Padway said: "Watch Dalmatia and Sicily. Before the end of the year—" He stopped.
"Doing a bit of soothsaying?"
"No, just an opinion."
The good eye sparkled at Padway through the steam, very black and very intelligent. "Martinus, just who are you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, there's something about you—I don't know how to put it—not just your funny way of putting things. You produce the most astonishing bits of knowledge, like a magician pulling rabbits out of his cap. And when I try to pump you about your own country or how you came hither, you change the subject."
"Well—" said Padway, wondering just how big a lie to risk. Then he thought of the perfect answer—a truthful one that Thomasus would be sure to misconstrue. "You see, I left my own country in a great hurry."
"Oh. For reasons of health, eh? I don't blame you for being cagy in that case." Thomasus winked.
When they were walking up Long Street toward Padway's house, Thomasus asked how the business was. Padway told him: "Pretty good. The new still will be ready next week. And I sold some copper strip to a merchant leaving for Spain. Right now I'm waiting for the murder."
"The murder?"
"Yes, Fritharik and Hannibal Scipio didn't get along. Hannibal's been cockier than ever since he's had a couple of men under him. He rides Fritharik."
"Rides him?"
"American vernacular, literally translated. Meaning that he subjects him to constant and subtle ridicule and insult. By the way, I'm going to pay off your loan when we get home."
"Entirely?"
"That's right. The money's in the strong box waiting for you."
"Splendid, my dear Martinus! But won't you need another?"
"I'm not sure," said Padway, who was sure that he would. "I was thinking of expanding my distillery."
"That's a great idea. Of course now that you're established we'll put our loans on a business basis—"
"Meaning?" said Padway.
"Meaning that the rate of interest will have to be adjusted. The normal rate, you know, is much higher—"
"Ha, ha," said Padway. "That's what I thought you had in mind. But now that you know the business is a sure one, you can afford to give me a lower rate."
"Ai, Martinus, that's absurd! Is that any way to treat me after all I've done for you?"
"You don't have to lend it if you don't want to. There are other bankers who'd be glad to learn American arithmetic—"
"Listen to him, God! It's robbery! It's extortion! I'll never give in! Go to your other bankers, see if I care!"
Three blocks of argument brought the interest rate down to ten per cent, which Thomasus said was cutting his own heart out and burning it on the altar of friendship.
When Padway had spoken of an impending murder, he had neither been passing off hindsight as foresight, nor trying to be literally prophetic. He was more astonished than Thomasus, when they entered his big workshop, to find Fritharik and Hannibal glaring like a couple of dogs who dislike each other's smell. Hannibal's two assistants were looking on with their backs to the door; thus nobody saw the newcomers.
Hannibal snarled: "What do you mean, you big cottonhead? You lie around all day, too lazy to turn over, and then you dare criticize me—"
"All I said," growled the Vandal in his clumsy, deliberate Latin, "was that the next time I caught you, I'd report it. Well I did, and I'm going to."
"I'll slit your lousy throat if you do!" yelled Hannibal. Fritharik cast a short but pungent aspersion on the Sicilian's sex life. Hannibal whipped out a dagger and lunged at Fritharik. He moved with rattlesnake speed, but he used the instinctive but tactically unsound overhand stab. Fritharik, who was unarmed, caught his wrist with a smack of flesh on flesh, then lost it as Hannibal dug his point into the Vandal's forearm.
When Hannibal swung his arm up for another stab, Padway arrived and caught his arm. He hauled the little man away from his opponent, and immediately had to hang on for dear life to keep from being stabbed himself. Hannibal was shrieking in Sicilian patois and foaming a little at the mouth. Padway saw that he wanted to kill him. He jerked his face back as the dirty fingernails of Hannibal's left hand raked his nose, which was a target hard to miss.
Then there was a thump, and Hannibal collapsed, dropping his dagger. Padway let him slide to the floor, and saw that Nerva, the older of the two assistants, was holding a stool by one leg. It had all happened so quickly that Fritharik was just bending over to pick up a short piece of board for a weapon, and Thomasus and Carbo, the other workman, were still standing just inside the door.
Padway said to Nerva: "I think you're the man for my next foreman. What's this about, Fritharik?"
Fritharik didn't answer, he stalked toward the unconscious Hannibal with plain and fancy murder in his face.
"That's enough, Fritharik!" said Padway sharply. "No more rough stuff, or you're fired, too!" He planted himself in front of the intended victim. "What was he doing?"
The Vandal came to himself. "He was stealing bits of copper from stock and selling them. I tried to get him to stop without telling you; you know how it is if your fellow employees think you're spying on them. Please, boss, let me have one whack at him. I may be a poor exile, but no little Greek catamite—" Padway refused permission. Thomasus suggested swearing out a complaint and having Hannibal arrested; Padway said no, he didn't want to get mixed up with the law. He did allow Fritharik to send Hannibal, when the Sicilian came to, out the front door with a mighty lack in the fundament. Exit villain, sneering, thought Padway as he watched the ex-foreman slink off.
Fritharik said: "I think that was a mistake, Martinus. I could have sunk his body in the Tiber without anybody's knowing. He'll make trouble for us."
Padway suspected that the last statement was correct. But he merely said: "We'd better bind your arm up. Your whole sleeve is blood-soaked. Julia, get a strip of linen and boil it. Yes, boil it!"
CHAPTER IV
Padway had resolved not to let anything distract him from the task of assuring himself a livelihood. Until that was accomplished, he didn't intend to stick his neck out by springing gunpowder or the law of gravitation on the unsuspecting Romans.
But the banker's war talk reminded him that he was, after all, living in a political and cultural as well as an economic world. He had never, in his other life, paid more attention to current events than he had to. And in post-Imperial Rome, with no newspapers or electrical communication, it was even easier to forget about things outside one's immediate orbit.
He was living in the twilight of western classical civilization. The Age of Faith, better known as the Dark Ages, was closing down. Europe would be in darkness, from a scientific and technological aspect, for nearly a thousand years. That aspect was, to Padway's naturally prejudiced mind, the most, if not the only, important aspect of a civilization. Of course, the people among whom he was living had no conception of what was happening to them. The process was too slow to observe directly, even over the span of a life-time. They took their environment for granted, and even bragged about their modernity.
So what? Could one man change the course of history to the extent of preventing this interregnum? One man had changed the course of history before. Maybe. A Carlylean would say yes. A Tolstoyan or Marxian would say no; the environment fixes the pattern of a man's accomplishments and throws up the man to fit that pattern. Tancredi had expressed it differently by calling history a tough web, which would take a huge effort to distort.