Rumata led Doctor Budach to a bedroom to rest for the long journey
ahead, and then went to his study. The Sporamin had worn off, and he felt
exhausted; his wounds began to hurt again, and his wrists--they still
smarted from the rope burns--started to swell. I should lie down and sleep
now for a while, he thought, I simply must get some sleep; then I ought to
get in touch with Don Kondor. I should also communicate with Controls and
have them report everything to headquarters. We need to decide what to do
now -- if there is anything we can do at all. And how we should behave in
case there's nothing we can do.
As Rumata entered his study, he saw a black monk sitting at the table,
his hood pulled down over his eyes. He was all bent over and had his arms
hidden in his wide sleeves.
"What are you doing here?" asked Rumata, very tired. "Who let you in
here?"
"Greetings, noble Don Rumata," said the monk and pulled back his hood.
Rumata shook his head gently.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said. "Greetings to you, my good Arata. What
brings you here? What has happened?"
"The usual," said Arata. "The army has broken up, the men are dividing
up the land among themselves and nobody wants to go south. The duke is
gathering those of his warriors who have escaped unscathed, and it won't be
long now before he starts stringing up my peasants by their feet along the
Estorian tract. Everything as usual," he repeated.
"I understand," said Rumata.
He threw himself down on the divan, leaned his head back on his crossed
arms and regarded Arata. Twenty years earlier, when Anton had built models
with his erector set and played William Tell back on Earth, the man had been
known as Arata the Fair, and he was quite to
search by address
a different person at that time.
At that time Arata the Fair had not yet acquired the horrible purple
scar on his high forehead. He bore the scar ever since the mutiny of the
Soanian sailors--three thousand naked, enslaved workers who had been driven
from all corners of the realm to the wharves of Soan and who had already
become so brutalized that they had almost lost their drive for survival. One
dark night they swarmed out of the harbor area and attacked Soan, leaving
nothing but bodies and raging fires behind. Finally they were received near
the edge of the town by the imperial infantry, well equipped with steel
armor...
And at that time, of course, Arata still had two healthy eyes. He lost
his right eye through the vigorous blow of a cudgel, struck by a baron, when
a peasants' army, twenty-thousand men strong, planned to invade the capital
in order to ferret out the baronial gangs, and when instead they encountered
the imperial guard, five thousand men strong, on the open field. They were
split up into small groups, surrounded, and finally trampled to death under
the pointed iron shoes of the fighting camels ...
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