CHAPTER NINE
Carr stood in his House's chapel, staring at what was not there.
His mother's family had always been Traditionalist, but this chapel had been built by a Reformed Traditionalist architect, at a time when Reformed Traditionalist chapels were fashionable, even in Traditionalist homes. Carr had seen pictures of the fifteen-tri-century chapel that had existed in the previous mansion of the House of His Master's Kindness: it had been gaily colored in red, blue, and green, with carvings of the serene landscape of afterdeath that all Landsteaders prayed to avoid, and with mosaics of Remigeus and his master and other famous men of the past. The daring architect had even managed to slip in a small portrait of Celadon and Brun.
The new chapel was naked of all colors. It had white pillars against white walls, a white pulpit in the middle, and white pews circling the pulpit – pews with short walls around them, to separate each rank from the other. In place of the majestic colored glass that had graced the old chapel – depicting scenes of death, transformation, and rebirth – the new chapel's windows were plain glass, allowing the light to stream in unimpeded. The architect – very daring indeed – had played with the untraditional motif of light as a symbol of transformation, placing delicate gilding on the ceiling to suggest the presence of the sun and stars. That was a Vovimian conceit, but it had been considered acceptable, back in those years before the importing of foreign art became illegal in the Dozen Landsteads.
Carr had always loved the new chapel. Its understated asceticism spoke more deeply to him than the bright merriment of Traditionalist chapels, though he could appreciate the latter's claim to beauty. He considered his family's chapel to be the most attractive room in the mansion.
His father, determined to take matters a step further, wished to replace the chapel with apartments for the servants – "A true and living symbol of transformation," he had argued. It was one of the few arguments between the two of them in which Carr had flatly exercised his power of veto. He could not control how his father ran his businesses, but the mansion would one day belong to Carr, at least until his uncle died; in the meantime, his father served only as regent heir and could not make drastic changes to the mansion without Carr's approval. No doubt, once the mansion lay in the servants' hands, the servants would make whatever changes they considered appropriate – but considering the frequency with which the servants slipped into this chapel for private prayer, Carr was not as confident as his father was that they would prefer a living symbol in place of a chapel.
Carr's father never came to the chapel. Carr's mother, who had fond childhood memories of the place, had hired a chaplain to hold services during the high feast days, until it became clear that Carr's father would not attend such services, offended as he was by the liturgy's references to masters and servants. Now Carr was the only member of the family to visit here, and he was not at all sure why he was able to find a peace here that he found nowhere else. Perhaps it was simply that the plainness of the chapel reminded him of his school.
His peace on this day, in the week of Spring Youth, was broken by the sound of his father shouting.
Carr left the chapel hurriedly and rushed past Irene, who had been polishing the masters' stairs but was now staring open-mouthed toward the second floor.
Carr took the steps two at a time. As he reached the corridor of the masters' quarters, he met Jesse, emerging from the servants' stairwell. Without a word, they both swung into the small hallway that led to the tiniest bedrooms on that storey.
Carr's father was standing in front of the doorway of one of the bedrooms, the one with the fireplace. His hand was gripping the doorpost hard, as though he were tempted to wrench it out and use it as a weapon. His face was red. Carr opened his mouth to enquire as to the trouble; then he took another step forward and closed his mouth. He could see now what his father had found in the bedroom.
Sally had received just enough time to fling a bedsheet over her body. Bat had not possessed such luck; he was standing beside the bed, naked as the day he was reborn.
If he had possessed any sense, he would have been down on his knees.
"I will not tolerate such sluttish behavior from members of my household," Carr's father said. His voice had finally lowered, but his tone was as enraged as before. "You have taken advantage of my hospitality in a most despicable manner."
"But, sir . . ." Bat began, and Carr winced. Even he, who was not a servant, knew that any sentence to a master which began with the word "but" was the wrong sentence.
"What?" snapped Carr's father, for once not correcting the use of the word "sir" to address him.
Even then, Bat did not heed the warning. "But, sir, you said that we should regard this mansion as our home. At home, before she died, Sally's mother always let us—"
"This is a home, not a brothel!" roared Carr's father. "You have acted in a shameless manner – both of you." He turned his attention to Sally, who flinched as though she had been slapped. "I will not have my wife and my son corrupted by the sight of your bestial behavior. You will pack your bags—"
"Oh, sir!" Sally slipped out of the bed, ending up kneeling on the floor next to Carr's father. "Oh, sir, please don't sell us!"
There was a space of silence as Carr's father looked down at her. Then he said, with careful, deadly slowness, "You are even more shameless than I had thought, seeking to tempt me with your body."
Sally's face turned scarlet. Bat began to step forward, his expression darkening, but Jesse moved more quickly. Stepping into the room, he picked up Bat's long coat and draped it over Sally's shoulders, helping her to her feet as she fumbled with the buttons. "You're too pretty, that's your problem," he said lightly to Sally. "Even the master of the House isn't immune to your charms, are you, sir?" He underlined the word "sir."
That word served to bring Carr's father back to his senses. He replied calmly, "This is not the place to discuss such matters. Bat, put your clothes back on, by all that is sacred – my wife will be home at any moment. Both of you, come to my library when you are dressed and packed, and I will give you your certificates of employment." He departed without another word.
Sally had begun to cry. Bat, white-faced, reached for his trousers. Jesse, showing far more discretion than Carr had known he possessed, stepped into the corridor and closed the door, in order to allow the servants their privacy.
"Funny thing," said Jesse as he and Carr slowly made their way down the servants' stairs. "I would have sworn that your dad is the one who gave me tips for finding a brothel."
Carr sighed. "Jesse, I'm really not in the mood for your jokes."
Jesse cocked his head at Carr. "No? Well, I suppose you have your own ways of letting off steam so that you don't hit the guy who deserves it."
"Jesse . . ."
"Okay, interpret that scene for me, then. Is your dad pissed off because Bat fucked Sally while she's still underage?"
Carr stared at him. There were times when he wondered whether Jesse was one of those aliens from another planet that appeared in scientifiction novels. "She isn't underage. She's old enough to marry. My father is angry simply because she and Bat didn't ask his permission before sleeping together. Don't you know about that rule?"
"Oh, that one. Yeah." For some reason, this topic seemed to strike home with Jesse; his expression migrated to something halfway between a grin and a grimace. "Okay, deja vu and all that. At least your dad didn't rape Sally, just to show who she belonged to."
"Jesse, stop making mock!" Carr's temper, which he had kept under tight control till now, began to slip from his grasp.
Jesse gave him a look, a long look, as they reached the first floor. "You think I'm joking? Gods, if you only knew. . . . Never mind. This isn't helping Sally and Bat. You work on your dad; I'll see whether Sally and Bat have any useful information to offer. We'll meet in your room." And he slipped away, heading up the stairs, leaving Carr with a sudden, devastating reminder that he was not talking to a master.
o—o—o
Jesse slammed the door behind him so hard that Carr, who had been lying on his own bed, staring at nothing in particular, jumped in place. He looked over at Jesse, who was standing in front of the door with his hands in fists, looking as though he wanted to punch the nearest object.
"Did you talk to them?" Carr asked, sitting up. "Do they have a place to live till they get their next job?"
For a moment, he thought Jesse would not reply; the young man was glaring at him as though Carr embodied everything that was wrong with the Dozen Landsteads. Then Jesse walked forward and said, "Move."
Carr shifted over to make way. Jesse settled down on the bedspread, leaning over to place his elbows on his knees, and his forehead on his palms. "Sally is pregnant."
"What?" Jerking forward, Carr peered at Jesse's face to see whether he was serious. "How . . . ?"
Jesse gave a quirk of a smile. "The usual way. You guys don't use birth control here, do you?"
"Whatever that is, we don't use it." Carr groped for words. "Jesse, that's— If they had received my parents' permission to marry, that would be one thing. Babies come when they aren't expected, everyone knows that. But for an unmarried servant to be with child . . ." His throat tightened. "Jesse, the Bureau will take away her certificate of employment when it finds out."
"Yeah, she told me." Jesse had his palms over his eyes now. "And Bat says that, when the Bureau finds out he's the father of the child, his certificate will be taken away as well."
"He could deny it," Carr said quickly. "My father isn't likely to gossip about what he saw."
"But Sally can't deny she's pregnant. She's desperate enough to have considered getting rid of the kid, but she tells me there are no safe places for abortion here. So sooner or later someone is going to figure out what her swelling belly means. And Bat says he's not going to abandon her – that he'll marry her, even if it means losing his certificate."
Carr swallowed. "Perhaps they could say that someone else got her pregnant, and Bat was honorable enough to marry her. If they still had one income . . ."
"Carruthers, your fucking dad owns the Bureau!" Jesse raised his head and turned his blazing eyes toward Carr. "Every single transaction that goes through the Bureau goes over your dad's desk, or didn't you know that? And your dad's not going to let Bat get away with a lie. He's steaming mad at both Bat and Sally." Jesse stood up and whirled round to look at Carr. "What does it mean if their certificates are taken away? Sally cried when I asked her, and Bat just went all white-lipped on me."
Carr stood up too. His body felt sore, as though he had been pummeled at games all day. "It means prison," he said quietly. "Sally is safe; she's still of apprentice age, and mothers are exempted from the employment laws. But Bat is male and is of journeyman age, so if he isn't employed within a month's time, and if he doesn't have a certificate to show that he's actively seeking employment, he'll be picked up as a vagrant. He'll be sent to prison and won't be released until someone is willing to employ him – which no one will, since he doesn't have a certificate of employment or a good reference from his last master."
"This place is so fucked up," muttered Jesse. "Okay, I figured it was something like that. I've got to get them over the border."
"What?"
Jesse gave an impatient gesture. "Don't give me that wide-eyed, innocent schoolboy look. You know what I've been up to at night. The problem in this case is that Bat tells me has a police record already – he punched a master two years ago who was harassing a maid. Ended up in prison for six months. I'm surprised your parents didn't know that when they hired him."
"They probably did," Carr replied, his fingernails digging into the dresser that he was leaning back against. "They like to take in such cases."
Jesse snorted. "So that the undeserving poor will be grateful to their employers for giving them their final chance? No wonder your dad blew his top; he was expecting Bat to go around grovelling at your parents' feet till the end of his life, not act like an Egalitarian. . . . Anyway, Bat has a police record, so I can't sail him over the Bay to the Third Landstead, like we did the others; he'll have to leave the Dozen Landsteads. The problem will be getting Bat and Sally past the border guards. You're a border guard, so tell me: Will the guards have access to Bat's police record?"
"They don't need to have access." The heaviness in Carr's chest increased. "Any servant who wants to leave the Dozen Landsteads, even briefly, has to be cleared by three bureaus within the House of Government . . . including the Bureau of Employment."
Jesse said something pithy under his breath. "And I haven't reached the point yet where I've made contact with whatever forgers you have in this country."
"Could you . . . send them to another nation by boat?" Carr said hesitantly.
Jesse raised his eyebrows. "One of the boats you inspect? Are you volunteering to help smuggle them over the border?" Then, as Carr began struggling for a reply, Jesse waved the idea away. "Thanks, but it's a bad idea. You only inspect incoming boats, so you wouldn't know: the inspection of outgoing ocean-bound vessels is twice as thorough. I couldn't manage it, even with your help."
"Well," said Carr, trying to keep relief out of his voice, "what about other types of boats? Some of the servants are watermen, and if you enlisted their help . . ."
To his surprise, Jesse flashed him a smile. "You have the right sort of mind for this business. But no, I'd be sending all the runaways out of the Dozen Landsteads by boat if it was that easy. It's not. The fishing boats can't manage transoceanic crossings, and the coastal waters at the border with Yclau are too heavily patrolled by robocoptor patrols."
"Up north?" suggested Carr. "You could sail them up-Bay. I hear that the Vovimian border guards are fierce, but you could travel east on the Landstead & Akbar canal. Akbar is always seeking immigrants; Sally and Bat could settle there or in any of the other northeastern nations."
"The canal has been drained," Jesse countered. "The Eleventh Landstead didn't see any point in maintaining it, because the northeastern nations depend on rocket-ports and monorail stations for travel. No, Sally and Bat are going to have to stay closer to home. I'll send them to the First Landstead."
Carr must have gaped, for Jesse smirked at him. "Unorthodox solution, huh?"
"I just thought . . . Don't masters in the First Landstead check police records when hiring?"
"When hiring servants, yeah. But the Act of Celadon and Brun was never revoked there – servants can apply to be masters. And servants don't need a clean police record in order to apply for mastership. Nice loophole; we'd use it more often if it weren't so damn hard to get anyone into the First Landstead."
"But you can do it?" The hope was as painful to Carr's chest as the desperation had been.
"Yeah, maybe. How old are you, anyway?"
Taken off-guard, Carr said, "Old enough. I mean," he added, blushing, as Jesse laughed, "six tri-years old. Eighteen sun-circuits."
"Is that the age of majority here? I know it's eighteen in Yclau."
"No, seven – twenty-one sun-circuits – is the age of adulthood in the Dozen Landsteads. We still follow the old laws. But seventeen sun-circuits is journeyman age; I received certain rights when I reached that age."
"Sure, I can guess what one of those rights is." Jesse smirked as Carr felt his face turn furnace-hot. "What about money? Do you have money of your own?"
Carr hesitated; for the first time, he guessed where this questioning was headed. "A little."
"Don't act all humble and servantish; we don't have time for that. Your parents are rich – are you? Because it's going to take a fucking big bribe to get Sally and Bat into the First Landstead."
"Look, I can't . . ." Carr's voice faltered; Jesse's eyes had turned as hard as dark pebbles.
"'Can't'?" His voice was hard too.
"The money . . . It was given to me as a gift by my parents. They said that they wouldn't ask me what I did with it. But . . . well, you've seen how good they are at keeping their pro
mises. If they should ask . . ."
"So lie to them. It's easy. I do it all the time, if you hadn't noticed." Jesse's voice had turned flat.
"It's not that simple. I mean, Sally and Bat are one thing . . . But if any of that money should go astray . . . And it's not like I'm going to turn you in to the police, but if I were in your place . . ." His voice trailed off; the anger in Jesse's eyes had turned to contempt.
"Let me put your fucking mealy-mouthed speech into plain language," Jesse said carefully. "You're an Egalitarian, just like your parents. You think Abolitionists are the scum of the earth. So you'd rather let an honorable young man spend the rest of his life in prison, and a pregnant sixteen-year-old die of starvation, than give any money to the Abolitionists, for fear that a few cents of your precious fortune might 'go astray.' Right?"
Carr said nothing. His heart was pounding, and his right hand ached from clamping the edge of the dresser. After a minute, Jesse snorted. "Right. I should have guessed that your generosity was all surface show, like your parents'. Don't worry, 'Master Carruthers,' I won't bother your tender conscience again with such matters. I've met your sort before."
And he departed the room, leaving the chandelier shaking with the force of the slammed door, and Carr shaking with the force of his words.
Master and Servant (Waterman) Page 9
