The Folding Knife (22 page)

"The good stuff," Antigonus said, looking up from the summary. "I'm impressed."

Basso shrugged. "It was the obvious thing to do."

"You were the one who did it."

"I had the money."

Antigonus, he thought, was looking better, if anything. The recent ferocious outburst of activity had done him good. The old man must have noticed him looking, because he grinned and said, "You're right. According to the doctors, the plague has actually slowed down the advance of the malignancy. Bizarre, was the word they used."

Basso smiled. "Maybe some of my luck's starting to rub off on you."

"Maybe." Antigonus frowned. "A few years ago, I saw a play about a man with a terminal disease. His enemies couldn't wait for it to take its course, so they hired an assassin. The man was stabbed, but he didn't die; in fact, the assassin's knife severed the tumour, which the doctors had said was inoperable, and the man made a full recovery."

"I remember that one," Basso said. "I thought it was silly."

"Really? It made me think of you. Basso's luck, I thought."

"What a strange thing to say."

"You think so?" Antigonus shrugged. "I thought of you straight away. You have a knack of getting yourself into the most appalling trouble, which then turns out to your advantage. You might argue that a truly fortunate man wouldn't get into the dreadful mess in the first place; he'd live a life of blameless, uneventful rectitude and eventually die, happy and obscure. You, on the other hand, have all the luck; the good sort and the bad. If your enemies took you out into the bay and threw you in the sea, you'd come up a few minutes later with a fistful of pearls."

"My mother died," Basso said. "Had you heard?"

Antigonus shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said.

"So am I," Basso replied, "but mostly because I realised I hardly felt anything when they told me. I waited for it to sink in, it has, and I still haven't really felt anything. That's appalling, don't you think?"

"You should consider yourself lucky," Antigonus replied. "One of the worst things that happens to a man has just happened to you, and you've escaped the suffering."

Basso nodded. "Mostly," he said, "it's a nuisance; an inconvenience. For instance, I'm trying to remember something that happened when I was a kid. I think, I'll ask Mother, and then I realise I can't; it's annoying, frustrating, it itches where I can't reach, but it's not
grief
. Unless I lie to myself, the most I can come up with is, it's a loss of information, like a library burning down. There's a whole chunk of my life for which I'm the only source of historical data--well, strictly speaking there's my sister as well, but in practical terms there's just me. It makes me feel, I don't know,
vulnerable
. What happens when I get old and forgetful? All that part of me, my childhood, will be lost, for ever. I find that intensely disturbing."

Antigonus touched the decanter. Basso shook his head. "You're afraid," Antigonus said, "that you've lost the capacity to feel. You're worried you're becoming callous and inhuman, and you blame yourself, because of what you've done."

"Yes," Basso said. "And?"

"Maybe you're right," he said. "Considering what you've done, the way you conduct your life, it's not an unlikely outcome. But I believe you'll cope."

"Thank you so much."

Antigonus smiled. "In fact," he said, "I'm sure of it. Think. You lost part of your hearing when you were a boy. Later, when you were a young man, you lost most of the use of your left hand. But you've learned to adapt. You instinctively turn your head so as to listen with your good ear. You've acquired exceptional dexterity with your right hand, so you barely ever use your left. If you've lost the capacity to feel, I'm sure you'll adapt. Knowing you, I imagine you'll turn the loss into an advantage."

Basso looked at him. "That's a terrible thing to say."

"And when I'm dead, who'll be there to say terrible things to you?" Antigonus shook his head. "Which means you'll miss me, and therefore you'll remember me, and therefore I shall not wholly die, as the poets say. You know," he went on, stretching out his feet, implying cramp. "I believe you're the best investment I ever made. You didn't cost me very much when you were young, and now you're paying dividends."

Basso laughed. "Delighted to hear I've come in useful at last. I always hoped I'd be good for something."

But Antigonus was suddenly looking very serious. "I do worry," he said, "about what'll become of you after I'm dead. I think I'm the only person you've ever had any respect for--which, if true," he added with a faint smile, "is enormously flattering, but it makes me wish I wasn't going to die quite so soon. I believe there'll be a crisis in your life, bigger and more dangerous than anything you've run into before, and I won't be there to help. But there," he said, making one of his rare big gestures, "I'm probably wrong and almost certainly overvaluing myself. I can't actually recall a single instance where I've told you not to do something and you've listened to me, and things haven't worked out so badly in spite of that."

Basso didn't say anything for a while. Then he changed the subject.

A priest called to see him. Usually he didn't see priests without an appointment.

"My sister sent you," Basso said.

The priest nodded. He was a tall man, not much older than Basso, with a strong, intelligent face. He didn't seem at all happy about the job in hand. "Thank you for finding the time to see me," he said. "You must be very busy right now."

"Yes," Basso replied. "Sit down. You're not allowed to drink alcohol on duty, are you?"

"Actually, that's law-enforcement officers," the priest said, "and I believe doctors. Since, in theory, a priest is never off duty..."

"Wine or brandy?"

"Brandy," the priest replied immediately. "We don't get that at the monastery. It's classed as a luxury, therefore prohibited under our vow of poverty. Wine, on the other hand, is a necessity of life, even if it's a thirty-year-old vintage Faralean."

Basso poured out two glasses. "You've got a sense of humour," he said. "I'd have thought that precluded you from being in my sister's confidence."

"She's been quite extraordinarily generous to our foundation," the priest said.

"Ah." Basso nodded. "With my money."

The priest seemed to have no opinion on that. Instead, he nibbled at his brandy and smiled.

"Do you know my nephew?" Basso asked.

"Indeed." The priest put his glass down. "One of the most promising candidates in his year."

Basso looked up. "One of?"

"He has the intellect," the priest said, "and--what's the right way of putting it?--he has the necessary disposition of mind. Not many people do," he added. "And not many of them join the Order."

"But?"

The priest shrugged. "A large part of being a priest is wanting to be a priest. I'm not talking about faith," he added. "That's a gift from the Invincible Sun, and not everyone is blessed with it. But wanting to be a priest is something rather different."

"And Bassano doesn't?"

The priest paused, then said, "He tells me you suggested it to him."

"That's right. For entirely secular reasons."

"Perfectly good reasons," the priest said. "A man can want to be a priest and still have no more interest in religion than--well, no disrespect: than you have." Basso grinned at him. "Your nephew doesn't seem to be motivated by those reasons. Let me put it this way. He appreciates the holy offices for the quality of the words and the music--especially the music--and his attitude to the more worldly aspects of the vocation--property management, finances, that side of things--is that one should hire a good chief clerk and not get under his feet. Everybody likes him," the priest added, almost involuntarily. "Even Father Prior, who doesn't really like anybody."

"Thank you," Basso said. "Now, what's my sister got to say?"

The priest hesitated, drank most of his brandy, and put the glass down. "She wants to know why you haven't married anybody yet," he said. "Also, she wants you to know how angry she is that her mother's body was burned in the street in a common pyre, rather than decently buried in temple."

Basso looked at him until he turned away. "I'll answer the second point first," he said. "My mother died of the plague. It's the law that plague victims have to be burned, as soon as possible, and in any event no later than twenty-four hours after death. It's a good law. My father passed it, as a matter of fact. I approve of it, and even if I didn't, there's nothing I could have done."

The priest looked very sad. "I'm sure your sister would argue that since you're the First Citizen, you could have found a way..."

"Precisely because I'm First Citizen, I had absolutely no choice in the matter." He stopped, looked down at his hands, then went on: "I'm not inclined to argue the point with you, I'm afraid. There's no earthly point in us having a debate about the issue, and I know my sister won't change her view, no matter what anybody says to her. No offence," he added.

"None taken." The priest dipped his head in acknowledgement. "The other matter..."

Basso sighed. "We've just come out of a national disaster," he said. "I'd have thought I'd be allowed a little extra time, considering. For one thing, I haven't left this building since the plague struck. She's got to admit, that'd cramp anybody's style."

"Your sister anticipated that line of argument," the priest said carefully. "She instructs me to say that you have two months from today. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise what?"

The priest pulled a mournful face. "She didn't confide in me," he said. "Presumably you know."

"Yes." Basso closed his eyes for a moment. "Fine," he said. "Two months. Agreed." He looked up. "Anything else?"

"That was all."

"In that case, thank you. You did a perfectly wretched job very well."

The priest smiled and stood up. "Thank you very much for the brandy," he said.

"Take the bottle."

"I couldn't. I..."

"Take the bottle," Basso repeated, "and walk home slowly. So long as you don't actually take it into the Studium with you, I don't see where you'd be breaking any rules."

"I have to report back to your sister first," the priest said. "She has strong views..."

"Ah." Basso shrugged. "That I can well imagine. Give Bassano my regards."

There was a Day of National Grief. It rained. Not many people could be bothered to turn out for it; most of the citizens of the Republic had other things they needed to do. Compared with earlier outbreaks of plague, the death toll had been low. Even so, the fact remained that there were fewer pairs of hands to do the work, and extra work for which time had not been allowed in the daily routine.

Basso went straight from Temple to the House, where the finance committee were waiting for him. It was one of the Optimates' last surviving strongholds (they had a majority of two, left over from the old regime) and they were trying to make him reduce the gold content in the nomisma, from ninety-seven per cent fine to ninety-four, to cover increases in public spending without resorting to an emergency tax.

"No," Basso said. "If we start debasing now, we'll damage confidence overseas. Look what happened to the Auxentines when they tried it ten years ago."

"That was a ten-point debasement," someone replied. "We're only asking for three."

"And the Sclerians have increased the purity of theirs by two," Basso pointed out, "with the result that we're now paying four nomismata on the Sclerian drachma instead of three, which is way out of proportion to the actual gold content. The Sclerians are buying nomismata, melting them down and minting them into drachmas. It's insane. If you cut the nomisma by three points, it'd be like writing the Sclerians a draft for half the reserves in the Treasury. No, what we ought to be doing is putting more gold in, not taking it out." Then, when they scowled at him, he went on, "In fact, let's do that. We'll purify by one point, up to ninety-eight, and see what happens."

They gave him a hard time over that, but he had the authority, and wouldn't let them leave the room until they'd all signed the order, which was sent straight to the Mint for immediate action.

("Why?" Sentio demanded later.

"Because they got on my nerves," Basso replied. "Besides, it's the right thing to do, especially now. It shows we've got confidence in the economy, in spite of our recent spot of bother. It's all right," he added, "the Bank's got enough cash in hand to cover the immediate shortfall."

Sentio shook his head. "Must be nice," he said, "to be so rich you can personally guarantee something like this out of your own pocket."

"Yes," Basso said. "It is. It means I can indulge myself in little fits of temper without ruining the economy of the Republic.")

Later that day, he announced his decision to the House, explaining in detail the many and complex factors that had led him to make the decision. To be sure, he said, in the short term, a debasement would have eased the public deficit quickly and relatively painlessly, but the long-term cost would, he believed, have been more than the Republic could afford, disproportionate to the short-term advantage, and causing lasting damage to the foreign trade on which the state depended. Instead, he proposed that both the deficit and the purification of the nomisma should be funded by an emergency tax; not a tax on private citizens, but on the larger corporations, those with a capital value in excess of one million nomismata.