The bath was good. Not as good as I had once been used to, but good. That thought alone caught me by surprise. 'Once was used to.' A month ago and for my whole life prior to that, had been reduced to 'once was' and forgotten. There was a lesson in that somewhere, but I just didn't know where. Hot water was harder to create on a small wood burning stove but we gave it our best shot. It was good enough. I soaked and thought. Slavery. That's why they were doing this.
It was a pretext, a lie, obviously. Kukran Epthel knew all about slavery, the slavery of lies that force invalid action on the believer of the lie, the slavery of oppression, corruption of the individual to ensure their obedience. He was an enslaver, no doubt. But I had been made to start thinking and I cannot stop, or lie to myself. It's my nature. So was slavery inherently evil and was I, were we, evil to practice it? I could not, for the life of me, think of a culture that I knew of that did not practice slavery in one form or another. We are not cruel, less cruel than some. A slave has rights and some freedoms, though not the freedom to leave. Many sell themselves into bondage to make money and use their skills to make more, buying themselves free in time. True, their status would forever be changed to freedman instead of free, but becoming a slave was a solution for some and for some a way to progress their careers in the halls of the powerful. A man or woman with extraordinary ability and skill can become indispensable to a man of influence and affect the law, change the world. It was no small thing. Those made slave due to conquest were our enemies; and what were we supposed to do to them? Leave them to ferment rebellion? Kill them all? No. Better to remove them and give them a new life, should they choose to accept it and work within a legal framework to better themselves. Some also worked their way free and stayed or returned home as they pleased. Those who returned were changed and developed by exposure to our civilization, our open, honest, slightly corrupt way of doing things. They usually did well, changing their own culture somewhat; they often acted as ambassadors of our civilization, knowingly or unknowingly. Some became administrators and furthered our cause.
And what was our cause? Freedom, peace, prosperity. Do what you want but don't be a pain, do not harm us in any way or we will harm you, do not interfere with trade. That was it in essence. Okay, one or two adventuresome patrons had instigated wars and prosecuted them ruthlessly. They had the power, and the freedom, to do so. They had not, in the long run, prospered. On one occasion that immediately sprang to mind the ruler in exile had petitioned another patron to prosecute the offender and won. It didn't help the dead, but every single slave taken in the campaign had been located, compensated, and returned home at the expense of the losing patron. One or two civil wars had occurred when one patron took the part of defending a foreign land against what he deemed an unwarranted war. Not for free, I might add; we are not selfless and I saw no reason why we should be. Some lands had been given over for his tax gatherers to loot; and I freely admitted to myself that tax gathering is no more than demanding money with menaces. What else can it be? It is the same everywhere. It has to be said that some patrons were immoral, cruel, arbitrary, but what can be done about that? Having gained power a sane person attempts to keep it, and war is profitable when successful and short, as ours tended to be.
The water was getting cold and I was no further along. Our culture was not innately evil; I had decided that. Yes, slavery was unfair. Wrong on a basic level, but unavoidable until someone came up with a better idea of what to do with what we viewed as criminals; to make war against us, to prey on trade, to practice piracy, these were criminal acts, and I did not think that pretending people were free, while binding them about with arbitrary and restricting rules and preventing their advancement, was anything other than slavery by another name and far more evil because it wasn't even honest.
Kukran Epthel professed to be against slavery, yet he would take the spirit of a child, maim it, break it, remake it into a tool, and then enslave it for eternity. That was evil. Torture was evil. Lies were evil, just a dishonest form of slavery. Forced addiction could not be considered anything other than evil, but then I was biased. Yet Kukran justified himself, somehow. I knew that he ought to be opposed, but wondered that such as Gatren could adopt his cause so rabidly.
Was there any justice in his alleged cause? How do you prove what ought to be, how do you know what ought to be, and how do you reconcile it with what is? What is is. The fact ignores your protestations. The cry 'things ought to be different' was meaningless even if you knew, or believed you knew, what ought to be. But how did you justify it and reconcile it to what is? Slavery was part of reality, in one form or another. People ought to be free, one might cry, but what people? Habitual criminals preying on other people's work? Murderers? Pederasts? Well, no not them! Then who? Only those who deserved freedom? And who are they and how do you tell and test? And who tests and how do you keep them honest? And even if honest, what if you think differently? The city was a state with arbitrary rules and justifications, but all states were just as arbitrary; 'this god said this family should rule as they see fit.' What kind of justification was that?
I sighed, shelved the problem for another time. The water was cooling rapidly now and I needed to get clean. My body felt better for the soak but would soon feel worse for the cold.
Slowly and with care I cleaned myself as meticulously as I could, washed my hair, shaved. The towel was small and only just man enough for the job. The clothes were common, cheap in fact, but serviceable. Warm once on. With my hair dry and the tub cleaned, I went back to face my fellows.
I was ready for a drink.