CHAPTER TWENTY
John waited until Peter and the thieves had left, closing the door behind them. Then he turned, walked rapidly to the window, and laid his palms down on the windowseat, leaning forward as far as he could without falling. Ursula lifted her head again and slipped out of my arms to come over and place her hand on his back. He looked up at her touch and asked, "Will you let me speak with Andrew alone?"
Ursula nodded and left the room, her gaze switching from John to me, as though unsure which brother she should be aiding first. When she was gone, John turned, picked up the Chara's dagger from the windowseat where he had laid it, and stared at it. He said meditatively, "I often think it would be better to be the one under the sentence of death than to be the one doing the sentencing."
"The Chara said something like that to me once," I murmured.
John looked at me silently. Since he made no reply, I asked in a flat voice, "What next?"
"I asked Ursula to leave because I have one more task I wish you to take on." John moved forward to me, the dagger still cradled gently in his hand. "This task is more dangerous than the previous one and may yield no help at all, so feel free to refuse me on this. I'd like you to go back to the palace and take all of the papers you can find that belong to the Chara. They may be of use to us. If you meet anyone, you'll have to devise a tale to explain why the Chara is missing and you are there. It's possible that you'll be arrested."
I smiled humorlessly and shook my head. "As to that, I've been arrested before. I've also been enslaved, beaten, and seen the eyes of the friend I love when he discovered what I'd done to him. At this point, nothing matters except finding a way to free Koretia. If these papers might help, I'll fetch them."
John touched my arm and said with quiet intensity, "Do not give way to despair. I have had to do many times what you have done for the first time today, lure a trusting man to his death. Do not allow the numbness you now feel to conceal from you any dangers. I still have need of your help, and I have no wish to lose a blood brother again."
"I'll be careful," I promised.
o—o—o
Perhaps I would have been, if I had not met Lord Carle.
He came upon me as I was sorting through the small pile of papers in Peter's chamber. The council lord entered the room waving his hand, trying to bat away a Koretian blood-fly that had taken a fancy to him. His face was red and perspiring, and as the blood-fly landed on his neck for a fourth time, he cried out, "If the dog-people who live in this place do not destroy themselves soon, then I pray to the Koretian gods that this land be burnt to the ground! No civilized man should have to live in such a place, where even the Emorian soldiers have acquired so thick a barbarian accent that I suspect their brains have been melted by the heat. It took me five minutes to make myself understood to the guards at this door, though no doubt they let you in immediately, since you appear so at home in this land."
I did not look up. I had found under one of the papers the Chara's emblem brooch. Without thinking why I was doing so, I slipped it into the satchel John had loaned me. In a cool voice I asked, "May I help you, Lord Carle?"
"No, I do not need to talk to the Chara's servant, I need the Chara himself. Fetch your master to me."
"The Chara spoke of walking about the city this morning, but no doubt he will return soon. You may wish to check the governor's library to see whether he is there."
"I have just been with the governor in his library, and I would like the Chara's opinion on the subject we discussed. Why are you not with your master?"
Three weeks before he had asked me the same question, and I had reacted with fury. Now I simply said, "He asked me to sort through his papers while he was gone. If you wish, you may leave a message for him here, where he will see it."
"So that the Jackal's thieves can read through it at their leisure? Do not act the fool, Andrew. Koretian dog though you may be, you are at least loyal to your master and would not do anything that betrayed the Chara to the gutter-washed, mud-eating blood-worms who inhabit this land."
I could blame the heat, which seemed ten times hotter now than it had been in my youth. Whatever the cause, at this mild insult from Lord Carle, which was almost the greatest compliment he had ever paid me, I found myself snatching up the Chara's pen from his desk, clutching it in my hand as though it were a dagger, and shouting, "Koretian dog though I am, I would rather face the high doom against murderers than hear you tell me again what you think of my land!"
The Chara's guards appeared at the doorway, having heard my cry even through the thick corridor door of Peter's chamber. Seeing that I held nothing more dangerous than a pen, they quickly retreated, closing the door behind them. Lord Carle was regarding me with a sideways smile, and at his look, I suddenly felt cold amidst the heat.
"Your land . . ." he said slowly. "Now, this is interesting. I seem to recall that only three days ago you were defending to the death your right to be considered an Emorian, and now you are speaking of this as your land and admitting that you are Koretian. I wonder what this sudden change of loyalties means."
I said nothing, since I could think of nothing that would explain myself. Lord Carle took two steps forward and said in a voice as quiet and deadly as the whisper of a cutting blade, "I find it intriguing that the Chara gives you the right to look through his papers while he is gone, though he has told me on several occasions that he does not wish to inform you of all that he is doing here. But of course he is conveniently missing at the moment, so I cannot ask him about this. Are you sure you do not know where he is?"
"Yes."
Lord Carle's smile broadened. He took another step forward to where I stood paralyzed in my tracks, like a bird confronted by a snake. "I never thought the day would come when you would lie poorly, but your natural talent for deception seems to have abandoned you. Will you tell me where the Chara is, or shall I send you to the governor's dungeon to await your master's return? Or, if the Chara is for some reason delayed, do you wish to tell me the truth of your own free will, or should I ask the governor to have his soldiers demonstrate to you their methods of inquiry? I understand that the torturers here have had much practice on the local population."
I opened my lips to tell some lie, which would no doubt be as transparent a falsehood as my previous one. As I did, I thought suddenly of Peter's look in the moments after John had told him that he must die. And it seemed to me then that if the Chara could face his death with such calm, I could face whatever came from betraying him.
I said to Lord Carle firmly, "I will not tell you where the Chara is. I am Koretian, and I have taken a blood vow."
Lord Carle's smile disappeared like a shaft of sunlight that has been covered by dark clouds. As I saw his rage rise, I wondered whether he would hand me over to the torturers or have his own revenge upon me in this very room. Then he moved, snatching the Chara's pen from me and turning his back on me to lean over the Chara's desk.
I watched with puzzlement as he scribbled words on a piece of paper, then folded it and sealed the wax with his ring. When he turned back with the paper in hand, he had a look on his face that I had not seen for many years: that of a soldier who has met a hated and respected enemy.
He said, "On one of the many occasions in which I was commanded to appear in the Chara's quarters to be rebuked by him for my behavior toward you, the Chara told me that you could not be mastered through fear but only through love. He was kind enough not to add what we both knew: that I have battled with you many times and that you have won every battle, from the moment we met. I would lose this battle if I waged it. With your stubbornness in the face of pain, I doubt that the most skilled of the governor's torturers could wring from you any fact you had determined to remain hidden. So, since the Chara has often told me that he is willing to trust his life to you, I will try his own methods. This letter contains information that may be of great help to the Chara. If you love him, you will deliver it to him."
I reached out
slowly and took the paper from him. Lord Carle handed it to me with a jerk, as though throwing food to an unclean animal, and then turned and left me alone with the Chara's papers.
o—o—o
When I returned to the lair of the Jackal, I found him sitting on the floor in the ancient dormitory, holding over a fire an iron basket filled with blackroot nuts, the staple of any Koretian commoner's diet.
I made my way past a handful of thieves, who were munching on nuts and bread; I recognized all of them from the meeting at the tavern. The farmer I had spoken with there was crouched next to John. As I came near, I heard him say in a low voice, "I could try to find him now."
"I need you here."
John's voice was quiet but unbending; he did not look up from the fire. The farmer glanced up at me. Perhaps feeling inhibited by my presence, he replied only, "Well, keep your hands away from the fire. You'll need them as well." He nodded at me as he rose, and then went over to speak with one of the other thieves.
I sat down next to John, dropping the satchel I had carried back with me from the palace. John handed me a bowl of nuts and a cup of ale that were sitting beside him. My eyes travelled from the cooking flame up to the open hole where the smoke was drifting out. "Is that safe?"
"It's very dangerous," John replied. "The smoke can be seen from the city. But it's more dangerous to allow my thieves to go a third day without a warm meal. I sensed the beginnings of a rebellion."
I was silent for a moment before saying, "And you needed a sacrificial fire?"
"Not today." John pulled himself closer to the fire. "I can't afford to make any sacrifices now. It's an aid to prayer only – my most trusted thief has gone missing in the city. I've been praying for his safety."
I pulled my thoughts away from the image of a burning city in order to look at John. He was bowed over the nuts, the heat from the fire bringing sweat to his forehead and causing his dark hair to clamp with moisture. By his feet was the Jackal's mask, and he was still wearing his black tunic, but now on the left side of his belt I could see hanging a sheath and hilt made of gold and bloodstone. The dagger was curved like a crescent moon or a priest's blade.
I said, "John, how can you offer prayer and sacrifice to the god when you're the Jackal? I thought that you were both man and god, joined together."
John pulled the nuts from the basket, hissing softly as he burned his fingers in the process. "You might go further and ask other questions," he said. "Am I still a man, with a man's will, or was my will lost when I took on the god's powers? Why do I fear for my thieves' lives, as well as my own, if I am joined with the Unknowable God who knows all things? Why do I not know how this struggle with the Chara will end?"
I watched John hand the nuts he had cooked to a thief walking by. "What is the answer?"
John picked up a cup beside him and sipped on the ale. The fire-smoke, tingling at my nose, rose to the ceiling, placing a dark haze between us. Drifting through the open windows around us I could smell the scents of a Koretian summer: the sweet-sour wild-berries, the onion-like grass, the sandstone dust. As yet, I could not smell fire from the city.
After a while, John said, "It isn't easy to explain, so let me tell a story instead. There once was a very great master, a master who could see everything that occurred on his estate, and for whom the past and the present and the future were but a single moment. This master had a large number of servants – all free-servants, for the master refused to own slaves.
"One day, the servants fell to quarreling, and they would not listen to the master when he commanded them to be at peace with one another. The master could have punished them all by making them slaves, but because he loved his servants, he decided instead to help them by making a sacrifice. He went to one of the servants – a servant no better than the rest, except that he had tried to be loyal to his master – and he asked whether he could join himself with the servant, so that the master would be part servant and the servant would be part master. In this way, the master could leave the servants free to run their lives as they wished, but at the same time, in his new form he could help to guide the disobedient servants back to peace.
"The servant to whom the master spoke was very afraid. He said to the master, 'What does it mean that we will be joined together? Am I the only servant who is to become a slave? Will I have no choice in what I do because my will is bound to yours?'
"'No,' said the master. 'There will be times when our wills are bound together and you have no choice in what to do, but most of the time you will be just an ordinary servant, and you will have no more powers than any other servant. At such times, you can obey me freely if you wish, and you can disobey me if you wish.'
"And so the servant consented to be joined in this way to the master, and together the master and servant worked to bring peace to the quarreling servants.
"Then, one day, one of the servants disobeyed the master—"
John stopped; his gaze was fixed on the fire before him. Behind us, the thieves spoke quietly with one another as they ate the meal that John had cooked for them.
I said, "Which servant? The one who was joined to the master, or one of the other servants?"
"It doesn't matter." John sipped from his cup without raising his eyes. "It could be any of the servants, but since I'm telling the story, let's say that it was the first servant. Once, while his will was separate from that of the master, the servant disobeyed the direct command of his master and brought about evil. Then the master asked, 'What shall I do? My servant has done great evil, and I do not know how I can join myself with the servant again, for it was his loyalty to me which allowed me to join us in the beginning. Yet if we are disunited, and I take back what I have given him, the servant may fall into despair and die.'
"Now, it so happened that there lived another servant who was friend to the first. This second servant was not aware of what had happened, but he wished to assist his friend in any way that he could. So he spoke to the master and said, 'If my friend is ever in need, take whatever you wish from me so that my friend can be helped.'
"The second servant made this promise at another time than all this was taking place, but the master, for whom past and future are one, saw how he could help the disobedient servant. He warned the second servant, 'The only sacrifice which will help your friend is for you to give up that which is dearest to you.'
"'That does not matter,' said the second servant. 'I will give anything I have to help my friend.'
"And so the master took what was dearest to the second servant and used that sacrifice to help the first servant remain joined to him. And so great was the second servant's sacrifice that the master was also able to use it to help other servants throughout his estate. Thus one servant's sacrifice was used to counterbalance the evil done by many other servants."
John put down his cup as he finished his story, and for a moment I saw the blackness on his left palm. Then John pushed himself back slightly from the fire. His whole face was now covered with sweat.
"Is that a true story?" I asked.
Still, John did not look up. "Yes," he said very softly. "But even if it weren't, it had the potential for truth in the moment that the master chose to allow his servants freedom. There are different versions to the story – perhaps the master used the sacrifice of several servants to help the disobedient servant, just as he used each single sacrifice to help many servants. But the story always begins and ends the same way: with one servant doing evil, and another servant making a sacrifice to counter that evil. And the greatest sacrifice is made by the master, in joining himself to his limited servant."
We were sitting in the midst of the dormitory. Stone foundations for pallets lay along the walls under two windows, one facing north toward the city and one facing south toward the mountainside. Noonday light spilled through both windows, overlapping at the center of the room where John sat. He looked up at me finally, his serious gaze meeting mine. "Perhaps I was wrong when I said that I could not aff
ord to make any more sacrifices. The god has commanded me to keep myself and my thieves safe, but it is hard to say what he will ask of me before this is over. I may need to make another sacrifice before the end."
The farmer stepped past me into the corridor and walked down to where the market-seller stood before a doorway, offering him a cup of ale. As the market-seller took the cup, the farmer turned to face the door, his hand alert on his dagger in case the cell's inhabitant should try to escape.
I asked, "And what about when the master and servant are joined? What is that like?"
When I looked back toward John, I found that he was smiling. "It's hard to describe," he said. "It is a binding, yet in many ways it makes me feel as though I have been given greater freedom than I had before. I lose myself, yet when I return to my own will, I find more of myself than when I left. It makes it easier for me to do hard things."
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