The Folding Knife Part 23

The idea was that Sentio would reply to the opening speech, saving Ba.s.so for the closing round. Before he could stand up, however, Ba.s.so frowned at him. Puzzled, he settled back in his seat and waited to see what Ba.s.so had in mind.

Ba.s.so stood up and looked round. He had their attention.

"I support the motion," he said, and sat down.

Later, it was a.s.serted that the silence that followed his intervention was the longest in the history of the House. How anybody could know that wasn't clear, but it was accepted as true and eventually pa.s.sed into Vesani political folklore. n.o.body on either side knew what to do next. Obviously there was no point in anybody else saying anything. Eventually, the Speaker stood up, looking mildly concussed, and called for a division. The motion was pa.s.sed unanimously, with no abstentions.

Ba.s.sano had taken up fencing. That was quite all right; it was a perfectly acceptable accomplishment for a gentleman, though rather out of fashion these days-somewhere between hawking for captive pigeons and playing the rebec. Ba.s.so had insisted that he enrol in the Three Circles Fight, the oldest and most austere fencing school in the City. They taught the authentic, unadulterated Three Circles practice, which Ba.s.so himself had reluctantly learned when he was fifteen. There was a tediously high proportion of theory, a lot of which was arcane to the point of semi-religious obscurity, and you didn't learn nearly as many flashy set-piece plays as they taught in the more fashionable schools; but as part of the final exam you had to defend yourself against, among others, a six-foot-tall dock worker armed with an axe and using a three-legged stool as a shield, a Cazar soldier in full armour and a Sclerian with a pitchfork and a long knife, you yourself armed only with your gentleman's walking sword, and no armour. A significant proportion of students failed the final exam, or didn't even attempt it.

Ba.s.sano studied hard. In fact, the head of the school wrote to Ba.s.so (who'd insisted on weekly reports), he showed a degree of dedication and enthusiasm unusual for someone of his cla.s.s and background. Ba.s.so wasn't surprised; he could guess the reason, though naturally he confirmed his guess by asking his nephew a direct question.

"Simple," Ba.s.sano had replied. "When the raiders came, I was terrified. I knew that when I was standing in the doorway, if one of them had decided to come after me, I wouldn't even have been able to run, I'd have frozen and he'd have killed me where I stood. That really shocked me."

Ba.s.so said he took the point. "But there's a h.e.l.l of a difference between learning fencing in a school and actually being in a fight. I've known people who were fencing champions, but in a punch-up in a bar, they were completely useless."

"Maybe," Ba.s.sano had replied. "But at any rate, it'll make me feel better. Besides, I never take any exercise. I get out of breath walking up Maltgate."

Little chance of that, after four weeks at the Three Circles. "Also," Ba.s.sano said, "some of the theoretical stuff is actually quite interesting. When you were there, did you do the thing where you break down the stages in the flight of an arrow?"

"And you end up proving the arrow never actually gets there?" Ba.s.so grinned. "Yes, of course. I thought it was ridiculous. Gratuitous neo-Mannerist mysticism. The arrow does get there, so it's fatuous."

"I can believe you thought that," Ba.s.sano said with a grin. "I bet you told the Master so, too."

"Good G.o.d, no." Ba.s.so raised his eyebrows. "He'd have made a point of explaining it all over again. I just tried to look respectful and stay awake."

At Ba.s.so's request, the Master introduced a number of extra items into the curriculum, though he neglected to tell the students that they weren't part of the traditional course. These were mostly standard drills from the military book of forms (Aelius' recommendations): basic form for infantry against charging cavalry, two forms for infantry with shield against archery bombardment, close-order sword and shield in the event of a melee following the collapse of the shield wall (for which the Master had to bring in a drill sergeant from the Guard, since none of his adepts knew it).

"Which is odd," Ba.s.sano commented at dinner, "because I was talking to some of the men in the cla.s.s above, and they didn't do any of this military stuff. They all did advanced defensive geometry in fifth week."

"I think they like to vary the syllabus a bit," Ba.s.so replied. "Certainly, we did a few bits and pieces of military drill when I was there. Good for general fitness and agility training, they told us."

Ba.s.sano shrugged. "Well, I don't mind," he said. "I'd rather do that than endless repet.i.tions of the salute. That bit where you move your back foot across to the right while keeping the left leg perfectly straight..."

Ba.s.so groaned. "Tell me about it," he said. "I gave up trying to get that right. Cost me two marks in the exam, but I got them back in bonus points by breaking the Cazar's arm."

At Ba.s.so's suggestion, Ba.s.sano undertook the accelerated course, which meant doing both parts back to back, without the usual three-week recess. Ba.s.so made sure he was there for the exam, which was held in the school's main drill hall, a converted monastery chapel.

The news that the First Citizen was sitting in the middle of the front row caused a certain degree of panic in the waiting room, where the candidates sat on plain wooden benches, fidgeting with their sandal straps or desperately trying to memorise forms from the textbook.

"My uncle," Ba.s.sano explained.

"s.h.i.t," commented a tall young man from the wrong side of the Trinculani family. "You never said anything about that."

Ba.s.sano shrugged. "Didn't seem relevant."

"And he's come to see you fight, has he?" asked a ma.s.sively constructed junior Velleius.

"I guess so. He sent me a note to say he would drop by if he had time."

The Trincula.n.u.s boy pulled a sour face. "Well then," he said, "you'll have no worries. Bound to pa.s.s, aren't you?"

"I hope so," Ba.s.sano said. "Though I'm a bit concerned about my footwork in double time."

A provincial Lupercus made a sort of snorting-grunting noise. "You'll pa.s.s," he said. "The fix'll be in. They wouldn't dare fail the First b.l.o.o.d.y Citizen's nephew."

Ba.s.sano frowned. "Actually," he said, "knowing my uncle, if he had reason to believe there'd been anything like that, he'd probably buy the school just to close it down. He's old-fashioned about that sort of thing."

The Velleius boy shrugged. "Whatever," he said. "All right for you. We could do without the pressure."

"Oh," Ba.s.sano said. "Well, if you want, I could send him a note asking him to wait outside till it's my turn. But he'd be disappointed. He said he was looking forward to watching the fencing."

At this point, a Saturninus-by-marriage implored them all to shut up, because some people were trying to study, and they all sat glowering at Ba.s.sano until the first candidate was called. They weren't allowed to watch, but they could hear the audience.

"Sounds bad," Ba.s.sano commented, after a loud communal gasp filtered through the wall.

"Shut up, you," said the Trincula.n.u.s boy.

Ba.s.sano made a show of pursing his lips. About a minute later, there was a thump that made the floor shake, followed by silence. Then the herald came in for the next candidate. "Manlio Velleio," he called out. The Velleius boy went white, picked up his sword, dropped it and picked it up again.

"Good luck," Ba.s.sano said.

"Go f.u.c.k yourself," the Velleius boy hissed at him through his teeth.

Ba.s.sano shrugged, took a copy of Diophanes' On Being and Reality out of his kitbag, found his place and began to read.

When it was his turn, Ba.s.sano stood up quite easily, and found he wasn't nervous at all. A chapter of Diophanes had taken his mind off the various glaring holes in his technique that had cost him last night's sleep; when he picked up his sword and buckled it to his belt, his fingers weren't stiff and didn't shake. "Well, hope it goes well for you fellows," he said blithely to the room in general, and walked through the door into the hall.

He'd been in there many times, of course, but never when it was crowded with people. He looked for Ba.s.so and saw him straight away; he was wearing his plain black (had he just come from a debate in the House?), but round his neck he wore the thin gold chain and seven-pointed star of an Adept of the Three Circles Fight-just one degree below Master, and the highest award you could earn without staying on to do postgraduate research. For a split second it crossed his mind that Ba.s.so must've borrowed it for the occasion, or maybe it was one of those honorary degrees that you get for being famous. But he knew his uncle wouldn't wear an order he wasn't ent.i.tled to. Ba.s.so caught his eye and grinned; he grinned back, and felt cheerful again.

His first bout was solo, a display of three compulsory forms, two of his choice and one freestyle, his own composition (he'd be marked on his choice of components as well as his accuracy and style). As he started the routine, he let his mind wander; it was better to do solo forms in a mindless state. Ba.s.so had been very keen for him to do this. It had been Ba.s.sano's own idea, but the level of support and encouragement had been exceptional, even coming from his uncle. Why, he wondered; because Ba.s.so himself was an Adept, or because it was the proper thing for a young gentleman to do? Both perfectly sound reasons, neither satisfactory.

He was broken out of his train of thought by enthusiastic applause, so presumably he'd finished the routine, and done so without tripping over his feet. Fine. Now it was about to get difficult.

The first fight was standard academic fencing, walking sword against walking sword, with Zeuxis, his Director of Studies. Naturally, Zeuxis kept a stone face during the salute, but he knew he'd get a fair bout. Zeuxis liked him; he'd structure the bout to allow Ba.s.sano to display his strengths. In the event, he did better than he'd expected, conceding only three hits and even scoring one of his own. That meant a bonus mark.

Next was the Cazar. The school bought its Cazars from the Eudaimonides Brothers, dealers in quality personnel since AUC 878. You had no idea which one you were going to face in the exam, but Ba.s.sano had made a point of fighting as many of them as possible during the course, with a view to learning their technique, those he hadn't fought he'd researched with other students who had, and he knew them all by sight. Today's Cazar he'd never seen before in his life. They must've bought one in specially for the exam. What the h.e.l.l?

His salute was distinctly mechanical (the Cazars never saluted back), and then he started to circle. As he did so, he caught Ba.s.so's eye, and saw him wink.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he thought (and the Cazar swung at him; he sidestepped back and left, giving ground, maintaining his guard). My b.a.s.t.a.r.d uncle made them buy in a brand new Cazar specially for me.

In the event, his anger at Ba.s.so's treachery was exactly what he needed. The Cazar was tall, lean and fast, with a dangerous reach; at one point, the tip of his sword came so close to Ba.s.sano's cheek he was sure he'd been scratched. But his footwork, though naturally good, was untrained, and Ba.s.sano caught him out with a perfectly executed volte in straight time. He rested the point of his sword on the bare patch of skin between the Cazar's cheek-flap and gorget, and saw him freeze; then he heard his sword clatter on the floor, signifying that he'd conceded the bout. He stepped back, lowered his sword and scowled ferociously at his uncle, who was looking the other way.

He was still thinking about the Cazar during his three-on-one bout, which he concluded in extremely short time with a double disarm and a coup-de-jarnac to the back of the third man's knee. Presumably Ba.s.so had done it because-he couldn't really figure out why Ba.s.so had done it. Because it would make him angry, and the anger would give him a lift and make him fight above his usual game; well, that was what had happened, so it was a reasonable explanation. Because the First Citizen's nephew must be seen to succeed incontrovertibly, to give the lie to people like the kids in the waiting room, who'd a.s.sumed the fights would be fixed. That was rational too. But (the true explanation came to him in the middle of his bout with the dock worker, and made him drop his guard just long enough for his opponent to whack him on the point of his left shoulder with the three-legged stool; two points away, and it hurt) the real reason was, Ba.s.so did like a little mischief, now and again. He made laws and invaded countries and adjusted the currency because it'd annoy someone. Well, Ba.s.sano decided (and he kicked the dock worker's legs out from under him and touched his sword-point to his jugular vein), it's worked. I'm annoyed.

The next bout was an anticlimax: duel against sword and buckler, one of his best forms, but the show he put up was strictly ordinary-good enough for a pa.s.s, but he'd been confident of scoring at least one bonus point. That just left the Sclerian.

The pitchfork (they'd been taught, and it came up again in revision and again in the mocks) is one of the deadliest weapons a man ever has to face. It has the speed, agility and unpredictability of the spear, together with a non-intuitive line (the p.r.o.ngs are on either side of the shaft, not in line with it) and a natural block, in the shape of the base of the head where the two p.r.o.ngs branch off. Added to which, a man armed with a pitchfork is highly unlikely to be a trained fighter, which means all his moves will be innovative, unfamiliar and difficult to read in advance. Students had died or been badly injured in previous years, and failure in this form meant you failed the whole thing.

As the Sclerian came out of the staff door, he examined him carefully. If Ba.s.so could make them buy in a new Cazar, could he somehow rig the Sclerian too? Maybe (the thought made him feel slightly ill) he'd rigged it the other way this time, and got them to give him a specially easy opponent, someone who'd been paid to throw the fight. Or possibly the opposite, and this was the All-Scleria Pitchfork Fighting champion.

There was, of course, no way of knowing. In the event, he got through, conceding a slight but painful scratch to his left leg, but eventually making a graceless but efficient disarm to win. That meant he'd pa.s.sed; and when he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw his uncle grinning like an idiot, the happiest he'd ever seen him. Which was ridiculous, he thought; it's only a fencing degree. But he realised he was grinning too.

Afterwards, a quiet dinner for three at the Severus house- "Shouldn't you be out celebrating with your cla.s.smates?" Ba.s.so asked, with his mouth full.

"Should I?"

Ba.s.so nodded. "It's traditional. At least, it was in my day. Highest overall score in the exam buys the drinks."

"Leave him alone," Melsuntha said. "If he doesn't want to get horribly drunk in some dreadful bar somewhere..."

Ba.s.so shrugged, and helped himself to some more lamb in turmeric and onion sauce. "All I meant was, you shouldn't feel any obligation. If you want to go out on the town, we quite understand."

"No, thanks," Ba.s.sano replied with a grin. "Why should I spoil the whole of tomorrow with a hangover, nausea, flatulence and heartburn, with a bunch of people I never liked much anyway, just to conform with a stereotype? Not my idea of a wonderful time. Anyway," he added, "even if I wanted to, I haven't got the energy. A good feed, to take away the taste of that garbage they made us eat in the school, and then at least twelve hours' sleep on a soft mattress. Now that," he added happily, "is celebrating."

"You see?" Melsuntha said. "He's a civilised human being."

"Which is something he has no right to be at his age," Ba.s.so replied severely. "It's different for women, they're civilised from the moment they hit p.u.b.erty. But young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two ought to behave badly and make idiots of themselves. It's nature's way."

"Really?" Ba.s.sano said. "I expect you can offer some evidence for that."

"Common sense." Ba.s.so poured himself some more wine. "Take deer. You get a load of young males, far too many for the local grazing to support, and not nearly enough does to go round. So, they fight, and most of them get driven off; and most of them are stupid, so the wolves and the hunters get them, which redresses the balance. Same with humans, except we don't let nature take its course. We do our best to stop adolescent males getting themselves killed in fights, or smashing themselves up in racing chariots, or falling off bridges while dead drunk. Result, we have far more of them than we need, which is why you can't walk down Portgate on the morning after May Week without treading in broken gla.s.s and vomit."

"There's war," Ba.s.sano said seriously. "That gets rid of a lot of them."

Melsuntha was frowning, but Ba.s.so ignored her. "About the only good thing you can say about it, and on balance, I feel there ought to be a better way. Well," he added, "there is. Do what the Cazars do."

"The Cazars," Melsuntha said, "expose girl children on hillsides at birth."

"That's not what I meant," Ba.s.so said. "When a boy turns fifteen, he's sent out to be fostered with a relative or friend of his father, and he doesn't come back for three years. Treated as cheap labour, not allowed to mix with the family, made to sleep in the barn, up at first light and out with the sheep. You don't get many stroppy seventeen-year-olds in the Cazar Peninsula."

"I see," Ba.s.sano said. "And you're thinking of making that the law here in the Republic."

Ba.s.so laughed. "The other thing the Cazars do," he said, "is send all their surplus manpower abroad: here, or Scleria, or the Eastern Empire. It gets them out of everybody's hair, they send money home, and most of them don't come back."

Melsuntha was glowering at him. "And you approve of that."

"Good G.o.d, no," Ba.s.so said, "it's barbaric. Efficient and, in the circ.u.mstances, thoroughly sensible; there's barely enough land to support the ones who stay home, so if they didn't do it that way, the whole lot of them would starve, or wipe each other out in horrendous land wars. The system works, so they stick with it. Hasn't ever occurred to them to try and find a better system. Doesn't mean to say there isn't one."

Ba.s.sano shrugged. "I'm grateful I'm not a Cazar," he said. "It's one of a great many things I'm grateful for. But I'm not quite sure how we got here from the dubious pleasures of excessive drinking."

"We may have wandered from the point a little," Ba.s.so conceded. "And it goes without saying that I was talking drivel, just to provoke a discussion."

"I never know with you, Uncle," Ba.s.sano said. "You often seem to take pleasure in sabotaging your own best arguments before you make them, just to see if people agree with you."

"He was talking drivel," Melsuntha said. "Trust me."

"There you go." Ba.s.so laughed. "Something people never seem to grasp is that you can make out all sorts of bad arguments in favour of a good thing, but that doesn't spoil the good arguments. It's like saying I shouldn't be First Citizen if idiots vote for me."

"Fine," Ba.s.sano said. "What good thing are we talking about?"

"Ah," Ba.s.so said. "I hadn't got that far yet."

"He was talking drivel," Melsuntha said firmly. "Now he's going to say something sensible. At least, I hope he is. Where I come from, we have yet to learn the art of appreciating drivel for its own sake."

Ba.s.so leaned back in his chair and drew the tip of his finger down the inside of her arm. Ba.s.sano noted that she shivered, and he looked away. "Something sensible," he said, "by special request. All right, what about this? Ba.s.sano, I want you to go away. I want you to leave the City and go and sleep in a barn for three years. Well, more likely a tent, but the principle's the same."

Ba.s.sano blinked. "Really? Why on earth would I want to do that?"

Melsuntha, he noticed, had crossed her arms. She wasn't frowning, but he sensed that she didn't agree with whatever Ba.s.so had in mind.

"Because," Ba.s.so said, "the Vesani Republic is going to go to war with the Mavortine Confederacy. We will, inevitably, win. That'll be the easy part. Staying won will be extremely difficult."

"Staying won," Ba.s.sano repeated. "Translation, anyone?"

"Occupying the place," Ba.s.so said. "Taking it over and turning it into a province of the Vesani empire. Which doesn't exist," he added quickly, "apart from the little bit we nibbled off Auxentia, which we don't call conquered territory because that wouldn't go down well in the House. Well, fine. We're going to conquer Mavortis, and we're going to change it out of all recognition. And I want you to help me."

There was a silence; not as awkward as Ba.s.so had expected. Then Melsuntha said, "That's not what your uncle and I don't agree about. I think it's a splendid idea."

"You do?"

"Of course," Melsuntha said crisply. "My people aren't fit to govern themselves. Fortunately, no foreigners know about the mineral reserves in the north. Otherwise, we'd have been invaded and conquered years ago, most likely by the Sclerians."

"Not a pleasant experience," Ba.s.so put in.

"When you say minerals..." Ba.s.sano asked.

"Iron," Melsuntha replied. "And copper, some tin, possibly some silver, quite probably a substantial amount of gold, though I don't know where. But gold jewellery is quite common even in poorer clans, and we certainly don't import gold from anywhere else."

"The iron is the important one, though," Ba.s.so said. "We could certainly do with it. Six price rises in four years, and the Auxentines-"

"Can I just stop you there for a moment?" Ba.s.sano said quietly. "We need iron and they've got it, so it's perfectly all right for us to invade." He pulled a sad face. "What's the difference between that and what they did to us? After all, gold's just another mineral."

"They did it first," Ba.s.so said. "Which is the answer that the House wants to hear," he went on, changing the pitch of his voice. "And I agree, it's not a very good answer, when you stop and think about it. The Mavortines who'll get killed when we invade had nothing to do with the raid on the Treasury. Nor is it a good enough answer to say that if we don't invade them, someone even nastier than us will. The next favourite, we're better than they are, is self-contradictory. No," he went on, lifting his head a little, "it has to make sense, or we'd be wrong to do it."

Ba.s.sano looked uncertain. "So it's not about minerals."

"No." Ba.s.so paused, as though he was listening to what he'd just said. "The iron and the copper are what's in it for us. The bigger answer is rather complicated."

"I've already heard this," Melsuntha said, getting up. "I'll go and see about some brandy and honey-cakes."

"Did he convince you?" Ba.s.sano asked.

"Not to begin with," Melsuntha said. "So I changed his mind a little."

"Quite," Ba.s.so said, with a wry grin. "It's no good making speeches at her. Unlike the n.o.ble senators in the House, she has a disconcerting habit of listening to what you say."

"Good practice for you," Melsuntha said over her shoulder, and left the room.