Demansk turned his head and examined the loom in the corner. It pleased him, even though he knew it was an excuse, to liken what he was doing to a weaver's work instead of a butcher's. Though the main color in the cloth he was weaving would be red — blood red — it was still work which would leave something other than ruin at its completion.
Maybe, he admitted. If I do the work extremely well, and the Goddess of Luck favors me.
The gentry, and its attitudes, would play a very big role in that weaving. Demansk was gambling that, when the time came, he could use their ambition and avarice to overcome their natural conservatism. With enough of them, at least, to enable him to hold power while he set about shredding the established ways of the Confederacy.
It would not be easy. The gentry, on their own farms, did not depend on slave labor to the degree that the aristocracy did on the great estates. Emancipation would hurt them economically, to be sure, especially at first. But the more capable and energetic families would also be able to take advantage of the chaos of the transition. Forming alliances with money-lenders and merchants; investing in manufacture — which would now have a large pool of former slave labor to draw on; carving out careers in a suddenly opened and merit-based government apparatus.
On the other hand. . if they didn't need slaves, the gentry treasured their status as slave-holders all the more for it. It gave them the illusion of being noblemen themselves, at least in part.
Avarice against habit; ambition against custom; cold realism against unthinking conservatism. Those were the forces Demansk would manipulate, one against the other, until he had created the fabric he wanted. Or, in the failing, wreck the loom entirely.
"Stop being gloomy, Father," Helga said. As so often, daughter read father's mood to perfection. "It'll work. As well as anything does, anyway." She gave the loom a skeptical glance. "That's just a construct, you know. Something made; a thing with clear parts and sides and limits. The real world's a lot messier."
The baby woke up, and started bawling immediately. "Like this creature here," she added, good cheer mixed with exasperation. "Gobbling like a pig at one end and shitting even worse at the other. About as pretty as a hogpen." She silenced the infant in the time-honored way; wails were replaced by the soft sounds of suckling. "But he works, after all. And in the meantime, he's just so cute."
Demansk's eyes almost goggled. Whatever other metaphor or simile or euphemism he had ever used to describe his project to himself, the word cute had never so much as crossed his mind.
Helga smiled. "It's just like the poet said, Father. 'Only the blood of women runs truly cold.' "
She nodded toward the door. "And now, you'd best be off. You've got hot-blooded man's work to do."
Chapter 8
This was the only time Adrian Gellert was really thankful for the trance-haze. Dealing with his brother Esmond directly, without the shielding buffer which two other minds sharing his brain gave him, was. . painful.
When did it happen? he asked, almost plaintively.
He could sense, if not see, Raj's shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. The sensation was purely one created by his own imagination. He'd never met Raj Whitehall in the flesh. What he knew of him, even the man's appearance, came solely from glimpses which he got from Raj himself. And those were filtered already, because they were Raj's images of himself when he had still been made of flesh and blood. As if a man knew a friend — closer in many ways than any friend he'd ever had — only from seeing him reflected in a mirror.
Who can say? There's never a moment for something like this. Any more than you can say there is a moment when poison kills a man. Hate's a toxin as corrosive and deadly as arsenic, if you take too much of it. And Esmond's been guzzling at that well for a long time now.
Sadly, Adrian stared down at the whimpering creature huddled in a corner of Esmond's tent. From the hair color and what little else Adrian could discern about the battered figure, he thought he came from the northern part of the continent. A "Confederate" in name, even if he was most likely a peasant rather than a true Vanbert. That would be enough to serve as a focus for Esmond's rage.
Adrian estimated the boy was not more than twelve years old. It was hard to be sure, though, because his face was pulpy and bruised and the scrawny body was emaciated from hunger. The manacles on his thin wrists and ankles were quite unnecessary. The boy was obviously so weak he could not even crawl, much less stand. Adrian was not sure he would even be alive the next day.
"We'll see about that," he growled, dropping to one knee next to the child. He reached out his hand and lightly shook a shoulder. There was no response except a soft moan.
Moving as gently as he could, Adrian gave the boy a quick examination. The touch of his fingers brought forth more moans and whimpers. Every part of the child's body seemed bruised or lacerated. A few of the wounds were even still bleeding, although Adrian was relieved to see that none of them seemed to have ruptured any internal organs. At least, there was no blood or fluid leaking from any orifice.
He's got a broken arm and maybe some broken ribs. But he's not bleeding internally, I don't think. And it doesn't look as if Esmond raped him.
Probably not, agreed Raj. Esmond's lusts have gotten much darker than that.
Adrian shook his head. Not in disagreement, simply in sorrow. He could remember a time — remember it well — when he had treasured his older brother. A time when Esmond Gellert's soul had seemed as bronzed-perfect as his superb athlete's body.
But that time was gone, now. Had been for. . at least a year. The death of Esmond's lover Nanya had been the trigger for the change. Or so, at least, Esmond claimed himself on the few occasions when he was willing to talk about the transformation in his character.
Adrian had his doubts. True, Esmond had been besotted with the woman. But many men were besotted with women, and didn't react to their deaths in such a manner. Adrian thought the truth sat at a square angle, so to speak. He thought that Esmond's rage against anything Confederate had not been caused by Nanya's death so much as the fact that Esmond had not been able to prevent it.
Adrian had been standing at Esmond's side when it happened. Watching, along with his brother, the great roof beam in the burning mansion of the traitor Redvers when it collapsed onto Nanya and the other women of the household. They had come so close to saving her from the disaster. But — not close enough.
And so, Adrian suspected, Esmond had deflected his own feelings of guilt and failure onto Vanbert, which he'd already resented deeply for its conquest and exploitation of the Emeralds. Fueling his hatred and rage the same way Adrian's firebombs had fueled the conflagration which took Nanya's life. Firebombs which Esmond himself had been willing and eager to use in the battle, after all.
You're likely right, came Raj's words into his mind. But who's to say? The human mind is a complicated thing, and doesn't lend itself well to your scholarly methods.
Center spoke for the first time since they'd entered Esmond's tent. that is true. nothing in stochastic analysis has such great variables as what you call "psychology." which is a suspect term to begin with, since it presupposes a "psyche" which may well not exist anyway. so far as i can determine, all that actually exists are electrochemical reactions.
Before Adrian could mentally mutter some curses on Center's typically detached analysis, Center pressed on.
but it is all irrelevant to our purpose. this is very dangerous, what you are doing. the slave belongs to esmond. under both confederate and southron custom, he may do with such as he wishes. in practice if not in legal theory.
Adrian did not argue the point, although he could have. In fact, many Vanbert slaveowners did follow the law when it came to the treatment of their slaves, which forbade physical cruelty for anything other than specified offenses. Many of them even obeyed the spirit of the law, not simply the letter. And while Southron custom was not congealed in any written legal codes, the barbarian tribes were actually more lenient toward their slaves. If nothing else, they did not transmit slave status onto the offspring of slaves. Within a few generations most slaves had become incorporated into their Southron tribes. Incorporated at the bottom of the social pyramid, to be sure, but incorporated nonetheless.
Still, it was a pointless argument. There were more than enough violations of law and custom regarding the treatment of slaves, in all parts of the continent and the Islands, to make the likelihood of a transgressor being punished fairly remote. Especially one who, like Esmond, had achieved high status.
Which he certainly had, in the short time since he and Adrian had planted themselves among the Southrons. In every respect except his skill at handling velipads, Esmond was the southern barbarian's "ideal type." Those few who might have doubted, early on, did so no longer — for the simple reason that they were dead. Honor duels were an established custom, even a hallowed one, among the barbarians. Four warriors, putting too much credence in the tales of effeminate Emeralds, had challenged Esmond within the first two months of their arrival. He'd killed all of them, and each time with a display of martial prowess which had dazzled the onlookers. Leaving aside Esmond's skill with weapons, the body which wielded that skill was that of the near-perfect athlete who had once emerged the victor from the Five Year Games of the Emeralds.
So, Adrian did not bother to argue with Center. He didn't really need to, after all. Center, like Raj, shared Adrian's mind. But neither of them had any control over Adrian's body — or his will. In that respect, at least, none of Center's incomprehensible prattle about "synapses" and "neurons" matched reality nearly as well as the teachings of the scholars in the Grove who had trained Adrian.
Mind was Mind and Matter was Matter, there was an end to it — and Adrian, not Center, controlled the matter that was his body.
He scooped the boy up in his arms and lifted him. Then, turned his head to the barbarian who had taken him to Esmond's tent. The old man was one of Adrian's spies. Spies whom he had hired, initially, to keep an eye on his new Southron "allies" — but had then found it necessary to keep an eye on his own brother. This oldster had been the one who had told Adrian of the tortures Esmond was inflicting on a new slave.
The man was very agitated by now, practically dancing on his feet.
"Hurry — hurry — young master!" he hissed. "Your brother will return soon. If he finds us—"
Adrian saw no point in arguing that point, either. The spy's worry was too shortsighted, for one thing. It had been midmorning when Adrian entered the tent. Leaving now, still before noon, they would be seen by dozens of the barbarians who teemed in the great annual meeting ground outside Marange. There was no way Esmond would not find out who took the boy. By the end of the day; probably even before nightfall.
Esmond would be. . enraged. Furious enough that he might even attack his own brother. He would certainly seek vengeance on the spy.
As he stalked through the tent flap held open by the spy, carrying the boy's body quite easily for all his own short stature, Adrian paused a moment and said: "Take the gold in the pouch at my belt. There's enough there to reach your village — it's on the other side of the continent, I believe — and leave a goodly bonus for you. Take it and leave immediately."
He heard the spy whisper some kind of thanks, in a dialect he could not really understand. A few quick fingers working at the pouch — no tyro at theft, either, this spy — and the old man seemed to vanish.
Well done, said Raj. With some humor: That's an expensive bonus, but still a smart move. Your other spies will know what happened, and trust you for it. Half of them are probably watching right now.
Adrian hadn't thought in those terms — he'd simply felt himself responsible for his employee's welfare. Not for the first time, Adrian was reminded that Raj Whitehall, unlike himself, was a master tactician.
He didn't doubt for a moment Raj's assessment of what his own spies were doing. As he threaded his way through the crowds spilling in the spaces between the multitude of tents and huts which made up the barbarian encampment, Adrian was almost amused to see how many eyes followed his progress. There were times, in his more sour moments, when Adrian wondered how the Southrons even managed to stay alive. They didn't seem to do very much except quarrel — with words and weapons both — and spy on each other ceaselessly.
that's the men, commented Center. the women do most of the daily work. that's always been one of the problems pastoralism poses for civilization. herders have too much time on their hands, at least part of the year. so they make mischief all out of proportion to their numbers.
It doesn't help any that their skills are so readily adapted to war, added Raj. Riding, hunting, the lot. Even their diet makes for easier logistics.
It was true enough. On two occasions since he'd arrived in Marange, at the invitation of important chieftains, Adrian had accompanied Southron tribesmen in their treasured great hunts. He'd always known the Southrons were skilled cavalrymen and weapons handlers, however undisciplined they might be in battle. What he hadn't realized was how adept they were at living off the land. Vanbert or Emerald noblemen, when they went hunting, took a huge caravan with them laden with supplies. A Southron, even a chieftain, took nothing more than what he could carry on his own mount and a pack animal.