Savage Empire

"It is painless. It does not separate the criminal from his family or make him incapable of honest work. He cannot run away, for he carries his punishment with him. Furthermore, only once, since my father instituted this method of punishment, has someone who suffered it repeated his crime."

"And what about the poor creature who is born dumb? He will be taken for a criminal under punishment."

Aradia stared at Lenardo in shock. "To be without Adepts-how horrible! You actually allow a child to grow up with such handicaps, deaf, dumb, blind-?"

"You can cure all of those?"

"Almost always in an infant. You saw Pepyi below? He was born blind, but my father cured him when he was just a baby-as soon as his parents discovered he couldn't see. It took over a year, but he sees."

"I have a friend who is blind," said Lenardo. "The optic nerves-the nerves from the eye to the brain-did not develop normally. Could you…?"

"Is he a grown man?"

"He's seventeen."

"No, I don't think anything could be done now. When a baby is developing and growing, it is relatively easy to correct such defects. I am sorry for your friend."

"Torio would laugh at your pity. Fortunately, he is a Reader-one of the best I've ever known. One day he will be far better than I am."

"And how good are you, Lenardo?" They had stopped at the top of the stairs. "What do you mean?" asked Lenardo.

"There are degrees of ability among Readers just as there are among Adepts, Wulfston tells me. What is the level of your skills?"

As he hesitated, not wanting to tell her he had just been admitted to the highest rank, she said, "No-your ratings would be meaningless to me. Come into my study."

She led him through her bedroom, where she paused to remove her earrings and exchange the velvet surcoat for a worn and ink-stained robe, and into a smaller room with large, many-paned windows of clear glass. The walls were lined with books and scroll-cases-as many, it appeared, as in the academy library! So here was one savage who could read and write.

"You are a scholar?" he asked.

"One cannot go everywhere and experience everything. Books bring knowledge one could never gather in a single lifetime. But of all these books, Lenardo, many of them from the Aventine empire, not one explains the techniques of Reading."

"It cannot be taught by books," he explained. "One learns to Read by demonstration and experience."

"Very well. I want a demonstration."

"If you have not the talent-"

She smiled. "No, I did not mean you could teach me to Read. I want to find out how well you can do it." There was a table by the window, stacked with books and papers in uneven piles, a wax-encrusted candlestick holding down one stack. There were a tablet and stylus, quills, ink-all the supplies of a scholar, in deplorable disorder.

Aradia picked up the wax tablet and, holding it so Lenardo could not see, said 'Tell me what I am writing."

"I, Aradia, daughter of Nerius, heir to-"

She stopped, turned the stylus, and rubbed out the words as she said, "I suppose that's an easy trick."

"Yes, but it's not the easiest. The first sign of Reading ability is to pick up another person's thoughts. I cannot touch yours, so I had to do a visual Reading of what you wrote."

"Let's try something a bit harder. You see the large red-bound volume in the middle of the top shelf?"

As there was only one book bound in red, he said, "Yes."

"Look at the first page-I mean, Read the first page to me."

"I can't."

"Oh," she said disappointedly.

"It's not that I can't Read it," explained Lenardo, "it's that I can't read it. Although I speak your language, I have never learned your alphabet."

"Here," she said urgently, thrusting the wax tablet into his hands, "copy it down! It doesn't matter if you don't know what it means!"

The tablet's surface did not show the rub-marks of the stylus; it was as smooth as if the wax had been remelted. Concentrating, he began to copy the characters in the book, letters made up all of straight lines, intended to be carved, not written.

Aradia watched avidly, until he had copied three lines. "That's enough," she said and went to the bookcase, stretching up on tiptoe for the book. Just as Lenardo was about to go reach it for her, it conveniently tilted forward and fell into her hands.

Eagerly, she opened it to the first page and compared what was written there with Lenardo's version. "You write with the precision of a scribe," she said. "It's perfect."

She looked up at him, her face flushed. "Lenardo, if we could only work together…"

"We can," he said, pressing his advantage. "Aradia, Drakonius is looking for me. I assume that that means danger to you if he finds out where I am. I know it means danger to me."

"How did he find out about you?" she asked suspiciously.

"His Reader knows me."

"Have you been in contact?"

"No. I've been too ill to search for him… and I do not know whether Galen is working freely for Drakonius or is being forced to do so."