They don’t have wives, properly speaking, Gar answered, his tone thoughtful. I take it the founders thought that marriage was a form of exploitation?
Yes. Here, if a woman doesn’t like the way a man treats her, she can simply put him out of her house and out of her life.
And he goes back to the bachelors’ house, Gar said, musing. And the whole village will support her and her children—though of course she, like everyone else, will have to do her fair share of the work. Of course, we haven’t really seen any cases of that.
Alea bridled. The youth villagers were busily exchanging partners!
Yes, Gar thought, but none of the others seemed to be managing on their own. Everyone seemed to be bonded and part of a family, except for the priests and priestesses.
Well, of course, Alea thought. That’s natural.
Yes, it is, Gar answered musing. The important point is that neither spouse is locked into a partnership they don’t want. Even Shuba was only asked to support his baby daughter, not forced to marry Agneli when she wasn’t in love with him.
They didn’t force her to marry him, either, Alea snapped. I wonder how long each will live without another partner? Gar’s thoughts made an abrupt turn. Why Neolithic, though? Did they believe in Rousseau’s idea of the noble savage?
They did, Alea confirmed. I even ran into that phrase. They thought he was right in thinking that civilization corrupted people, so they set up their society in early agricultural villages and built in a custom of starting new villages instead of letting the old ones grow.
Except for trade towns, Gar noted. They did make sure people would be able to send food to others who needed it—and they cheated on medicine and agriculture, too.
When technology developed to the point at which we could go back to tribal villages, Alea argued, why shouldn’t we?
Mostly because tribes tend to make war on each other, Gar answered, but if you’ve managed to set up a culture that limits battles to large-scale sporting events with only accidental deaths, why not indeed? Yes, it’s a very seductive notion.
You don’t sound convinced, Alea thought darkly.
I’ve seen retrograde colonies before, Gar explained with a mental shrug. Greed always disrupted the idyllic life.
That’s where the Scarlet Company comes in, Alea thought triumphantly.
What about it? Gar’s interest sharpened to an intensity that almost frightened her—almost. She knew him too well by now to suspect anything other than hunger for knowledge.
The book didn’t mention them by name, Alea told him, but it did give two pages describing how it would be set up. It was supposed to be a secret society, its members recruited from ordinary people and going on to live ordinary lives. They would work under the cell system and never meet as a group unless they had to mass to fight an army.
Each cell being three people and the leader only knowing one other person in one other cell who passed on orders? That’s right. Alea was somewhat nettled that he already knew it.
So before any one of them does anything dangerous that’s likely to see him captured and interrogated, they can make sure that everybody he knows disappears, Gar thought. Yes, I’ve heard of that.
So it would seem, Alea thought dryly.
What does it say this secret society is supposed to do to prevent tyrants from conquering? Gar asked.
It doesn’t, Alea confessed, only that the secret society is to do whatever is necessary to stop any would-be conquerors and tyrants.
Well, the Scarlet Company isn’t doing too well at the moment, Gar thought in exasperation. What’s the matter? Is Malachi the first after all? Though I don’t see how he could be.
He isn’t, Alea answered. The book covered the first hundred years, and I found other books covering the rest of the history up till twenty years ago.
How many tyrants tried and failed?
Alea hesitated a moment, then said, Forty-two. Almost every ten years? Gar thought, aghast. How did the Scarlet Company stop them?
Assassination, Alea said grimly, then hurried on. There were two times when the Company had to muster half its members in one place, though—once to ambush the warlord and his army in a mountain pass, throwing down rocks. A century later, they had to pick off another warlord’s soldiers one by one as they marched through a huge forest.
That must have required top-notch woodcraft, Gar thought. How did they train so many so fast?
Alea didn’t answer, letting him work it out for himself.
They had agents among the bandits, Gar thought, thunderstruck. A lot of agents!
The book said something along that line, Alea admitted. What a horrible life to condemn someone to, Gar thought slowly, in danger of discovery and death every minute.
People who had suffered enough might be willing to do it, Alea thought, and according to the books, there are always some of those. Even without a warlord, the bandits cause grief.
It seems there are always bandits, Gar replied. Was that part of the ancestors’ plan?
They thought exile was kinder than imprisonment, Alea answered, and were absolutely opposed to the death penalty, no matter what the crime. They did recognize, though, that there would always be a few men and women who managed to alienate everyone and would be cast out, that some might even be unhappy in their village society and decide to leave of their own free will.
But they didn’t realize that the outcasts would turn criminal?
The founders thought they would simply go off and establish villages of their own, Alea told him. I guess they just didn’t realize that the exiles would rob instead of hunting or farming.
Instead, they’ve become a constant danger, Gar said grimly. I wonder what happened to the women who went into exile?
The books say the bandits found them, or they found the bandits, Alea’s tone was bleak. Beyond that, the entries only said the women were enslaved.
I think we can assume the worst. So the people just live with the problem?
The chronicles do say that every now and then, when a particular gang had become too much of a menace, three or four villages would band together and give them a beating, Alea admitted. Not capital punishment, really, but people would be killed in the fighting.
As they were when a bandit chieftain decided to try to become king, Gar thought darkly. Do the founders say how the Scarlet Company was supposed to stop them?