A Wizard In Absentia

CHAPTER 6

Ian froze. Then, before he could catch up his staff and bolt, the man smiled and laughed. It was a warm, friendly laugh, and Ian relaxed a little. Surely the man could not be an enemy if he behaved in so friendly a fashion. Besides, he wore no livery; he could not be a keeper, or any other servant of Lord Murthren—at least, no more than anyone was. He was a broad-shouldered man, and his arms and legs were thick with muscles. Ian could see this easily, for he wore a tight-fitting jerkin and leggings. His body looked very hard underneath the gray, belted tunic, and his leggings were so smooth they might have been a lord’s hose. His black hair was cut short, no longer than his collar. His face was craggy, with a long, straight nose and lantern jaw. His eyes were large, but above them, his brows seemed knit in a perpetual frown. It was a harsh face, and grim—but when he smiled, as he did now, it turned into friendliness. Somehow, Ian felt he could not fear such a man, or had no cause to—this, in spite of the sword that hung belted at his hip, and the dagger across from it. These, and his short hair, told Ian the man’s profession, as surely as though it had been written on his forehead. He was a freelance, a soldier who wandered about the country and sold his services to whatever lord needed him that month. He was not a serf, but a gentleman, free to travel where he wished, as long as he did not offend the great lords. His boots came up to his calves and had high, thick heels—a horseman, then. But where was his horse?

Dead, of course—or the property of some lord. Like as not, he owned no mount of his own, but rode whatever nag was given him by the nobleman who employed him. He might leave, but the horse would stay.

“Look carefully before you drink,” he said to Ian, “and listen more closely. If you had, you would have heard me step up to the stream and sit down.” Then he frowned, and Ian shrank back from the sudden grimness of his face. “What are you doing, out here in the middle of the forest, alone at night? Your parents will be worried.”

Ian heaved a sigh of relief. This soldier did not even know that his parents were dead, so he could not have been sent here to search for a runaway serf boy.

The soldier was looking impatient. “Come, boy—how is it you are out here late, and alone?”

“I…” Ian bit his lip. “I came out to … to gather nuts.” He didn’t even sound convincing to himself.

Nor to the freelance. “So late at night?”

“It was this morning, sir,” Ian improvised. “But I lost my way, and try as I would to find my home, I think I’m even further lost. So I have no idea where I am, or where my home is.”

The freelance scowled, like a thundercloud. “You are a very poor liar,” he said severely. Suddenly, he smiled again. “Well, I am properly served. It is no business of mine, why you are out here—and if you lie about it, you seem to feel no need of my help to get home again.” He looked Ian over, puzzled. “Too young to have a brand on you. Still, there is no doubt you are a serf’s son. If the soldiers catch you here, late and alone at night, it will go hard with you.” He seemed to come to a decision, and stood. Ian stared up at him, awed, for the process of standing seemed to go on and on as the man unfolded and expanded. He was a giant, or at least, much taller than any man Ian had ever seen!

He held out a hand. “Walk with me, then, boy, and I’ll be your protection from them. You are my apprentice, accompanying me to polish my armor and mend my clothes.”

Ian seized the hand with relief and gladness—here was a friend where he had least expected to find one, his passport out of the forest and to safety.

But…

“Sir,” he said, “will the foresters believe it?”

The freelance smiled. “It is rare, true. Few blankshield soldiers would wish to burden themselves with a child. Still, it is not unknown, and when we’ve come out of the forest, I will buy you some clothes that befit your new station. We will say that you are my nephew.”

But Ian remembered that the soldiers who were looking for him would scarcely believe such a tale—and that they were still looking for a young serf boy who had run away.

It was almost as though the soldier heard his thoughts. “There were foresters and soldiers thick about here just now. Like as not, they were hunting for you. They would scarcely believe such a tale.” He nodded, agreeing with himself. “Yes. We had better go quickly, then, boy, and very quietly, by back trails. What have you done, that they should search for you by night in this wilderness?”

Ian’s heart leaped into his throat—but he swallowed, and forced himself to speak. What could he say, except the truth? Anything else would be to abuse this new-found friend. If he chose to have nothing to do with a runaway, well, then Ian was no worse off than before—but if he found it out later, then he might betray Ian to the foresters in anger. “I have escaped, sir.” Not all the truth, perhaps, but enough.

And the soldier seemed satisfied. He nodded and said, “Come, then. I know what it is, to escape—and be found.”

Ian looked up, startled at his tone—but the freelance was no longer smiling, nor looking at him. He was gazing straight ahead, frowning—and remembering.

Basic training was a crashing bore. Magnus couldn’t understand why the other recruits complained so much—ten-mile hikes in the middle of the night were an inconvenience, of course, but nothing he hadn’t had to do at home, now and then. Learning to ride was no problem for a young man who had virtually grown up on horseback, though his city-bred companions had quite a few choice words to say about the hardness of their saddles as they were learning to post. He became used to hearing them grumble, “Where are the brakes on this thing?” and, “Show him who’s boss, she says! Confounded beast knows who’s boss, no matter who’s in the saddle!”

Magnus had the good sense to keep his mouth shut when the instructor was teaching them how to pitch camp, and did pick up a few useful tricks without giving in to the impulse to mention a few of his own. He went on keeping his mouth shut while Svenson, the grizzled old field agent who was in charge of martial arts, gave them a ritual dressing-down and challenge before he began teaching them.

“Ed Gar!” he snorted as he passed Magnus, checking his name from the list. He looked him up and down, mostly up, and said, “Gar Pike, more likely, as long as you are, and with that length of jaw!”

Magnus didn’t respond, recognizing the gambit of insult, to make him know his place. Svenson eyed him hungrily, hoping for indignation, for a challenge to put down, but didn’t get it, and only sighed as he turned away to the next recruit, shaking his head. Then he gave them a brief lecture about martial arts, telling them why they wore such outlandish uniforms for practice, and how the color of the belt denoted the level of their skill, which was why theirs were white. To his credit, he told them a little of the philosophy underlying it, too, though it was mostly as a guide to how to defeat an attacker.

Then he put them through their paces in unarmed combat. Magnus dutifully mimicked every move the man made, duplicated every sequence of blows, but forgot to do it clumsily at first, and the veteran pulled him aside at the end of the second session. “Done this before, haven’t you?”

“I didn’t think it showed,” Magnus answered. “When you do every move exactly right the first time? You bet it shows! What belt do you hold?” Magnus could have claimed to be a belted knight, which was true, but he knew it wasn’t quite what the man had in mind. “None.”

“No belt?” Svenson frowned-up, of course. He was a foot shorter than Magnus, though just as heavily built, and almost as fast. “Your instructor’s guilty of gross negligence! What school did you go to?”

“None, for martial arts,” Magnus said.

Svenson’s frown deepened. “Where’d you learn it, then?”

“From my father, as I grew up.”

Svenson turned away, looking exasperated, and nodded. “Yep, that explains it, all right. Here I am, trying to teach these lunkheads something that you took for granted. I don’t suppose he ever took you to competition?”

Magnus knew he was speaking of formal tournaments, not actual combat. “No. We lived very far out in the … boondocks.” The word was unfamiliar, but he managed to remember it.

“Too far to go to the nearest tournament, eh? What did he teach you? Kung fu? Karate? Jujitsu?” Magnus stared, then spread his hands, at a loss. “He taught me to fight.”

“A little bit of everything,” Svenson interpreted, “all rolled together into a system that can take on any of them—which is just what I’m teaching you. No, cancel that—what I’m teaching the rest of these would-be heroes. Maybe I oughta have you join the teaching staff.”

Magnus picked his words with care. “By your leave, sir, that might be damaging to morale.” Svenson gave him an approving glance. “Yes, it might, and it might set them all against you, too. Good point, Gar Pike. We’ll just keep on as we’re going, shall we? With you pretending you don’t know anything—and who knows, you might pick up a few new techniques.”

“Yes, sir,” Magnus agreed. “I’ll try to be a bit more clumsy from now on.”

He wasn’t the only one who already knew martial arts, but the other had much better sense than to let it show. His name was Siflot, and he was wiry and nimble, but pretended to be clumsy. He had a marvelous sense of humor, though, and every trip, every stumble, brought laughter from those around him. Siflot always came up grinning, which Magnus at first ascribed to good sportsmanship, but eventually realized was satisfaction—Siflot had intended to get a laugh, and was grinning because he had succeeded. During the first evening, though, he stepped aside from the campfire, took three balls out of his pockets, and began to juggle. Conversation gradually stilled as the other recruits watched him, waiting for a fumble, a dropped ball—but it never came. Finally, Siflot caught all three balls and tucked them away, turning back to the campfire—and noticed all eyes on him. He laughed, embarrassed. “I have to practice every day, that’s all, or I’ll lose my touch.” He sat down by the fire.

“I can see why you’d want to keep it, a skill like that,” Ragnar said.

“That could be useful in a medieval society,” Lancorn added.

“It’s an old skill,” Siflot admitted, smiling at her. She smiled back with a slumbrous look, but it seemed to go right past Siflot; he turned back to the fire, asking Ragnar, “What tricks do the jugglers do, in your home?”

The conversation picked up again, but Magnus gazed at Siflot, weighing him. He certainly had intended his mates to notice his skill, though Magnus didn’t doubt he did need to stay in practice—and if he could juggle like that, he certainly couldn’t be as clumsy as he pretended. No, more—deliberately taking pratfalls like his required a great deal of skill and control over his body. Why, Magnus wondered, was he playing the fool?

He had his answer in the others’ reactions to Siflot. Within days, everyone liked him—and were a little condescending. Everyone knew that Siflot could never be a threat—which meant that if he ever did need to fight one of them, he would have the advantage of tremendous surprise. In the meantime, he had become everyone’s friend and everyone’s confidant—there was no one who didn’t trust Siflot. Why not? He could never hurt them.

But Magnus had a different notion of the matter, and the second day, he managed to pair up with Siflot in unarmed combat class. True to his promise to Svenson, he did his best to be clumsy, stumbling as often as Siflot and falling down in the middle of a throw just as he did. The climax of the day came when they both kicked at each other at the same moment, and both missed. Siflot laughed, and Magnus grinned, then stepped in for a hip-throw and stumbled, giving Siflot the perfect opportunity to pin him with an elbow-lock, which the juggler dutifully did—then skidded in his own turn, and landed right beside Magnus, who looked over at him, grinned, and said with all the sarcasm he could muster, “White belt, sure.”

A wary look flickered over Siflot’s face, then was swallowed in an impish grin. “Why, Gar Pike, how could I be anything else?”

Svenson stamped up to spare Magnus an answer. “If you two clowns are through with the circus now, we might get on with the lesson.”

“Oh yes, Sir! Yes, Sir!” Siflot rolled up to his feet, nodding—no, bobbing. “It was the hip-throw, wasn’t it, sir?” And he grabbed Magnus and executed the move perfectly—except that when Magnus was at the top of the arc, Siflot collapsed. Magnus couldn’t help it—he burst into laughter as he rolled off Siflot, then caught the smaller man’s shoulder, asking, “Are you all right?”

Siflot came up grinning. “Why, of course, friend Pike—you landed as a feather would.” Then, to Svenson, “I’m learning, sir.”

“Sure are,” Svenson growled. “Pretty soon, maybe you won’t fall until he hits the ground. A little more effort and a little less humor, Siflot.” He turned away, fighting to keep his face straight.

They faced off again. Siflot asked, “And how old were you when you took your black belt, friend Pike?”

“I never did,” Magnus answered. “We don’t use them.”

“Ah. Suspenders, no doubt.”

“No, garters. Think you can stay on your feet this time, friend Siflot?”

“No, friend Pike, but I might stay on yours.” They all called him “Pike” by the third day, following Svenson’s lead. Ragnar claimed the name suited him.

Siflot kept the classes from being boring, with his mock clumsiness and wide-eyed innocence that led him to ask the most hilarious questions. Still, Svenson was only teaching Magnus what he already knew, and he had to summon all his patience to take them with good grace.

But the acculturation classes were another matter, partly because it was material he didn’t know at all—the background, social system, and customs of the world he was being sent to—and partly because Allouene was teaching them. Soaking up the history, dialect, and laws of a new planet was fascinating, and watching Allouene was a pleasure that Magnus felt to his marrow, even though she was all business as she paced before the class, with nothing seductive or alluring in her manner. But the honey of her hair still shone, her eyes flashed as she told them about the inequities of the aristocratic system, and her movements were poetry.

Apparently, Magnus’s heart was not locked up quite as tightly as he had thought—but even if it had been, the rest of his body was not. Watching Allouene roused physical sensations that permeated Magnus’s whole body, even though his emotions stirred only slightly.

Of course, he feigned a relaxed posture and kept his face impassive, showing none of what he felt. “We’ll begin by telling you why we’re going,” she said, “and the answer is that the agent in charge has called for help.”

“I thought SCENT didn’t like to send in lots of agents,” Ragnar said.

Allouene nodded, making her hair sway around her face in a way that Magnus found enchanting. “SCENT rules are very strict about disrupting indigenous cultures, and the fewer agents involved, the less the chance of disruption. The ideal is to send in one agent only, and have him put the planet on the road to democracy single-handed—but that almost never happens.”

The words transfixed Magnus—for that was exactly what his father had done: come to Gramarye as an agent of SCENT and set it on the road to democracy, single-handed. Well, not by himself, no, but without calling in any other SCENT agents. He made do with local talent—very well: he married one, and raised some others.

Of course, that was unjust. Magnus knew quite well that Rod Gallowglass had stayed on Gramarye because he had fallen in love with Magnus’s mother. He knew it not just from his parents’ report, but from several others of the older generation who had witnessed it—including Fess. And anything the children had done had been incidental.

Until now.

“Usually the scout agent calls for help,” Allouene went on, “just as he has in this case. His name is Oswald Majorca, and he has set up a thriving business as a merchant, which allows him to travel anywhere he wants, even to other continents. It also gives him an excuse to send his own agents to any other city, and they might ‘just happen’ to stop over at any place in between. He has situated himself admirably, and given us a great start. It’s up to us not to blow it for him.”

Allouene turned to key the display screen to a diagram of a solar system, showing a yellow sun tinged with orange. “It’s a G-type star, but it’s cooler than Sol, so even though the planet’s only the second one out and is closer to its sun than Terra is to Sol, it has about the same temperature range. It has three continents—the largest has an inland sea—and a host of islands. Serfs flee to those islands now and then, so the lords have to mount expeditions to clean them out periodically.”

“They could just leave them alone,” Lancorn objected.

There were only the four of them in this class—presumably, Allouene was keeping her mission small. Magnus was glad to see that Siflot was one of the four.

“Of course the lords could leave them alone,” Allouene agreed, “but they aren’t about to. The official excuse is to eliminate piracy—but they also, incidentally, wipe out any possibility that somebody besides the ruling elite might have a decent life, and make sure that the serfs don’t go getting ideas about rising above their station. There’s a pocket of escaped serfs growing to the critical point right now, on an island they’ve named Castlerock…” An island toward the northern coast of the inland sea began to glow… “and the lords are getting ready for a full-scale expedition. They’ve already sent a small band, but the serfs killed off the officers and persuaded the soldiers to join them.”

“Dangerous,” Siflot murmured, and Lancorn looked at him in surprise.

“The lords think so, too,” Allouene agreed. “That’s why they’re preparing the big expedition—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the basics. History next.”

Her four students keyed their notebook displays to the topic.

“This all started seven hundred years ago, when the government of the Terran Sphere was still the Interstellar Dominion Electorates. A thousand or so financiers set up the planet as a tax haven. They had the arrogance and audacity to name it just that—Taxhaven. They were ready for retirement, so they found an undeveloped world and bought it outright. Then they shipped in all the machinery necessary for a luxurious life-style, and each declared it to be the permanent site of residence for his or her whole family. They left their sons and daughters on Terra to look after business.”

Ragnar raised a hand. “But wouldn’t they still have come under the Terran tax laws?”

“Technically, no,” Allouene said, “and the technicalities were exactly what their lawyers went to court with. The financiers gave up their citizenship and declared themselves to be a sovereign government, so they didn’t have to pay tax to the I.D.E.”

“The businesses would still have been taxed,” Ragnar objected.

“Their accountants arranged things so that the businesses were either operating at a loss, or showing so little profit that it didn’t matter—not hard, when all the real profits were going to Taxhaven.”

“The I.D.E. allowed that kind of gold flow outside its boundaries?” Lancorn asked, amazed.

“No—the younger generation officially sent all the profits to their parents’ Terran accounts, which were only nominally taxed, since the older generation were foreign citizens. Of course, the ‘kids’ had the use of their parents’ mansions and yachts, and were paid excellent salaries for pocket money—but officially, they were just hired help.”

“Neat,” Ragnar said sourly. “Very neat.”

Magnus had trouble following it all; where he came from, you paid what tax you were told, or you went to prison. He made a note to look up Terran tax laws.

“Didn’t the second generation feel as though they were getting short shrift?” Lancorn asked. “No—they knew their day was coming, and in the meantime, they were enjoying power and privilege. When they reached retirement age and grew weary of the fleshpots of Terra, they moved to Taxhaven and left the third generation to take care of business on Terra and the inner planets.”

“Of course, they had been waiting in demure patience for their turn at power,” Siflot murmured. “Very good, Siflot,” Allouene said, with surprised approval. “I thought you’d never say anything. Gar, you might work on that, too. No, the grandchildren had been fuming at not being the big cheeses, so they didn’t mind being left holding the moneybag when Poppa and Momma wanted to retire to the boondocks.”

“Then Poppa and Momma could champ at the bit.” The idiom came easily to Magnus, and he was probably the only one there who understood what it really meant.

“A word to the wise was sufficient.” Allouene gave Magnus a slow smile. “Will you always do as I bid you?”

Magnus felt the thrill pass through him, and give her a smile in return. “Always awaiting your ‘come hither,’ Madame.”

She turned back to the screen with a self-satisfied smile, and Magnus felt the danger pass, though the thrill still vibrated within him. “You’re right about the second generation,” Allouene said, “but when Grandma and Grandpa finally died, the fortune officially stayed on Taxhaven, and the second generation became the dukes and marquises and counts. Then the third generation retired and moved up to take over the estates and fortunes, while the fourth took over the business—and so it went.”

“And the government never caught on to them?” Lancorn asked, outraged.

“They caught on right away, but there was a limit to how much they could do about it. As the generations passed, the government put increasing pressure on Taxhaven to become an official dominion, part of the I.D.E., and therefore subject to the same tax laws as the rest of the Terran planets, but Taxhaven adamantly refused, and had the Sol-side lawyers and lobbyists to be able to prevent a takeover. Their lobbyists and tame Electors were also able to keep the I.D.E. from boosting taxes on Solar System earnings much past five percent, and to frustrate every other stratagem the Executive Secretary of the I.D.E. could think of.”

“There had to be a limit to that kind of influence,” Ragnar said, frowning. “I thought the I.D.E. turned to a rob-from-the-rich, give-to-the-masses program toward the end.”

Allouene nodded. “During the last, dark days of the I.D.E., the rabble-rousing Electors of the LORDS party rammed through legislation forcing the Tax haven barons to pay their back taxes. The move gained them a lot of support from the masses, but the Taxhaven families had just finished selling off all their holdings. They retired to the ‘home planet’ en masse—except for those family members who were also in the LORDS party, making sure that no matter which way fortune fell, the Taxhaven families would prosper. These members were instrumental in the coup d’etat that finally buried the I.D.E. and set up the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra, which cut off contact with the outer, and unprofitable, planets—including Taxhaven.”

“Alas!” Siflot wiped away an imaginary tear. “That must have broken all their clinking hearts!” No one laughed, but everyone’s lips quirked in amusement. Allouene smiled broadly and nodded. “It couldn’t have worked out better for them.”

“Meaning it was their offspring who set it up,” Ragnar interpreted.

“Certainly they supported the idea. After all, it was in perfect accord with the wishes of the Taxhaven aristocracy, as they termed themselves—they had officially cut off communication with Terra from their end, anyway. So the families relaxed and lolled back among their local riches, and devoted themselves to every pleasure they could think of, while their younger members saw to it that they still received their dividends from all the Terran-sphere companies in which they owned stock.”

Lancorn frowned. “I thought you said they had been cut off from Terra.”

“Only officially,” Siflot said.

“Very good,” Allouene said. “Yes, there was still a tiny but constant stream of communication with Terra and its richer colonies—unofficial, clandestine, technically illegal, but carefully protected by wealth and privilege at both ends of the line. It sent not only money, but also every luxury the Terran planets could boast, and every new one that was invented. This even included a few items of state-of-the-art technology, but not many.”

“I thought they wanted every luxury they could think of,” Ragnar said.

“Perhaps,” Magnus murmured, “but they did not want to have to look at the technology that produced it.”

Allouene looked up sharply. “You sound as though you know, Gar.”

Magnus felt the tension, so he shrugged very casually. “I’ve seen people like that.”

“Well, you’re right.” Allouene was eyeing him in a new light. “The founding families had decided that the most graceful and elegant age of Terra’s history had been the late Seventeenth Century, the age of Charles the Second and Louis the Fourteenth, of the Drury Lane Theater and the Three Musketeers, and had devoted themselves to living with all the luxuries of that age but none of the inconveniences. They dressed in their own versions of 1670’s clothing, took the waters at spas, attended reproductions of Restoration theaters, rode horses and drove in carriages, flocked to each other’s balls, and paraded in their own court masques.”

“Very pretty,” Magnus murmured. “I understand the real seventeenth century had its share of filth and sickness, though.”

“Let us not be too historically accurate,” Siflot said softly.

Allouene laughed with them, then nodded. “Yes, they wanted limits—renovation, not restoration. Modern medicine banished the specter of disease that had so ravished the real Seventeenth Century, and modern building materials prevented a recreation of the Great Fire of London. Their carriages rode on hidden anti-gravity units that cushioned the jarring of springless iron wheels, and modern weapons guaranteed their safety.”

“Safety?” Magnus frowned. “From whom? Are there ferocious animals you have not told us about?” Allouene shook her head, and her golden mane swirled prettily, almost making Magnus miss the next few words. “Anything that looked like a dangerous predator had been annihilated when they first arrived, except for a few specimens kept in zoo-parks as curiosities.”

“What else was there to fear?” Lancorn demanded, but she looked as though she didn’t want to know. “What else?” Allouene repeated, with a grim smile. “What was the Restoration without Nell Gwyn? Who was going to perform in their theaters? Who would warm their beds when they wished to be naughty, who would shift the scenes …?”

“Who would grow the food?” Magnus murmured. “Robots could do that,” Ragnar protested.

“Of course,” Lancorn agreed, “but who would cook it?”

“Again, robots!”

Allouene nodded. “Robots could have done it—but it was so much more satisfactory to have a living cook to scold and threaten. In fact, when you really get right down to it, one of the greatest pleasures of the aristocracy has always been having peasants to lord it over and kick around, and wait upon you hand and foot.”

Magnus sat immobile. He couldn’t quite claim innocence, but he had always been angry with lords who mistreated their people. He’d even done something about it, once or twice—personally.

“The ladies needed maids to help them dress and undress, after all,” Allouene went on, “and the men needed valets. The land needed tenants to care for it, and living human beings were so much more aesthetic than soulless robots.”

“So they brought slaves,” Lancorn growled. “Serfs,” Allouene corrected. “They’re tied to the soil—even if the land changes hands, they don’t. They stay on the estate. The one good thing about it is that they can’t be bought and sold.”

“The only good thing,” Lancorn snorted. “Where did they get them?” Ragnar growled. “The original would-be aristocrats each recruited a hundred ordinary people who badly needed money,” Allouene told them. “Some were horribly in debt to the founders, some were chronic gamblers, some were alcoholics and drug addicts, some were poor, some wanted enough money to have families. All were seduced by the offer of a lifetime’s income in return for five years’ service on a new world, the salary to be held in a Terran bank for them, earning interest until their return. A hundred recruits for each plutocrat, a hundred who gladly agreed to come along—or sometimes reluctantly, not that it mattered.”

“A hundred thousand serfs in the making,” Lancorn said, paling.

Magnus sat frozen. Was this how the peasants of his own world of Gramarye had been recruited—with lies and coercion? But no—he remembered; Father Marco Ricci had left records, and Magnus’s parents had gone back in time and talked with people who had been there. The ancestors of Gramarye’s people had volunteered, and gladly—they had been trying to escape the depersonalized society that had evolved with high technology. No doubt they hadn’t realized how their descendants would live—but people seldom thought things through to the end. Including himself?

For the first time, Magnus wondered what he was getting himself into.

“Why didn’t they leave when their five years were up?” Siflot asked, but from the tone of his voice, he had already guessed.

“Because they couldn’t,” Ragnar snorted.

“They never came back, of course,” Lancorn agreed. “How could they, if their lords didn’t want them to? Who owned the spaceships, who controlled the police?” She looked to Allouene for confirmation.

The lieutenant nodded. “The hundred thousand were immediately locked into serfdom, and never came out of it. Moreover, the lords demanded that they have families, and there weren’t very many of them who had the strength to risk the punishments waiting for anyone who disobeyed. The few who held out were tortured, and caved in quickly—especially since the very few who refused to give in in spite of the pain, died in the process.”

“So the lords were sure they wouldn’t run out of servants,” Lancorn said, her face stony.

“The next generation was guaranteed,” Allouene said, “and the first batch of rebellious genes had been weeded out. The second generation of serfs grew up with the habit of obedience, and learned how to swallow their anger—and outrage and rebellion.”

“Weren’t there any who couldn’t quench the fires?” Siflot asked softly.

“Of course,” Allouene said. “In every generation a few rebelled—and were hanged, or drawn and quartered, or killed in battle. No matter which way, over the generations, their genes were weeded out.”

“But other genes were reinforced.”

Ragnar frowned, puzzled; Lancorn cocked her head to the side, finger to her cheek; but Magnus just sat rigidly, and Siflot stared in horror. “Of course!” he cried. “Only a hundred thousand! Inbreeding!”

Allouene nodded. “A hundred thousand isn’t a very large gene pool, after all, and after a few generations, no matter who you married, he or she was probably related to you, one way or another. By the tenth generation, they definitely were, no ‘probably’ about it—and recessive gene reinforced recessive gene. The consequences of inbreeding began to appear: loss of intelligence, dwarfism, gigantism, hemophilia—and mental illness. Coupled with genius sometimes, other times with idiocy, sometimes all by itself—but madness nonetheless.”

“They had to have known,” Ragnar growled. “The original lords must have known what they were doing to the future generations.”

But Magnus shook his head. “Why should they have thought it through? They didn’t care.”

“But they should have cared about their own descendants!” Lancorn turned to Allouene. “It hit them too, didn’t it?”

Allouene nodded. “Not as fast as among the serfs, nor as badly—they always had a steady stream of new blood trickling in from Terra, after all—but they did have occasional outbreaks. Far more often, it showed up among the gentry.”

“Gentry?” Ragnar asked. “Did they coerce some bourgeois into coming along, too?”

“No,” Allouene said. “They made them locally.” Ragnar shook his head, missing the reference. “Where did they come from?”

“Oh, Ragnar!” Lancorn snapped. “Don’t be any more dense than you have to be!”

Ragnar glowered at her. “Maybe I’m just too naïve. Spell it out for me, O wise one.”

“Well,” she answered, “what do you think is going to happen when a lord brings in a buxom serf wench to warm his bed?”

Ragnar froze.

“There will be a child who looks remarkably like that lord,” Siflot said softly.

Allouene nodded, her face hard. “Occasionally, a bastard might result from a lady’s inviting some strapping, handsome young serf in for the night, but far less frequently than the lords’ by-blows—it was a rare noblewoman who wanted to go through nine months of pregnancy ending in labor, for a peasant man. Far more often, the ladies, like the lords, only wanted pleasure, not more children. The lords could have used birth control medications of their own with their peasant wenches, of course, but they wanted to increase the population. Why not? The more there were, the more servants they had.”

“After all,” Magnus murmured, “a lord’s valet should be a gentleman, not a serf, should he not?” Allouene frowned, even as she nodded. “You sound as if you know, Gar. But you’re right—and the steward of the estate should be better-born than the average laborer, and there was a need for lawyers, and for clerks to handle the drudgery of the trickle of trade, and to oversee the building of new houses and the laying out of new gardens, and to act in the theaters…”

“So a class of petty aristocracy came into being,” Ragnar interpreted.

Allouene shook her head. “Gentry aren’t noble, Ragnar—the lords make a very big point of that. They’re a middle class, between the serfs and the nobility. In Europe, they came from the knights and the squires, and from the merchants; on Taxhaven, they’ve been given the same jobs, if not the titles. But they’ve developed their own pedigrees and mores anyway. They’ve never owned land legally, but when the same family of gentry has been in charge of the same hundred acres for three generations, it creates the illusion of ownership, and certainly a tie to the land. They’re allowed to earn money and save it in their own right, and are comfortably well-off, even sometimes wealthy in a small way. They resent their neglectful parent class, of course, but nonetheless, they side with the lords against the serfs, more or less automatically—they have something to lose, after all. Of course, there are always new gentlemen coming into being, not of the established families, and they’re scorned and looked down upon, and only allowed to marry one of the new gentlewomen—but their children are accepted, so the class keeps increasing in number. They’re the middle-rank officers in the army, the mid-level managers on the estates, the tax collectors and magistrates and squires. They’re resented by the serfs, and resent the lords in their own turn—but each class knows its place, and knows the painful, even lethal, penalties for stepping out of that place, so the society endures, though not happily.”

So they were bound for a planet governed by grown-up spoiled brats who intended to stay that way, lording it over a population of serfs dressed in medieval simplicity and filth, with an intermediary class of gentry to take care of the day-to-day administration and the direct contact with the serfs.

Magnus could see why Allouene had decided they needed changing.