K Parker: Devices and Desires

Again Sphrantzes paused; this time, Ziani could feel anger in the silence, and it made the muscles of his stomach bunch together.

'The prisoner has claimed,' Sphrantzes went on, 'that the abomination was not intended for sale, or even to be taken outside his own house; that it was built as a present for his daughter, on her birthday. We can dispose of this plea very quickly. Surely it is self-evident that once an object leaves its maker's hands, it passes out of his control. At some point in the future, when she is a grown woman perhaps, his daughter might give it away or sell it. At her death, if she retained it till then, it would be sold as an asset of her estate. Or if the prisoner were to default on his taxes or subscriptions, the contents of his house would be seized and auctioned; or it might be stolen from his house by a thief. It takes very little imagination to envisage a score of ways in which the abomination might come to be sold, and its maker's intentions made clear by a cursory examination of its mechanism. The law is absolutely clear, and rightly so. There need be no intention to sell or dispose of an abomination. The mere act of creating it is enough. Members of the committee, in the light of the facts and having in mind the special circumstances of the case-the gross and aggravated nature of the deviation, the deliberate challenge to Specification, above all the prisoner's rank inside the Guild and the high level of trust placed in him, which he has betrayed-I cannot in all conscience call for any lesser penalty than the extreme sanction of the law. It grieves me more than I can say to call for the death of a fellow man, a fellow Guildsman, but I have no choice. Your verdict must be guilty, and your sentence death.' The nondescript little man bowed respectfully to the bench, gathered the tails of his gown and sat down on his stool behind his desk. Ziani noticed that his feet didn't quite reach the floor, and dangled backwards and forwards, like a small child in a classroom. Somehow, that seemed an appropriate touch. Even now, here in the Guildhall with everybody staring at him, he couldn't help believing that it all had to be some kind of elaborate tease, like the jokes played on apprentices (go and fetch the left-handed screwdriver); an initiation ritual, before he was allowed to eat his dinner at the charge-hands' table.

Also at the back of his mind was another question, one that buzzed and buzzed and wouldn't go away: how had they known what he'd done, where to find it, what to look for? As far as he could remember (and he'd thought of little else the past month, in the darkness of his cell) he hadn't mentioned it to anybody, anybody at all. But the investigator had gone straight to his bench, to the box under it where he kept the finished bits of Moritsa's doll; he'd had his callipers and gauges ready, to take the necessary measurements. Ziani hadn't said a word about it at work-even he wasn't that stupid-or mentioned it to his friends or his family. Nobody had known; but here he was. It'd be annoying to die with a loose end like that not tidied away. Perhaps they'd tell him, before it was over.

The committee had stopped whispering; it hadn't taken them long to make up their minds. Ziani didn't know the man who stood up, but that was hardly surprising. Even the foreman of the ordnance factory didn't get to meet the great men of the Guild. The guard caught hold of Ziani's arm and pulled him to his feet. He couldn't look at the great man.

'Ziani Vaatzes,' he heard him say, 'this tribunal finds you guilty of abomination. In light of the gravity of your offence, we hereby sentence you to be strangled with the bowstring, and we decree that your head shall be displayed above the gates of the department of ordnance for thirty days, as a warning to others. These proceedings are concluded.'

As they led him back to the cells, he sensed something unusual in the way they reacted to him. It wasn't fear, but they were keeping their distance, touching him as little as possible. Disgust, maybe; but if that was what they were feeling, they hid it well. They'd been overtly hostile toward him before the trial, when they brought him his food and water. There wasn't any of that now. Compassion, possibly? No, definitely not.

He'd had his three guesses, it was annoying him, and a condemned man doesn't have to worry about getting into trouble if he annoys his warders. He stopped.

'Look,' he said. 'What is it? Have I just grown an extra head?'

They looked at each other. They weren't sure what to do. The older man, a northshoreman by the name of Bollo Curiopalates, who'd made a habit of accidentally-on-purpose kicking Ziani on the shins when he brought him his evening meal, pulled a wry face and shrugged.

'No offence, right?' he said. 'Just, we never met one of your lot before.'

'My lot?'

'Abominators.' Bollo shrugged. 'It's not like murderers and thieves,' he went on, 'it's different. Can't understand it, really; what'd make someone do a thing like that.'

Curiosity, then; and the diffidence that goes with it, when you're staring at someone and they stare back. He could try and explain, but what would be the point? A man with a cause, now, a true abominator, would seize this chance of converting one last disciple, possibly lighting a candle that would never go out. Ziani had no cause, so he said, 'Evil.'

The warders looked startled. 'You what?'

'Evil,' Ziani replied, as blandly as he could. 'I was in the market one day, years ago now, and there was this man selling lamps. They were cheap and I needed one, so I bought one. Got it home, unscrewed the cap to fill it up with oil, and this thing came out of it. Like a puff of white smoke, it was. Well, I must've passed out, because the next thing I remember was waking up, and it was pitch dark outside the window; and ever since then I get these terrible uncontrollable urges to do really bad, wicked things. Absolutely nothing I can do about it, can't control it, just have to go with the flow. And look where I've ended up.' He sighed. 'My life ruined, just like that. Only goes to show, you can't be too careful.'

The warders looked at him for rather a long time; then Bollo said, 'All right, move along,' in a soft, strained voice. At the cell door, he said, 'That was all just a joke, right? You were just being funny.'

Ziani frowned. 'Don't be stupid,' he said. 'I'm going to die in an hour or so, why the hell would I lie about a thing like that?'

They closed the door on him, and he sat down on the floor. It had been a valid question: what on earth had possessed him to do such a reckless, stupid thing? Unfortunately, he couldn't think of an answer, and he'd been searching for one ever since they arrested him. If they bothered marking the graves of abominators, his headstone would have to read:

Wonderful epitaph for a wasted life.

In an hour or so, it wouldn't matter any more. He'd be out of it; the story would go on, but he wouldn't be in it any more. He'd be a sad memory in the minds of those who loved him, a wound for time to heal, and of course they'd never mention him to strangers, rarely to each other. A new man would take his place at work, and it'd be pretty uncomfortable there for a week or so until he'd settled in and there was no longer any need for his replacement to ask how the other bloke had done this or that, or where he kept his day-books, or what this funny little shorthand squiggle was supposed to mean. The world would get over him, the way we get over our first ever broken heart, or a bad stomach upset. Somehow, the idea didn't scare him or fill him with rage. It would probably be worse to be remembered and mourned for a long time. There'd be sympathy and condolences, tearing the wound open every time it started to scab over. That was always Ziani's chair; do you remember the time Ziani got his sleeve caught in the lathe chuck; Ziani lent this to me and I never had a chance to give it back.