Outside the bath house, all the ex-slaves lined up, ready to be tied to a rope. Soon, with no rope in sight, they started milling about, each one looking for someone else to follow.
Ilika chuckled to himself. “Okay, let’s talk about getting from here to the inn. We don’t walk in a line — that’s how slaves walk. If we walk as one big group, people will think an army is coming. Let’s walk in pairs or threes, a little space between each. We take our time, because people who hurry give the impression they’re fleeing the scene of their latest crime. We walk straight and tall, with the attitude that this is our city.”
Miko and Neti easily formed a walking pair, then Sata and Mati. Doti hooked up with Kibi, and Ilika fell in between Rini and Kodi. Boro and Toli both offered their hands to Buna, who blushed and took both.
The newly-freed slaves were curious about everything around them, often slack-jawed and turning circles as they walked.
“Next lesson,” Ilika began before they had gone far. “If you look like you’re lost, or brainless, people will treat you that way.”
Most of them succeeded at observing their surroundings with a little less drama. Ilika listened to the chatter, and discovered they had all been in the city many times, but had always been rushed from compound to work site, or kept behind locked doors. Walking slowly, with time to talk and look, was a new pleasure.
At the entrance to the plaza, Doti said good-bye and promised to be back
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that evening. Smiles and waves were exchanged until she disappeared around a corner.
“I wish she was my mother,” little Kodi said longingly.
“I think we’ll be seeing her often,” Ilika said, gently putting an arm around the lad’s shoulders.
Lunchtime was long past and the common room nearly empty. Ilika directed his troop to a large table.
“With our room rental, we get basic board. That means whatever’s cooking, no dessert or wine or fruit juice or anything else special without paying extra. Sometimes we can get extra goodies here, and sometimes we’ll be out and about for dessert or a special meal.”
“Well, well!” the innkeeper boomed, approaching the table wearing his apron. “My name is Doko. I know Ilika, and I think I know someone else here,” he said, winking at Sata.
“That’s my father,” Sata said, rolling her eyes. “He’s being silly.”
“I’m Kodi!” the smallest boy said excitedly.
“I’m Neti,” the prettiest girl shared with a calm smile.
“My name is Toli,” the lanky boy announced proudly.
“Doko,” Ilika began after the rest had shared their names, “what would you like these young people to know about staying at an inn?”
“Hmm.” The innkeeper looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Don’t bug the other guests. No running in the corridors or stairs. And upstairs is quiet from midnight to sunrise.”
Ilika nodded. “Thanks, Doko. What’s cooking?”
“A good stew, even had some myself, and there’s a little meat left, I think.
Ale?”
Ilika cringed. “Maybe a little with dinner, but I have a million things to teach these guys today.”
“What’s a million?” Sata asked.
Ilika laughed. “You’ll have to wait for math lessons.”
Doko laughed too, then shrugged as he turned and headed for the kitchen.
When bread and cheese were placed on the table, it quickly disappeared into nine hungry mouths.
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Ilika frowned. “You guys act like you didn’t have any breakfast.”
“We didn’t,” Toli said around the bread he was chewing.
Ilika was silent for a moment. “I am so sorry. I would have gotten you something before the bath if I had known.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Miko said after swallowing a bite. “Most days we didn’t get breakfast, or if we did, that was it.”
Bowls of stew arrived next, then a plate of sliced meat. All nine ex-slaves moved toward it like vultures ready to swoop. Sata started to roll her eyes, but caught herself.
“When we have a common dish like this,” Ilika explained, “we have to be careful to only take our share.”
They were so careful, with constant glances at Ilika as they served themselves, that some meat remained unclaimed.
Ilika smiled. “You all know where the toilet room is. There’s another upstairs. No guards now — can everyone handle that?”
They all nodded as they licked their bowls and fingers, then followed Ilika up the stairs to the inn’s largest sleeping room.
Ilika sat on the raised hearth in front of the small fireplace and scanned his new charges, all sitting proudly on the beds they had chosen.
“Let’s talk about how to get along and stay out of trouble. I’ve thought of a few things, and you guys can help me think of others.” He fell silent and looked at his notes.
“Are we free now?” Toli asked.
“Very good question. As far as I’m concerned, yes. You could walk out of
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here right now and I’d do nothing to stop you. But legally, no. I will see a scribe tomorrow, and it takes him a couple of days to get the bills of freedom prepared. I’ll receive a copy, and give it to you if you ever choose to leave.
“That reminds me,” he continued, “For the next few days, I want you to only go outside the inn with me. You’ll soon get a complete set of clothes, and can go out in small groups.”
“Are we going to learn everything here at this inn?” Mati asked.
“No, we’ll just be here long enough to get supplies and horses, then we’ll wander all over the kingdom, staying at inns, or camping and doing lessons outside in good weather.”
Noises of excitement filled the room.
“I’ve never ridden a horse!” shaggy Kibi declared with a big grin.
Ilika smiled back at her. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t either, so we’ll all learn together.”
“You’ve never ridden a horse?” young Kodi accused with a frown. “Why not?”
“My country has creatures of about the same size and shape, but they’re very smart and don’t let people climb onto their backs.”
Kodi rolled his eyes and shrugged.
“You don’t mind if Neti and me snuggle, do you?” Miko asked.
“That’s . . . on my list. Snuggling, and other shared affection, is fine with me, except having . . . what do you call it? Oh, yes — carnal knowledge.”
Several people giggled at his choice of words.
“You mean sex?” Sata asked without hesitation.
Ilika nodded, and tried to keep his surprise from showing. “We won’t have much privacy, and forming long-term commitments takes a lot of time and energy. I can’t educate you if you’re busy doing other things.”
“How long will that rule last?” Neti asked.
“Just for this learning time.”
Neti smiled shyly, then she and Miko looked at each other.
“I think we can handle that,” Miko said softly.
They leaned toward each other and kissed, and everyone else smiled or made taunting sounds.
When the room had settled, Boro raised his hand.
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“This is a discussion time, so you don’t have to raise your hand, Boro.”
“Okay. Um . . . can we, like, you know . . . um . . . just sort of like flirt and stuff, as long as we don’t . . . you know?”
Ilika smiled at his embarrassment. “Yes. The only rules I’ll make are those necessary to get done what we’re here to do.”
“Thanks,”
he
said.
“Do we have any work to do?” Sata asked with concern.
“We have to keep our room clean, care for the horses, stuff like that. But mostly your work will be learning, and I assure you, I will keep you very busy with that. You will be learning in half a year what most people take five or ten years to learn. If you stick with it, by next fall you will be some of the most highly educated people in this kingdom. You will read and write better than most scribes. You will know more mathematics than accountants. You will be better at logic and ethics than most philosophers.”
“Wow!” many voices said at once.
When no one had further questions, to their surprise, Ilika began to talk about his life.
“My father was drunk half the time, my mother was afraid of everything and everybody, and my older sister tormented me constantly. I had no friends
— all the boys wanted to be big, strong factory workers like their fathers, and all the girls wanted to get married and have babies. I spent all my free time on a little flat roof I could get to by crawling out a window. I could see the factories all around me, and the smoke stacks belching fumes day and night.
“But the real reason I went up there was to look at the stars. I couldn’t see very many, but every night I would send a wish up to a different star, until my sister started yelling for me to do chores.
“I was eight years old when I was offered a chance to leave. I was on a long walk alone in the barren hills overlooking the town, and the only thing I had with me was a toy animal I would talk to. I was afraid that if I went back home for anything, I’d lose my chance, so I just held my toy and didn’t look back.
“For the next two years, I had to learn countless things about my new home. I didn’t even speak the language at first. One class I took showed me
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all the different professions I could follow. I had always liked ships, so when I was ten, I chose the Transport Service.
“For the next nine years I studied and worked on ships, eventually learning every job that most ships have. Then I applied for a command, and after two more years of study, I was given a little ship and my final exam, to find and train my own crew. So here I am.”
“What’s a . . . factory?” Boro asked.
“A big workshop with hundreds of workers and lots of machines or furnaces. They’re usually too hot or too cold, and always dirty, ugly, and smelly. Poor people work in them so rich people can buy things.”
“Sounds as bad as slavery to me,” Miko said with a frown.
All the other ex-slaves nodded.
Deep Learning Notes
People who are used to constant regimentation usually have one of two reactions when it is no longer present: they either freeze and don’t know what to do, or they go wild and try to do everything at once that they had not been able to do before.
Freedom is always relative. The ex-slaves are now free, but walking in a line, or in a big group, or too fast, could have negative social consequences, which (in that culture) could land them right back in slavery. Looking “lost” or
“brainless” could have the same effect. To what extent is that still true in our culture?
The beds they selected in their inn room might tell us things about them.
Buna chose a corner. Kibi was by the door. Mati was between two other girls, one of whom had already befriended her (Sata). Rini was beside Ilika. Neti and Miko are as close together as they can get.
Ilika proposes to only make rules “necessary to get done what we are here to do.” This is a legal ideal that has been tossed around over the centuries, but
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has never been practiced because few people can differentiate “necessary”
from “desirable” laws. The problem with “desirable” is, of course, that it is usually in relation to some person or social class, and not society as a whole.
Sata, the youngest, is the one most able to speak openly about sex. This is often the case in reality. It is also a literary device to reassure the reader that the presumed “victim” is not, in fact, a victim.
Ilika’s background story lets us glimpse his early years in a factory town. His family was, like most, somewhat functional and somewhat dysfunctional, and about middle-class. He glosses over his life after leaving there at age eight because his five crew-members-to-be, and the readers, are best left to discover it for themselves later.
