The Brave Free Men (10 page)

"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. "They would work withe through the lye vats by day and go to the annex at night: this for the rest of their lives. 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 broad-impulse 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.

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 outside. 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 the table, in the full glare of the firelight, where he was judged. In one case Finnerack lunged forward to protest, pointing up toward the
Iridixn.
This man evaded the dark grounds beyond the stockade, where latecoming 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 canceling 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 morning after 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 Buraghesq 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 head 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
^[9]
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.

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, and lurlinthe. The rooms were paneled in fine-grained wood, stained ash-green in the sleeping chambers, a delicate aelsheur
^[10]
in the drawing room, with the subtlest films of pale green, lavender, and dim blue to suggest meadows and water vistas.

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 LorAsphen, Bundoran, and Surrume the Roguskhoi were on the move, that Canton Shkoriy had fallen entirely under Roguskhoi control. Etzwane read: