So most of them bent their heads back to work. But not all. For some, even with the tongue torn from their heads and male parts shorn in their youth, wonder remained, and even hope that something, anything, different might happen one day.
Maybe today was that day.
But probably not.
And after a moment, these, too, sighed and returned to their labors.
Some to the piles of caveflitter guano that must be shoveled from delivery wagons into the pits.
Some to the scattering of dak urine and straw upon that flittershit.
Some to the reaming of the matured pits, and the transport of the nitercake to the huge barrel mill on its River-turned cranks. Then from the mill, twice each day, to the corning troughs. Here the powder was worked into gradations of grain, some for shot, some for primer. A few of the Brothers speculated that it could be made finer still, given more explosive power. But this was to go against the Law of Zentrum.
For was it not written that corning gunpowder beyond priming grain strength was a sin against Stasis?
The Silent Brothers knew such thoughts were as bad as actions, and the Brothers who thought them needed no punishment from others. No, for the thinking of such heresy, they scourged themselves in their dormitories, also on the yard, with knotted cords or with rock-weighted leather tongs.
And the great mill churned day and night, mixing and refining material fed in by the Silent Brothers. It dominated the production yard and was the largest structure in all of Bruneberg-not that they Silent Brothers knew this. Most had never left the yard since before memory began.
They did what the man in the office said.
Once it had been a priest. There had been more food then. Now it was a man who was not a priest. There were two fewer water breaks now per day, also.
They had been told by the exiting priest that the man was now in charge, that they must do as he and his underlings commanded.
“Listen to Eisenach. He is now the voice of Zentrum,” said the priest.
Lacking tongues, they did not question this.
When the rations had been cut the second time, some of the older Brothers had wondered if this were true, if Eisenach was the voice of Zentrum. When the punishment regimens began, and the young brothers were locked in the dung pits for a week and a day or suffered the powder burnings on the inner knees and the backs of their necks, these questions became even more pronounced.
Then the explosions began. The sudden deaths of Brothers who had been working the mill for decades.
Perhaps it was true that Zentrum was angry with them. That was what the man and his underlings told them.
The Brothers did discuss this possibility.
There was a language of a sort between them, of hidden gestures, shrugs, and earlobe tugs that might communicate as much as a text-filled scroll.
So the older Brothers spoke of the change, after their fashion. Considered what it might mean.
But what were they to do? Obedience had been beaten into their nature. The voice of the man was the voice of Zentrum. The priest, their priest, had told them so.
So the decision was made to abide. They had been doing so for quite some time now.
The unexplained explosions continued, as did the punishments for them.
The Brothers knew nothing they were doing had changed. Nothing they did had ever, ever changed.
The uncertainty was growing alarming. Wearisome. One day they might rise up and put a stop to it. But not yet.
Suddenly, a commotion on the porch of the main office became a cry of dismay.
“You will not pass this entranceway, gentlemen,” shouted the underling, the nitercake assayer, Latrobe. “Director Eisenach is quite busy and cannot receive you.”
And the one in soldier’s dress, the taller of the two, reached into his waistband and brought forth what was the biggest knife one could have without calling it a sword, and maybe it was technically a sword, but the big man, the soldier, didn’t handle it that way.
Instead, he drew it back and took aim down its blade. Then, with a fluid motion that seemed to take no effort, no strength, but that must have been nothing but effort owing to the observed result, the big one, the soldier, threw the sword-knife end over end until it sunk into the wooden door that was shut across the entrance to the main office. The knife, the sword, whatever it was, buried itself past tip, past curve of point, and up to the straightness of the blade. It might have been as deep as the length of a man’s thumb. It might have been more.
And it caught the nitercake assayer, Latrobe, by the shoulder of his robe and pinned him to the door. He struggled and yanked and pulled, but it was good fabric, the best wool from up-River, and did not give, and he was stuck fast.
Then Latrobe perhaps realized that the one who could throw with such ferocity must be one who did not care if he accidently, or purposely, hit the target, or hit the man next to the target. And maybe he had missed and had been aiming at the man and not the door in the first place.
Then the big man, the soldier, stalked toward the nitercake assayer. And Latrobe let out a high-pitched scream, as if he had undergone the same operation, the same shearing, as the Silent Brothers.
But of course he had a tongue, and could use it.
Then something dark appeared on Latrobe’s robe, in the place where his legs met under them. Something dark and wet. And the Silent Brothers realized the assayer had pissed himself.
That was when the Silent Brothers laughed. Soundlessly. But for a good, long time.
And the priest stayed outside, eyeing the nitercake assayer Latrobe, not letting him down, not letting him twist free of the embedded knife. But the big one, the soldier, opened the door, swinging Latrobe himself on the door, and entered the office. Then he closed the door behind him, with the nitercake assayer still stuck to it, and the priest watching, and taking a drink of water from the pitcher that sat outside, that Latrobe and the director sometimes drank from when they came onto the porch to watch the work.
Taking a drink of water and not offering any to the nitercake assayer, then taking another, until the priest had drained the entire pitcher. And still Latrobe hung there.
Then the priest maybe felt the stares on his back, the wordless gazes. And he turned and looked quizzically out at the upturned faces of the Silent Brothers. He considered them for a moment in surprise, perhaps astonishment. But, unlike so many who had looked at them, looked them over before, there was no contempt in his gaze, and not a trace of pity.
In fact, he seemed to be sharing the moment with them. And when the priest smiled broadly at them, or at the setting sun, or in general happiness, they knew he was.
Abel moved past the table of specimens and toward the back of the office. There sat Eisenach. He did not seem particular surprised, or even alarmed. He sat as if he’d been waiting for Abel, and his sudden appearance was entirely expected.
“So you got past Latrobe,” he said when Abel stood before him. “That’s an accomplishment in itself. I keep him because he’s, well, a bit of a dick. And very persistent.”
Abel didn’t reply. He reached for a nearby chair and pulled it across the floor, dragging its legs through the sand, and placed it before Eisenach. He sat down in it and was almost knee to knee with the other.
“The Treville gunpowder,” Abel said.
Eisenach nodded, smiled. “The Treville gunpowder, the boy says. The gunpowder that has Treville’s name written on it, that knows it belongs in Treville and not anywhere else? That calls out Treville’s name from wherever it happens to have lost itself?” Eisenach shook his head. “Or maybe the Treville gunpowder doesn’t exist. Maybe it never did exist because it never got made. Maybe the gunpowder that does exist has no name. It just is. And that’s all there is. And even if you beat up whole hordes of us poor managers, that’s all there will be until we can somehow cajole, coerce, or bribe those speechless wonders out there to make more, and make it faster. And then, the gunpowder that’s just gunpowder will come to you in due time. And not a whit sooner, even if you give the poor director the walloping of his life. Even if you take his poor life.”