Trullion: Alastor 2262 Read Free Page A

continued with his work. For a Trill, he was a man unusually self-contained and taciturn, traits that had become intensified since the death of Sharue by the merlings.
    Shira said, “They’ll be sweeping off the prutanshyr. Perhaps we’d better learn the news.”
    Jut grunted. “One torturing is much like another. The fire burns, the wheels wrench, the rope strains. Some folk thrive on it. For my excitement I’ll watch hussade.”
    Shira winked at Glinnes. “One game is much like another. The forwards spring, the water splashes, the sheirl loses her clothes, and one pretty girl’s belly is much like another’s.”
    “Here speaks the voice of experience,” said Glinnes, and Shira, the most notorious philanderer of the district, guffawed. Shira did in fact attend the executions with his mother Marucha, though Jut kept Glinnes and Glay at home.
    Shira and Marucha returned by the late ferry. Marucha was tired and went to bed; Shira, however, joined Jut, Glinnes and Glay on the verandah and rendered an account of what he had seen. ‘Thirty-three they caught, and had them all in cages out in the square. All the preparations were put up before their very eyes. A hard lot of men, I must say-I couldn’t place their race. Some might have been Echalites and some might have been Satagones, and one tall white-skinned fellow was said to be a Blaweg. Unfortunates all, in retrospect. They were naked and painted for shame: heads green, one leg blue, the other red. All gelded, of course. Oh, the prutanshyr’s a wicked place! And to hear the music! Sweet as flowers, strange and hoarse! It strikes through you as if your own nerves were being plucked for tones … Ah well, at any rate, a great pot of boiling oil was prepared, and a traveling-crane stood by. The music began — eight Trevanyl and all their horns and fiddles. How can such stern folk make such sweet music? It chills the bones and churns the bowels, and puts the taste of blood in your mouth! Chief Constable Filidice was there, but First Agent Gerence was the executioner. One by one the starmenters were grappled by hooks, then lifted and dipped into the oil, then hung up on a great high frame; and I don’t know which was more awful, the howls or the beautiful sad music. The people fell down on their knees; some fell into fits and cried out-for terror or joy I can’t tell you. I don’t know what to make of it … After about two hours all were dead.”
    “Humf,” said Jut Hulden. “They won’t be back in a hurry. So much, at least, can be said. “
    Glinnes had listened in horrified fascination. “It’s a fearful punishment, even for a starmenter.”
    “Indeed, that’s what it is,” said Jut. “Can you guess the reason?” Glinnes swallowed hard and could not choose between several theories. Jut asked, “Would you now want to be a starmenter and risk such an end?
    “Never,” Glinnes declared, from the depths of his soul.
    Jut turned to the brooding Glay. “And you?”
    “I never planned to rob and kill in the first place.”
    Jut gave a hoarse chuckle. “One of the two, at least, has been dissuaded from crime.
    “Glinnes said, “I wouldn’t like to hear music played to pain.”
    “And why not?” Shira demanded. “At hussade, when the sheirl is smirched, the music is sweet and wild. Music gives savor to the event, like salt with food.”
    Glay offered a comment: “Akadie claims that everybody needs catharsis, if it’s only a nightmare.”
    “It may be so,” said Jut. “I myself need no nightmares; I’ve got one before my eyes every moment.” Jut referred, as all knew, to the taking of Sharue. Since that time, his nocturnal hunts for merling had become almost an obsession.
    “Well, if you two twits aren’t to be starmenters, what will you be?” asked Shira. “Assuming you don’t care to stay in the household.”
    “I’m for hussade,” said Glinnes. “I don’t care to fish, nor to scrape cauch. “He recalled the brave beige, scarlet