The Bronze of Eddarta (13 page)

“Tell me about Volitar,” Tarani pleaded. “What happened when you left Eddarta?”

Zefra sighed and shivered, but she remained silent for a moment that became more awkward as the silence continued. Finally, Tarani prompted her gently: “Mother?”

“You must be a little patient with me, child,” Zefra said. “For eighteen years I have used every power at my command to keep hidden the story you have asked to hear.”

“If it is too painful to remember now, Mother—”

“No, Tarani, I want you to know … about Volitar. But the story begins two years before I met him, when I was a child of Ruthanan—my birth family’s name—and attending my first Gathering, an event which is held yearly to commemorate the safe arrival of the Seven Families in Eddarta. Attendance at the Gathering is not mandatory, but absences are noticed. Besides, there is much business done at the Gathering, where all Families are, for a time, equal.

“Some of that business concerns the children. Everyone who reached sixteen years of age during the previous year appears at the Gathering. In a year such as this, when the next High Lord attends the Gathering, it becomes a Celebration Dance, and the confirmation ceremony is performed on the following day.

“For most of the children, it is the first time they have been seen by members of the other Families. It is here that the bargaining begins.”

“Bargaining?” I asked. “For what?”

“For marriages,” Zefra answered shortly. “It is required that everyone marry someone from another Family. One isn’t obligated to marry at all, of course, but—again—failure to marry is regarded as suspicious, since it is everyone’s duty to assure the continuance of the mind-gift.”

Gharlas said that they were “breeding for the mind-gift,”
I remembered.
Somehow, I didn’t expect such a formalized, highest-bidder sort of situation.

“But mindpower wasn’t all there is to be gained,” Zefra went on bitterly. “A property trade usually goes along with a marrige bond, and the Lords look upon the Family children as marketable items.”

“But after all these years, how can any individual claim to be from only one Family?” I asked.

“In every marriage, the woman—and her children—become members of the husband’s Family: No, that’s wrong,” she amended. “They become the
property
of that Family, at least since Pylomel became High Lord, which happened two years after my first Gathering. He ‘reformed’ the property system by assigning all patronages held by Family members to the Family as a whole, and giving the Lords the power to assign rightful portions of their income to each household in the Family.”

“Could he do that,” Tarani asked, “without the
consent
of the other Lords?”

Zefra laughed. “My dear, he had no trouble winning their consent. In the first place, the system did need some kind of reforming. Originally the Families had been granted patronages that were localized—one farming area, one city area—and they had been assigned to the Family units living at that time. But after years of subdivision to heirs, and trading for beneficial marriages, it took ten full-time clerks to keep track of who was entitled to what revenue within each Family.

“In the second place, Pylomel was’ quick to recognize that the other Lords shared his greedy temperament, and would see the opportunity for control as an opportunity for profit.

“In the third place,” Zefra continued, “Pylomel included, as part of the agreement, that the High Lord would have the right to monitor each Lord’s dispersal of patronage funds, and would be the final judge in any Family dispute. In this way, he gave the Families some promise of protection against greed, while unofficially assuring the Lords that he would support their decisions completely.”

Zefra shook her head. “No, Pylomel had no trouble convincing the Lords to his ‘reform proposal.’ But to give them credit, they hadn’t had the chance to know Pylomel by then. He was the youngest High Lord ever to take office! Did you know that? Some say, now, and very softly, that he arranged his father’s death. But at eighteen, he had an impressive knowledge of the details of the system, and of the personalities of the individual Lords. What would have taken the old High Lord days of discussion and argument to settle, Pylomel could accomplish with only a few words.”

I exchanged glances with Tarani. “Compulsion?” I asked. “Was he using his mindpower to convince them?”

Zefra nodded her head in a mock bow. “Very good, Rikardon. But you must remember that you are acquainted with someone with a strong mind-gift. We of the Seven Families, although the concept is never far from us, have rarely seen so powerful a mind as Pylomel’s.”

Suddenly I was very worried. “Gharlas said he was denied the accession because of his illegitimacy,” I said, “but that he ‘tested’
higher
than Pylomel.”

“That’s quite true,” Zefra said. “Pylomel admitted to me that he showed only enough of his power during the final testing to assure that he would win the succession. And he was well aware of the effect it had on Gharlas; to this day he still laughs about it.”

No wonder Gharlas hates Pylomel’s tusks
, I thought, feeling a kind of sympathy for the man, with full recognition of how ironic my reaction was. But something didn’t make sense.

“Everything I’ve heard about Pylomel leads me to think he would have wanted to boast about his strength,” I said. “He seems to enjoy controlling people. Why did he hide the extent of his power?”

“In that,” Zefra said, “he had an excellent example from the previous generation. The mind-gift has been reappearing, ever more strongly, in recent times. Pylomel’s father faced a High Lord candidate who showed a startling gift, and had no hesitation about using it. You must understand that all the official testing is done in private—the children don’t see the performance of the other candidates. Well,
this
boy’s power frightened the Lords. The story goes that he could read, as well as control, minds—the most rare of all mind-gifts. The Lords agreed to tamper with the test results, to keep the boy from gaining power.

“When they announced that Horinad, Pylomel’s father, was to be the next High Lord, the boy understood immediately that he had been cheated. He stood up in the room where all the candidates waited for the results, denounced the Lords, and laid a suicide compulsion on all of them. Three were dead by the time the boy could be knocked unconscious.”

“What happened to him?” Tarani asked.

“The remaining Lords had him killed, of course. So you see, Pylomel knew better than to frighten the Lords too early with the strength of his mind. He waited until he had the political power to support it, and he used it most subtly, until he began to believe that he is invulnerable.”

“What are the tests like?” The question came from Tarani, but I was curious about the answer, too.

“There are two sets of tests,” Zefra said. “The early one is given to all children, not just those who may be eligible to become High Lord.”

“To the girls, as well?” I asked.

“Yes, certainly, to the girls,” Zefra answered bitterly. “The mother-buyers have to know how much power we have to offer as breeding stock.” Then she laughed. “Not that it does them much good. The girls learn about the system, early on, and regularly cheat on those tests.”

“How can you show more power than you have?” Tarani wondered.

I answered her. “Not more—less. Am I right, Zefra?”

“Exactly right again, Rikardon. What mindpower we do have, is our only protection; we prefer to keep it a secret.

“To answer your question, Tarani, those tests are very like the ones you probably had at Recorder’s school. Throwing mondeana and calling the results before they settle. Identifying shapes held out of sight. That sort of thing.”

Like the star/circle/wavy-line cards used in ESP research in Ricardos world
, I thought.
But they don’t consider that kind of sensitivity, which would seem to be very common, to be the same thing as direct thought reading. Maybe that’s because of the probability factor. The Gandalarans may think that the right answer about the cards or the mondeana comes through the comparison/computation link with the All-Mind, rather than as a message from the mind of another person. While actual understanding of another’s thoughts …

Hello. There’s a new idea. If the All-Mind consists of the memories or personalities (depending on your viewpoint) of all past individuals, are living individuals part of it? Or can they just “talk” to it, in varying degrees, on a conscious or subconscious level?

That would put direct thought reading or control between living people in a wholly different category. And even here in Eddarta, where they claim to value mind-gifts, that power scares them. Maybe that should be:
especially
here in Eddarta, where the Lords know it can happen, and can threaten their own political power.

“The second test is more complex, but basically the same skills, I think,” Zefra was saying. “The first set is given at age twelve, the second at age fifteen—only to High Lord candidates. There is a third and final test given to the next High Lord as part of the ceremony which names him successor. He must read the Bronze.”

She said that as if “the Bronze” were some kind of sacred document,
I thought.
Yet, as far as I know, the Gandalarans don’t believe in any sort of God. They think they understand the All-Mind, and everyone has access to it.

Oh, well, I’m still a stranger here, as I am reminded every day.

“But I have strayed far from the story I was telling,” Zefra continued. “Pylomel instituted his ‘reform’ for only one reason—to get me for his wife. I know that sounds immodest, but it is true, and it should tell you to what extent he will go to achieve his slightest wish.

“I met him on the night of my first Gathering. He was eighteen, and the designated successor. I have said that my own gift is fairly strong—I sensed the corruption of his personality, and could hardly bear to have him near me, even for the time required for a single dance. I knew how he felt about me, of course. Ill with fear and repulsion, I left the celebration early.

“I waited up for my father, and ran to meet him when he came home. He held me tightly as he spoke of the bargaining that Pylomel’s father had initiated.

“ ‘I’ve always promised you that your marriage would have your own consent, Zefra,’ he told me. ‘Since I couldn’t find you to discuss it, I compromised. I told them that I would not consider you marriageable until you were eighteen. But, daughter, it is an honor to be sought by the next High Lord. Would such a match have your consent?’

“I told him the truth then—that I would rather die than let Pylomel touch me. And he promised me that Pylomel would not have me—not if it cost my father his fortune.

“Two years later, Pylomel’s father was dead, and Pylomel was High Lord. He approached my father again, about a month before my eighteenth birthday, and was again refused. The next day, I found my father assassinated in his bed.”

Zefra’s voice had become soft and fragile as she had talked of her own father. Now she shook herself and continued in a stronger voice.

“It is our custom that, if a marriage bond is not confirmed before a girl turns eighteen, she is free to make her own choice. I had seen Pylomel a few times—at obligatory social functions, in chance meetings—and he knew that I would never come to him willingly. I think now that it was only my repeated refusals which kept him so determined to have me. My father’s brother had the power to make such a bond, but after I told him the whole story, he, too, refused Pylomel’s offer.

“That’s when Pylomel invented his brilliant ‘reform’, which gave the Lord the right to manipulate matters of property. The day before I was eighteen,
I
was still ‘property’, and my Lord traded me for three grain farms and a butchery.”

We were silent a moment, Tarani and I feeling the tragedy of the young girl whose life was completely out of her control.

“Is that when you ran away?” Tarani asked at last.

“Soon afterward,” Zefra said. “Pylomel insisted that I be given quarters in his home—these very rooms, in fact—until the wedding celebration could be held. He … visited me, one evening, asking …

“I was unwise. Not content with a simple refusal, I let my hatred of him show, saying that I would perform that duty only when it was legally necessary.

“Of course, he was furious—and determined to break me down, one way or another. The way he chose was humilation. He ordered that a commemorative coin be issued for our wedding, but that it display only
his
face. He decreed that each of his landservants would, out of the joy of the occasion, purchase one of those coins at twice its value. Then he sent
me
into Eddarta’s streets to ‘self the coins. He succeeded this far—” She clenched her fists, and a tremor ran along her arms. “
I
was humiliated!
”

Zefra became aware of her tension, and made a visible effort to relax, taking several deep breaths before she continued.

“I had rid myself of three quarters of the coins when I came to Volitar’s shop. As always, I left the guards outside the shop and went in alone. There was something special about Volitar, who was nearly as old as my own father. I had seen a lot of grief and resignation in far younger men, but in Volitar I saw a spark of defiance. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to tell him … everything. Without another word, without once looking backward, he took my hand and led me out the rear door of his shop, then out of Eddarta.”

She smiled, and there was a softness in her face we hadn’t seen before. “At first, I didn’t love Volitar. We both understood that we had chosen to do something together that we had been too frightened to try while we were alone. We took pleasure in being together, and in being free, even though the trip was a hard one for us. It was so ironici—I still had Pylomel’s gold coins, but we didn’t dare spend them, for fear of being traced.

“But once we were in Dyskornis, and he had found a means to support us, and I began to believe, really
believe
that we might get away with it—then my gratitude to Volitar changed to love. When you were born, Tarani, I thought there could never be two people more happy than Volitar and I. Even when Pylomel’s agents found me, I could be happy that I was alone, and that they didn’t know about Volitar and … about you, dear. I let Pylomel believe that he had won what he wanted—that I had hated the outside world, but I had been too proud to return on my own. He was satisfied, and I was content. I gave him my body, but kept my mind closed to him—I have that much power.”