Child of Flame
Page 95

Curious, he took the side path that led to the upper meadows. In a clearing, his slaves were building their church.
It was rising fast. One among them had devised a cunning way of working with northern trees, many of which were too slender to be split into planks. Log-built, the structure had a squat, ungainly look. A few half-grown slaves, lackwits by the look of them, hung around at the clearing’s edge and stared, jabbering in bestial cries. These weak-minded beasts even got in the way of the laborers trimming branches from downed trees or scraping off bark or planing logs with stone adzes and axes.
Deacon Ursuline saw him and hurried over, followed by the male who acted as chieftain among the slaves, although he only called himself Papa Otto. A gull circled above the clearing, no doubt searching for scraps of food. Its “awk” was harsh and nagging, and soon a second gull coasted into view, hanging back along the tree line.
“My lord.” Ursuline used terms familiar to humankind, and he accepted them from her. Even though she was only human and therefore very like to the beasts, she was still owed some measure of the authority and respect granted to OldMother. Because she alone of all his slaves was no longer afraid of him, she spoke frankly. “You have treated fairly with us, my lord, as we both know. Although God enjoin that none should be held as slaves, both you and I know that slaves exist both among the Eika and among humankind. Because of that, we who were made captive still live captive to your will. But let me ask you this: Was it your will that some among us were taken away this morning with Rikin war parties?”
“So it was.” Although Alain no longer inhabited his dreams, he retained the fluent speech he had learned in that dreaming. “A few of your kind who are strong and clever have been taken to act as spies. They will travel with my own warriors to see if any of my new allies speak with a different voice when I do not stand before them. Those of your kind can speak with the human slaves among the other tribes, for it may be that the slaves those who have wit will have heard things that would otherwise remain concealed from us.”
“Why should the slaves of other tribes tell the truth?” demanded Papa Otto.
“Surely in this way word will spread,” observed Stronghand. “They will have hope of gaining such freedom as you have earned, as long as the Eika remain under my rule.”
“There is truth in what you say,” said Ursuline. She glanced at Otto, and an unspoken message—unreadable to any creature except another human—passed between them.
“Who are these working here?” Stronghand indicated the folk who, having paused in their labors to stare when he entered the clearing, had now self-consciously gone back to work.
“Have you any complaints of our labor?” asked Ursuline gently. “Has any task been left undone that you or your captains have requested? Is any animal untended? Are any fields left to the wild? Is there not firewood enough for the winter, and charcoal for the forges?”
“You are bold,” said Stronghand, but he admired her for it.
She smiled, as if she knew his thoughts. “You have no complaint, because we have worked harder now that you have fulfilled your share of the bargain laid between you and me.”
“Yet I am still troubled by these among you who roam as do the animals and yet provide neither work nor meat. They are only a burden. With the hardships of winter coming on, they must be disposed of.”
“How are we to choose among them, my lord?” asked Papa Otto.
“Kill the ones who remain animals. I see them here and there about the valley, no better than pigs roaming in the forest and quite a bit filthier. They are vermin. They are of no possible use to me, nor to you.”
“None of them are animals, my lord,” retorted Otto. He was a strong chief for the human slaves, but weak because he feared killing. “It is only that they have been treated as animals, and bred and raised as animals by your people. They have forgotten the ways of humankind.”
“That makes them useless to us, does it not?”
“Nay, my lord,” said Ursuline quickly. She laid a hand on Otto’s arm, a gesture which served to stop the words in his mouth. “It may be true that those of the slaves born and raised in the slave pens for many generations without benefit of the church’s teaching will never be able to work and speak as we do. But they are still of use to you.”
“In what way?”
“They can breed. Their children can be raised by those of us who were not crippled by the slave pens, and those children will serve you as well as any of us do. As long as you treat them as you do us. Perhaps those children will serve you better than we can, for they will only know loyalty and service to you. They will not recall another life, as we do.”