The Hammer Part 27

The old man stared at him, hesitated for a moment, then burst out, "Why would you want to do such a thing? We were never a threat to you. We didn't believe you existed."

"You did," Gignomai said.

"I was a crazy old man," the old man replied. "I was a joke. Children came and asked me about the place where I grew up because they thought I was funny. They didn't believe what I told them."

"But it was true," Gignomai said.

The old man shook his head. "I realised a long time ago," he said, "it was all for the best. I was comfortable, and they were happy. Now you've changed everything, and these people want weapons. You do realise what they want them for, don't you?"

Gignomai nodded. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "It's just one of those things that had to be done."

The old man sighed. "I don't understand," he said. "I can see no possible benefit, to your people or to mine. Quite the reverse. Do you want my people to fight the colonists on behalf of the met'Oc? Is that what you have in mind?"

Gignomai shook his head. "That's the last thing I want," he said.

"Then it makes no sense," the old man roared at him. "You will pardon my stupidity, but I can see no advantage to be gained from starting a war between my people and the colonists. There are so many more of us than you, and your people have no weapons, only farm tools and axes. It makes no sense. Unless," the old man added, his head slightly on one side, "you aim to arm my people and then sell guns to your own people so they can defend themselves. I can believe there are human beings who would do such a thing, but I doubt very much that you would. For one thing, your people are so poor. And there must be easier ways to make money."

Gignomai smiled bleakly. "What I want," he said, "money can't buy. I really am sorry," he said, "but I knew what I was doing. If they want the snapping-hens, they can have them. At least, I can let them have a dozen. That's all I can spare right now."

The old man was looking past him, towards the factory. "You made them yourself," he said.

"That's right," Gignomai replied. "It was a lot of work. But we got here in the end."

The old man nodded slowly. "All that," he said. "Just to make the guns?"

"Mostly," Gignomai said. "There were other reasons, but that was the main one. They're good copies," he went on. "Not pretty, like the real ones my brother has. They're just a pipe clamped to a bit of wood, with a bit of a mechanism to make the spark. But they work."

The old man bowed his head. "You will have to show us what to do," he said. "If you would be so kind as to explain to me, I will pa.s.s it on to them. I promise I'll translate accurately," he added, with a faint grin. "I know what would happen to me if I didn't. I'm ashamed to say I still value my life, although I really can't say why."

"Wait there," Gignomai said, and he left them and went to the shed that housed the drop-hammer. He'd stored the finished snapping-hens under a loose floorboard. There were sixteen left. He chose a dozen and put them in an empty grain sack, along with two hollowed-out cow horns full of powder, a five-pound bag of lead b.a.l.l.s and a handful of spare flints. He walked back and went through the loading procedure slowly and carefully with the old man, loading four of the pistols and making him load the fifth, to make sure he'd understood. Then he showed him how to prime the pan, close it and c.o.c.k the hammer.

"Then all you do is point it and pull this lever here," he said. "That releases the hammer, which hits the steel, which strikes a spark, which sets off the powder in the pan. Simple as that." he handed the c.o.c.ked pistol to the old man, who looked at it nervously. "If you don't want to fire it, give it to one of them."

The old man shook his head. "You do it," he said. "They need to see you do it. Otherwise..."

Gignomai shrugged, took back the snapping-hen, pointed it at a tree trunk and pulled the trigger. When the smoke had cleared, he went forward to inspect the damage. He'd missed the tree he was aiming at-it was about five yards away from where he'd been standing-and hit the one next to it. He poked his little finger into the bullet hole, up as far as the second joint.

Dalo Tavio's eldest son fell through the rotten floor of a hayloft into the firewood store below. He broke his left arm and leg, and the splintered end of a branch left sticking out from a badly trimmed log punched a hole in his face on the left side next to his nose. Remarkably, the boy wasn't killed. When his father tried to move him, the branch snapped off, leaving an inch of wood trapped in the bone. It was generally accepted that the wound would go bad and the boy would die, but the boy's mother insisted on sending to town and asking the mayor for help. If anybody knew what to do, she felt, it would be him. Tavio, who'd known Marzo Opello all his life, doubted this but couldn't bring himself to say so. Also, he vaguely remembered hearing that Opello's nephew was training to be a surgeon. He filled the cart with straw and put the boy in it, and drove straight to town, arriving in the early hours of the morning.

"Not my nephew," the mayor told him. "My niece."

Tavio looked at him as though he'd been drinking (which of course he had, but no more than usual). On the other hand, he thought, the boy will probably die in any event, and we've come all this way. "Fine," he said. "Call her."

Teucer came down in her nightdress, with two fat brown books under her arm. Tavio held a lantern over the cart while she examined the boy. He was deeply impressed at how calm she was about it, although there was something about her manner that disturbed him a little-too calm, maybe, and almost as if she was enjoying herself. She told her uncle and her cousin Furio how to lift him out of the cart without hurting him more than necessary, and she really did sound as though she knew what she was talking about. They laid the boy on the kitchen table, and Teucer carried out a closer examination.

"The leg shouldn't be a problem," she said. "The arm's an awkward break and it won't mend quite right, but I'll do the best I can. The piece of wood in his skull will probably kill him unless I can get it out."

Tavio, who'd felt mostly frozen up till then, felt as though he'd been hit across the face. But the girl was clearly something else. If he'd closed his eyes and ignored the pitch of her voice, he could have believed he was talking to a man. "Can you do that?" he asked. "Get it out, I mean."

"I don't know," she said. "Really, it's more of a woodworking problem than a medical one, and I'm not a carpenter. But there's something similar in the book. Give me five minutes and I'll look it up and tell you."

She walked away, taking a candle and one of the books into the mayor's office and closing the door behind her. There was a long moment of silence. Then Marzo Opello said, "You shouldn't judge her by her manners. She was brought up back Home; she doesn't really know how to talk to people."

Tavio said, "Does she know about this stuff?"

"From books," Marzo replied. "If you like, I can send for the horse doctor. But by the time he gets here-"

"My son's not a horse," Tavio said. "G.o.d help the man who marries her, but I think she knows what she's doing."

"He's your son," Marzo said.

Furio Opello withdrew at this point, muttering something about boiling some water. Tavio said, "Where did she get the books?"

"They came from the met'Oc library," Marzo replied. "So they should be pretty good. I tried reading one once, but I couldn't make any sense of it. She reckons she can understand them, though. She patched up young Furio when he cut himself a while back. Made a fair job of it, too. You can hardly see the scar."

Tavio sat down on a chair. "I suppose the met'Oc know all about this sort of thing," he said. "Maybe we could ask them to come out."

Marzo shook his head. "Young Luso knows a bit about cuts and bonesetting," he said, "but otherwise they do the best they can, like the rest of us. I don't think they read all those books. They're just for having, not reading. Besides, the met'Oc wouldn't come down here just to heal a farm boy."

Teucer came out of the office, with the book closed around her thumb to mark the place. "I'll need splints and bandages," she said, "and two feet of dry elder wood, rose honey, white wine, new bread, barley flour and turpentine. And someone's got to go out to the factory. I need a tool made, straight away."

"I'll go," said Furio, who'd just come in with a steaming kettle. "What do you want them to make?"

She opened the book and handed it to him. "Gignomai will be able to understand the sketch," she said, pointing to a diagram in the middle of the page. It looked like a spider on a stick. "Tell him it's got to be clean, so scrub off all the soot and firescale.

"You might as well take my cart," Tavio said. "Quicker than walking."

Furio laid the open book beside him on the box, with a glove across the page to keep the place in case a b.u.mp on the road closed it. He glanced at it from time to time as he drove, trying to make out words by the dizzy light of the swinging lantern. It was something to do with a doctor digging an arrowhead out of the head of a prince, after some battle back Home a long time ago. The diagram still looked like a spider on a stick, no matter how often he looked at it.

He heard the pulse of the hammer long before he saw the glow of the furnace. By the time he reached the factory, his head was throbbing and he could barely think. He realised he was still wearing his nights.h.i.+rt, with a worn-out old stockman's coat over it.

A man walked out of the darkness and caught up the horse's head. Not anybody Furio knew. "Where's Gignomai?" Furio said.

"Asleep. Not to be disturbed."

"I asked you where he is, not what he's doing."

The man shrugged, and jerked his thumb in an undecipherable direction. Furio jumped down, taking the book with him, and made for the shack where Gignomai usually slept. He saw light under the door, knocked and walked in.

"Furio." Gignomai looked up from a book. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

Furio explained. It was hard, having to shout over the noise of the hammer, and he had trouble expressing himself clearly. But Gignomai seemed to understand, and took the book from him, and moved the lamp closer so he could see the picture.

"Aurelio can make that," he said. "The awkward bit's the screw-thread, but he's got a die that'll cut one easy as anything. When do you need it by?"

"Now."

Gignomai grinned. "You'll have to make do with as soon as possible," he said. "Stay here. I'll take the book with me."

He was gone for quite some time. Shortly before he came back, the hammer stopped.

"I told them to shut it down till Aurelio's finished," he said. "Can't expect anybody to do fine work with that racket going on."

"It's wonderful when it stops," Furio said.

"I don't hear it any more," Gignomai replied. "Except when it stops, and then it just feels strange."

"How can you sleep?"

"Being tired helps," Gignomai replied, and sat down on the edge of the bed, where he'd been when Furio found him. "Now then," he said, "we'd better talk about how much this is going to cost you."

That aspect of the matter hadn't crossed Furio's mind. "All right," he said. "How much?"

Gignomai shrugged. "Really, you should pay for the lost production, while the hammer's down," he said, "but what the h.e.l.l. I've told them to strip down the gears and give it a good clean-out, so it's not exactly wasted time. The job itself I can do for ten thalers."

Furio looked at him, as though he was talking a language he didn't understand. "That's a fortune," he said.

"Fine," Gignomai replied. "Get it made somewhere else, then."

"You know we can't."

"Indeed. And I know you can't find ten thalers, or your farmer friend can't. I guess your uncle the mayor will just have to knock it off our slate. Which in real terms is the same as doing it for free. I don't have a problem with that, but it'd be nice if someone made a bit of a big deal out of it." He looked keenly at Furio, who wasn't sure how he was supposed to react.

"I'm sure Tavio'll be really grateful," Furio said. "Will that do?"

"So long as he tells everybody," Gignomai replied, "it'll have to. And even then, I expect Cousin Teucer'll get all the praise. Stroke of luck for her. I bet she's having the time of her life. And the boy might still die, of course, which won't do anybody any good."

Furio looked straight at him. "You've changed," he said.

"Have I?" Gignomai laughed. "I don't think so. If anything, I think I'm more myself than I've ever been. You haven't changed, though. I guess that's why you find me so disappointing."

Furio didn't reply straight away. "How long will it take?"

"You know craftsmen," Gignomai replied. "Ask them how long and they just pull faces and make noises with their teeth. If I was doing it, about three hours. But if I did it, it wouldn't work worth a d.a.m.n. So," he went on, not bothering to try and hide the effort he was making, "what's been happening in town? I'm so out of touch here I don't know anything."

"I think you do," Furio said. "Talking of which, why are you going to so much trouble to start a war between your family and the colony?"

Gignomai's face was completely blank and still. "I don't follow," he said.

"You've been shooting holes in doors with those guns you've been making."

"Not me personally." His lips hardly moved. It was as though Furio had heard the words inside his own head. "I can't hit a d.a.m.n thing further than three feet, not even a door. But young Scarpedino Heddo's turned out to be a natural. You guessed, then."

"I'm not stupid."

Gignomai smiled. "There's a big difference between not stupid and really smart," he said. "I always knew you were smart, Furio. Smarter than my brother Luso, even, and that's saying something."

Furio felt cold all over, as if he'd just broken the ice on the water-b.u.t.t and plunged both hands in. "Why d'you do it, Gig? What the h.e.l.l are you playing at?"

"How did you figure it out?" Gignomai said. He breathed in through his mouth and out through his nose, and Furio noticed that one of his hands, the one that wasn't gripping the arm of his chair, was shaking. "What gave it away?"

"Bits and pieces," Furio replied. He wasn't interested in giving explanations. "Luck, mostly. Seeing the light burning in the livery. Also, being here and watching you. And knowing you. At least, I thought I knew you."

"Probably better than most," Gignomai said.

"What clinched it was an experiment I did," Furio went on, wondering why he was still talking. Maybe he just didn't want to hear the answer to his question. "I was pretty sure the snapping-hens you were making here were the big-bullet size, but then someone shot at Melo Fasenna with a small bullet. You wanted to make it look like your cousin Boulomai, because we know he's got one of the small-bullet guns."

He looked sideways at Gignomai, who seemed to be paying close attention. "Go on," Gignomai said.

"I did an experiment," Furio said. "I got a piece of old pipe and a round pebble, small enough that it just fell down inside the pipe without sticking. Then I wrapped cloth round the pebble and rammed it down the pipe. It stayed there, of course. That's how you shot a small bullet from a big-bullet gun. You wedged it with a bit of rag."

"Luso calls them patches," Gignomai said, his chin resting on his hand. "Of course, the bullet doesn't fly straight worth a d.a.m.n if you do that, but it gets there. I gather Scarpedino only missed by a hand's breadth. It'd have been b.l.o.o.d.y ironic if he'd hit Fasenna, since he was supposed to miss."

Furio waited, but Gignomai just carried on watching him, as though he was a performance Gig had paid to see. "So why are you doing it?" Furio asked. "There must be a reason, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I can guess what it is."

Gignomai smiled. Furio could only see half of it, because Gignomai's hand covered part of his face. "How about for the public good?"

"No."

"All right," Gignomai said, "though that's part of the reason. A very small part. I wouldn't want you to think I'm a selfish person, not that it matters particularly." He frowned, as though he'd lost the thread of what he was saying. "The reason," he said, "is quite simple. You know I had a sister?"

Furio nodded. "You used to talk about her," he said, "and then you never mentioned her again."

"That's right." Gignomai was looking over the top of his head, and he still wore the slight frown, which made him look as if he was surprised by his own words. "She died."

"I guessed it was something like that."

"My father killed her."

It was the way he said it, casually, with a vague hint of disapproval, as in, "My father wouldn't let me have a dog" or "My father sold my favourite pony." It didn't matter, but only because nothing mattered any more. "She was two years older than me. Luso caught her in the hayloft with one of his hired thugs-little more than a kid himself, about seventeen or so, a quiet lad, I remember him clearly. Anyway, Luso killed him on the spot, with his bare hands, and then he dragged my sister across the yard up to Father's study. I was in the apple tree at the time, hiding from Stheno because he wanted me to do some rotten job. I saw them cross the yard, Luso pulling on her hair and her screaming. I thought it was a game. Luso always did play rough, but we didn't mind because it was fun. She always screamed like that when they were playing."

Furio waited, unable to speak. Still the slight frown, and Furio began to understand what it meant: the tender probing of the wound, to see if it's still there.

"I think Luso realised pretty quick that he'd made a terrible mistake," Gignomai went on. "He told me once, if he'd had the faintest idea what Father was going to do, he'd have just killed the boy and buried him in the dungheap, and that'd have been the end of it. Soon as he got wind of what Father had in mind, he pleaded with him. Stheno too, to do him credit. But both of them..." He paused, and shrugged. "The trouble with my brothers," he said, "is they're both so weak. Soft as b.u.t.ter. All Stheno's interested in is keeping the farm going more or less as it is. Luso just wants to keep the peace and avoid embarra.s.sing scenes. He's the mediator in our family, you might say. If one of us falls out with one of the others, Luso tries to patch things up. Always defending me to Father, or jollying Father and Stheno along when they're having one of their sulking wars. No wonder he needs to go out burning down houses from time to time. It's his way of letting off steam, I suppose, after trying to be reasonable with all us unreasonable people. Anyway, I'm prepared to accept that he tried. At least, until it became clear that if he carried on trying, Father was going to get seriously angry with him. All Stheno did was have a shouting match, then he stormed off and didn't come home for a week. No b.l.o.o.d.y use at all. As for Mother, she pretended it wasn't happening. That's what she does. Most of the time, she acts like none of us really exist."

Furio felt the words forming in his mouth; he couldn't stop them. "What happened to your sister?"

Gignomai didn't answer for quite some time, and Furio thought he wasn't going to. But then he said, quite calmly, "We had an old woman with us, Spetta, who knew a bit of basic rough and ready medicine: she could set bones, strap up sprains, sew up wounds. I think she'd been Father's nurse. Anyhow, she always did what he told her. It wouldn't have occurred to her not to. He had a couple of the men bring down a big old chair from one of the barns. It was from Home, I think, originally. It was carved all over and ma.s.sive, with big thick arms. You could jump up and down on it in heavy boots and not break it. Father had Aurelio make up steel brackets to fix the legs to the floorboards in the dining hall, so it wouldn't move an inch. Then he got two of Luso's men to tie her down in the chair. They soaked rawhide strips and bound her arms to the arms of the chair and the legs to the legs, good and tight. When the rawhide dried out, of course, it shrank. She couldn't move, you'd have had to cut the straps with a knife. Then he got the old woman to sew my sister's lips together." Gignomai closed his eyes, just for a moment. When he opened them again, they were wide, bright and clear. "And there she stayed," he went on. "She couldn't move or talk, or eat, or drink. Father didn't say anything to us, but we knew it would have been more than our lives were worth even to notice she was there. Of course we thought he'd keep here there for a day or so and then cut her loose, and then it'd be over. So we went on as if nothing was happening, breakfast and lunch and dinner, with her sitting in a chair at the table. She stank to high heaven, but we couldn't notice that either; we'd sort of got out of the habit of looking in her direction, as though she was an embarra.s.sment. On the fourth day at breakfast, I noticed her eyes were closed and she didn't seem to be breathing. I told myself she was asleep. When I came back at lunchtime she'd gone, the chair, everything; just holes in the floorboards where the bracket-screws had been, and the next day someone had put down a rug. A while later, I found a few burnt bits of wood in the fire-pit at the back of the pigsties, where they used to burn rubbish. You could still just make out the carving on one bit. It was that chair. And that was that," Gignomai said. "And none of us ever said a word about it, not ever." Suddenly he grinned, like a skull covered in skin. "I do believe it was that, the not saying anything, that made my mind up. Otherwise, I'd just have bided my time and killed Father. It'd have been easy enough when he was asleep in his chair or from behind, reading in the library. But none of them said a word, it was as though she'd never existed, never been real." He paused, and looked down at his hands, as though checking they were still there. "Like what the savages believe," he said. "You can see why it gave me a jolt when the old man told us about it. I knew exactly what he was talking about. I think my brothers, my father and mother stopped believing in her when she died. The whole household disbelieved her away, and I was the only one who knew the truth, and they wouldn't have listened to me if I'd tried to tell them. Just like the old man, don't you think? I even started wondering if they might just possibly be right. What I mean is, suppose she never did exist, suppose she was like the imaginary friends kids make up: my imaginary sister. If I was the only one who remembered her, and everybody else believed she'd never been real..." He shook his head. "But then I talked to the old man, and he'd been through roughly the same thing, and I knew knew he was right and all the other savages were wrong. Which made me recognise it was possible. I could be the only witness, completely outnumbered, unanimous denial, and still be right." He shook himself like a wet dog, and went on, "So, anyway, I knew I couldn't stay there any more, not knowing the truth. At first I just wanted to get out. I stole the sword, a.s.suming it'd buy me a boat ride Home and that'd be fine. I thought, if I was in a different country where n.o.body else knew about what had happened but me, maybe I could stop thinking about it and it'd be fine. But then you had your accident, and Teucer was about to sew you back together, and suddenly I was back there again, in the dining hall, watching the needle sinking into the skin. I knew, not a shadow of doubt in my mind, that just distance on its own wasn't going to solve anything, which only left one course of action. Which I regret, because it'll make me just as bad as Father, but really, I don't see how I have any choice at all." he was right and all the other savages were wrong. Which made me recognise it was possible. I could be the only witness, completely outnumbered, unanimous denial, and still be right." He shook himself like a wet dog, and went on, "So, anyway, I knew I couldn't stay there any more, not knowing the truth. At first I just wanted to get out. I stole the sword, a.s.suming it'd buy me a boat ride Home and that'd be fine. I thought, if I was in a different country where n.o.body else knew about what had happened but me, maybe I could stop thinking about it and it'd be fine. But then you had your accident, and Teucer was about to sew you back together, and suddenly I was back there again, in the dining hall, watching the needle sinking into the skin. I knew, not a shadow of doubt in my mind, that just distance on its own wasn't going to solve anything, which only left one course of action. Which I regret, because it'll make me just as bad as Father, but really, I don't see how I have any choice at all."

Furio forced himself to look at him. It was painful, but he had to. "You want to kill your family."

"I want them dead," Gignomai replied. "I'm not fussed about striking the actual blows, that'd just be self-indulgence. I think of it more as a miserable sort of necessity. They've got to be got rid of, and I'm the only one who can make it happen. Also," he added, shaking a little, as though just released from confinement, "I don't see why I should give up my life just because of this. If I went back there one dark night and cut their throats while they slept-believe me, I've thought about it, planned it all out, route, timings, every last finicky detail-it'd all come back on me sooner or later, I'd never get away with it. If I wasn't strung up out of hand I'd have to explain, and, really, I'd rather not do that. And it'd still be murder, of course. I'm not prepared to be a martyr for justice. I stopped living when I was fourteen years old. When this is all over, I'd like to try living again. I mean, why the h.e.l.l shouldn't I? It wasn't my fault, I didn't start it."

He paused and drew a huge breath, as though he'd been running. Furio felt a pain in his hand, and realised his fist was clenched so tight he'd given himself cramp. "Gig," he said, "this is crazy. You've got to give it up before it gets completely out of hand."

"Really?" Gignomai was frowning at him, thinking, Furio, don't be tiresome. "What makes you say that?"

"It's ridiculous," Furio said. "You can't just sit there calmly contemplating murder. Your own family, for crying out loud."