“Not even to save your life?” Coransee’s voice remained quiet, conversational.
Teray opened his mouth to give him a defiant
“No!” but somehow it was not that easy to say the word that could condemn him. He closed his mouth and stared down at his plate. Finally he found his voice. “I can’t.” The two words were so shamefully much weaker than the one would have been that he felt compelled to say more, to redeem himself. “What’s the point of buying my life with the one thing I still have that makes it worth living? Go ahead and kill me.”
Coransee leaned back and shook his head. “I wish I had read you less correctly, brother. I thought that was what you would say. I will give you as much time as our father has left to change your mind.”
Again Teray betrayed himself. He wanted to insist, as he believed, that he would never change his mind. But that would be like asking to be struck down now. He said nothing.
“I can only accept you as an apprentice on my terms,” said Coransee. “Until you accept those terms, you remain an outsider, subject to all the outsider restrictions and observing all the formalities.” He paused. “You understand.”
“I… yes, Lord.” As long as he was still alive, he had a chance. Or did he think that only because he wanted so badly to live? No, there was a chance. One could escape physical slavery. The physical leash was not as far-reaching or as permanent as the mental leash.
“As for your work,” Coransee said, “one of my muteherds is due a promotion. He’s in charge of the mutes who maintain the House and grounds.
You will replace him.”
“A muteherd?” Teray could not keep his dismay out of his voice. Caring for mutes was not only the job of an outsider, but, for the sake of the mutes, a weak outsider.
“That’s right,” said Coransee. “And you start today. Jackman, the man you’re replacing, is waiting for you now.”
“But, Lord, mutes.
“Mutes! Damage them with your strength, and when you recover from the beating I’ll surely give you, you’ll find yourself herding cattle.”
Jackman waited just outside the door to Coransee’s private quarters. He was a tall, bony man with straw-colored hair and mental strength so slight that he could easily have been a teacher at the school. Teachers, even more than muteherds, dealt with mentally defenseless people, and were required to be relatively harmless themselves. Jackman was harmless enough. He could not quite hide his shock when he met Teray and, through the Pattern, recognized Teray’s greater strength.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “If you’re not even-tempered, you’re going to kill every mute in the House.”
At that moment Teray was feeling far less than even-tempered, but he realized that Jackman was right. He pushed aside his anger at Coransee and followed Jackman up to the fourth-floor mute quarters, where his new room would be.
A pair of mutes were already moving Jackman’s things out. One of them, the woman, was weeping silently as she worked. Teray looked at her, then looked at Jackman.
“I’m taking her with me, if you don’t mind,” Jackman said.
“Your business,” said Teray.
“And yours.” There was a note of disapproval in Jackman’s voice. “Every mute in the House is your business now.”
It was not a responsibility Teray wanted to think about. “You care about the mutes, don’t you?” he asked Jackman. “I mean really care. It wasn’t just a job to you.”
“I care. Right now I’m downright worried about them. I’m afraid you’re going to wind up killing some of them out of sheer ignorance before you find out how to handle them.”
“Frankly, so am I.” Teray was getting an idea.
Jackman frowned. “Look, they’re people, man. Powerless and without mental voices, but still people. So for God’s sake try to be careful. To me, killing one of them is worse than killing one of us, because they can’t do a damn thing to defend themselves.”
“Will you show me what you know about themhow you handled them?”
Jackman’s expression became suspicious. “I’ll teach you what I can, sure.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I didn’t think it was. What the hell gives you the idea you’re entitled to anything more?”
“I’m not entitled. I just thought you might be willing to do the one thing you could do to safeguard your mutes.”
“Your mutes! My mental privacy doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with it. Nobody but Coransee can make me do what you’re asking.”
“And I wouldn’t ask it if other people’s lives weren’t involved. But I honestly don’t want to kill any of these mutes. And without your help, I will.”
“You’re asking for my memories,” said Jackman. “And you know as well as I do that you’re going to wind up with a lot more than just my memories of muteherding.”
“There’s no other method of teaching that’s fast enough to keep me from doing some damage.”
“Nosing into my life isn’t teaching.”
Teray sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor. He had thought it would be easy, that a man so clearly attached to the mutes would be willing to sacrifice a little of his mental privacy for their good. He glanced at the two mutes still in the room. “You two leave us alone for a few minutes.”
Irritatingly, the mutes looked at Jackman and received his nod before they obeyed.
“Don’t hold it against them,” Jackman said when they were gone. “They’ve looked to me for orders for five years. It’s habit.”
“Jackman, open to me voluntarily. I don’t want to have to force you.”
“You’ve got no right!” He tried to reach out to alert Coransee, but to do that he had to open his already-inadequate shield. Instantly, Teray was through the shield. He held Jackman trapped, isolated from contact with the rest of the House. He had the foolish urge to apologize to Jackman for what he was doing as he tapped and absorbed the man’s memories of the previous five years. He wasn’t doing to Jackman quite what Coransee wanted to do to him, but he was invading Jackman’s mental privacy. He was throwing his weight around, acting like a lesser version of the Housemaster. And he wasn’t even doing it solely for the good of the mutes. They were important, of course, but Teray was also avoiding a promised beating and a cattleherding assignment. Things were bad enough.
When Teray let Jackman go, he knew everything the older man did about keeping mutes. He also knew Jackman with great thoroughness. For instance, he knew what the muteherd was afraid of, knew what he could do to help him, and, perhaps to some degree, make up for invading his privacy.
“Jackman,” he said, “I’m Coransee’s brotherfull brother. I might be second to him in strength here, but I don’t think I’m second to anyone else. Now I know you’re worried about having a rough time when you move to the third floor, and you’re right to be. You’re almost as weak as one of your mutes, and you’re going to be everyone’s pawn. If you want to, you can keep a link with me. After a couple of people try me out, no one will bother either of us.”
“After what you just did, you think I’d hide behind you?”
Teray said nothing. He knew the man well enough now to realize that he had already said enough.
“You’re trying to bribe me to keep my mouth shut about what you did,” said Jackman. “Coransee’d make you think you were being skinned alive if I went to him.”
This was a bluff. Teray knew from Jackman’s own mind that Coransee generally let his outsiders find their own level within his House. He was not especially concerned about the strong bullying the weak, as long as the weak were not left with serious injuriesand as long as both strong and weak obeyed him when he spoke. Teray watched Jackman calmly.