Master and Servant (Waterman)

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER SIX

  "You been holding out on me, kid."

  Carr did not pretend to misunderstand, but neither did he look at Jesse as the two of them made their way onto the bridge that Carr's great-great-grandfather had built over Gray's Creek, a creek which ran through the valley that lay to the north of the hill on which Cliffsdale Mansion stood. "I thought someone would have told you."

  "That you were heir to this entire fucking landstead? Nah, I guess they figured I already knew. I did gather that your uncle was some sort of local bigwig, but damn, High Master? What are you doing, spending your days in work clothes and hiding away in a mansion that nobody ever visits? You ought to be out schmoozing with the cream of the landstead."

  After a minute, largely spent deciphering Jesse's suggestion, Carr said, "I do a certain amount of that when I'm at school, or when I'm visiting my uncle. My parents live retired lives."

  "Yeah, I got that." Jesse paused to survey the scene. The morning mist had lingered all day, as it often did in the marshland through which Gray's Creek travelled. Bullfrogs croaked morosely, while over the marsh waters travelled the yet more morose sound of a foghorn from the nearby lamphouse. "So your uncle doesn't have any kids of his own—"

  "He's not married."

  "—and I'm guessing that has something to do with this liegeman of his that he kept chatting about at supper." Seeing Carr's mildly inquisitive expression, Jesse laughed. "Your servants may have fallen down on the job of telling me your title, but they had quite a bit to say about what it means to give 'liegeman's service.'"

  "Oh, I see." Carr looked up to watch a white egret soar over the water, soft as a cloud; the egret landed with a flutter and a splash, then immediately stilled, its eyes on the water, its neck outstretched. "Well, the answer to your question is, Yes. My uncle shares his bed with Ernest. Ernest is very devoted to him, and my uncle feels a great deal of affection for him."

  "So is your uncle going to expect you to be 'very devoted to him'?"

  Carr stared in disbelief at his guest. "Jesse, that's incest!"

  Jesse shrugged. "Different nations have different customs. And some masters I've known wouldn't be stopped by taboo. I guess the answer is no?"

  "Of course it's no! By all that's sacred, Jesse . . ." He threw a pebble into the creek. It landed with a plop, causing minnows to scatter. The egret glanced his way, then returned to its vigil. "Sometimes I think your greatest joy in life is riling up other people."

  "Part of the job description, yeah." Jesse grinned at him. "So, okay, your uncle's interest in you is entirely chaste. Why you, then? I mean, shouldn't your father be heir, since he's closest kin? Assuming that your mother isn't considered closest kin, which I'm sort of guessing she isn't, in this 'male dog's on top' world."

  "Ah, no." Carr looked for another pebble to throw; it seemed the best outlet for his frustration. "Patrilineal succession was established in the high law at the end of the twelfth tri-century. It was what caused the First Landstead to break away from the upper landsteads: an eldest daughter claimed to be High Master – that's how she expressed it – and her younger brother disputed her claim. The people of the First Landstead backed her claim, so the younger brother ended up fleeing to the upper landsteads in quest of support from the other High Masters. They passed a law that confirmed him as High Master . . . but the people of the First Landstead still wouldn't accept his claim. Instead, they broke away from the Alliance of the Dozen Landsteads."

  He had hoped that this dry recital of historical events would bore Jesse into changing the subject, but the young man was as dogged as usual in pursuing awkward topics. "So your father should be the High Master's heir, right?"

  Carr turned and began making his way across the creek. The egret thrust out its beak suddenly, plunging it into the water. A moment later, a fish was struggling in its beak. The egret swallowed it with a single gulp. "My father doesn't want to be High Master."

  "And you do?" said Jesse over Carr's shoulder.

  "It's . . . harder for my father than for me. His conscience is very strict. When he was young, he even considered asking that his rank be lowered to servant. We had a law back then, the Act of Celadon and Brun, which allowed masters and servants to request a change in rank."

  "That's why Rowlett is a master, even though he speaks like a servant?"

  "That's why," Carr confirmed. "My father raised him in rank when he took over this House. The Act of Celadon and Brun was repealed around the time I was born, but in any case, my father had decided that he could do more for the servants if he remained ranked as a master."

  "Yeah?" said Jesse, sounding mildly curious. "Does that have anything to do with this?"

  Still only halfway across the bridge, Carr turned round to see Jesse holding up a book. Carr stared at the familiar blue binding. "Where did you get that?"

  "From your room. I was going to ask you about it this afternoon, but we got distracted into that discussion of oyster shucking." Jesse flipped through the pages. "Pretty hefty tome. Looks like your father put a lot of work into it. Does anyone actually read it?"

  Carr took the book from him, turned – almost at random – to one of the sections he had memorized, and silently handed the book back to Jesse. Jesse read the passage. Then he turned the page.

  Ten pages later, Jesse said, "Okay, I'm impressed. He wrote all this himself?"

  "Yes. He's considered one of the finest political theorists in the Dozen Landsteads – and not just among the Egalitarians. His book has been translated and reprinted all over the world."

  "Nice to see that publishers occasionally have good taste." Jesse continued to flip through the book. "Damn. He has a mind for detail. And if this detail was put into action . . ." He paused, then read aloud, "'All of this assumes that a leader should be found who has the courage and determination to put this plan into action.'" Jesse looked up. "That leader is you?"

  Carr took the book back and slipped it into his jacket pocket. "For lack of anyone better. My father crafted the solutions; I'm the one who is to carry out the solutions. My father has a nine-tri-year plan for abolishing the master and service ranks in the Second Landstead. As soon as I become High Master, I'll start the plan in motion."

  Jesse raised his eyebrows. "Does your uncle know this?"

  "He has guessed, I think. We don't talk about it. I'm pretty sure he's hoping that, once I come to live with him, I'll be transformed and reborn onto the path of Traditionalism." Carr started walking again as the egret began to wade forward slowly, its head bobbing forth as it searched out new terrain for its hunting. "He didn't really have much choice where heirs are concerned. My uncle doesn't have any brothers. My mother's older sisters married outside the landstead; their husbands and sons are ineligible for the heirship. So the House of His Master's Kindness – the heirship House – had to go to my father or me."

  "Huh." Jesse turned his head to watch the egret. "Delicate family politics. No wonder things were a bit fiery at the dinner table tonight, even leaving aside the boat stuff. But you get along all right with your uncle?"

  "Oh, yes, quite well. He's a good High Master, you know – just very wedded to doing things the traditional way."

  They had reached the end of the bridge over Gray's Creek; Carr stepped onto the dirt path and turned back to see whether Jesse needed help, but Jesse had already jumped down. Mist and marsh grass hid what lay ahead as they walked down the dirt path that ran along the northern bank of the creek. The side of the hill to the north of Gray's Creek rose abruptly beside them, looming over the path. Spiders, carefully circling their prey, danced upon mist-sparkled webs, while water striders skated on the marsh-water, seeking fallen dragonflies. In a tree above, an osprey cried angrily at the young men's intrusion and then returned to feeding fish to the youngsters in her nest.

  "What I don't get," said Jesse, chewing on a waterhemp leaf, "is how your dad could write a book like that, and then run a business like— What the fuck?"

  The mouth of Gray's Cr
eek was just barely wide enough to accommodate the airship's landing platform, which was built on stilts over the portion of the creek that was hidden behind the marsh grass. As the dirigible descended, Jesse broke out of his frozen posture and raced forward. The osprey, angry again, whistled piercingly.

  By the time Carr caught up with Jesse, the small airship had berthed, and the packing-house servants were bringing forth barrels from the nearby ice house. Carr gestured to one of the watermen, who quickly pried open a barrel for the young master's inspection. Carr waved forward Jesse, who stared down at the gallon-sized metal can surrounded by ice. After opening the can with his pocket-knife, Carr offered Jesse an oyster, then swallowed one himself. It wasn't bad, for a late-season oyster. Too late, he realized that it probably came from the Third Landstead.

  The waterman hovered anxiously beside him. "That all right, master?" he asked.

  "Nicely packed," Carr assured him. "Where is this shipment headed?"

  "To Vovim, sir. Them Vovimians, they like our oysters. Pay well for them."

  "I expect so." Carr stepped back and allowed the waterman to reseal the can and barrel.

  Beside him, Jesse said, "Vovim? That's one of the inland nations, isn't it?"

  Carr eyed him for a moment before saying, "It's located directly to the north of the Dozen Landsteads, though it spreads west, all the way past the chain of mountains that divides the Midcoast nations from the inland nations. The Vovimians are noted for their gourmet cooking."

  "And this is considered gourmet?" Having dropped his raw oyster to the ground, Jesse scrutinized the barrels with what appeared to be new respect. "Why don't the Vovimians do their own fishing?"

  "The Bay has the best oyster-fishing ground in the world. Only the Dozen Landsteads and Yclau border the Bay. —All right," he added to Rowlett, who was standing nearby, trying not to make his impatience obvious. "I know you're on a tight schedule. We're finished here."

  "Thank you, Master Carr." Rowlett tipped his cap, then roared at the other watermen, "Look to your work, men! It's near sunset!"

  Jesse looked as though he would have liked to spend all night examining the airship, but as the airship motors roared, Carr pulled him toward the beach. As they reached the rise in the path before the beach, the ground crew released the airship's lines, and the mighty ship floated upward, glinting silver against the sun.

  "Gods!" exclaimed Jesse as Carr held onto his hat to keep it from being swept away in the wind caused by the motors. "Do they have many of those air thingies here?"

  "In the Dozen Landsteads?"

  "No, in this world."

  Carr's silence must have alerted Jesse to the oddness of what he had said. Jesse tore his gaze away from the airship, which was disappearing north. "I meant in the New World. I've never seen any in the Old World."

  Carr began walking again. "The Dozen Landsteads invented the airship, the ocean steamship, and the train – well, the First Landstead did, actually, but they patented their inventions in the Dozen Landsteads and allowed our manufactories to build their inventions. At one time, the Dozen Landsteads had a virtual monopoly on long-distance travel. Now, of course, most of the world travels by transcontinental pneumatic shuttle or by overseas rockets. Only the upper landsteads continue to use the old methods of travel."

  He paused; they had reached within sight of the beach.

  The tide had turned. The waves were slipping back, revealing a multi-colored array of treasures: pink and blue oyster shells, tawny crab legs, glistening green seaweed, and most common of all, the grey-and-orange zebra stripes of layered sandstone-and-clay rocks that had been rounded by their time in the water. Jesse knelt beside one, picking it up, then glanced at the nearest cliff, which rose sharply from the beach. "This came from the cliffs?"

  "Yes. The cliffs have been eaten away by the Bay – I'm not sure why. Our house used to be much further away from Carruthers Cliffs than it is now."

  "Carruthers Cliffs?" Still holding the rock, Jesse stared up at him. "Why are the cliffs named after your dad's family? I mean, your uncle's family is the important one, right?"

  After half a minute, Jesse added with a grin, "I love it when you blush. Okay, give me the part you haven't revealed yet. Is your father's family rich or something?"

  "Not well off at all, actually." For something to do, Carr crouched down on the dry portion of the sand, where he had been standing. Taking a clamshell in hand, he began to scrape away at the sand. "We've lost a lot of money over the tri-centuries; my father was practically penniless when he married my mother. . . . We come from the First Landstead, originally."

  "How long ago is 'originally'?" asked Jesse, tossing the rock up and down in his hand.

  "Eight tri-centuries."

  Jesse thought about this; and then, as Carr had figured he would, he made the connection. "The younger brother of the female High Master in the First Landstead, the one who claimed he was really that landstead's High Master – he came to the upper landsteads in the 1100s."

  Carr nodded. Water seeped out of the hole he had dug and created a still pool, reflecting the setting sun.

  "Fuck, Carr!" Now Jesse was laughing. "First you don't tell me that you're heir to this landstead . . . and now you reveal that you're heir to two landsteads?"

  "No," said Carr quickly. "My father released our family's claim on the First Landstead's High Mastership as soon as his own father died. He thought it was ridiculous for us to claim that title after all these tri-centuries. So do I. But we still have family, distant family, in the First Landstead—"

  "Their High Master." Jesse tilted his head to one side, considering. "So the First Landstead's government is friendly to you now?"

  "They're beginning to be, since my father dropped our claim. My father is hoping that the High Masters' council will eventually allow the First Landstead to join their council. Lots of First Landsteaders are Egalitarians—"

  "Allies. Gotcha." Jesse seemed to lose interest, staring down at the sand. "Predators?"

  "Excuse me?" Disconcerted, Carr rose and made his way over to where Jesse crouched.

  Jesse held up something grey. "This looks like it belonged to a predator."

  "Oh." Carr took the tooth carefully in hand. "Shark's tooth. Ancient," he added as Jesse hastily scanned the nearby waves. "It came from the cliffs. Here, I'll show you."

  He knelt down, took the striped rock from Jesse's other hand, examined it carefully, and used his penknife and another rock to hammer it open. Then he showed Jesse what lay within the cracked rock. "The imprint of scallop shells. Do you see those stripes on the rock and the cliffs? They're layers of ground laid down over the tri-centuries, as time passed. We have archaeologists visiting these cliffs every summer to search for fossils, or to look for evidence of old Ammippian settlements."

  "Ammippian?" Jesse continued to stare down at the arrow-shaped shark's tooth. "You had native tribes living here once? I thought they all lived in Mip. Ammippian – Mip – that nation is named after the natives, right?" He looked vaguely toward the eastward waters of the Bay, as though expecting to see either the Ammippians or Mip.

  After another thoughtful moment, Carr pointed him in the right direction: toward the northwest. "The Ammippians all live in the Magisterial Republic of Mip now, yes. But at one time, they were scattered throughout the Midcoast nations. They lived here in the Dozen Landsteads, and in Yclau, and in Vovim . . . We all drove them away from their land. Only the Mippites allowed the Ammippians to settle in their nation, and only on reservations."

  "Huh. Just like slaves." Jesse's eyes went blank for a moment, and Carr felt himself grow still. Then Jesse shook his head. "Nah. One problem at a time. What about the First Landstead? Do the First Landsteaders fish?"

  Carr stared at him, disconcerted by Jesse's rapid changes in topic. "Not any more. Why do you ask?"

  "Just curious. Why don't they fish there? Too busy building rockets?" As he spoke, Jesse rose to his feet, still holding the shark's tooth. With a fe
w light bounds, he was standing on the wharf, which was now abandoned. The packing-house nearby lay quiet, all of its servants having gone home for their supper. Jesse strode forward quickly.

  Carr followed more slowly. He traced their conversation in his mind. All that he could figure out from it was that Jesse had a strong interest in the First Landstead. Carr thought again of the guidebook and wondered when Jesse would begin grilling him for information on Prison City. He knew very little about the First Landstead's model prison, other than the well-known fact that, by mutual agreement of their respective governments, Prison City housed the most notorious upper-landstead criminals – mainly servants, along with a few masters who had experienced the misfortune of incurring the wrath of their High Masters. The High Masters' council had agreed to send a select number of dangerous convicts there because the prison had a reputation for being unescapable.

  By the time Carr caught up with Jesse, the visitor was sitting on the end of the wharf, surrounded on both sides by gently bobbing skipjacks that were docked. Carr joined him. The water was stained red by the sun, which was sinking below the fog-fuzzed treeline behind them. Nearby, Cove Point Lamphouse continued to cry out its warning to boats on the water. The waves whispered against the wharf with the rhythm of a mother rocking her child.

  Jesse was silent a long while before saying, "I wish Quen could see this."

  "Quen?" Carr looked over at Jesse, who was staring unblinking into the mist.

  "Some guy I know." Jesse gathered his feet under him and rose. He stood a while more before saying, "I'm getting homesick."

  Before Carr could think of how to reply to this, Jesse added, "So why don't they fish?"

  Carr sighed. It was too peaceful a night for him to want to be playing hide-and-pursue with Jesse's quicksilver mind. Without rising, he said, "Pollution. Their factories pollute their waters. Some of the pollution is beginning to seep into the Second Landstead's portion of the Bay and kill the sealife. Our manufactories pollute the waters too, on a smaller scale. My father is angry about that. He wants the manufactories in all of the Dozen Landsteads to switch to a clean method of producing power."

  "What sort of method?" Tossing the shark's tooth up and down in his hand, Jesse stared across at him.

  "Nuclear power. That's what the First Landstead uses to provide energy to most of its homes."

  "Yeah?" The smile on Jesse's face turned bitter. "You know what, Carr? Your dad may just get his wish. Lucky for you Landsteaders, huh?" And with those cryptic words, Jesse rose to his feet and strode back to the beach.

  Carr stared after him, and then switched his attention back to the Bay. The mist was keeping most of the House's boats ashore; nothing lay in front of him but a pearl-grey mist and the softly swishing waters.

  Then, in a flicker shorter than the wink of an eyelid, something changed.

  After a glance over his shoulder, he stood up abruptly and turned around. There, where only trees should be, an image lingered before him, like an after-image from staring at the sun. Cylindrical towers, like silos, but much larger. A nuclear power station – he had seen pictures of them in the newspaper. A nuclear power station, creating waste that would poison the Bay shore for tri-centuries. . . .

  Then the image was gone, and his breath was caught in his throat.

  It was not the first occasion on which time had jumped for him. "Cycle forward" and "cycle back" they called it in the Dozen Landsteads: occasions on which the spiralling cycles of time touched each other. Always before now, though, the images had been of small, unimportant matters in Carr's life: an upcoming footer match, a forgotten memory from childhood.

  "Nuclear power," he murmured, half expecting to see the Bay-killing station return. Nothing lay behind on the shore, though, but the peaceful scene he had always known: the packing house, the ice house, the landing platform, the watermen's homes, and the mansion on the hill above.

  "Father," he murmured as he turned to look back at the Bay, "I may need to have another talk with you about our landstead's future."

  o—o—o

  The sun had dipped behind the trees now. After several minutes, Carr let his gaze fall to the wharf. The tip of the wharf was cluttered with lines that led underwater. Idly, still thinking about future dangers, Carr stooped to haul up one of the crabbing pots that hung from the wharf. The wire-cage pots were an invention of one of the House's watermen, who had been inspired into creativity by imitation of their forward-thinking House master. Carr had not yet decided whether to tell his uncle that the Embargo Act of 1912 – which also covered native inventions – was being violated in such a small matter.

  He stopped just short of pulling the pot to the surface. Lured by the bait, a young sting-ray had trapped itself in the pot. Sting-rays did not take kindly to captivity; this one was furiously attacking the bars of the cage and would likely attack Carr if he touched it, perhaps fatally. Well, but sting-rays were good to eat, he'd heard somewhere; no doubt whatever waterman had placed his crabbing pot here, in hopes of supplementing his family's meals, would be grateful for even a dangerous catch like this one. Carr started to lower the pot.

  "Let it free."

  The sudden order, so close to his ear, nearly caused him to fall into the Bay. He twisted his neck. Jesse was crouched behind him.

  "What?" enquired Carr weakly.

  "Let that creature free." Jesse's voice had turned passionate. He was staring at the sting-ray, turning round and round in its cage, desperately seeking a way out. Carr looked again at the sting-ray, seeing it with new eyes. Then he reached down and carefully opened the pot. The sting-ray flew out, zipping through the waves like a seagull in flight, its body rippling as it fled. For a moment, at least, it was a thing of beauty.

  "You know," said Carr, closing the pot and keeping his gaze on the water where the sting-ray had been, "that was a servant's supper."

  "Yeah." Jesse stood up. "Yeah, that was stupid of me. I mean, it's not like I'm a vegetarian. It's just . . ."

  "Yes." Carr let go of the pot and rose to his feet. "I thought you'd gone back to the mansion."

  "Did. Came back. Wanted to ask you: What happens to this?"

  "Pardon?" Carr peered narrow-eyed at Jesse's face; the sky was rapidly darkening.

  Jesse spread his arms. "All this. The House of His Master's Kindness. You'll be High Master some day, and you'll move away . . ."

  "Oh." Carr looked around. The mist was lingering, and the night was creeping in. A dark, foggy wharf was not a good place to be. He began to walk toward the beach, saying, "I've already moved half out; I only come back during vacations. And once I move in with my uncle, after university, I'll only make brief visits here. I'm going to ask my uncle to let my father continue as regent of the House when I become heir in my full right; it's not uncommon for an heirship House to have a regent, when the heir is away and he doesn't have an adult heir of his own. I think my uncle is half expecting that and will agree to the plan, since he thinks it's a temporary measure. What he doesn't know" – Carr lowered his voice as they reached the beach, though nobody was about – "is that, when my uncle dies, I plan to name my father as my heir."

  "Huh?" For once, Jesse looked startled. "What the fuck do you want to do that for?"

  Carr glanced back at the docked skipjacks, bobbing on the waves, and felt a momentary stab of sadness. Thanks to his seasickness, he'd never board one again. His father never did either, citing his business responsibilities for the reason he didn't go out on the fishing boats. It was a tradition in Carr's mother's family, though, that the head of the House should have a waterman's training, so that he could give orders to his watermen in a competent manner. His uncle had received that training, and had been disturbed when Carr abandoned his own training at an early age. But there was no changing the state of Carr's stomach.

  Carr turned his attention back to Jesse as both of them jumped lightly over the narrow mouth of Gray's Creek and headed across the beach to the stairway that ran parallel to the
cliff under Cliffsdale Mansion. "When my uncle voted to repeal the Act of Celadon and Brun, it wasn't just because he adheres to Traditionalist ways. It was because the act contained a loophole: it provided the only way in which a High Master, once he'd taken his oath of office, could voluntarily resign his duties. He could declare himself a servant."

  Jesse snorted. "I guess the Dozen Landsteads isn't ready for a High Servant. So your uncle wanted to close that loophole?"

  "Yes. For some reason, he was afraid of the possibility of a High Master becoming Egalitarian and abandoning his duties." Carr's voice turned wry, and Jesse emitted a short laugh. They'd reached the stairway now; Carr swung himself easily onto it, ran up the first few steps, and then paused to look back at Jesse, who was proceeding more carefully up the mist-slickened stairs.

  "So you can't resign once you become High Master, so this landstead can never be entirely Egalitarian. Nice trick." Jesse sounded somewhat breathless now. His head was bowed, looking at the dark steps.

  Carr resumed his rapid pace, worrying about the blank cloak of the New Moon that was starting to hide the landscape. Above, the terrace lamps twinkled in the soft breeze; his parents must have ordered the servants to light the lamps, knowing that Carr and Jesse remained outside. Carr took heart from this, guessing that his father had recovered more quickly than usual from his melancholy. "Yes, but there's another loophole that my uncle forgot to close. A High Master can't resign from his office . . . but his heir can. Once I name my father as my heir, he intends to do the same thing that he did concerning his heirship to the First Landstead: renounce our family's claim on the title. He'll resign, I'll beget no sons to replace him, and once I'm dead, the cycle of High Mastership will be broken in this landstead. There will be no way, constitutionally, to replace me in the office of High Master. By then, we hope, the landstead will be truly Egalitarian, thanks to the other measures my father has planned."

  "And this House?" Jesse definitely sounded breathless. "What the hell happens to this House? You didn't answer my question, Carruthers."

  Carr frowned, looking back at Jesse. Carr had reached the terrace now, yet Jesse continued to laboriously walk up the stairs, his hands gripping tightly the bannisters that Carr's father had ordered added to the stairs, for the sake of his wife. "I thought that was obvious. Once my father has rejected the title of heir, he and my mother will leave the mansion. Oh, they'll remain within the House of His Master's Kindness, but they'll live in a small cottage that originally belonged to one of our tenant farmers, caring for the cottage themselves, without servants. The rest of the House – the mansion, land, packing house, fleet, and even the Bureau of Employment, which is contracted to this House – will all be handed over to the servants. That's why my father is so concerned about money. He wouldn't have taken the position at the Bureau of Employment, and he wouldn't be raiding Third Landstead oyster grounds, except that he wants to ensure that this House is on a firm economic footing when the servants take over."

  "Means justify the end, huh?" Jesse had paused midway up the stairs, which were now pitch-black.

  "Do you want me to bring a lamp down?" Carr leaned over the terrace railing.

  "Nah. I have good night vision. Just give me a minute. So that's your plan: Hand over the House to your father, he'll hand it over to the servants, and you'll be High Master without really being High Master, because you're Egalitarian?"

  "You don't sound as though you approve of the plan." Carr spoke softly. He was beginning to be concerned by Jesse's long pause on the steps. But even as Carr spoke, Jesse started to move again, as slowly as Rowlett did when climbing steps.

  "It's a clever theory. Problem with theories is, they have to be carried out by people."

  "And so?" Carr watched Jesse traverse the final steps; Carr's own muscles were locked, ready to spring into action if what he thought was happening turned to disaster.

  "And so you and your father are people. Think about it, Carruthers. Think about how the people in this plan don't match the plan. Ow!" This as Carr grabbed Jesse on the final step and pulled him onto the terrace. "What the fuck?"

  "Why didn't you tell me that heights make you dizzy?" Fear turned Carr's voice stern.

  Jesse shrugged, not looking at Carr. "It isn't usually this bad. Only when it's dark."

  Carr looked back at the skipjacks, swaying at the wharf. "Jesse," he said slowly, "you've been travelling to Solomons Island by boat every night. None of the fleet's boats have much of a railing. You must be getting dizzy every single night."

  Jesse shrugged again, but this time his shoulders squared. "Needs must. —I mean," he added as Carr stared blankly at him, "you do what you got to do. You going to think about what I just said, kid?"

  "Yes, of course." His response was mechanical; his gaze had returned to the boats. Perhaps, he thought, he had given up his waterman's training too quickly. He'd be seasick in a boat, certainly. But needs must.

  o—o—o

  By the time the conversation stopped that evening in the kitchen, Carr had already begun to step back. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

  "No problem!" replied Jesse cheerfully, tossing back into Variel's hands the keepsake that the servant had been showing him: the watch that Carr's uncle had given Variel for faithful service, at the time that he chose to transfer his certificate of employment to Carr's father. "You're here for tea, right? Let's go into the next room."

  All of the servants were frozen in place, their usual nightly routine disrupted. Feeling equally disrupted – as though Jesse had witnessed him when he was about to step into a private bath – Carr followed the young foreigner into the back room, passing Sally, who was biting her lip in an uncertain manner.

  Jesse was already carrying a mug of coffee which, Carr could guess, he had poured for himself. They sat down at the small table, face to face, Jesse with his back to the fire. A moment later Variel – always ready to make split-second decisions in cases of crisis – appeared with Bat, whose arms were full of wood and kindling.

  "Need any help?" Jesse asked, looking over his shoulder.

  "No, thank you, Comrade Jesse," Variel responded carefully.

  Jesse shrugged and looked back. "I'm terrible at building fires anyway. Never quite got the hang of it. Ask my first employer."

  Carr refused to follow up on this tantalizing tease. He remained silent as Variel and Bat departed, during the wait that followed, and as Sally served the tea. On this night, she didn't bother to ask how he wanted his tea, and she glanced at Jesse when curtsying her departure.

  Jesse waited until she had left – shutting the door behind her, for the first time. Then he spent a moment scrutinizing Carr's expression before he commented, "I haven't seen such a guilty look on anyone's face since the last time I caught a master beating his servant nearly to death."

  Carr stared down at his tea cup, cradling the warmth in his hand. "I'm not sure . . . I've never been sure . . . I come here every night."

  "Yeah, I know; your servants told me. So?" Jesse tilted his chair back in a relaxed manner.

  "They're my parents' servants," Carr corrected swiftly. "And I've never been sure . . . Do you think they mind, serving me during their leisure hours?"

  "Only one way to find out. I'll be right back."

  Before Carr could stop him, Jesse had scooted into the kitchen. Carr sat rigid, listening to the voices, which were too quiet for him to hear. Someone laughed, and then Jesse returned, closing the door behind him.

  "It's okay," he said, slipping back into his seat. "They don't mind."

  "They probably only said that because they knew you were enquiring for me—"

  "Nah, they told me that a couple of days ago; I only went now to ask their permission to pass on what they'd said. They'd already told me that you were no trouble at all. All that you ever want, they said, is a fire, a cup of tea, and cookies. It's easy to prepare that."

  "Then why," said Carr, voicing the question that had been in his
mind for tri-years, "do they wait every night till I get there, before preparing their service? They could have had the tea-water simmering, the fire built up . . . But they always wait till I'm there before preparing their service. Why?"

  Jesse cocked his head. Outlined as he was against the firelight, his expression was half-hidden. "You're not stupid, Carr. So you already know the answer to that, don't you?"

  Carr looked down again at his cup. Sparks of flame whirled reflectively in the slowly twirling tea. The cup was growing cooler.

  "You just notched up that guilty face by one hundred degrees," Jesse observed. "Relax. There's a lot worse things that a master can do than ask for a cup of tea each night, just for the fun of watching servants rush around to serve him. There was this girl I met last night . . . I don't mean a woman; she was a fifteen-year-old girl. Her master's son pressured her into sleeping with him. The worst part about it was that she thought she had to pretend she liked the rape, because she feared he'd persuade his parents to sell her certificate of employment. Of course, once her parents learned she was pregnant, they threw her out of their home, while their son stood by, pretending he had nothing to do with any of this. The Bureau of Employment wouldn't help her find a new position. When I met her, she was standing outside a brothel, trying to get up the courage to ask them to hire her, because the alternative was for her and the baby to starve on the streets. Mind if I have a cookie?"

  Jesse didn't bother to wait for a reply but snatched a cookie from Carr's plate. Carr made no move to stop him; instead, he said, "I'll talk to my father. Maybe he wasn't aware of her case—"

  "Oh, he was aware, all right. As I'm sure you've noticed, your dad has an ethical blank spot when it comes to what he calls 'immoral young women.' Mind you," Jesse added around munches of the cookie, "he's no sexist. He has a lot to say as well about immoral young men. Funny how he doesn't have anything to say about immoral older men."

  "If you're referring to him," Carr replied without heat, "he's never been immoral – not in that way. He's very much in love with my mother, and before he met her, he was too young to be visiting brothels. As for other masters . . . I think my father feels that their private lives are none of his business."

  "But the servants' private lives are? Awfully proprietary of him." Jesse licked crumbs off his fingers.

  "You don't understand." Carr's voice grated in his own ears. "You can't understand. Where you grew up, everyone is equal. But if you live in a nation where the population is divided into master and servant . . . It gets under your skin, it gets into the air you breathe. You try to think of servants as equal to yourself, but you can't fully believe that – not when you've been raised to think otherwise. You can only try, and fail, and try, and fail, and pray that someday you'll be able to break away from the mob and be independent of mind – to think of masters and servants the way they really are."

  "Yeah," said Jesse, polishing off the second cookie. "Yeah, we're not really talking about your father any more, are we?"

  Carr remained silent, his eyes lowered. Jesse rose from his place, rubbing his fingers on his trousers, which were as gaudy in color as his tunic had been. "Well, I'm off. Care to join me tonight?"

  Carr's gaze slowly rose. There was no smile on Jesse's face. After another moment, Carr said quietly, "No, thank you."

  "Just like your dad, right? You don't approve of immoral young men?" Jesse's sardonic grin was back in place.

  "What other men do is their own business," Carr said carefully. "But as for myself . . . Not that sort of immorality."

  "The opposite sort, huh? Enjoy your tea, Master Carruthers." Jesse left, slamming the door behind him.

  Carr stared down at his tea. He lifted his cup. The tea had gone cold. He put the cup back down and stared at it as the fire in front of him died away.