The Summer Palace by Lawrence Watt-Evans Read Free Book Online

and Fist and Dancer explained.
    Any lowlander who wandered onto the plateau outside the narrowstrip conceded to the Wizard Lord was fair game for enslavement, but that was rare; most slaves were outcast Uplanders, criminals driven away by their own clans. Minor offenses were punished by fines, beatings, or other lesser penalties, as the clan elders might see fit, but each clan had certain crimes that merited exile, and humans being what they were, even so dire a threat was not always enough to keep people in line. These criminals were rare—none of the men could remember one among their own clan, though the old women named a few. Every so often, though, someone would be cast out by his clan, and such exiles could then be enslaved by whoever found them. Anyone living on the plains without a clan was assumed to be an exiled criminal; when Sword asked whether there were ever any Uplander hermits, people who
chose
to live alone, it took him several minutes to explain the concept sufficiently, whereupon Stepmother burst into raucous laughter, Dancer made noises of disgust, and Gnaw Gnaw said simply, “No. There is no such thing in the Uplands.”
    â€œMadness,” Dancer muttered. “Lowlander madness.”
    â€œPlease, tell me more of how it is,” Sword said, ignoring Dancer.
    No clan ever enslaved their own people, he was told. That was considered an abomination, to so debase a man that he would be serving his own kinsmen as a slave. Nor did Uplanders ever deliberately kill their own clansmen except in the heat of anger—to spill a helpless kinsman’s lifeblood was unspeakable. No crime, not even the murder of a Patriarch, could justify the cold-blooded execution of a member of the clan. Exile was therefore the worst penalty any clan could inflict on its own members.
    Once exiled, though, the criminal was fair game for any unrelated clan that came across him, to be enslaved, tortured, or killed as his captors chose. An exile who spoke convincingly enough in proclaiming his own innocence, or who otherwise demonstrated exceptional worth, might be adopted as a free man, but that was rare, as was torture or execution; slavery was the usual result. Every clan had a few nasty jobs they were eager to turn over to slaves.
    A slave who served well would be permitted to accompany theclan down to Winterhome when the snows came, which often meant a chance to slip away and live free among the Barokanese, since the Host People did not keep slaves themselves. A slave who was lazy or argumentative, though, would be more likely to find himself cast out again, forbidden access to the trail down the cliff and left to die of cold or hunger on the plain.
    Sword wondered whether any of these doubly outcast criminals might slip down the path alone, after the clans were settled in their guesthouses, but the only response to this suggestion was a shrug.
    â€œIt’s not our concern if they do,” Dancer said.
    (That was the first time Sword realized that the Wizard Lord might have had a sound reason all along for posting those guards at the gate down in Winterhome.)
    At any rate, slaves were useful for plucking and tanning, for cleaning bone, for disposing of offal, and for hauling water. Those were necessary jobs that no one enjoyed.
    Carving the bones and beaks to make tools and ornaments and musical instruments, on the other hand, was what men did between hunts, and was generally considered to be great fun, a chance to display one’s skill and imagination. Weaving the delicate fibers from certain feathers, binding and dyeing feathers, that was work the women enjoyed and kept for themselves. Virtually all the cloth the Uplanders used was made from feathers or
ara
hide, even the material that did not appear to be. Feathers that were used intact were generally left their natural hues of black, white, and pink, but those that were spun into thread and woven into cloth might be dyed any color of the