by K. J. Parker
The name doesn't ring a bell, I take it. Corlona's on the other side of the sea; I believe it's one of the places where the Mezentines recruit their mercenaries. In any event, it was held to be far enough away, and by all accounts it's a very fine university, far better than Lonazep for mathematics and the sciences. When he got into trouble there, he moved on to another university a long way inland, and I believe he managed to stay there for several years. When he had to leave there, however, he was pretty much at the end of his resources. It was simply too far away for money to reach him from home, and his reputation was starting to precede him. Understandable: he was probably the only white face on the continent, outside of the coastal towns, so he was somewhat conspicuous. Really, he had no choice but to risk it and come back over here. Not that home had much to offer him. He didn't want to be recognized in Lonazep or the Cure Doce country; he was cut off from his family's money, because of course all the bankers and commercial agents were on notice to look out for him. If he came back he'd be on his own, no money, ill-advised to stay in any one place for very long, I imagine it took a certain degree of courage to make the decision; but courage is a quality he's never lacked.
As luck would have it, he wound up in Eremia just about the time I discovered the clay deposits, which I recognized as being suitable for making porcelain. My problem at that time was that I had no money at all. I needed to pay the premium for a lease on the land itself, not to mention buying all the equipment. The irony was that the man who owned the head lease only wanted a stupid little bit of money for it; my father would cheerfully have spent that much on a good hawk, or a book. But at the time I was making my living as a copyist; oddly enough, that was where I came across the book that helped me recognize the clay for what it was. You know the sort of money a copyist gets. I was cursing my bad luck and thinking I might as well forget all about it, when Daurenja came in to our shop to sell a book.
When I say sell, what I mean is, he'd lend us the book to copy, and we'd pay him a few thalers. It was the usual arrangement. Apparently, Daurenja had hung on to a few of his books from his university days. The book we borrowed from him was an artist's color-book, of all things. Come to think of it, you've seen it often enough. Of course, as soon as I saw it I was fascinated. I knew that if I was going to make porcelain I'd have to learn how to make the colors to decorate it with; so I made a secret copy of it for myself. Unfortunately, I didn't stop there. I assumed that anybody who owned a book like that must know a thing or two about the subject. That's how I got to know Daurenja.
I told him about my plans for making porcelain. At first I didn't let on about the clay, but it was stupid to think that someone like that wouldn't put two and two together. He quickly figured out that I must have found a supply of suitable material, and one evening he asked me straight where my clay deposit was.
Well, I'd more or less given up hope of being able to get my hands on that clay seam, so I reckoned I had nothing to lose. I told him, yes, I knew where to find the right clay, but I didn't have the money to buy the land. He went all thoughtful for a while, then said that money shouldn't be a problem, if I was interested in forming a partnership.
I console myself with the thought that it's not just stupid people who do stupid things. I agreed; he said he'd go away and raise the money. I imagined that'd be the last I saw of him. What he did, though, was go home, all the way back to the Cure Doce. It was a terrible risk, in the circumstances. Things had changed since he went away. Rumors of his various adventures had filtered through, and nobody was willing to cover up for him or risk themselves to keep him out of trouble. But he got home somehow, and persuaded his family to give him at least part of his inheritance. I think it was done through land exchanges and letters of credit; basically, they bought him an estate in either Eremia or the Vadani country, all done in the names of secret trustees, with cunning ways of routing the income through to him without anybody finding out. A lot of merchants were involved at various stages, so I imagine a fair proportion of the money got used up in commissions and expenses. Even so, all the time I knew him he had more than enough for his needs-books, tools, materials, and all the funding I required for my work. He never spent more than he could possibly avoid on food or clothes or anything like that. As far as I can tell, that sort of thing's never mattered to him. Everybody's idea of the unworldly scholar, in fact.
He stopped and looked round. Daurenja, trussed like a bull calf for castration, was stirring. His eyes were closed but his lips were moving around the gag, and his throat quivered slightly.
"Dreaming," Framain said. "If it wasn't for the gag, he'd be talking in his sleep. He does that. I'm told it's quite normal-talking in your sleep, I mean. Loads of people do it. My son did, and my father, too." He frowned, as though annoyed with himself. "When I was a kid, it used to scare me. Most nights he'd fall asleep in his chair, and after a while he'd start talking-quite normal tone of voice, like he was having a pleasant conversation, but none of it made sense. It wasn't gibberish. It came out as real words, proper sentences, but completely meaningless. He's not like that, though," he added, and the frown tightened into a scowl. "He always says the same thing. Probably he's saying it now. It's all the sort of stuff you'd say to your girl when you're seventeen and in love. Soppy, that's the only word for it. You mean all the world to me, I'll always love you, you're the meaning of my life, you're my sun and moon and stars; it's enough to make you want to throw up. Then after a bit he starts calling out a name; Majeria, Majeria, over and over again. Then he either stops and sleeps peacefully or else he sits bolt upright and screams. High-pitched screaming like a girl, you wouldn't think he was capable of making a noise like that. Anyway, he screams three or four times and wakes up. But by then, of course if you've got any sense you're not there to see it, because when he wakes up from a screaming fit, he starts lashing out. He'll still have his eyes shut, and he punches and kicks like a maniac for about a minute; then his eyes open, and he sits there, blinking, mouth wide open. Oh, he's a charmer, Daurenja."
"What was that name again?" Miel asked. "The one he shouts out."
"Majeria. And no, I haven't got a clue who she's supposed to be. I've asked him a couple of times, during the day, when he's awake. He reckons he's never heard of anybody called that."
Anyhow (Framain went on), that's how we came to be partners. His money paid for everything: the clay beds, the house and buildings, equipment and supplies. His trustees opened a line of credit for us, in both our names, so I could buy things without having to ask him first. That's another of his good points. He's really very generous with money.
To start with, we all worked very well together. It was me, him, my son Framea and my daughter there. We got off to an excellent start. He was the one who figured out how to fire the clay to make the porcelain without cracking or distortion. He built the kilns practically single-handed; hell of a job, and you've seen them for yourself, it's beautiful work. I've got to say, all the success we had in the early stages was basically him, not me.
Anyhow; once we'd got the mix and the firing right, we thought we were on the home stretch. All we had left to do was work out how to do the colors for decorating the finished pieces. Nothing to it, we thought. We'd got his book, and there're pages and pages in it about making and applying different colors. We were impatient to get the last details sorted out and go into production.
(Framain was silent for a long time, as though he'd forgotten Miel was there. He was frowning, like someone trying to remember something that's on the tip of his tongue; a name or a date or exactly the right word. Miel cleared his throat a couple of times, but Framain didn't seem to have noticed. Then he looked up sharply…)
All through the early stages (Framain continued), Daurenja had led the way. The truth is, I'm not much good at alchemy, or whatever the word is. I haven't got the mind for it. I can follow instructions, verbal or in a book; I can do as I'm told, better than most. But-well, it's like music. Some people can compose tun
es, others can't. I'm a musician who can play someone else's tune on a flute or a harp, but I can't make them up for myself. Daurenja's the creative one. He looks at a problem an ordinary man can't begin to understand, and it's as though he can see things that the rest of us can't. When we were trying to get the consistency of the clay, for example; I was all for working away at it gradually, trial and error. He thought about it for a while, and suddenly came up with the answer. It made sense to him, he'd figured out how it worked. He tried to explain it to me, but I couldn't follow it at all. Not that I minded in the least. On the contrary, I was delighted.
But when we came to the colors, I started to get the feeling that his mind wasn't on it in quite the same way. It started, I think, after an accident. He'd been mixing some things over a fire and there was a bang like thunder and a great spurt of flame-nobody was hurt, luckily, no real harm done, though obviously we were all shaken. At first I thought it was preying on his mind, which was why he seemed so preoccupied all the time. But it wasn't that. If he was worrying about the same thing happening again, afraid he'd get hurt, you'd have expected him to have lost his enthusiasm. But it was the other way about. If anything, he was keener-dedicated, single-minded, almost obsessive-but not in the same way. He went quiet. There were days he'd hardly speak to us, which was pretty unusual. He'd be all day mixing things and boiling things up in big iron kettles, but nothing ever seemed to come of it, and when I asked him how he was getting on, he'd be evasive, guilty almost, like he was doing something wrong. All I could think of was that he'd figured out how to do the colors but didn't want to share with us-which didn't make sense, because even if he'd got the colors, they were no good to him without the clay, and I owned that, it was my name in the lease, so he couldn't go behind my back or anything like that. Even so, it made me suspicious and edgy. My son picked up on the changed atmosphere, and the fact that we weren't making any progress. Pretty soon we were all snapping at each other, quarreling over stupid little things, taking offense and getting on each other's nerves. It was pretty miserable for a week or so; and it didn't help that we were all living on top of each other. It was winter, desperately cold outside. We always get snow earlier than most places, and that year it was particularly bad. You didn't go outside unless you had to, and you tried to stay close to the fire. But Daurenja always had something heating or simmering; he yelled at us if we got close to his stuff, we'd yell back that we were cold, he'd fly into a temper-I suppose I should've been trying to keep the peace, but I was cold and fed up too, so I didn't make the effort. What made it so bad was the feeling that we were so close to finishing. I kept telling myself it wouldn't be for very long, and then somehow we'd be rid of him. We'd start production, there'd be money rolling in, and either he'd move on or we would. I made myself put up with the anger and bad feeling, because I was sure it was only for a little while longer. Also, by then I was sure Daurenja had given up working on the colors, and I knew that without him I wouldn't be able to solve the problem on my own. I needed him but he wasn't trying. That just made me angry. But I didn't say anything or ask him straight out. I went on my own slow, painstaking, futile way-following the book, trial and error, getting nowhere at all. My son and daughter had precious little to do except sit around shivering in the cold, because Daurenja wouldn't let them get near the fire. I don't suppose that helped, exactly.
It was the end of one of those days. Because it was so cold, we'd taken to sleeping in the workshop, so we wouldn't have to cross the yard to the house. I had my pillow and blankets at the far end, next to a little charcoal stove that Daurenja used for his work. He slept the other end, by the fire. My son and daughter usually went up into the old hayloft, but it was getting colder, so they'd come down to be closer to the fire. Anyway, that night I was worn out, I'd been splitting and stacking logs for most of the afternoon; I lay down and went straight to sleep.
I was woken up by a scream. I was on my feet before I was awake, if you see what I mean; I think I'd assumed the roof had caught fire, or something like that. It was dark, of course, apart from the glow from the fire. I couldn't see anything unusual; I think I called out, asked what the matter was, but nobody answered me. I started forward, walked into the corner of the bench; and then someone charged into me and knocked me off my feet. I went down, got my hand trodden on; I yelled, and then I heard the door-latch clatter.
I couldn't make out what was happening. I started calling out names, but nobody replied; so I fumbled around till I found the lamp and the tinderbox. Obviously, lighting a lamp by feel in the dark takes a fair bit of time, and while I was doing it I was calling out, wondering why the hell nobody was answering. The stupid tinder wouldn't catch, damp or something. In the end I gave up and followed the edge of the bench up toward the fire, where there was light to see by. About halfway-I put my hand on the bench vise, which told me where I was-I tripped on something that shouldn't have been there and went sprawling again. It felt like something in a sack. I got up and carried on to the fire, where I saw Mahaud.
She was lying by the hearth; on her back, but wide awake, both eyes open, with her dress up around her waist. I shouted to her but she didn't move at all. I thought she was dead for a moment, but then she blinked. I yelled for Framea, but I guess I'd already figured out what had happened; without putting it into words or anything, just the shape of an idea in my mind.
I got a taper lit and then a couple of lamps. I knew as I was doing it that I was taking my time, as though I was putting off the moment when I'd be able to see and my guess would be proved right. Framea, my son, was lying face down. When I turned him over, I found the little hook-bladed knife. I think it was Daurenja's originally, but we all used it for all kinds of things. He'd been slashed from the collarbone diagonally up to his right ear. Everything was sodden with blood; he'd been lying in a black sticky pool of it, and his shirt and hair were soaked. There was blood on the surface of his eyes, would you believe; actually on the whites of them. I suppose that meant he died immediately, without even a chance to close his eyes instinctively. That sort of thing's supposed to be a comfort-it was so quick he can't have felt anything. I can't say it's ever made me feel better.
I'm ashamed to say I dropped him; he flumped down like a sack, I heard the thump as his head hit the floorboards. The feel of his blood all over my hands was disgusting; I stood there with my hands in the air so I wouldn't touch anything, get blood everywhere. I couldn't think at all. It was as though what I was seeing was too big to fit inside my head. I'd clean forgotten about Mahaud, Daurenja, anything that might have happened. I wasn't even looking at Framea; all I could see was death, in all its revolting enormity. I wasn't angry or afraid or horrified or grief-stricken-I'd not really grasped the fact that the dead thing on the ground there was my son. Could've been a stranger, and I think I'd have reacted the same way. It was as though death was some kind of religious faith that I'd always been skeptical about, and suddenly I believed in it, for the first time. Death existed, it was real, and that realization was so big it forced everything else out of me.
I can't remember snapping out of it, but obviously I must've done. I can remember standing there, trying to decide what to do next: go to my daughter, or run outside and try and catch Daurenja before he got away. I simply couldn't make up my mind. I stood there like an idiot, jammed like a bit of seized machinery. In the end, I made my decision. It was like I heard a little voice in my head, infuriatingly calm, telling me it was dark and freezing cold outside, so it'd be more sensible to do the indoor job. Ridiculous reason for making a choice like that, but there had to be something to break the jam, start my mechanism going again.
I tried to wake her up, but of course she wasn't asleep. I shouted, I tried shaking her, but it didn't make any difference. Her body moved when I shook her, but her eyes stayed wide open and fixed. Even when I stared directly into them, I knew she wasn't looking at me. It was as though I was invisible, like a ghost. But I kept trying to make her hear me or see me, over a
nd over again. I was still trying when the dawn came. I only noticed because the fire had burned out and it was starting to get cold; that made me realize there was daylight coming in through the open door, because I could see even though the fire and the lamps had gone out.
Around the middle of the afternoon I couldn't bear it anymore. I went outside-I was shaking all over from the cold, but putting a coat on was just too much trouble. Snow was falling, so his tracks were nearly covered. All the horses were still there. As far as I could tell, he hadn't taken anything at all. I told myself he'd surely freeze to death, in that weather, on foot without a coat or a blanket. I knew I was supposed to want justice or revenge or whatever you like to call it, but the fact is, I couldn't make myself feel even slightly interested in Daurenja, not right then.
I lit a fire that evening, mostly because I realized she'd die of cold if I didn't. I sat up all night just looking at her. I know I didn't sleep at all. I wanted to look away, but I simply couldn't take my eyes off her face. I got all the blankets and coats and sheets and piled them up on top of her. I was so cold I couldn't feel my hands or feet, even with the fire banked right up, but that didn't seem even remotely important. The next morning I carried Framea out to the woodshed. I put him over my shoulder-the blood was drying but still tacky-and when I got him there I laid him down on the ground, like he was some piece of cargo, and shut the door. I had no feelings about his body other than what was left of that initial disgust. When I got back I took off the shirt I was wearing, so I wouldn't have to feel the blood soaking through it. I sat there bare-chested in the freezing cold, and couldn't be bothered to put any clothes on.