Lark and Wren

by Mercedes Lackey

  Before he could change his mind-it was his master's money he was spending, after all, and not his own-she rolled the floor-to-ceiling ladder over to the "D" section, and scampered up it. The Student virtuously averted his eyes, blushing, lest he have an inadvertent glimpse of feminine flesh. As if there was anything to be seen under her double skirts, double leggings, and boots.

  Besides being the most long-winded, Philosophers were also the most prudish of the Scholars-at least the ones that Rune had met. She much preferred the company of the Natural Scientists and the Mathematicians. The former were full of the wonders of the world, and eager to share the strange stories of birds and beasts; the latter tended to make up for the times when they lost themselves in the dry world of numbers with a vengeance. And both welcomed women into their ranks far oftener than the Philosophers.

  Doubtless because women are too sensible to be distracted for long by maunderings about airy nothings.

  She came down with both books clutched in her hand, eluding his grasp for them so easily he might not even have been standing there, and took them behind the counter. There she consulted the book where Tonno noted the prices of everything in the shop, by category. It was a little tedious, for things were listed in the order he had acquired them, and not in the alphabetical order in which they were ranked on the shelves. But finally she had the prices of both of them, and looked up, reaching beneath the counter for a piece of rough paper to wrap them in.

  "The Wasserman, as I said, is rare," she said, deftly making a package and tying it with a bit of string. "Master Tonno has it listed at forty silver pieces."

  His mouth gaped, and he was about to utter a gasp of outrage. She continued before he had a chance. "The other is more common as I said; it is only twenty. Now, as it is Master Tonno's policy to offer a discount to steady clients like your Scholar, I believe I can let you have both for fifty." She batted her eyelashes ingenuously at him. "After all, Master Tonno does trust me in all things, and it isn't often we have a fine young man like you in the shop."

  The appeal to his vanity killed whatever protest he had been about to make. His mouth snapped shut, and he counted out the silver quickly, before she could change her mind. He knew very well-although he did not know that she knew-his Scholar was anything but a steady customer; he bought perhaps a book or two in a year. What he did not know-and since he was not a regular customer, neither would his Scholar-was that she had inflated the listed prices of both books by ten silver pieces each. She had heard other Scholars speaking when she had tended the shop before, chuckling over Tonno's prices. She heard a lot of things Tonno didn't. The Scholars tended to ignore her as insignificant.

  So whenever she had sold a book lately, she had inflated the price. Scholars would never argue with her, assuming no woman would be so audacious as to cheat a Scholar; their Students never argued with her because she bullied and flattered them the same way she had treated this boy, and with the same effect. And when she added the nonsense about a "discount," they generally kept their mouths shut.

  She handed him the parcel, and he hurried out into the cold. She dropped the taxes and tithes into the appropriate boxes, and pocketed the rest to take back to Tonno. Merchants with shops never went to a Church stall the way buskers and peddlers did; they kept separate tax and tithe boxes which were locked with keys only the Church Collectors had. The Collectors would come around once a week with a city constable to take what had accumulated in the boxes, noting the amounts in their books. Rune actually liked the Collector who serviced Tonno's shop; she hadn't expected to, but the first day he had appeared when she was on duty he had charmed her completely. Brother Bryan was a thin, energetic man with a marvelously dry sense of humor, and was, so far as she could tell, absolutely honest. Tonno seemed convinced of his honesty as well, and greeted him as a friend. And whenever she was here and Tonno was ill, he would make a point of coming to the back of the shop to see how the old man was faring, pass the time of day with him, and see if he could find some way to entertain Tonno a little before he continued on his rounds of the other shops.

  She dipped a quill in a bit of ink and ran a delicate line through the titles of the two books to indicate they had been sold, and returned to Tonno.

  He sat up with interest, and demanded to know what had happened. He shook his head over her duplicity with the spurious "discount," but she noted that he did not demand that she refund the extra ten silvers.

  "You should update your prices," she said, scolding a little. "You haven't changed some of them from the time when your father ran this shop. I know you haven't, because I've seen the prices still in his handwriting."

  He sighed. "But people come here for bargains, Rune," he replied plaintively. "Even when father had the shop, this district was changing over from shops to residences. Now-it's so out of the way that no one would ever come here at all if they didn't know they'd get a bargain."

  "You can make them think you've given them a bargain and still not cheat yourself," she said, taking the empty bowl from the floor beside his bed and swishing it in the painfully cold wash-water until it was clean.

  "I hope you put what was due in the tax box, and not what was in the book," he said suddenly.

  She grimaced, but nodded. "Of course I did. Although I can't for the life of me see why. That Scholar isn't likely to tell anyone how much he paid, and you need every silver you can get. We may not have another sale for a week or more!" She put the bowl back on the shelf with a thud.

  "Because it's our responsibility, Rune," he replied, patiently, as if she was a child. He said that every time she brought up the subject of taxes, and she was tired to death of hearing it. He never once explained what he meant, and she just couldn't see it. There were too many rich ones she suspected of diddling the tax rolls to get by with paying less than they should.

  "Why is it our responsibility?" she asked fiercely. "And why ours? I don't see anyone else leaping forward to throw money in the tax and tithe boxes! You and Amber keep saying that, and I don't see any reason for it!"

  He just looked at her, somberly, until she flushed. He made her feel as if she had said something incredibly irresponsible, and that made no sense. She didn't know why she should feel embarrassed by her outburst, but she did, and that made her angry as well.

  "Rune," he said slowly, as if he had just figured out that she was serious. "There truly is a reason for it. Now do you really want to hear the reason, or do you want to be like all those empty-headed fools out there who grumbled about taxes and cheat when they can, and never once think about who or what they're cheating?"

  "Well, if there's a reason, I'd certainly like to hear it," she muttered, skeptically, and sat down in the chair beside his bed. "Nothing I've seen yet has given me a reason to think differently, and you're the one who taught me to trust my eyes and not just parrot what I've been told!"

  "You've lived here for almost half a year," Tonno replied. "I know that there's a world of difference between Nolton and your little village; there are things we do here that no one would ever think of doing back in Westhaven." She made a face, but he continued. "I know I'm saying something obvious, but because it's obvious, you might not have thought about it. There are things that people take for granted after they've been here as long as you have; things that are invisible, but that we couldn't do without. Dung-sweepers, for instance. Who cleans up the droppings in Westhaven?"

  "Well, no one," she admitted. "It gets kicked to one side or trodden into the mud, that's about it."

  "But if we did that here, we'd be knee-deep in manure in a week," Tonno pointed out, and she nodded agreement. "Who do you think pays the dung-sweepers?"

  "I never wondered about it," she admitted with surprise. "I thought the dung must be valuable to someone-for composting, or something-"

  "It is, and they sell it to farmers, but that's not enough to compensate a man for going about with a barrow all day collecting it," Tonno pointed out. "The city pays them-right out of that
tax box." She rubbed her hands together to warm them, about to say something, but he continued. "Who guards the streets of Westhaven by day or night from robbers, drunks, troublemakers and thieves?"

  She laughed, because it was something else that would never have occurred to her old village to worry about. "No one. Nobody's abroad very late, and if they are, there's no one to trouble them. If a drunk falls on his face in the street, he can lie there until morning."

  But she couldn't keep the laughter from turning uneasy. It might not have occurred to them, but it would have been a good thing if it had. A single constable could have prevented a lot of trouble in the past. If there'd been someone like the city guard or constables around, would those bullies have tried to molest her that day? Even one adult witness would likely have prevented the entire incident. How many times had something like that happened to someone who couldn't defend herself?

  Was that how Stara had gotten into trouble in the first place, as a child too young to know better? Was that why she had gone on to trade her favors so cheaply?

  If that incident with Jon and his friends hadn't occurred, would Rune have been quite so willing to seek a life out in the wider world?

  "That will do for a little village, but what would we do here?" Tonno asked gently. "There are thousands of people living here; most are honest, but some are not. What's a shopkeeper to do, spend his nights waiting with a dagger in hand?"

  "Couldn't people-well-band together, and just have one of them watch for all?" she asked, self-consciously, flushing; knowing it wasn't any kind of a real answer. "I suppose they could pay him for his troubles-" Then she shook her head. "That's basically what the constables are, aren't they? That's what you're trying to tell me. And they're paid from taxes too."

  "Constables, dung-sweepers, the folk who repair and maintain the wells and the aqueducts, and a hundred more jobs you'd never think of and likely wouldn't see. Rat-catchers and street-tenders, gate-keepers and judges, gaolers and the men who make certain food sold in the marketplace is what it's said to be." Tonno leaned forward, earnestly, and she saw that the light was fading.

  "I suppose you're right." She lit a candle at the stove, but he wasn't going to be distracted from his point.

  "That's what a government is all about, Rune," he said, more as if he was pleading with her than as if he was trying to win an argument. "Taking care of all the things that come up when a great many people live together. And yes, most of those things each of us could do for himself, taking care of his own protection, and his family's, and minding the immediate area around his home and shop-but that would take a great deal of time, and while the expenses would be less, they would come in lumps, and in the way of things, at the worst possible time." He laughed ruefully, and so did she. It hadn't been that long ago they'd had one of those lump expenses, when the roof sprang a leak and they'd had it patched.

  She could see his point-but not his passion. And for something as cold and abstract as a government. "But you don't like paying taxes either," she said in protest, and he nodded.

  "No, I don't. That's quite true. There are some specific taxes that I think are quite unfair. I pay a year-tax leavened against the shop simply because I own it, rather than renting, and when my father died, I paid a death-tax in order to inherit. I don't think those taxes are particularly fair. But"-he held up his hand to forestall her comments-"those are only two taxes, with a government that could leaven far more taxes than it does. I've heard of cities where they tax money earned, then tax the goods sold, then tax every stage a product goes through as it changes hands-"

  She shook her head, baffled. "I don't understand-" she said. "How can they do that?"

  He explained further. "Take a cow; it is taxed when it is sold as a weanling, taxed again when it is brought to market, the rawhide is taxed when it comes into the hands of the tanners, taxed again when it goes to the leather-broker, taxed when it is sold to the shoemaker, then taxed a final time when the shoes are sold."

  Her head swam at the thought of all those taxes.

  "That kind of taxation is abusive; when the time comes that the price of an object is doubled to pay the taxes on it, that is abusive. And governments of that nature are generally abusive of the people that live under them as well." Tonno leaned back into his pillows, and he looked like a man who was explaining something he cared about, deeply.

  As deeply as I care about music, she thought in surprise. She had found his secret passion. And it was nothing like what she would have expected.

  "Before you ask," he told her, carefully, as if he was weighing each word for its true value, "I can tell you that you'll get a different definition of an abusive government from nearly everyone who cares to think about such things. In general, though, I would say that when a government is more concerned with keeping itself in power, and keeping its officials in luxury, whether they were elected to the posts, appointed, or inherited the position, then that government is abusive as well. Government is what takes care of things beyond you. Good government cares for the well-being of the people it serves. Abusive government cares only for its own well-being. The fewer the people, the less government you need. Does that seem clear to you?"

  She thought about it for a moment. She'd begun listening to this mostly because she respected Tonno, and this seemed to mean a great deal to him. But the more he'd said, the more she began to get a glimmering of a wider sphere than the one she was used to dealing with-and it intrigued her in the way the things the Mathematicians said intrigued her. And now she realized that Amber had said basically the same things, in cryptic little bits, over the past several months. Reluctantly, she had to agree that they were right.

  Still-this was the real world she was living in, and not some Philosopher's book, where everyone did as he should, and everything was perfect. "But what about the stories I keep hearing?" she protested, taking one last shot at disproving his theories. "The things about the inspectors who take bribes, and the gaolers who turn people loose no matter what they've done, so long as they've got money enough? What about the clerics at the Church stalls, who'll take all your money as tax or tithe, then insist you owe as much over again for the one you didn't pay? I bet they pocket the difference!"

  Tonno shrugged, then chuckled a little, though sadly. "You're dealing with people, Rune, and the real world, not a Philosopher's ideal sphere," he said, echoing her very thoughts. "People are corruptible, and any time you have money changing hands, someone is likely to give in to temptation. So I'll give you another definition: since there's always going to be corruption, a good government is one where you have a manageable level of corruption!"

  He laughed at that one. She made a face, but laughed with him. "Right, I'll grant your stand on taxes, but what about tithes? What's the Church doing to earn all that money? They take in as much as the city, and they aren't hiring the rat-catchers!"

  "What's the Church doing-or what is it supposed to be doing, rather?" he asked, his expression hardening. "What it's supposed to be doing is to care for those who can't care for themselves-to feed and clothe the impoverished, to heal the sick, to bring peace where there is war, to be family to the orphaned, find justice for those who have been denied it. The Priests are bound to make certain every child can read and write and cipher, so that it can grow up to find a place or earn a living without being cheated. That's what it's supposed to be doing. That, and give the time to God that few of us have the leisure for, so that, hopefully, God will know when we have need of His powers, having run out of solutions for ourselves."

  She nodded. That was, indeed, what the village Priest was supposed to deal with-when he wasn't too busy with being holy, that is. He seemed to spend a great deal of time convincing the villagers that he was much more important than they were. . . .

  Tonno took note of her abstracted nod. "And we all pay tithes to see that it gets done-because one day I may be too ill to care for myself, you may find yourself in a town on the brink of war, your friend's child
may lose its parents, you might find yourself in the right-but up against the Sire himself, with no hope from his courts. And some of that is done."

  "But?" she asked, a little more harshly than she intended. Nobody had seen that justice was done for her-or Jib. Had she been raped, would the Priest have lifted a finger to see that the bullies paid? Not a chance. More likely he'd have condemned her for leading them on.

  "But not enough to account for the enormous amount of money the Church takes in," Tonno replied, his mouth a tight, grim line. "And I could be in very deep trouble if you were ever to repeat my words to a Church official other than, say, Brother Bryan. The Church is an example of an abusive government; it punishes according to whim, or according to who can afford to buy it off. Within Church ranks, dissenters must walk softly, and reform by infinitesimal degrees if at all. The Church is a dangerous enemy to have-and there's only one reason why it isn't more dangerous than it is. It is so involved in its own internal politics that it rarely moves to look outside its walls. And for that, I am profoundly grateful."

  This last colloquy aroused intense feelings of disquiet in Rune's heart; she was glad when he fell silent. She'd never thought much about the Church-but the few glimpses she'd had from inside, in the hostels, only confirmed what Tonno had just told her. If the Church as a whole ever decided to move against something-

  -say, for instance, the Church were to declare non-humans as unholy, anathema, as they had come very close to doing, several times, according to the history books she'd read-

  She shivered, and not from the cold. Boony, Topaz-they were as "human" as she was. There was nothing demonic about them. And when would the Church end, once it had begun? Would exotics, like Pearl, also fall under the ban?

  What if they decided to ban-certain professions? Whores, or even musicians, dancers, anyone who gave pleasure that was not tangible? That sort of pleasure could be construed as heretical, since it took attention away from God.