of his journey. He’d glanced quickly at the two girls then moved his head so he couldn’t see them. “Who…?”
Furio drew in a breath, not too deep. “I’d like you to meet Comitissa, and this is Bonoa.”
There was a split second when Furio was sure the whole thing was going to go horrendously wrong. During that moment, he realised that he’d been working on a mere assumption—that Gig, trapped up on that godforsaken mountain with his weirdo family would necessarily want more than anything else in the world to meet girls. On that premise he’d arranged this meeting, working long, hard and patiently. Reasonably enough he’d taken it for granted that it would be better if it was a surprise, because there’s nothing more awkward than a formal blind date prearranged in cold blood. For the first time, it occurred to him that it might have been a good idea to tell Gig in advance, rather than ambush him.
Then Gignomai smiled, and Furio relaxed. Of all the components in the complex equation, the one he had least doubts about was Gig’s smile—guaranteed to dazzle, stun and turn knees to water. He was delighted to see he’d been right about that. “Hello,” he heard his friend say, and for the first time in days he felt the relief of not being in charge any more. Nature, he felt sure, could take its course from now on, and everything would be fine.
He froze. Gig was smiling at Tissa, not Bonoa.
Well, Furio thought, he wasn’t to know. My fault, I should’ve said, “My girlfriend, Comitissa,” or something like that. But Tissa stood up and moved just a little towards him, and mercifully Gig took the point and turned his smile on Bonoa instead. Gratefully, Furio reached out, looped his arm round Tissa’s neck and hauled her towards him like cargo.
He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Let’s get out of here.”
She frowned at him, her face so close to his it was nearly out of focus. “Subtle,” she said.
“Now.”
He couldn’t help glancing back on his way to the door. He needn’t have worried; he was certain that Gig hadn’t noticed he was leaving. Furio smiled. Gig was radiating charm so fiercely that he fully expected Bonoa’s face to be sunburnt next time he saw her. “He’s good at it,” he muttered to himself, and towed Tissa out of the room.
He led her through the store onto the porch. He sat on the step and she folded neatly onto his lap. “Well?” she said.
“So far so good,” he replied.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “All right,” she said. “Explain.”
“Explain what?”
Her oh for pity’s sake look. “Why’s it so vitally important for the future of the human race for your friend to get off with a girl?”
Furio tried to look blank. “Oh come on,” he said. “Just think what it must be like for him.”
She did her arch frown. “Did he ask you to fix him up?”
“God, no.”
“Are you sure he likes girls?”
He let that one pass. “He’s my friend,” he said. That ought to explain everything, surely.
“You do realise Bonoa’s seeing Escalo. From the mill.”
“Ah.” Furio grinned at her. “Not any more. She dumped him.”
Her eyes widened just a little. “What? When?”
“When I told her I’d seen Escalo with Prasia.”
He watched her doing the arithmetic. “That’s not…”
“Maybe I exaggerated,” Furio said, a little smugly. “A little bit. Actually, Prasia came to collect the flour, and I think they said hello to each other. But it got the job done.”
She was staring at him. “You deliberately…?”
“It can’t have been serious, or she wouldn’t have dumped him just like that.” He could see no need to be defensive. “Anyway, it was all for the greater good. She’ll thank me for it, you’ll see.”
The look on her face wasn’t part of her usual repertoire, which he’d taken pains to learn. “You deliberately split up Bonoa and Escalo,” she said, “just so you could…” she took her time choosing the right word, “just so you could feed her to your friend. Don’t you think that’s a bit much, even for you?”
“No.” He waited, but the frozen look was still there. “You want to go in there and ask? I doubt she’ll be complaining. Well?”
She held the expression a moment longer, then shrugged it away. “He’s nice-looking.”
Furio grinned.
“All right, very nice-looking. And charming and attractive and…” She paused. “Feel free to stop me any time. You know, when you start feeling jealous.”
Furio laughed, and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You should have heard her before you arrived,” he said. “ ‘Will he like me? Do I look nice?’ She was practically dribbling.”
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Let’s break into the biscuits.”
Between them, they ate about two quarters’ worth, then carefully tapped the lid back onto the box. Hard luck on whoever ended up buying it, but Uncle would get the blame. “You only stay with me because of the biscuits,” he said. “Yes,” she replied, and they began to kiss.
After an interval, mostly concerned with the intransigence of buttons, Tissa said, “I wonder how they’re getting on.”
“You want to go and look though the keyhole?”
“Maybe they’re playing chess.”
“There’s a chess set in there,” Furio conceded. “Dad ordered six, about ten years ago. Whalebone and lacewood. Sold five, got stuck with the last one. I doubt it, though.”
“Me too.”
“Does Bonoa play chess?”
“She beats me.”
“That’s not saying anything.”
She pulled away a little. “So who bought five quality chess sets?”
He grinned. “Nobody round here. He sold them to freighter captains, you know, a present from the colony. Of course they’re made back Home, but whoever got given them wouldn’t know that. We sell a lot of stuff to the freighter crews, but Uncle—”
He broke off. The door had swung open, and Bonoa marched past without a word. She looked furious.
“Oh,” Tissa said.
Furio swore and jumped up, but Tissa grabbed his arm. “Stay there,” she said, and went after Bonoa. Furio stayed where he was, not knowing which way to go. Then he saw Gignomai, standing in the doorway, peering nervously out.
“Gig,” he said. “What the hell?”
“Sh.” Gignomai beckoned him over. “Other way out?”
“Only if you climb through the back-room window.”
“Thanks,” Gignomai said, hesitated, added, “Not your fault,” and vanished. By the time Furio had pulled himself together enough to follow, he found the window open and the back room empty. He closed his eyes, sat down on a crate and let his head flop forward onto his chest.
“Your friend.” Tissa’s voice. He opened his eyes.
“What?”
“Your friend,” she repeated, “is strange.”
He turned to look at her. She sat down beside him. “What happened?” he asked.
“Good question.”
B
ad answer. “Well?”
Tissa sat up straight, folded her hands in her lap. He’d always thought of it as her historian mode. “Well,” she said, “according to Bonoa they were getting along just fine. You know, first date talking. She told him about her family, he told her about his…”
(That, Furio thought, I’m inclined to doubt.)
“And then,” Tissa went on, “he asked if she played chess, and she said yes, so they set up the chessboard and played three games.”
“Who won?” Furio couldn’t help asking.
“He did,” she replied, “and that’s what I mean by strange, because obviously a boy lets a girl win at least one game on a first date, even if he’s a Grand Master. Anyway,” she went on, “she said she didn’t want to play any more, and he looked a bit sad and said, so what do you want to do instead, and she kissed him.”
Furio waited. Then he said, “Well?”
“He went berserk,” Tissa said. “He jumped up, said what do you think you’re doing, or something like that, so she got up and walked out.” She paused, shrugged and said, “That’s it.” She looked at him and scowled. “Like I said. Strange.”
Furio closed his eyes again. He really wanted Tissa to go away, but when he opened them again she was still there. “Yes,” he said.
“Yes what?”
“Yes he’s strange,” Furio said. “All right?”
She sighed. “I told you,” she said.
“What?”
“Doesn’t like girls.”
Furio massaged his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger, but it didn’t help. “Looks that way,” he said, “but I don’t think so.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know.”
She wriggled uncomfortably next to him. “What other explanation could there be?”
“Don’t know.”
“I suppose,” she said slowly, “he could have a girl up there on the mountain.”
