The Folding Knife (29 page)

She smiled. "You want to tell me about the jury pay scheme."

"Yes."

"Please," she said. "Tell me."

He laughed. "You don't want to--"

"Yes I do."

"All right." He realised his arm was round her shoulders. It had sort of grown there, like ivy climbing a wall. "Men over sixty, or those who can't work because of sickness or injury, can volunteer for jury service, for which they get paid a living wage. It covers the people who aren't looked after by the Reserve, and it means that anybody I want found guilty will be found guilty, and anybody I want let off will get let off. Which means," he added pleasantly, "that my enemies won't stand a chance."

She frowned. "That sounds expensive."

"It will be," he replied. "Like the Reserve. But the figures work out fine. Partly it depends on keeping the price of food as low as possible--which we'll be able to do, when we've got the grain monopoly. Also, since we import all our food, it helps a lot that the nomisma's so strong against other currencies; we get far more for one nomisma than we used to before we put in that extra two per cent. Also, we'll help pay for it with a tax on business profits."

She laughed. "Go on, then. Explain to me how paying more tax will make you richer."

"Easy." He smiled. "I can afford to pay more tax. My rivals can't. I stay in business, they don't. I buy them out cheap and take over their banks and companies. My additional profits more than cancel out my higher tax bill. I proved that that works with the land bubble, directly after the plague. And," he went on, "the more money I make, the more I can afford to give ostentatiously away, thereby making the people love me; which means I get re-elected, and I can do what I like."

"Basso," she said solemnly, "you're a monster."

"Yes." He nodded. "I'm corrupt and ruthless and I change the world for my own personal gain. Which is why it's so good to be on my side." He took his arm off her shoulders and leaned forward. "In our history," he said, "there have been a number of genuine reformers, men who really wanted to make life better for their fellow men. All but two of them were bashed to death by the mob. The other two killed themselves in prison, because they didn't fancy being tortured to death. That's just stupid. I, on the other hand,
will
make life better for my fellow men. The difference is, I've got a very strong motive for succeeding. Also," he added, "I'm not stupid. Not bright, perhaps, but definitely not stupid."

She smiled at him. "If you say so," she said.

The priest Chrysophilus had his own special chair now. He'd happened to say how comfortable it was on one of his early visits; now it was kept specifically for him, and only brought out when he came to call.

"Let's sit in the garden," Basso said. "We might as well enjoy the warm weather while we can."

The chair followed them, carried with great solemnity by two footmen, like the Throne of the Sun at the start of Ascension Week. A third footman followed with the brandy.

"It's very kind of you," Chrysophilus said. "And you may not like me very much after I've delivered my message."

"Heralds are sacrosanct, even in war," Basso replied. "Here'll do. This time of day, the breeze wafts over the scent of lavender from the big commercial herb garden across the valley." They set down the chair, making sure it was level on the gravel. "At other times of day, we get the breeze from the tannery. Not nearly as pleasant."

Such an easy man to read. He was thinking: civilisation, the way things ought to be. The way they aren't, back at the Studium. Basso made a mental note, and said, "The message."

"Yes." Chrysophilus hesitated, unwilling to risk saying the words that would spoil all this. Heralds-are-sacrosanct meant that he had the First Citizen's word that he'd be allowed to leave with his head still on his shoulders, but fine old brandy with the scent of lavender in the rose garden would be over for the day, and possibly for ever. No wonder the poor man seemed reluctant to speak.

"Sorry to interrupt," Basso said. "I'm forgetting my manners. Join me for dinner?"

The look on the priest's face was enough to break anyone's heart. "That's very kind--"

"Splendid," Basso said, "I'll tell them you're staying. I gather it's duck from the lagoon, with a sort of cream and pepper sauce." He clapped his hands and a footman materialised next to him. "This gentleman's staying to dinner," he said. "Tell the cook. Now, then," he went on. "The message."

Chrysophilus took a deep breath, like a man about to dive. "Your sister isn't happy about your betrothal."

"No," Basso said, "I don't suppose she is."

"She sees it as an affront to the family name and her father's memory."

"Quite." Basso nodded. "And so it is, in a way. It certainly goes against everything my father stood for. Then again, so do I." He grinned. "I loved my father, and in a way I respected him, but he was an idiot. For one thing, he married my mother. No choice in the matter, either of them. But they weren't suited to each other. It wasn't a disaster--anything but--but it diminished both of them. She was an intelligent woman married to a fool: a fool who was quite happy being a fool, he never saw anything wrong with it; I don't suppose he ever wanted to be the slightest bit different from how he was. And he was married to a woman who didn't care, let him get on with it; she never challenged his unshakable belief in himself, mostly because she wasn't all that interested in him. They lived together for a very long time, and neither did the other the slightest bit of good." He paused; Chrysophilus was wearing a dazed look. "I'm only telling you all this to give you an idea of the sort of criteria my sister's working from. Did she say what she proposes to do about it?"

Blank look. "I'm sorry?"

"Threats," Basso said. "If I marry Melsuntha, will she immediately marry Olybrias? Or has she dreamed up some alternative form of sanction?"

He shook his head. "She didn't say anything about sanctions," he replied. "Just that she'd be bitterly offended and she'd never forgive you."

"Which is more or less where we stand at the moment," Basso replied briskly, "so, no threats. But what do you think?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"About my marriage. What do you think about it?"

Startled look; as if he was riding very fast in a racing chariot, and the driver had just handed him the reins. "It's not for me to..."

"You must have an opinion."

"Not really." Pause; then, "Well, actually, yes, I do. I think it's rather good, actually."

"Thank you," Basso said gravely. "Why?"

A man pinned down and surrounded by a simple question. "Well," he said, "you've got nothing to gain from it, politically or socially or in business terms, so I'm assuming..."

"I'm marrying for love. Yes. And?"

"And I think that's rather fine," Chrysophilus said feebly. "It's not the sort of thing people do. But maybe they should."

Basso thought for a moment. "I disagree with you there," he said. "For most people, love is a bloody stupid reason for getting married. It's like buying a house because you like the pretty flowers in the garden. But in my case, I'm a middle-aged man who's performed all his family and dynastic obligations; I've achieved all my ambitions, so I don't need to marry for money or influence. And Melsuntha will be good for me. She answers me back. She doesn't agree with me." He smiled. "She's the only person I know who doesn't agree with me. Do you see what I mean?"

Chrysophilus nodded. "I think so, yes."

"Marvellous," Basso growled. "Even you agree with me, and technically, you're the enemy. Maybe you can understand why I put such a high premium on a little dissent." He drank his brandy and stood up. "Tell my sister I'm sorry she feels that way, but I have no intention of changing my mind to suit her or anybody else. That's it." Then, seeing the sad look on Chrysophilus' face, he added, "It's all right, you're still invited to dinner. Come into the house, and you can tell me about this strange business with my nephew."

As he'd expected, Chrysophilus couldn't tell him anything he didn't already know. That evening, after the priest had gone, he received a letter he'd been waiting for and wrote four letters of his own. Then he rang for a clerk.

"Deliver these," he said, "quick as you like. Then, in the morning, go round to the Studium and ask Father Chrysophilus, the priest who was here tonight, if he'd mind dropping in tomorrow afternoon. That's all."

Bank business all morning, followed by a Treasury committee meeting to approve the draft of the new finance bill. Three letters he'd been expecting were waiting for him when he came out of the meeting; he had to wait for the fourth and fifth until he got home. He read all five carefully several times, wrote one reply, and told the servants to get out Father Chrysophilus' chair.

"In my study," he added. "Show the Father up there as soon as he arrives, and no interruptions. And get a bottle of the good brandy, the Auxentine stuff in the green bottles. We'll probably be celebrating."

He went to his bedroom and changed into a comfortable gown, an old favourite with full sleeves and pockets, then climbed the stairs to the study, where the special chair and the brandy were waiting. Since he still had a little time in hand, he sent for Bassano.

"Won't keep you," he said. "But you might like to send out for your stuff, everything you've got in store. You'll be moving in here permanently. Assuming," he added, as Bassano stared at him, "that you'd like to."

"Mother..."

Basso smiled. "The hell with her," he said. "You in for dinner, or going out somewhere?"

"No plans," Bassano replied.

"Have dinner with us, then," he said. "There's a halfwit who thinks he can get me to change my mind about a bad loan by sending me jugged hare in cider vinegar. He's wasting his time, but that's no reason we shouldn't eat it."

Bassano's favourite. "In that case," he said.

"Splendid. Get someone to tell the cook."

Then an hour alone with some routine paperwork, to clear his head and calm him down. He started to write a letter, but his hand was shaking, so he left it for the morning. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and spent ten minutes gazing into the eyes of the gold and mosaic Queen of Heaven, seven feet tall and infinitely wise, who stood over him always. She was only bits of stone, paint, and gold foil beaten ridiculously thin, and for much of his lifetime she'd presided over a room stuffed full of redundant furniture; if he could pick her off the walls without destroying her completely, she'd be worth the price of a small ship. Probably just as well, he decided, that his father had never realised that.

As the daughter and sister of two First Citizens, the lady Fausta Tranquillina Carausia was entitled to display on her carriage doors the double-headed lion of the Republic, in gold leaf, on a red background. The carriage itself was third-hand, elderly and badly in need of new rear springs; you could hear it coming from way off. She'd taken quotes from six painters and chosen the cheapest. Her lion, everybody said, looked more like an overfed spaniel, and the gold leaf had been so sparingly applied that big red blotches showed through its ribs, making it look as though it had just been gored by a bull. There was also, people said, the small matter of good taste; since it was no secret that she hated her brother to death, taking advantage of even so minor a privilege was questionable behaviour at best. If the lady Tranquillina was bothered by that, she gave no sign of it, and pretended not to understand why small boys made dying-dog noises when her carriage passed them in the street.

Her various eccentricities weren't a problem as far as the Patriarch and governors of the Studium were concerned. A benefactress as generous as the lady Tranquillina was allowed a certain latitude. The older members of Chapter vividly remembered some of the great characters of the past: the lady Domitilla Secunda, for example, who stopped bathing or combing her hair when she was twenty-seven and lived to be ninety, or the lady Plautilla Sebastina Carausia, who insisted on walking the circuit of the City walls every morning, accompanied by the Studium choir and wearing nothing but a sack. Rich, dotty women's money had made the Studium the most respected institute of theological scholarship in the world. So long as they paid cash and didn't actually draw blood, they could do pretty much what they liked.

In any case, Tranquillina's demands were far more modest. She required a private chapel in the temple, the services of a priest as her personal chaplain, prayers for her dead husband three times a day in perpetuity and, in due course, a granite tomb in the temple portico, the design for which was already on file: a skeleton carved in red granite, wearing a wedding dress and holding an effigy of her late husband in the regalia of the Invincible Sun, and on the base of the plinth, the following simple inscription;

Fausta Tranquillina Carausia

Murdered by her brother

Bassianus Arcadius Severus

She was at prayer in her chapel when Chrysophilus tracked her down. It wasn't her regular time for prayer; that was usually six till nine in the morning, then nine till midnight. Sometimes, though, when her soul was unusually troubled, she came to the chapel at noon and stayed for an hour or so.

He cleared his throat, but she didn't seem to notice. Lately, she'd taken to pretending to be deaf in one ear, just like her brother, though Chrysophilus knew for a fact she had ears like a bat. Some days she wrapped a napkin stained with beetroot juice round her left hand, but not today.