[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
He was a small and dark man, of almost pure Saxon blood. Properly speaking, his name was only Tam.
There was no need for further identification. He would never go a mile from a neighbor who had known
him from birth. But sometimes he called himself by a surname-it was one of many small conceits that
complicated his proper and straightforward life-and
he would be soundly whipped for it if his Norman masters ever caught him at it.
He had been breaking clods in the field for fifteen hours, interrupted only by the ringing of the canonical
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Frederic%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt (18 of 89)17-2-2006 2:54:50
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Frederic%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt
hours from the squat, tiny church, and a mouthful of bread and soft cheese at noon. It was not easy for
him to stand straight. It was also not particularly wise. A man could lose his strip for poor tilth, and Tarn
had come close enough, often enough. But there were times when the thoughts that chased themselves
around his head made him forget the steady chop of the wooden hoe, and he would stand entranced,
staring toward Lymeford Castle, or the river, or toward nothing at all, while he invented fanciful
encounters and impossible prosperings. It was another of Tarn's conceits, and a most dangerous one, if it
were known. The least it might get him was a cuff from a man-at-arms. The most was a particularly
unpleasing death.
Since Salisbury, in Sussex, was flat ground, its great houses were not perched dramatically on crags, like
the keeps of robber barons along the Rhine or the grim fortresses of the Scottish lairds. They were the
least they could be to do the job they had to do, in an age which had not yet imagined the palace or the
cathedral.
In the year 1303 Lymeford Castle was a dingy pile of stone. It housed Sir and Lady Robert Bowen
(sometimes they spelled it Bohun, or Beauhun, or Beauhaunt) and their household servants and men-at-
arms in very great discomfort. It did not seem so to them particularly. They had before them the housing
of their Saxon subjects to show what misery could be. The castle was intended to guard a bridge across
the Lyme River: a key point on the high road from Portsmouth to London. It did this most effectively.
William of Normandy, who had taken England by storm a couple of centuries earlier, did not mean for
himself or his descendants to be taken in the same way on
another day. So Lymeford Castle had been awarded to Sir Robert's great-great-great-grandfather on the
condition that he defend it and thereby defend London as well against invasion on that particular route
from the sea.
That first Bowen had owned more than stones. A castle must be fed. The castellan and his lady, their
household servants and their armed men could not be expected to till the field and milk the cows. The
founder of Sir Robert's line had solved the problem of feeding the castle by rounding up a hundred of the
defeated Saxon soldiers, clamping iron rings around their necks and setting them to work at the great
task of clearing the untidy woods which surrounded the castle. After cleaning and plowing from sunup
to sunset the slaves were free to gather twigs and mud, with which they made themselves kennels to
sleep in. And in that first year, to celebrate the harvest and to insure a continuing supply of slaves, the
castellan led his men-at-arms on a raid into Salisbury town itself. They drove back to Lymeford, with
whips, about a hundred Saxon girls and women. After taking their pick, they gave the rest to the slaves,
and the chaplain read a single perfunctory marriage service over the filthy, ring-necked slaves and the
weeping Salisbury women. Since the male slaves happened to be from Northumbria, while the women
were Sussex bred, they could not understand each other's dialects. It did not matter. The huts were
enlarged, and next midsummer there was another crop, this time of babies.
The passage of two centuries had changed things remarkably little. A Bowen (or Beauhaunt) still
guarded the Portsmouth-London high road. He still took pride in his Norman blood. Saxons still tilled
the soil for him and if they no longer had the iron collar, or the name of slaves, they still would dangle
from the gallows in the castle courtyard for any of a very large number of possible offenses against his
authority. -At Runnymede, many years before, King John had signed
the Great Charter conferring some sort of rule of law to protect his barons against arbitrary acts, but no
one had thought of extending those rights to the serfs. They could die for almost anything or for nothing
at all: for trying to quit their master's soil for greener fields; for failing to deliver to the castle their
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Frederic%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt (19 of 89)17-2-2006 2:54:50
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Frederic%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt
bushels of grain, as well as their choicest lambs, calves and girl-children; for daring in any way to flout
the divine law that made one kind of man ruler and another kind ruled. It was this offense to which Tarn
was prone, and one day, as his father had told him the day before he died, it would cost him the price
that no man can afford to pay, though all do.
Though Tarn had never even heard of the Mag-na Carta, he sometimes thought that a world might
sometime come to be in which a man like himself might own the things he owned as a matter of right
and not because a man with a sword had not decided to take them from him. Take Alys his wife. He did
not mind in any real sense that the men-at-arms had bedded her before he had. She was none the worse
for it in any way that Tarn could measure; but he had slept badly that night, pondering why it was that
no one needed to consult him about the woman the priest had sworn to him that day, and whether it
might not be more-more-he grappled for a word ("fair" did not occur to him) and caught at "right"-more [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
He was a small and dark man, of almost pure Saxon blood. Properly speaking, his name was only Tam.
There was no need for further identification. He would never go a mile from a neighbor who had known
him from birth. But sometimes he called himself by a surname-it was one of many small conceits that
complicated his proper and straightforward life-and
he would be soundly whipped for it if his Norman masters ever caught him at it.
He had been breaking clods in the field for fifteen hours, interrupted only by the ringing of the canonical
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Frederic%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt (18 of 89)17-2-2006 2:54:50
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Frederic%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt
hours from the squat, tiny church, and a mouthful of bread and soft cheese at noon. It was not easy for
him to stand straight. It was also not particularly wise. A man could lose his strip for poor tilth, and Tarn
had come close enough, often enough. But there were times when the thoughts that chased themselves
around his head made him forget the steady chop of the wooden hoe, and he would stand entranced,
staring toward Lymeford Castle, or the river, or toward nothing at all, while he invented fanciful
encounters and impossible prosperings. It was another of Tarn's conceits, and a most dangerous one, if it
were known. The least it might get him was a cuff from a man-at-arms. The most was a particularly
unpleasing death.
Since Salisbury, in Sussex, was flat ground, its great houses were not perched dramatically on crags, like
the keeps of robber barons along the Rhine or the grim fortresses of the Scottish lairds. They were the
least they could be to do the job they had to do, in an age which had not yet imagined the palace or the
cathedral.
In the year 1303 Lymeford Castle was a dingy pile of stone. It housed Sir and Lady Robert Bowen
(sometimes they spelled it Bohun, or Beauhun, or Beauhaunt) and their household servants and men-at-
arms in very great discomfort. It did not seem so to them particularly. They had before them the housing
of their Saxon subjects to show what misery could be. The castle was intended to guard a bridge across
the Lyme River: a key point on the high road from Portsmouth to London. It did this most effectively.
William of Normandy, who had taken England by storm a couple of centuries earlier, did not mean for
himself or his descendants to be taken in the same way on
another day. So Lymeford Castle had been awarded to Sir Robert's great-great-great-grandfather on the
condition that he defend it and thereby defend London as well against invasion on that particular route
from the sea.
That first Bowen had owned more than stones. A castle must be fed. The castellan and his lady, their
household servants and their armed men could not be expected to till the field and milk the cows. The
founder of Sir Robert's line had solved the problem of feeding the castle by rounding up a hundred of the
defeated Saxon soldiers, clamping iron rings around their necks and setting them to work at the great
task of clearing the untidy woods which surrounded the castle. After cleaning and plowing from sunup
to sunset the slaves were free to gather twigs and mud, with which they made themselves kennels to
sleep in. And in that first year, to celebrate the harvest and to insure a continuing supply of slaves, the
castellan led his men-at-arms on a raid into Salisbury town itself. They drove back to Lymeford, with
whips, about a hundred Saxon girls and women. After taking their pick, they gave the rest to the slaves,
and the chaplain read a single perfunctory marriage service over the filthy, ring-necked slaves and the
weeping Salisbury women. Since the male slaves happened to be from Northumbria, while the women
were Sussex bred, they could not understand each other's dialects. It did not matter. The huts were
enlarged, and next midsummer there was another crop, this time of babies.
The passage of two centuries had changed things remarkably little. A Bowen (or Beauhaunt) still
guarded the Portsmouth-London high road. He still took pride in his Norman blood. Saxons still tilled
the soil for him and if they no longer had the iron collar, or the name of slaves, they still would dangle
from the gallows in the castle courtyard for any of a very large number of possible offenses against his
authority. -At Runnymede, many years before, King John had signed
the Great Charter conferring some sort of rule of law to protect his barons against arbitrary acts, but no
one had thought of extending those rights to the serfs. They could die for almost anything or for nothing
at all: for trying to quit their master's soil for greener fields; for failing to deliver to the castle their
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Frederic%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt (19 of 89)17-2-2006 2:54:50
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Frederic%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20%20-%20Critical%20Mass.txt
bushels of grain, as well as their choicest lambs, calves and girl-children; for daring in any way to flout
the divine law that made one kind of man ruler and another kind ruled. It was this offense to which Tarn
was prone, and one day, as his father had told him the day before he died, it would cost him the price
that no man can afford to pay, though all do.
Though Tarn had never even heard of the Mag-na Carta, he sometimes thought that a world might
sometime come to be in which a man like himself might own the things he owned as a matter of right
and not because a man with a sword had not decided to take them from him. Take Alys his wife. He did
not mind in any real sense that the men-at-arms had bedded her before he had. She was none the worse
for it in any way that Tarn could measure; but he had slept badly that night, pondering why it was that
no one needed to consult him about the woman the priest had sworn to him that day, and whether it
might not be more-more-he grappled for a word ("fair" did not occur to him) and caught at "right"-more [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]