David Weber - How firm a foundation

And at least this time the bastard didn’t shout a nything, he thought. Fucking coward! Brave enough when he doesn’t have to actually face someone, isn’t he? Then he gave himself a mental shake. Just as well, too. If he had said anything, pointed himself out, I’d’ve had to do something about it, and Langhorne only knows where that would’ve ended!

He bent back to his task, hoisting another bag of Emeraldian cocoa beans onto his shoulder and rejoining the line of longshoremen carrying them into the waiting warehouse. It didn’t pay all that much, but it was better than the soup kitchens, and he was lucky to have the work. Enough people didn’t, and in his calmer moments he realized that was part of the reason for the hostility he encountered every day. But still…

“See who it was?” a voice asked quietly as he entered the warehouse’s dim cavern. He hefted his bag down on a pallet, then turned towards the speaker, and Franz Shumahn, his shift foreman, raised an eyebrow at him. Shumahn was Siddarmarkian, but he was also a decent man, and he looked concerned.

“Nope.” Trahskhat shook his head and smiled, deliberately making light of it. “Just as well, I guess. Last thing we need is a riot down here on the docks just because some stupid bastard needed his head ripped off and shoved up his ass. Probably wouldn’t have done me any good with the Guard, either, now that I think about it.”

“Probably putting it lightly,” Shumahn acknowledged with a chuckle. He seemed genuinely amused, but there was a note of warning in it, too, Trahskhat thought. Not that it was necessary.

“As long as they stick to rotten fruit, it’s not going to cost anything but another washing day for Myrahm,” Trahskhat said as philosophically as he could. “If they start throwing rocks, like they did at the fish market last five-day, though, it’s going to get ugly, Franz.”

“I know.” Shumahn looked worried. “I’ll have a word with the boss. See if we can’t get a little more security down here. A couple of big bruisers with cudgels’d probably cut down on this shit a lot.”

Trahskhat nodded. It might. It might not, too. A lot would depend on whether the troublemakers thought the “big bruisers with the cudgels” were there to help Trahskhat or them.

It’s not just about you, you know, he reminded himself. There’s other Charisians down here on the docks, too. And you’re lucky Shumahn’s thinking about getting someone down here to break the troublemakers’ heads instead of how much simpler it would be to just fire your ass!

“I’m asking Horahs and Wyllym to keep an eye out for the rest of this shift,” Shumahn added. “Anybody else tries something, they’ll spot him. And if he works for us, his ass is history. The boss doesn’t like this kind of shit.”

“Thanks,” Trahskhat said with quiet sincerity, and headed back for the next crate.

The work was hard, often brutally so, and the job was a huge step down for a man who’d once been the Tellesberg Krakens’ starting first baseman. The pay was no more than two-thirds of what he’d have been making back in Tellesberg even for the same work, either. Worse yet, it cost more to live here in Siddar City than it ever had back home. His wife, Myrahm, actually made more than he did, but she was a skilled weaver. The Charisian community living in Siddarmark had always been heavily represented in the textile trade, and she’d been fortunate enough to find a job working for fellow Charisians. He was pretty sure her employers had embraced the Church of Charis, at least in private, but they were still good people, and he was glad Myrahm had found employment with them. He didn’t want to think about her having to face the kind of daily harassment he encountered down here on the docks.

It wasn’t fair, but the Writ had never promised life would be fair, only that God and the Archangels would be just and compassionate at its end. That was enough for any man, when it came down to it. But it was hard. Hard when the rotten apples came flying from anonymous hands. Hard when he had to face his older son Mahrtyn and try to explain why so many people hated him simply for being Charisian. And especially hard when someone shouted “Heretic!” or “Blasphemer!” from the cover of darkness as they passed outside the tiny apartment which was all he and Myrahm could afford, even here in the Quarter.

If they’d been heretics, they’d still be in Tellesberg, he thought grimly. Still with the neighbors they’d grown up with, not estranged from their own families. They’d come to Siddar City because they couldn’t be party to the schism, couldn’t stand by and watch while God’s own Church was torn apart. No, they didn’t like everything about the current situation in Zion. In fact, in the privacy of his own mind, Sailys regarded Zhaspahr Clyntahn as an abomination, an indelible stain on the sanctity of Mother Church. But the Writ and The Commentaries made it abundantly clear that the Church was greater than those who served her. Their sins could not diminish her authority, nor could they absolve her children from their obedience to her. They had the right to protest, to seek redress, when her servants fell short of their responsibilities. Indeed, they had a duty to insist her priesthood be worthy of their offices and the God they served. But that wasn’t the same thing as throwing defiance into the Grand Vicar’s own face! And it certainly wasn’t the same thing as setting up the judgment of a mere provincial archbishop as superior to that of the Archangels themselves!

He felt the rage building in him again and forced himself to let go of it. It wasn’t his business to judge other men. It was his job to make sure he met his own responsibilities and didn’t help others avoid theirs. Those responsibilities included standing up for what he knew was right, and they included putting up with idiots who didn’t understand, as well. As long as he did what he knew was right, he could leave final judgments to Langhorne and God.

He picked up another sack, settled it on his shoulder, and turned back towards the warehouse.

Fucking heretic, Samyl Naigail thought bitterly. Should’ve thrown a damned rock. Hell, his lips drew back in an embittered snarl as he stood in the alley between the warehouses, glaring out at the busy scene, I should’ve thrown a fucking knife!

Naigail was only seventeen, but he knew what was going on. He knew who was to blame. His father had been a sailmaker, and a good one, but never a prosperous one. That was the fucking Charisians’ fault, too. Bad enough when everyone had “known” Charisians built the best ships in the world, whether they really did or not. The shipbuilders here in Siddar City had at least managed to keep their heads above water, and at least there’d been some work those days. But then the bastards had introduced their damned “schooner rig,” and things had gotten even worse. Everybody had to have one of the new damned ships, and if you didn’t know how the sails were cut, then you were just fucking out of luck as far as new orders went, weren’t you? Besides, who could match the quality of the canvas coming out of Charis these days? And who could afford to buy the quality of canvas coming out of Charis?

Nobody, that was who! And as if that weren’t enough, then the goddamned heretics had to launch their fucking schism against Mother Church! Of course they’d driven the Grand Inquisitor into declaring an embargo against trade with them. What else had they expected? But they’d had an answer for that, too, hadn’t they? Them and their buddies the fat, sand maggot bankers. Hell, half of them were Charisians, too, weren’t they? And they got their sodomite friends in the Lord Protector’s government to go along with it.