The Hammer Part 8

"That's at Home," Gignomai said. "I think you'll find it's different here."

She put down her sewing. "Is it?"

Gignomai shook his head. "I'm hardly an authority," he said, "but as far as I can gather, yes, it is. Furio's aunt does all the book-keeping for the store."

"That's different. That's just helping helping."

"This store's the biggest business in the colony," Gignomai pointed out, "and Furio's aunt practically runs it."

"Yes, because she's Uncle Marzo's wife."

"She runs the store," Gignomai went on, "because someone's got to, and Marzo can't manage it all on his own. Also, she's better with figures than he is. So she does the numbers while he shifts barrels. And on the farms-"

"That's different," she interrupted. "That's peasant stuff. I'm talking about-"

"What?"

"Better-cla.s.s people."

Gignomai laughed. "What's so funny?" she demanded.

"Sorry," Gignomai said. "It's you reckoning you're better than the farmers' wives. My father wouldn't see there was any difference at all."

"Your father encourages his son to go out killing and stealing."

"I'm not him," Gignomai said quietly.

"No," she said. "You left home. But I don't think it's because of what you said."

Gignomai sighed. Talking to her was like walking in a swamp. When you pulled one foot out of the mud, it made the other one sink in deeper. "All right," he said. "I left home out of high-minded disgust at my family's wickedness. Will that do?"

"That's not true," she said.

"Maybe not. But you didn't like my other answer."

She lifted her head, as though she was trying to look at the end of her nose. "You should say what you mean, not what you think people will like," she said.

He stared at her, then asked, "So why do you you think I left?" think I left?"

"Because you don't get on with your father and your brothers," she replied promptly. "And because there's nothing there to do that interests you. And because you can see it doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?"

"Your family. Living like peasants and bandits and acting like n.o.blemen. Doing everything on the a.s.sumption that one day soon you'll be going Home, which is never going to happen, believe me. I can see that'd get to be too much to bear after a while."

"My family-" he started to say, then stopped himself. "So what are you doing here?" he said. " I know your parents died, but surely you've got other relatives at Home. Did you choose to come here?"

"Hardly." She scowled at him. He had to admit she had a pretty scowl. "But it was here or my cousins in the country. Farmers."

"So you chose a shop instead of a farm?"

"Uncle Marzo's not just a shopkeeper, you said so yourself. He's a businessman. And this colony won't always be just a dock and a few huts. It's got an exciting future, and-"

"Who told you that?"

Furio appeared in the doorway. He hesitated for a moment, as though something wasn't quite right, then sat down on the step close to Gignomai's chair.

"Your brother-" he started to say.

"Yes." Gignomai cut him off. "Quite. Can we talk about something else, please?"

"Well, no, actually," Furio said apologetically. "At least, we don't have to talk about him, him, but there's stuff you ought to know." but there's stuff you ought to know."

Gignomai thought of the scroll of paper that Father had made him burn. "Undoubtedly," he said. "Such as?"

"Uncle was talking to Uverto and Menoa-"

"Who?"

"Big men down at the harbour," Furio replied, and Gignomai was able to translate: Company agents and beef traders. Uncle Marzo's kind of people. "They were on at him about you being here. After what happened."

Gignomai laughed. "Tell them I've got an alibi. At the time of the crime I was flat on my back with bits of stick up my nose."

"Your family's not exactly popular," Furio said carefully. "Especially right now. Uncle Marzo feels..."

"He wants me out of here."

"G.o.d, no." Furio looked mildly offended. "He's worried about keeping you safe, if you must know. The Dravi boys have been making a lot of noise, about coming into town and... Well, you can guess."

"So he wants me out of here," Gignomai said pleasantly, "for a perfectly understandable reason."

"Don't say that," Furio snapped, then immediately drooped his head, as if accepting an unspoken rebuke. "Uncle doesn't let people push him around, and the Dravi boys are all talk anyhow. They wouldn't want to pick a fight with us."

Gignomai wasn't so sure about that. Whatever else the Dravis had shown themselves to be, they had to be brave men to attack Luso and his riders with farm tools. "So?" he said.

"Basically, he reckons you should stay indoors and not go outside. Probably best not to sit out here, even. If the Dravis or the Razos do come into town, they wouldn't come bursting into our house, or the store. But-well, you're pretty visible out here."

"I enjoy the fresh air," Gignomai said.

Furio shrugged. "I'm telling you what Uncle said. He's concerned."

Gignomai asked, "Why?"

Furio hesitated; then he grinned and said, "Well, I think he's still entertaining longing thoughts about your twenty-thousand-thaler sword. You know, ten per cent on twenty thousand is more money than he'll ever make selling hoe blades to farmers. But to be fair, there's a bit more to him than that. For one thing, he'd take it as a personal insult if anything happened to a guest under his roof." He shrugged, then added, "And he'd want to do his best for you because you're my friend, and he's sort of keen to be nice to me, because of Dad leaving the store to him, not me. I think he feels bad about that."

And so he should, Gignomai thought, but Furio had never seemed worried about it. Then again, Marzo had no children of his own, so the store would be Furio's eventually. "He doesn't need to get in a state about it," Gignomai said-it came out rather more unkindly than he'd meant it to. "Soon as I'm on my feet again, I'm off."

Furio looked furtively round (it was quite comical to watch), then lowered his voice. "You're still set on going back after that b.l.o.o.d.y sword."

Gignomai nodded. "And then your uncle can sell it for me, and I'll be on the next ship Home. New name, new life, money in my pocket. I can't wait, to be honest with you."

Furio looked like he had toothache. "Any ideas about what you're going to do there?"

"Haven't decided," Gignomai said. "I suppose I could buy a farm; after all, it's something I know a bit about. But I must admit, I quite fancy the idea of a factory-making things and selling them. I think I might be good at it."

"A factory," Furio repeated, as if saying the name of some magical beast. "You don't know the first thing about-"

"True," Gignomai said. "Or about buying and selling, come to that. Still, it can't be all that difficult or ordinary people wouldn't be able to do it."

A ship came in. Gignomai, who'd never seen a ship, went down to the dock to see it. Uncle Marzo got quite upset when he said he was going. There would be a great many people, Marzo said, and it wouldn't be safe. Gignomai smiled at him and said, on the contrary, it'd be as safe as a stroll in the woods. Uncle Marzo made a despairing noise and said Gignomai had better go with him; he had business to see to. Furio thought he'd given in rather too easily, and then remembered the sword. Never too early to start sounding out possible buyers.

So Furio stayed at home and minded the store. There was absolutely nothing unusual about that, but for some reason he felt resentful; he could only imagine it was because Gignomai was going and he wasn't, and of course that was a stupid thing to get upset about. Recognition of his own presumed stupidity just made him surlier, and he was quite rude to a woman who came in for a dozen pins, though luckily she was deaf and didn't actually hear what he said.

He'd been on his own for about an hour when Teucer came in. She sat down on the chair next to the stove and produced her sampler.

"I'd be better off on the porch," she said. "The light's not too good in here."

Furio shrugged. He didn't want her to go out onto the porch. "You'd do better next to the window. I'll move the chair for you if you like."

She moved the chair herself without comment, sat down again and tried to thread a needle. Furio tried not to watch her. He had an idea her eyesight wasn't anything special, close up. She was certainly patient. She tried and failed for several minutes, until Furio couldn't stand it any longer.

"Could I try?" he said.

"If you like," she said.

Furio was quite good at threading needles. His mother had always got him to do it for her. She had good eyesight, but there had been something wrong with the feeling in her fingertips due to an accident, years ago. Furio took a pair of small scissors from the counter and snipped the end off the thread, where her efforts had left it crushed and mangled. He cut it at an angle, not straight, to leave a sharp point. The needle was exceptionally fine and small. He guessed she'd brought it from Home, because it was much better than anything they sold in the store. He tried twice and failed, and felt a quite unreasonable surge of anger building up. Still, he wasn't beaten yet. He put the end of the thread in his mouth and sucked it.

"Yuck," Teucer said. "That's disgusting."

Furio looked at her. "It's what everybody does."

"Not where I come from," Teucer said firmly. "At Home, we use a little chunk of beeswax. You pull the thread across it, and it makes the thread easier to draw."

Furio was now resolved the thread the d.a.m.n needle or die trying. Luckily, he managed it on his fourth try. "There you go," he said, handed it back and waited a moment for the customary word of thanks, which didn't come. He crossed the room and straightened up a row of chisels.

"So Gignomai's leaving," she said.

He remembered; she'd been on the porch. "So he says."

"You'll be upset about that."

He didn't answer, concentrating instead on getting the chisels exactly equally s.p.a.ced on the shelf.

"I like him," she said, "but he's very arrogant."

Furio turned round and looked at her. "No he's not."

"Oh he is is," she said. "Thinks he's so much better than us."

"Maybe he's right."

He'd said it to annoy her. He thought about it, nevertheless.

"Really?" Teucer said. "Well, you know him better than I do, but I can't see anything special. What's he done that's so marvellous?"

The five-eighths skew and the quarter bevel were in the wrong places. He switched them round. "Leaving home, for a start," he said.

"What's so good about that?"

"Think what he's leaving behind," Furio said.

"You said it yourself: they live like peasants up there. Anyway, I left home."

"You didn't have any choice."

"No," she replied. "That's why I'm here."

Gig's leaving, Furio thought, and she's here to stay. The wrong way round, like the chisels. "I'm so sorry," he said. "Looks like you'll just have to put up with it."

"Gignomai thinks I should learn to be a proper surgeon," she said, "like my father was."

"Does he?"

She nodded. "He says it's different here, not like Home. He says there's no reason a woman shouldn't be a surgeon or a clerk or a trader even. People wouldn't stand for it at Home because they're set in their ways, but it's not the same here. There's so few people who can do anything useful, it wouldn't matter if I was a woman if I could set bones and sew up wounds and stuff."

"Maybe he's right," Furio said.

"Of course, I'd need to read the right books," she went on. "I've got three of Father's books. The rest had to be sold, but I took the most important ones out of the box when n.o.body was looking. And I know a lot of it already just from watching."

Furio noticed a spot of rust on the seven-eighths bevel. He scratched it off with his fingernail. "But you've never actually done any of it."

"Father let me sew up the wounds sometimes," she said. "He said I did a neater job than he did."

"You don't mind the blood, then."

"No." She shook her head to reinforce the denial. "Really, it's no worse than the stuff in a kitchen. It's all meat, isn't it?"

"I think you'd have a job convincing people you're up to it," Furio said.

"Oh, I don't know. If your uncle hadn't been there when they brought Gignomai in, I'd have coped. And I don't think anyone would've stopped me when they saw I knew what I was doing. And once I've saved one man, word'll get about. Anyway, who do people go to when they cut themselves on the farms? Their mothers, or their wives."

"It's different on the farms."

"Not really."

Furio couldn't remember when he'd felt so strongly about wanting to be somewhere else. "Well, if that's what you want to do, good luck to you," he said. "Talk to my uncle; maybe he could send Home for the books you want. I'm sure he'd be on your side, if you share your fees with him."

Teucer didn't have to wait long for her chance to shine. Uncle Marzo had told Furio to unload a consignment of dry goods that had come on the ship. The carter had backed his wagon up to the side door, then mumbled something about seeing the smith to get his horses shod and disappeared, leaving Furio to wrestle with a wagonload of enormous barrels. They were far too heavy to lift. Furio opened the tailgate and leaned a couple of strong planks on the wagon bed, then proceeded to dance a slow, ungainly dance with each barrel, tipping, rocking and edging it to the back of the wagon, tripping it over on its side and letting it roll down the planks. Gignomai made a half-hearted offer of help while doing his best to look frail and ill. Teucer just stood and watched, confident in the immunity of being a girl.