Desert World Allegiances (9 page)

The angle of the fall changed, and Shan opened his eyes enough to see the bottom of the dune rise up in front of him. The cycle bucked and wobbled from side to side as it slowed, and the engine finally sputtered to life again. For a half second, the fat wheels spun and threw the sand. Then Shan settled his weight back, and the extra traction allowed the back tire to finally push against the sand and send the cycle darting forward toward the giant gates to Spence Valley.

This was the oldest and most terraformed of all the valleys, so Shan imagined the farmers were more than a little pleased to burn the weeds off Erqu Gazer’s land. Ben might even have Temar doing that, although if he was kind, he wouldn’t ask the boy to burn his father’s home. Then again, Ben might not want to do anything that might help George, considering what a small-minded and arrogant man that one could be. Ben might let the weeds choke the land.

If someone didn’t clear the weeds out, eventually Chad Dura or Mara Kelligan or Tepah Starcharter or even Tom Sulli would complain. Their farms were farther from the old Gazer place, but seeds traveled, and not even walls and stone could keep the Livre wind out altogether. Ignoring the large vehicle gate that was still blocked with sand, Shan guided the bike through the narrow walkway. It was a tight fit, but the cycle was designed to make the narrow turns as the passage led a winding way through the rock into the valley.

He finally reached the top of the passage, and the valley opened below. This route took him high into the cliffs behind the Gratu farm, which was why so few people used it, but Shan enjoyed the narrow paths, steep cliffs, and dangerous turns. He turned his cycle toward the valley floor and, for a time, concentrated on not falling to his death. No doubt, Ben would not appreciate a priest and his bike falling though the barn roof.

The green fields were dotted with unskilled laborers. Naite would be working over at the Kelligan or Sulli farms, not that Shan had any desire to track him down. The cycle bounced over a low ridge and then onto the rock shelf where the Gratu house and barn sat. Sua Smith was sitting in front of a table in the sun, pipe fittings in front of her. No one could miss the wild tattoos scattered across her back.

“Sua!” Shan called. The woman turned, a pipe torch in hand, and frowned.

“Shan? Who’s dying, that we need the priest out here?” She pulled her weld mask off and set it and her torch on the table.

“Hopefully, no one. I’ve just been missing a parishioner, so I thought I would see how Temar is doing.”

Sua snorted. “That boy has his sister’s temper.”

Shan blinked in shock. “Temar?”

“Temar,” she said firmly. “Let someone say the wrong word around him, or let him be in the wrong mood, and the anger flies out of that boy.”

“Temar?” Shan repeated, and even he could hear his voice go high. He felt a little like a man who had stepped off a ship into a new world, where all the rules of the universe changed. To claim that Temar had a temper was a little like expecting water to fall from Livre skies. It did not happen.

Sua laughed, but it was an unhappy sound. “You wouldn’t think to look at him, but he has a mouth.” Sua straddled the sawhorse she had set up next to the table and pulled up the pipe she had just welded, holding it up against the sun and squinting at the joint. “Ben’s been patient to no end, but if he requests an extension on that boy’s contract, I’ll be testifying for him. Ben has less time to work his own fields, and Temar is not all that useful, even when he is in a mood to work.”

Shan could only blink as he tried to figure out if this was some odd joke on her part. “Temar?”

Sua smiled and shook her head. “The boy fooled you with that sweet look of his, didn’t he?”

“Obviously, he did.” Shan swung his leg off the sand cycle and crossed the dusty yard. “I feared he’d be beaten down by his slavery. It can’t be easy on a man, knowing that his rights are gone.”

Sua put the pipe down on the table and seemed to think on that for a second. “Sometimes I think that’s true. He’ll walk around, creeping from shadow to shadow, always looking for Ben and staying two steps behind him.”

Shan flinched at that description. Sometimes even those with short-term services lost their confidence. In Naite’s case, he had come through with plenty of ego, but then he’d had extra to spare before he started his term. But some slaves became shells of themselves. They’d come into confession, practically asking him to tell them what to confess to. That lack of power grated against Shan’s conscience and made slavery feel unnatural to him. He hadn’t wanted that for Temar. But the flares of anger—he wasn’t sure if that was a healthy and normal reaction to having so much taken from him or if Temar was in some sort of trouble. He’d like to think that Temar would know to come to him or Ben if someone on the farm was doing something, but the young man’s habit of shadowing Ben did suggest that he feared something, real or imagined.

“Where are they now?”

Sua jerked her head to the north. “Out working fields. The guys are weeding today. Considering that Ben hasn’t come back with Temar bound, the boy must be in a mood to work.”

“Bound?” Shan’s mouth went dry. He never thought Ben would be the sort to chain a slave.

Already, Sua was nodding her head. “The boy’s first day here… you should have seen the fit he threw. About as quick as Ben untied him, Cardan made a poorly considered comment about the boy’s sister. Temar went near mad. To hear it from him, Cyla is a saint, and George Young is a water thief who murdered his mother in order to steal the Gazer land, and the rest of us are in on it all. He knocked over a pile of feed, broke two lanterns, and led the men on quite the chase before Marcos pinned him. And when Marcos finally got hands on him, Temar all but collapsed, trembling and flinching. The boy caused havoc.”

She pulled the leather tie out of her hair and ran her fingers through dark curls before retying the strip. “Ben has his hands full. He had to take the boy up to the main house and keep him there for three days before he trusted the boy to not go wild. And even now, let the wrong word fall, and he’ll curse you back seven generations.”

Shan’s stomach soured. The helplessness and the flares of anger—the fear and the fury—that was a pattern he knew well enough, and he’d only seen one sort of betrayal that caused a person to react so wildly. Shan closed his eyes and cursed himself for never trying to reach out to the boy before. “Lord have mercy on Erqu Gazer’s soul, because right now I am not feeling charitable toward the man,” Shan whispered.

While Sua didn’t answer, her nod and her grim look made it clear that she agreed. So Shan wasn’t the only one to suspect the boy had been abused by that sandcat of a drunken father. Only, Temar wasn’t a boy now. He was a young man who’d been stripped of his rights, very likely because he’d been hurt and confused and no one had stepped in to protect him when he’d needed it. If Shan could dig Erqu Gazer up and bring that man back to life for one minute, he’d have more than a few words for that old drunk.

“I should go and talk to him.”

“I know Ben would appreciate someone reaching out to the boy. His patience has to be near an end.” Sua reached out and touched his arm. “You’ll help?” Shan suspected that this had to be hard on everyone at the farm. No one liked to see a young man hurting so much, but to know that he’d been your neighbor and you allowed that to happen…. Shan mentally made a note to spend a little more time out here.

“I’ll certainly try,” Shan promised her before he turned his steps toward the north field, where he’d seen people working. Sua nodded and turned her attention back to her pipes.

The paths here were narrow, and Shan chose to walk rather than risk his tires taking out the plants on the edge of the field. Ben ran a careful farm. Most of the fields were well watered, but the paths were so dry that puffs of dust rose with his steps. The first workers Shan saw were straddling the line of half-grown plants and pulling tiny weeds before they could steal too much water. The small intruders were collected in bags for the incinerator, so that their nutrients would end up back in the soil. Men and women nodded to him as he passed. Not everyone in town attended church, and few of the farmers or farm workers found it worth their time to make the trip every week, but he knew them all from weddings and funerals and Landfall celebrations and council business.

Ben was working the edge of the field where the weeds were worst, his broad back burdened with a large bag. Temar was the small figure working beside him. Shan sighed in regret. The boy had been remarkable, and even without a parent to buy him an apprenticeship, he would have found a skilled worker to sponsor him if he hadn’t attacked George Young’s water supply.

His deep blue eyes had always haunted Shan when the boy had come to service, watching with an expression that Shan could never quite understand. He was a beautiful boy… rather, he had been a beautiful boy. Now he was a beautiful man who could have made an enviable future for himself. He had a giving soul and had always been the first to lift a burden or open a door for someone in need. Shan had seen the eyes of most of the unmarried women and half the unmarried men following Temar with longing, either because of his physical beauty or his inherent goodness. Now, he was likely facing a lifetime of unskilled labor.

“Ben!” Shan called out. Ben turned, an awkward movement with his legs straddling the row of plants.

“Shan!” he called out in obvious pleasure. “What, have you come to see how honest workers make a living?” he teased.

“Considering how often I have to repair pews after your honest workers break the joints, I think I already know,” Shan teased right back as he closed the distance between them.

A frown crossed Ben’s face. “There’s not something wrong, is there?” His eyes darted over to Temar. Shan got his first look at Temar. The boy was sweating and had started to put on more muscle, but the only thing Shan could see at first was the leather gag covering his mouth. Shan stared at it until Temar dropped his head and blushed, and then Shan tore his eyes away and looked at Ben for some sort of explanation.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Ben stepped clear of the field, his hands held up as though to hold off an attack.

“You should let him hear the boy, then he’d know why he’s on four days’ restriction,” one of the other workers called from the next row. Shan vaguely remembered her from a wedding. “The boy needs to learn to think before he says things that will make others demand work days from him to compensate for his slander.”

“He’s slandering you?” Shan asked Ben in a shocked voice.

“Me? God no.” Ben shook his head. “But if George catches wind of half the slander that’s been flying around this farm, I doubt I’ll be able to keep him from demanding a month of work days from the boy. I know you’re on the council, Shan, and I hate putting you on the spot, but we need to make sure that, no matter what happens, we keep the young fool separated from George.” That shocked Shan, but now that he thought about it, it shouldn’t. Those who were abused often turned their anger somewhere… on a neighbor or even themselves, but the human body couldn’t hold that much hate without it spilling over.

“George would work him half to death and go out of his way to find tortures for the lad,” the woman in the next row agreed. “Which we’re not going to let happen.” The look she gave Temar was full of sympathy, but the boy ducked his head lower, so that his face and the gag vanished behind a veil of blond hair.

“The workers have been great,” Ben nodded. “We’re all trying to keep a lid on this young one.” Ben didn’t say anything more, but from the worried expression on his face when he looked at Temar, it was clear that he’d come to the same conclusion Shan had. Ben reached over and put a hand out for Temar, and Temar took it, allowing Ben to help balance him as he stepped over the plants and took his place next to Ben.

“And I thought Cyla was the one with the temper,” Shan admitted. He’d actually been quite worried about her, but maybe he’d been worried about the wrong Gazer, the whole time. At the mention of his sister’s name, Temar’s head came up. Ben immediately put a comforting arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulled him close. Shan watched in concern as Temar leaned into the other man, obviously seeking safety and comfort. Certainly, Temar was young, and after the death of his father and the loss of his freedom, Shan expected to see the psychological damage of slavery, but this needy fear went beyond what he had expected.

“I think the temper was inherited by both.” Ben looked down. “Sometimes I’m quite amazed at the fury that comes out of him, but he’s learning to control himself, and when he can’t, he’s learning there are consequences.” Ben reached up and brushed a bit of hair back from Temar’s face and at the same time touched the gag.

“I actually came out to talk to Temar, since he’d missed services,” Shan said, hoping Ben would catch his hint, but it was a workday, and if Temar’s owner had imposed a punishment, Shan had no business to interfere. If this were anyone other than Ben Gratu, Shan wouldn’t even suggest that he make an exception for him. But Ben was already reaching for the latch on the leather strap that went behind Temar’s head.

“I think talking is healthy for the boy, if he can control his mouth.” Ben pulled the gag off, and there was a mouthpiece that went inside Temar’s mouth and then connected to the strap that went around his head. It was dark with saliva. “Can you control your mouth? Can you honestly think about what is going to come out of your mouth and weigh the potential consequences of your words?” Ben put a finger under Temar’s chin and pushed up so that Temar had to make eye contact with him.

“Yes, I can,” Temar agreed quietly.

“Good boy.” Ben smiled and gave the boy a pat on the back. “He’s still under restrictions because his mouth is really quite remarkable, so when you two are done, put this back on before you return him,” Ben said, holding out the leather gag. Shan instinctively took what Ben offered, even though it sent a shiver of revulsion through him to do that to another human being. The leather was soft in his hand, and Ben had clearly had a worker spend a lot of time and effort to make something that wouldn’t hurt the boy, but it still made Shan’s heart ache. “Go show Shan what a mess I have on my north border, Temar. I think the council will be hearing about that soon enough.”