by Gene Wolfe
Page 43
"Perhaps. "
"Believe me, its so. Ive seen much more than you. Since it is so, it may be that Ill never see Journeyman Palaemon again, and youve been brought here to be my messenger. "
Just at that point, when I expected him to convey to me whatever message he had, he fell silent. The patients who had listened so attentively to the Ascians story were talking among themselves now; but somewhere in the stack of soiled dishes the old slave had collected, one shifted its position with a faint clink, and I heard it.
"What do you know of the laws of slavery?" he asked me at last. "I mean, of the ways a man or a woman can become a slave under the law?"
"Very little," I said. "A certain friend of mine" (I was thinking of the green man) "was called a slave, but he was only an unlucky foreigner whod been seized by some unscrupulous people. I knew that wasnt legal. "
He nodded agreement. "Was he dark of skin?"
"You might say that, yes. "
"In the olden times, or so Ive heard, slavery was by skin color. The darker a man was, the more a slave they made him. Thats hard to believe, I know. But we used to have a chatelaine in the order who knew a lot about history, and she told me. She was a truthful woman. "
"No doubt it originated because slaves must often toil in the sun," I observed. "Many of the usages of the past now seem merely capricious to us. "
At that he became a trifle angry. "Believe me, young man, Ive lived in the old days and Ive lived now, and I know a lot better than you which was the best. "
"So Master Palaemon used to say. "
As I had hoped it would, that restored him to the principal topic of his thought. "Theres only three ways a man can be a slave," he said.
"Though for a woman its different, what with marriage and the like.
"If a mans brought - him being a slave - into the Commonwealth from foreign parts, a slave he remains, and the master that brought him here can sell him if he wants. Thats one. Prisoners of war - like this Ascian here - are the slaves of the Autarch, the Master of Masters and the Slave of Slaves. The Autarch can sell them if he wants to. Often he does, and because most of these Ascians arent much use except for tedious work, you often find them rowing on the upper rivers.
Thats two.
"Number three is that a man can sell himself into somebodys service, because a free man is the master of his own body - hes his own slave already, as it were. "
"Slaves," I remarked, "are seldom beaten by torturers. What need of it, when they can be beaten by their own masters?"
"I wasnt a slave then. Thats part of what I wanted to ask Journeyman Palaemon about. I was just a young fellow that had been caught stealing. Journeyman Palaemon came in to talk to me on the morning I was going to get my whipping. I thought it was a kindly thing for him to do, although it was then that he told me he was from the guild of torturers. "
"We always prepare a client, if we can," I said.
"He told me not to try to keep from yelling - it doesnt hurt quite so bad, is what he told me, if you yell out just as the whip comes down. He promised me there wouldnt be any hitting more than the number the judge said, so I could count them if I wanted to, and that way Id know when it was about over. And he said he wouldnt hit harder than he had to, to cut the skin, and he wouldnt break any bones. "
I nodded.
"I asked him then if hed do me a favor, and he said he would if he could. I wanted for him to come back afterward and talk to me again, and he said he would try to when I was a little recovered. Then a caloyer came in to read the prayer.
"They tied me to a post, with my hands over my head and the indictment tacked up above my hands. Probably youve done it yourself many times. "
"Often enough," I told him.
"I doubt the way they did me was any different. Ive got the scars of it still, but theyve faded, just like you say. Ive seen many a man with worse ones. The jailers, they dragged me back to my cell as the custom is, but I think I could have walked. It didnt hurt as much as losing an arm or a leg. Here Ive helped the surgeons take off a good many. "
"Were you thin in those days?" I asked him.
"Very thin. I think you could have counted every rib I had. "
"That was much to your advantage, then. The lash cuts deep in a fat mans back, and he bleeds like a pig. People say the traders arent punished enough for short weighing and the like, but those who speak so dont know how they suffer when they are. " Winnoc nodded to that. "The next day I felt almost as strong as ever, and Journeyman Palaemon came like hed promised. I told him how it was with me - how I lived and all - and asked him a bit about himself. I guess it seems queer to you that Id talk so to a man that had whipped me?"
"No. Ive heard of similar things many times. "
"He told me hed done something against his guild. He wouldnt tell me what it was, but because of it he was exiled for a while. He told me how he felt about it and how lonesome he was. He said hed tried to feel better by thinking how other people lived, by knowing they had no more guild than he did. But he could only feel sorry for them, and pretty soon he felt sorry for himself too. He told me that if I wanted to be happy, and not go through this kind of thing again, to find some sort of brotherhood for myself and join. "
"Yes?" I asked.
"And I decided to do what hes said. When I was let out, I spoke to the masters of a lot of guilds, picking and choosing them at first, then talking to any I thought might take me, like the butchers and the candlemakers. None of them would take on an apprentice as old as I was, or somebody that didnt have the fee, or somebody with a bad character - they looked at my back, you see, and decided I was a troublemaker.
"I thought about signing on a ship or joining the army, and since then Ive often wished Id gone ahead with one or the other, although maybe if I had Id wish now I hadnt, or maybe not be living to wish at all. Then I got the notion of joining some religious order, I dont know why. I talked to a bunch of them, and two offered to take me, even when I told them I didnt have any money and showed them my back. But the more I heard about the way they were supposed to live in there, the less I felt like I could do it. I had been drunk a lot, and I liked the girls, and I didnt really want to change.
"Then one day when I was standing around on a corner I saw a man I took to belong to some order I hadnt talked to yet. By that time I was planning to sign aboard a certain ship, but it wasnt going to sail for almost a week, and a sailor had told me a lot of the hardest work came while they were getting ready, and Id miss it if I waited until they were about to get up the anchor. That was all a lie, but I didnt know it then.
"Anyway, I followed this man Id seen, and when he stopped - hed been sent to buy vegetables, you see - I went up to him and asked him about his order. He told me he was a slave of the Pelerines and it was about the same as being in an order, but better. A man could have a drink or two and nobodyd object so long as he was sober when he came to his work. He could lie with the girls too, and there were good chances for that because the girls thought they were holy men, more or less, and they traveled all around.
"I asked if he thought theyd take me, and I said I couldnt believe the life was as good as he made it out to be. He said he was sure they would, and although he couldnt prove what hed said about the girls right then and there, hed prove what hed said about drinking by splitting a bottle of red with me.
"We went to a tavern by the market and sat down, and he was as good as his word. He told me the life was a lot like a sailors, because the best part of being a sailor was seeing various places, and they did that. It was like being a soldier too, because they carried weapons when the order journeyed in wild parts. Besides all of that, they paid you to sign. In an order, the order gets an offering from every man who takes their vow. If he decides to leave later, he gets some of it back, depending on how long hes been in. For us slaves, as he explained to me, all that went the other way. A slave got paid when he signed. If he left later hed have to bu
y his way out, but if he stayed he could keep all the money.
"I had a mother, and even though I never went to see her I knew she didnt have an aes. While I was thinking about the religious orders, Id got to be more religious myself, and I didnt see how I was going to minister to the Increate with her on my mind. I signed the paper -
naturally Goslin, the slave whod brought me in, got a reward for it
- and I took the money to my mother. "
I said, "That made her happy, Im sure, and you too. "
"She thought it was some kind of trick, but I left it with her anyhow. I had to go back to the order right away, naturally, and theyd sent somebody with me. Now Ive been here thirty years. "
"Youre to be congratulated, I hope. "
"I dont know. Its been a hard life, but then all lives are hard, from what Ive seen of them. "
"I too," I said. To tell the truth, I was becoming sleepy and wished that he would go. "Thank you for telling me your story. I found it very interesting. "
"I want to ask you something," he said, "and I want you to ask Journeyman Palaemon for me if you see him again. " I nodded, waiting.
"You said you thought the Pelerines would be kind mistresses, and I suppose youre right. Ive had a lot of kindness from some of them, and Ive never been whipped here - nothing worse than a few slaps. But you ought to know how they do it. Slaves that dont behave themselves get sold, thats all. Maybe you dont follow me. "
"I dont think I do. "
"A lot of men sell themselves to the order, thinking like I did that itll be an easy life and an adventure. So it is, mostly, and its a good feeling to help cure the sick and the wounded. But those who dont suit the Pelerines are sold off, and they get a lot more for them than they paid them. Do you see how it is now? This way, they dont have to beat anybody. About the worst punishment you get is scrubbing out the jakes. Only if you dont please them, you can find yourself getting driven down into a mine.
"What Ive wanted to ask Journeyman Palaemon all these years. . . " Winnoc paused, gnawing at his lower lip. "He was a torturer, wasnt he? He said so, and so did you. "
"Yes, he was. He still is. "
"Then what I want to know is whether he told me what he did to torment me. Or was he giving me the best advice he could?" He looked away so that I would not see his expression. "Will you ask him that for me? Then maybe sometime Ill see you again. " I said, "He advised you as well as he could, Im certain. If youd stayed as you were, you might have been executed by him or another torturer long ago. Have you ever seen a man executed? But torturers dont know everything. "
Winnoc stood up. "Neither do slaves. Thank you, young man. " I touched his arm to detain him for a moment. "May I ask you something now? I myself have been a torturer. If youve feared for so many years that Master Palaemon had said what he did only to give you pain, how do you know that I havent done the same just now?"
"Because you would have said the other," he told me. "Good night, young man. "
I thought for a time about what Winnoc had said, and about what Master Palaemon had said to him so long ago. He too had been a wanderer, then, perhaps ten years before I was born. And yet he had returned to the Citadel to become a master of the guild. I recalled the way Abdiesus (whom I had betrayed) had wished to have me made a Master. Surely, whatever crime Master Palaemon had committed had been hidden later by all the brothers of the guild. Now he was a master, though as I had seen all my life, being too accustomed to it to wonder at it, it was Master Gurloes who directed the guilds affairs despite his being so much younger. Outside the warm winds of the northern summer played among the tent ropes; but it seemed to me that I climbed the steep steps of the Matachin Tower again and heard the cold winds sing among the keeps of the Citadel.
At last, hoping to turn my mind to less painful matters, I stood and stretched and strolled to Foilas cot. She was awake, and I talked with her for a time, then asked if I might judge the stories now; but she said I would have to wait one more day at least.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - FOILAS STORY - THE ARMINGERS DAUGHTER
"Hallvard and Melito and even the Ascian have had their chances. Dont you think Im entitled to one too? Even a man who courts a maid thinking he has no rivals has one, and that one is herself. She may give herself to him, but she may also choose to keep herself for herself. He has to convince her that she will be happier with him than by herself, and though men convince maids of that often, it isnt often true. In this competition I will make my (own entry, and win myself for myself if I can. If I marry for tales, should I marry someone whos a worse teller of them than I am myself?"
"Each of the men has told a story of his own country. I will do the same. My land is the land of the far horizons, of the wide sky. It is the land of grass and wind and galloping hoofs. In summer the wind can be as hot as the breath of an oven, and when the pampas take fire, the line of smoke stretches a hundred leagues and the lions ride our cattle to escape it, looking like devils. The men of my country are brave as bulls and the women are fierce as hawks.
"When my grandmother was young, there was a villa in my country so remote that no one ever came there. It belonged to an armiger, a feudatory of the Liege of Pascua. The lands were rich, and it was a fine house, though the roof beams had been dragged by oxen all one summer to get them to the site. The walls were of earth, as the walls of all the houses in my country are, and they were three paces thick. People who live in woodlands scoff at such walls, but they are cool and make a fine appearance whitewashed and will not burn. There was a tower and a wide banqueting hall, and a contrivance of ropes and wheels and buckets by which two merychips, walking in a circle, watered the garden on the roof.