Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 04]

by The Fall of the Shell (v0. 9) (epub)

  Far below her, Brudoer lay in hunger, hating himself for bumping Gamwyn, hating Bival and the Protector, crying again and again, yearning to lick some of the stew off the wall where he had thrown it again. No, he would not.

  From outside the prison row, back toward the ice caves, he heard a single flute playing, gently, he thought. It was the hymn of reconciliation:

  Like two birds circling high in air, each free, each tied to forces there, so let us—

  Brudoer clamped his hands over his ears, pressing his bruised palms against them.

  Several levels above him, in their small family rooms, llmdoer’s parents sat in the darkness. They talked quietly, worriedly.

  “ What did the men say at work?” Rotag asked.

  “Nothing. They studiously avoid it.”

  “Are you being frank with me? I know they are concerned. I know they have been singing at night so Brudoer i an hear. Pion, I’m not a spy for the inner council.”

  “1 feel their worry and anger. They don’t blame Brud.

  I hese tensions have been around for a long time.”

  “You always increased them with your tales of Jestak and the Shumai heroes.”

  “Oh, bird sweat. What am I supposed to do, discuss the writings of Craydor?”

  “It might have been better, judging from the results. But I’m really worried. Brud isn’t eating. There is talk now of invoking physical punishment.”

  “Isn’t it that already? And what about Gamwyn? Hasn’t he been physically punished?”

  “They mean a public beating, Pion. There hasn’t been one for years.”

  “To beat a boy? Even Udge has more sense than that.” “I fear not. She seems more determined all the time, if I can judge by what I hear. You have to get Brud to submit and apologize.”

  Pion let out a low growl, startling his wife. “Submit,” he said. “Submit.”

  “We must. It’s the way things are. You aren’t a Shumai primitive, to go wandering around in the wilds. This is our only home.”

  “The guardsmen got to Northwall.”

  “By a ruse. That’s no way.” Rotag began to sob softly in the darkness. Pion sat by her and embraced her. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” she said.

  That evening, Sagan, the Protector of Pelbarigan, stopped in to see Gamwyn. Royal, the dome physician, had knitted the boy’s face together and stopped the swelling. The Haframa, Pelbarigan’s native physician, sat with him. She was reading from the scriptures of Aven, even though she saw Gamwyn wasn’t listening. When the Protector arrived, the Haframa moved and set the chair for her.

  “He can’t talk well yet, Protector,” she said.

  “Thank you. I will not stay long. So you are Gamwyn the Terrible, destroyer of the snail shell. Are you feeling better?”

  Gamwyn blinked and swallowed. “A little,” he said. “May I stay?”

  “Until you are well, small one. Then you must return. That is Pelbar law.” Gamwyn shuddered, and the Protector put her hands on his arm. “Do you trust me?” she asked.

  “Trust?”

  “I see no very easy way for you, but perhaps a hard one. Can you do hard things if they are good ones?”

  Gamwyn considered. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you decide. I will come back and ask you again in a few days. Meanwhile, be quiet and get better.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead. The amazed boy smelled roses faintly.

  In the doorway, Sagan turned. “Have you met my grandson? Garet?”

  “No,” said the Haframa. “He hasn’t been here.”

  “He isn’t much older than Gamwyn. I’ll see that he comes. Good night.” She left, her guardsmen following. The Haframa gave the boy a slight, mysterious smile.

  A half-month passed. At Pelbarigan, Gamwyn mended slowly. At Threerivers, Brudoer grew weaker, until finally someone pitched through the door grating a large pebble with a note attached. The guardsman at the end of the prison row lounged, studiously inattentive. Brudoer smoothed out the paper and read in the dim light:

  Eat. You will need to be strong. Gam is getting better, we hear. He will return in ten or fifteen days. Whatever they do, you will need to be strong. I know little. Mother is very worried. Try not to hate so much. Leave that to me. All the city is upset. I will stand by you—-if I can. I think that pigeon dropping Udge is intent on a public lashing. You will need to be strong. I can sense that Pray. The man are praying for you. Get rid of this note. Father.

  High in the Broad Tower, the Protector asked again to have Craydor’s law of imprisonment read to her. Bival read:

  A prisoner is to be put in the first of the cells if it is open. In each case that shall be called his cell upon incarceration. In thirty days, the situation should be resolved and the prisoner should be again united with the community or excluded from it. In no case may the prisoner be returned to his cell at the end of thirty days. In serious cases, he may be returned to his cell, that is, the first cell, after 120 days out of it.

  “Now, do you hear what Craydor has said?” Udge asked. “Just what we always knew. In a matter of perhaps eight days now, Brudoer will have to be let go—at least for 120 days—or else excluded. It is all so strange. We have never used the six cells in my lifetime that I can recall. No one even goes there. The guardsmen found them thick with the dust of years. Wim told me. They didn’t even know what they looked like.”

  “Stick to the point. Look at the wording. Craydor said the prisoner may not be returned to his cell, that is, the first cell. Look at it. She left a way out. He can be put into the next cell for thirty days. We can entice him to anger if he won’t submit. She must have foreseen a time like this, when the cells would come into general use.”

  “But why keep him in the cells? Why not put it all behind us?” Cilia asked. “Look at the trouble it has caused, Protector. Why keep it up?”

  Udge glared at her. “I am amazed that you don’t see what is happening. He has become a symbol of the weakening of authority. Our whole government is at stake. You can feel the stirring. We have to win this one, even if he is only a wretched boy. We have to stifle this general sedition, and it is here we will do it.” She slammed her right fist into her open palm.

  Bival felt herself very uneasy. The Protector’s plan seemed untrue to the spirit of Craydor somehow. Yet she had caused the incident, and Udge was protecting her. She could scarcely object.

  The new guardchief rang the bell. “What is it, Rawl?” Udge asked.

  “The boy is eating again, Protector.”

  “Aaaaaggggh,” Udge said. “Too bad. Well, we have won that much over his willfulness. What have you been feeding him?”

  “Rich stew as you suggested, Protector.”

  “Change it. Give him plain food. Potatoes. Give the order.”

  The guardchief paused a moment, then bowed and left.

  Late that evening, Bival descended to the damp underbasement of the city. Warret had been living in the outer room at the entrance to the ice caves. She had finally recovered enough from her anger at him to seek a reconciliation. Balancing a lamp, she pulled the door by its curved iron latch. Warret was asleep on a stone bench, on which he had spread old fiber bags. He had covered himself with a woven rag spread. The room dripped with damp chill, but he had arranged a small vase of dried weeds on a shelf, and stacked his clothing neatly beside it. Two books of Aven and one mathematics text newly printed at Pelbarigan lay by them, creating a slight sense of domesticity.

  Bival sank into the one wooden chair and regarded him. He seemed deep in slumber. She reached out a hand to him and shook him gently. He stirred and turned, then blinked his eyes open. “It’s too early,” he said, then, seeing Bival, shrank back, murmuring, “Oh, you.”

  “Come upstairs with me.”

  “I have seen that the room has been kept clean. You cannot fault me on that.”

  “I haven’t come to fault you. Come up with me. Somehow I will make good your chits. This is embarrassing and demeaning. Loo
k at you in this filth. I am now commanding you.”

  Warret sat up and glared at her. She could see he was thinner and worn from the water-lifting. “Never. I can’t. You’re oppressing those poor boys. How could I look at any of the men? With him over there in prison because of you, you rancid wretch?”

  In spite of her intentions, Bival felt the instant flash of an interior explosion. She threw the lamp at her husband. He ducked. It smashed on the wall, showering oil that burst into flame on the rag spread. Warret rolled upright and blotted it out, singeing his hands, wincing, grunting in pain, but persisting until all the flames winked out. Darkness flowed up, drowning the room. Bival stood in its center, fists clenched, trembling, feeling an egg of fear crack open in her. She could see nothing. Warret kept perfectly still. It had all gone wrong. What would he do? Bival turned and groped for the door. Pushing it open, she saw the guard’s light, and reoriented herself. She turned and paused, mouth tight, then fled upstairs once again.

  At Pelbarigan, Gamwyn grew stronger. He was often visited by Garet, the Protector’s grandson, and eventually ushered around the bustling city, even to the academy with its mixture of peoples. He was dizzy with new impressions, but they meant little to him. One warm afternoon, the boys sat among fallen leaves on the bluff top.

  “Caret.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was all my fault, you know. I want to get another shell for Bival. Then it would all be right.”

  “Another shell? You can’t. They come from the sea all the way down the Heart, I hear.”

  “I’ve thought about it. I can’t return to Threerivers. I will go. All the way. I can do it.”

  “You’re only a boy. And untraveled. There are the Tusco and Alats, not to mention all the dangers of the wild country. You’ve never been anywhere.”

  “Maybe. But I am going to go. You have to promise not to tell.”

  “I’ll keep the secret. But you will be taken to Threerivers under guard.”

  “There has to be a way. Do you think it can be done?” Garet mused. “I doubt it. And it would be an embarrassment to our guardsmen if you escaped.”

  “What would Ahroe say?”

  “Mother would be bound to prevent you. My father would laugh. She might, too, privately. But escape’s out of the question. It’s too wild an idea.”

  “But you won’t tell.”

  “I won’t.” Garet eyed the younger boy. What a crazy notion. Him? Alone on a trip like that? “There may be Peshtak, too. I hear they are raiding westward again. They’ve killed some of the Tall Grass Sentani again. Look. The idea’s too crazy. It’s only a shell. A little piece of crumbly white stuff. Here, though. Do you know the way to the Koorb Sentani country? If you do run off, you could say you were going to get a shell and go to Koorb. They would take care of you.”

  “Who wants to be taken care of? I want to make this right.”

  Garet looked closely at him again. Now that his face was emerging from its wound, which slanted red down across his cheek, Garet saw a short nose, crested with freckles, and frank brown eyes, an intent mouth, a shock of brown hair. Garet shook his head.

  “I’ll go, Garet. I will. I’ll 'find some way.”

  Garet broke a stick into eight pieces. Then he said, “I know what my father would say. He’d say, ‘Try, Gamwyn, try.’ ”

  “I will. It’s all I can do. You’ll see. It will work out.”

  4

  Three days later, a guardsman stopped at Gamwyn’s door and announced that he was wanted by the Protector. The boy was puzzled. He wondered, as he walked through the echoing stone hallways, if Garet had told. He was not being taken to the Protector’s room off the Judgment Room, but to her quarters.

  He was ushered into a sitting room. The Protector sat at a round table drinking tea. The guardsman stood at attention. She looked at him. “Thank you. You may wait outside, please.” The. guardsman left She did not invite Gamwyn to sit. “I have sent to Threerivers by message bird. They will send guardsmen for you. We will not use our guardsmen. How is your cheek?”

  “It—it.. . not your guardsmen? They will tie me, Protector.”

  “Perhaps. I know I would if I wanted to get you all the way there. Now, come here and let me look at your face.” Gamwyn complied, walking around the table and turning his cheek. Sagan frowned at it. She rose and went to the window, asking him to follow, then turned his head to the light. “There will be a scar, but not a bad one. Aven has cared for you.”

  Gamwyn felt a throb of despair now that it had come over him he was returning. Already the guardsmen were on the river coming for him. Why had Sagan done that? Garet had told her. He must have. The Protector was now leaning on the windowsill, gazing out. Her face was impassive. “What will become of me, Protector? What will I do?”

  “You will have to go through what you will have to go through, Gamwyn.”

  “Can’t you help me?”

  She turned to him. “You mean we haven’t?”

  “Oh, yes, Protector. I am very grateful. But I wouldn’t really like to go back to Threerivers, except for my family. Pelbarigan is not the same at all.”

  “I was there once. I remember the inscriptions of Craydor on the walls.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you read them? Do you think about them at all?” “Not much, Protector. They’ve always been there.”

  “I remember one statement well: ‘The genius of the past may be of much help, but our real strength comes from our own inspired genius.’ Have you read that one?”

  “Yes. It’s on the front-stair hall.”

  “I like that one.”

  “I have no genius, Protector. I’m only a boy. I have always worked and fetched things.”

  “When you go down the river in the canoe, you’ll have time to think. Will you keep saying to yourself what you don’t have? Or what you do?”

  “What do I have?”

  “Then there’s no help for you, is there? Not because you have little, but because you refuse to see what you do have. Now. I am busy. I’ll probably not see you again. I have two presents for you.” She handed him a little leather bag. Inside he found a bag of white powder and a small length of wood that turned out to be a folding knife.

  “The knife is perhaps symbolic. It has a ring, see, so you can get a thong and wear it around your neck. The powder —well, in case you have trouble sleeping, that will put you to sleep. I have had it mixed with salt to make it tasty.” “But I don’t have trouble sleeping. I don’t understand.” “Then you don’t want my present?”

  “Oh, yes, but I. .. I...”

  “You must not tell anyone that I gave these things to you. No one. After all, you are a reprobate, a ghastly little brat, right? Somebody a Protector has no business chatting with. Now, two more matters. Gamwyn, do you ever lie?”

  “Lie? No—only when I’m kidding with Brudoer. Why?” “Curiosity. I’ve been thinking about it lately. Lying is very complex. Those who hold others by brute force, against reason and justice, often seem shocked when the helpless lie to them, and all the while they are living a lie in the eyes of Aven and never noticing it”

  “I don’t understand, Protector,”

  “No matter. If they put you in prison, you’ll have time to think about it. Now, one other thing.” She turned him and put her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes fixed his. “I haven’t lied to you in any particular. I want you to promise to remember everything I’ve ever told you and to think about it. Everything. Every word.” She shook him lightly.

  “I promise,” he said. She embraced him. He could hear the steady thump of her heart as his ear pressed against her tunic. She let him go and rang for the guardsman. Gamwyn walked down the hall bewildered, holding his small bag of gifts.

  Gamwyn’s remaining time at Pelbarigan passed rapidly. Garet was always with him, and he became less and less sure about whether the boy had told his grandmother. When the boat arrived from Threerivers, it contained two men and a woman from Udge�
��s own guard. As he had expected, Gamwyn was bound and set in the center of the canoe. A crowd gathered on the bank as it prepared to push off.

  The protocol of Pelbarigan’s guardsmen seemed strict, quick, and impeccable, until at the last moment a Pelbarigan guardcaptain waded out with a folded sack and snugged it in behind Gamwyn’s back, where he rested against a thwart. Then he turned to the Threerivers guardcaptain. “Take care of the boy. He isn’t wholly strong yet. He may have trouble sleeping. Keep him comfortable.”

  The Threerivers guardcaptain merely saluted, while the Pelbarigan guardcaptain shoved the canoe into the river, and the deep voices of the men on the bank took up a short hymn of hope for protection and safety. The" Threerivers guardsmen seemed nervous, stroking out into the current quickly and settling into the channel at a pace they could never keep up. When they reached the proper place, the guardsmen’s horn sounded from the city towers, and in reply the paddlers flicked their paddles upward only momentarily.

  Gamwyn wormed his hips forward so he could lie down once they had glided well away from Pelbarigan. The morning radiated late-fall chill, and he wanted the slight shelter of the boat High overhead, a ragged line of ducks moved southward, changing leaders constantly. It all seemed unreal. The last normal thing to happen in Ms life was his running down the stairs with Bradoer.

  Protector Sagan had puzzled him. What had she meant by all she said? Why had she sent for Threerivers guardsmen to take him? Was she washing her hands of Mm? Then why had she embraced him?

  Once the canoe was well downstream, the guardsmen talked with each other occasionally, and even laughed. Gamwyn was left to his own thoughts. Driving downriver with the current, they made good time—too good, he felt, his dread growing. The current would cany them. Why couldn’t they relax? He began to feel that he Mmself was drifting—allowing natural forces to carry him along to the shame awaiting him. How could he take hold of Ms life? By relying on his own genius, as Craydor had written? Sagan had quoted that to him. Why that? What had she meant about lying? Why had the guardcaptain made that remark about Ms having trouble sleeping? The Protector had asked him to trust her, then given Mm nothing to trust her about.