Harm, page 6
Each “get it?” was accompanied by a fist in Webshider’s ribs.
“You’ll never manage to kick Astaroth out, you bully,” the man gasped.
“Try it!”
“You’ll never manage it because the people here are—I dunno—sort of sick after the long journey and Reconstitution.”
He propped the thin man up and rested his back against the wall. “You’re saying there was something the matter with the LPR, the Life Process Reservoir?”
“How do I know?” the other responded. “It’s possible, ain’t it? Or else this planet don’t agree with us. Maybe there’s some sort of germ in the air that—”
“You scum! You’re sick.” He gave the shuddering face another slap.
“We’re all sick, you bluggerate—because we are dumped here to live among aliens and insects.”
The notion struck a chord in Fremant’s mind. “It’s a rule of life—we all have to live among strangers . . . Get yourself back to that Habander feller and tell him what I’ve said, okay?”
He stood up and watched alertly as Webshider struggled slowly to his feet, gasping and groaning. He was not a fighting man. Fremant gave him a kick in his rear as he slouched off.
He then hurried in the direction of the Center, afraid of reporting in late.
THREE
THE ROSY-FACED STABLE MAID, Breeth, made Fremant and Tunderkin bowls of sweet otz, which she cooked over a little fire in the tack room. After that, they brought out the horses and brushed them down under the pale sky. High above their heads rode one of the six moons.
“How do you call that moon?” Fremant asked. His mood was still bad from the fight in the alley, and his knuckles hurt.
“Why, ’tis Brother, of course,” said Breeth with a smile. “How come you don’t know that?”
“So you know the names of all the moons?”
“Indeed I do, as do everyone, ’cos they’re all named the same.” She laughed. “It’s Brother the lot of them, ain’t it?”
“But they’re all different.”
“No, you silly, they’re all moons.”
Pulling Hengriss from the stable to make the beast piss in the yard, Tunderkin said, “Got to be extra care with this one. This one is Essanits’s steed.”
“What difference does that make?” Fremant asked.
“My old gran knew the types of folks she met with. You, Fremant, you’re always asking questions, you’d be the Eternal Stranger.”
He thought the observation was acute. He was eternally a stranger, even to himself.
“And how would your old gran typecast Astaroth?”
“Mad stallion . . .”
They began to brush down the horses. The animals stood still, their sides heaving in and out as they breathed through them, unaware their lives were passing, unaware even that they were alive in the full sense of the word.
“You ask too many questions. You’ll get in trouble.” Tunderkin ducked his head below the flank of Hengriss, to say in a low tone, “My old gran was one who saw into men’s minds. She’d say them as are tortured are the torturers. Now, shut your face and let’s get these beasts saddled up for morning inspection.”
The day was still chilly and the breath of the horses hung about them as they tacked up the patient beasts.
DAYS WORE BY and once more the Shawl covered the sky, darkening Stygia City, cooling the planet. Astaroth retreated into his private quarters, taking Aster with him. The so-called World Council, nominally under WAA supervision, was left in charge. Headless, it did nothing. Only Essanits was prepared to make decisions.
Although the appearance of the Shawl in its orbit was completely predictable, appearing over Stygia City as it did every ten days, the populace, according to its own slow-moving destiny, was so wrapped in inertia that no one ever made preparations for its arrival. A number of people died on every occasion that the Shawl passed overhead.
It was Essanits who set up a store where a slender ration of food could be obtained by any who needed it. Those who claimed food in this way had their forefinger dipped in a purple dye so that they could not make a repeat visit. This forethought on Essanits’s part saved many malnourished lives.
On the second day after its appearance overhead, the Shawl sank toward the western horizon. Normal life was resumed. A day later, Astaroth came roaring from his den, all boots and flowing robes. The food store was being shuttered when Astaroth came on it. Fremant and Cavertal, another guard, had to accompany him. Astaroth raged at the wastage. Yet he said not a word of reproof to Essanits, such was the aura of immunity which seemed to envelop the younger man.
Instead, Astaroth attacked one of Essanits’s stallholders.
“Why give away food? Men must earn their living, their very bread. That is a basic law of life.”
“Without food they might have died, sir, and had no law.” The man hung his head, in fear at any attempt to contradict the leader.
“Then they should have died. Those who would die are the ones who have no sense, who would not store food.”
Essanits, standing by, arms akimbo, said mildly, “Some of the poor are unable to afford to buy anything ahead of time, sir. They have to live from hand to mouth, if I may remind you.”
“You may, Soldier Essanits,” replied Astaroth, controlling his anger, “and I will remind you that such men are worth nothing to our community. The days of the egalitarian society we had on the ship after LPR in its final years are long over. Here we must fight for our living.”
Fremant could not resist speaking out. “Then those who have been saved from starvation are now able to fight for that living. Our community is too small for us not to value every single body on Stygia.”
Astaroth turned to survey his guard. “Our need is for real men, not for weaklings or impertinent dogs like you. Guard”—he pointed at Cavertal—“arrest this man! Relieve him of his weapons at once. Three days in the cells.”
“That’s unjust! I merely wished to point out—”
“Silence! You do wrong to speak at all!”
Essanits said, “He did no harm, sir. What he said is true. We are underpopulated. Would you arrest a man for speaking truth?” He stood rigidly upright, handsome, grim, prepared to confront the All-Powerful.
“A guard must hold his tongue in my presence.” Astaroth drew himself up as if he were a guard himself. Then he looked away with a dismissive shake of his head.
Cavertal reluctantly did as he was bid. With a length of leather, he lashed Fremant’s hands behind his back and marched him off.
Beneath the Center were cellars and prison cells. In no time, Fremant found himself thrust into one such cell.
“Sorry, pal,” said Cavertal in a low voice. “But you was asking for trouble, crossing him like that.” He slammed the door on his friend.
Astaroth, meanwhile, retired to his quarters, still vexed that he had been contradicted. Aster had retired to her room, saying she was unwell. Astaroth fumed but did nothing. Instead, he put his booted feet up on a chair and summoned his old wife, Ameethira, to keep him company.
“It’s funny,” she said, “but I keep getting headaches. I take a walk every day, except when the Shawl is overhead, of course, but still I have a headache.”
Speaking mildly but in his usual tone of contempt, he told her she was always complaining.
Paper-white, she asked in a quiet voice, “Do you wish to know where I walk?”
“Why should I care where you walk?” He glared at her shriveled form with contempt, at her old, torn clothes, which seemed to mark her out as a prisoner.
“I walk to the edge of the cliffs and I stand there and stare at the sea. It never rests. The waves never cease. And what do you imagine I think about?”
“How should I know what you think about, woman?”
“I think about throwing myself off the cliffs into the sea. That’s what I think about.”
She gave a sort of laugh and peered shortsightedly at her husband to judge his response.
“Go away,” he said. “Get out of my sight!”
She seemed to weaken. She held out a supplicatory hand. “Do you ever recall, Astaroth, the days when I was first reconstituted and was young and beautiful and you loved me?”
“Those days are gone,” he said, and scowled down at the floor. “No personal relationships anymore . . .”
After some while, when she felt like it, Aster appeared. “Mother Ameethira is not happy,” she said.
“What do you expect?” He told Aster to fetch him a glass of buskade.
“That young big mouth, Fremant—I am tired of his voice, tired of his face. He’s rotting in the cells at present. I’ll get rid of the little snot.”
“Fremant?” She was startled to hear his name. “Why, he’s a good guardsman, isn’t he? Punctual, loyal . . .”
“What do you know about it?” he asked.
“I happen to like him, that’s all.” She looked nervous. Her hands twisted about ceaselessly.
He grasped the arms of his chair. His face went red. His eyes bulged. “I had a report . . . Fool I was to ignore it. That you were seen with some young fellow. It was Fremant, wasn’t it? You dare slip away from me into his arms?’
“No, no, Papa! It wasn’t he! Honestly—”
Astaroth bounded up and seized her by the wrist. He dragged her to his chair, forcing her to kneel abjectly before him.
“Now, then—you’ve been doing it with that little snot, haven’t you? I could smell it on you!”
“Oh no, please—”
He struck her across the face with an open palm. “You did, didn’t you, you little whore? Admit it, or I’ll strangle you here and now!”
She screamed. He struck her again. Her lip was bleeding. Tears burst from her eyes at the pain.
“Oh no, no, please, Papa, please! You hurt me so!”
Astaroth thrust his burning face into hers. “I’ll hurt you more unless you tell me the truth. What did you do with him?” He grasped her throat and squeezed.
Aster gave a faint cry. She opened her mouth to gasp for air.
“He raped me . . . Just as you did!” The words were gasped out. “Let me go, you brute!”
He let her go, let her crumple to the floor, sobbing, sobbing at both her pain and her confession, knowing what it entailed.
FREMANT WAS LYING ON THE FLOOR of his cell, half-alive. The leader had burst into his cell and set about him with a cudgel, beating him here, beating him there. He felt as if every bone in his body were broken.
“You’ll stay here till I kill you,” said Astaroth, out of breath. “I’ll be back to deal with you again tomorrow.”
So, very well, then. It was to be death. He had but one day more to breathe, to exist, to sprawl on the cold stone.
Astaroth, like many lesser men, believed in revenge.
Fremant had heard that there was a religion somewhere which believed not in revenge but in its opposite, forgiveness.
Forgiveness . . . the very word had a gentle touch, whereas revenge was like a sword dragged over cold stone. And yet forgiveness was so much harder to grant.
What had been said? He could hardly think, but in spasms it came to him. Yes, “turning the other cheek” . . . That had been a tenet of a great religion, a religion now lost.
In how many countries, how many tribes, were vendettas an abiding source of misery because it was held to be honorable never to forgive . . .
Well, that meant nothing now, if tomorrow marked the end of all things, all hopes, all mistakes . . .
“I’LL DIE,” he whispered to himself. “I’ll die. For sure I’ll die.” He saw above him a grille of iron bars which served to let in a glimmer of light.
The darkness whirled about him, the sight of light was lost.
“You’ll not die until you have answered our questions,” said another voice. “Doris was your wife. Where were you married? In some fucking mosque?”
“In a registry office in Harrow . . . I shall surely die . . .”
“Tell me her name.”
“I told you more than once. Doris.”
“Doris who, you bastard?”
“Doris McGinty.” He felt he would crumble from fatigue. They had kept him awake for fifty hours without rest.
“She was a white woman.”
“She was Irish.”
“She was a white woman, you bastard.”
“Yes.”
“How did you manage to marry a white woman?”
“Oh, for God’s sake. I thought this was a free country.”
“So it was, until you bastards started blowing things up, uttering threats, suicide-bombing.”
“That was nothing to do with me. I was a lawful law-abiding citizen.”
“But you were thinking of blowing the place up. You were an ally of this shit from Al-Muhajiroun. You wrote about killing the PM in your sodding book.”
“That was just a—just a joke, really . . . A bit unfortunate . . .”
The guard struck him across the nape of his neck with a wooden baton. He heard the small bones crunch.
A deep bespattered darkness fell upon him.
ESSANITS CAME TO VISIT HIM IN HIS CELL.
“I find you in a bad way, Fremant,” he said. “I’m permitted to be in these cellars because our leader regards me as a hero. Because . . .” Here his voice faltered. “Because I wiped out the Dogovers.”
Fremant could not raise his voice above a whisper. “He will kill me tomorrow. I know that.”
“Astaroth’s reign of injustice must end, and with it his hateful creed. You have spirit. I cannot let you die. It’s against my”—he pronounced a word Fremant vaguely understood—“religion.”
About his neck Essanits wore a length of scarf. This he removed and went over to the iron bars of the grille. Standing on tiptoe, he tied the scarf to one of the bars.
“When it is dark, I shall return outside the Center. The scarf will tell me which is your cell. I will give you further instructions then. Meanwhile . . .”
He brought from his pocket a quantity of salack. “Chew this. Rest yourself. Fear nothing.”
Essanits left.
Fremant propped himself against a wall and chewed on the herb. Gradually, some of his strength returned.
The day waned. A jailer came, bringing a small pitcher of water and a hunk of bread. The bread tasted stale. Fremant washed it down with gulps of water.
As darkness closed in, Fremant detected—so sensitized was he by now to such things—an additional alteration in the light; he realized that the Shawl was about to pass over Stygia once again.
When darkness became complete, and a chilly wind blew through his grating, he heard a sound outside. The scarf was removed from the bars. A glowworm of light showed. Then came a dull clumping of a heavy instrument striking the mortar in which the bars were embedded. A pause. The bars were being tested, shaken. More clumping. A bar was being wrenched away. Then another bar. Then another.
A hand extended into the prison cell, holding a small light in a glass. It was followed by a rope. The light was the signal. It was withdrawn.
Fremant grasped the rope, tested it to see that it was secure, then seized it firmly and climbed up the wall. He wriggled his way through the toothless gap of his window, to arrive on all fours on the ground outside. Willing hands helped him to his feet. Someone clapped him on his back.
“Horses nearby,” said Essanits. “Are you all right? Let’s hurry!”
They guided him downhill, a young unknown man holding tightly to the escaped prisoner’s arm to prevent him falling. It was the darkest of nights. No one was about. Not a glimmer of light showed in any window. There was no doubt that the passing of the Shawl awoke superstitious dread in local hearts, and not in Astaroth’s alone.
They hurried into a side street heading away from the Center. Cats scurried off at their approach. Four men were accompanying Fremant—Essanits and three younger men.
“Steady!” Essanits ordered. They slowed their pace.
A thickset man was waiting for them in the street ahead. He emerged from a doorway, where he had been lounging against the doorpost, to beckon them in. They were led along a narrow passageway and through another door, where the air was heavy with the smell of hay and horses and the noise of clawed hooves restless on tile.
This stranger shook Fremant’s hand with his leathery one. “I’m the stablekeeper,” he said in a deep voice. “I help Essanits against my better judgment, see?”
Fremant could barely speak in reply.
A lantern hung from a beam in the stable. Fremant was able to see his rescuers. Essanits he recognized immediately—the tall, well-shaped man with a large, square, clean-shaven face and deep-set eyes. His mouth, with its pale lips, seemed to spread across his face. The younger men in his company looked much alike, all stressed and anxious, differing most clearly in hairstyles: One had plentiful locks, one had fair hair cut almost to stubble, and the third was prematurely bald.
“All right,” said Essanits, “we’re going to make for the hills. I know a place where you’ll be safe, a little township called Haven. Some religion prevails there. The sooner we leave here, the better.”
Under the stablekeeper’s supervision, certain of the best horses were in the process of being saddled.
These insects bore little resemblance to ordinary horses. However, they were sturdy creatures, with pronounced hind legs, and fully capable of carrying a human burden. They had been bred for strength. Since their lives were comparatively short, breeding had rapidly taken place. They had been bred for distinctive colors as well as strength. Fremant couldn’t help viewing them with suspicion.
The beasts fought against saddling, as if well aware of the cold outside and the hardship to come. Kicking and rearing, they managed to fill the air with fragments of straw; so much so that one of Essanits’s youths, the frailest one, by name Hazelmarr, went into a sneezing fit.
