“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just different from what I’m used to.”
“I went to school in Pontius, too,” Simeon said. “Rough, wasn’t it?”
“So people can just come and go as they please?” Perseval spat. “How can anyone learn without any order at all? Then again, it shouldn’t surprise me. I guess here they’d rather have people toiling away in factories and farms than broadening their minds.”
Both were taken aback by Perseval’s anger. “Come on, Persey,” Simeon finally said. “We got educated in what was pretty much a decade-plus prison sentence. But really, a smart person can pick up the fundamentals fairly quickly, and a dumb person has no reason to even try.”
“Everyone has a right to an education!” Perseval snapped.
“Hey, I wouldn’t argue with that! But just because someone has the right to education doesn’t mean they should be forced into a situation against their will. The people in that classroom can leave anytime they want. Is that really so awful, Persey? Seriously, how long did it take you to learn how to read and do math and all that? You think you needed all those eight-hour days for all those years? Face it, man, the only thing they were teaching us was how to endure a full day of work at some place we didn’t want to be so somebody we didn’t even like could make a nice profit.”
“And it doesn’t work like that here, too?”
“Not at all. I don’t know if things will always be like this, but right now we can cherry-pick almost any job we want. I can deliver stuff or do maintenance a few months and bum around the rest of the time. And there’s zero repercussions. There are even people teaching classes on how to build houses. If you want, we could even claim a plot of land and build a house of our own. With our own garden and a few chickens, winter wouldn’t be any problem at all. We could rent the place out for a little bit and go on another vacation when spring rolls around. And that’s just the kind of options available to people like us who don’t have two nickels to rub together. That one guy, that miner we met the other day – I swear man, almost any noble or city Official in Pontius would be blown away if they saw his house. Sure he has to work a shit job, but he’s probably got a wife, kids, huge house, property, and just about anything else you could imagine. I’m sure he works for a union, too, so not only is he making money hand over fist, he can also screw up occasionally and not worry about getting fired, or get his balls in a tangle worrying that his boss is going to come up with some kind of sadistic punishment system for people who clock in late. So don’t lose your shit when you see some old guy take a smoke break in the middle of learning the alphabet. He's living life on his terms, and yet somehow the world isn't falling apart. Remember Pontius? Remember living in fear that you’d get sick and lose your job? Remember living paycheck to paycheck, worrying about losing your home if you couldn’t make rent? We’ve slept outside plenty of nights here, but would you ever consider sleeping outside of a locked door in Pontius?”
“No, never.” Perseval shook his head slowly and climbed onto his bike. “Sorry, Simeon. Maybe I just got hungry. Seeing that class… I don’t know.”
“Well, me too. This is a fishing village up here. Let’s ride in and see if we can get some cheap fish-head stew with noodles! We might be able to take a dip, but I wanted to get to Woodbine around noon, so we’ll have to hustle. Then again, maybe we could find an old boat nobody cares about and sleep on the river…”
“Why Woodbine?” said Perseval. “What’s there?”
Simeon’s face lit up strangely. “That's where they beat the shit out of assholes,” he said.
***
They ended up making friends with a stoner and a veteran of the Smith War who lived in a boat, so it took the pair several days to build up enough momentum to leave. Once again Simeon was very nervous sleeping near strangers, but sitting on the tiny deck of the boat at night, with the moon dancing on the water as he watched the warm lamps hanging from the trees on the shore put a spell on him. He decided that he would have to buy a home in Plumwater, or perhaps even learn how to make a houseboat of his own. But Simeon told Perseval that his constant need to settle down and plant his roots was in fact a mental disorder that was ruining his life, and after some arguing they finally moved on.
The peace Perseval had found was shaken as soon as they reached the outskirts of Woodbine, a dingy but quaint little town with a commons area packed with rough-looking characters. The crowd parted as a gang of blue-clad Enforcers shoved a line of men and dogmen before them. Perseval saw a sign hanging from a rope spanning over the crowd, and it read:
NO MURDER
NO RAPE
NO THEFT
THESE ARE THE KING’S LAWS
“Simeon, what’s-”
“Come on!” said Simeon, dropping his bike in the street and pulling Perseval toward the crowd. “Come on, man!”
As they made their way into the middle of the crowd, mostly shaggy men who looked like they were expecting some sort of sporting event, Perseval saw a raised platform where three judges were seated. The middle one was a gray-haired old man with a face like a slab of stone, and a middle-aged man and woman sat on either side of him. Two Enforcers dragged a handsome young man before the judges. The crowd carried on such that Perseval could barely hear as the charges were explained to the judges. A wealthy-looking older man came forth and shouted that the accused had raped his daughter. The judges seemed to listen intently to the story, but when they asked the father where his daughter was, his face grew red and he tried to tell a looping tale about why she could not be present. The judges became impatient.
Eventually one of the judges slapped the table to quiet the crowd. “There simply isn’t enough evidence to fully convict the man.” The father of the victim wailed with rage, and much of the crowd joined in. “You should have known better than to show up without the victim to give her testimony!” said the oldest judge. “Unless you were afraid her testimony might favor the accused…?” The father sputtered with rage and the crowd laughed.
The judges conferred with one another. Just when the young man began to breathe a sigh of relief, the eldest judge nodded and said, “We don’t have enough evidence for a conviction, but…” His voice was drowned out by the crowd, so he shouted, “But! But!” until calm was restored. “We’re going to give the accused five lashes and two whacks just for getting involved in the courts.”
The crowd shouted, and the young man shouted with them. “But I’m not guilty! We’re in love, and I-”
The female judge called for order, then said, “You may not be guilty of rape, but something sneaky was going on. You must have known the father didn’t want you around his daughter. Right? But you got involved anyway. If you and the girl are in love, why didn’t you sit down with the father and explain the situation?”
“I shouldn’t have to!” the young man shouted.
“I know it seems unfair, but you do. The girl’s young, so she lives under her father’s house and under his rules. Believe it or not, he can’t just let her do anything she wants. Mistakes have consequences and he doesn’t want any long-term consequences affecting her before she’s old enough to live and think on her own. What seems like tyranny to you looks like protection from his perspective. Understand?”
The young man stared at the ground sullenly.
“Understand?” the judge repeated.
“No.”
“You will,” she nodded. “Strap him up.”
The crowd cheered once again as two Enforcers tied the young man to two posts on a separate podium. The crowd’s tone was menacing, reveling as his wrists were tied to the posts. An older Enforcer stepped forth carrying a whip, and a heavyset lady Enforcer tested several long, smooth sticks that she carried at her back.
“Oh, gods!” Perseval shouted. “They’re going to beat him, aren’t they?! They’re going to beat him in front of everyone!”
Simeon leaned in close to be heard over the crowd. He seemed unimpressed. “Looks like
they’re using the little whip. And two whacks? Come on.”
Perseval’s heart thundered as if he was about to be beaten himself. When the older Enforcer gave the young man something to bite down on, Perseval had to hold Simeon’s shoulder to keep from falling down. He could not breathe; his vision became fixed on a broken belt-loop on someone’s pants. He heard but did not see something like a whistle, a high-pitched crack, and then a muffled groan. He forced his eyes upward and saw that the young man was completely covered in sweat, but he was not dead. Perseval swore that he would watch the remainder of this travesty of justice. The Enforcers did not hurry. After the five lashes were given, the old Enforcer spoke quietly to the young man, who remained conscious and even spat out a response that may have been rude. The Enforcer laughed and patted him on the shoulder, then nodded to the Enforcer in charge of giving out whacks with her long, smooth stick.
“But this is barbaric, Simeon!” he said.
“Two! Whacks!” shouted the crowd. “Two! Whacks!”
“You think?” said Simeon. “Man, you should see what they do when somebody really screws up!”
“But why would they beat a man that they just said wasn’t guilty?!”
Crack sang the stick, and half the crowd cheered while the other half began looking about, seemingly bored and ready for the next event.
“They said there wasn’t enough proof for a conviction,” said Simeon. “It’s not like in Pontius where you’ve got a man’s freedom at stake. The judges can make pretty quick decisions when the stakes aren’t high.”
“Freedom?” said Perseval, straining to be heard over the crowd shouting at the next accused man. “Is that man ‘free’ while he’s getting beaten nearly to death?”
“Of course he’s free! Don’t exaggerate, he isn’t being beaten that badly. He’s going to rest for a week, heal up, and then he can get back to work, back to his friends, back to his studies, back to partying, back to whatever. We don’t have any prisons here. I don’t know whether it’s an ideological thing or if the King just wants to put resources elsewhere, but this is how we get justice in the Valley. Don’t shake your head, man. How is it any better in Pontius? If someone’s wrongly accused in Pontius, or if his ass is on the line because he broke a law that shouldn’t even be a law in the first place, then you can end up with innocent people having years of their lives stolen from them. They can get raped in a cell and it’s all in the name of moral cleanliness. Here, you take your licks, the crowd gets a show, and that’s that.”
“But what if a few whacks aren’t enough? Don’t try to tell me that beating someone can cure their criminal inclinations. Or are there simply no evil people in the Valley?”
“Oh yeah, there is. Just last year, there was a real evil bastard going around. He raped and stabbed at least one poor girl. She lived, but she’s gonna be fucked up the rest of her life. Well, the guy got caught. Everybody was talkin’ about it. The crowd was out for blood - and man, they got it. I saw with my own eyes how they beat that son of a bitch. Lashes all day, whacks in between. The Enforcers were worn out.”
“So they killed him. Did that make the girl feel better?”
“There’s no capital punishment in the Valley. Never on purpose, at least. And I don’t know how the girl felt about it, man, but it’s not like she would have felt good if the guy was locked in a cage the rest of his life, you know? You grew up in a culture that taught you prisons are necessary. You’ll get over that.”
“So they gave him a severe beating,” said Perseval, unwilling to drop the subject, “and then he got to walk free?”
“No. He was enslaved. The contract for his life was given to the girl. I’m assuming she sold it to some company. Even if the company didn’t want to use the guy for hard labor, everybody was watching this case, so maybe it was good publicity for the buyer.”
“That’s sickening.”
Simeon gave Perseval a strange look. “First you get bent out of shape because the punishments are too strict, then they aren’t strict enough? Don’t worry man, the judges here aren’t corrupt. The King makes sure of that. You can do just about anything you want here, but anyone who rapes and stabs someone in the Valley is going to end up in hell, one way or another.”
They watched what was left of the next trial. A dogman was accused of stealing some farmhand’s tools.
“Do you have the tools?” said a judge.
“No!” said the dogman. “I never took ’em!”
“He sold them!” screamed the farmhand. “Bastard stole ’em! I’m a skilled laborer, but I depend on my tools to make a living, understand?”
“As far as we’re concerned,” said another judge, “you owe the man one silver cent, five nickel decas, and thirteen copper unis for his goods. Is this amount reasonable to you, sir?”
The farmhand nodded sideways, said, “Well, it’s close, but...”
The judge turned back to the dogman, said, “Do you have the money to pay him back?”
“Hell no!” he shouted.
“Enslavement, then,” said the lead judge. “Until you can pay him back. Make a note that the debt on your life is worth one silver cent, five nickel decas, and thirteen copper unis, or one hundred sixty-three dollars all told. If you don’t want the contract, sir, you can sell it to another.”
“I’ll buy it!” shouted a tanner near Perseval. “I want that dog.”
As they released the dogman, Perseval said, “This is ridiculous, Simeon. There’s no justice here!”
“I agree! They should lock him in a room for a year and let us pay for his food. That’s justice!”
Perseval was annoyed at the flippant response, but a murderer was brought forth and his attention fixed on him. The crowd hated him immediately. Simeon said, “Let’s get out of here.”
“Already?”
“I thought you hated this stuff!”
“Well...” Perseval realized just then that he had been wanting to see what would be done to a real criminal. Was he sickened by the public beatings, or sickened by his own curiosity?
“I’m gonna get a drink across the street,” said Simeon. “Meet me later, then.”
Once Perseval could abandon the need to appear like a great moralist in front of Simeon, he was quickly taken up by the rage of the crowd. It was easy to hate the murderer as the evidence was stacked up against him, and when he saw that the family of the victim was present, he found himself wanting to see blood on their behalf. The victim’s family was obviously poor, so their shabby suits and dresses, brought out for this occasion, only added to the surreal and tawdry drama. Some Enforcers kept the crowd from the accused man, then set to beating him. He was given no less than sixty hard lashes on his back and twenty debilitating whacks on his arms and legs. The man was unconscious by the end, covered in blood, and an older Enforcer nervously took the man’s pulse.
“Furthermore,” said a judge, “the man will be enslaved with a contract of no less than five golden kilos, which he shall work off. He will be enslaved until the debt is repaid or until one year passes - whichever happens last.”
The victim’s family breathed a sigh of relief and the father loudly thanked the gods.
“But you people won’t get to keep the slave yourselves!” said the judge. “The amount of his contract will go to you, paid by an employer who wants to invest in the man-” The family screamed and the judge shushed them loudly. “Listen! Listen! You really think you could hold that man and not kill him yourselves?”
“So what if we do!” screamed a girl.
“Killing him won’t bring anybody back. You should pray that that man survives his beating. Five kilos is a lot of money, but his contract goes with him if he dies.”
Amazing, thought Perseval. So this circus is what passes for justice in the Black Valley?
All the same, Perseval found himself looking forward to the next trial.
***
They left in a drunken haze and Perseval felt lost inside himself. He didn�
��t know what to think about the spectacle of the trials. He felt that he needed to be alone to sort it out, to think thoughts that he knew were his own rather than just posturing for Simeon’s benefit. He hated the mob, the yelling, how the beatings seemed to feed the crowd’s gross appetite. On the other hand, he had seen nothing overtly corrupt happening. The rich seemed to have no leverage over the judges. There were no highly educated lawyers to give grand speeches that could sway a jury. He knew that in Pontius you had to have money if you wanted to get through a trial with your freedom intact. What if someone in Pontius had learned of Perseval’s secret, the thing that drove him here, and used it against him? He would have been thrown away in some prison and forgotten about. Then again, was public beating before a mob of raging dullards the answer? And there was also enslavement! How casually the phrase was thrown about! The Valley seemed to have a free market, but how they thought they could avoid a future in which large companies bribed judges to levy more and more enslavement for a cheap source of labor was beyond him. Something wasn’t adding up.
Simeon was little help. If a thing couldn’t be seen or experienced directly, he wasted little time in theorizing about it. For several days he drove them onward, biking west as hard as they could to reach the Usurper’s Monument. They slowed down only when they began picking up other pilgrims to travel with. For several nights they camped under the stars with a young girl who worked only half the year in order to support her pilgrimage habit, as well as a factory worker on leave who was a veteran of the Smith War, a wealthy investor who rode a fine horse and who scouted out businesses to throw money into, and a thug who claimed that he made his living entirely from the Ghoul Genocide Bounty Program.
One night Simeon decided to pace himself like a man possessed, and eventually only Perseval and the young girl could keep up with him. Perseval wanted to stop and regretted that they had lost the others. They came to an open plain and suddenly the clouds fled from the face of the moon and he saw the wonder that was the Usurper’s Monument.
Demonworld Book 6: The Love of Tyrants Page 5