"Don't," he said, not ready to discuss even a truce until he had had time to think over the scene he had just witnessed.
"There-you see? That is frustrating. You appear to be a man whose word we could take-if you would give it."
"What do you want from me, Aradia?" "Your loyalty. If you were my sworn man, you might use your powers openly. No one would dare question your motives."
"Why should I give you my loyalty?" "Because we have the same ideals. Wulfston told me why you were exiled. I can protect you from what you fear."
"What I fear?"
"Lenardo-do you not fear pursuit? Leaving here and running northward while you were still so weak-that was not the act of a rational man. Do you expect retaliation? Would the Readers send someone after you, to kill you lest you join with us?"
At this rate, how long before she figures out / am in pursuit of Galen? "Why should they? They know the savages will kill anyone who shows the ability to Read."
"But I did not kill you, did I? And Drakonius did not kill the Reader he used to attack Adigia, although he may have been killed since. I wonder." She took off the remaining gold bracelet and tossed it into a chest by the wall. When she lifted the lid, Lenardo caught a flash of brilliant metal.
Gold, silver, jewels, coins-an immense treasure! And I thought there were no ornaments worn here. Aradia still wore the small gold pendant earrings, but nothing more except the rich embroidery of her surcoat, a far cry from the many rings, bracelets, and necklaces a wealthy woman of the empire might wear.
Aradia clapped her hands sharply, and a man entered from the inner hallway. "Pepyi, have the treasure chest shut away."
"Yes, m'lady."
Aradia started up the stairs. "Are you going to leave the chest there, unguarded?" asked Lenardo.
"The lock can be opened only by an Adept. Would you care to try to lift the chest, Lenardo? It will take six strong men to put it away-and I do not believe six of my men at one time would conspire against me."
"The value of the items in that chest might make them consider it."
"Why? They want for nothing. Also, the punishment for theft would make them think twice."
"And what is the punishment for theft?" The memory of the tortures he had seen in the watcher's mind made his skin crawl.
"Years ago, my father found an excellent solution for nonviolent crimes. The criminal is simply struck dumb."
"What?"
"He cannot speak. That does not prevent him from making reparation. It is, of course, a handicap, a great embarrassment, because everyone knows why he cannot speak. Since it is difficult to communicate with others, he must commune with himself-and by the time the command is lifted, and they can speak again, most such people have reformed their ways."
"That's a terrible thing to do!" Was there no limit to the ways these Adepts manipulated people?
"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."