The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (107 page)

Thankfully, Andrew's reply was matter-of-fact. "No, but it doesn't signify in my case. It's different for me."
Peter nodded. He forgot sometimes that Andrew was three years younger than himself. Even being mature for his age, Andrew would not have yet reached that stage, Peter supposed. "But for me . . ." he prompted.
"For you, it means you're ready to beget children." Andrew, as always, had the information Peter needed.
"Oh." He thought about this. He had always assumed that he would not be ready to sire children until he came of age, but he supposed that was why his father had decided to hold the discussion now, rather than wait until Peter was sixteen. "I think I can manage that."
His voice must have sounded doubtful, for Andrew laughed. Peter grinned up at him. "You know what I mean. I don't mean giving my wife a child, but . . . all the rest of it. The mating part. It doesn't sound as though it would be difficult. Actually . . ." He felt his cheeks begin to grow warm. "I'm actually looking forward to it. Does that make me precocious too?"
"It makes you ready to marry." Andrew smiled at him.
"Oh, no." Peter shook his head. "No, not at all. Not till I can figure out what the pattern is to when girls giggle. I don't suppose there's a law which covers that, is there?"
Andrew laughed again, and Peter, relieved that the hard part of the conversation was over, sat up. He had other questions, but he no longer feared that Andrew would be scandalized by having the Chara To Be consult him on such matters. After all, Andrew must have thought about such matters himself, since he was a boy too. Placing both their plates onto the sideboard, Peter said, "I suppose that you'll marry as soon as you can?"
Andrew went rigid.
It was like seeing a soft clay ornament suddenly turn into the diamond-hard Sword of Vengeance. Every bone in his body, every piece of flesh, turned adamantine. All the laughter had fled from his face.
Peter remembered, too late, that slaves were not permitted to marry. "I meant . . . I didn't mean marry, of course. But I know that some of the slave-men mate with slave-women, so I thought, since you're dreaming about girls . . ."
Andrew's eyes were as dark now as a night-shadowed pit. Peter was just trying to figure out whether he had cast a slur on Andrew's honor by suggesting that the boy would sleep with a girl outside marriage when Andrew leapt up from the bed, so vigorously that the bed shook against the sideboard. Peter's goblet, still filled with the sugar-laden wild-berry wine, tipped over and spilled onto the blanket.
Peter was trying to determine where his face-cloth had gone, so that he could hastily wipe up the liquid, when he became aware that Andrew was no longer standing by the bed. The slave was backing up slowly, his eyes fastened upon Peter in the same horrified expression a man might show if faced with the Sword of Vengeance.
"Andrew!" Peter jumped up from the bed, the ruined blanket forgotten. "What's wrong?"
Andrew did not reply. He had reached the wall next to the hearth now, and he flattened himself against it, as though trying to hide from danger.
"Andrew, what—?" Peter had reached the other side of the room. On the point of stretching out to touch Andrew, he let his hand fall. His slave was staring at him, as dumb and aghast as a farmyard animal faced with some terrible fate.
"What is it?" whispered Peter.
"I thought you knew." Andrew's voice emerged faintly, as though he were being strangled.
"Knew what?"
"I'm a eunuch."
A bit of log fell, soft into the ashes, sending sparks of flame up the chimney. In the corridor, the guards talked quietly with one another. Beyond the shutters, a mockingbird trilled at the night sky.
"No," said Peter, hearing his own voice as from far away. "No, you couldn't be."
Andrew said nothing. The look of horror had gone; now his face was a mask, as blank as it had been on the evening when Peter had watched him serving Lord Carle.
"You
couldn't
be," Peter repeated. He looked again at Andrew, seeing nothing he had not seen before: a boy wearing a slave-tunic, dark-skinned, but otherwise no different from himself.
Still Andrew made no reply. Still the mask stayed in place, as though it had always been there.
"Who . . . ?" Peter had to stop to clear his throat. "Was it the soldier who enslaved you who did it?"
They.
Andrew had said
they
had done it. And there had been a physician from the city. From the Koretian capital?
"No. Lord Carle." Andrew's voice turned toneless.
Peter stared at him, willing away the words. Then he shouted, "
No!
It couldn't be! Not Lord Carle!"
Andrew said nothing. Peter tried to control the sickness that was overwhelming him. Lord Carle. . . . And he had spoken so lovingly of the Chara's law. . . . He had given Peter the brooch with the royal emblem upon it, the balance between judgment and mercy. . . .
"You could give me back."
Peter stared, trying to make sense of Andrew's words. "Give you back?"
"To Lord Carle. He would probably return all your money. You have only had use of me for a week."
The final, cold words, stiltedly formal, were like a blow. Peter asked, "Why should I want to do that?"
It took Andrew another minute to speak. Peter could see the struggle in him from the way in which his fists formed. Finally the slave said, in that same, dead voice, "Damaged goods."
"No!" Peter heard the anguish in his own voice and strove to take control of himself. "No, I don't see you that way. You're not damaged. You're . . . different. You've always been different from other people. I like you different. I . . . like you this way."
He tried tentatively to touch Andrew. Andrew flinched. Peter hastily drew his hand back. He could not think of the right thing to say. He supposed it was cruelty itself for him to have hinted that he preferred Andrew gelded. He heard Andrew's voice echoing in his head: "Buried, cold . . . dead."
Peter said, unable to think of the right way to phrase his thought, "I still want you."
Andrew made no reply. The terrible, blank mask that he always wore around other palace residents remained in place; it made him look like a complete stranger.
Feeling as though he were floundering in an ice-cold avalanche, Peter said, "'They' . . . you said
they
did it to you. Not Lord Carle."
"Not with his own hands." Something about the way Andrew spoke conveyed that the slave thought Lord Carle would gladly have wielded the gelding knife himself, if it had suited his fancy. "He gave me over to the dungeon torturers at the time he bought me. They brought in a city physician to advise them on how to do it."
Peter felt a cold sickness enter his stomach. The palace dungeon. An eight-year-old boy had been gelded in his own palace, and he had not even known.
He had been aware that men were sometimes gelded in the dungeon, of course. It was part of the so-called Slave's Death – the manner of execution for disobedient palace slaves and for treacherous free-men. Sometimes a pardon was given to the condemned prisoner before the full death had been exacted – hence the presence of eunuchs in the palace.
But gelding a young boy?
"What did you
do
?" Peter could not imagine what the crime had been. Even if Andrew had tried to kill Lord Carle, surely the lord – who was said to be the finest bladesman in the council – could easily have defended himself against a small boy.
Andrew had been looking Peter straight in the eye all this time. Now, as though recollecting his proper place, he dropped his eyes. He said in his dead voice, "I looked straight at him. I told him I was Koretian – that I did not wish to be an Emorian."
In the silence that followed, the palace trumpets called the half-hour warning before the midnight hour. Peter turned away, feeling the chill on his skin turn to clamminess. Lord Carle. Lord Carle, of all people. The man Peter had revered most, next to his father. Peter had even pleaded to his father that the council lord be assigned as his tutor.
Such a man had gelded an eight-year-old boy for a slight offense.
Peter stumbled his way over to the windows, seeking the freshness of the night air that was making its way through the cracks in the shutters. He felt a sudden urge to throw the royal emblem brooch in the fire. Lord Carle. How could Peter ever trust anything his new tutor would tell him about the Chara's law? Gripping the mantelpiece, Peter stared blindly at the misshapen Balance of Judgment.
It was some time before he realized that Andrew had left the chamber.
Peter sat on his bed, next to the wet spot where the wine had spilled, trying to think. He knew that he ought to be readying himself for bed; his father was quite strict about his bedtime. But images were whirling themselves too fast in his head: Lord Carle smiling as he spoke of the Chara's law. Andrew smiling at the creation basket. Andrew standing motionless against the wall, his face like that of a corpse.
A knock came at the door. Roused from his thoughts, Peter took an appalled glance at the floor. A bucket, moss, sap, bits of metal, clay . . . and worst of all, a valuable bowl filled with earth. If the Chara had come to bid his son good night, the interview would not be a pleasant one for Peter.
But it was not the Chara, Peter found when he opened the door; the man who had knocked was one of the Chara's guards, Emmett, whom Peter had always liked. "Your pardon, Lord Peter," he murmured. "Your slave-servant, Andrew, desires to know whether you wish him to complete the task you set for him, before he retires to bed."
Peter, having no idea what the "task" was, said immediately, "Yes, let him in now."
"He will need to be fetched," Emmett replied. Then, seeing Peter's frown of puzzlement, he explained, "The slave-quarters are currently being locked for the night. Lord Carle's free-servant delivered the message from your slave-servant, since Henry has just been checking on his master's own slaves, and the matter regarding your slave appeared to be urgent." There was a faintly querying note in Emmett's voice. Peter guessed that the underlying message was, "Merely say the word, and we'll have this troublesome slave beaten."
"He was quite right to deliver the message," Peter replied. "Please thank him for me. . . . And Emmett?"
"Yes, Lord Peter?"
Peter licked his lips. "I shall need Andrew for the rest of the night. Have Henry tell the slave-keeper that he may lock the quarters once he has released Andrew to my service."
An expression flicked across Emmett's face, too quick to be read. "Very well, Lord Peter. I shall see that you and your slave-servant are not disturbed."
He closed the door before Peter could think to ask what exactly Emmett envisioned he would be disturbing. Perhaps the guard had merely received a glimpse of what lay on the floor of the chamber of the Chara's son, and he envisioned a lengthy clean-up.
Peter bit his lip, wondering whether he had gone too far. His father had made clear to him that he must not interfere with how the slave-keeper handled the slaves. But Peter simply could not settle matters between Andrew and himself in the brief interval between now and the midnight trumpets.
He must find some way to make an apology. Thinking back on how he had handled the conversation, he was appalled at his cruelty. He had allowed himself to become so absorbed in worries over Lord Carle that he had turned his back on Andrew – had let the slave regard himself as dismissed from Peter's mind and heart. Andrew had been stripped of his virility, had been sold to a cruel master, had nonetheless trusted his new master enough to pull down his mask . . . and had had his new master turn against him.
What could you give a slave who, by law, could own nothing?
Another knock came at the door. It was Emmett, ushering in Andrew. Apparently Andrew did not even possess enough self-confidence now to enter unbidden. As the door closed, Andrew stood in the posture of an obedient slave: stiff-backed, with his eyes down. In his right hand was an iron bucket, filled with water, with rags tied to its handle. He said, "If it please the Chara's son, I would like to finish cleaning up after myself."
Peter cleared his throat. "Yes, of course. Andrew—"
But Andrew had taken his words as an order, not an invitation to conversation; he immediately fell to his knees and began scooping objects into the wooden bucket. Peter, retreating to the bed again, tried to think of what to say as Andrew cleared the clutter on the floor, took up a rag, and began cleaning the floor methodically. Peter could see the slave's bandaged back from where he sat.
He struggled to find the words he wanted, and then cried out wordlessly as Andrew, with not so much as a moment's hesitation, stood up, took the creation basket, and dumped its contents into the bucket, destroying the Koretian landscape he had created. Andrew glanced his way, then quickly lowered his eyes. "Have I failed to please the Chara To Be in some manner?"
Peter was beginning to realize why his slave had no friends in the slave-quarters; Andrew's voice was as cold and hard as a mainland ice-block. Peter made some strangled sound in his throat, which Andrew evidently read as a negative, for he turned and carried the glass bowl over to the pitcher, poured water into it, and began to carefully wash the remaining dirt from it.
"I'll help you with that," Peter said, stumbling in his eagerness to reach the sideboard.
"The Chara's son need not trouble himself."
A thigh-dagger cutting prisoners in the Marcadian ice-prisons could not have been as chillingly biting as Andrew's reply. Peter, who had just taken hold of the pitcher, stopped dead, feeling as though his life's blood had been severed. He stared at the slave, who was masked with his blank expression; then, without any conscious thought of what he was doing, Peter turned and dashed the pitcher onto the floor. "I
hate
being the Chara's son!" he cried, and then he fell to his knees amidst the broken pottery and covered his face with his hands.
Dimly, he heard the door open; dimly, he heard Emmett's voice, making an enquiry; dimly, he heard Andrew respond. Whatever Andrew said must have reassured the guard, for he withdrew quickly. The door shut again, leaving the chamber in silence.
The chamber was so still that Peter guessed that Andrew had left as well. He tried to gather himself together, but he found he was shaking. A full minute passed; the palace trumpets sounded in the new year. Finally, Peter managed to pull his hands from his face.
Andrew was kneeling beside him, mopping up the spilled water.