Prisoner of Conscience
Page 19
The ambush of the relocation party, her escape, those bitter cold and fear-filled months of underground resistance, the wounds so slow to heal. Her capture. No trial; the rules of Evidence were satisfied in the facts of where and how she had been taken. No trial, and no execution by torture or otherwise; something far worse instead.
The Bond.
The Bench had made the Bonds to serve Inquisitors, because free men could not be forced to implement torture. Service Bonds were a quite different category, it was pure punishment with no excuse of Bench utility except to serve as deterrent.
We will take you and those of yours who are fit enough, and we will make them bond-involuntary, and if we will not torture them in obvious ways we will make sure they suffer — we will require them to assist in the torment of others like themselves. And if they are fit for Service and not Security, we will harvest the use of their bodies in a more traditional fashion.
Service Bonds.
To be put to the rapists, night after night, and the fees collected by the Bench that owned her — by its own enactment, that had by superior force of brutal arms taken her for a chattel slave for crimes committed against the Judicial order . . .
It had only been four years.
How was she to hope to last thirty?
The officer had treated her with unusual courtesy, not — as far as she could tell — because she was a woman so much as because that was the way he treated all his Bonds. And the officer had not come to her in anger or in mockery to confront her with her helplessness or demand the forms of self-abasement frequently invoked by other rapists.
She had not minded opening to him, though she would have rather been left to herself. And still he had reminded her that she was a slave, not intentionally, but only in the fact that she was not permitted to grant or withhold her consent.
And she was afraid of Andrej Koscuisko.
He had come to her as gently as he could, she was sure of it. And still he had lost himself in the act. The pitiless strength of his arms still around her was terrifying.
If he should use her as strictly as he had just now when he approached her with good will, how was it to come with her when he should be annoyed?
She was trapped and prisoned in Koscuisko’s sleeping embrace.
She had no hope of escape or of protection.
Service Bonds had to get used to that, but could she ever?
Ailynn had little pain from the passage, having been put on notice more than once that he might be abrupt with her. Little physical pain, and even a small echoing reverberation of the pleasure he had given her with his touch; but in her heart Ailynn was desolate.
She wept.
She couldn’t bite her grief back down into her heart, betrayed to grief, ambushed by it here in the warm quiet dreaming dark with the officer asleep beside her. Ailynn wept to be reminded that she was a slave, and though Koscuisko might be a good “maister” — to use the Nurail of it — it was still as a man who owned her that he came to bed.
She grieved; and the worst possible thing happened, the officer woke up, stilling her cries gently with his hand put to her mouth as he rose up in the bed to lean upon his elbow.
“Ailynn. Oh, hush, please, Ailynn, my gentlemen will be distressed for you, do you have pain?”
Folding her close, as though that could make it better. Rather than worse. She put her face against the crumpled warmth of his half-laced sleep-shirt and wailed in desperate anguish as quietly as possible.
He pet her and rocked her, and she wept because she could not know from day to day whether the next five men to whom the Bench sold her would be decent men or brutes, and whether Koscuisko kissed or clouted her was up to him entirely. Nothing for her to choose.
She cried herself out and clung to him, exhausted. He had a cool damp cloth in his hand, now, and patted at her flushed cheeks and swollen eyes with a delicate concern; she had waked one of her cousins, then, because she knew Koscuisko hadn’t gotten out of bed.
Ailynn caught her breath.
“One trembles to ask whether it is something in particular one has done,” Koscuisko said. “Because of two problems. And one is that politeness interferes, and people under Bond are not permitted to accuse or upbraid officers without suffering the reproach of their governor. And the other problem is that it must be, and therefore there’s no sense in even asking. Ailynn, I have grieved you, I am sorry.”
It wasn’t exactly that.
It was.
She had no words to explain herself to him: and yet he did not deserve to suffer because the Bench had put her beneath him. It wasn’t Koscuisko’s fault. And he had tried to be careful, even as caught up as he’d been in his own body’s need; and her body was grateful for the small pleasure that it had of him, because there was so little pleasure else for her body in her life.
She was embarrassed to caress him in the presence of some possible other, since she did not know who else might be in the room. But she should try to explain. Trembling in fear of her own temerity, Ailynn put her face up to the officer’s, and kissed his mouth with hesitant care.
“It’s not what you might think, sir.” And it wasn’t. “I’m heartily sorry to have wakened you. Nothing of what the officer has done. Or almost nothing.”
That was true, and her governor didn’t bridle at her candor, even though it came a little close to a reproach of sorts. That was the trick of living with a governor, to learn to speak truth in such a way as to avoid conflicts in her mind.
“I will want to make examination, later.” Whether or not Koscuisko believed her was difficult to say; she couldn’t tell one way or the other, from the sound of his voice. The officer was accustomed to living with bond-involuntaries. He might suspect that what she said was at least as much what she was trained to say as how she felt. “But now I want you to lie quiet and rest, Ailynn. Erish, comfort your cousin as you like, or as she likes rather. I am going downstairs to my office.”
And since Koscuisko was familiar with dealing with Bonds, Koscuisko would know that what she said to him in unsolicited physical contact was from her heart, unedited and unforced. It had been a risk to offer a kiss; some men did not want intimacies with whores beyond those that they themselves demanded. But perhaps he would think about the statement that she had tried to make to him with the gesture.
She had instruction and direction from Koscuisko, to lie quietly and rest.
Tucking the covers close against her back, he rose to dress, giving the damp cloth to Erish to continue the work of patting the hectic flush of desperate sorrow gently from the skin of cheek and forehead.
Ailynn knew how to do as she was told, she was a slave under Jurisdiction. And it was very nice, Erish’s tending of her. So she closed her eyes and invoked her memory, not of before or after, but only the time during that Koscuisko had brought joy to her body; and went to sleep.
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Andrej pulled on his rest-dress rather than wake anybody. He was only going to his office. Rest-dress meant very full trousers that belted around the waist, with a soft wrap-tunic to cover; it looked almost like skirts, to Andrej, and it had taken him a little while to get used to that, but it was only part of an officer’s wardrobe. Not a calculated affront to the holy Mother, an attempt to claim the superior status of femininity by dressing as a woman. There was no apron, after all.
He could wear padding-socks with rest-dress, he didn’t have to put on his boots, and that was another significant thing about rest-dress. Collecting Code on his way out toward the office access lift, Andrej stepped carefully from flagstone to flagstone in his padding-socks; the night was cool, the ground damp with dew, and padding-socks were not moisture-impervious.
The lift was waiting, of course, and his office was dark in the night. Andrej could see the lights from Port Rudistal and from the displacement camp beyond from the corridor as he approached. Would they be able to see him, he wondered?
Code started the rhyti while Andrej sat down to stare a
t the surface of his desk-table, brooding. He had frightened Ailynn, or hurt her. Perhaps both. He could send her back to the service house, and she would be in no further danger from him; but the problem with that was twofold.
He had forgotten who and where he was, in her embrace; and it seemed to Andrej that he had to have that avenue of escape, or else he would not survive until he was called back to Scylla. The distraction was short-lived, perhaps, but it had been genuine. He wanted to know that it would be available again.
Two, of course, was that if he sent her back they’d think that she had displeased in some way, and things would be made unpleasant for her. And also she would simply be put back to work accommodating multiple patrons instead of one, howsoever moody and difficult that one might be.
Poor Ailynn.
What was a woman’s hire, for a night?
Senior officers weren’t charged at service houses, though Andrej always made a point to tip well. The expenses they incurred were all charged back to Fleet as preventive medicine. He didn’t know how much Ailynn’s time cost.
He could find out.
Pulling a piece of notepaper toward himself, Andrej picked up a stylus to start calculating.
When he had been in school at Mayon Surgical College, the charges for recreation had been standardized by the school administration. Students paid out twenty Standard for two hours of company, eighty to be accompanied all night. Mayon’s Service professionals had been an elite of sorts, because the standards set by the school administration had been aggressively strict in terms of the benefits packages enjoyed by the staff.
If he figured eighty a night for Ailynn’s company, and the prison was providing lodging, linen, and her meals — it had been four weeks, that was thirty-two days.
Nearly a month.
Had it really been a month?
Had it been so long since Joslire claimed the Day?
He’d dressed by himself in the dark, and not retrieved his knives from the washroom. He hadn’t thought about it. But once he realized that he was without Joslire’s knives, the place between his shoulders where the mother-knife should have been started to ache.
A month.
A month, bereft of Joslire, and trying to soothe the hurt with poultices made up of the atrocious torment of his prisoners . . .
It could not have been a month.
Eighty a night for Ailynn’s company, unless there were allowances made for livery and maintenance; that was thirty-three thousand — and some — for a year, and the term of the Bond was thirty years, so that was something in the neighborhood of one million. Standard.
If he were to rent her from the Bench until the Day came for Ailynn, because the Bench would not accept a forfeit for her crime.
Still, what were salary monies for, if not to buy things that he wanted? It wasn’t as though his living expenses were burdensome. And more than enough money for his needs in rents and other income from his holdings in the Koscuisko familial corporation. He was its prince inheritor, after all. By any Standard measure he was rich.
Nor had the Koscuisko familial corporation gotten rich by throwing away money on self-indulgences that could profit them nothing —
Joslire was dead.
Joslire had been his man, and had died in his service.
It was the right of household retainers who gave up their lives to defend their masters to be remembered in the family chapels as house benefactors, with prayers and litanies, and inclusion in the family’s Catalog for pious observance.
Could he not justify it to himself if he hired Ailynn to be Joslire’s nun? Religious professionals came more dear than those who provided personal services of a sexual nature. Ailynn would even be cost-effective, considered in that light.
It was an absolutely idiotic idea, and the more Andrej thought about it, the better he liked it. There were funds set aside for the maintenance of religious professionals and the support of religious establishments. Joslire had died in Port Rudistal, he should be remembered here. He would hire Ailynn to be Joslire’s nun, and buy a house to be a nunnery.
Uncle Radu might question Andrej’s choice of abbess, but it was in Andrej’s right to build and maintain chapels from dedicated funds so long as a rule of devotion was established and maintained. Ailynn was not Dolgorukij, but neither had Joslire been; why should he not?
He would have to think about it seriously.
Once he was awake.
Setting the sheet aside, Andrej pulled the nearest stack of documents toward him. He hadn’t spent much time in his office over the past few days. Technically speaking he was the senior medical officer at the Domitt Prison, though nothing to do with Infirmary; it was up to him to review and countersign mortality and incident reports.
There were a lot of administrative reports; he was backlogged to a significant extent. Had it really been so long since he’d reviewed the mortality roster?
The newest one was dated just yesterday, that explained it. But the one from three weeks ago was still sitting open, waiting for disposition.
This was odd.
He had four weeks’ worth of mortality reports before him. He could track the numbers from week to week.
When he’d got here, the Domitt Prison had been losing more than one in sixteen a month to preexisting injury or illness, and Andrej had been suspicious about trailing mortality due to the epidemic Administrator Belan had mentioned to him.
To be losing one in sixteen was high mortality. But Andrej could think of many reasonable explanations. It made sense that prisoners taken in the aftermath of one Bench campaign or another might not have had enough to eat in the days before their capture and imprisonment.
The Nurail that the Dramissoi Relocation Fleet had taken in had been badly stressed, and not all collectors of refugees could be counted on to treat their wards with as scrupulous care as Captain Sinjosi Vopalar. Andrej had expected the mortality rate to decline, though, as the prison population stabilized.
Mortality rates had gone down.
But not by enough.
He’d been here nearly one month, Standard, since this was one of the short six-week months. Any prisoners referred by the Dramissoi Relocation Fleet had been here for as long. But there were more admissions on the mortality report than there had been prisoners with the Dramissoi Fleet: Andrej was in a position to be confident of that.
Where were the new admissions coming from?
Were they some exhausted and half-dead survivors of yet another Bench campaign against the Nurail?
Hadn’t Eild been supposed to be the last?
There were disquieting indications that something was wrong, here. Too many dead. Prisoners referred on accusation of things they could have had no part in, and more and more of the prisoners seemed to have been physically stressed as he worked through the cells and they filled the cells back up behind him. Physically stressed as though they had been overworked and underfed, and for how long?
He could request a kitchen audit, ensure that the kitchen served decent rations on a decent schedule. Work-details were entitled to increased rations to support the physical labor they were asked to perform. Maybe the Administration didn’t know.
He saw Bench Lieutenant Plugrath twice a week, in his office, in the morning. There had been no real news for this past while: and in his heart Andrej knew that they would never find the people who had bereft him of his friend. Not now. Too much time had passed. A kitchen audit, and he’d ask Plugrath for an admissions report, just to set his mind at rest about who all those Nurail on mortality report were and where they were coming from. It would be a simple enough task.
In light of the high mortality rates at the Domitt Prison, he would take steps to assure himself that there was an explanation beyond the Administration’s control. That would protect them all from possible reproach. Once he had but reviewed the kitchen audit and gotten an admissions reconciliation from Lieutenant Plugrath, he could sign off on these documents with a good conscience.
Maybe if Cook could be persuaded to make Code’s favorite fast-meal, Andrej could be forgiven for the unsettled night-walking of the sleep-shift now all but past.
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Administrator Geltoi signed off on the daily transmit to Chilleau Judiciary with a very satisfied flourish as Belan watched. “Another sound day’s work from our Inquisitor,” Geltoi announced. Unnecessarily; but Belan enjoyed hearing it regardless.
Countersealing the secures, Geltoi tossed the completed documents-cube into his transmit stack as he continued. “The First Secretary will be pleased, there should be no further questions about our prisoner handling. This will have shut the mouths of any critics, by now. Were it not for our effort, the Second Judge would still be exposed to reproach in the public eye from others on the Bench.”
As long as Geltoi was content Belan was happy. Geltoi was Pyana, and if there was anything Pyana were good at, it was administration. Geltoi knew how to take care of things.
“It needed only that you be provided with appropriate resources, Administrator,” Belan assured his superior. “Once you but had what tools were needed. That was all. They’ll know better than to make you wait next time, sir.”
So much was only understood. Geltoi wasn’t really listening, picking up a piece of documentation with a frown. “At the same time, however. And only his job, true, I grant you that ungrudgingly, Belan.”
Grant what? Belan had no idea what that document contained. He waited, humbly, for the Administrator to explain, knowing all would be made clear to him. And that if he didn’t understand, it was because he was mere Nurail, not Pyana.
Geltoi spoke on. “But at the same time one wonders if a more — shall we say — mature officer would have made quite this same choice. There is a time and a place for everything.”