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.