‘Juni,’ Pryn said, ‘why would they do that to that poor woman? She’s all tied up back there. She’s been whipped. She’s just lying there, like she’s half dead. I mean, just because she read my — well, she didn’t read it. She only recognized it.’
Juni made a disgusted face as though she were not going to discuss it. Then her hands flopped together in her lap and she sat back. ‘It is sad. But slaves are not supposed to drink. Bruka knows that. And from the earl’s own mug…? It was just spiteful breaking of the rules. Even Rorkar agreed it was the kind of thing that couldn’t just be let pass…And Bruka’s half mad anyway. It’s the kind of thing she’d do!’
Pryn was frowning again.
‘Well, they said you saw it!’ Juni declared. ‘The earl was in the back, talking to you that day. He put his mug down on a bench — you know, the fancy one he carries whenever he comes to visit here? Bruka just picked it up and drained it. He said you were right there.’
‘Yes, but — ’ Astonishment worked its way through the numbness that had enclosed the morning. ‘But her father had — ’
‘—drunk out of the same mug?’ Juni closed her eyes and raised her chin. ‘That’s what she was shouting and screaming when they dragged her in the back.’ She looked at Pryn again. ‘Then his little Lordship boomed out — he’s got quite a voice when he’s riled — yes, her father had put his foul lips to that mug, and he too had been strung up and whipped for it. Then Bruka screamed she didn’t know about that part. Nobody had ever told her that part before — which I have to admit I didn’t believe, because slaves, you know, remember everything. But by then, of course, they’d got her tied up in the back. And Tetya had returned with the whip — ’
‘Juni — ’ Bewilderment joined astonishment — ‘that can’t be the reason…I heard him tell her to — ’ But she did not want to draw more of Juni’s thoughts to her real reasons for outrage. ‘I mean, why didn’t his Lordship say something about it yesterday — two days ago, when it happened?’
‘Cyka said it to me.’ Juni looked dour. ‘Rorkar said it to his Lordship. It’s what anyone would have thought. But his Lordship said that when it happened he’d thought to let it pass, because, after all, she was just a crazy old slavewoman who had belonged to his father and who still had a malicious streak. But he had forgotten about the Labor Festival. And in his father’s day, this was the holiday when good slaves were rewarded for their obediences and bad slaves punished for their defiances. Precisely because it was the morning of this particular day, he’d felt obliged to come by and say something. After all, rules are rules. And even Old Rorkar said, yes, that was true.’ She blinked at Pryn. The wagon jounced. The workers on the other side had started a song. ‘She didn’t deny it, you know. Still, after two days, and with a crazy old woman…’ Juni shook her head. ‘You know, it’s just like his Lordship to do something like that. Nobody around here trusts him.’ She gave a small humph. ‘Not know it was the Labor Festival, indeed! It happens every year, and always on the same day. Myself, I don’t believe it any more than I believe Bruka.’ She glanced up. ‘I hope it doesn’t rain again.’
Of course Pryn had not known it was the Labor Festival either. The why was simple. The area’s most important holiday of the summer and held on the longest day of the year, it was an occasion every local knew about and assumed everyone else knew, too. No one had thought to mention it directly to Pryn any more than anyone had thought to mention, ‘There’s sky overhead,’ or, ‘There’s earth underfoot.’ What references she’d overheard were all oblique enough so that, without knowing what they referred to, she’d had no way to interpret them and so hadn’t really heard them at all.
Pryn tried to reassess the morning in terms of what she’d seen and heard last night, what she’d seen behind the eating hall, what she’d just heard from Juni. No doubt you have put together a more or less coherent explanation for what occurred at the inlet under the moon. Because it was a long time ago, and because the fashions in such explanations change, Pryn had put together a possibly very different one — though no less coherent to her. No matter how different the explanations, however, she had reached some conclusions from it that should be understandable to you and me. Either the greater explanation she was seeking was too complex for what was merely simple and ugly; or that greater explanation which would encompass all these jumbled details was of a complexity beyond any she could presently conceive. In either case, she did not like it here. She was glad she’d freed the old woman, and hoped she got to Kolhari — though to think it was to doubt it.
She was glad to be leaving herself.
Which is when the wagon turned from the north highway onto a narrow road. Trees lowered over.
Pryn seized the wagon’s side.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Juni said. ‘You look like you’re about to jump out!’
‘Where are we going — ?’
‘To the Labor Festival. Down at the beach…?’
Will Rorkar and Tetya be there? And Yrnik?’ But she had seen Yrnik that morning; nothing had happened. ‘Will his Lordship and his family come?’
‘Oh, Tetya and Yrnik will wander by about two or three. Rorkar will arrive at four — though I wouldn’t be surprised if Tetya didn’t show up this year. When he left the hall this morning, he didn’t look like a young man ready for a party. I don’t think he has much of a stomach for slave whipping.’
‘Tetya did the actual whipping?’ Broken welts, smeared stone, splattered weeds…
‘Oh his Lordship was very insistent about that! The younger generation and all.’ Juni put on a pompous voice and a practically death’s-head leer. “If your nephew isn’t up to it, my man, I can always call in my son. Inige is waiting for me in the carriage…?” She brushed straw from her lap. ‘Drinking. It’s so stupid — for Bruka, I mean. Today she could have drunk herself silly if she’d wanted — on Festival day, everyone’s allowed. Oh, even some of these good people around us now will behave quite disgracefully before the day’s over. That’s why I go home early. I mean when everybody’s sick and falling all over the beach, I can tell you I’m ready to leave! I’ll stay for the first three fights. After that, I’m gone — though I’m always back an hour later!’ She giggled. ‘You asked when the earl will come? His Lordship and his lady will drive by for a bit, just at sunset — to gloat over the remains and watch the torches reflected in the water. That’s pretty, as long as it’s too dark to see what a mess everyone’s made on the sand. The earl’s children may come earlier — they like this sort of thing. Did you meet them last night?’
Pryn nodded.
‘I think Jenta’s as handsome as they make a man — though I hear he’s quite strange.’ Juni raised an eyebrow. ‘The daughter’s supposed to be a bit of a character, too. I heard something about her having a baby…?’ Sighing, she reached over to pat Pryn’s knee. ‘But don’t worry. It’ll be fine this morning. Oh! Stop the horses!’ And she was half up, waving at the driver. ‘Come on, stop! Stop, up there! Just once more? Please!’ Steadying herself first on this man’s shoulder, then on that woman’s, Juni made her way across to the other side of the wagon.