Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,25

they were too late to spare Father's feelings. They came, not as an honorable acceptance of Father's offer, but rather as a consolation, the way a man might pet a loyal dog.

Father doesn't matter to them, thought Cristoforo. They meet in his house because they must keep their meeting secret, but he himself is nothing to them.

The meeting ended soon after; the decision was to go on the attack in two days. As soon as the gentlemen had left and Father closed the door, Mother sailed past Cristoforo and pushed herself into Father's face. "What do you mean, you fool? If anyone wants to harm the rightful Doge, they'll have to strike down Domenico Colombo first! -- what nonsense! When did you become a soldier? Where is your fine sword? How many duels have you fought? Or are you thinking this will be a brawl in a tavern, and you have only to knock together the heads of a couple of drunks, and the battle will be won? Do you care nothing for our children, that you plan to leave them fatherless?"

"A man has honor," said Father.

Cristoforo wondered, What is Father's honor, when his greatest friend despises the offer of his life?

"Your honor will have your children on the street in rags."

"My honor made me keeper of the Olivella Gate for four years. You liked living in our fine house then, didn't you?"

"That time is over," said Mother. "Blood will flow, and it will not be Adorno blood."

"Don't be too sure of that," said Father. He stormed upstairs. Mother burst into tears of rage and frustration. The argument was over.

But Cristoforo wasn't satisfied. He waited as Mother calmed herself by pulling the extra spools away from the table and putting the cloth back on it, so customers could look at it and so it would stay clean. When he judged he could speak without being screamed at, he said, "How do gentlemen learn to be gentlemen?"

She glared at him. "They're born that way," she said. "God made them gentlemen."

"But why can't we learn to talk the way they do?" Cristoforo asked. "I don't think it would be hard." Cristoforo imitated the refined voice of de Portobello, saying, "You were never one who punished a man for saying what he believed to be the truth."

Mother came to him and slapped him hard across the face. It stung, and even though Cristoforo had long since stopped crying when he was punished, the sheer surprise of it more than the sting made tears leap from his eyes.

"Don't ever let me hear you putting on airs like that again, Cristoforo!" she shouted. "Are you too good for your father? Do you think that honking like a goose will make you grow feathers?"

In his anger, Cristoforo shouted back at her. "My father is as good a man as any of them. Why shouldn't his son learn to be a gentleman?"

Ahnost she slapped him again, for having dared to answer her back. But then she caught herself, and actually heard what he had said. "Your father is as good as any of them," she said. "Better!"

Cristoforo gestured toward the fine fabrics spread across the table. "There is the cloth -- why can't Father dress like a gentleman? Why can't he speak the way they do, and dress like them, and then the Doge would honor him!"

"The Doge would laugh at him," said Mother. "And so would everyone else. And then if he kept on trying to act the gentleman, one of them would come along and put a rapier through your father's heart, for daring to be such an upstart."

"Why would they laugh at him, if they don't laugh at these other men for dressing and talking the way they do?"

"Because they really are gentlemen, and your father is not."

"But if it isn't their clothing and their language ... Is there something in their blood? They didn't look stronger than Father. They had weak arms, and most of them were fat."

"Father is stronger than they are, of course. But they carry swords."

"Then Father should buy a sword!"

"Who would sell a sword to a weaver!" said Mother, laughing. "And what would Father do with it? He has never wielded a sword in his life. He'd cut off his own fingers!"

"Not if he practiced," said Cristoforo. "Not if he learned."

"It isn't the sword that makes a man a gentleman," said Mother. "Gentlemen are born as the children of gentlemen, that's all. Your father's father wasn't a gentleman, and