Free The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker Page B

denouement in the House--left the City too emotionally exhausted to react with anything more than stunned acquiescence when the King's envoy arrived with the news that the peace proposals had been rejected and accordingly the Vesani Republic was now at war with Scleria.
    Under the circumstances, the new First Citizen would have been forgiven for not attending the House the next morning. But he was there, magnificent in purple and gold mourning robes that must have been designed, fitted and sewn in a matter of hours, to deliver a sombre but defiant reply to the King which most commentators place among his finest speeches. He said that in the three hundred years since the Republic had won its freedom, it had always gone out of its way to respect the King's interests; the citizens of the Republic regarded Scleria as a parent with whom they had had occasion to quarrel bitterly, but that they had always remembered where they came from and what had made them what they were: Sclerian justice and wisdom, Sclerian civilisation and institutions, the Sclerian dream of a better, fairer society; in a word, Sclerian freedom. If that love of freedom had withered in the mother country, it was the duty of its estranged but still loving offspring to remind her of what she had once been, and what she could be again.
    Basso left the House with a headache, brought on by the dreadful noise of shouting and cheering in the bell-like acoustic of the debating chamber. He hadn't touched a drop for a week but he felt like he had the worst hangover of his life: splitting head, raging indigestion, nausea and an appalling mental numbness, the feeling of being temporarily but intolerably stupid. He collapsed into his seat in the covered coach and scrabbled for the blinds, unable to cope with the sight of the solid, howling wall of his fellow citizens, yelling his name and scrabbling at him with their outstretched hands. His mind felt like porridge, and he tried in vain to remember what he'd just said to the Sclerians. Given the situation, he was fairly sure he hadn't made matters worse (that would be impossible), but he had no idea whether he'd just made a fool of himself in public or not. A hell of a way, he decided, to celebrate his fortieth birthday.
    Antigonus was waiting for him in the lobby. "Am I glad to see you," Basso said, stumbling on the threshold and barging the old man's shoulder. Then he saw the expression on Antigonus' face. "What?" he said. "Not something else, for God's sake."
    "Your sister's here," Antigonus said quietly.
    "Wonderful." Basso stuck out a hand and steadied himself against a pillar. "All right, I'd better see her. Can you...?"
    Antigonus nodded. "All being taken care of. The twins are in temple, your mother's in her room and doesn't want to see anybody, I'm meeting the Patriarch's office in an hour to discuss the funeral, followed by the Merchants' Benevolent board at noon and your cabinet at three, so you're clear till the inauguration rehearsal at six." He smiled. "Enjoy your day off," he said. "Tomorrow you'll wish you'd never been born."
    Basso nodded. "Thanks," he said.
    Antigonus did that nod-bow thing, half ironic, half sincere. "I live to serve, as we used to say in the slate quarries."
    Basso laughed. "When the hell were you ever in a slate quarry?"
    "Actually, I visited one once. Interesting, but you wouldn't want to work there. Go on," he said, "I'll take care of things."
    Basso pushed open the front door, then stopped. "Where's Bassano?" he asked.
    "Music lesson," Antigonus replied, "followed by double rhetoric, fencing and lunch. Routine is the best anaesthetic, in my opinion. Do you want to see him?"
    Basso nodded. "But later," he said, "after I've seen Lina. Good work," he added, "I'm obliged to you."
    "I know," Antigonus replied, and Basso walked through into the hall.
    He looked up at the middle gallery, still garlanded from the twins' reception, and thought, I feel like a stranger in my own house. That was