The Hammer Part 12

"Gig..."

"All right right." Gignomai sighed tragically and sat up, wincing as his head tw.a.n.ged. "This colony," he said, "it is a disaster."

"I wouldn't say that," Furio said mildly. "It's not bad here. There's worse places."

"How the h.e.l.l would you know?"

"From what people say," Furio replied, pouring water into a cup. Gignomai waved it away; Furio drank it himself. "Men off the ships."

"You've talked to them?"

"They talk to people in the town; I hear it from them. Come on, it's not evidence in court, but I get the general idea. Compared to a lot of places, it's not so bad here. Specially for us," he added, with a slight grimace. "Running the store, I mean. We're pretty much top of the heap."

"Heap's about right," Gignomai said. "This is a terrible place. n.o.body's here because he wants to be. You know that, don't you."

Furio looked at him. "I want to be here," he said.

"You were born here. So was your uncle. Ask him why his father came here."

"I know about that," Furio said. "He got into debt back Home, it was prison or the colony. I think he chose quite well, in the event."

"Better than prison, yes. But he didn't choose to come here, he was sent sent. That's why he stayed, and that's why you can't go Home. Even when your uncle sells the sword and makes his fortune, he's stuck here."

Furio grinned. "I don't know about that," he said. "He reckons a few thousand could buy us all out of here, and then we'll be-"

But Gignomai shook his head. "He's dreaming," he said. "You think that if money could buy you out of this s.h.i.thole, my family'd still be here? We've tried all that."

"You haven't got any-"

"We've got friends at Home who have. Well, we used to have friends. It's been so long. I know Father's still trying, I read some of his letters, but the people who used to be our allies have forgotten about us. Understandably."

Furio sighed. "All right," he said, "it's a dump. So what?"

"It needn't be," Gignomai said (and either his headache had suddenly gone or he was too engaged to notice it). "It could be anything we like."

For a moment or so, Furio didn't understand, and Gignomai began to wonder if he'd overestimated his friend's intelligence. Then Furio said, "That's just plain stupid."

"Is it?"

"You can't just take over a whole-"

Gignomai shook his head. "Who said anything about taking over? I'm talking about..." He hesitated. There was a word, but he wasn't quite sure it was what he meant. "Independence."

"Oh, come on on!"

"Think about it." He hadn't meant to shout, but as it turned out, it had the desired effect. Furio closed his mouth and looked straight at him. "What's wrong with this place? Not the land, not the climate, not the savages. It's this stupid, useless weight you've got to carry around with you all the d.a.m.n time. Indentures, monopolies, tariffs, the Company practically owning everything. You've got seventy farms raising beef that n.o.body here gets to eat, and you aren't allowed to make so much as a spoon; you're forced to buy it all from Home at extortionate prices. You're all stuck here, by law, but a bunch of people you've never met five hundred miles away dictate how you all live. You can't have weapons, so you have to put up with my appalling family beating you up and stealing your chickens." He paused, and made himself say the next bit. "You don't think the people back Home couldn't have put down the met'Oc fifty years ago, if they'd wanted to? No, they left them there to keep you you people down. To give you someone on your own doorstep to hate, so you wouldn't think about who's the real cause of all your troubles. They're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g you lot into the ground, and you're all so dead you just let them do it. That's why it's a dump, Furio. That's what's wrong with it." people down. To give you someone on your own doorstep to hate, so you wouldn't think about who's the real cause of all your troubles. They're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g you lot into the ground, and you're all so dead you just let them do it. That's why it's a dump, Furio. That's what's wrong with it."

He could see Furio keeping his temper like a calm stockman restraining an unruly steer. "So what do you want?" Furio asked quietly. "Revolution? Fighting in the streets?"

Gignomai laughed; he couldn't help it. "Don't be b.l.o.o.d.y stupid," he said. "There's n.o.body to fight. That's what's so pathetic. It's so simple, don't you see? You don't need a civil war. What you need-"

"Well?" Furio snapped.

"A factory," Gignomai said, and Furio just stared at him. "Just a big shed, basically, next to a river, for choice, so you can have a waterwheel for your motive power. Forges, a lumber mill. Make the stuff people here need so they don't have to buy it from Home. That's it. That's all it'd take."

"But it's against the-"

"Law, yes. So f.u.c.king what? Furio, people here don't want much, but what they do want, they need need. Tools, household stuff, clothes. Things you can't live without, just things things. But the trouble is, things matter, things make all the difference in the world. I learned that," he added, "going back for the sword. Or take those eyegla.s.ses I stole for your uncle. They make the difference between him being half blind and being able to read. Just two gla.s.s discs and a bit of wire, and it's changed his life. Things Things are the only difference between us and animals, Furio, and we can are the only difference between us and animals, Furio, and we can make make them, out of trees and plants and bits of brown stone you can pick up in the marshes. And we can turn this dump into a good place to live, and n.o.body'll have to fight anybody else." them, out of trees and plants and bits of brown stone you can pick up in the marshes. And we can turn this dump into a good place to live, and n.o.body'll have to fight anybody else."

Furio just looked at him, till Gignomai was tempted to say something just to break the silence. But then Furio said, "Home won't let us. It's against the law."

"Ah." Gignomai grinned. "That's the whole point-it isn't. Not if we don't do it here. Not if we do it Outside, where Home's got no authority."

"That's rubbish," Furio said. "If people buy the stuff, they're breaking the law too."

"Difference of scale," Gignomai replied calmly. "You can send fifty men to close down a factory, but you'd have a real job on your hands going round every farmhouse in the colony confiscating illegal spoons. No, all that'll happen is the farmers won't send quite so much beef to the docks. Result? The Company won't send us trade goods, a.s.suming that'll bring us to our senses. But it won't, of course, because we won't need their stuff any more. Eventually, the Company'll decide this operation isn't cost effective and they'll get their beef somewhere else. And then we'll be left alone-exactly what we want."

"They'll find out," Furio said, "about the factory."

"In time, I guess they will," Gignomai said.

"And then they'll send soldiers."

"Not if the factory's under the protection of the savages." Gignomai waited for an objection, but none came; Furio was too stunned to say anything. "A war with the savages is exactly what Home doesn't want. They'd have to send a regular army, hundreds of men, horses, supply chains. Ruinously expensive, and always the risk of a disaster if their army got wiped out. A government could fall because of something like that. They don't know anything about the savages. They wouldn't want to get into a situation that could go really bad on them."

"But what makes you think...?"

"Easy." Gignomai smiled. "We pay rent. We make stuff the savages want and give it to them, and all they've got to do is let us sit on a tiny corner of their land. Come on, Furio, it's perfect. The colony gets rid of Home, everybody gets the stuff they need-even the savages, so they're doing well out of it. Everybody gains, n.o.body gets hurt. What could be better than that?"

Furio was still looking at him, which made his hands itch. He wanted to smack the absence of convinced admiration off Furio's face. "n.o.body here knows the first thing about making things."

"Wrong." Gignomai pointed at the table. "See those books there? Everything you need to know. Including scale diagrams and lists of materials."

Furio looked at the table. "Just three books."

"Yes." Gignomai grinned. "You can add them to the list of things that make all the difference. Give me those books and five men who can saw a straight line and we can build a factory."

He could see Furio didn't believe that, not entirely. But instead, Furio said, "Fine. So why the h.e.l.l would you want to do all this?"

That question. He gave the only answer he had. "I'm a met'Oc," he said. "We do big stuff. Or we used to," he added, "before we got stuck here. And this is the only big stuff to be done in this place, unless you're Luso and you equate achievement with a row of heads stuck on pikes. So, I want to do it."

"All right," Furio said with a sigh. "Don't tell me." He got up to leave the room, but Gignomai called him back. "Furio."

"What?"

"If the world is a book, are you the hero, or just a walk-on part?"

Furio opened his mouth, then closed it again. "You've read a lot more books than me," he said.

"All right, not a book, a story. Is it about you, or are you just in it?"

Furio was standing with one hand on the door latch. He stayed still and quiet for a surprisingly long time. "I think I can see where you're making your mistake," he said. "You think people've got to have a purpose. You're getting people muddled up with things. Which is odd, coming from you."

"Furio-"

"Things have a purpose," Furio went on, not letting him interrupt. "Some of them, anyhow. Things made by people, at any rate. People..." He shrugged. "You don't agree."

"I don't think I was put here to be a means of turning wheat into s.h.i.t," Gignomai said.

"You see? Even when you're trying to argue your side of it, you can't help thinking in terms of purposes. "Why do do you want to set up a factory, Gignomai? Just for mischief, or is it because you've got some big deep idea in the back of your head somewhere?" you want to set up a factory, Gignomai? Just for mischief, or is it because you've got some big deep idea in the back of your head somewhere?"

"What else is there to do around here?"

The news that the youngest met'Oc boy had run away from home again led to a mild, slow-moving panic. Some farmers drove their cattle home from the outlying pastures; others, figuring that Lusomai would attack homesteads as he'd done the last time, put their stock out, boarded up their houses and moved their families and possessions into remote shepherds' huts and sheilings. There were several angry meetings. Some farmers wanted to fight, the way the Dravis had done, while others pointed out what had happened to Azo Dravi and maintained that fighting was the worst possible thing they could do; much better to clear out and let Luso burn a few hayricks if he felt he absolutely had to. Nothing was decided, and the fighting faction stormed off to barricade themselves in their houses. In town, where many people antic.i.p.ated Lusomai would attack, there was rather more enthusiasm for coordinated resistance. Gimao the corn chandler announced the formation of a Committee for Public Safety, with himself as chairman, and signed up a dozen householders, but when he tried to organise a sentry-duty roster, he found that n.o.body could spare the time from their other commitments. He did manage to persuade the town clerk to give him permission to block the three main approaches into town with overturned wagons, but since n.o.body was prepared to lend the Committee so much as a dog cart, the initiative came to nothing, and the clerk absolutely forbade Gimao to use rocks, chains or barrels instead of carts, on the grounds that such obstructions couldn't readily be cleared away when not in use, which would lead to obstruction of legitimate traffic.

Lusomai didn't attack. Pickets posted to observe activity near the Gate (two poor-relation cousins of the Dravis and their friend from town) reported hearing several shots in the woods and may have seen a man moving about up there. Their observations were of limited use, however, since they were all under age and had to promise their parents to be home before nightfall.

Instead, Gignomai's father sent him a letter. It appeared one morning nailed to the front door of the store.

Phainomai met'Oc to Gignomai met'Oc; greetings.You will find enclosed with this letter a formal notice of disinheritance.I have prepared and will, in due course, forward to the Court a duly notarised copy for registration in the Temple Register. I have also made the necessary alterations to my will. Kindly accept this letter as proper notice of such alterations, pursuant to section 46 of the Wills and Testamentary Dispositions Act AUC 897.In consequence of the said disinheritance:1. Notwithstanding any trusts, benefices, appointments and settlements already made (all of which are hereby declared void in respect of you), you will receive no family property at my death.2. You will forfeit membership of the College of Augurs, the College of Arms, the n.o.ble Brotherhood of the Invincible Sun, the Worshipful Guild of Knights Domestic and Errant, the Order of Agesilaus and the Order of the Headless Spear, together with all rights, privileges, rents and properties appertaining to such memberships.3. You are hereby dispossessed of the priesthood of St Sergius Without the Gate, and the stipends and honours relating thereto.4. You are hereby deprived of the benefices and advowsons of the subdiocese of Athanasia Foreign.5. You are hereby deprived of your seat on the Greater Council, the Lesser Council and the Council of One Hundred, and of all privileges, rights and expectations thereto pertaining.6. You have forfeited all real and personal property held or situated at the premises usually known as the Tabletop, and you are forbidden to enter the said premises at any time and for any purpose whatsoever.7. You are hereby deprived and relieved of all rights and duties of Attendance, Audience, Fealty and Judgement pertaining to your rank as a hereditary knight of the Imperial Court.8. You will within seven days of receipt of this notice pay in full the cost of your induction and registration in the aforementioned Colleges, Orders, Priesthoods, Councillorships and other said offices. Should the said debt remain unpaid at the expiry of the said term, the sum in question will be registered against you as a statutory debt in the ledgers of the Imperial Court.You have dishonoured your family, offended your brothers and gravely disappointed me. As a last act of forbearance I have decided to take no action against you in truancy under the Families Act AUC 907. I have forbidden the mention of your name in this house.Kindly acknowledge safe receipt and due service of this notice.

"I didn't know you're a priest," Furio said.

Gignomai took the letter back, folded it and tucked it inside the front cover of Onesander. "Was a priest," he replied. "Yes, we all are. Or were. It's like all that other garbage; stuff from Home. We lost it all, of course, when we got thrown out and came here, but naturally Father acts as though it's still all real; he..." He paused. "He refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the confiscation order, is how he puts it, I think. Anyway, none of it matters."

Furio wasn't sure he believed that. "What's an advowson?"

"The right to appoint a new priest to a temple when the old one dies or retires," Gignomai replied promptly, as if he was being tested. "The incoming priest pays you money, so it's worth having. Also, you can appoint someone who'll do as you tell him, so it's valuable politically. I think I had four of them." He grinned. "Lucky me. Actually, that's one of the less obscure ones. I never did find out what the Order of the Headless Spear's supposed to be about, and it wasn't in any of the books. What you've never had you never miss, right?"

Furio didn't want to say anything, but he felt he had to. "Your father's a nasty piece of work," he said. "All that stuff about-"

"He's not, actually," Gignomai said mildly. "Back Home, he'd have either been a great and distinguished scholar or First Citizen; both, quite likely. Here, he's an eagle in a chicken coop. I'd feel sorry for him, but he'd think that was degrading."

Furio knew he'd said the wrong thing, but it was too late to do anything about it. "You never told me his name," he said.

"Didn't I?" Gignomai was looking out across the porch, to where the Tabletop would be. "It's a family name, of course. They all are. Also a joke at his expense."

That was meant to be a cue. "Is it?"

Gignomai nodded. "All our names mean something, in the old language. Like, Sthenomai means 'I am strong.' Lusomai means 'I will be set free' or else 'I will be unleashed.' I'm 'I become,' which I hope I'll live up to one day, though the way things are going I'm inclined to doubt it. Phainomai means 'I seem.' "

"Oh," Furio replied. It was the best he could do.

"The joke," Gignomai went on, still staring at the skyline, "is that it's ambiguous. Phainomai followed by the present participle means 'I seem to be and I really am.' Followed by the infinitive, it means, 'I seem to be but I'm not really.' There's even a little verse to help you remember which is which."

He took a breath, and recited, "Phainomai on quod sum; quod non sum phainomai einai. Which everybody learns with their grammar when they're seven, or at least they do back Home if they're people like us. Anyhow, Grandfather must've called him that on purpose, because when he was pleased with Father he called him On, and when he wasn't he called him Einai. Father told me that himself when he was teaching me reflexive verbs." He lowered his head, looked down at his hands, moved his left hand so he wasn't looking at the st.i.tches. "Just the sort of thing that'd really screw you up as a kid, I'd have thought, but it's what pa.s.ses in our family for scholarly wit."

Furio felt an urgent need to change the subject. "What's this notice of disinheritance thing he mentioned?"

"It's on the back of the letter," Gignomai replied. "Supposed to be on a separate sheet, but we can't spare the parchment. Which sort of sums the whole thing up, really."

"And you can really do that? Cut someone out of your family, like they never existed."

Gignomai nodded. "I don't think it's been done for about two hundred years," he said. "But I think it's nice to keep these quaint old traditions going."

Gignomai insisted on acknowledging receipt, as his Father had asked him to. He asked for a sheet of paper and the loan of Furio's hunting bow and an old, cracked arrow. Then he trudged out to the Tabletop, waded across the river, walked up to the foot of the Gate and shot the arrow as far as he could make it go, with the paper tied to the arrowshaft.

("So what does your mother's name mean?" Furio asked him.

"Oh, nothing. Girls don't get names that mean anything, they're just to sound pretty."

He was lying, as it happened. His mother's name meant "loyal." His sister's was "gift from the sun," because she nearly died at birth.) Furio slept on the ground floor, in what had been a stockroom in his father's time. Teucer had his old room now, up at the top of the house, under the western eaves. One thing about his new room (sometimes an advantage, sometimes not) was that every time someone battled with the front door, which stuck badly in wet weather, he woke up.

He jumped out of bed, grabbed the long stockman's coat that Uncle Marzo had taken in part settlement of a bad debt, dragged it on and ran out onto the porch, just in time to see Gignomai setting off down the street. He ran after him and caught him up at the livery corner.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

Gignomai looked at him. "h.e.l.lo," he said. "You're up early."

It was just starting to get light. "So are you."

"Long way to go," Gignomai replied. "See you this evening."

Furio scowled at him. "Would it kill you to wait three minutes while I put some clothes on?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"You're going to meet the savages, aren't you?"

Gignomai froze for a moment, then nodded. "There was a man in the store last night saying they're back at their camping ground by the lake. Seemed too good an opportunity to miss."

"I know," Furio said. "I heard him too. Stay there. I'll just be a few minutes, I promise."

"What makes you think...?" Gignomai started to say, but Furio had run off. He walked on, quickly, as far as the little bridge across the mill race, then stopped.

Furio was a quick dresser; he could do most things quickly, if he had to. He ran home, threw on yesterday's clothes and ran back, pausing just for a moment at the corner (he's noticed, Gignomai noted, that I walked on and then stopped). "Right," Furio said briskly. He had a scarf wrapped round his neck and his hands were thrust deep in his coat pockets. Gignomai, who never felt the cold, found that mildly amusing.

"There's no need for you to come," Gignomai said.

"I'm interested," Furio replied. "I've never even seen a savage before."

There's a degree of merit, Gignomai thought, in the graceful acceptance of the unavoidable. "Now's your chance, then," he said. "Just be polite, that's all."

It was a long walk, but mostly on the flat, for which Furio was grateful. He belonged to the school of thought that holds that a walk is at best the result of a foul-up in the transport arrangements, and he ran out of breath quite quickly on hills. There was no reason why Gignomai should be aware of that, and he wanted to keep it that way. "You're serious about this factory idea," he said.

"Of course."

"I thought it might just have been, you know, thinking aloud."