That simply didn't make sense. "What hammer?"

Ranio shook his head and walked away. Furio looked round for Gig, and saw him heaving on a long lever sticking out of what looked appallingly like the backside of a cow. When he got closer, he realised it was a bellows, made from a whole hide with the hair still on. He couldn't recall having seen that either, but it must have taken a lot of time and work to make.

"What, this?" Gig said. "Here, you take over for a bit. I'm shattered."

Furio reached up. He was only just able to get his hands on the lever. "I'll do my best," he said doubtfully. "But..."

"We st.i.tched up the hides last night," Gig went on. "Ranio forged the nozzle a day or so back. We carry on working, you see, when you've gone home."

Furio couldn't spare the breath to reply to that. He found he could bring the lever down by hanging from it with his feet off the ground. Pushing it back up again was backbreaking.

"We made the mould last night, too," Gig went on. "And the cupola. Baked them overnight in the embers to get them dry enough for the pour. Stick with it," he added, "I'll be back in a minute."

A minute proved to be a very long time. Each stroke of the lever sent a jet of air into the heart of the fire, which responded with a four-foot-high plume of flame, as though there was a dragon lurking in there somewhere. The base of the clay bell was starting to glow. Furio could see a channel-cast-iron guttering, which he'd last seen on the eaves of the store-leading to a pit. Each time he pulled the lever, a wave of heat washed over him, making his skin tingle.

Gig came back. He had that stone-cold worried look on his face; a very bad sign. He shouted something to Ranio that Furio didn't catch, apparently got a reply, and stepped back out of the way as the hidden dragon let out another spurt of fire. Around him, all the partners seemed to be busy, though Furio had no idea what any of them were doing.

"Right," Gig shouted suddenly. "Here we go. Furio, one more pull. The rest of you, stand well back."

He didn't follow his own advice; the rest of them did, sprinting like lumberjacks out of position when the tree splits. Furio hauled the lever down, let go, dropped to the ground and curled up into a ball, as a surge of hot air, moving fast enough to hit like a punch, swept over his head. As a result, he couldn't see what was going on. But he heard a roar not made by voices, and a terrifying hissing and cracking noise like branches breaking. It sounded as though something had just gone dangerously wrong.

Apparently not. A voice he didn't recognise yelped with pure joy, others joined in. He heard Gig yelling, "Keep back, it's still hot," then several more deafening cracks, then a rushing hiss that drowned out all other sound for three or four heartbeats. Then silence. Feeling extremely foolish, Furio uncurled and opened his eyes.

He couldn't see anyone. Then Gig walked towards the pit, with a long pole in his hands. He poked savagely at something inside the pit. Whatever it was, it delighted him. His face split into an improbably broad grin, and he called out, "It's all right, it's fine." There was a chorus of whoops and yells. Apparently, it hadn't been a disaster after all.

They had all sorts of fun and games getting it out of the pit. When they eventually won the battle, the end result proved to be a monstrous grey rectangle, impossibly heavy. At this point Ranio (who appeared to be the hero of the hour) took pity on Furio and explained.

"That's the head," he said, "for the drop-hammer. The bit that goes up and down."

Furio nodded dumbly. What drop-hammer?

"We had to cast it in one shot," Ranio went on, "and of course, we hadn't a clue, it was all guesswork, plus something he'd read in his book. I told him, you'll never get it hot enough to pour but, f.u.c.k me, he did."

Light was beginning to dawn. "You melted iron?"

Ranio beamed at him.

"That's impossible," Furio said.

"Yes," Ranio replied. "They can't even do that back Home. But he said it says how to do it in the book."

Furio remembered something he'd been told-he hadn't been listening-about how iron was worked. You heated up ore in a huge furnace, and when the rock was really, really hot, iron dribbled out of a hole in the bottom. But it was filthy, full of bits of rubbish, because no furnace ever made could get it hot enough to flow clean. Then you let the dribbles cool and forge-welded them into lumps big enough to be useful, and the more you worked it, the cleaner it eventually got. But n.o.body could cast iron in a mould.

Gignomai could, apparently.

He walked over and looked at it. A dark grey brick, four feet long, a foot high and wide. It'd have to be pretty clean or it'd shatter; rubbish inside the metal would make it weak. He turned away, and found Gig grinning at him.

"What do you reckon?" Gig said.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

That seemed to take Gig by surprise. "It's not my fault if you don't take an interest," he said. "Anyway, that's that done. Tomorrow we'll pour the anvil. Then it's just a matter of making up the frames, and there's a diagram in the book for that. It was the bellows that swung it; double-action, you get twice the blast, which means eight times the heat." He stopped, and grinned even wider. "Come with me," he said. "You'll see what I'm on about."

Gignomai's office was the back of a covered wagon, on the bed of which lay sc.r.a.ps of paper, a steel ruler, sticks of charcoal sharpened to fine points and a book. Gignomai turned a few pages, then held it out to Furio. It made no sense: line drawings, a fantasy in abstract geometry, annotated in brown ink in an alphabet Furio didn't recognise.

"Ah," he said. "I see."

Gig laughed. "Of course you don't," he said. "That's the old language. Stesichorus' Instruments, Instruments, from Father's library. This is one of only six surviving copies. I don't suppose anybody's read it for five hundred years, except me." from Father's library. This is one of only six surviving copies. I don't suppose anybody's read it for five hundred years, except me."

"But it worked," Furio said.

"Well, of course," Gig replied. "They knew what they were talking about, back then." He sat down on the tailgate, suddenly exhausted, as though all the strength had been emptied out of him. "There's a popular fallacy," he said, "known as progress. People honestly believe that as time pa.s.ses, we get smarter and better. Bulls.h.i.t," he said, with a snapped-off laugh. "Six hundred years ago they were doing stuff we wouldn't dream of trying now. And then people back Home, who should know better, tell you that Stesichorus is all nonsense, because he talks about doing stuff that simply can't be done. But n.o.body's tried, not for centuries."

"Except you."

Gignomai shrugged. "It's one of the advantages of being exiled to the last place G.o.d made," he replied. "Deprived of the advantages of a decent education but with access to the old books, I did the unthinkable and read them a.s.suming them to be true. Back home I'd have had professors telling me it was all drivel. Different world, you see. Just like the old savage said."

It took Furio a moment to realise he'd heard that last bit right. "You mean the old man we talked to?"

Gignomai nodded. "The more I think about it," he said, "the more I'm inclined to believe his people have got it more or less right. Not literally, of course," he added, as Furio's face went defensively blank. "But they're a d.a.m.n sight closer to the truth than we are. There really are different worlds, and they exist side by side, and the trick is, being able to move from one to another. Like Stesichorus," he went on (he was talking to himself). "Like the old man said-someone from the past, long since dead, everybody ignores him because they know he isn't really there, but he knows how to pour iron, and it worked. Or my lot." He looked up, and his face changed. He smiled. "Ignore me," he said, "I'm drivelling. The thing is, we did it. We made the hammer." His smile was warm and happy, but it made Furio's skin itch. "If we can do that, we can do any b.l.o.o.d.y thing."

After considerable internal debate and soul-searching, Marzo drove to the Tabletop in the donkey cart. He'd been torn between that and one of Ra.s.so's horses. The donkey cart was his, therefore his loss if it got wrecked or stolen. On the other hand, he always suffered agonies the day after riding horseback.

He crossed the river at Long Ford and drove up the far bank to the place where Luso's men had been seen to disappear on previous occasions. n.o.body had ever dared get in close enough to see exactly where they went when they melted away into the rock. He drove up and down a few times but couldn't see anything. He was making a fool of himself. He got down, tethered the donkey to the stump of a tree, sat down on the ground and waited.

He must have fallen asleep. He was woken up by the toe of a boot digging in his back. He looked up, and saw a young man, tall and skinny, standing over him.

"Scarpedino," he said. "So this is where you've got to."

Scarpedino Heddo, the boy who'd disappeared at roughly the same time the murder took place. Now why would a bright young man, heir to a good farm, take it into his head to run away and join up with the met'Oc?

"Got lost?" Scarpedino said.

"Not at all." Marzo tried to make himself sound polite. "I'd like a word with Lusomai met'Oc, if that's possible."

"You want to talk to the boss." Scarpedino grinned at him. "No chance."

"No offence," Marzo said, through a frozen-solid smile, "but that's not for you to say, surely."

"Listen." Scarpedino knelt down and put his face an inch or so from Marzo's, but he didn't lower his voice. "We've got no quarrel, you and me. You p.i.s.s off back to town while you still can, all right? You go bothering Master Lusomai, you may not get the chance."

Marzo fought to keep his voice from breaking, and narrowly won. "I wonder what Master Lusomai's going to think when he finds out you believe he needs protecting from the likes of me. Maybe he'll be touched by your concern. Or maybe not."

Scarpedino stood up and performed the most expressive shrug Marzo had ever seen. "Your choice," he said. "Don't blame me." He nodded to whoever was standing behind Marzo's back, and darkness fell, rough and quick. It smelt of stale cheese and bread mould, and Marzo guessed the other guard had shoved his lunch bag over his head. Strong fingers dug into his shoulder. He allowed himself to be guided by them, onto his feet, then stumbling forward. He hoped someone would remember to feed the donkey, but he wasn't confident about it.

He had a great opportunity, but he didn't manage to learn the art of walking blindfold. He kept banging into things, stumbling, getting hauled upright and shoved along. It didn't help that they were walking uphill rather faster than he'd have chosen. Marzo disapproved of uphill at the best of times, and this wasn't one of them. He tried to calculate the distance, but since he had no idea how far he was going, it was a futile exercise. After a while he gave up asking for a chance to stop and rest, because he couldn't spare the breath. The pain was mostly in his chest and the calves of his legs, but not exclusively so.

After a very long time, a pressure on his shoulder brought him to a halt, which made him happier than he could ever remember being. He wanted to sink down and go to sleep, but the grip of the fingers kept him perfectly still and upright. He heard knuckles banging on a door, then muttering, a lot of it, then silence. He stood and waited for a long time. It was so much better than walking.

The fingers moved him on at last, not far this time. Then another stop, and a downward pressure that folded him neatly at the waist. He hoped there'd be a chair. There was. Then he felt the bag being pulled off over his face, and the world flooded with light.

"Marzo Opello," said a voice in the middle of the glare. "I'm Lusomai met'Oc."

Oh G.o.d, Marzo thought. He blinked. There was a dark shape that could just be someone's head. "Thank you for seeing me," he mumbled.

"What can I do for you?"

The dark shape was sharpening up. He closed his eyes and opened them again. "Would you mind bearing with me just a moment?" he said. "I'm a bit..."

"Yes, sorry about that," said the voice. It was light and clear, like honey, but sharp as well. "New guard, a bit over-zealous. I'll have a word with him later. Would you like something to drink?"

"Yes, please," Marzo said quickly. The voice made a sound like very distant laughter. A moment later, he felt a cup-no, a gla.s.s-pressed into his hand. He gobbled it down. It burnt his throat. Foul stuff, the worst kind of moonshine, made by someone who hadn't got a clue.

"Thanks," he said.

"Better?"

He could see the face quite clearly. A strong face, young, handsome, topped with wavy golden hair. Bright blue eyes. And, of course, a marked family resemblance.

"How's my brother, by the way?" Luso asked. "Seen anything of him lately?"

Marzo shook his head. "He's not staying with us any more," he said.

Luso nodded. "Up to something in the savages' country, I gather," he said, and sighed. "You know, I've spent years keeping the peace between my brother and my father. This time, I'm not sure I know what to do. Still, I keep trying." He looked away, snapped his fingers. The gla.s.s was taken from Marzo's hand, and came back a moment later, refilled. "That's not why you're here."

"No," Marzo said.

"It's about young Heddo, I suppose."

Marzo wished he had more time to think. "I imagine so," he replied. "Maybe you can tell me. You see, we don't really know what happened. I'm guessing you might."

Luso's eyes opened wide, then he grinned. "I see," he said. "But I guess the Heddo boy's being here's told you what you need to know. He did it-killed the farmer's wife, I mean."

Marzo decided not to say anything.

"Naturally," Luso went on, picking up a gla.s.s of his own, "you won't have heard his side of it."

"He's got a side?"

Luso laughed. "Oh yes. He reckons the woman had been messing him around for ages: leading him on, teasing him, playing games. Boring for her, stuck in the house all day with her husband away in the fields, and she'd got used to having men sniffing round after her. Young Heddo reckons he'd had about as much as he could take, and he got mad and killed her. All very sad, but not entirely his fault."

Marzo put his feelings into the fist he was clenching on his knee rather than his face or his voice. "He cut off her head," he said. "Did he tell you that?"

Luso nodded. "He said he made a rather feeble attempt at getting rid of the body," he said. "He has nightmares about it, apparently; keeps half the men in the bunkhouse awake." He sipped his drink, appearing to savour it; he must have a tongue like saddle leather. "I'm not going to pretend he's a lily-white innocent," he said. "Not many of them about in the best of circ.u.mstances. My people are a fairly rough lot or they wouldn't be here. But I think we ought to be practical. If I let you take him back, what are you planning to do with him?"

Marzo blinked. "We haven't really given it any thought," he said.

"Well, of course not, you've only just found out he did it. But you knew someone did it. What did you have in mind? A rope over the nearest tree?"

Marzo shivered. "Hardly," he said. "I suppose we'd have to hold him in custody till the spring, then send him Home on the ship for trial."

Luso shook his head. "That's a lot of fuss and bother," he said, "and that's a.s.suming the ship's captain would agree. Big a.s.sumption. Fact is, you people aren't geared up for serious justice. No reason why you should be-you live quiet lives, which is a good thing."

"Thank you," Marzo said, because he felt he should.

"Justice," Luso went on, "is a fancy name for public revenge, as opposed to murder, which is what they call it when an individual does exactly the same thing. End result's the same: a dead man who was alive and healthy an hour or so ago, a dead body which is no earthly use to anybody, when he could be doing some useful work. Never could see the sense in it myself. But around here, justice simply isn't practical practical. Well, is it? You don't have a prison, you quite naturally baulk at playing executioner. Don't get me wrong, it does you credit. No, what matters isn't justice, or revenge, they're luxuries for city folk back Home. What matters here, where we are, is making sure it doesn't happen again. Practical, you see. Agreed?"

"I suppose so," Marzo said quietly.

"Well, of course," Luso said. "Now, I can't really let you take young Heddo back with you, because I've accepted him into my service so I'm obligated. The rest of the men would be furious, for one thing. What I can do, and I think this is the best solution all round, is to give you my personal guarantee that he won't be allowed to leave the Tabletop. If he does, I'll string him up myself. You have my word on that. Net result, more or less the same as if he's locked up in a cell somewhere, except that with me he'll have to make himself useful. Mucking out horses, carting water, scrubbing the tack-room floor: hard labour, for life." He grinned. "Justice, you might say. Well? What do you think?"

It felt as though the bright blue eyes were picking him apart, like a woman's fingernails unpicking st.i.tches. "It's not really up to me," Marzo heard himself say. "But I can put it to the meeting."

But Luso was shaking his head. "Not what I heard," he said. "Extraordinary plenipotentiary powers for the duration of the crisis, isn't that right? Means it's most certainly up to you and n.o.body else." He drank the rest of his drink and poured another from a tall stone bottle. "Now, I'm suggesting to you that the course of action I've outlined is sensible, practical and reasonable in the prevailing circ.u.mstances. Always got to consider the circ.u.mstances. Very few people have the luxury of living their lives in a vacuum. Also, it's not as though you've got a choice, unless you were thinking of coming back here with a posse and trying to take him by force, which I really hope hadn't crossed your mind. Also, I'll throw in compensation, say a hundred ells of good cloth for the widower. Also, I'm asking you as a personal favour to me. Well?"

Marzo looked at him. It was like staring at the sun. He heard a voice that must have been his saying, "Could you make that a hundred and fifty ells?" and cringed.

Luso laughed, a big noise, like hors.e.m.e.n crossing a bridge. "I offered a hundred ells," he said, "because a hundred ells is all we've got to spare. I can't offer any more, so take it or leave it. Anything they may have told you about the unlimited wealth of the met'Oc is almost certainly wrong. Or I could write you a bill of credit on our bank back Home. Completely worthless, of course. Father says we've got millions there, but it's frozen. We can't touch it, neither can the government. Crazy." He sat down on the edge of a table, indescribably elegant. How could a human being make a simple movement so beautiful? "The thing is," he went on, "I'm a practical man. I keep the peace. No, don't laugh. It's what I do. I spend my life keeping the peace, that's my job. I keep the peace here between my father and the rest of us. I keep the peace in the colony as a whole." Marzo must have lost control of his face for a moment because he frowned at Luso. "You hadn't realised that," Luso said, "I'm disappointed. Still, I don't do it to be appreciated. Think about it, will you? By and large, there's no crime in the colony, no violence apart from the occasional domestic, hardly any petty theft, even. You know why? Because every no-good piece of rubbish in the colony comes up here, is why. I collect them, and I keep them in order. Once in a while I take them out raiding, and we steal a few head of cattle-no great loss, they belong to the Company, not real people. I have to do that, or they'd get fractious and out of hand. Also, my father reckons we need men-at-arms, guards, whatever you like to call them, to keep us safe from our enemies." He shrugged, a big movement, a flow. "I wouldn't know about that," he said. "Maybe we've got enemies at Home who might turn up one day and want to cut our throats. Maybe it's to protect us from your people in the town. Don't ask me. That's politics-my father handles that side of things. He just tells me we need men-at-arms, and I do as I'm told. And I keep the peace. You're looking at me as if I'm mad, but it happens to be true. There's peace, isn't there, by and large? Well?"

Marzo nodded.

"You don't think it just happens," Luso said. "It doesn't grow up out of the ground, and the stork doesn't bring it." He leaned forward a little. Marzo wanted to move, but couldn't. "All I'm asking is that you do a little bit to help me do my job. You go back to town, tell them the matter's been dealt with and there won't be any more trouble. You're the smartest man in the colony, everybody knows that, and if you say it, they'll listen. I'll do my part and keep young Scarpedino on a tight leash, where he belongs. And if it works out, I can guarantee there won't be any more cattle raids for a good long while. You can give them your word on that, and when it comes true they'll remember who fixed it. They respect you, and with reason. You're better than them, because you're smart." He smiled, spread his hands in an attractive gesture. "I think it's a blessing in disguise, what's happened. It's about time we opened a dialogue, and I'm glad to have had a chance to get to know you and establish a working relationship. The main thing is that basically we're on the same side. We want to keep the peace. That's what matters, isn't it?"

Marzo couldn't help remembering the old story about the king who tried to negotiate with the sea. He won: the tide went out. Then it came back in again. "Of course," he said.

"And you'll make them see it that way?"

"I'll do my best."

"Of course you will." Luso stood up suddenly; the interview was over. "Now," he said, "I expect you'll want to be getting back. The store doesn't run itself. I appreciate you taking the time to come here, and if there are any more problems in the future, you come and see me. And I'd like you to accept this"-he put his hand in his pocket, drew it out and opened it-"as a small token of appreciation."

Lying on his palm was a large brooch for a man's cloak: gold filigree, with a lump of amber the size of a thumbnail. Marzo tried very hard not to think what it must be worth. Slowly he reached out and let Luso drop it into his hand. "Thank you," he said, in a very small voice.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Luso said. "If you see my brother, give him my love."

When Marzo eventually got back to the cart (bag over his head all the way, but at least it was downhill this time) he found the donkey munching contentedly out of a fat nosebag. Say what you like about the met'Oc, he thought, they know how to treat a guest. And it's not every day an ordinary man finds himself being terrified, threatened, outmanoeuvred, reasoned with, beguiled, convinced, flattered and bought, all in the s.p.a.ce of an hour or so.

He pinned the brooch to his coat before he drove home-on the inside, where n.o.body could see it.

When he got home, they told him what had happened.

Ciro Gabelo, the dead woman's husband, had taken his wife's death badly. For several days he stayed in the house drinking his way through the winter supply of beer and cider. When it ran out, he asked the neighbours who were looking after him for some more. They told him they thought he'd probably had enough, which sent him into a rage. He chased them out of the house with a knife, which they interpreted as absolving them from their duty to the bereaved. They went home and barred the door.

Ciro stayed indoors for a day, and left the house very early the next morning. He went to the Heddo farm. From the toolshed he took a muckfork and a beanhook, then kicked his way into the barn, where the six oarsmen were staying. They weren't there. So he went to the house (which the Heddo family had abandoned when the oarsmen came looking for food, after the Heddos cut off supplies) and found them in the kitchen, playing draughts. It seems likely that none of the oarsmen had any idea who he was. He killed the man who opened the door to him with a single thrust of the fork. Its tines got stuck in the man's ribcage and he couldn't pull it out, so he let go of it and went for two men sitting at the kitchen table. He killed one of them with a blow to the head; the other one warded off his attack with his left hand, losing two fingers. Two of the survivors ran out by the back door. The third, who'd been slicing bacon with a folding knife, took a lunge at Ciro, who dodged, kicked him in the back of the knee and hooked him through the shoulder as he fell. He then tried to finish off the man whose fingers he'd just severed, but he slid under the table where Ciro couldn't reach him. This made him furiously angry. He finished off the man who'd tried to knife him, then crossed to the fireplace, flicked a couple of burning logs out of the grate and kicked them under the table where the last survivor was hiding. It was probably at this point that he realised two of the oarsmen were missing. He abandoned the man under the table and ran out of the back door, yelling at the top of his voice. Presumably he searched the farmyard and the outbuildings, but the men were long gone. They had in fact run out into the orchard and hidden in an overgrown lime kiln at the far end. Eventually, Ciro went back to his house, where he was later found hanging from a rafter.

Marzo was silent for a long time after he'd heard all this. Then he said, "Where are they now?"

"The oarsmen?" Ra.s.so the liveryman looked mildly guilty. "They're here, in the cellar, tied up. That niece of yours insisted on patching up the man's hand. We told her not to bother-"