This was not as bad as I had thought it must be, except for letting animals take the skull—the bones. Lau put all the bones of their dead in an ossuary, not only the head. But they do not care as much about the disposition of their bones as my people, so altogether it seemed to me the manner of death was not that bad. A man cut across the belly that way would not live even a full day, probably less. Much less, if dogs pulled out his intestines. If the punishment were no worse than that, Esau would have told me when I asked him. I said, “That is for a lord of the summer country. For you, it is different?”
“I’m a scepter-holder. Trying to kill me is exactly like attempting to kill the king. The penalty for that is the same. But it doesn’t just fall on the assassin. The punishment also falls on his family, out to the third degree.” Aras met my eyes. “His parents and sisters and brothers, his wife and children if he has any, that’s the first degree. His grandparents and all their children—that is, his uncles and aunts—and their wives and husbands, and all their children, constitute the second degree. And his grandchildren if he has any, though as young a man as that obviously won’t have grandchildren. The third degree includes great-grandparents and all their children, and the husbands and wives of their children, and all their descendants to the third generation below the assassin.”
I had been trying to imagine this as he explained it. Now I shook my head because I did not want to imagine it. If that were done to a tribe, it would be the whole tribe. Everyone would die. It would reach farther than that. Everyone has cousins and aunts and many other relatives among many different tribes. I thought of the young man begging me to kill him. Trying to make me so angry I would do it. No wonder he had said I don’t care what you do to me. I could not have done anything to him remotely as bad as this. For bringing this punishment down on his whole family, he deserved to die every death.
I asked, to be sure I understood, “This penalty is for every Lau, whatever the circumstances? If there were a war between one county and another, what if an arrow struck you then?”
“That’s not assassination, Ryo. That’s bad luck—or bad management on my part, perhaps, to put myself in the way of that arrow.”
I nodded. This distinction between deliberate assassination and the fortunes of battle made the custom seem less appalling. But it still seemed terrible enough. I said, “That day, after you had accepted me as tuyo, when I tried to kill you ... you said then it was good I was not a subject of your king. This is why, because the penalty is only for Lau? If an Ugaro killed you now, this moment, no one would attempt to exact that kind of vengeance against his people?”
“Yes, exactly. None of that applies to an Ugaro. If that were otherwise, I’d have had to ... define that unfortunate incident differently, I suppose.”
He meant he would have pretended I had not tried to kill him. Obviously that kind of pretense was impossible now.
I said, “Esau, I wish to speak to Lord Aras alone. My lord, perhaps you would send your guards away. They do not need to be here now.”
He probably knew what I wanted to say to him; I was upset, but it was very clear in my mind. Even so, he gestured to them, a small movement of one hand, and said, “You may all step out. When Troop Leader Geras returns with the assassin, you may all come back as well.”
His guards did not want to leave him. Even Esau did not want to leave. After a moment of puzzlement, I realized why. Exasperated, I said to the three soldiers, “I tried to kill him a long time ago. Everything is different now. Lord Aras knows I am not thinking anything of the kind. Look at him! He is not guarding himself at all. You should trust that, but if you do not and you truly believe I might attack him now, you should be standing much closer to him! If I wanted to kill him, none of you are close enough to stop me!”
Aras was leaning against the table, his arms folded, the scepter laid aside for the moment, smiling. Esau glanced at him and snorted. He said to the other soldiers. “Ryo’s right, you know. Right about the whole business. You’re too far back.” He, alone of them, had come up close enough to grab me, but now he stepped away again, his shoulders relaxing. He said, “Sorry, Ryo. You’re the one who brought it up. Makes a man nervous.”
“I know you are mistrustful of everyone,” I told him. “I am not offended. But I will be if you will not leave now.”
“I’m sure that’d worry me,” he said in a dry tone. But he glanced again at Aras, then nodded to me, jerked his head at the other men, and walked out. They still did not want to leave me alone with Lord Aras, but he raised his eyebrows in the way he does. One of them glared at me openly, and the other two were not happy either. But they went out. I shut the door behind them.
“Esau only suspected your intentions for a second,” Aras told me. “He didn’t really believe there was any chance you’d do anything of the kind.”
“I know that,” I answered. “I do not need sorcery to know that. He tries ideas like that quickly, all the time, even ideas he does not like. Even ideas he thinks are stupid. He would be very difficult to make into a fool. Even a sorcerer as powerful as you are would probably find that difficult. If I had wished to kill you now, he would have guessed it and he would not have let himself be persuaded otherwise.”
Aras was smiling at me. I frowned at him. “If I had realized you wanted me to say all that out loud, I could have done it long ago.”
“I knew you weren’t offended by Esau’s suspicion. I don’t believe I realized how well you’ve come to understand some of the ways we Lau guard ourselves against sorcery. Nor how well you’ve come to understood Esau in particular.”
“He is not the only man I understand. Aras, you cannot put all those people to death in that way. You cannot do it.” I crossed the room, poured wine into a fragile goblet of blue glass, and brought it to him. “You are upset. Drink this and decide now you will not do it. Then you will be able to think more clearly.”
He took the goblet, but he said, “I don’t think there’s any possible way to avoid it. The attempt couldn’t have been more clearly an attempted assassination if the young man had written my name on the shafts of those arrows. He poisoned the tips.”
I had not guessed that. I said, “It was very clear already he meant to shoot only you. But Geras did not say the arrows were poisoned. I am sorry to hear of it. Terau is dead?”
“Not yet. But he will die soon. Geras doesn’t know about the poison. I asked the surgeons not to mention it. I’ll ask you to refrain as well. It’s assassination either way, but the punishment for using poison is even worse than the one prescribed for using a bladed weapon.”
I did not see how it could be worse.
“If you’re going to hang someone upside down and cut his belly open, you can give him something first that will dull the pain and hurry his death. For some punishments, it’s not possible to handle that sort of ... adjustment ... with sufficient subtlety.”
I nodded. But I said, “No matter how you adjust the punishment, you are speaking of putting very many people to death in this way. For Ugaro, it would be ten twenties of people. More than that. Perhaps many more than that.”
“Yes, if his family is at all typical, I’d expect at least two hundred people will be swept up in this gods-hated mess. Twice that, if his family is large.”
I had never become comfortable thinking of numbers as the Lau do and could not easily visualize two hundred people, but I nodded. “Women,” I said. “Children. People who had nothing to do with the attempt. Even if someone else of this family knew what the assassin planned, most of those people did not. Aras, you cannot possibly do this.”
“I can’t refuse. I can’t decline to pursue it. I can't grant clemency for it. I have the right to grant a royal pardon for certain crimes, yes, but not this one. Failing to apply the full penalty would be a terrible breach of my duty to my king.” He paused, looking at me. “There’s good reason for this law, Ryo. We really can’t have assassins attempting to murder our kings. Bad as this is, that would
lead to worse problems.”
I was completely exasperated with him. “I am not saying it would be wrong for anyone to order such a thing. I am saying it would be wrong for you to do it. If I had known this, I would have killed him myself. Your uncle could not have set any fault against you for that.”
He sighed. Then he said, “That might have been better, at least in some ways. But I can’t let anything like that happen now. If you were thinking of trying to kill him before I can question him, please don’t.”
I frowned at him. I should have been more careful with that thought. I might not have done it, but perhaps I would have. Now it was too late to try. I knew he would not permit anything of the kind.
I had not thought of his duty to his uncle. When I thought of it like that, I knew he would not turn aside and why he warned me not to interfere. Even so, I said, “The young man struck at you because you are a sorcerer and he believes you are evil. Probably he believes you have made your uncle into your slave, and that killing you would free him and end a terrible danger to all your people. Trying to kill you is not the same as trying to kill the king, even if you hold a scepter from his hand.”
“All of that’s true, but none of it matters.”
He was as stubborn as an Ugaro. I said, “Drink the wine. It will help.”
He said, “I don’t think it will, unfortunately. Though I suppose it can’t hurt. The advice you’ve given me is good, but I can’t follow it.” He drank some of the wine. Then he went back around the table and sat down. Very little showed on his face. He had practiced for many years to hide everything he felt. Despite this, I knew perfectly well that he was sick with this problem.
I said what was obvious to me. “If you made a decision not to do it, you would be able to think of something else to do. If you decide you must do this, that will stop you from thinking of other things you might do instead.” I paused to let that thought stand in a quiet space. Then I said, “Customs sometimes change. When people become unhappy with a custom, they choose something else to do, until the old custom is forgotten and everyone behaves a different way.”
He drank the rest of the wine and set the goblet aside. “It’s not merely a custom. It’s a law, one that’s been in place for a long time. Everyone knows the law. That’s the whole point. People are supposed to know this law. It’s supposed to be so severe no one will break it. Every now and then someone does, of course, and the example that’s made generally deters any further attempts for several generations. His attempt was public. There’s no way to avoid answering it publicly.”
Even though I had lived for more than a year among the Lau, the distinction he made between law and custom was not clear to me. The Lau wrote down their laws, but I did not understand why they thought the act of writing down a custom made it more important. But I only said patiently, “Even if it is a law, can it not be written in a different way? If you ask your uncle, will he not permit you to choose some other punishment?”
“No, he won’t.” Aras sounded quite certain of this. “Even the king is ruled by law, Ryo, not by his personal whims. If Soretes threw away the law whenever he didn’t like it, that would be far worse. Even if I begged him to make an exception, he has far too much sense to agree. But I wouldn’t ask even if I thought he might grant my request. Clemency in cases like this only invites further problems.”
I could think of only one other thing he might do.
“No,” he said. He sounded tired. “Even if I broke my scepter and sent it back to him in pieces, it wouldn’t help. The assassin tried to kill me while I held it. Nothing can change that.”
I nodded. I did not really regret he could not do that. If he broke that scepter, I thought many more men would try to kill him, probably very soon. For a whole year and more, I had been surprised no one tried to do it. Once everyone knew he was a powerful sorcerer, I had expected many such attempts. Now that I knew the punishment for such an act, I understood better why it had not happened until now.
He said, “I wish I could take your advice, Ryo, but it’s impossible.” I started to tell him it was completely possible, but before I could, he said, “They’re coming back now. That didn’t take as long as I expected.”
“The man was already tired.” I moved around the table, to take a place at his back. I did it to show the soldiers that he trusted me there and that they were stupid to mistrust me. I also took that place to show Aras I did not intend to kill the assassin the moment he stepped through the door. I wanted to do it badly enough that I was not sure he would be able to tell I would not, and I did not want to force him to order me back. That would embarrass us both.
“Thank you, Ryo,” he said, but most of his attention was the door.
Esau opened it. He came in first, and the three other soldiers, who came to stand protectively near Aras. Then more soldiers, half-carrying the young assassin, who was trying to walk, but not very successfully. Geras came in last. He said, his tone level, “Pretty sure he’s not faking it, my lord.”
“I don’t think he is,” Aras murmured. Nothing showed on his face. He looked like he did not care about anything that was happening. He had picked up his scepter again. He held it as though he hardly knew he had it in his hands, as he did sometimes when he was thinking and sometimes when he was upset.
The young man slumped to his knees, swaying. His wrists were still bound behind his back. That makes it hard to run, and he had plainly fallen more than once. He was streaked with sweat and dust. Dark welts crossed his back and his arms; they had used a whip to make him run. His breathing was fast and ragged; his body shook with the force of his breathing. He did not look up.
Aras asked him, speaking softly and clearly, “What kind of flowers does your grandmother like best? Ah, a pretty garden. Where is that house? What a pretty child, what's her name? Na-nai, that’s short for something, ah, Sehanai, that’s a pretty name, a girl, your sister? How old is she now? Oh, are they all your sisters? Can your father afford good dowries for so many? Ah, there he is. What’s his name?” He leaned forward, gripping his scepter tightly. “Esau, I’m sorry to ask it of you—”
Esau stepped forward and hit the young man across the face, several times, open-handed slaps, not very hard. He did not have to do it harder than that. I knew how disorienting blows like that would be, especially for a man already exhausted and desperate. I thought if the assassin had wanted kinder treatment, he should not have tried to shoot the king’s nephew and scepter-holder with a poisoned arrow. This was true. But it was not enough for me to like what was being done to him.
I could see now—it was obvious—that Aras had done things of this kind before. I should not have been surprised. I knew he had been a scepter-holder and a warleader for a long time. Of course he must have faced this necessity many times.
If he were not a sorcerer, this would have been very much worse. Sometimes it is impossible to make a man answer questions he would rather die than answer, but usually it can be done. Without sorcery, it would take much longer and require much more cruelty. But I still could not like what he was doing. Treating the assassin in this way must hurt him, and of course it was hard on the young man. I had never before found reason to regret that Aras had sworn never to put his will on anyone for any purpose. But if he had not made that oath, probably he would not have to use cruelty in this way.
Almost at once, I thought again. In another way, that kind of sorcery would be even worse than this. In almost every way, that would be much more cruel. Of course he would not do it. Even if he had never sworn so strong an oath, he would not do it.
Aras did not glance at me. All his attention was on the assassin. He said, every word precise and sharp-edged as a blade, “Kerren, your father would be ashamed.” That was worse than anything he had done so far; that was something only a sorcerer would have known to say. I flinched, and the young assassin caught his breath in a gasp, and Aras sat down again—I had not even noticed he had risen to his feet until then. He braced his e
lbows on the table, lowered his face to his hands, and breathed slowly and carefully for a long moment.
The young man, unable to stand, was still kneeling. But now he lifted his head and glared up at Aras with such violent hatred that I took a step forward and set my hand on the hilt of my knife.
Aras did not seem to notice. Looking up again, he said, “Your father’s name is Hoeren Sotetas Rahavet. Where does he live? Avaras? No, of course not, how stupid of me. You were one of Lorellan’s thralls, weren’t you? Of course you were. That's why you hate and fear sorcerers so much that you attempted to kill me despite the risk. Your family is from the county of Lorellan. What town? Garasanet? Tarasan? Ah, Pitasosa.” He set his scepter down on the table, gently, and leaned back in his chair. “Hoeren Sotetas Rahavet of Pitasosa.”
The young man closed his eyes, sagging.
“Ryo, please give him some wine,” Aras said.
I knew why he asked me to do it. He meant to make it plain to me that it was too late now to kill the assassin. He was showing me that he did not care now whether I came close to the young man. Even though I understood that, I said, “No.”
Aras looked at me. Everyone looked at me. Even the young man looked up.
I said, “I do not like anything about this. I wish now I had killed him when he asked me to do it. If you want to give him wine so you can more easily see the secrets he is trying to keep from you, do it yourself.”
One of the soldiers moved quietly to the sideboard and poured wine into a goblet. He held up the fragile glass and said, “Pewter or wood is better if you want me to make him drink it, my lord. He’ll break this in a hurry.”
“If this was all his own idea and he was working alone, he’ll drink it,” Aras said. “If that’s so, then there’s nothing left to conceal. His family’s lost; his father’s name will give me all the rest. He knows that. Kerren Rahavet ... Kerren Avera Rahavet, drink that. Don’t refuse, or I’ll assume you have something else important to hide and I’ll go looking for your friends and accomplices as well as your family.”
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