Shame of Man (45 page)

At last they were in the city proper. Nestled within its stout walls, it seemed ordinary, apart from its eerie silence, because they could not see out over the ragged landscape. But both Aan and Min were breathing faster, because the air seemed thin here, though perhaps it was just from
their exertion. The slave guided them through the narrow avenues between stone buildings to the building where Huu and Kip were.

Huu met them at the entrance with a mixed expression. He was glad to see them, obviously, but apprehensive too. He didn't hug them in his usual fashion, but simply led them inside. Min clutched Aan's hand, shivering, and that made Aan more nervous. Min always seemed to know what was serious and what was not.

Kip was lying on a cushioned pallet, and Aan knew immediately that he was seriously ill. Sweat glistened on his forehead, yet he was shivering much as Min was. Aan glanced at Min, and saw similar sweat on her forehead. She was relating to the illness, in her fashion.

Aan fell to her knees, embracing her son. He felt her touch, and his eyes flickered open. He formed a tremulous smile. “Mother.”

“Yes, my darling, I am here,” she said soothingly. But she felt the terrible heat of him; he was shivering while burning. She knew that he had the fever of injury, the kind that killed wounded men, and he was only a boy.

“So cold,” he said, and closed his eyes again. She hugged him closer, and kissed his fiery face, reassuring him by her closeness and love.

“I am here,” she repeated. “I will make you well.” But the fear gnawed at her core, as cold as Kip was hot.

She heard Min's sobbing, muffled by Huu's cloak. Then she knew that her son could not be saved. She had arrived only in time to give him comfort as he died.

Scil followed the path along the rugged coastline, carrying her precious burden of breadfruit. The breadfruit tree fruited seasonally, and when the season was short, there could be famine. Life was hard, especially for those of the lower classes, and recent warfare had made it harder. She had hoped to marry well, but that had not worked out.

She came to the high square platform of fitted basalt stones that supported the house. Scev was there, wakened from his nap by her return. He ran to hug her, scrambling down from the higher level and around the red tuff slabs that divide their house.

Scil liked few folk, and loved none—except her three-year-old son. But she was practical, and knew that raising him without a father was not going to get easier. But she never told him that. Soon she had some breadfruit for him to eat.

Later, Baa entered the house. “The musician has lost his son,” he said gruffly. “Now is your chance.”

“I'm not giving him
my
son!” Scil said, glancing around to be sure that Scev was beyond hearing.

“You don't need to
give
him your son. Sell him.”

“What?”

Her brother explained. Then, slowly, Scil smiled. This was the break she had been waiting for.

Now it was time to walk the practice block to its destination. The real statue would be brought to the base of the quarry mountain, stood up, and finished on the backside—a process that would take some time. But the block needed no such attention, as it was of no account. They would use it until the drill was perfect, and by that time the real statue should be ready.

Huu's heart was hardly in it, but he had a job to do and a pretense to maintain. He had to demonstrate that even the loss of his only son and only natural child could not affect his composure as a long ear. No slave could be allowed to see him suffer.

So he lay in his shelter, alone, hoping to get enough sleep to enable him to put on the proper show of indifference in the morning, and to be able to play faultlessly for the practice sessions. Any tears he had, had to be now, covered by the darkness.

“Long ear Huu.” It was a woman's voice, with the short-ear intonation. “I bring what you need.”

“I need nothing,” he replied curtly. Slave sex was the last thing he wanted at a time like this.

“It is Scil. I beg you heed me.”

Scil—the wench he had used four years ago to warm the nights. She had been a luscious body, but he knew her to be a calculating creature, and he wanted none of her now.

“Depart.”

“You must listen,” she said, crawling into his shelter.

Anger flared at this violation. “I told you no!” He lifted his hand to strike her.

“I brought your son.”

His hand froze in the darkness. She had interfered with the funeral preparations for Kip? “My son is dead. If you—”

“Your son by me. Here is his hand.” She caught his hand in the darkness and placed in it a small hand, that of a child not far beyond walking age.

“You had a son by me?” he asked, astonished. “I know nothing of this!”

“I did not tell you of him.”

He realized that it could be. He had had his pleasure of her several times. Then the mission had finished, and he had returned to Aan and needed no more bed warming. The wench had begged him to stay with her, but of course he hadn't. He had not seen her since. This child was the right age.

“Why?”

“Because when I had him in my belly, I knew there were three fates for
him, and two of them I did not like. So I hid him instead. Only my people knew.”

And of course her short-ear friends would not tell long ears what she did not wish them to. The short ears were as good at keeping secrets from long ears as the long ears were at keeping power from short ears. So he had never learned or even suspected. “Three fates?”

“You could kill him. You could take him into your family. You could leave him to me. I did not wish to lose him by either death or long-ear adoption.”

“I would not kill a child!” Huu protested.

“But neither would you give him up.”

He was silent, considering. She was probably right. Normally the offspring of mixed-class unions remained with the mother, but this was not fixed. He and Aan had adopted Min; they probably would have adopted a son he sired. Scil would have been powerless to prevent it, being of the slave class. “I would have taken him,” he agreed.

“So I kept him, and I remained away from you despite my longing for you, because you would have seen by my breasts that I was nursing.”

Also true. Long ears normally were clothed, but short ears usually wore only grass skirts. So that explained why she had disappeared, despite seeming to enjoy warming his bed those nights. She had just confirmed that she had liked it, and explained why she had come to him no more. He had thought she had merely lost interest, and though any long-ear man could claim any short-ear woman at any time regardless of her short-ear relationships, such as having a husband, he had not wished to have any woman against her will.

Then something else occurred to him. “Why reveal this now? I could still take him from you.”

“Only at my price.”

“Price?” This was not the way a short ear spoke to a long ear.

“I reveal him now because you are in need of a son.”

Suddenly her rationale came clear. He had lost his son, and now learned that he had another. She was cynical, but that was in character. She had bided her time, hiding her son, until her opportunity came. But exactly what did she hope to accomplish?

“Price?” he repeated.

“Marry me.”

“But I have a wife!”

“Divorce her.”

The audacity of this demand stunned him. “You expect me to divorce my long-ear wife in favor of a short-ear woman?”

“She can never give you another son. I can. You may raise him as a long ear. I will oppose nothing—if you recognize me as your wife.”

“Impossible!” Amazement was giving way to outrage.

“And I can warm you as well as any woman can, as you know,” she said. She removed the little boy's hand from his and lifted his hand to her bare breast. It was no longer a nursing breast, but was marvelously full and firm, with a nice nipple. The touch stirred his groin.

But it was not enough. “I love Aan. I do not love you. I will not do it.”

“Then I will not give you the boy.”

“I will take him!”

“You will not find him. Already I have sent him back to hiding.”

Huu realized that the boy had left them. At three years old, he could obey such an instruction. “How do I know he is mine?”

“If you saw him by day, you would know. Anyone would. He has fair skin and red hair. I have been with no other long-ear man.”

She was surely right again. But she was mistaken in thinking that he would summarily dismiss his wife for the sake of a natural son. “No.”

“I will give you time to consider,” she said, stretching out beside him. Her warm body touched his along its length.

“No,” he repeated. “I will adopt the boy, but I will not divorce my wife. I will not marry you.”

“We shall see,” she said. Then she drew away from him, and was silently gone.

Huu had thought that grief might keep him awake. Now he had two reasons, because the vamp had succeeded in arousing him, and had left him unfulfilled. Yet her demand remained impossible. He would not separate from Aan.

Yet how was he to get that boy, his son? He knew that Scil was too crafty to try to present a pretend son to him, and certainly she could have gotten the baby from their liaison of four years before. Taken now, the child could be raised as a long ear, and have his ears properly extended, and Huu's line would continue. That prospect was gaining in appeal. His grief for Kip still raged, but his sensible mind saw the advantage in replacing his lost son quickly.

What would Aan think of it? He knew she would accept it, because she had always treasured Min, who was no blood kin to either of them; she would be glad of a half-son.

None of which mitigated their agony over the loss of Kip. The boy had died with honor, upholding long-ear standards of conduct, but that did not alleviate the void. How readily he could have been saved, if only anyone had known what was about to happen! But it had been so sudden.

There was no profit in such thinking. Huu tried to turn his mind away from it. But then the thought of Scil's offer returned, and he did not want to dwell on that either.

He would ask Aan. She was grief-stricken too, for the same reason, but
she would know what was best. Certainly he would not divorce her, but there might be some other avenue.

With that thought, he began to relax, and finally he slept.

In the morning everything was ready. The slaves had been assembled, the ropes were attached, and the block was ready to walk. They had studied this in the script, and tried it with little models. They knew how to do it. But they had never before done it on this scale. There could be ugly surprises, just as there had been when sliding the block down the mountain slope.

The foremen was well aware of that. This was the practice block, but it was the same size as the statue, which meant that it stood twice the height of a man and would crush any man it landed on. They had already seen its power when it pinned Kip. There seemed to be a malignancy to it, as if its spirit was determined to wreak any mischief it could. The stone did not like to be moved from its home, and resisted their effort.

“Now here is how it goes,” the foreman said. He brought out a much smaller wooden model. “We pull on the high rope until it tilts, like so—” He angled the wood block so that it was tilting on one side. “Then we pull on the low rope, so, and the other side comes forward.” He demonstrated, making the block lurch drunkenly forward as it fell back into place. “That's one step.”

The slaves murmured, beginning to appreciate how a statue could walk. Some of them tried it themselves, leaning to one side, then pulling stiff legs around to the front. It could be done.

“You will follow the music,” the foreman said. “Don't watch me. Listen. You on the top rope: when you hear this, pull, slowly.” He signaled Huu. Huu played a strident alternation of two high notes. “You on the bottom rope: when you hear this, pull swiftly.” Huu played an alternation of two lower notes. “When your music stops, you stop. Instantly.”

Then, to be sure they had it, the foreman demonstrated again with his wooden block. Huu played the high notes, and the man tilted the block to one side. Then Huu played the low notes, and the side jerked forward. “One step at a time,” the foreman concluded. “Then we change the ropes to the opposite sides, so we can step the other side forward. Any questions?”

“Won't it take a long time to get anywhere?” a slave asked.

“No longer than it took to raise it,” the foreman said. “But we'll get it done. Anyway, this is just one stage of it; the next lesson will be how to haul it on rollers, where we have room.”

Then they went to work on the stone block. Men climbed ladders to its head section, and wrapped a reed mat around it for cushioning and protection. Of course there was no face there, but they understood that
everything had to be the same on the practice block as it would be on the real statue, or there might be other deadly surprises. The high rope was attached to one side. Then they wrapped the base similarly and attached the low rope to the other side.

The men took hold of their ropes, ten to a rope. They stretched out in their two lines. “Remember,” the foreman said, “you don't look at me or the statue. You listen for your music and pull. I will watch the statue, and the musician will watch me. So if the statue falls, it's my fault. If you do it right.”

The slaves chuckled. They would be careful to do it right. They did not want to get blamed for a mistake, and they did not want to have to erect the block a second tedious time, under the supervision of an angry long ear.

“Crew—ready,” the foreman said, and the men took good grips on their ropes. “Musician—ready.” Huu lifted his flute, his eyes on the foreman. The man had made light of the task, but there was no question that precise timing was necessary, and if the statue fell, it would take another half month to stand it up again.

The foreman glanced around at his assistant and two slave spotters, who would judge the tilt of the block from each side and signal its direction and extent by the angles of their lifted arms. Kip would have been doing that, had he not—but Huu had to drive out that thought before it destroyed his concentration. Because he had to read the foreman's signals exactly. He would not be playing long at a time, or melodically, but he had to be just right.