Chapter 16
A ten-pace wide stretch of open ground lay between the outermost buildings and the wall. Sir Terrion required the open ground as an avenue for moving troops along the wall quickly. From the shadows between two buildings, Cadlius studied it as if by looking at it he could get an idea of how best to cross it. It was not meant as an obstacle for keeping people in; that it served such a purpose so well probably never crossed the builders’ minds.
The wall itself was only ten feet tall; a steep bank of dirt ran up to it. But, he remembered from their arrival, the drop on the other side was a good twenty feet and littered with sharpened sticks. Someone would need a ladder to get up this side, a heavy blanket or two to lay over the short ring of iron spikes at the top, a rope to get down the other, and luck to get down the far slope.
Cadlius’s greatest concern was the four towers which could see this path. The wall curved slowly inward to surround the city in a large circle. Unlike a square defense, a circular wall had no corners sticking out into the enemy’s territory where it could be hit from two sides at once, and allowed for easy visibility along the inside wall.
Observations and innocent conversations with the soldiers told Cadlius that two guards kept watch at each tower at night; during the day there was only one. With the potential threat of hobgoblins and trolls, the guards’ tended to fix their attention on the forest, particularly if they had reason to think something is actually out there. Jeffers, with two horses, would have to get their attention without doing such a good job the guards sounded an alarm.
What would guards do when they started to fear some unseen thing in the forest? Look at each other, seeking assurance that they did not face this threat alone. In looking at the other towers, they would look straight down the wall and at anything trying to climb over it.
“Varlet Minna, you are a fool,” he mumbled. For the tenth time, Cadlius changed his mind about Jeffers making noises outside the wall. He would tell the prophet to remain silent.
Two guards came up the brief flat path where the slope reached the wall. Where they passed an archer’s slit they paused for a quick glance outside. Seeing nothing, they continued. There were foot patrols at night too; patrols of from four to ten. Their job was to inspect the walls more closely, looking for signs of somebody sneaking in, though they could just as easily see signs of people sneaking out. At each archer’s slit they paused; one of the pair took a quick glance outside.
“You’ll need more than a little luck, my Varlet.”
It would pay, he decided, to give the guards someplace else to watch closely at night. The two patrolmen did not notice the slightest movement of the shadows as Cadlius slipped away.
A half bell later, a quarter of a circle around the wall, one of the two guards noticed a flutter of Cadlius’s robe between some buildings. From the shadows, Cadlius watched the Guard watching him and fluttered the cloak again. The patrolman called for his partner’s attention; Cadlius took a small misstep out of the shadows, turned, and ran. Before leaving the alleyway he stopped and waited. The guardsmen had jumped to the conclusion that anyone running is worth chasing. Both entered the far end of the alley at a gallop. They had not thought to split up, nor had they thought to alert others except tower guards unable to leave their posts. Their neglect showed a lack of experience and a gap in their training, which Cadlius noted as he ran.
Before entering the street, Cadlius slowed to take a few paces at a normal walk. A few normal paces, with welcome smiles to some he passed, and he stepped into the next shadow across the street. The shouting of pedestrians rushing out of the way of guards that had not slowed told him he had been noticed.
Though he had been through this section of town often, the arrival of the caravaneers made the territory unfamiliar. It was time to loose his pursuers; but they were certainly close enough to see him if he should slow to a walk again. He left the alley between buildings for a broader alley connecting two of the city’s main streets. The caravaneers had made the route more of a parking area than a street; wagons parked along both sides choked off all traffic. Tall buildings cast shadows that discouraged pedestrians; as least Cadlius saw nobody entering or leaving.
He hurried until shortly before he expected the guards to show up in pursuit, then stepped sideways between two wagons. Stopping to listen, his own breathing hissed in his ears, but it could not cloud the clanking of his pursuers’ armor. Curiosity tempted him to take a peek; the temptation easily yielded to his wish not to be discovered and his knowledge of the stupidity of such a move. Training to be one of Lord Noreon’s scouts told him how to avoid being seen. Two harvests spent in territory controlled by Phal Thrakutter’s invading army had turned knowledge into habit.
Keep moving, that was one of the rules he learned. There were only three good reasons to stop; to listen, to take a quiet look at what lies ahead, and to remain unseen when in sight of a pursuer. Other than that, standing only gave your pursuers a chance to catch up.
Another rule was; never take the easy route. That is what your pursuers will expect. Cadlius had no reason to think that somebody waited for him at the end of the line of wagons, but that was even more of a reason for his pursuers to expect him to go in that direction. He looked up, to left and right, where tall walls flanked the row of wagons. Going up and onto the roofs he risked being seen, and nobody would casually dismiss the sight as ordinary. Staying and hiding among the wagons, he risked having his pursuers look for him, but if they lost him when he had a clear avenue of escape.
A canvas covered wagon was too easy, too obvious. A locked hard-side wagon was more promising, but the lock was an obstacle. The right place to hide was obvious, once he found it. A rich, dark painted cart with lace curtains stood with a bored driver standing watch. The man was half asleep; it was easy enough to sneak up on his blind side, between the building wall and the wagon. With most wagons, the box sat squarely on the axil; but on a wagon meant for the comfort of wealthy passengers a bow held the axil a hand’s span away from the box and smoothed out the bumps.
Cadlius waited until the sound of his pursuers armor said they were near. Under the wagon, he caught his ankles on the back axil and wrapped his arms around the front. Stiffening, he held himself rigid against the bottom of the box and watched the iron-shod feet of the guards as they went past.
They were showing no signs of slowing, and Cadlius did not want to suffer the strain of keeping himself hidden as they returned. He dropped down gently and went back the way he had come.
This was his type of battle. The verbal sparring Minna and Jeffers seemed to love so much was too vague, too obscure for him. He had scored his victory against the guards, and there was no disputing that fact.
He could not even understand the effort they placed in their games. To him, one simple argument showed that ‘Justice’ was nothing but a popular excuse to hurt people. Apologists for justice called this ‘the problem of attempts;’ a fancy name scholars, who had nothing better to do with their time, gave to an ‘interesting puzzle.’ Minna had taught Cadlius the puzzle while he was confined in the Earl’s dungeons. It was the Earl’s policy that, since prisoners obviously did not understand the difference between right and wrong, she would see that their confinement gave them an opportunity for a long and intense lesson.
Some of the people working in the Earl’s dungeons, those with too much free time on their hands, argued that the moral education of prisoners justified punishment. Unlike retributivists, who argued that punishment should harm the criminal and that this was good, those who justified punishment as moral education denied that they did harm. They claimed that punishment provided the prisoner with a benefit. Certainly, punishment was unpleasant, but this was the best way to teach the prisoner the badness of harming others. In the same way, they claimed their theory better than deterrence theories because deterrence theorists called for harming those they punished to provide benefits for others — which sounded too much like using the prisoner as a tool which others could use to their benefit. Moral education gave the benefit to the person being punished, which meant that the prisoner wasn’t being used by others.
Cadlius laughed; not nearly as loudly as he laughed when he first heard the suggestion. He had told Minna, “I can hear what they would say if I advocated a lashing and a day in solitary confinement for anybody who missed a question on a geography tests.” In mock imitation of an advocate of moral education, he had said, “But I am providing the student with a benefit, with a better understanding of geography. It is for his own good.”
He found the arguments against Justice more difficult, and less humorous, until he had heard the problem of attempts. They made it clear in his mind that people punished out of a want to do harm, and that everything they said about justice and even deterrence was said to screen their guilt. The points flowed smoothly through his thoughts.
‘Imagine an assassin, an expert shot with a crossbow who wants revenge on a superior officer who ridiculed him in front of others. The assassin decides to get his revenge, not by killing the officer — that would be too quick, to gentile — but by killing the officer’s only boy while the officer watched. He spies on his intended victim, learning each habit, and discovers that each freeday the father lets his son play in the park and picks him up at seventh bell. The park has a great many places for an assassin to hide and get away; it is too simple. On the fateful day he cleans and oils his crossbow, picks out a quarrel that is straight and guaranteed to fly true, tips the end with poison as added security, and lays in waiting. At seventh bell, the boy runs to his father’s waiting arms and the assassin shoots.
“At that point the story becomes two stories. In one version, the arrow strikes the boy in the chest, he falls in his father’s arms, the poison takes effect causing such pain the child’s screams fill the park until he dies. In the second version, the bolt hits squarely a coin the child has in a vest pocket and doesn’t even penetrate the skin. The child is unharmed. Under the first outcome, the assassin is guilty of murder; under the second, the crime is attempted murder. As a murderer, he deserves death, according to most people. As one who ‘merely’ attempted murder, he does not deserves a lashing and 4 years in the Earl’s dungeons.
Cadlius did not need stories to recognize the problem of attempts. He had grown up in Krakori province, which still held to the traditional practice of punishment. He knew of a hundred cases where luck, good and bad, played its games and made its mark on the punishment people had to endure. A wagon master neglected to set his brake, a warehouseman sees it and politely reminds him. Another forgot, but a dropped box sent the horses running down the street to trample and kill a young girl. The first tells his story in the local bar and everybody sighs relief; the second goes to the Earl’s dungeons as punishment for his negligence.
The thought of other another example made Cadlius’ stomach twitch. It involved a child who got into a shoving match with another kid. The one shoved hit his head on the corner of the granite steps and died. How many of kids, he wondered, got into fights like that? How many of those, when caught, got nothing but a scolding? He had done nothing that others had not, only fate intervened to make his outcome much worse. His parents saved him by moving him to Malikii.
His uneasiness settled deeper. While in Malikii’s dungeons, for a different offense, he was forced to face the reality of prisoners distancing themselves from their wrongdoing. He recognized their tendency to describe events in such a way that the prisoner played no more significant role than that of passive recipient. Events happened to them; they did nothing. He made it a point to remind himself that, both times, he did the shoving and, in the latter case, the cutting.
Memories drove him up against the wall. He flashed through the joys that both of the people he killed could have be having; the joy of being in a lover’s arm, enjoying the smile of a child. He had to drive the thoughts off; keeping them in his head too long would have him leaping on his own sword. But he did not drive them off quickly.
He created the risk; he would not deny that. He created just as much risk as others he had heard bragging about their battles in barrooms. Whether he deserved less than he got, or those others deserved more, he did not know.
He shook his head; thoughts of what was deserved were habits from his childhood. His years in Malikii, he had thought, had killed and buried these ancient ideas. However, he found himself falling into the old way of thinking like putting on an old, worn, comfortable shirt. He forced his mind back to the objection that the problem of attempts raised for those habits.
Why punish people according to the harm they did rather than the harm they tried to do — or failed to take normal precautions in avoiding? That was the puzzle that defeated ideas of punishment as something deserved. Why would justice not want both assassins to be punished the same? What they tried to do was the same. Both were just as evil, just as ‘deserving?’ Because Justice wants people punished according to the harm they do, that is what many answer. But does he? A great many people are killed in hunting accidents; few people call for the negligent hunter’s death. The defense shouts, ‘But the hunter didn’t intend his victim’s death. That is why the hunter deserves less punishment.’ The prosecution answers, ‘the assassin who failed did not intend his victims survival, why does he deserve less punishment?’
Those who justified punishment as a way of deterring crime handled the problem of attempts no better. After all, what we want to do is deter people from attempting crimes. Deterrence theory provides no justification for the additional punishments that those who succeed in their crimes — where success is measured in actually killing, maiming, raping, or otherwise harming their victims. And yet, everywhere, the law punished attempts differently; proof enough that criminal law aims not at doing justice or deterring crime, but at fulfilling a want for revenge.
Finishing his chain allowed Cadlius to shake off his memories and continue to the Inn. The street in front of the Inn was full of people. Cadlius drifted smoothly into the stream heading across the dam to the temple region, keeping a bundle of people between himself and those coming from the other direction. When he found what he wanted, a pair of guards walking from the temple with a casualness that suggested their duty had ended, he turned quickly into their line of traffic, showing them his back. He slowed; pedestrians passed him until the two guards were at his side. With a warm smile Cadlius greeted them. “How does the patrol go? Anything exciting going on?”
The pair launched into a story of a thief they caught taking fruit from a vendor’s cart. They were just returning from taking the boy to the Temple dungeons. Feigning interest in their story, Cadlius kept them talking until he was near the Inn. Then he started a story of his own.
“I heard there was something frightening going on around the west wall earlier today. A couple of guards said that friends of theirs on patrol wall saw something stalking around in the shadows between buildings where it could watch the wall.”
The two guards answered with confused glances.
“Too tall to be human,” Cadlius continued. “A temple guardsman suggested a troll, disguised for spying, looking for a weakness where the rest of his squad can get into town without being noticed. It makes sense that they would want to come in from the west; certainly the north wall, with its gate and the extra guards there, isn’t a good place to sneak over the wall.”
As he spoke, Cadlius edged toward the door to the Inn. When the two guards hesitated, casting nervous glances up the street where duties awaited their return, Cadlius invited them in for a drink and an opportunity to share stories. They refused, but curiosity over what he could add about the troll kept them there.
Cadlius made up small bits of news, waiting until a guardsman walked by with an obvious intention of going inside. With the popularity of the Inn, and with so many of K’non’s citizens enlisted to serve in the Guards during the caravan’s stay, he did not need to wait long. He gave the oncoming Guard a greeting fit for a good friend, then gave hasty farewells to the first pair.
The instant he had stepped beyond the first two Guardsmen’s range of hearing, Cadlius said, “Those two were just telling me about somebody noticing a troll scouting out the west wall.” He caught a few stares and a small ring of silence from the patrons nearest the door. The Guardsman stopped, asking silent questions with his eyes. Leaning forward, and lowering his voice to a whisper, Cadlius said, “I guess we shouldn’t talk about such things in public. It will frighten them and its probably an exaggeration anyway.”
“Right,” said the Guardsman, but he turned and left. It did not matter to Cadlius. He was in the common room, and enough people had seen him enter with an escort to cut short any suspicions that might have grown during his absence.
He saw the Varlet enjoying the entertainment, perched on a high chair in the far corner that could have easily served as a throne. Jeffers sat nearer the middle, surrounded by a mob whose shouts drowned his voice. The smell of meat prepared for the evening meal filled the room, but Terrence had not started serving yet.
Because of his size, most people stepped out of Cadlius’s way before he needed to ask. Still, he begged forgiveness from those he disturbed as he attempted to reach the Varlet’s chair.
“Cadlius!” Minna shouted. The ring of wealthy ladies and their retainers that surrounded the Varlet turned, then cleared an aisle for him.
“Cadlius, where have you been? If you and Jeffers are leaving with the caravan tomorrow you had better get ready. Morning will come sooner than you think.”
“Begging to differ with m’lady, there is not that much to do. We need only throw our equipment into a pack; you can not expect us to saddle our horses before we leave.’
The ladies sitting around the Varlet gasped at his words.
“There’s a fine line between disagreement and insult, my faithful guardian. I would hate to have to discipline you, and your attitude gives me even more reason to send you back to Malikii early.”
She spoke to the ladies, “Excuse me while I have a word with my guard.” They stepped away from her; pushing the crowd into an even denser pack in the rest of the room. Minna and Cadlius turned to face the wall to better keep their words private.
“Everything is ready,” Cadlius said, handing Minna a paper. “That shows you where I’ve hidden the stuff you’ll need. A plank you can use to reach the top of the wall, old blankets to lay over the spikes, and a rope for scaling down the far side. Once over, head for the forest and hope you don’t get shot in the back. Wear dark clothes. We’ll be waiting in the trees.”
“Sounds easy,” Minna said, though a quiver shook her voice.
“The hard part will still be getting rid of your Guard. Even trying to escape will earn you more trouble than you can expect by refusing to take part in their rituals.”
“You’re trying to talk me out of it?”
“No,” Cadlius answered quickly. “I want to see you safe.”
“I’ll be okay,” she answered, stepping away. Her next words were loud enough for the crowd to hear. “I’ll be okay until the Matron or Sir Terrion receives the Earl’s instructions to let me go. You can do more to protect me by taking news quickly to the Earl than anything you can do here.” She climbed back into her chair as Cadlius took his place at her side.
Jeffers made a point of keeping an eye on Tim, and of catching an opportunity to speak to the boy away from the company of his family. It was not difficult; Tryde used the boy to deliver messages, to fetch goods for sale, and to keep track of Lyrus and Arryus. As Tim left the Inn, Jeffers rushed to catch up. “Tim, I’ve been wanting to talk with you. Do you have a minute of your own to spare?”
Tim took a glance back at his father’s table, then shrugged. “Father wants me to bring him his supper. Mom’s fixing it back at the wagon; he won’t spend the money that a place like this charges for a meal.”
“Can I walk with you?” Let the Guards follow and watch, Jeffers thought, they would see nothing.
“I guess so.”
Jeffers waited until he was in the street before asking his question. “I was wondering what you thought about the things I said.
The child probably did not realize how much his silent stare said. Jeffers found himself being measured. With a smile, he tried to answer the concerns that he guessed filled Tim’s mind.
“I don’t know,” Tim said, shrugging the question away.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have sex with another male. People who like these things simply have minds that work differently than others; they are not defective, they are just different. The only people who are really sick, or defective, or bad, are those whose desires lead them to thwart the harmless desires of others.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Tim asked, his sudden defensiveness showing through the pace at which he walked as well as the tone he put into his words.
“Because I wanted you to know that there is an opinion out there other than your father’s. Too many people your age take their father’s word as second only to the voice of Sif herself; and most take the two as speaking the same voice. I wanted you to know that the opinion your father’s agent and your brother share can be defended better than they have done.”
“I don’t care,” Tim answered.
“Okay, I was wrong. I thought you did,” said Jeffers, stopping in the street.
Tim stopped too, after a couple paces. Jeffers leaned back against the wall of a building and left the decision to Tim. For a moment, Tim stood and pondered. Then he came back. Standing close, fingering the laces of his shirt, he said, “I’m not like that.”
“Neither am I,” Jeffers said. “Neither is Lyrus or your brother, I think. But one doesn’t have to be like that to care something about those who are. If I can get you to care,, then people who are like that are a little better off. I would like to get your father to care, but that doesn’t seem possible. He is trapped in old habits that would take a force greater than my words to dislodge.”
Another long silence followed, which Tim ended by saying, “Can I ask you something?”
“You would be surprised at how happy it would make me to answer any questions you might have.”
“You said that we really do not choose anything, that things just happen. I think I know why you said it, and I think that maybe you’re right, but it’s pretty depressing, don’t you think? I mean, if things just happen to us, what does it matter what we do? It’s just, everything seems so pointless.”
Jeffers placed a hand on Tim’s shoulders and started to walk with him back up the street. “You remember my story about the golem taught to play games?”
Tim nodded.
“What the golem wants and thinks does matter. If he sacrifices his queen, that could have a dramatic effect on the game, and the golem cares about the outcome of the game. You and I each have a chance of making the world a different place because we were here — a better place. How we change the world depends on what type of people we are; whether we are kind or cruel, selfish or giving, contemplative or rash. I am here now, Tim, because I care about you, because I believe I can say or do something that will make your life better and I want to make your life better. In short, I am here because you matter.”
“But, you would have been here anyway.”
“If I didn’t care I would not have come.”
With a shrug, Tim said, “You know what I mean. You didn’t decide to care.”
“Didn’t I? It matters to me that I care about people. I want to be kind. And our desires are not fixed in concrete . . . chiseled in stone, that is. We can change them, some of them, to some degree — some are easier to change than others. Like when you try to break a bad habit. A bad habit is the result of liking something that, for some reason, you shouldn’t like. Either it hurts other people or it keeps you from getting other things that you like. You break your habit by acting as if you don’t like the things you don’t want to like, or by acting as if you like the things you want to like. Eventually, sometimes, you come to like less those things you pretended not to like, or like more those things you pretended to like. And when what you like changes enough, you’ve broken your old habit. You see, we can, to some extent at least, choose what we like and don’t like.”
“But only if you want to. Don’t you see, there’s always something making you do it,”
“You have a good mind, Tim,” Jeffers said. Tim’s smile warmed him. “But, what’s so bad about that? Look at it this way, Tim; what are your options? Either you bring about the change, or change is something that happens to you — something outside of you brings about the change. If the change comes from outside, well, there’s nothing much special about that, is there?”
Jeffers did not wake for the shake of the head that was Tim’s answer. “For the change to come from inside, for it to come from you, you have to want it. Can you imagine somebody changing when the thing he is changing into is something he doesn’t care for? Nothing very heroic about that, is there?”
Again, Tim shook his head.
“So, for you to change yourself, you have to want that change. You are the one who has to make the change happen.”
The Merchant’s Square, where most of the caravaneers parked their wagons, was just a few more paces ahead, and Jeffers was not sure which of the wagons Tim planned to stop at to collect Tryde’s supper. There were still a lot of things he wanted to say, so he stopped. He risked a sigh of relief when Tim stopped with him.
“Tim, I know how you feel,” Jeffers said, risking a hand on his shoulder and kneeling so he looked up at the boy. “When I first heard that Will’s Power wasn’t real, I felt almost like dying. It was like life didn’t have any value if we couldn’t call upon Will’s Power to change the world. That power seemed to be what made life valuable. But once I thought about it I realized that, really, we don’t lose much when we give up Will’s Power. It means we never really would have done the things we didn’t want to do anyway.
“Imagine walking along a forest trail where impenetrable walls make it impossible to leave the road you’re on. But you don’t want to leave the road anyway. And if you ever do decide to leave the trail, the deciding itself removes the barrier. Of course, it puts another barrier ahead so you can’t go straight, but only because you decided not to go straight ahead anyway. It’s not really much of a barrier, is it?”
“I guess not.”
Tim’s frequent glances into the Merchant’s Square told Jeffers he did not have much time before he had to let the boy continue with his business. He spoke quickly, and hoped the boy understood. “Tim, we really don’t give up anything important when we say that Will’s Power is a fiction. We still have the power to make choices, and those choices impact the world — they help determine if the world is a better or a worse place to live. About the only thing we do give up is a very popular excuse for hurting other people.
“To be honest, that’s why I think people want to say that guys who like sex with other guys choose what they are. They want an excuse to hurt these people. As for me, if I had to choose between turning into somebody who wanted things that hurt others, like wanting to stop men from having sex with other men, and somebody who wanted to love others, I know which choice I would make.”
“I have to go. Dad wants his supper.”
“Sure,” Jeffers said, releasing the boy’s arm. “I hope you have a happy life. Listen, one last thing before you go. Wanting Will’s power to be there doesn’t make it real. And living your life thinking it is important because it calls upon Will’s Power, when Will’s Power is a myth, is to live a whole life as a lie. You can’t want that. I pity those who devote their lives to Justice and who work so hard at controlling a mythical Will’s Power; their whole life is sacrificed for nothing; these things are nothing, they do not exist.”
“I have to go,” Tim said, turning for the wagons. Jeffers watched him for a moment. He saw Tom in the way the boy hurried on. He remembered the powerlessness of being unable to save Tom’s life and prayed he had made up for it a little.