The blood of an innocent man has been sacrificed to the lusts of our vile monster of a city governor, Count Honorius.
Reliable sources have revealed that Q. Aurelius Galba, crucified on a charge of murder last week, was the husband of a wife who had long been adulterously coveted by our villainous count. At Galba's trial there was much comment among the spectators on the flimsiness of the evidence . . .
"Hey!" said Padway. "Aren't you the man who handed in that other story about Honorius and a cleaver?"
"That's right," said the scribe. "I wondered why you didn't publish it."
"How long do you think I'd be allowed to run my paper without interference if I did?"
"Oh, I never thought of that."
"Well, remember next time. I can't use this story either. But don't let it discourage you. It's well done; a lead sentence and everything. How do you get all this information?"
The man grinned. "I hear things. And what I don't hear, my wife does. She has women friends who get together for games of backgammon, and they talk."
"It's too bad I don't dare run a gossip column," said Padway. "But you would seem to have the makings of a newspaper man. What's your name?"
"George Menandrus."
"That's Greek, isn't it?"
"My parents were Greek; I am Roman."
"All right, George, keep in touch with me. Some day I may want to hire an assistant to help run the thing."
Padway confidently visited the tanner to place another order for vellum.
"When will you want it?" said the tanner. Padway told him in four days.
"That's impossible. I might have fifty sheets for you in that time. They'll cost you five times as much apiece as the first ones."
Padway gasped. "In God's name, why?"
"You practically cleaned out Rome's supply with that first order," said the tanner. "All of our stock, and all the rest that was floating around, which I went out and bought up for you. There aren't enough skins left in the whole city to make a hundred sheets. And making vellum takes time, you know. If you buy up the last fifty sheets, it will be weeks before you can prepare another large batch."
Padway asked: "If you expanded your plant, do you suppose you could eventually get up to a capacity of two thousand a week?"
The tanner shook his head. "I should not want to spend the money to expand in such a risky business. And, if I did, there wouldn't be enough animals in Central Italy to supply such a demand."
Padway recognized when he was licked. Vellum was essentially a by-produce of the sheep-and-goat industry. Therefore a sudden increase in demand would skyrocket the price without much increasing the output. Though the Romans knew next to nothing of economics, the law of supply and demand worked here just the same.
It would have to be paper after all. And his second edition was going to be very, very late.
For paper, he got hold of a felter and told him that he wanted him to chop up a few pounds of white cloth and make them into the thinnest felt that anybody had ever heard of. The felter dutifully produced a sheet of what looked like exceptionally thick and fuzzy blotting paper. Padway patiently insisted on finer breaking up of the cloth, on a brief boiling before felting, and on pressing after. As he went out of the shop he saw the felter tap his forehead significantly. But after many trials the man presented him with a paper not much worse for writing than a twentieth-century paper towel.
Then came the heartbreaking part. A drop of ink applied to this paper spread out with the alacrity of a picnic party that has discovered a rattlesnake in their midst. So Padway told the felter to make up ten more sheets, and into the mush from which each was made to introduce one common substance—soap, olive oil, and so forth. At this point the felter threatened to quit, and had to be appeased by a raise in price. Padway was vastly relieved to discover that a little clay mixed with the pulp made all the difference between a fair writing paper and an impossible one.
By the time Padway's second issue had been sold out, he had ceased to worry about the possibility of running a paper. But another thought moved into the vacated worrying compartment in his mind: What should he do when the Gothic War really got going? In his own history it had raged for twenty years up and down Italy. Nearly every important town had been besieged or captured at least once. Rome itself would be practically depopulated by sieges, famine, and pestilence. If he lived long enough he might see the Lombard invasion and the near-extinction of Italian civilization. All this would interfere dreadfully with his plans.
He tried to shake off the mood. Probably the weather was responsible; it had rained steadily for two days. Everything in the house was dank. The only way to cure that would be to build a fire, and the air was too warm for that already. So Padway sat and looked out at the leaden landscape.
He was surprised when Fritharik brought in Thomasus' colleague, Ebenezer the Jew. Ebenezer was a frail-looking, kindly oldster with a long white beard. Padway found him distressingly pious; when he ate with the other bankers he did not eat at all, to put it Irishly, for fear of transgressing one of the innumerable rules of his sect.
Ebenezer took his cloak off over his head and asked: "Where can I put this where it won't drip, excellent Martinus? Ah. Thank you. I was this way on business, and I thought I'd look your place over, if I may. It must be interesting, from Thomasus' accounts." He wrung the water from his beard.
Padway was glad of something to take his mind off the ominous future. He showed the old man around.
Ebenezer looked at him from under bushy white eyebrows.
"Ah. Now I can believe that you are from a far country. From another world, almost. Take that system of arithmetic of yours; it has changed our whole concept of hanking—"
"What?" cried Padway. "What do you know about it?"
"Why," said Ebenezer, "Thomasus sold the secret to Vardan and me. I thought you knew that."
"He did? How much?"
"A hundred and fifty solidi apiece. Didn't you—"
Padway growled a resounding Latin oath, grabbed his hat and cloak, and started for the door.
"Where are you going, Martinus?" said Ebenezer in alarm.
"I'm going to tell that cutthroat what I think of him!" snapped Padway. "And then I'm going to—"
"Did Thomasus promise you not to reveal the secret? I cannot believe that he violated—"
Padway stopped with his hand on the door handle. Now that he thought, the Syrian had never agreed not to tell anybody about Arabic numerals. Padway had taken it for granted that he would not want to do so. But if Thomasus got pressed for ready cash, there was no legal impediment to his selling or giving the knowledge to whom he pleased.
As Padway got his anger under control, he saw that he had not really lost anything, since his original intention had been to spread Arabic numerals far and wide. What really peeved him was that Thomasus should chisel such a handsome sum out of the science without even offering Padway a cut. It was like Thomasus. He was all right, but as Nevitta had said you had to watch him.
When Padway did appear at Thomasus' house, later that day, he had Fritharik with him. Fritharik was carrying a strong box. The box was nicely heavy with gold.
"Martinus," cried Thomasus, a little appalled, "do you really want to pay off all your loans? Where did you get all this money?"
"You heard me," grinned Padway. "Here's an accounting of principal and interest. I'm tired of paying ten per cent when I can get the same for seven and a half."
"What? Where can you get any such absurd rate?"
"From your esteemed colleague, Ebenezer. Here's a copy of the new note."
"Well, I must say I wouldn't have expected that of Ebenezer. If all this is true, I suppose I could meet his rate."