by Joseph Lallo
Ben stood quietly listening to Marret leave and, after a moment alone, listening to his apprentice pad up to him.
“Marret doesn't sound like half the man his father was,” the malthrope said, eyes focused on the door of the manor and sensitive ears twitching.
“Indeed,” Ben said with a nod, “If he's smart, he'll quickly learn not to abandon what has made this farm work. If he's stubborn . . . there are dark days ahead.”
#
The first days under Marret made it clear to all that Jarrad and his boy had very different ideas of how a farm should be run. Jarrad had fed his slaves well, paid his workers well, and rewarded hard work. He'd poured money back into the land, and bought the best equipment and materials that he could afford.
Marret's priorities were elsewhere. He indulged himself in every way. First was the carriage house, then a carriage to fill it. His father's carriage was sturdy and simple: stout wheels and thick boards assembled into a durable body. The finish was a basic, honest stain. It was easy to repair, easy to maintain.
Marret purchased a slender, sleek work of art. Three different paints, eight different woods, and a dozen different craftsmen were needed to keep the pretty but frail carriage in proper repair. One look at his “suitably impressive” carriage beside the one his father had chosen convinced him to sell the old one rather than sully the sight of the new.
Each new choice he made reflected the same shortsighted and extraneous sentiment. He spent a fortune on delicacies, luxuries, and status. On any given day, half of the workers were toiling at a new addition to the home or tending to fragile but beautiful plants he'd selected to surround the manor. In his mind, he was finally living the life he felt a man of his position ought to live. Paying for these things? That was simple.
He was educated. He understood the give and take of an endeavor such as this. His father had believed the only way to keep the coffers full was to provide the highest quality rakka. There were other ways. He could charge more for the rakka, or find ways to produce it more cheaply. When that did not make ends meet he lowered the salaries for his employees, sold half of the lentils meant to feed the workers, and skimped on everything that he didn't deal with personally. It meant he couldn't justify the cost of offering better treatment for harder work, so motivation came from the other end. Poor performers were to face the strap. In the short term, the budget was balanced. In the long term . . .
The first link in the chain to break was the staff. Slave handlers with too much work for too little silver simply left. Not a problem, though. There were those who would work for less, though they all tended to share a similar quirk. Work for hire is done to meet needs. Normally those needs are simple: money for food and shelter. Others have more . . . unfortunate cravings. They thrive on the feeling of raw power that comes from a bit of well-aimed violence. For them, being asked to administer vicious beatings to those who could not fight back was a dream come true. The handful of silver coins was just a bonus. That suited Marret just fine. Yes, it led to a bit more discipline than was strictly called for, but a dash more motivation would surely help the bottom line. And the fact that a healthy dose of the overzealous punishment found its way to one particular slave most frequently wasn't going to keep the new owner awake at night.
Marret had no interest in having the malthrope anywhere near the manor, so the beast was invariably left working double on the rakka field to try to keep the harvest from being wasted.
He was just finishing the last row of the day's third sweep, a heavy load of overripe berries over one shoulder and a light load of ripe ones over the other. If Straab had believed it had been full-grown five years prior, when the beast's tail had been taken, he would have shuddered at the sight of the creature now. Now, having been on the farm for ten years, he was easily Ben's height. In fact, to the tips of his pointed ears, he stood taller than anyone but the most imposing of the new slave handlers. His barely adequate diet (even supplemented by whatever farmyard pests he could catch) had left him with a lean physique, but what little muscle he had was work-hardened. Wiry biceps like spun steel hefted the bags with ease, and stamina that was the envy of even the elves kept him on his feet until the job was through no matter how much work they heaped on him.
“Mally!” barked one of the more enthusiastic additions to Marret's staff.
“Yes—” the beast tried to reply.
A stiff leather strap whistled through the air and slapped the creature's face. Metal studs on the surface, additions made by the handler himself, began to raise welts almost immediately. The man's name was Bartner, and he was one of the few handlers who was still able to literally look down on the malthrope. He was thick in every meaning of the word: massive arms and legs, barrel chest, and pot belly. The largest of the handler uniforms barely fit him, straining at its seams around his middle. His forehead was glazed with sweat, and his breath was heavy with rotgut. The lack of diligence in harvesting ripe berries had allowed Gurruk's little hobby to flourish, as he had more fermenting fruit than he knew what to do with.
“I thought I'd made it clear that you were to call me 'sir,' mally. And to only speak when spoken to,” he sneered.
“I—” Instantly the strap was raised again. The beast flinched and closed his eyes to regain composure. “Sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Better. What have you got there?” Bartner asked, nudging one of the bags hard enough to spill a mound of berries to the ground.
“Sir. Rakka, sir.”
“Looks a bit light. You been slacking?”
“Sir, it is the third—”
Another lash of studded leather ended his sentence. “I don't want excuses. I want that bag full the next time I see it, or you won't walk away from the next hit you take.”
Shaking with anger, the creature crouched and gathered the spilled berries, then hurried on his way. His haste was partially so that Bartner wouldn't do anything else to him, and partially so that he wouldn't do anything to Bartner. The relentless abuse was pushing the beast close to the breaking point, and the worst of it was that the assaults were coming from both sides. Most of his bruises came from the handlers. The rest came from the same place they always had. Even now, Menri was standing at the end of the row, leaning on a shovel and wearing a satisfied smile.
The years had finally caught up with the elder slave. The previous year had seen him earn the second stripe he'd fought so long to avoid, and the effect of the demotion had been profound. In mere weeks, the fierce dedication to his task withered. He was still a hard worker—in truth, likely still the hardest worker on the plantation besides the malthrope—but his heart was no longer in it. He was a tired, bitter shell of his former self. Even his smoldering hate of the malthrope had waned a bit, seeming almost to linger simply out of habit.
But, alas, old habits do die hard.
“The man said move, beast!” Menri said, aiming a boot at the creature.
With a flash of angry eyes and a smooth and practiced sidestep, the beast avoided the blow and continued on his way. Menri watched for a time, then turned back to find himself face to face with Bartner.
“What are you smiling at, slave?” the handler rumbled.
“It is nice to see the monster getting the treatment he deserves,” Menri said.
“Well, I'm so happy I could bring some sunshine into your day. Now, I know that we've got a blind slave on this plantation, but I didn't realize we had a deaf one, too.”
“Why would you think—”
Once again a blow with the strap cut a sentence short. The strike came so suddenly that it managed to knock Menri to the ground.
“You. Will. Call. Me. Sir!” Bartner ordered, punctuating each word with a blow to the fallen slave. “Now get up and get back to work!”
Menri hauled himself to his feet and put the shovel to work reshaping an irrigation ditch, muttering apologies and agreements all the while. Bartner laughed a throaty, mean-spirited little laugh and walked away. With an angry grimace, Menri
watched him go, then glanced up to see the malthrope watching. The creature met his gaze for a few moments: long enough to make it clear that he'd seen what had happened—long enough to make it clear it was something he had seen many times, from many people. With the message delivered, he went on his way. There was someone else who needed him.
Ben was across the fields, where the latest extravagance was being installed at Marret's manor. The land surrounding the house had blossomed into rainbow of different flowers and plants, and now Marret had decided that he needed a pleasant surface beneath his feet as he strolled through the splendor. Thus, a polished stone walkway, complete with a carved oak trellis and a dozen other features imported from a dozen different lands that had nothing in common save their high cost.
In keeping with his reputation, Ben seemed to know everything that needed to be known about how best to install these curiosities, and lately his days had been spent directing, instructing, demonstrating, and adjusting as a result. Nothing had been done to lessen his other responsibilities, which meant that there was now twice the work to be done and half the time to do it. When the sun was setting, his apprentice always managed to sneak away from his own responsibilities long enough to help the exhausted old man back to his shack and begin work on the night's repairs.
With one arm over the malthrope, and the other leaning heavily on his walking stick, Ben reached his shack and crumbled into his seat.
“I've got food here. You should eat something.”
He heard a bowl placed on the edge of the work table, but when the blind man picked it up, he paused.
“This bowl is full.”
“Yes,” his apprentice replied.
“Unless our new master has changed his ways, a triple-stripe slave gets only half a bowl at mealtimes. This is a double helping.”
“You need it.”
“Regardless of whether I need it or not, I'm not entitled to it. If I got a full bowl, someone else got an empty one. Where did you get this food? Did you steal it?” he asked, mustering up a stern tone despite his exhaustion.
“No, Ben. The other share is mine.”
“You work harder than me, boy. You should be eating the extra share.”
“I don't need it.”
“Oh? Don't malthropes need food anymore?”
“The east field had a mole problem. It doesn't anymore.”
“Ah,” Ben remarked with a nod. He dug his spoon in and hungrily went to work on the bowl's contents. “You know,” he said between bites, “I don't know if I should envy you or pity you for that stomach of yours.”
“Just be glad it helps me to put a little extra in your bowl now and then,” the beast said, leaning against the door frame. The frame found its way to one of the more recent welts left by his handlers, prompting a grunt of discomfort.
“Is that yelp Bartner's handiwork?”
“It is nothing.”
“Mmm,” Ben said with a nod. “Close the door. And come here.”
The door was shut, and the malthrope approached until Ben felt he was near enough to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder.
“Listen to me,” the old man said, his voice low and serious. “I've seen this before. New owners making decisions like these. Running plantations like this. If it doesn't get better soon, and it doesn't look like it will, it is going to get a lot worse. I think . . . I think it might be time for you to move on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don't pretend you don't understand. Go. Get away from this place. Locked in a place like this with a man like Bartner and others like him? If you give them enough time, they will match any danger that might be waiting for you outside these walls. At least in the outside, you'll have someplace to run.”
“What about Straab?”
“That was years ago. No one has seen him around the plantation since that day. Jarrad wasn't eager to deal with him after that. And even if he is still out there, Jarrad is gone. You owed him for sparing you. Marret doesn't deserve a second thought. Just go.”
The beast breathed a slow breath in and out. It was a strange thing, listening to a heartfelt plea from a man in a blindfold. It is in human nature—and malthrope nature, too—to look a man in the eye to know the strength of his conviction and the earnestness of his statement. A trained ear, though, can find the same window to the soul in a man's voice. The advice, the request, was genuine.
He looked his caretaker over. The old man had aged more in the last month than he had in all of the time that the beast had known him. He was thin, hands speckled with scars and scrapes. There was a waver to his motions, as though at any moment he was in danger of falling unconscious from exhaustion.
“I'm staying, Ben.”
“Then you're a fool. There's nothing here for you anymore.”
“There's you. Who's going to take care of you when I'm gone?”
“You think I need your help? I got by just fine before you were my problem.”
“That was before Marret, and with ten fewer years weighing you down.”
“I'll be fine without my red shadow watching over me.”
“And you'll be better with it. Now eat. I'll get started on the day's repairs.”
Ben set his jaw. It took a fair amount of practice to know when a blind man was glaring at you, but the beast had mastered that little nuance as well. Finally the old man shook his head and dug back into his meal. “I don't know where you learned to be so stubborn.”
“The same place I learned everything else.”
Chapter 12
It took only a year since Marret had taken control of his father's plantation for the costs of his poor choices to begin to come down upon him. The rakka harvest was barely a third of what it had been the previous year. Under his father, a man perpetually concerned for the future of his land, the shortfall would have been painful but survivable. For Marret, it was a disaster. Any rainy day savings had been spent within months of his father's death, and he'd borrowed against the next three years of harvests since then. If the next year didn't make up for the last one, there would be no fewer than four debtors looking for payment. Some of them would be quite willing to take blood if gold was not available.
The situation called for radical action. Returning to the old ways might have worked, but it would have taken resources he didn't have. It also would have been admitting defeat, and Marret had more pride than sense. There were other ways. Three days of soaking in oak ash water became one. The overripe berries formerly destined for Gurruk's still were now destined for the customers. Roasting would no longer be the nuanced, trained process it had been. Now it was about speed: hotter fires to blacken the seeds quicker, and more roasters to do more at once. The result was rakka by the sack, but the miraculous effects that fetched such a high price would be all but absent. That was something that could be dealt with tomorrow, though. Today, there was nothing to do but return his full workforce to the fields and fill as many bags with rakka as he could.
“This is a travesty,” Ben grumbled. He and his apprentice had been assigned to shucking duty, removing the seeds from overripe rakka and dropping them into the oak ash. “These berries are very nearly rotten. A soldier hoping to sustain himself on these would be better eating a handful of sand. These belong in the compost.”
“Where they belong,” countered Gurruk as he squeezed seeds from berries alongside Ben, “is in my still! Last year I turned out some of the finest batches I've ever made.”
“Bah. This is a farm, not a brewery.”
“Distillery!” Gurruk growled.
“Regardless,” Ben said with an irritable wave of his juice-stained hand. “And do you smell that? They aren't roasting seeds in there, they are making coal.”
The malthrope raised his head, brow furrowed, and sniffed the air again. “That isn't seed that's burning. That's wood.”
“Well, of course it is. What do you think they are firing the roasters with?” Gurruk replied. “Stupid animal.”
“The wrong kind of wood. That isn't firewood!” the beast replied urgently.
A moment later voices began to ring out across the farm.
“Fire! Fire! The roasting shack is burning!”
All stood and ran across the courtyard to the shack. Double the roasters and double the heat had been fairly begging the old, dried-out structure to catch fire. It was burning like tinder, and as with any raging fire, there was a ring of panicked onlookers filling the air with a chorus of frightened yells. Buckets were being gathered and a brigade was being formed, but if the first few splashes of water were any indication, the shack and anyone inside would be cinders before the flames could be quelled.
“Is anyone in there? Is anyone inside!?” Ben screamed over the din.
“It was me and Menri,” coughed a singed slave, a newcomer for the current season. “I was throwing bundles into the fire. One bounced out. I . . . I don't think he got out!”
“There's a man in there! Someone! Someone has got to get in there and do something!” Ben cried.
The gathered masses just watched in fear, even the handlers doing little more than staring with wide eyes at the flames. Long, pointed ears flicked as the malthrope listened, his keen hearing picking out the gruff voice of his first and most dedicated tormentor as he called for help. His fists clenched, his lip twitched, and a vicious battle raged in the creature's mind. With a glance at his mentor and a throaty growl, his decision was made.
Three bounding strides from his long legs took the beast past the leading edge of the crowd, where the heat of the flames was already nearly blistering. He focused on the shack. One of the roasters had given way and rolled in front of the only exit, spilling its load and blocking the door. The second roaster had been erected in front of one window, and a mound of seeds waiting to be processed heaped in front of the other. The wet seeds seemed to be the only thing that hadn't taken to flame yet, leaving one corner of the shack free of flames while the rest was already beginning to buckle.
Using skills honed by a life of avoiding his fellow slaves, the creature leaped to the roof, where strength stoked by urgency allowed him to tear away a flame-weakened roof slat. Wispy orange flames rushed out in a flash of fiery light, blackening a swath of his fur and stinging his eyes and lungs with smoke. When they cleared for a moment, he caught a glimpse of Menri. The smoke and heat had all but overcome him, as he huddled among the seeds and clawed uselessly at them, desperately trying to reach the window. The beast's wiry, underfed frame slipped effortlessly through the broken slat and down onto the sizzling seeds.
