The Folding Knife.

Parker, K. J.

For Jonathan Katz.

"His life is gentle, and the elements So mixed in him that nature might stand up And say to all the world, 'This is a man' "

Forty Years Later.

A man is sitting on the roof of a coach, crawling through a dusty plain. He wears an expensive coat, dirty and stained, and ruined good shoes. Next to him, avoiding conversation, sit a liveried porter, an armed man and a gloomy individual in a faintly comic footman's outfit. In front of them there's an impressive pile of luggage, trunks and cases and chests, secured to the rail with strong rope. The coach rolls over a stone and all four men sway precariously.

The man in the dirty coat looks down at his fingers, notices a hangnail, drops his right hand into his pocket and fishes out a beautiful gold-handled folding knife. He finds it awkward to open; there's something wrong with his left hand, the fingers are stiff and it doesn't work properly. He trims the nail, but then the coach hits another stone and lurches wildly. The folding knife flips out of the man's hand. He makes a wild attempt to catch it as it falls, gets two fingers on it, fumbles the catch. The knife slips out of his grasp, hits the rail, bounces off and flies over the edge of the roof.

The man stares for a moment at where the knife suddenly isn't. Then he shouts, "Stop the coach."

n.o.body reacts.

"I said, stop the d.a.m.n coach," the man shouts. n.o.body reacts.

The man scrambles up, sways with the motion of the coach, forfeits his balance and lands ingloriously on his backside. The armed man, some kind of guard, grins at him.

The man looks over his shoulder. By now, the coach has moved on some thirty or forty yards; even if he hurls himself off the roof without breaking his leg or his neck, his chances of finding the knife are too slim. It's gone, and that's that. Also, he recognises and concedes that he's not the man he once was. Until very recently, any order he chose to give would have been obeyed without question; now, n.o.body even hears him. The folding knife has gone, as quickly, suddenly and irrecoverably as someone dying.

The man-if any of his three companions on the roof had thought to ask him his name, he'd have lied to them-closes his eyes. As soon as he does so, a moment from the past fills his mind. It always does, the same image, the same moment, every time his eyes close. Twenty years.

He sees a bed, in a well-furnished room. On the floor beside it lies a naked man, face down, holding a fancy costume dagger. His throat has been cut. On the bed there's the body of a woman, and her throat's been cut too, but she lies face upwards; her lips are still moving, but her eyes are just taking on that cold, hard look. If a speck of dust were to land on them, or a fly, they wouldn't blink. He sees her through a red blur, because the blood from her jugular vein spurted in his face. In his right hand he feels the handle of the folding knife.

(Always the same, always there. By now, surely, it should be familiar enough to be invisible. Once, when he was extremely rich, he'd bought a painting by one of the great masters. He'd hung it on the wall opposite his bed, so it'd be the first thing he saw when he woke up. A man could never get tired of looking at this picture, they reckoned. In its perfectly inclusive lines, its total sublimation of symmetry and asymmetry, it contained every possibility in the world. After a week, he stopped noticing it was there. A month later, he sold it, made a profit, and had a mirror put in its place, as a form of punishment.) The woman's lips stop moving, part-way through an unvoiced word, and then she just falls sideways, like a piece of furniture carelessly knocked over. Her head cracks against the leg of the bed, making a wooden sound, like a stick hitting a ball.

He hears his name spoken; not his name, a word equally familiar, amounting to the same thing. Oh, he thinks, and turns round. Twin boys, about seven years old, stand in the doorway, looking at him.

"Daddy?"

For some reason, he folds up the knife and puts it back in his pocket. "Go to your room," he says. "Now."

Neither of them moves. They stare at him, and it occurs to him that the look on their faces must be very much like the look on his own, when he'd first entered the room.

(Still there, he thinks, and still the same; interesting. Surely, by now, that should have been the least of my problems.).

He opens his eyes.

One.

On the morning of the day when Ba.s.so (Ba.s.sia.n.u.s Severus, the future First Citizen) was born, his mother woke up to find a strange woman sitting at the foot of her bed.

Her husband was away somewhere on business, and the servants slept downstairs. The woman was dirty and shabby, and she was holding a small knife.

"h.e.l.lo," Ba.s.so's mother said. "What do you want?"

Over the woman's shoulder, Ba.s.so's mother could see that the skylight had been forced. She was shocked. It had never occurred to her that a woman could climb a drainpipe.

"Money," the woman said.

Ba.s.so's mother a.s.sessed her. About her own age, though she looked much older; a foreigner, most likely a Mavortine (blonde hair, short, fat nose, blue eyes); there were always Mavortines in the city at that time of year, seasonal workers. She was wearing the remains of a man's coat, several sizes too big.

"I'm terribly sorry," Ba.s.so's mother said, "but I don't have any. My husband doesn't let me have money. He does all the..."

The woman made a strange grunting noise; frustration and annoyance, all that work for nothing. "I'm sorry," Ba.s.so's mother repeated. "If I had any money, I'd give it to you." She paused, then added, "You look like you could use it."

The woman scowled at her. "What about downstairs?"

Ba.s.so's mother shook her head sadly. "All the money in the house is kept in my husband's iron chest," she said. "It's got seven padlocks, and he carries the keys about with him. The servants might have a few coppers," she added helpfully, "but it's nearly the end of the month, so I doubt it."

The woman was holding the knife rather than brandishing it. Ba.s.so's mother guessed she'd used it to work open the skylight catch. It was a folding knife, an expensive item, with a slim blade and a gold handle; the sort of thing a prosperous clerk would own, for sharpening pens.

"If you're that hard up," Ba.s.so's mother said, "you could sell your knife. It must be worth a bit."

The woman looked at it, then back at her. "Can't," she said. "If I went in a shop, they'd know it was stolen. I'd be arrested." She gasped, then burst into a noisy coughing fit that lasted several seconds.

Ba.s.so's mother nodded. "So jewellery wouldn't be much use to you either," she said. She was feeling sick, but managed to keep her face straight and calm. "All I can suggest is that you help yourself to some decent clothes. The dressing room's next door, just there, look."

The woman was looking at her, considering the tactical implications. "Shoes," she said.

Ba.s.so's mother wasn't able to see the woman's feet. "Oh, I've got plenty of shoes," she said. "I think a pair of good stout walking shoes would be the most useful thing, don't you?"

The woman started to reply, then broke out coughing again. Ba.s.so's mother waited till she'd finished, then said, "I'm sorry about the money, but at least let me get you something for that cough. How long have you had it?"

The woman didn't answer, but there was an interested look in her eyes. Medicine clearly didn't feature in her life. Ba.s.so's mother pushed back the sheets and carefully levered herself out of bed and onto her feet. She didn't bother putting her slippers on.

"Rosehip syrup, I think," she said, waddling across the room to the table where her apothecary chest stood. She took the key from the little lacquered box and opened the chest. "There's a jug of water on the stand beside the bed. Would you mind?"

The woman hesitated, then brought the jug. Her feet were bare, red, nearly purple; quite disgusting. "While I'm fixing this, have a look in the shoe closet. It's just there, look, on your left."

Not that the woman would be able to read the labels on the bottles. Ba.s.so's mother poured a little dark brown syrup into a gla.s.s and added water. "Here," she said, "drink this."

The woman had already pulled out two pairs of boots; she was clutching them, pinched together, in her left hand. The knife was still in her right. She hesitated, then threw the boots on the bed and took the gla.s.s.

"When you've drunk that," Ba.s.so's mother said, "I'll ring for some food. When did you last have anything to eat?"

The woman was staring at her, a stupid look on her face. Ba.s.so's mother counted under her breath. On five, the woman staggered; on seven, she flopped down on the floor. Usually it was at least ten before it had any effect at all.

Later, Ba.s.so's mother decided she must have given her too much (understandable, in the circ.u.mstances). Also, the woman may have had a weak heart or some similar condition. It was sad, of course, but just one of those things. Ba.s.so's mother paid for a coffin and a plot in the public cemetery. It was, she felt, the least she could do.

Whether the shock induced early labour the doctors couldn't say. In the event, there were no complications and the baby was perfectly healthy, though a little underweight. Ba.s.so's father had bars fitted over the skylight. A better catch would have done just as well, but he was that sort of man. Ba.s.so's mother tried not to notice the bars, but they were always there in her mind after that.

The woman must have dropped the folding knife when she fell over, and knocked it under the bed. A maid found it and put it away in a drawer. Ba.s.so's mother came across it some time later and decided to keep it; not quite a trophy, but not something you just throw away. Besides, it was very good quality. When Ba.s.so was ten years old she gave it to him. He knew the story that went with it, of course.

Back home his name was seven syllables long, but here, in the army of the Vesani Republic, he was Aelius of the Seventeenth Auxiliary, the youngest captain in the service, kicking his heels in barracks in the City when men with half his ability were shipping out to the war in charge of a battalion. He was checking supply requisitions in his office when a fl.u.s.tered-looking sergeant interrupted him.

"We've arrested a boy, captain," the sergeant said.

Aelius looked up. "And?" he said.

"He beat up a sentry."

The culture of the service demanded that enlisted men addressed officers as rarely and as briefly as possible. Aelius thought it was a stupid rule, but he observed it rigorously. "You'd better bring him in," he said.

A boy, sure enough. Fourteen rather than fifteen, Aelius decided, mostly on the evidence of the face; on the tall side for his age, but still only a kid. "And this child a.s.saulted a sentry?"

The sergeant nodded. "Broken arm, broken jaw, two cracked ribs and knocked out a couple of teeth, sir. Unprovoked attack. Two witnesses."

The boy didn't seem to have a mark on him. Correction: skinned knuckles on his left hand. "This boy attacked a grown man for no apparent reason and broke his jaw," Aelius said. The boy was looking past him, at the far wall. "Well?" he barked. The boy said nothing. "I'm talking to you."

The boy shrugged. "I hit that man, if that's what you mean."

Aelius nodded slowly. "Why?"

"He spoke to my sister."

"And?"

The boy frowned. "He made a lewd suggestion."

Aelius managed to keep a straight face. "So you beat him up."

"Yes."

Aelius looked sideways at the floor. Bringing charges was out of the question. A soldier of the Seventeenth beaten to a jelly by a child; they'd never live it down. The face was vaguely familiar. Not a pleasant sight: his nose was a little concave stub, and his enormous lower lip curled up over his upper lip, smothering it. "What's your name?"

"Arcadius Severus."

That made Aelius frown. The boy wasn't dressed like a gentleman's son, but he had a formal name. The voice was completely nondescript, and Aelius hadn't been in the Republic long enough to distinguish the subtleties of cla.s.s from a man's accent. Harder still with a boy with a tendency to mumble. "That's a big name for a kid," he said. "Who's your father?"

The boy felt in his pocket, produced a copper penny and held it out on his palm, heads upwards. "He is."

No wonder the face was familiar. "Sergeant," Aelius said, "get out."

As the door closed, Aelius leaned forward across his desk. The boy was watching him, to see what would happen next. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't smug. That alone was enough to confirm that he was who he said he was. "What kind of lewd suggestion?" Aelius asked.

"None of your business."

Aelius shrugged. "Fine," he said. "All right, you can go."

The boy turned towards the door, and Aelius rose smoothly to his feet, s.n.a.t.c.hed his swagger stick off the desk and slammed it against the side of the boy's head, hitting him just above the left ear. He went down, started to get up, staggered, recovered and got to his feet.

"Can I go now?" the boy said.

Aelius nodded. "I think that makes us all square," he said. "Do you agree?"

"Yes," the boy said. "Yes, that's fair."

Fair, Aelius thought. Not the word he'd have chosen, but surprisingly appropriate. "Then go home," he said. "And maybe you'd like to think about the relationship between the military and the civil authorities. Ask your dad; he'll explain it to you."

Outside, the boy's sister was waiting for him. She was flanked by two sentries; not physically restrained, but held in place like a chess piece that can't move without being taken. "It's all right," the boy said. "They let me go."

She said something to him as they walked away. He couldn't make out the words-his ears were still ringing from the blow on the head-but he didn't really need to. His sister wasn't happy at all.

"You won't tell Father," he said.

She scowled, then shook her head. "I ought to."

"I settled it with the captain," the boy replied. "You'll only make trouble."

She made a tutting noise, like a mother reproving an infant. "They'll know something's happened when they see you like that," she said.

"I fell out of a tree."

Scornful look. "Since when did you climb trees?"

He grinned at her. "That's why I fell," he said. "Lack of experience."

"I'm sick of covering up for you," she said, walking a little faster. It cost her disproportionate effort, because she would wear those ridiculous shoes. "I'm always having to lie for you, and I've had enough. Next time..."

"Oh, that's wonderful," the boy said. "It was all your fault anyway. If you hadn't been making eyes at that soldier..."

(Which he knew was a lie; but a lie he could pretend to believe, thereby putting her on the defensive.) "That's just rubbish," she snapped. "And you're stupid. I've got a good mind to tell Father what happened. It'd serve you right if I did."

She didn't, of course. As it turned out, there was no need for anybody to say anything. The First Citizen and his wife were out for the evening at a reception, and off early the next morning for the state opening of the a.s.sembly. Undoubtedly the servants noticed his scabbed knuckles, and when the ringing in his ears didn't go away, they quickly learned to talk to his right side or speak a little louder. He had no trouble hearing his father, because the First Citizen's voice was plenty loud enough, even at home, and his mother never had anything much to say for herself at the best of times.

Six months later, the boy's father lost the election and was replaced as First Citizen by Didius Vetranio, whose father had been a sausage-maker. That is to say, Didius Maesus had owned a twenty per cent stake in a slaughterhouse where they made the best-quality air-dried sausage for the export trade, along with a large number of other sound investments. As far as the boy's father was concerned, that made him a sausage-maker. He sulked for a month, then bought a ship-ridiculously cheap, he told anybody who'd listen, the most incredible bargain-and cheered up again. His good mood lasted five weeks, until the ship sank in the Strait of Essedine with a full cargo of pepper and saffron.

"f.u.c.king disaster," the boy overheard his father telling one of his business a.s.sociates (a small, dried man with hollow cheeks and a very sharp nose). "Eight hundred thousand, and that's without what that b.a.s.t.a.r.d gouged me out of for the ship."