“Our mother was Jansee, Rayal’s sister and lead wife.”
Teray froze, a forkful of steak halfway to his mouth. He put down the fork and looked at Coransee. “So that’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“If I was, you would have died last night.”
Teray turned his attention back to his food, not wanting to be reminded of his defeat. The informality of the scene suddenly seemed incongruous to him. He had expected to stand before Coransee’s desk like an errant schoolboy and listen to the Housemaster’s sarcasm. Yet here he was having breakfast with Coransee. And not once had he called the Housemaster “Lord.” Nor would he, Teray decided. He might as well find out now just how far he could go. What could Coransee possibly want?
“As it is,” said Coransee, “we both might live. It would be best if we did, now that our father is dying.”
“Dying? Now?”
“He’s been cheating death for twenty years,” said Coransee. “Even at the school, you must have learned that.”
“That he has the Clayark disease, yes. But I thought you meant he was really about to die from it.”
“He is.”
Teray ate silently, refusing to ask more questions.
“He’s let me know that he can last perhaps a year longer,” said Coransee. He lowered his voice slightly. “Do you want the Pattern, brother?”
“You’re asking me if I want you to kill me.”
“I mean to succeed Rayal.”
“I can see that.”
“So you’re right. If you contest, I will have to kill you.”
“Others will contest. You won’t just step into Rayal’s place.”
“I’ll worry about them when they reveal themselves. Now, you are my only concern.”
Teray said nothing for a long moment. He had never really thought that he had a chance to succeed Rayal. The Patternmaster simply had too many children, a number of them not only older but, like Coransee, already Masters of their own Houses. Clearly, though, Coransee thought Teray had a chance—and was now demanding that he give up that chance. Teray had no doubt that Coransee could and would kill him if he refused. If the Housemaster was not actually stronger—and that was still in doubt—he was more versatile, more experienced. And if it was possible for Teray to live the kind of life he had planned for himself without fighting, he would rather not challenge his brother again.
“I won’t contest,” he said quietly. The words were surprisingly difficult to say. To be Master of the Pattern, to hold such power …
“I let you live thinking that you wouldn’t.” Coransee looked across at him calculatingly. “Shall I accept you as my apprentice?”
Teray tried to conceal his sudden excitement. He met Coransee’s eyes with simulated calm. Was it going to be this easy? “I would willingly become your apprentice.”
Coransee nodded. “What I’m trying to do,” he said, “is use you to avoid making the mistake our father made.”
“Mistake?”
“When our mother allied herself with him, he let her live. He wanted someone as powerful, or nearly as powerful, as he was to be ready to take the Pattern if anything happened to him. Someone he could trust not to try to snatch it away from him ahead of time. But he kept Jansee with him. Made her his wife instead of permitting her to set up a House of her own in some other sector. That meant that when trouble came to him, she was vulnerable to it too. And as it happened, it killed her instead of leaving her to take over for him.
“Now, to prevent that from happening again, I want to leave you here at Redhill. When the time comes, I’ll have to move to Forsyth, to the House of the Patternmaster.”
Teray frowned, not daring to understand what Coransee seemed to be saying. “Brother …?”
“You’ve understood me, I see. When the Pattern is mine, this House will be yours. I’ll take from it only the closest of my wives, and a few outsiders. The rest I will leave to you.”
Teray shook his head, fearing to believe. It was too much, and far too easy. “You offer me all this at no cost? You give it to me?”
“What price could you pay me?”
“None. You’re right. I have nothing.”
“Then you have nothing to lose.” He paused. “I do ask something. But it’s not what you would call a price.”
Teray looked at him with sudden suspicion, but Coransee went on without seeming to notice.
“It’s more like a guarantee. Brother, I have to know that when you’re older and more experienced you won’t decide that you gave up the Pattern too easily. I have to be certain that you’ll be content as a Housemaster and not decide to try for Patternmaster.”
“I’ve said it,” said Teray. “I’ll open to you, let you see for yourself that I mean it.”
“I already know you mean it. I know you aren’t lying to me. But a man can change. What you believe now might not be worth anything five or ten years from now.”
“But you’d hold the Pattern by then. You could stop me from any attempt to usurp …”
“Perhaps I could—and perhaps not. But I’m not about to wait and find out the hard way.”
Teray knew the price now. He found himself thinking of Joachim. Controlled. But he recalled Joachim’s words. Coransee needed the cooperation of his victim if he was to plant his controls, he could not do it unless Teray let him.
“I want you alive for the sake of the people,” said Coransee. “We’ve got Clayarks chewing at the borders of every sector from the desert to the northern islands. They know Rayal has been too much concerned with keeping himself alive to give proper attention to raiders. When he finally gives up the power and dies, I mean for the people to have security again. But I won’t permit you to be a threat to my security.”
“I’m not a threat,” said Teray stubbornly.
“You know what assurance I want, brother. Your words aren’t worth anything to me.”
“You’re asking me to step from physical slavery into mental slavery!”
“I’m offering you everything you claim to want. Are you getting ambitious already? My controls would do nothing other than make certain you kept your word.”
“Joachim told me how you use your controls.”
“Joachim!” Coransee did not bother to hide his contempt. “Believe me, brother, Joachim needs the controls I keep on him. Without them, he would never have succeeded in taking a House of his own.”
“How could he, as your outsider?”
“He became my outsider through his own bad judgment. Just as he accepted you for apprenticeship through bad judgment.”
“You mean because he wasn’t as suspicious of me as you are? Because he believed me when I let him see that I wasn’t after his House?”
“Teray, the moment he realized that you are stronger than he is—you are, by the way, and he knew it—he should have dropped you. That’s common sense. When you’re Master of your own House, see how you feel about accepting an underling who just might learn enough from you to snatch your House away.”
“Did you help Joachim win his House from its previous Master?”
“Indirectly. I gave him some special training.”
“But why? And why keep control of him?”
Coransee gave him a long, calculating look. “Sector politics,” he said finally. “I wanted to be certain of a majority vote on the Redhill Council of Masters. Joachim’s predecessor opposed me very loudly, very stupidly.”
The warning was unmistakable. Teray sighed. “I don’t oppose you,” he said. “How can I? But I can’t pay your price either. I can’t bargain away my mental freedom, sentence myself to a lifetime of mental slavery.”
“How free do you think you are now?”
“Free at least to think what I want to.”
“I see. Well, since you put so much stock in promises, I’d be willing to give you my word that I won’t interfere with your thinking except to stop you from usurping power
.”
Teray glared at him.
After a moment, Coransee laughed aloud. “I see you’re less naive than you pretend to be. Thank heavens for that. But listen, brother, noble lies aside, just how much control over you do you think I want? You’d live your everyday life as free mentally as you are now. Why not? I haven’t the time nor the inclination to meddle into the petty details of someone else’s life. The only thing you won’t be free to do is oppose me. All my controls would do is put you at the same level as everyone else, once I’m Patternmaster. You’ll be different only in that your strength makes it necessary for me to have an extra hold on you—a hold beyond the Pattern. You have no more reason to object to my controls than you have to object to your link with the Pattern.”
“The Pattern is different. It doesn’t control anyone’s thinking.” Teray drew a deep breath and said bluntly, “Even if I thought I could trust you—even if you were Joachim, whom I did trust—I couldn’t accept the leash, the brand that you want to put on me.”
“Not even to save your life?” Coransee’s voice remained quiet, conversational.
Teray opened his mouth to give him a defiant “No!” but somehow it was not that easy to say the word that could condemn him. He closed his mouth and stared down at his plate. Finally he found his voice. “I can’t.” The two words were so shamefully much weaker than the one would have been that he felt compelled to say more, to redeem himself. “What’s the point of buying my life with the one thing I still have that makes it worth living? Go ahead and kill me.”
Coransee leaned back and shook his head. “I wish I had read you less correctly, brother. I thought that was what you would say. I will give you as much time as our father has left to change your mind.”
Again Teray betrayed himself. He wanted to insist, as he believed, that he would never change his mind. But that would be like asking to be struck down now. He said nothing.
“I can only accept you as an apprentice on my terms,” said Coransee. “Until you accept those terms, you remain an outsider, subject to all the outsider restrictions and observing all the formalities.” He paused. “You understand.”
“I … yes, Lord.” As long as he was still alive, he had a chance. Or did he think that only because he wanted so badly to live? No, there was a chance. One could escape physical slavery. The physical leash was not as far-reaching or as permanent as the mental leash.
“As for your work,” Coransee said, “one of my muteherds is due a promotion. He’s in charge of the mutes who maintain the House and grounds. You will replace him.”
“A muteherd?” Teray could not keep his dismay out of his voice. Caring for mutes was not only the job of an outsider, but, for the sake of the mutes, a weak outsider.
“That’s right,” said Coransee. “And you start today. Jackman, the man you’re replacing, is waiting for you now.”
“But, Lord, mutes …”
“Mutes! Damage them with your strength, and when you recover from the beating I’ll surely give you, you’ll find yourself herding cattle.”
Jackman waited just outside the door to Coransee’s private quarters. He was a tall, bony man with straw-colored hair and mental strength so slight that he could easily have been a teacher at the school. Teachers, even more than muteherds, dealt with mentally defenseless people, and were required to be relatively harmless themselves. Jackman was harmless enough. He could not quite hide his shock when he met Teray and, through the Pattern, recognized Teray’s greater strength.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “If you’re not even-tempered, you’re going to kill every mute in the House.”
At that moment Teray was feeling far less than even-tempered, but he realized that Jackman was right. He pushed aside his anger at Coransee and followed Jackman up to the fourth-floor mute quarters, where his new room would be.
A pair of mutes were already moving Jackman’s things out. One of them, the woman, was weeping silently as she worked. Teray looked at her, then looked at Jackman.
“I’m taking her with me, if you don’t mind,” Jackman said.
“Your business,” said Teray.
“And yours.” There was a note of disapproval in Jackman’s voice. “Every mute in the House is your business now.”
It was not a responsibility Teray wanted to think about. “You care about the mutes, don’t you?” he asked Jackman. “I mean really care. It wasn’t just a job to you.”
“I care. Right now I’m downright worried about them. I’m afraid you’re going to wind up killing some of them out of sheer ignorance before you find out how to handle them.”
“Frankly, so am I.” Teray was getting an idea.
Jackman frowned. “Look, they’re people, man. Powerless and without mental voices, but still people. So for God’s sake try to be careful. To me, killing one of them is worse than killing one of us, because they can’t do a damn thing to defend themselves.”
“Will you show me what you know about them—how you handled them?”
Jackman’s expression became suspicious. “I’ll teach you what I can, sure.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I didn’t think it was. What the hell gives you the idea you’re entitled to anything more?”
“I’m not entitled. I just thought you might be willing to do the one thing you could do to safeguard your mutes.”
“Your mutes! My mental privacy doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with it. Nobody but Coransee can make me do what you’re asking.”
“And I wouldn’t ask it if other people’s lives weren’t involved. But I honestly don’t want to kill any of these mutes. And without your help, I will.”
“You’re asking for my memories,” said Jackman. “And you know as well as I do that you’re going to wind up with a lot more than just my memories of muteherding.”
“There’s no other method of teaching that’s fast enough to keep me from doing some damage.”
“Nosing into my life isn’t teaching.”
Teray sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor. He had thought it would be easy, that a man so clearly attached to the mutes would be willing to sacrifice a little of his mental privacy for their good. He glanced at the two mutes still in the room. “You two leave us alone for a few minutes.”
Irritatingly, the mutes looked at Jackman and received his nod before they obeyed.
“Don’t hold it against them,” Jackman said when they were gone. “They’ve looked to me for orders for five years. It’s habit.”
“Jackman, open to me voluntarily. I don’t want to have to force you.”
“You’ve got no right!” He tried to reach out to alert Coransee, but to do that he had to open his already-inadequate shield. Instantly, Teray was through the shield. He held Jackman trapped, isolated from contact with the rest of the House. He had the foolish urge to apologize to Jackman for what he was doing as he tapped and absorbed the man’s memories of the previous five years. He wasn’t doing to Jackman quite what Coransee wanted to do to him, but he was invading Jackman’s mental privacy. He was throwing his weight around, acting like a lesser version of the Housemaster. And he wasn’t even doing it solely for the good of the mutes. They were important, of course, but Teray was also avoiding a promised beating and a cattleherding assignment. Things were bad enough.
When Teray let Jackman go, he knew everything the older man did about keeping mutes. He also knew Jackman with great thoroughness. For instance, he knew what the muteherd was afraid of, knew what he could do to help him, and perhaps to some degree, make up for invading his privacy.
“Jackman,” he said, “I’m Coransee’s brother—full brother. I might be second to him in strength here, but I don’t think I’m second to anyone else. Now I know you’re worried about having a rough time when you move to the third floor, and you’re right to be. You’re almost as weak as one of your mutes, and you’re going to be everyone’s pawn. If you want to, you can keep a link with me. After a coupl
e of people try me out, no one will bother either of us.”
“After what you just did, you think I’d hide behind you?”
Teray said nothing. He knew the man well enough now to realize that he had already said enough.
“You’re trying to bribe me to keep my mouth shut about what you did,” said Jackman. “Coransee’d make you think you were being skinned alive if I went to him.”
This was a bluff. Teray knew from Jackman’s own mind that Coransee generally let his outsiders find their own level within his House. He was not especially concerned about the strong bullying the weak, as long as the weak were not left with serious injuries—and as long as both strong and weak obeyed him when he spoke. Teray watched Jackman calmly.
Jackman glared back at him, livid with rage. Then, slowly, the rage dissolved into weary submission. “If there was any way for me to kill you, boy, I’d do it gladly. And slowly.”
“I’ve linked us,” said Teray. “If you get into trouble, I’ll know. If I find that you caused the trouble to make trouble for me, I’ll let you be torn apart. But if you didn’t cause it, and you want my help, I’ll help you. Nothing else. The link isn’t a control or a snoop. Just an alarm.”
“Like the kind some Patternist mothers keep on their kids to be sure the kids are okay, right?”
Teray winced. He would never have said such a thing. Why did Jackman go out of his way to humiliate himself?
“May as well call a thing what it is,” said Jackman.
“The minute you decide you don’t want the link, you can dissolve it. Right now if you like.” Teray kept his attention on the link, making certain that Jackman was aware of it and that he saw that it was under his control, that he could indeed destroy it.
But Jackman made no move to destroy the link. He gave Teray an unreadable look. “You’re not really doing this to bribe me to be quiet, are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Teray.
Jackman grinned unpleasantly “You’re doing it to soothe your conscience, aren’t you? Doing it to blot out the ‘bad thing’ you did before. You never really left the goddamn school, did you, kid?”
Teray struck Jackman in the carefully restrained way he had just learned to strike a mute. He hit Jackman a little harder than he would have hit a mute, because the muteherd did have some defenses to get through. But on a physical parallel it was too much like slapping a child.
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