Alistair shrugged again. “But when we talk about should and shouldn’t… a rock neither should nor shouldn’t fall. It will or it won’t; there’s no choice to be made in the matter. Should holds no such power as gravity. Or electromagnetism. Or any universal force.”
“What the hell are you babbling about? The cloth was mine and you took it!”
“So what bothers you is that I imposed my will on something that was your property. And you think I should not have done it… in other words that I didn’t have the right to do it.”
“You’re the one who’s always preaching about property rights, you arrogant bastard! Practice what you preach some time!”
“Layla if you are going to get your cloth back, you’re going to have to convince me. It’s quite clear you won’t get it back unless I decide to give it to you. And if you want to convince me you’ll have to calm down.”
She sat down across from him and lowered her voice, though a string is no less taut when plucked lightly. “We should have let Issicroy execute you. Give me my damn cloth back. Now.”
“Are you saying people do not have the right to impose their control over others’ property?”
“Yes! Yes! YES!” She accompanied her frenzied answer by pounding her fists on the table.
“But how can that be true in one case and not in another?”
Layla started. Her lips parted and her tirade halted. Somewhere in her brain she made a connection, a vague connection she would not have been able to describe, but nevertheless she had a glimpse of what Alistair was going after.
“Alistair. Please. You should not have taken my cloth. I want you to give it back.” The storm having spent itself, her voice was firm but calm.
Alistair nodded towards the stairs in the center of the hut. “The cloth is underneath the bottom step there.” When Layla rose to search for it, he continued, “But I like your idea of keeping your hands off other people’s property. I like it so much I intend to follow it as a principle from now on. Without exceptions.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she muttered. Cloth in hand, she stormed out of the hut and passed through the throng outside.
Santiago sat quietly through the entire outburst, his legs propped up on the rail at the edge of the hut, carving a stick with some sharpened flint chips. He only spoke once Layla was gone. “I wonder how many customers that is going to cost us.”
Alistair moved only his eyes to glance at Santiago and did not otherwise respond. Of Giselle he asked, “How is the anti-prostitution bill coming along?”
“It has the support of precisely none of the men and only about half the women. Some of the girls are already amassing private fortunes with their pussies.”
“I expect some of the wealthiest individuals on this moon will be prostitutes.”
“But, Alistair…” Giselle hesitated a moment. “I don’t understand this little demonstration. Layla isn’t proposing to steal people’s property… she wants to prohibit prostitution.”
“But what will she do to those who flout her law?”
Giselle responded merely by chewing at her lower lip while she considered the point.
The evening after the argument there was a momentous turn of events on the land bearing Odin’s name. Before the sun disappeared, there was a large disturbance in the forest where Odin and his remaining followers were camped behind their timber walls. It was impossible to say what was going on other than a general commotion, but by nightfall the camp was ablaze, giving the northern horizon an orange glow as if the sun were setting there. The inhabitants of the Great Hill gathered to watch the fire, while Miklos, Alistair, Santiago, Ryan, Taribo and Giselle all crowded into the third story tower of the hut, bodies pressed together, fascinated by what it might mean.
Alistair sent Taribo and Miklos to scout around, and they returned with tales of a plague that decimated the population. Though there had been a constant trickle of men and women escaping from the military-style camp, there yet remained a great number of them, densely packed together at Odin’s orders, for defensive purposes. It was these tight living quarters which allowed some communicable disease to engulf them, and when Odin would not permit them to disperse, an insurrection broke out.
The next day, Alistair left his camp, passing by Gregory and Layla and the dozens of sick and injured whom they were tending to, and set out through the hills, heading south. Giselle he left back at the hut. Alone, he roamed the hills for several hours, finding a couple camps but not the one he was looking for. Finally, hours after his last meal and just as the sun was beginning its final approach to the horizon, he came upon a group of diggers tunneling into the side of the mount. He called to them and waved and was greeted in return.
When he was within a few yards of the men, who had not stopped their labors while he approached, he said, “I’m looking for one of my new clients. Darion Chesterton.”
Still the men continued their labor, save for one covered in dirt and grime so thick one could be forgiven for thinking him to be of another species. He dropped his crude pickax and, white eyes staring out from a face black with dirt, took a few steps in Alistair’s direction.
“I think we met once,” Alistair said. “In a prison in Arcarius.”
“I remember. It was during my first life.”
“What are you doing in this one?”
The men were close enough now that they shook hands, each feeling an inexplicable yet warm camaraderie with another he hardly knew.
“I’m going to be rich again,” Darion replied and laughed.
“Speaking of wealth,” said Alistair, and from his pocket he produced a translucent capsule containing some bits from a plant. “I have a business proposition for you.”
Chapter 64
Mordecai found it easy to shatter the power structure above him, the hierarchy of Odin and his immigrants. This was the part that had most worried him and yet other actors created such a condition that only a small nudge on his part, at the right time, was sufficient to cause a chain reaction. All order collapsed and authority dissipated. He delighted in what appeared to be his good fortune, never imagining the second part, the recreation of a hierarchy with him on top, the part he imagined would naturally follow the first, would elude him.
Within hours of being on the island, Mordecai attracted to him a gang of belligerent malcontents, as he always did; men who recognized a malignant hostility more imposing than theirs and who secretly hoped proximity and obedience to it would amplify their own. He led and they followed, instinct conferring on him more authority than voting does in democratic systems, but after the fall of Duke’s authority his power did not grow as he expected it to. With dismay he watched as men and women flowed right out of Duke’s camp and spread over the island, uncontrolled, distance attenuating his influence. Like a man grabbing at rocks in a landslide, he collected a few but could not prevent the avalanche.
With his numbers increasing to nearly forty, Mordecai carved out for himself a kingdom which, though there never were treaties with neighboring lands to define its borders, may have measured as much as a hundred yards in length and breadth. He and his followers built a one room, one story castle of timber and thatch, and his men built a lodge of their own next to it. However, word of Alistair’s anarchic order quickly spread, and the few souls whom he convinced to pay him tribute in exchange for protection abandoned him for Alistair’s protection, whose terms they found much more to their liking. It did not take long for him to detect the course of events, and his instinct was to attack Alistair, an instinct stayed by, among other considerations, the memory of a pectoral tattoo. While he deliberated, his kingdom lost most of its population, many of whom contracted with Alistair and all of whom felt the pull of open land to the south, land which they could homestead and call their own and there be ruled by no one.
Enraged, Mordecai declared to the fourteen men who remained with him his intention to attack Alistair, who had only four other warriors. He was dissuaded by the timid
observation that Alistair had over one thousand subscribers, most of whom pledged, in exchange for a discounted price, a certain number of days of military service should it become necessary. In the end, he saw only one chance, and that was to form his own company of protection and arbitration services. However, forced to compete with Alistair’s rates, he found he could not afford to keep all fourteen remaining followers on the payroll. He agonized over the decision, wanting to keep an army as large as possible but feeling the new temptation of profit, which would have to be sacrificed if he were to pay to keep more of his men. In the end, having only a couple dozen customers, he kept only two.
So fell Mordecai’s kingdom, small and short lived, done in not by barbarians or warfare or inflation or plague, but by market competition. In its place arose an extremely modest security firm Mordecai called The Shield. The owner grasped at a crown but wound up with a pencil and a ledger, with two employees amid a populace that, in reaction to his bullying, were reluctant to trust him with their protection when Ashley Security & Arbitration was available. Many an evening Mordecai glared at the Great Hill, saying nothing, just watching it darken as the sun escaped to the other side of the world. In the end, hampered by his reputation, he abandoned his castle and moved to the south side of the island in search of a new start and customers yet to form an impression of him.
***
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” sighed Alistair.
Taribo, seated near the railing serving as the hut’s perimeter, his arms folded over his chest, suppressed his mirthful chuckle, though he could not prevent a smile from forming. Alistair was seated at the long table, hands folded and resting on the table as he leaned forward, making eye contact with no one. He was flanked by Giselle on his left and Santiago on his right. The latter sported a skeptical frown on his face. Giselle betrayed no bias or emotion but merely held her pencil ready over a sheet of parchment. At opposite ends sat Miklos and Ryan, the former with a haughty and triumphant expression, the latter with one to match the expression on Santiago’s face, save that it had a large dose of hostility.
Making no effort to mask his disapproval, Alistair said, “Miklos, what is the nature of your complaint?”
“Trespassing.”
Ryan snorted.
“Please give us the details.”
Miklos shifted in his seat and scratched his wide jowls. “He trespassed on my property,” he said in his languid way, nodding his head at the small structure built for him to sleep in. “I told him not to come in and he came in anyway. Trespassing is a crime. You said so yourself.”
“I built that damn hut,” Ryan protested.
“But you gave it to me. You built it because you were kicking me out of this one.”
“Because you snore like a pig.”
“That doesn’t matter. The hut’s mine.”
“Ryan,” interjected Alistair before the two men could get themselves riled up, “did Miklos ask you not to go on his property?”
“Yeah, but he lost my hatchet.”
“I didn’t lose your hatchet; I gave it back to you.”
“I let him borrow my hatchet a couple days ago—”
“And I gave it back.”
“— and he never gave it back. He told me he didn’t have it but I didn’t believe him so I checked his hut.”
“And I specifically said he could not come in.”
Both men seemed satisfied with their end of the argument, so they folded their arms across their chests and stared at each other across the table. They could hear the soft scratching of Giselle’s pen as she struggled to record the relevant details as rapidly as they gave them.
“I can do little about the hatchet,” said Alistair. “In the future, Ryan, if you can’t trust the people you are lending to, I suggest you get a receipt, and have the other party sign upon receipt of the object and its return. Without proof one way or the other, there is nothing I can do. As for you, Miklos, this isn’t really what I had in mind when I founded an arbitration company.”
“My understanding is trespassing is illegal.”
Wellesley rolled his eyes.
“What sort of damages are you claiming?” asked Santiago with the tone of one who wishes to expedite.
Miklos shrugged. “Whatever damages are involved with trespassing. He invaded my space, destroyed my privacy.”
“OK. I’m ready to make the pronouncement. Ryan,” said Alistair while looking at Miklos, his tone that of a school teacher addressing a young child, “please do not go on Miklos’ property when he asks you not to.”
“Orders,” corrected Miklos. “I ordered him not to.”
“Get stuffed,” said Ryan.
“I’m asking for damages.”
“Are you kidding me?” asked Ryan and rolled his eyes again.
Miklos only leveled a serious stare at Alistair.
“Damages,” repeated Alistair. “OK. Ryan, to compensate Miklos for the damage you have done to him, you will fetch him a cup of water. That will be all.”
Alistair did not wait another moment to rise from the table and leave the hut.
Ryan also stood up, saying, “Fucking ridiculous. I’ll get you your damn glass of water.”
“I’m not thirsty yet,” said Miklos and he stood up and trudged out of the hut, his chin triumphantly in the air.
Ryan watched him leave, his face a mixture of disbelief and irritation. Miklos did not look back and Ryan finally, with a shake of his head, took his own path out.
Immediately having left the hut, Alistair went to the camp fire where small tablets of wood, serving as plates, held a filet of fish, still steaming, and a cooked potato, withered from age and dotted with the remains of sprouted roots. Alistair grabbed the rough wood of a tablet and, having bartered with someone to make the trip to the coast to acquire the fish in the first place, helped himself to a serving and a wooden cup. He winced as he bit into the fish, for it was still quite hot, but swallowed his bite with the help of some water. Both the fish and the potato were unseasoned, but the plain fare was good enough for his protesting stomach, and his pallet was accustomed now to simple meals like this. Hunger, real hunger born of physical labor and a missed lunch, did more than any spice to make the meal appetizing.
His employees and a few others gathered around to eat, and by the time he finished they were chatting together while Alistair, eschewing conversation, sipped at his glass of water and stared off at the western horizon, nearly black now. While he thus gazed out, aware of the conversation around him only as a buzz in the background, he saw a solitary figure, tall and nearly gaunt, pop up above the edge of the hill and stride into view. The long, blonde beard and uncommon body frame revealed the identity of the traveler. Rising, Alistair went out to meet him, and conversation among his friends died out as they noticed his leaving and watched to see where he was going.
“Good evening, Odin,” said Alistair to the pale, haggard face before him. Framed by darkness, the pallor of the former tribal chief stood out like a ghost.
Odin nodded, coughed once, and with his Mandarin accent said, “Good evening Alistair.” He paused for a moment to survey the camp site. “It seems you won.”
“Were we competing?”
“You know we were.” Odin coughed again. “I never thought…” He shook his head. “My plans have been altered, it seems. But I’m not angry. I was staring at the ashes of my city this morning and I felt free. I was enslaved so slowly I never realized it. But no longer. I came to thank you.”
Inept at accepting such implicit apologies, Alistair merely nodded and said, “Gregory can take a look at you if you’re feeling sick.”
“No, no, I’m – how do you say it? – on the mend? Yesterday I needed a doctor. Today I need an occupation.”
“Are you… do you want to work for me?”
“No, but thank you. Duke, Caleb and Wei Bai have started their own security services. They asked me to do it but I don’t want to. I never really wanted anyt
hing of what I got for the last… twenty years? How long have I been here? I really just came to set your mind at ease and to say thank you.”
“What occupation are you looking for?”
Odin softly smiled, a smile muffled by fatigue and a little melancholy. “I have some plans. Plans interrupted in my youth, but maybe not dead. That’s for another day. For right now, I was thinking it would be nice to have access to resources on the mainland.”
Alistair slowly nodded, wondering what he intended to do.
“I think there are some great beasts of the deep that need to be exterminated.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m going to find a way to clear some shipping lanes.” He nodded to Santiago, who had come up behind Alistair to join the conversation. “Good evening.”
“Odin. Is there anything we can do to help?”
“I’ll let you know.” Turning to go, he paused to leave them with one suggestion. “Some of my men… used to be my men… some of them are settling on the north coast.”
“I expected as much,” said Alistair, not seeing his point. “Good timber up there.”
“This island is ignored by the Gaians. They believe it is impossible to get here because of the krakens. Word of our disappearance will be spreading and they are bound to find out about it from Issicroy or Ansacroy. Even if they don’t, when they pass by the south coast of the mainland, they may turn an eye to our island.”
Alistair nodded in understanding.
“Every structure we build here is forbidden. If the men build on the north coast they can be seen, which will draw attention. We do not want to tangle with the Gaians. The outcome of any such battle is a forgone conclusion. It would be a modern army attacking a Stone Age tribe.”
“That’s something to think about,” replied Alistair, scratching at his beard while he mused.
By way of goodbye, Odin merely nodded and set himself in motion. A gust of wind accompanied him on his way out, tossing his beard and hair about as he retreated back down the hill.
Withûr We Page 62