Part 21 (2/2)

He turned round slowly and smiled at her. ”First, don't be too sure about that, not till you've known my family for as long as I have. Second, I have no desire to force Luso to stand up to my father for the first time in his worthless life. Not over this. Besides, it's a bit late now for him to grow a backbone. He wouldn't have a clue what to do with it.”

Before his brother died and left him the store, Marzo had done many things, all of them miserable, none of them for very long. He'd cut and stacked wood for the charcoal-burners, when there was still wood to cut; he'd loaded and unloaded lumber at the sawmill (he was too cack-handed to be allowed to work the saw); he'd been a striker at the forge, until he nearly smashed the smith's hand to pulp; he'd carted stone for the wall builders, and been a fieldhand in the busy season, when any clumsy idiot could find work. Many times, more often than he cared to remember, he'd been exhausted, to the point where breathing was an effort he could hardly justify. But he'd never been as tired as he felt after two hours with the Heddos, the Adrescos and the Sagrennas.

It was, he decided, a bit like trying to bale out water with a sieve. He'd tried to be positive. He'd suggested compromises. He'd asked them all to be practical. As a result, at one point, Silo Adresco pulled a knife on Desio Heddo (it was a very small knife, and Desio just laughed) and Nelo Sagrenna had threatened to burn the Heddos in their house. He'd only managed to get rid of them by promising to demand compensation for all their grievances from the met'Oc.

He pushed back his chair and stared resentfully at the bottle on the table in front of him. It wouldn't solve anything, he knew perfectly well, but that didn't stop it making alluring promises. After a short, depressing battle he gave in and poured himself a ma.s.sive drink.

He was just savouring the burn when Furio came in, saw the bottle and didn't say anything in the most reproachful manner possible. ”Did it go well?” Furio asked.

”Guess.”

Furio sat down. ”So what are you going to do?”

Marzo closed his eyes. ”What I said I'd do,” he replied. ”I'm going to see Luso met'Oc and demand full compensation.”

”Compensation? What for?”

Marzo shrugged. ”Like it matters. Luso'll just laugh at me. Not to my face, though, because he's a gentleman. But that's all right. I'll have done what I said I'll do, and then they'll all know I'm useless and maybe they'll leave me alone.”

”Which is all you want.”

”Which is all I want.” Marzo looked at the bottle, then turned his head away. ”You know anything about snapping-hen pistols?”

”No. Why should I?”

”Thought your pal Gignomai might've told you something. Doesn't matter.”

Furio leaned forward a little. ”I saw Gig firing one,” he said. ”He took a shot at a tree stump, at five yards. He missed.”

Marzo laughed. ”That might explain why he gave me the b.l.o.o.d.y thing,” he said.

”What do you want to know?”

Wearily, Marzo explained about the bullet from Heddo's wall weighing the same as the bullets Gignomai had given him. ”Which means it's pretty certain Luso shot that hole in the Heddos' door,” he said. ”Which means, if you want to look at it that way, he caused all this aggravation, so really he should be the one to sort it all out.”

”Did you tell them about it?”

”G.o.d, no,” Marzo replied. ”You don't want to go telling things to people like that, it only gives them ideas. b.l.o.o.d.y Silo Adresco was on at me about a night attack on the Tabletop. Thought we could all scramble up there in the dark with muckforks and murder them all in their beds.”

Furio raised an eyebrow. ”Silo? He's the little short one, isn't he? Stuck a fork through his own foot once, walks with a limp.”

”Quite,” Marzo said. ”I got the impression he wasn't actually planning on doing much fighting and killing himself. Not sure who he thought was going to do it. Just goes to show, though. You can know someone for years, and they'll still surprise you.”

”I expect he was just making a noise,” Furio said. ”It's easy to suggest something like that when you know it's not going to happen.”

Marzo drove the donkey cart to the Tabletop, but the guards wouldn't let him through. Lusomai was busy, they said, wouldn't be free all day. Marzo could try coming back the next day, but they couldn't say whether he'd be available or not. They undertook to deliver a message, but they didn't seem to be paying much attention when he told them what he wanted them to say.

”Leave it a day or so,” Furio urged him. ”Don't come across as too eager, or he'll think you're scared or worried about something. He's probably just playing games with you.”

”I'd go back tomorrow if I were you,” Teucer interrupted, though her opinion hadn't been asked for. ”When he gets your message he'll be expecting you.”

Marzo sighed. ”Does it ever occur to anybody that I've got other things to do with my time besides running backwards and forwards playing diplomacy? I'm a shopkeeper, d.a.m.n it. If they want me to be lord high emissary, then someone had better start paying me for loss of earnings.”

”I can look after the store,” Teucer said. ”Especially if you go in the afternoon, when it's quiet.”

Marzo didn't go the next day, or the day after that. In the early hours of the morning of the third day, Silo Adresco's pedigree boar was shot dead in its sty.

”The really spiteful thing,” someone was saying in the store later that morning, ”was killing it in the middle of the night, so by the time Silo came down and found it, the meat was all spoiled because the blood wasn't drained in time. Useless. Had to bury it under the s.h.i.+t heap. That's what I call a really nasty thing to do.”

It occurred to Furio, who was serving at the time, that there might have been other reasons for staging the attack in the small hours, more to do with getting away unchallenged than delicate refinements of malice, but he kept his reflections to himself. After all, if Lusomai met'Oc was responsible (as everybody seemed to be a.s.suming), it didn't necessarily follow that getting in and out unseen would be a priority. In the past, Luso had attacked openly, and hadn't seemed to give a d.a.m.n who saw him.

”Maybe someone's stolen Luso's gun,” he suggested. ”One of his gang who's got a grudge against the Heddos, perhaps.”

Marzo shook his head. ”Don't complicate matters, for crying out loud,” he said. ”Look, it really doesn't matter whose finger was on the trigger. It was someone who lives on the Tabletop, therefore it's Luso's responsibility. That's all that matters.”

”I told you,” Teucer said blithely, as she folded clean linen. ”You should've gone back the next day. For all you know, he could be punis.h.i.+ng you for not going back when you said you would.”

Marzo and Furio shared a look. ”Sneaking about at night isn't Luso's style,” Marzo said. ”And I can't believe that one of his men would go and do something like this, using Luso's precious gun, without express orders. More than his life'd be worth.”

Furio's eyes widened slightly. ”You're thinking it could have been the met'Ousas.”

”What I'm trying really hard to do is not think about it at all,” Marzo replied. ”But you don't know, do you? How far are they under Luso's control? I mean, they're guests. There's all sorts of complicated rules of honour and stuff like that. But if they're really mad about what happened, who knows what they'd do?”

”Hold on, though,” Furio said. ”You reckon the thing about the bullet weights proves it was Luso's gun.”

”Unless Boulomai's gun shoots the same size ball, which is entirely possible. Or maybe Boulomai's gun doesn't actually work, so he used Luso's, with or without his knowledge and consent.” Marzo spread both hands wide, a gesture he'd picked up from Furio's father. ”It's one of those things where the more you think about it, the harder it gets. Which would be fine,” he went on, letting his hands drop into his lap, ”if I wasn't mixed up in it. I mean, it'd be fine entertainment and good honest fun, sitting here talking over all the possibilities, which I bet everybody else in the colony's doing right now. Difference is, I'm supposed to do something about it.”

Furio grinned weakly. ”Serves you right for standing for high public office.”

”What we should really do is have proper elections,” Teucer said. ”Have a proper mayor, with clearly defined powers and responsibilities. It's times like these when you realise how important these things can be.”

”What bites me,” Marzo said, after they'd both ignored her for an appropriate length of time, ”is how Luso went banging on about being practical and keeping the peace. And the next thing is, he's running around the place making trouble. Really, I thought he meant all that stuff he said. I mean, I'm not saying I liked the man-he's arrogant and vicious and he makes you feel like a chess piece. But I thought that when he said what matters is keeping a lid on things and not letting them get out of hand, he actually meant it. I thought we could figure out a way of living next to these people without anybody getting seriously hurt.”

”It doesn't sound like Luso to me,” Furio said. ”If he was going to make trouble, it'd be big. Killing a pig is the sort of thing we'd do.”

The next morning was cold and crisp, the first frost of the year. Furio hadn't slept well, and he was glad to have an excuse to get out of bed before daybreak: it was his turn to see to the horses. He was in the yard breaking the ice on the water barrel when he heard hooves clattering on the flagstones outside. He walked to the gate and put his head round the corner to see who it was.

He saw two huge men, the biggest he'd ever seen in his life. Their faces were m.u.f.fled in scarves, but their sheer bulk told him who they were. He ducked back round the corner and sprinted for the back door.

Much to his surprise, he found Marzo awake and pottering in the kitchen, trying to light the fire. ”Luso met'Oc's outside,” he said, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

Marzo was slightly deaf in one ear. ”You what?”

”Luso met'Oc,” Furio repeated, dropping the whisper. ”Outside. And I think...”

Marzo didn't wait for the rest of the sentence. He dropped the tinderbox he'd been fumbling with (Marzo never had any luck with fires), swung round with an agonised look on his face, located his slippers and stuffed his bare feet into them. ”Where's my f.u.c.king coat?” he wailed.

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