involuntarily to the beast.
“Oh now, now we’re for it, old fourfoot. Now we’re outlaws in this outlandish land where the customs of the country are more vicious than the circumstances, more obdurate than the very earth the men perforce work beneath.” All the strange rules and punishments he had heard of in the months he’d been there came to mind—taboos against using unproductive tones to one’s horse; prohibitions against using more than one’s small salt allowance; all the salt ordeals: the stuff forced up nostrils and down throats and into cuts carefully barbered into one’s flesh like the shapely sound holes in violins. Law proscribed his life like those, to him, mysterious rules of curteisie——the knight’s complex code, the squire’s. One had almost to be a very musician of citizenship. It was safest to sleep (though one could not oversleep), safest to take one’s meals silently in the mess, safest to crap (though one’s bowels were subject to salt inspections), to pee (encouraged as an evidence that one was not pilfering salt), safest finally to be about the merely physical business of one’s person, all else, save actual work, the careless free time of dangerous carouse.
“I learned my body here,” he told Mills’s horse, “and it learned me, accommodate to the inflexible laws of my necessity as the fixed stars. It could not dance on Sundays or during office hours if it tried.”
Guillalume stepped in front of him and did a jig.
“They’ll soon be back,” Mills warned, “they’ll see.”
“Don’t be cowardly. You’re still my father’s subject, you know. Mine, too, for that matter.”
“I’m everybody’s subject,” Mills groaned. “I have more law than a company of solicitors.”
It was true. If before he had felt slandered by their notion of him—the tapestry condition—now he knew himself crushed and circumscribed by the jurisdictional one: state, sultanate, realm, duchy, palatinate, empire, dominion, kingdom, and bog—all suzerainty’s pie slice say-so.
“Through last week’s channel,” Guillalume said, a finger to his lips. “And don’t tell the nag, for God’s sake. I’ve been teaching the farmers pieces of our language. They might overhear.”
Guillalume left.
“Taught them our language,” Mills said admiringly to the horse. “Our fortunes are mete in this world, coarse Mills’s coarse courser. We’re graduate as staircase. Only see what power’s in the blood. Mine all red and sticky gunk, his a potion. Well-a-day. Hey nonny nonny.”
The merchant had been stashed in a salt pile, buried to his neck, and Guillalume was digging him out.
“Grab a shovel,” Guillalume told Mills, “take a spade.”
“Give us a drink then, luv,” the man pleaded when they had extricated him. Salt clung everywhere, in the folds of his clothes, inside his boots, all along the fine filigree of his hundred ornaments. There was salt in the lashes of his eyes, in the ledges of his lined face. It was a capital offense of salt hoarding. “I’ve got to have water. Please!”
“It’s all right,” Guillalume said, “slake him. Use the bucket.”
Mills obeyed, watering the man as he would a horse.
“He doesn’t know what we want yet. He thinks it’s some mutiny of my own.”
“It is,” Mills said. He turned to the merchant. “It is, ” he said. “I never knew, your honor.”
Guillalume frowned. “Do you know Northumbria?” he demanded suddenly of the merchant. “Could you take us there?”
“Northumbria?”
“Aye.”
The man squinted. “Scept’red isle,” he asked after a few moments, “other Eden, demi-paradise?”
“That’s it,” Guillalume said.
“Fortress built by Nature for herself? Happy breed of men? Precious stone set in the silver sea?”
“Aye. Aye.”
“Earth of majesty, seat of Mars, blessed plot? That the place?”
“Aye! You’ve struck her off!”
“Rains almost daily? Cold scuzzy climate? Bleak economic outlook,
“Oh now, now we’re for it, old fourfoot. Now we’re outlaws in this outlandish land where the customs of the country are more vicious than the circumstances, more obdurate than the very earth the men perforce work beneath.” All the strange rules and punishments he had heard of in the months he’d been there came to mind—taboos against using unproductive tones to one’s horse; prohibitions against using more than one’s small salt allowance; all the salt ordeals: the stuff forced up nostrils and down throats and into cuts carefully barbered into one’s flesh like the shapely sound holes in violins. Law proscribed his life like those, to him, mysterious rules of curteisie——the knight’s complex code, the squire’s. One had almost to be a very musician of citizenship. It was safest to sleep (though one could not oversleep), safest to take one’s meals silently in the mess, safest to crap (though one’s bowels were subject to salt inspections), to pee (encouraged as an evidence that one was not pilfering salt), safest finally to be about the merely physical business of one’s person, all else, save actual work, the careless free time of dangerous carouse.
“I learned my body here,” he told Mills’s horse, “and it learned me, accommodate to the inflexible laws of my necessity as the fixed stars. It could not dance on Sundays or during office hours if it tried.”
Guillalume stepped in front of him and did a jig.
“They’ll soon be back,” Mills warned, “they’ll see.”
“Don’t be cowardly. You’re still my father’s subject, you know. Mine, too, for that matter.”
“I’m everybody’s subject,” Mills groaned. “I have more law than a company of solicitors.”
It was true. If before he had felt slandered by their notion of him—the tapestry condition—now he knew himself crushed and circumscribed by the jurisdictional one: state, sultanate, realm, duchy, palatinate, empire, dominion, kingdom, and bog—all suzerainty’s pie slice say-so.
“Through last week’s channel,” Guillalume said, a finger to his lips. “And don’t tell the nag, for God’s sake. I’ve been teaching the farmers pieces of our language. They might overhear.”
Guillalume left.
“Taught them our language,” Mills said admiringly to the horse. “Our fortunes are mete in this world, coarse Mills’s coarse courser. We’re graduate as staircase. Only see what power’s in the blood. Mine all red and sticky gunk, his a potion. Well-a-day. Hey nonny nonny.”
The merchant had been stashed in a salt pile, buried to his neck, and Guillalume was digging him out.
“Grab a shovel,” Guillalume told Mills, “take a spade.”
“Give us a drink then, luv,” the man pleaded when they had extricated him. Salt clung everywhere, in the folds of his clothes, inside his boots, all along the fine filigree of his hundred ornaments. There was salt in the lashes of his eyes, in the ledges of his lined face. It was a capital offense of salt hoarding. “I’ve got to have water. Please!”
“It’s all right,” Guillalume said, “slake him. Use the bucket.”
Mills obeyed, watering the man as he would a horse.
“He doesn’t know what we want yet. He thinks it’s some mutiny of my own.”
“It is,” Mills said. He turned to the merchant. “It is, ” he said. “I never knew, your honor.”
Guillalume frowned. “Do you know Northumbria?” he demanded suddenly of the merchant. “Could you take us there?”
“Northumbria?”
“Aye.”
The man squinted. “Scept’red isle,” he asked after a few moments, “other Eden, demi-paradise?”
“That’s it,” Guillalume said.
“Fortress built by Nature for herself? Happy breed of men? Precious stone set in the silver sea?”
“Aye. Aye.”
“Earth of majesty, seat of Mars, blessed plot? That the place?”
“Aye! You’ve struck her off!”
“Rains almost daily? Cold scuzzy climate? Bleak economic outlook,
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