you slightly against a very practical solution to a sticky problem.
Something really ought to be done about these monsters, though.’
‘it’s already been taken care of. ‘Oh? How?’ I’m not at liberty to say.’
they stepped out onto the wide veranda that ran across the back of the
house and stood leaning on the railing looking out into the muddy back
yard. ‘it doesn’t show any signs of letting up, does it?’ Stragen said.
‘How long can it continue at this time of year?’
‘You’ll have to ask Khalad. He’s the expert on the weather.’
‘My Lords?’ Stragen and Sparhawk turned. It was Elron, the baron’s poetic
brother-in-law. ‘I came to assure you that my sister and I aren’t
responsible for Kotyk and his relatives,’ he said. ‘We were fairly sure
that was the case, Elron,’ Stragen murmured. ‘All they had in the world was
Kotyk’s title. Their
father gambled away their inheritance. It sickens me to have that clutch of
out-at-the-elbows aristocrats lording it over us the way they do.’
‘We’ve heard some rumours,’ Stragen smoothly
changed the subject. ‘Some people in Esos were telling us that there was
unrest among the serfs. We got some garbled account of a fellow called
‘Sabre’ and another named Ayachin. We couldn’t make any sense out of it.’
Elron looked around in an over-dramatically conspiratorial fashion. ‘It is
not wise to mention those names here in Astel, Milord Stragen,’ he said in
a hoarse whisper that probably could have been heard across the yard. ‘The
Tamuls have ears everywhere.’
‘The serfs are unhappy with the Tamuls?’ Stragen asked with some surprise.
‘i’d have thought that they wouldn’t’t have had so far to look for someone
to hate.’
‘The serfs are superstitious animals, Milord,’ Elron sneered. ‘They can be
led anywhere with a combination of religion, folklore and strong drink. The
real movement is directed at the yellow devils.’ Elron’s eyes narrowed.
‘The honour of Astel demands that the Tamul yoke be thrown off. That’s the
real goal of the movement. Sabre is a patriot, a mysterious figure who
appears out of the night to inspire the men of Astel to rise up and smash
the oppressor’s chains. He’s always masked, you know.’
‘I hadn’t heard that.’
‘Oh, yes. It’s necessary, of course. Actually, he’s a well-known personage
who very carefully conceals his real identity and opinions. By day he’s an
idle member of the gentry, but at night, he’s a masked firebrand, igniting
the patriotism of his countrymen.’
‘You have certain opinions, I gather,’ Stragen assumed. Elron’s expression
grew cautious. ‘i’m only a poet, Milord Stragen,’ he said deprecatingly.
‘My interest is in the drama of the situation – for the purposes of my art,
you understand.’
‘Oh, of course.’
‘Where does this Ayachin come in?’ Sparhawk asked.
‘As I understand it, he’s been dead for quite some time now.’
‘There are strange things afoot in Astel, Sir Sparhawk,’ Elron assured
him. ‘Things which have lain locked in the blood of all the Astels for
generations. We know in our hearts that Ayachin is not dead. He can never
die – not so long as tyranny is alive.’
‘Just as a practical consideration, Elron,’ Stragen said
in his most urbane manner, ‘this movement seems to rely rather heavily on
the serfs for manpower. What’s ‘in it for them? Why should men who are
bound to the soil have any concern at all about who runs the government?’
They’re sheep. They’ll stampede in any direction you want them to. All you
have to do is murmur the word ’emancipation’ and they’d follow you into the
mouth of hell. ‘
‘Then Sabre has no intention of actually freeing them?’
Elron laughed. ‘My dear fellow, why would any reasonable man want to do
that? What’s the point of liberating cattle?’ He looked around furtively.
‘I must return before I’m missed. Kotyk hates me, and he’d like nothing
better than the chance to denounce me to the authorities. I’m obliged to
smile and be polite to him and those two overfed sows he calls his sisters.
I keep my own counsel, gentlemen, but when the day of our liberation comes,
there will be changes here – as God is my judge. Social change is sometimes
violent, and I can almost guarantee that Kotyk and his sisters will not
live to see the dawn of the new day.’ His eyes narrowed with a kind of
self-important secretiveness. ‘But I speak too much. I keep my own counsel,
gentlemen. I keep my own counsel.’ He swirled his black cloak around him
and crept back into the house, his head high and his expression resolute.
‘Fascinating young fellow,’ Stragen observed. ‘He
makes my rapier itch for some reason.’ Sparhawk grunted his agreement and
looked up at the rainy night. ‘I hope this blows over by morning,’ he said.
‘i’d really like to get out of this sewer.’
CHAPTER 11
The following morning dawned blustery and unpromising. Sparhawk and his
companions ate a hasty breakfast and made ready to depart. The baron and
his family were not awake as yet, and none of his guests were in any mood
for extended farewells. They rode out about an hour after sunrise and
turned northeasterly on the Darsas road, moving at a distance-consuming
canter. Although none of them mentioned it, they all wanted to get well
out of the range of any possible pursuit before their hosts awakened.
About mid-morning, they reached the white stone pillar that marked the
eastern border of the baron’s estate and breathed a collective sigh of
relief. The column slowed to a walk, and Sparhawk and the other knights
dropped back to ride alongside the carriage. Ehlana’s maid, Alcan, was
crying, and the queen and Baroness Melidere were trying to comfort her.
‘She’s a very gentle child,’ Melidere explained to Sparhawk. The horror of
that sorry household has moved her to tears.’
‘Did someone back there say something to you he shouldn’t have?’ Kalten
asked the sobbing girl, his tone hard. Kalten’s attitude toward Alcan was
strange. Once he had been persuaded not to press his attentions on her, he
had become rather fiercely protective. ‘if anybody insulted you, I’ll go
back and teach him better manners.’
‘No’, my Lord,’ the girl replied disconsolately. ‘It was ‘ nothing like
that. It’s just that they’re all trapped in that awful place. They hate
each other, but they’ll have to spend the rest of their lives together, and
they’ll go on cutting little pieces out of each other until they’re all
dead. ‘
‘Someone once told me that there’s a certain kind of justice at work in
situations like that,’ Sparhawk observed, not looking at his daughter.
‘All right then, we all had the chance to talk with the members of our
host’s family individually. Did anyone pick up anything useful?’
‘The serfs are right on the verge of open rebellion, my Lord,’ Khalad
said. ‘I sort of drifted around the stable and other outbuildings and
talked with them. The Barons’ father was a kindly master, I guess, and the
serfs loved him. After he died, though, Kotyk started to show his real
nature. He’s a brutal sort of man, and he’s very fond of using the knout.’
‘What’s a knout?’ Talen asked. ‘It’s a sort of scourge,’ his half-brother
replied bleakly. ‘A whip?’
‘It goes a little further than that. Serfs are lazy,
Sparhawk. There’s no question about that. And they’ve perfected the art of
either pretending to be stupid or feigning illness or injury. It’s always
been a sort of game, I guess. The masters knew what the serfs were up to,
and the serfs knew that they weren’t really fooling anybody. Actually, I
think they all enjoyed it. Then, a few years ago, the masters suddenly
stopped playing. Instead of trying to coax the serfs to work, the gentry
began to resort to the knout. They threw a thousand years of tradition out
the window and turned vicious overnight. The serfs can’t understand it.
Kotyk’s not the only noble who’s been mistreating his serfs. They say it’s
been happening all over western Astel. Serfs tend to exaggerate things, but
they all seem to be convinced that their masters have set out on a course
of deliberate brutality designed to eradicate traditional rights and to
reduce the serfs to absolute slavery. A serf can’t be sold, but a slave
can. The one they call ‘Sabre’ has been making quite an issue of that. If
you tell a man that somebody’s planning , to sell his wife and children,
you’re going to get him just a little bit excited.’ That doesn’t match up
too well with what Baron Kotyk was telling me,’ Patriarch Emban put in.
‘The baron drank more than was really good for him last night, and he let a
number of things slip that he otherwise might not have. It’s his position
that Sabre’s primary goal is to drive the Tamuls out of Astel. To be honest