by Cat Rambo
Under Jolietta’s tutelage, I learned the difference between the various methods of punishment: the searing flay of cat-tails, the bitter blow of a cow-hide whip, the thud of a rod against scarred flesh. Like other Humans I had met, she felt that the sooner examples were made, and the sooner a captive resigned to its life of servitude and toil, the better for all parties concerned.
Food was a constant worry among the Beasts of the household, although we did not live half so badly as the Beasts who were hired out to work on surrounding farms. They were given two pecks of corn and a pound of dried fish each week, and counted themselves better off than most. Nonetheless, they tried their best to be hired by the masters known for feeding their workers well, and the household Beasts smuggled out what they could of food. Most of the time, though, we ate the same mash and boiled vegetables that the Humans in the household, mainly Jolietta and her apprentices, consumed.
On the western edge of the estate there was a stand of apple trees. Jolietta allowed us to pick these as we would, for she disliked the taste of the fruit, and would watch one of us gobble a piece down, amazement evident on her face as she made loud remarks regarding how she did not understand how we might stomach such noisome provender. Despite this talk, we ate the apples with relish, for they were sweet and full of savor, and what was not eaten was dried and put aside against the winter.
We were severely punished if transgressions were discovered. At one point, directed to throw out some burned soup, I tried to scrape it into some sacking for transport to a work slave who was ailing. Jolietta found me at it and forced me to eat the cold, burned mass there and then before stringing me up for the lash. The food was the entirety of what I was given for the next three days.
I learned that in Tabat there were individuals known as Beast farmers—Humans who held the titles to Beasts by law but left the Beasts alone, to make their own way in the world or sometimes pay the farmer a weekly portion of their income.
Some did this out of the goodness of their hearts, while others chose to make their daily living in such a partnership, being too lazy or otherwise disinclined to keep the strict grasp that a slavekeeping arrangement would entail.
But for a Beast to belong to such a farmer, they must manage to save up a sum to give the farmer, with which to buy them—and this sum was inordinate indeed. Nonetheless, I began to put aside such small coins as fell my way.
Part VIII
Visitors to the estate—my friendship with the Sphinx—I learn to read—I am trained as a physician—I escape and am caught—I father a number of children—I begin writing this account
Other creatures constantly passed in and out of Jolietta’s kingdom, either in the process of being trained or nursed. I nursed litters of Dog-men and groomed Griffons being trained for the Tabatian cavalry. Many institutions sent their ailing Beasts to Jolietta for doctoring. The Sphinx had been purchased by the College of Mages, and when she fell prey to cough, the College sent her to Jolietta’s farm to be nursed back to health with boxes of heated sand and horehound and pinetop tea. Jolietta allowed me to care for the Sphinx and over the month she spent there at Piper Hill, we became fast friends. Even after her departure, we passed messages back and forth as we could.
Jolietta thought me intelligent enough to absorb some knowledge of healing. I learned to identify and pull bad teeth, to apply leeches, and to administer medicine to Beasts. She taught me the names and methods of the different preparations, and had me smell and taste each of them so I would know them in the future.
She said that if I learned quickly, she would be able to trust me with errands to outlying farms, to tend creatures too ill to be fetched to her.
As a result of learning such things, I taught myself to read and write, although my hand was poor and unpracticed. Still, I worked at improving my understanding of the art where I could, stealing pamphlets and magazines to read, hiding them away in a shed near the dragon pens.
I made it my practice not to speak much, but my mistress caught something suspicious in my demeanor and watched my actions jealously. Aware of the scrutiny, I took care to make no move that would confirm her fears. Indeed, I was a model slave, unobtrusive as a piece of furniture, quick to anticipate her wants and desires. I had feared that I might be put in a brothel, for the sailors on the ship said that most Beasts of my kind ended up under such circumstances. And to do her credit, Jolietta never spoke word or made gesture that led me to think she desired sexual congress with me.
Time wore on and I grew from my spindly youth to a broad-shouldered male. While Bebe had no interest in me, the same was not true for many of the Centaur mares in the area, along with a few of the Human women. The dryads liked for me to kiss them, and stroke them with my hands, and we spent many hours in this wise, but the mares were what I ached for.
Jolietta forbade me congress, saying that the owners should have to pay well for my seed, but I managed to defy her more than once, and blame the outcome on my nature. Jolietta thought, as most Humans did, that Beasts were inevitable prey to their natures, and that I could not help taking an opportunity at congress with a mare in heat any more than I could help eating when I was hungry and food presented itself.
At first I tried to ensure that my loves produced no progeny, but when a mare is fertile, Nature takes its course and soon enough a child results. When I realized this, I attempted to deny myself such pleasures, but I was young and easily swayed by my body’s yearnings. And so, within a few years, I had a number of colts, both purchased and gratis, in the surrounding area, and I experienced the first pangs of seeing a child sold away from me when a neighbor parted with mare and colt to a trader who took them northward to Verranzo’s City.
Those who advocate slavery would deny such familial bonds. Surely they have never seen a mother, wailing and lashed by despair more harshly than any cat-o-nine-tails, trying in vain to reach to her infant! The child stands, uncertain and blinking, sensing the sorrow to come, and then is driven ever more frantic by his dam’s remonstrations! More than once such a sight has torn with an eagle’s claws at my heart.
After several years of study as a physician, Jolietta began to take me with her when she paid visits to check on Beasts, and I would administer medicine or treatments under her watchful eye. Several of the freeholders asked her if she meant to geld me, and she spoke forthrightly, saying that Centaurs of good frame sold well, and that she reckoned she would have good fat breeding fees of me.
“Ain’t you afraid that will leave him too feisty?” one demanded, and she shrugged.
“It would be a poor advertisement for my training skills if I did not trust in them,” she said.
By the time she began to put me out to stud on a regular basis, my lost children ate at me. I saw their sad faces in my dreams at night, and whenever I encountered one of their mothers on a visit, I glimpsed only reproach in her eyes. What would it be like, I thought, to live in a place where I might be part of a herd. Where I might sire children and teach them as I had been taught, how to sing, how to wield a spear, how to count on cabi.
Driven by such fantasies, I entertained thoughts of escape. While passing through a farmhouse kitchen, I had the opportunity to steal a knife that sat waiting to cut pieces of a ham. While I found out later that my theft caused a great hubbub, suspicion did not land on me. I kept my weapon out in the garden, tucked beneath a little-used bench, and waited a few weeks to make sure that no late suspicions would lead to Jolietta searching my chamber, as happened from time to time.
I put food aside, mainly oat rusks that I stole from the kitchen and dried apples given me by the work Beasts. I stitched a pack out of burlap stolen from the stable, and read through Jolietta’s almanac to discover the next night when moonlight would be sufficient to see at night. I kept my eyes open for other items that would not be missed, hoping for a torch or lantern, but fate did not provide such.
I knew from reading the newspaper that if I made my way north to Verranzo’s City, I might find
souls willing to shelter me, and eventually send me west, where the Humans were few. I did not know much of the territory that lay in my way, but I figured I might head for the coast and then work my way up along it towards that haven.
Accordingly, I left late at night, creeping out from my quarters in the stable. Under the cover of darkness, I made my way along the deserted road to the place where its cliffs overlooked the sea, and then made my way north and east from there. In the hour when dawn fingered the sky, I found a patch of woodland between fields and sheltered in its depths—the lush grass testified that only deer and smaller wildlife came there. I found a bed beneath a fallen pine and slept, dreaming of freedom, among the smell of the rotting brown needles.
My hope was that in the morning, I would not be missed since Jolietta would think I had gone to slaughter game and feed the dragons. The day was bright and sunny, and would render the dragons torpid and unlikely to complain much—I had fed them early and more than their usual the day before, and they customarily gorged themselves and then did not eat for several days. And in those hours while I was not missed, traffic would pass back and forth along the road, muddling and—hopefully—destroying my scent so hounds would not be able to trace me to my hiding place.
I was far enough away from the road that I could not hear the traffic or conversation there, and while once or twice I thought I heard the baying of hounds, carried on the wind, I was never certain. When evening came and I could move in the shadows, hiding whenever I came across another traveler, I continued to move up along the coast.
I travelled in this way for three days, living off the rusks in my pouch and food stolen from gardens where I could. On the fourth night, I heard pursuit behind me and the cries of hounds, which grew louder and louder. Jolietta had anticipated my path and had been waiting for it to coincide with her patrols. She tracked me into a ravine, where I slipped and slid in the clay and mud, unable to find traction. Cassius climbed down and tied me with ropes before he and Brutus drew me up out of the rocky cleft by means of pulleys.
The beating I had earned was a savage one indeed. Afterwards Jolietta let me hang by the wrists throughout the night. I lay insensible for two days afterward, and then resumed my duties.
From that point forward, I kept any thoughts of escape to myself. I was resolved that in the end, I would, but that next time I would be far better prepared.
My life in general improved as a result of my quiet demeanor, for I was determined to betray no sign of my intended, inevitable rebellion to my mistress. Jolietta allowed me better food, and the cook instructed me in culinary techniques that I might find useful in tempting the appetite of a patient or the mistress at some point. I learned how to create trifles and frumenties, soufflés and omelets, and a variety of nogs and creams and soups of medicinal nature.
But where for many, years of interaction would engender trust, Jolietta grew more and more suspicious of my motives as time passed. She stopped sending me out on errands by myself, saying that I had fathered as many free colts as she cared me to, and she would no longer allow me in the still-room, where she kept her herbs and medicines, by myself.
Word came to me through other slaves that in Tabat one of the Human presses had devoted itself to the cause of abolition, and wished to receive accounts of the lives of Beasts, in order to speak on their behalf to those who insisted that they should remain subject, incapable of governing themselves. And so I sat down to write, and penned the first part of this tale and sent it by secret means to the newspaper.
A month later, by the same means in reverse, a newspaper arrived in my room. I unfolded its stiff pages and looked throughout its sections. On the fifth page, I found these words, beginning the dense blocks of print beneath an advertisement for decorative tiles: Like many of my fellow Beasts I was born to freedom, in a small village named Dekalion, the confluence of five centaur herds.
I continued writing my pages, but it was difficult to get candles in order to compose at night. I limited myself to one chapter each purple month, and used any extra luminescence to correct and edit my prose. I composed paragraphs while working for Jolietta making pills or feeding the dwarf dragons, and polished them as I sat eating or doing handiwork in the evenings.
I did not grow up believing in Gods, such as the Humans follow. And even now, when the Humans insist that everything is theirs, a gift from those Gods, I find myself dubious, though I know I might find myself slain for such words. The Humans do as they will, and firstly say that we are like infants who must be looked over and then say we are monsters who must be controlled, creatures incapable of rising above their natures, who will do wrong to them if we are allowed to be our own agents. And so I questioned these things, and asked my fellow Beasts if they did not question them as well.
Part IX
The aftermath
It is unknown how Fino’s mistress discovered his activities, but on the day he was due to pass his next manuscript to his correspondent, it failed to arrive. The messenger stopped at Piper Hill to secretly ask after him, and was told that he was ill.
Subsequent queries learned that she had performed some surgery on him that robbed him of the majority of his intelligence, rendering him able to feed and tend himself, but little else, and that shortly thereafter he had been sold to a passing trader, and taken to the Old Continent.
His fate is unknown as of this writing. The last piece of his narrative was smuggled out, but the hand is illegible and hurried, and only the first sentence can be read.
It says only this: “I am determined to disobey.”
This story ends in Tabat, the fantasy seaport in which I have based numerous pieces, including others in this collection. Tabat exists in a slightly steampunk magical world where intelligent beasts such as unicorns and dragons exist but have no legal rights. Their status is in part a reaction to the depredations of the sorcerers who created many of them in the Shadow Wars, which destroyed an entire continent.
Tabat started as a proposal for an area for an online game my friend James was creating in the mid-nineties. I wanted to do a seaport, and I was inspired by the building system that James had created, which allowed one to add conditional descriptions to a room.
The game never came to pass, but several years later I returned to Tabat. At the time Armageddon was closed to players every Saturday in order to allow the staff to coordinate and conduct maintenance. I suggested that a MUD set in a very small area would allow the players to socialize and roleplay, and set about recreating the city. That project also never was completed, but finally in 2004 I began writing stories set in Tabat, because I knew it so well.
One of the differences you'll note between this and the hardcopy version is the capitalization when referring to Beasts.
Eagle-haunted Lake Sammamish
“You’re nuts,” my husband told me.
“Land is always a good investment,” I said. “Here, I’ll send you the link.”
I messaged it to him and there was silence while Jonah clicked through the pages on his laptop.
“This is in Utah,” he finally said. “It’ll be swarming with Mormons. Or there’ll be some sort of religious cult living just down the road.”
“By purchasing this land for a mere 350 dollars,” I said, “I have doubled our property in the world. We are landed gentry now. I think that means we can be knighted.”
“A quarter acre.”
“No, I got a better deal by buying two lots, so it’s a half acre.”
Our legal holdings now consisted of one decrepit, Key-west colored condo beside Lake Sammamish, a boat slip, and a half acre of property in Box Elder County, Utah. The deed, when it arrived a week after Paypal payment, read “The West third of the North three fifths of the Southwest Quarter of Section 13, Township 6N, Range 16W, S.L.B. & M.”
I pinned it up on the bulletin board over my computer.
“Who pays the taxes on that?” Jonah said, glancing up at it.
“We do, but this year’
s are included in the purchase price,” I said.
“Huh.”
I paid him no attention and kept on working through the Ebay auction list. I couldn’t see what was on his screen, but I could hear the game music shift as he stepped off the zeppelin and into the base camp in the jungle.
“Are we planning on going to see it?” he said.
“Sure, we can go camp on it.”
“And get shot.”
“You’re just jealous of my real estate genius.”
He snorted.
“Mark my words, that land will make us money someday,” I said. “Land isn’t a renewable resource.”
“That’s what you said about the condo,” he said.
“And I was right, too,” I said. “It’s gone up 50k in two, what, three years?”
“Yeah, yeah. You said that when you bought all those Thai sapphires a couple of years ago too.”
“Poophead.”
“You too.”
I didn’t think much more about the property at the time. The summer went on and we continued about our business: I made a living selling Ebay items for people, and Jonah went off to work at untangling web issues for his company on a daily basis. We barbecued and watched the eagles fish in the evenings beside Lake Sammamish.
In September, a letter arrived about the Box Elder property. The Morton-Thiokol Corporation was offering me $3,000 for it.
“Whoot,” Jonah said. “Not a bad return on your money.”
“I wonder why they want the land,” I said. “I mean, not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing, though, looking a gift horse in the mouth,” Jonah pointed out.
“Yeah, well, it just seems a little too good to be true. It’s a corporation. They’re not offering me money out of the goodness of their heart.”