Chapter 15
The activity that filled the common room Inn drove Jeffers to his room. Instead of changing out of his vestments, he laid out an embroidered prayer rug, mumbled a chant that set a small bowl of leaves and herbs to smoldering in a ceramic pot, and began a series of exercises to calm himself.
As he relaxed his mind drifted back to his home world. On a cold winter day, shortly after he started his sophomore year at college, he was pacing anxiously in the kitchen, never moving more than ten feet from the phone. Tom Benson sat at the kitchen table cutting an apple into long, thin slices, and eating each slowly.
“Calm down,” Tom said.
Instead, Chris picked up the phone and dialed. He waited for the first ring, then lost his nerve and hung up. “I can’t do this. What if she laughs at me? What if she tells all of her friends and they all laugh at me.”
“Chris, sit down,” Tom commanded. “This is something they taught me in the hospital; one of the few things they taught me that I suspect has any merit.”
Chris could not help but to scan Tom’s wrists, where a set of red scars tracked from the palm of his hand to several inches up his forearm. He had not really been trying to kill himself, so he said. It was a test to see if he could really pull it off when the right time came. His mother caught him, and it frightened her enough to have Tom committed.
“Place your feet flat on the floor, unfold your arms and lay them on your lap so they’re comfortable. Close your eyes.”
Chris did everything Tom told him, though a painful gnawing in his stomach made it difficult to sit still.”
“Now, breath in slowly, but breathe deep. Good, now hold it for three seconds. Now, breathe out just as slowly. Again, breathe in.” With the next breath he added instructions for Chris to focus on his shoulder muscles; as he breathed out, he was to imagine the tension in his muscles flowing out with his breath. Chris was surprised at how easy it was; he felt himself grow a little heavier, to fit in the chair a little more relaxed, with each breath. He felt himself focusing on Tom’s voice, which was soft and gentile. It reminded him of the nights when they . . . .
He heard a ringing in his ear. He opened his eyes to see Tom standing next to him, holding the phone to his ear. He had no time to think; the phone clicked and a girl’s voice on the other end said, “Hello?”
“Hello, Nancy?” Chris squeaked. He flashed Tom a look of pure hate, but by the time he hung up the phone he had a date with the most attractive girl in the sophomore class — at least to his eyes.
Opening his eyes, he looked around at the Inn’s dull gray walls, still wearing a smile that the memory had given him. The smile lasted only an instant. Tom was dead. Jeffers had broken up with Nancy for reasons independent of his leaving. Fortunately, they parted as friends.
“Christopher Appleton, you want to talk?
Startled by the voice, Jeffers opened his eyes and saw the image of the attractive, young-looking, dark haired lady fade abruptly from the mirror placed on his alter. Immediately he sucked in a lung full of air, then let it out slowly, releasing the tension in his muscles as Tom, and later his instructors in the Church of Sif, had taught him. Within a couple of breaths the image grew sharp again.
“I listened to your sermon, Chris,” the lady said. “You did well.”
“Please, I go by the name Jeffers here. I would rather preserve the habit of using it. I don’t want an accident to give me away.”
With a shrug, Cindy answered, “As you wish, Jeffers.”
“I think I’ve done all that I can do here, safely. Cadlius and I will be leaving in the morning, unless you have some guidance that you are willing to grant me.”
“I’m afraid that I have not been following your progress as closely as I should, Jeffers. The troll wars keep me busy, and in spite of your efforts the people of Malikii are on the verge of instituting a holocaust against all vampires. A scandal erupted shortly after you left; the Thespian’s Guild, it seems, contained a nest of vampires. The shock of the discovery has gotten the entire population in a frenzy searching every bush and rock for signs of their type of creature.”
The shock of the news through Jeffers’ hazed his concentration on Cindy’s image; it flickered. “What about Trevor?”
A distant focus crossed Cindy’s eyes. When she looked at him again she said, “He is safe, for now. He never trusted a coven enough to become a part of one; his shyness has done him a service. But he is feeding, and there are people who know what he is. If any of them should fall victim to the hysteria.”
“Then I should go back . . . .”
“Only if you want your name added to the list of victims. There is nothing you can do. They will not listen, and you can not force them to do as you wish. If my guess is right, there is nothing left for you to do here either. It’s time to be moving on, Chris . . . Jeffers.”
Sensing a dismissal, Jeffers gave voice to the thoughts that had been haunting him before the chance faded. “I don’t seem to be doing much good here. The vampires certainly are no better off for my efforts. Here, Zin will die. The people I gave blood transfusions too; how many of them have taken their own life or . . . worse . . . because they believe their blood now to be tainted?”
“Few people have the power to move whole civilizations; do not be surprised if you are not one of those few. In Malikii, two more prophets have joined the Church of Sif, specifically asking to follow your way. And I have noticed a change in the Advocate’s prayers recently, and of a half dozen people who pray to Sif through me. The passing of time will cause many to drift back to their old habits, but not all of them will drift all the way back, and perhaps some will not drift back at all.”
“Jeffers sighed, “Still, it seems that things are always worse wherever I try to make them better. How many victims will this holocaust claim, and how many minds will I lose because of it? How many people will reject harmony because of what happened to their brother or son received a transfusion at Nighthawk’s Castle and suffered the tortures of thinking himself tainted because of it?”
“Jeffers, if you’re looking for me to assure you that everything will be better for your efforts, that is something I cannot do. I does please me that these questions concern you. I have found little ground more fertile for evil than the mind of the person convinced beyond all doubt that his way is correct. But as to whether your wish to do good will be fulfilled, you must learn to live with some uncertainty.”
Everything Cindy had just said to him was familiar; he had told himself the same thing since he came to this planet. But it was not easy knowing he could be destroying everything he was trying to protect.
“I have a question you can answer, Cindy.” Jeffers said. Merely thinking the question sent his stomach rocking and threatened the mental connection he had formed with Cindy. “Is Justice real? Does Sif have an advisor by that name?”
“As Socrates asked, and as you yourself have repeated, what does it matter? If Justice exists, he is one person among many, with no privileged right to determine what is good and what is evil. And if not . . . “
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Jeffers said. “I want to know if, when I call Justice evil, is there is a real being in Sif’s Court that I am talking about? He might get a little upset if he should hear what I’ve been saying about him and I want to prepared.”
“In that case, Jeffers, rest assured that Justice does not advise Sif.”
“Then why has Matron Deonta’s minion told her that He exists?”
“‘Justice’ is a metaphore, just as you have already determined. They speak of it as a person because the Malikiians find such concepts much easier to grasp than more abstract notions. There is nothing essentially different from the Justice these minions speak about and the justice you learned to worship in your home world.”
“How do you know so much about my home world?” Jeffers asked. He could not resist the new topic.
Cindy’s answer was a slight, sad smile. “I have things that need doing, Jeffers. I have examined the divine powers that you have requested in planning for your escape. They are yours. However, I do not advise you to continue keeping the Varlet ignorant of your plans. Operations such as these depend on cooperation and on each member of the team knowing what the others are doing.”
“She would never go along with it, Cindy. I don’t think the risks are all that great, but she wouldn’t find any risk on Cadlius’ and my part acceptable. I took far greater risks in the war.”
“Keep gambling, Jeffers, and eventually you will draw the dark one. I would hate to lose you. Varlet Minna can take care of herself.”
“She could, but taking care of each other is part of what we stand for, is it not? Just consider it another opportunity to preach our ways.”
“As you wish,” said Cindy. Her image faded, leaving Jeffers alone in his room. While he slipped out of his robes, his stomach reminded him that he had not eaten. In addition, he had a full day to kill before he and Cadlius were scheduled to leave, and he could do nothing in advance to prepare for the trip. That was part of the plan.
Returning to the crowd in the common room, he found Minna sitting at a table like a queen on a throne. Ladies and merchants seeking an audience with what was perhaps the only nobility they had seen other than Sir Terrion himself knelt before her. At her side stood Cadlius, dressed in his chain mail and resting a hand comfortably on the hilt of his sword, in every way playing the role of dutiful royal guard. Jeffers joined a crowd standing near the bar and ordered morningcakes. He asked for milk as well and was told they had none; he ordered ale instead.
“I thought you prophets weren’t allowed spirited drink; it dulls the mind.” a short man said, his beard stained with spilled mead.
Jeffers only smiled. When the ale came to him he stirred away all of the impurities, leaving only water, which chilled at his touch forming a small crust of ice across the top.
“Sif be praised, I meant nothing by it, sire,” the stranger said.
“Sif appreciates the attention you give to making sure her servants remain true to their vows,” Jeffers answered with a smile. He raised his frosted mug in a toast and took a long drink.
The smile that grew on the man’s face had a hint of wickedness. “I am Relatka Tykall.” he said, smiling a half-toothless grin. “I was there this morning, at the temple. I thought you spoke well. But everything you said, you know, is just your opinion. I don’t think it’s right for you to go trying to cram your opinion down my throat.”
“Your belief, sir, that my beliefs are merely a matter of opinion is merely a matter of opinion on your part. And you have no right to cram your beliefs down my throat by banning me from cramming my beliefs down your throat.” Jeffers did not look at the man as he spoke. He was tall enough to see over most of the crowd. At the front of the room sat a minstrel, singing a soothing ballad; he measured the chances of finding a place near the stage to stay as the day seeped past.
“You made more sense this morning,” Tykall said. “Do you realize you just contradicted yourself?”
“The contradiction, my friend, was yours. I simply repeated it. Please excuse me.”
“Prophet Jeffers!” shouted a voice that echoed from the walls even within the crowd’s noise. A wild wave of hands marked a half dozen people sitting at a large stone table near the wall. A short and chubby man, who had to have been standing on a chair, extended an invitation to Jeffers by gesture.
With a sigh, and prodded by a conscience that could not let him spend an afternoon in passive apathy, he detoured to the table.
“We were having a discussion,” the chubby man said as Jeffers stepped into the range of his words. He had returned to his seat, though his body and loosely hanging robes completely concealed any signs of a chair underneath him. Gently, he slapped a boy of about fourteen seasons sitting on his right and said, “Let the prophet have a seat, Tim.” The boy stood and shifted to stand behind the man.
“My name is Tryde Barrelman,” said the man, fingering a stack of silver coins in front of him; the coins were enough to pay a commoner’s wages for a month. He waved a hand in the direction of a shorter and much more slender man sitting across the table. “I have a fool for an agent here who is in need of your guidance. He just made a fine trade with some tailors. You know what tailors are like; or, at least, men who are tailors.”
The shorter man Tryde had indicated untangled his arms from a short, dark-haired woman that sat on his left and stood to give a deep bow. “I am Lyrus D’Shynne.”
“Well met, Lyrus. And Tryde,” said Jeffers. “However, I don’t know what you’re referring to when you speak of male tailors.”
“Come, I know that the temple shelters you, but you have to know that there are some men out there who prefer to bed other men. And tailors, well, what profession gives better opportunities to leer at another man’s body and to touch it?” The shiver that ran through Tryde’s body shook the table; Jeffers could even feel it through the floor. “I’m at least as suspicious of their clients. They know what they’re walking into.”
The way Tryde’s robes hung off of him, Jeffers could easily see that this man seldom saw a tailor. “So, what’s the question?”
Tryde gestured to Lyrus, who gave a quick scan that included everybody at the table, than sat and began hesitantly. “I said that I did not understand the Church’s reasoning for saying that these men who like to bed other men are sinners. We trade in cloth, and I’ve had more than a few dealings with these people. It’s good to be on friendly terms with your customers, it keeps them from going over to your competitors. Anyway, I’ve gotten to know them. They don’t choose how they are, I’m sure of it. I don’t think it would hurt us any if we could learn to accept them.”
Jeffers smiled and accepted the offered seat. “What does choice have to do with it? If it turns out that rapists do not choose what they are, would you advocate that we learn to accept them and let them live as pleases them?”
“Of course not. . .”
“Then I ask again, what does choice have to do with it?”
“Nothing, as far as I’m concerned. But there are some people who say that because these people choose what they are, then what happens to them is their own responsibility and can’t be blamed on others — those who choose to interfere with them. If somebody can show that they don’t choose. . .”
“You could stand to study a little logic, Lyrus. Your mistake has a name; it is called ‘denying the antecedent.’ It is like arguing that if it is raining, then it must be cloudy. But it is not raining; therefore, it is not cloudy. But it could be both cloudy and snowing, for instance. And a homosexual, which is what my people call such men, may be doing wrong—something that should be stopped—without having chosen. Certainly, your argument has some strength. If you can isolate all of the possible signs that it is cloudy — its raining being one of them — and show that none of them apply, you’ve got good reason to believe it isn’t cloudy. But your argument so far doesn’t indicate that you’ve carried it near far enough.”
Tryde chucked softly,” I told you, Lyrus, that you needed a healthy dose of reason.”
Lyrus leaned forward. “You’re not being fair. Rapists hurt people. These guys hurt nobody. They are giving each other pleasure at nobody’s expense. We should leave them alone.”
Tryde scratched his belly and rumbled, “Sometimes, Lyrus, you argue so violently for these people I wonder if you don’t have a personal stake in this.”
As Jeffers looked at Lysus, he saw a man who had the arrogant certainty of being right that no argument would crack; not the self-conscious timidity of somebody afraid that personal desire has encouraged them to overlook truths that other, unafflicted minds could see clearly.
Jeffers turned on Tryde. “There’s no value in making accusations. Whether his arguments are sound or unsound is independent of what he happens to be. One who attempts to derail a discussion with personal accusations is guilty of the informal logical fallacy ‘ad hominem.’” Then he then turned back to Lyrus. “You don’t think that something can be bad without being harmful? Think of a really bad piece of music, or a painting, or a sculpture, or a piece of literature. They harm nobody, but that does not make them good.”
A man sitting to Lyrus’s right, shorter than the agent but more massive and wearing a much fuller beard, slapped a hand on the table and said, “Nonsense. You can’t come up with any argument that there’s something wrong with being a homosexual that isn’t grounded on Sif’s doctrine.”
“Arryus!” Tryde shouted, leaning forward. “You are in the presence of a Sifian prophet. You will show respect and keep a civil tongue or I will cut it out if that is what it takes to keep you and your filthy ideas from embarrassing us.”
Jeffers waived Tryde back. “If he has strayed from Sif, you should not hide him behind a wall of silence from those who would see him rescued. If you should find a lost lamb in the woods, you do the shepherd no favors by keeping your knowledge to yourself. Reason dictates that you tell the shepherd, so he can bring the lamb safely back to the flock before it falls victim to wolves.”
Turning to Arryus, Jeffers added, “As to your challenge about what I can not accomplish without mentioning Sif’s doctrine, listen carefully. My guess is that you would be surprised to learn that the leading Temple scholars refuse to ground their judgments on Sif’s doctrine alone. Rather, they hold that reason dictates what is right and wrong, and Sif’s doctrine is used only to measure whether a person has reasoned soundly. The behavior you defend is wrong not because Sif says so, but because it violates a natural moral law that Sif has given all properly constructed minds the power to recognize at sight.”
Jeffers shifted in his chair to make himself more comfortable. “Sex exists in nature for one end, for procreation.”
“People have sex for pleasure, too.” Arryus snorted.
“People have sex for pleasure. People have sex for money, they have sex to make somebody they care about happy, they have sex as a way of hurting others. They have sex because they think they should and because they are curious about what it would be like. But the fact that people have sex for a particular reason does not make it good or right to do so.
“Besides, I was talking about why sex exists in nature, not why people have sex. We may get pleasure from sex, but nature cares not one bit about our pleasure. Nature cares only that we procreate. Nature made sex pleasurable as a way of bribing us into seeking her end of procreation, but pleasure is then a tool, and we pervert nature when we mistakenly take it to be the end rather than the means in a properly constituted mind.
“Once you understand that, you can see how easy it is to classify homosexuality as a sickness of the mind without ever mentioning Sif. Most of us get pleasure in that which promotes nature’s ends. Some of us do not. They are distracted from nature’s ends by a mind somehow malformed in such a way that they obtain pleasure in acts that thwart nature’s ends — homosexual acts, for instance. This is one instance of a general rule that reaches far further. Just as with a person who eats a little too much, or who has a touch too strong a fondness for alcohol, we can not seriously condemn the man who occasionally indulges in a little non-procreative sex. As long as his pleasures do not divert him too strongly from nature’s end, he’s fit enough. But we may say of the glutton, or the drunk, or the homosexual that they have gone too far. They are suffering from a sickness of the mind which anybody with compassion would want to see them cured of, and would prevent from happening to any person they cared for such as their children.
“Finally, you speak of harm. You say that homosexuals do no harm, so they should be tolerated. However, Lyrus, any person who chooses sickness over health harms himself. And any person who discourages others from seeking health or, worse, who promotes sickness harms others. He harms both himself and others if he does not do what he can to arrange society in whatever form necessary to minimize sickness. And so it falls on each of us to do what we can to contain this sickness, to limit it to as few people as possible. We should not accept it, nor should we tolerate it. We should exterminate it like we seek to exterminate all other diseases.
“One more thing; a post-script if you will. You started by saying that homosexuals do not choose what they are. Nothing I have said in condemning it contradicts that. But, Lyrus, you have to admit that if any acts are a result of choice, then even if a homosexual does not choose what he is, the homosexual still chooses what he does. When a man disrobes another and has sex with him, those are freely chosen acts if there are any. Accordingly, they are the types of acts that Justice would encourage us to punish.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in Justice and Will?” Lyrus snapped.
“I said ‘if,’” Jeffers answered. “I could be wrong about Justice and Will. If these entities exist, and if I am right about everything that came before, then it seems to follow that the state has reason to punish those who engage in homosexual acts.” Turning to Arryus, Jeffers added. “Nowhere in my entire argument have I mentioned Sif. So you can not raise the objection — that would be raised in the lands I came from — that since these beliefs rest on religious principles they have no place in civil law.”
With a laugh, Tryde gave Tim another friendly pat. “You see, your brother and Lyrus here are fools. I am grateful their minds are not as weak when it comes to trade, or we would be living as serfs in some noble’s field. Go, bring us back some ale. I am going to enjoy listening how they try to save themselves from this.”
Arryus watched Tim closely as the boy left, but his face held a glare and he huffed like a bull ready to charge. When Tim vanished in the crowd, Lyrus turned. “Homosexuals do not suffer from a sick mind. They suffer because people like you make it difficult for them to accept themselves as they are. You teach them to hate themselves, and some learn the lessons so well they take their own lives. In my mind, you are no less guilty of murder than if you plunged a knife into their heart with your own hand.” His words sent gasps through the small crowd that had gathered to listen.
“Slow down, son. I’ve argued only that they are sick. I’ve given no reason to justify hatred, and I’ve given no reason for homosexuals to hate themselves. There is no sound reason to feel guilty over catching a fever. That some of them think that having an illness is reason to die is a problem, I admit, but this is another way that the sickness manifests itself in their minds. It says nothing against the soundness of my arguments. That there are people who do not want something to be true is not a sound reason to believe it is false.
“If a belief hurts people . . .”
“If some people can not live with the truth then a problem exists with those people, not with the truth.” The crowd mumbled its assent and Jeffers smiled at the irony.
Arryus spoke loudly. “We’re denying your truth, prophet. Wanting sex with another man is not a sickness. Homosexuals are capable of living perfectly happy lives, if not for the pressure that society puts on them to deny what is in their nature. Theirs is not a sickness.”
“You think that somebody must suffer to be sick? If some plague went through that made everybody deliriously happy for a day before they died, you would not call it a plague?”
“If it killed people then of course it would be a plague. It takes something of value away from them.”
“What if it made them not care whether they live or die? One of the symptoms, say, is that those afflicted knew that death waited for them in a few days, but they actually wanted death. They would fight those who tried anything to rid them of this disease. Maybe the plague even causes them to take their own life with pleasure. If you noticed such symptoms sweeping through K’non, would you deny that a strange illness is claiming the people of this city and insist that those who wanted to die be allowed that choice?”
“Lives are still valuable even if something causes a man not to care for his.”
“I agree, but I can say the same thing about homosexuality. It deprives people of something of value, natural sex, by depriving them of the pleasure that can be found it in and placing that pleasure, instead, in something sick and degrading. Just because they have been made not to care about natural sex does not mean it has no value; the same thing you just said about lives.
“No!” Lyrus answered, almost shouting. “Lives are valuable but sex doesn’t have to result in babies to be good.”
“I never said sex had to result in babies,” Jeffers answered calmly. “Nature gave humans a desire for sex generally, knowing that in seeking this pleasure men will often enough procreate the species. There is no inconsistency if sometimes sex between a man and a woman does not promote nature’s ends. But homosexual acts are wholly inconsistent with nature’s ends. And in that lies the difference.”
Tim returned, balancing a tray that contained Tryde’s drink and some bread for the table. Both Lyrus and Arryus grew silent as he served, refusing to look long at the boy. And the boy refused to look long at him; a quick, furtive glance and, then, he looked elsewhere — at the table, at crowd. Tim did not look at Tryde either. Lyrus bit his lip and Arryus released a frustrated grunt. “You are wrong, Prophet. You are dead wrong. You speak of kindness, but there is nothing kind in what you say.”
The boy had circled around behind him and was standing behind his father again. Jeffers could not look at the kid without being noticed, but he suddenly sensed a reason behind his opponents’ determination. They were defending the boy. He was gay, and they knew and decided to support him. Jeffers’ heart sank as he thought back to Tom’s death; a death provoked by harsh words from well-meaning people who left no room for debate.
Glancing through the crowd, Jeffers saw that most still nodded or mumbled agreement with his last words. They would not like a change of course. Jeffers would have much rather been without an audience. In this informal environment, people were likely to be less inhibited in expressing their feelings then in the temple. Not least among Jeffers’ fears was the possibility of violence. Shouting, he could handle; it caused no pain and the shouter could easily be made to look the fool for his lack of self-restraint. But Jeffers was too aware of those who sought to defend their precious beliefs with fist, club, or knife.
Speaking softly, hoping that difficulty in hearing him would convince others to turn their attention elsewhere, Jeffers said, “Lyrus, Arryus, I should make a confession. In truth, I do not disagree with the conclusions that you’ve been arguing for. However, I don’t find any merit in the roads you took to get there. A person can have bad reasons for thinking something which, quite by coincidence, is true. Tryde was right in saying that you do need a dose of reason; he is wrong to think that reason must show your conclusions to be false.”
The results were only partially what Jeffers expected. Lyrus and Arryus grew smug looks of self-satisfaction. They seemed not to have even heard the criticism in Jeffers’ statements, only that he had said they were right. The crowd recognized his about-face and grew more attentive; greater silence give those further away a chance to hear. Jeffers did not risk looking at Tryde, knowing that his eyes would drift to the boy standing behind the merchant. If his guess was right, he would not risk the boy’s secret.
“Lyrus, if you are truly concerned about friends who are homosexual, you should know that you do them no favors when you argue that they did not choose what they are. Choice is never used to determine the value of an act or a condition of the mind. At best it is used to determine blame for acts or traits of character judged bad on independent grounds. At best, it suggests that, deep down, you are willing to grant the claim that there is something wrong with being homosexual — that there is something wrong with choosing to be homosexual — and only the lack of choice protects them from blame.
“Furthermore, your defense of homosexuality on the grounds that it is unchosen is powerless as a defense of homosexual acts, which are chosen if anything is. Nor does it put the homosexual in a good position when their condition does become a matter of choice. Eventually, some magical spell or potion or some advance in medicine may be available for these people. What will you say when their condition does become a matter of choice? Will you say they should change? If not, why not; those are the arguments you should be giving now.”
Lyrus cast his eyes on the table.
“And, Arryus, your argument that homosexuals do no harm will convince nobody who does not already believe your premise. Anybody who thinks that there is something wrong with being a homosexual is going to believe that homosexuality itself is a harm. It doesn’t matter if it does harm if it is a harm — a bad thing — in itself. By begging the question, you offer nothing in the form of a proof that homosexuals ought to be allowed live their lives as their natures prescribe. I should add, if you have nothing but question-begging arguments to offer others about the legitimacy of homosexuality, then I can only believe you have nothing but question-begging arguments to offer yourself. Your symptoms suggests that you simply assumed that homosexuality is okay — why? I will not guess — and then you started fishing around for arguments to support it. Ultimately, sound reason had no influence on your opinion.”
Jeffers saw Arryus’s glance; aimed too high to be meant for the slouching Tryde. It was further support for his guess about Tim. He feared he was still making things worse for the boy. None of this was helping Tim; if anything, he was making Tim’s situation worse. He had accused one of the boy’s champions of holding secret sympathies for his accusers, and accused the other of being an impotent defender. In doing so, he had given strength to those accusations, and no doubt undermined Tim’s sense of self-worth.
“I have a doctrine,” Jeffers said. “I do not hold that I understand a position well enough to criticize it unless I can defend it convincingly, as I did here. Whenever you think that an opinion contrary to your own, one as popular as this and held by a great many intelligent people, can be defeated by simple cliches and one-sentence proverbs, you should suspect that you do not understand what your opponents are saying. It isn’t until you have looked at their views in the strongest possible light, when you have constructed their net of beliefs so that they have the strongest possible form, that you can begin to see if it is flawed and, if so, how. Until you can present your opponent’s arguments with sufficient strength to convince people whose opinions you could respect, you do not understand what you condemn. And never be so stubborn that you can not admit to yourself, when you have seen their beliefs in their best light, that they hold with greater coherence then your own.”
An old worry crashed through into Jeffers’ conscious thoughts and rocked him. How well do I follow that rule myself? How well does any person? He stared at his drink for a moment, wrestling his own self-doubts. There was no denying the possibility that he was as guilty as anybody else of anchoring beliefs he wanted true more firmly than reason alone would allow.
“You said we were right, in the end,” Arryus said. “You tell us, then, what’s wrong with the arguments you gave us.”
“I mentioned the fundamental problem in my sermon this morning. I mentioned a famous philosopher who penned an observation of how many moral arguments begin with descriptions about how nature is and went straight to conclusions about how things ought to be without explaining how they make that leap. What I did was give you a bunch of claims about what was true of nature. Then I leaped into claims about what we ought to do; or, more precisely, what we ought not to do. We must not act contrary to nature’s ends; to do so is a sign of a sick or malformed mind. But one can ask, and to your credit both of you hinted at this objection in some of your questions, ‘Why should we be tied into pursuing nature’s ends? Let nature worry about her own ends.’
“Even that objection accepts the assumption that nature has ends, which it does not. Nature cares nothing about whether you or I should ever have any kids. It doesn’t care if the whole human race should vanish. We may care. Sif may care. But nature is not the kind of thing that cares. And even if she was, even if nature had desires that the world turn out a particular way, she would be only one person. No reason can be given for counting her wishes as any more important than any other single person’s. I have said the same thing about Justice. If he exists, and he wants the guilty punished, his wishes should count as no more or less important than any other single person’s. Let him have his say before the council, and let the council treat him as it would any other person seeking pleasure from another’s pain.”
“What about Sif?” somebody asked. It took a moment for Jeffers to find the speaker in the crowd. She was not very tall, and had to push her way between a pair of thick arms to be seen. “Couldn’t you also say the same thing about Sif — that she is just one person and has no more claim to our obedience than any other single person?”
Jeffers answered quickly, trying to put a bite in his tone that would cut her line of questioning short. “You would dare place Sif on the same level as Justice and nature? At their best, these pseudo-gods can not hope to compete with Her glory. It is an insult just to suggest it. A heresy!”
There were no arguments in his words, only assertions couched in ad hominems, backed by an implicit threat against any who dared disagree. Jeffers would have loved to have shouted that the lady was right, but only a fool ignores the limits society places on what a person can say in public.
Many listeners, he knew, would sense his contradiction as an uneasy feeling about what they had just heard. One or two would be able to point right to the problem. With luck, they knew enough to avoid the risks of expressing such dangerous views in a crowded room, and particularly a crowded tavern. In case they lacked such wisdom, Jeffers returned immediately to what he had been saying.
“It is no coincidence that the argument I use now to defeat the claim that natural sex has some special value is the same as the argument I use to dispose of any special value in retributive justice. The mistake is the same. People take their feelings as signs of value out there in the world. They like heterosexual sex, they agree with a great many others who they share community with that homosexual sex disgusts them. They imply from this straight sex has some kind of intrinsic value and anybody who fails to ‘see’ this value and react appropriately to its presence defective — sick — morally blind.
“What these people fail to recognize is that they perceive only the objects of their own desires. Desires and beliefs fully explain their conduct; I have no need for intrinsic merit or demerit. By Occam’s Razor, that is enough to argue that intrinsic values do not exist. And if intrinsic value is a fiction, every conclusion that depends on the existence of intrinsic values is a fiction, and this includes conclusions about the depravity of the homosexual mind.”
Jeffers paused for breath, and a dozen objections jumped at him from the people who had been listening. No objections came from Lyrus or Arryus; they were content to allow Jeffers to take all of the blows. Yet the thought that nagged Jeffers the most was concern for Tim in the face of this hostility. Being right, contrary to those who tended to idealize it, was a very poor salve against the pain of being hated.”
The discussion set the pattern for the rest of the evening. Business called Tryde and his troop away eventually, but there were plenty of others willing to continue the battle. In the background, bards continued to compete against the noise of the bar patrons. Matron Deonta stood with her own crowd; wealthy ladies mostly. Gestures, and an occasional voice too loud even for the common room, suggested that her conversations were at least as lively as his.
There was no use looking for Cadlius. He left the Inn halfway through the day, taking advantage of the noise and the crowd and the fact that Minna was clearly in the sight of guards wanting to know her whereabouts to make arrangements for the Matron’s departure.