The Worthing Saga (25 page)

“Thank you, Aven. How are things going?”

“Your hair is wet,” Aven said.

“It was in water,” Stipock answered.

Aven studied him for a measured moment. “You've built your boat, haven't you?”

“I'm not a carpenter,” Stipock said. It was a stupid thing to say, he realized, for it instantly incriminated Aven's son. There was no better carpenter in Heaven City than Hoom. And from the anger in Aven's face, Stipock realized Hoom had lied when he said his father didn't mind all that much. The man looked capable of killing in his rage.

“Because my father built this house many years ago,” said Aven, “before Jason took him into the Star Tower, I allow him to use two rooms upstairs to conduct his business as Mayor. That means I must permit any sort of scum to come into my house but only long enough to walk up the stairs and into the Mayor's office.”

“Things are going well for me, too,” Stipock said. He waved cheerfully at Aven as he went up the stairs. Hoom was right his father was as pleasant company as a boar in the woods.

Noyock's office door was open, and Stipock could see him, bent over a table, writing on a piece of sheepskin. Stipock thought of a paper mill, using rag and pulp, and decided there wasn't need yet for so much paper; nor were there people enough to spare from other work for such a task. Still, it might be worth teaching people how to do it. Parchment was so primitive, and only one fair-sized sheet of it from each animal killed.

“Oh, Stipock,” said Noyock. “You should have said something.”

“It's all right. I was thinking.”

Noyock ushered him into the room. Stipock glanced at what Noyock had been writing. “The history,” Noyock said. “Every month I take a few days to write what happened that was important.”

“What
you
thought was important.”

“Well, of course. How can I write what
you
thought was important? I'm not you. Jason settled that years ago—anyone who wants to can write a history. A few of them have. It's always interesting to compare them. It's like we lived in different worlds. But the Mayor usually knows more of what's going on. After all, what's important is usually a problem, and the problems always end up coming to the Mayor. It's been that way since the time of Kapock.”

“There are some things you don't know about.”

“Fewer than you think,” said Noyock. “For instance, I know that you've been telling the children that Jason shouldn't choose the Mayor, that everyone ought to vote on it.”

“Yes, I've said that.”

“I've been giving that a lot of thought. And it occurs to me that if we did that, well usually choose someone that we liked. The trouble is, the Mayor has to make a lot of decisions that no one likes. Then no one will want him to be Mayor anymore, and so either we'd keep changing Mayors or we'd choose Mayors who govern very badly but never offend anybody. Now, before you start arguing with me, Stipock, let me tell you that those are just my thoughts of the moment, and I wonder if you'd be kind enough to think about them at least as long as I thought about your ideas before trying to answer them.”

Noyock smiled, and Stipock couldn't help smiling back. “You're a clever bastard, you know.”

Noyock raised an eyebrow. “Bastard? I wish you and Jason would write down all these words that none of the rest of us knows so we can learn them.”

“It's just as well. A lot of them aren't worth knowing.”

Noyock leaned back in his chair. “Stipock, I've been very interested in what you've done in the six months since you've been here. You work hard at every task that's been put to you. No one calls you lazy, and no one calls you a fool. But I keep hearing complaints about you. Mostly from the older people. They're concerned because of the things that you've been teaching their children.”

“I won't stop,” Stipock said.

“Oh, I don't want you to stop,” said Noyock.

“You don't?” asked Stipock, surprised.

“No, I just want to make it official. So they'll stop complaining about it. I want you to be a teacher all the time. I want it to be your work, the way the sheep are Ravvy's and the cattle are Aven's. I've calculated that we'll give you a plot of land and require your students to farm it for you. They'll pay in sweat for what you put into their heads.”

Stipock was genuinely surprised—and puzzled. “You
want
me to teach them? Do you have any notion of what I say?”

“Oh, yes. You tell them how the world is a spinning globe, and the sun is a star. You tell them how sickness is the work of tiny animals, how the brain is the seat of the mind, and your story that Jason is only one of many who drive Star Towers through the sky has filled the children's mind with interesting speculations about what other worlds might be like, with all the miracles you talk about. It has little practical value, of course, but I'm not afraid of what will happen with the children thinking things that none of us have ever thought before. I think it's more to be encouraged than discouraged But that isn't why I want you to be our teacher.”

“Why, then?”

“You know things that will solve problems for us. You've talked of a water-powered mill to grind the grain—I want to build it, and I want you to teach some of the children the principles behind it so we can make more. You've talked of boats, so watertight that we could cross the Great River and sail out to the ocean.”

“You know about the ocean?”

“Of course.”

“The children didn't.”

“Those of us who have been in the Star Tower—Jason shows us the maps of the world, where the grasslands are, the forests, the metals hidden in the earth, the great rivers and the seas. He's shown us the computer and the pictures it draws in the air, he's shown us the coffins where the Ice People sleep. He showed me
you,
in fact, and warned me he might waken you this time.”

“But you've told no one about it.”

“There's been no need.”

“But—they don't even know the shape and size of the world they live on.”

“If they ask, I tell them. No one asks.”

“Why should they ask? No one knows that you know.”

“Well,
you
haven't kept your knowledge a secret, and that's all that matters now. Build your boats, Stipock, and take the children who adore you across the river. I'll help you—I can keep the frightened parents at bay. Start a new village there, with a river that only those who've learned to drive your boats can cross, and give these children a chance to become men and women without their parents breathing down their necks.”

It was not at all what Stipock had expected. He had looked for a reprimand; he had come steeled for a quarrel. “Don't you realize how that will dilute your power, Noyock?”

Noyock nodded gravely. “I know very well. But Heaven City is growing larger all the time. Jason told me to separate my work and give bits of it to the best men and women for the job. I've put Worin in charge of the building of firm roads, and he's doing well. Young Dilna is master of tools, since everyone knows she does fine metal work better than anybody else. Poritil is harvestmaster and keeper of the grain.”

“And doing well. I didn't realize how new they were. I thought Jason set the system up.”

“He suggested it. I only carried it out. But you—he didn't tell me what to do with you.”

“But you said he warned you.”

“That the children would follow you, and I was not to interfere, except—”

“Except?”

“That the peace and law of Heaven City must be maintained.”

“And what does that mean?”

“That means that when you take the children across the river, Stipock, you will not teach them to disobey the law. I know more about the life of the Ice People than you think. Jason told us how they thought nothing of marriage, and coupled where they pleased, and killed their children.”

“I can see he gave you a neutral picture of it—”

“We need our sons and daughters, Stipock. I was here when there were only fifteen of us, besides Jason. I was here when the first babies grew, before they were ever men and women. Now there are nearly a thousand. Now there are people who can spend all their working time at the forge or at the loom, so that those who are best at a job don't have to drop their work to weed the fields or shear the sheep. We're free now, to follow our desires. We do not need two or three or four separate cities, each one doing for itself what we could all do more easily together. We are too few for that. And Jason warned me of another thing.”

“What was that?” Stipock expected it to be something about him.

“War. Do you know the word?”

Stipock smiled tightly. “It was Jason's main line of work.”

“The closest we've come to it was the burning of the house, back in the first year of Kapock. Jason told me stories of what it could be like. I believe him.”

“So do I.”

“The seeds are there, Stipock. The seeds of war are in this house. My grandson Hoom hates his father, and my son Aven has done his best to earn that hate. Look among the younger ones, Stipock. Find the best of them. Not a hotheaded fool, like Billin. Perhaps Coren, though she tends to play favorites. Perhaps Wix—calm, not quick to anger. Or Hoom himself, though I fear he's learned too much of bitterness, and not enough of love. Before you take the children across the river, come to me and we'll name a Little Mayor for the other side.”

“No.”

Noyock smiled. “You have another suggestion?”

“On the other side, if the new town is to be settled by the people who believe in me—and they aren't children, Noyock, not anymore—then we'll choose our leader
our
way.”

“Interesting. Shall we compromise? Let's choose a Little Mayor for the first year, and after that year we can let the people choose a leader by their own voice.”

“I knew you before, Noyock, knew who you were, at least.”

“I don't want to hear about it. I have trouble enough being who I am now, without being troubled with thoughts of who once was in another life.”

“No, I didn't mean to dwell on it. I just wanted to tell you I never would have believed that you were the same man. Whatever else might be wrong with the way that Jason has things going here, it's made a good man out of Hop Noyock.”

“But
you,
Stipock, you
are
the same man you were before.”

Stipock grinned. “And no better, is that it? Well, I'm good enough for this—when the man in power is as flexible as you, it's hard to hate you. But I can promise you that if you let me do what you yourself have just proposed, in ten years the office of Mayor will be elected, and the laws will be made by the people of this place, and not by the dictates of a one-man judge and king and legislator.”

Noyock laughed and shook his head. “Not only do you use words I've never heard of before, but you even pretend to be able to see the future. Don't overreach yourself, Stipock. Even Jason cannot see the future.”

But Stipock knew that change would come, and knew that he was giving shape to that change already. Noyock was giving it to him as a gift. A town of his own, with a river between his people and the Mayor; authority to teach as he saw fit, and begin to modernize this backward place; and a promise of democracy to come. I'll hold him to that, thought Stipock. And when Jason comes back, he'll see what a little dose of truth and freedom can do, even to the medieval society he created.

He took his leave of Noyock and opened the door to leave. Downstairs he could hear shouting.

“Will you do what I forbid?”

And the sound of a blow.

“Will you do what I forbid?”

Silence. And another blow. A crash of chairs falling. “I ask you, boy! Will you do what I forbid?”

From behind him Stipock heard Noyock emerge from his office and close the door. “I think your son is beating your grandson, Noyock.”

“And I think you know the cause of it,” said Noyock.

Stipock turned and answered sharply. “Hoom told me that he had consent!”

“Are you so wise, Stipock, and yet you can't tell from his face when a boy is lying? No, don't go downstairs. Not yet. It's between father and son.”

From downstairs: “Will you do what I forbid? Answer, Hoom!”

Esten, Aven's wife, began to plead with her husband to stop hitting the boy.

“He's beating the boy. Is that part of what parents are allowed to do?”

“If the child is small, we take it away to save its life. But Hoom is old enough that he can't be beaten without his own consent. Listen—he's telling his mother to leave them alone. He doesn't want protection, Stipock.”

“Answer me, little rutter!”

From downstairs Hoom cried out in pain. “Yes, Father, I
will
do what you forbid! I will sail on the river, I will go where I like, you were a fool to forbid it—”

“What do you call me! What do you—”

“No! Don't touch me again, Father! You've beaten me for the last time!”

“Oh, do you think you're a match for me?”

Noyock brushed past Stipock and headed down the stairs.

“
Now
we step in,” he murmured as he passed. Stipock followed him.

They got there just as Aven picked up a broken chair leg and began advancing on his son, who stood defiantly in a corner.

“Enough,” said Noyock.

Aven stopped. “It's none of your affair, Father.”

It seemed somehow pathetic that this fifty-year-old man called Noyock, who was fifteen years younger in appearance,
Father.

“It became my affair when you laid a hand on the boy,” Noyock said, “and it became an affair for all of Heaven City when you took a weapon in your hand. Is Hoom a badger that you need to kill to protect your herd of rabbits?”

Aven lowered the chair leg. “He threatened me.”

“When you are striking him and he merely offers to strike you back, Aven, I think the threat is hardly out of line.”

“What right do you have, as my father or as Mayor, to interfere with what goes on within my own home?”

“An interesting point,” said Noyock, “to which I offer this solution. Hoom, I have just asked Stipock to build boats, larger ones than the one that lies hidden at the river's edge.”

Noyock is a deep one, Stipock realized. He gave me no hint that he knew that we had already built a boat.