Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

“So keep you all the glory of this adventure to yourself,” the red-bearded knight said to Ethan. But there was no anger, only happiness in his voice as he spoke.

“Don’t give us credit for anything except clearing the way.” He indicated Elfa. “She was waiting for us at the door.”

“With this.” September dumped the unconscious prisoner onto the ice. At the sight of one of the kidnappers, angry mutters came from the fight-ready assembly. There was a gentle, dangerous surge toward the motionless shape.

Hunnar motioned them away. “If it is our pleasure we can kill him later.” He looked down at the unfortunate warrior. “And I think that will be our pleasure. A wise man can learn even from a burning book.”

A pika-pina rope bound the captive’s ankles together, a second tied his wrists in front of his groin. Two Tran picked up ropes attached to his feet, opened their dan, and started back toward the distant Slanderscree.

As they picked up speed, Ethan wondered at the strength and toughness of Tran hide. The prisoner’s back must be feeling the effect of friction between body and ice. He remarked on his concern to Budjir, who was chivaning alongside. The soft-voiced squire replied solemnly that the skin on the prisoner’s back was of no interest to anyone, so long as his mouth remained operative.

Considering the mood of the group, Ethan decided it wasn’t the time for him to insist on civilized treatment of the captive. He had enough to do keeping his balance as two other Tran pulled him over the ice.

He glanced at his wrist. It was sixty centigrade below.

Happy embraces and greetings were exchanged en masse when the little group reached the ship, greetings made doubly fervent at the news that the party had suffered not a single casualty.

Ethan had been expecting furious cries and shouts from behind for the past ten minutes. Evidently the guard still hadn’t been changed back at the unsuspecting fortress. Or if it had and Elfa’s escape had been discovered, the inhabitants were still debating what to do. By the time they made up their minds to attack again, if they did so, the Slanderscree should be far out of reach.

Ta-hoding was already directing the recovery of the anchors. While the captain didn’t like the idea of maneuvering the great ship at night and grumbled about it unceasingly, for once his icemanship took second place to military necessity.

Questioning of the captive began the following morning, when the icerigger was far from the cliffs of Arsudun Isle and the glaring sun showed only clean bare ice behind them.

Though Ethan was interested in most aspects of Trannish culture, he elected to remain far from the bow where the inquiry was taking place. The wind swallowed most of the screams that deck distance didn’t. As he fought to ignore those faint, ululating cries he found himself unable not to think of the gap that separated him from his Tran friends. That gap would not vanish, for all that he would have given his life for Hunnar and vice-versa.

Possibly Ethan’s great-grandfather many generations removed would have been more empathetic, would have participated in the questioning process with the same cruel indifference of Elfa and Balavere and the others. Such barbarisms were common enough to man’s past, up through the twenty-first century, old calendar.

On reflection, though, he was forced to admit that the differences between modern Commonwealth civilization and the feudal methodology employed by the Tran were not so very great. All that distinguished the former from the latter were some informal, mutual understandings known as morals and a few encoded as laws.

There were plenty of citizens in his society who ignored the first while trying to subvert the second. He ought not to raise himself too high, lest the hypocrisy of current civilization make him fall too far. At least the Tran’s methods had the virtues of directness and simplicity, even if they were messy. One particularly lengthy, quavering moan reached him across the deck and he found himself unable to repress a shudder.

Troubled, he mounted the steps parallel to the ice-path ascending the helmdeck. Ta-hoding, as always, stood like a part of his beloved ship close by the great curve of the wheel, staring forward. Occasionally he would snap a command to his helmsmen and the wheel would move, or he would shout to the nearest mate some instructions which found their way up the rigging to the sailors working there.

He was the fattest Tran Ethan had encountered, an easy-going, pacifistic sort, less blood-thirsty in manner than the common sailors or professional knights and squires.

“What are they doing to him?”

“The captive?” Ta-hoding kept his gaze on the ice far ahead, sliding beneath the bowsprit. “They are questioning him, friend Ethan.”

A faint hissing as of frying bacon sounded above the wind, the noise produced by the five huge duralloy runners slicing across the ice.

“I know that, but… how?”

Ta-hoding appeared to consider the question seriously before finally responding. “I do not know how it is with your people, or with the people here, but in Wannome and its neighboring cities the procedure for interrogating a war prisoner is quite standard ritual.

“To demonstrate his bravery and the strength and honor of his family, the captive will lie eloquently or refuse to answer at all. Thus he issues a challenge to his captors that he is more resourceful and courageous than they. Questions will be put to him, or her, with increasing intensity until the captive can no longer resist. He will then provide proper answers.

“The amount of time and effort the captors must employ to finally force those correct, honest replies will determine how much merit the prisoner earns for use in the afterlife.”

“What happens when there are no more questions?” Ta-hoding looked surprised. “The captive is killed, of course.”

“But that’s inhuman!” Ice crystals scoured his face mask.

Ta-hoding turned his gaze temporarily from the ocean ahead. “We do not lay claim to virtues of being human, friend Ethan. We are Tran. I saw your own sword turned red at the battle of Wannome. Tell me, how do you obtain answers from someone in your own culture who does not wish to cooperate with his captors, or authorities?”

“He’s put on a stress analyzer,” Ethan replied. “A machine. It monitors his answers painlessly and can always tell when a subject is telling the truth.”

“Suppose,” said Ta-hoding thoughtfully, “the prisoner refuses to reply at all?”

“In that case he’s bound over under constraint… locked up until he decides of his own accord to answer.”

“And if he decides never to answer?”

“He stays under constraint, I suppose.”

“And you never obtain the answers you require. Very inefficient. Our way is better.”

“Just a second,” Ethan said. “How do you know his final answers aren’t lies? That he’s only pretending to tell the truth after you’ve tort—questioned him?”

Ta-hoding’s surprise was greater than before. He looked and sounded deeply shocked. “A captive would lose all the merit he’d gained by his resistance. He would die without merit to carry him through the afterlife!”

Ethan changed his own questioning. “After he has answered all the questions put to him, honestly and truthfully, if what you claim actually is the case, then why kill him?”

“Not all are killed.”

“Well, why kill this one?”

“Because he deserves it.” Was there a note of pity for Ethan in the captain’s voice? Nuances of Tran speech could still give Ethan trouble.

He decided to say something, changed his mind. Better to drop the discussion when the subject of it was still undergoing ordeal.