The Brave Free Men

by Jack Vance

  “Correctly so,” said Finnerack. “All men are bags of vileness, myself as well. Let the Roguskhoi kill all.”

  “It is foolish to be outraged by a fact of nature,” Etzwane protested. “Men are as they are, on Durdane even more so. Our ancestors came here to indulge their idiosyncrasies; an excess of extravagance is our heritage. Viana Paizifume understood this well and put torcs around our necks to tame us.”

  Finnerack tugged at his torc so viciously that Etzwane shrank away for fear of an explosion.

  “I have not been tamed,” said Finnerack. “I have only been enslaved.”

  “The system has faults,” Etzwane agreed. “Still, across Shant the cantons keep peace and laws are obeyed. I hope to repair the faults, but first the Roguskhoi must be dealt with.”

  Finnerack gave only an uninterested shrug. They rode on in silence: out of the shag-bark forest, across the saw-grass meadow, now silent and melancholy in the twilight.

  Etzwane spoke pensively, “I find myself in a peculiar position. The new Anome is a man of theories and ideals; he relies on me to make the hard decisions. I need help. I initially thought of you, who had helped me before and to whom I owed gratitude. But your attitude discourages me; perhaps I must look elsewhere. I can still give you freedom and wealth — almost anything you want.”

  Finnerack tugged again at the torc which hung loosely around his taut brown neck. “You can’t remove my noose; you can give me no real freedom. Wealth? Why not? I have earned it. Best of all, give me the governance of Camp Three, if only for a month.”

  “What would you do if this were the case?” asked Etzwane in a neutral voice, hoping to gauge the exact condition of Finnerack’s mind.

  “You would see a new Finnerack. He would be calm and judicious and calculate each act to an absolutely just proportion.

  “Hillen now will die in a week or so, but he is far more guilty. His policy has been to goad the workers into insolence, or insubordination, or careless work, whereupon they are fined the labor of three months or six months, or a year. No man in memory has paid off his indenture while working at Camp Three. I would keep him alive at least the month I was in power, in a cage where the men he has abused could come to look at him and speak to him. At the end of a month I would give him to the chumpas. The assistants Hoffman and Kai are unspeakable; they deserve the worst.” Finnerack’s voice began to vibrate. “By day they would work withe through the lye vats, and go to the annex at night: this for the rest of their lives. Perhaps they might live two or three months; who knows?”

  “What of the guards?”

  “There are twenty-nine guards. All are strict. Five are fair and inclined to leniency. Another ten are detached and mechanical. The others are brutes. These would go at once to the detention house and never return.

  “The ten would go to the annex for an indefinite period — perhaps three months — and thereafter work withe for five years. The five good guards —” Finnerack knit his sun-bleached brows. “They offer a problem. They did what they could, but took no personal risks. Their guilt is not precise; nevertheless it is real. They deserve expiation — a year at working withe, then discharge without pay.”

  “And the indentured men?”

  Finnerack looked around in surprise. “You talk of indenture? Everyone has paid ten times over. Each man goes forth free, with a bonus of ten times his original indenture.”

  “And who then is to cut withe?” asked Etzwane.

  “I care nothing about withe,” said Finnerack. “Let the magnates cut their own withe.”

  They rode on in silence, Etzwane reflecting that Finnerack’s dispensations were not disproportionate to the conditions that had prompted them. Ahead, black on the violet dusk, stood the shape of the Camp Three stockade. The Iridixn floated above.

  Finnerack indicated a crumble of rotten rock beside the road. “Someone waits for us.”

  Etzwane pulled the diligence to a halt. For a few seconds he considered. Then he brought forth the wide-band tube, pointed it toward the rocks, and pressed the button. A pair of explosions pounded against the evening calm.

  Etzwane walked behind the rock, followed by Finnerack; they looked down at the headless bodies. Finnerack gave a grunt of disgust. “Hoffman and Kai. They are lucky men indeed.”

  At the entrance to the stockade Etzwane drew up the diligence. Camp Three was an outrage; justice must be done. But how? to whom? by whom? by which set of laws? Etzwane became confused and sat staring through the portal to where men stood in muttering groups.

  Finnerack began to fidget and shiver and hiss through his teeth. Etzwane was reminded of Finnerack’s set of judgments, which while harsh had seemed appropriate. He now discerned a principle which, he told himself, he should have apprehended before, since it formed the basic ethos of Shant.

  For local grievance, local redress. For Camp Three crimes, Camp Three justice.

  Chapter V

  Etzwane had gone aloft in the Iridixn. In fascination he looked down through binoculars into the stockade. The portal had been closed; the guards were confined in a storage shed. By the light of wall-lanterns and a crackling bonfire men wandered back and forth as if dazed. The best food the camp had to offer was spread out on tables — including all the delicacies of the commissary. The men ate as if at a banquet, regaling themselves with dried eel and the thin sour wine Hillen had sold so dearly. Certain of the men began to grow agitated; they walked back and forth talking and gesticulating. Finnerack stood somewhat to the side; he had eaten and drunk sparingly. Outside the stockade Etzwane saw the furtive movement of dark shapes: ahulphs and chumpas, attracted by the unusual activity.

  The men could eat no more; the cask of wine was dry. The men began to pound on the table and chant. Finnerack came forward; he called out; the chanting dwindled and ceased. Finnerack spoke at some length, and the crowd became dull and quiet, with restless motions of the shoulders. Then three men almost simultaneously jumped forward, and in great good-nature, hustled Finnerack off to the side. Finnerack shook his head in disgust but said no more.

  The three men held up their arms for quiet. They conversed among themselves and listened to suggestions from the crowd. Twice Finnerack thrust forward to make a passionate point and on each occasion he was respectfully heard. It appeared to Etzwane that the differences concerned tactics rather than substance.

  The colloquy became intense, with a dozen men pounding on the table at once. Again Finnerack came forward, and his proposals halted the argument. One of the men took paper and stylus and wrote to Finnerack’s dictation, while others in the crowd called out suggestions and emendations.

  The bill of indictments — such it appeared to be — was complete. Finnerack once more moved aside and watched with a brooding gaze. The three men took charge of proceedings. They designated a group of five who went to the storage shed and returned with a guard.

  The crowd surged forward, but the three men spoke sternly and the crowd drew back. The guard was placed up on a table to confront the men so recently under his authority. One of the workers came forward and recited an accusation, punctuating each charge with a dramatic stab of the forefinger. Finnerack stood apart with lowering brows. Another man came forward and uttered his own complaints, and another and another. The guard stood with a twitching face. The three men spoke a verdict. The guard was dragged to the gate of the stockade and thrust out into the darkness. Two blue-black ahulphs came to take him; as they argued, a mottled gray chumpa lumbered up and dragged the guard off into the darkness.

  Fourteen of the guards were brought forth from the storage shed. Some came indolent and resigned, some glared in defiance, some hung back and jerked at the grip of the men who conveyed them, a few came hopefully smiling and jocular. Each was lifted up to stand on a box, in the full glare of the firelight, where he was judged. In the case of one of these Finnerack lunged forward to protest, pointing up toward the Iridixn. This man evaded the dark grounds beyond the stockade, where late-coming chumpas
moaned. Instead he was directed to the long vats where new withe steeped in a caustic solution and forced to strip bark.

  The remaining guards were brought forth and charged. One of these, after considerable debate, and with the guard pleading his own case, was thrust out into the night; the others were put to working withe.

  All the guards had now been judged. Another cask of Hillen’s wine was carried forth; the men drank and reveled, and jeered at the erstwhile guards who now worked withe. A few became torpid and sat lounging around the fire. The guards stripped bark and cursed the destiny which had brought them to Camp Three.

  Etzwane put down the binoculars and went to his hammock. Events, he told himself hollowly, had gone about as well as could be hoped … Somewhat after midnight he went again to look down into the stockade. The men sat around the fire, dozing or asleep. A few stood watching the guards work withe, as if they could never get enough of the spectacle. Finnerack sat hunched on a table to the side. After a few minutes Etzwane returned to his hammock.

  Etzwane spent a tiresome morning cancelling indentures, and signing indemnity vouchers for more or less arbitrary sums. Most of the men wanted no more withe-cutting; in small groups they departed the camp and trudged north toward Orgala. About twenty agreed to remain as supervisors; their ambitions extended no farther. For years they had envied the guards their perquisites, now they could enjoy them to the utmost.

  The Iridixn was brought down; Etzwane entered followed by Finnerack, whom Casallo regarded with shock and fastidious dismay; for a fact Finnerack was somewhat unkempt. He had neither bathed nor changed his clothes; his hair was tangled and overlong; his smock was torn and filthy.

  The Iridixn lifted into the air, the pacers set off to the north. Etzwane felt like a man awakening from a nightmare. Two questions occupied his mind. How many more Camp Threes existed in Shant? Who had warned Shirge Hillen of his visit?

  At Orgala the Iridixn returned to the slot, and reaching on a fresh breeze, spun off into the northwest. Late in the following day they entered Canton Gorgash, and the following morning put down at the city Lord Benjamin’s Dream. Etzwane found no fault with the Gorgash militia, though Finnerack made sardonic criticisms in regard to the pompous leadership, almost equal in numbers to the uninterested and sluggish soldiers themselves. “It is a start,” said Etzwane. “They have no experience in these matters. Compared with the folk of Dithibel or Burazhesq or Shker, these folk are proceeding with intelligence and urgency.”

  “Perhaps so — but will they fight the Roguskhoi?”

  “That we will learn when the time comes. How would you alter matters?”

  “I would strip the uniforms and plumed hats from the officers and make cooks of the lot. The troops I would split into four corps and skirmish them daily against each other, to anger them and make them vicious.”

  Etzwane reflected that a similar process had altered a placid blond youth into the corded brown recalcitrant now in his company. “It may come to that before we’re done. At the moment I’m content to see so earnest a turnout.”

  Finnerack gave his jeering laugh. “When they find out what they’re up against, there’ll be less.”

  Etzwane scowled, not liking to hear his secret fears verbalized so openly. Finnerack, he thought, was by no means tactful. Additionally, he was less than a savory traveling companion. Etzwane looked him over critically. “Time we were repairing your appearance, which at the moment is a cause for adverse comment.”

  “I need nothing,” Finnerack muttered. “I am not a vain man.”

  Etzwane would not listen. “You may not be vain but you are a man. Consciously or unconsciously you are affected by your appearance. If you look untidy, unkempt and dirty, you will presently apply the same standards to your thinking and your general mode of life.”

  “More of your psychological theories,” growled Finnerack. Etzwane nonetheless led the way to the Baronial Arcades, where Finnerack grimly allowed himself to be shorn, barbered, bathed, manicured, and attired in fresh garments.

  At last they returned to the Iridixn, Finnerack now a wiry taut-muscled man with a square deeply-lined face, a close crop of tight bronze curls, a bright ever-shifting gaze, a mouth clenched back in what at first view seemed a good-natured half-smile.

  At Maschein in Canton Maseach, the Iridixn reached the terminus of Calm Violet Sunset Route*. Casallo, allowing himself a final extravagance, swept the Iridixn in a great swooping arc, around and into the wind, a fine flourish which pitched Etzwane and Finnerack to the floor of the gondola. A station gang drew the Iridixn to the landing dock. Without regret Etzwane jumped down from the gondola, followed by the unsmiling Finnerack, who had not forgiven Casallo his intemperate maneuver.

  * The language of Shant discriminates between various types of sunsets. Hence:

  feovhre – a calm cloudless violet sunset.

  arusch’thain – a violet sunset with horizontal apple-green clouds.

  gorusjurhe – a flaring flamboyant sunset encompassing the entire sky.

  shergorszhe – as above, additionally with cumulus clouds in the east illuminated and looking toward the west.

  heizhen – a situation where the sky is heavily overcast except for a ribbon of clarity at the western horizon, through which the suns set.

  Etzwane bade Casallo farewell, while Finnerack stood somberly to the side; then the two set forth into the city.

  A passenger punt which plied the many canals of Maschein took them to the River Island Inn, which, with its terraces, gardens, arbors and pergolas, occupied the whole of a rocky islet in the Jardeen. During his visits to Maschein as a penurious Pink-Black-Azure-Deep Greener, Etzwane had long and often gazed across the water at this most agreeable of hostelries; he now commanded a suite of four chambers giving on a private garden banked with cyclamen, blue spangle, lurlinthe. The rooms were paneled in fine-grained theoso, stained ash-green in the sleeping chambers, a delicate aelsheur* in the drawing-room, with the subtlest films of pale green, lavender and dim blue to suggest meadows and water vistas.

  * Aelsheur: literally: air-color.

  Finnerack looked around the chambers with a curled lip. He seated himself, crossed one leg over the other, stonily gazed out over the slow Jardeen. Etzwane allowed himself a small, private smile. Had the amenities at Camp Three been so superior?

  In a limpid garden pool Etzwane bathed, then donned a white linen robe. Finnerack sat as before, gazing out at the Jardeen. Etzwane ignored him; Finnerack would have to adjust in his own way.

  Etzwane ordered an urn of frosted wine and copies of the local journals. Finnerack accepted a goblet of wine but showed no interest in the news, which was grim. Paragraphs by turns black, brown and mustard-ocher reported that in Cantons Lor-Asphen, Bundoran, Surrume the Roguskhoi were on the move, that Canton Shkoriy had fallen entirely under Roguskhoi control. Etzwane read:

  The Anome’s policy of evacuating women to the maritime cantons is doubtless correct; the effect however has been to stir and stimulate the Roguskhoi to ever more ferocious depredations, that they may gratify their apparently insatiable lust. Where will this dreadful process end? If the Anome in his might cannot thrust the fearful hordes back from whence they came, in five years Shant will be a solid seethe of Roguskhoi. Where will they turn next? To Caraz? It must be so assumed, since the Palasedrans would not loose so fearful a weapon upon the folk of Shant without reserving for themselves a means of control.

  Another article surrounded in dark scarlet and gray described the Maseach militia, in sufficient detail that Etzwane decided to make no personal representations. With an uncomfortable grimace he read the final sentences:

  Our brave men have come together; they now familiarize themselves with military minutiae, long put aside and almost forgotten. With eagerness and hope they await the powerful weapons the Anome prepares; inspired by his majestic leadership they will smite the vicious red bandits and send them howling like scalded ahulphs.

  “So they await my ‘p
owerful weapons’, my ‘majestic leadership’,” muttered Etzwane. If they knew him as he was — a bewildered musician, without competence, experience or aptitude, they would be less sanguine in their hopes. His eye fell on a notice bordered in gray and ultramarine. Etzwane read:

  Last night at the Silver Samarsanda the druithine Dystar made his appearance. His meal was paid long before he ordered it and anonymous gifts were pressed upon his uninterested attention. As usual he rewarded the company with astonishing hurusthra* and told of places where few are privileged to go. Dystar may return tonight to the Silver Samarsanda.

  * Hurusthra: roughly, musical panoramas and insights.

  Etzwane read the notice a second and a third time. Recently he had thought nothing of music; now a wave of longing came over him: what had he done to himself? Must he pass all his life in these sterile circumstances? Luxury, frosted wine, four-room garden suites — what were they to the life he had known with Frolitz and the Pink-Black-Azure-Deep Greeners?

  Etzwane put the journal aside. In contrast to the life Finnerack had led he had been lucky. He turned to examine Finnerack, wondering what went on behind the taut brown countenance. “Finnerack!” Etzwane called out, “have you seen the news?” He handed the journal to Finnerack, who scanned the page with a scowl of unguessable import. Finnerack asked: “What are these mighty weapons the Anome is preparing?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, they are non-existent.”

  “Without weapons, how do you expect to kill Roguskhoi?” asked Finnerack.

  “The technists are at work,” said Etzwane. “If weapons are forthcoming, the men will be armed. If not they must fight with dart-guns, bows and arrows, dexax grenades and bombs, lances and pikes.”